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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Two Knapsacks, by John Campbell
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Two Knapsacks
+       A Novel of Canadian Summer Life
+
+
+Author: John Campbell
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2006  [eBook #17532]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO KNAPSACKS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) from
+page images generously made available by Early Canadiana Online
+(http://www.canadiana.org/eco/index.html)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Early Canadiana Online. See
+      http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/00387?id=5453f8c59767d369
+
+
+
+
+
+TWO KNAPSACKS:
+
+A Novel of Canadian Summer Life.
+
+by
+
+J. CAWDOR BELL.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Toronto
+The Williamson Book Co., Ltd.
+Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in
+the year eighteen hundred and ninety-two, by the Williamson Book
+Company, Limited, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture.
+
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
+
+
+The Publishers have extreme pleasure in placing this novel, by a new and
+promising native author, before the reading public of Canada. They will
+be greatly disappointed if it does not at once take its place among the
+best products of Canadian writers. While the work has peculiar interest
+for Torontonians and dwellers in the districts so graphically described,
+its admirable character drawings of many "sorts and conditions" of our
+people--its extremely clever dialect, representing Irish, Scotch,
+English, Canadian, French, Southern and Negro speech, and the working
+out of its story, which is done in such a way as would credit an
+experienced romancer--should insure the book a welcome in very many
+homes. The literary flavour is all that can be desired; the author
+evidencing a quite remarkable acquaintance with English Literature,
+especially with Wordsworth, the Poet of the Lake Country.
+
+
+
+
+TWO KNAPSACKS:
+
+A Novel of Canadian Summer Life.
+
+by
+
+J. CAWDOR BELL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     The Friends--The Knapsacks--The Queen's Wharf--The Northern
+     Railway--Belle Ewart--The _Susan Thomas_, Captain and Crew--Musical
+     Performance--The Sly Dog--Misunderstanding--Kempenfeldt Bay.
+
+
+Eugene Coristine and Farquhar Wilkinson were youngish bachelors and
+fellow members of the Victoria and Albert Literary Society. Thither, on
+Wednesday evenings, when respectable church-members were wending their
+way to weekly service, they hastened regularly, to meet with a band of
+like-minded young men, and spend a literary hour or two. In various
+degrees of fluency they debated the questions of the day; they read
+essays with a wide range of style and topic; they gave readings from
+popular authors, and contributed airy creations in prose and in verse to
+the Society's manuscript magazine. Wilkinson, the older and more sedate
+of the two, who wore a tightly-buttoned blue frock coat and an eyeglass,
+was a schoolmaster, pretty well up in the Toronto Public Schools.
+Coristine was a lawyer in full practice, but his name did not appear on
+the card of the firm which profited by his services. He was taller than
+his friend, more jauntily dressed, and was of a more mercurial
+temperament than the schoolmaster, for whom, however, he entertained a
+profound respect. Different as they were, they were linked together by
+an ardent love of literature, especially poetry, by scientific pursuits,
+Coristine as a botanist, and Wilkinson as a dabbler in geology, and by
+a firm determination to resist, or rather to shun, the allurements of
+female society. Many lady teachers wielded the pointer in rooms not far
+removed from those in which Mr. Wilkinson held sway, but he did not
+condescend to be on terms even of bowing acquaintance with any one of
+them. There were several young lady typewriters of respectable city
+connections in the offices of Messrs. Tyler, Woodruff and White, but the
+young Irish lawyer passed them by without a glance. These bachelors were
+of the opinion that women were bringing the dignity of law and education
+to the dogs.
+
+It was a Wednesday evening in the beginning of July, and the heat was
+still great in the city. Few people ventured out to the evening
+services, and fewer still found their way to the Victoria and Albert
+hall; in fact, there was not a quorum, and, as the constitution stated
+that, in such a case, the meeting should be adjourned, it was adjourned
+accordingly. Coristine lit a cigar in the porch, and Wilkinson, who did
+not smoke, but said he liked the odour of good tobacco, took his arm for
+a walk along the well-lit streets. They agreed that it was time to be
+out of town. Coristine said: "Let us go together; I'll see one of the
+old duffers and get a fortnight's leave." Wilkinson had his holidays, so
+he eagerly answered: "Done! but where shall we go? Oh, not to any female
+fashion resort." At this Coristine put on the best misanthropic air he
+could call up, with a cigar between his lips, and then, as if struck by
+a happy thought, dug his elbow into his companion's side and ejaculated:
+"Some quiet country place where there's good fishing." Wilkinson
+demurred, for he was no fisherman. The sound of a military band stopped
+the conversation. It came into sight, the bandsmen with torches in their
+headgear, and, after it, surrounded and accompanied by all the small
+boys and shop-girls in the town, came the Royals, in heavy marching
+order. The friends stood in a shop doorway until the crowd passed by,
+and then, just as soon as a voice could be distinctly heard, the
+schoolmaster clapped his companion on the shoulder and cried, "Eureka!"
+Coristine thought the music had been too much for his usually staid and
+deliberate friend. "Well, old Archimedes, and what is it you've found?
+Not any new geometrical problems, I hope." "Listen to me," said the
+dominie, in a tone of accustomed authority, and the lawyer listened.
+
+"You've heard Napoleon or somebody else say that every soldier of France
+carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack?"
+
+"Never heard the gentleman in my life, and don't believe it, either."
+
+"Well, well, never mind about that; but I got my idea out of a
+knapsack."
+
+"Now, what's the use of your saying that, when its myself knows that you
+haven't got such a thing to bless yourself with?"
+
+"I got it out of a soldier's--a volunteer's knapsack, man."
+
+"O, you thief of the world! And where have you got it hid away?"
+
+"In my head."
+
+"O rubbish and nonsense--a knapsack in your head!"
+
+"No, but the idea."
+
+"And where's the knapsack?"
+
+"On the grenadier's back."
+
+"Then the grenadier has the knapsack, and you the idea: I thought you
+said the idea was in the knapsack."
+
+"So it was; but I took it out, don't you see? My idea is the idea of a
+knapsack on a man's back--on two men's backs--on your back and on mine."
+
+"With a marshal's baton inside?"
+
+"No; with an extra flannel shirt inside--and some socks, and a flask,
+and some little book to read by the way; that's what I want."
+
+"It'll be mortal heavy and hot this boiling weather."
+
+"Not a bit. You can make one out of cardboard and patent cloth, just as
+light as a feather, and costing you next to nothing."
+
+"And where will you be going with your knapsack? Will it be parading
+through the streets with the volunteers you would be after?"
+
+"Go? We will go on a pedestrian tour through the finest scenery
+available." This was said correctly and with great dignity. It had the
+effect of sobering the incredulous Coristine, who said: "I tell ye,
+Farquhar, my boy, that's a fine idea of yours, barring the heat; but I
+suppose we can rest where we like and go when we like, and, if the
+knapsacks get to be a nuisance, express 'em through, C.O.D. Well, I'll
+sleep over it, and let you know to-morrow when I can get away." So the
+pair separated, to retire for the night and dream a knapsack nightmare.
+
+Coristine's leave did not come till the following Tuesday, so that
+Friday, Saturday and Monday--or parts of them, at least--could be
+devoted to the work of preparation. Good, strong, but not too heavy,
+tweed walking suits were ordered, and a couple of elegant flannel shirts
+that would not show the dirt were laid in; a pair of stout, easy boots
+was picked out, and a comfortable felt hat, with brim enough to keep off
+the sun. Then the lawyer bought his cardboard and his patent cloth and
+straps, and spent Saturday evening with his friend and a sharp penknife,
+bringing the knapsacks into shape. The scientists made a mistake in
+producing black and shiny articles, well calculated to attract the heat.
+White canvas would have been far better. But Wilkinson had taken his
+model from the military, hence it had to be black. The folded ends of
+the patent cloth, which looked like leather, were next to the wearer's
+back, so that what was visible to the general public was a very
+respectable looking flat surface, fastened round the shoulders with
+becoming straps, equally dark in hue. "Sure, Farquhar, it's pack-men the
+ignorant hayseeds will be taking us for," said Coristine, when the
+prospective pedestrians had strapped on their shiny baggage holders. "I
+do not agree with you there," replied the schoolmaster; "Oxford and
+Cambridgemen, and the best _litterateurs_ of England, do Wales and
+Cornwall, the Lakes and the Trossachs, to say nothing of Europe, dressed
+just as we are." "All right, old man, but I'm thinking I'll add a
+bandanna handkerchief and a blackthorn. They'll come in handy to carry
+the fossils over your shoulder. There now, I've forgot the printers'
+paper and the strap flower press for my specimens. True, there's Monday
+for that; but I'm afraid I'll have to shave the boards of the flower
+press down, or it'll be a sorry burden for a poor, tired botanist. Good
+night to you, my bouchal boy, and it's a pack you might throw into a
+corner of your sack." "Cards!" replied Wilkinson; "no sir, but my
+pocket chess box will be at your service." "Chess be hanged," said the
+lawyer; "but, see here, are they checkers when you turn them upside
+down? If they are, it's I'm your man."
+
+On Tuesday morning, about eight o'clock, there appeared at the Brock
+Street Station of the Northern Railway, two well-dressed men with shiny
+knapsacks on their shoulders. They had no blackthorns, for Wilkinson had
+said it would be much more romantic to cut their own sticks in the bush,
+to which Coristine had replied that, if the bush was as full of
+mosquitos as one he had known, he would cut his stick fast enough. They
+were the astonishment, rather than the admiration, of all beholders, who
+regarded them as agents, and characterized the way in which they carried
+their samples as the latest thing from the States. For a commencement,
+this was humiliating, so that the jaunty lawyer twisted his moustache
+fiercely, and felt inclined to quarrel with the self-possessed,
+clean-shaven space between Wilkinson's elaborate side-whiskers. But the
+pedagogue, in his suavest manner, remarked that Cicero, in his _De
+Natura Deorum_, makes Cotta call the common herd both fools and
+lunatics, whose opinion is of no moment whatever. "Why, then," he asked,
+"should we trouble our minds with what it pleases them to think? It is
+for us to educate public opinion--to enlighten the darkness of the
+masses. Besides, if you look about, you will see that those who are
+doing the giggling are girls, sir, positively girls."
+
+"Your hand on that, Farquhar, my boy; if it keeps the hussies off, I'll
+wear a knapsack every day of my life."
+
+Coristine did not know where he was going, being subject to the superior
+wisdom and topographical knowledge of his companion, who appeared in the
+row that besieged the window of the ticket office. "Two for Belle
+Ewart," he demanded, when his turn came.
+
+"Trains don't run to Belle Ewart now; you had better take Lefroy, the
+nearest point."
+
+"All right; two for Lefroy."
+
+The ticket agent looked at the attire of the speaker, and was about to
+produce the cardboard slips, then hesitated as he glanced at the straps
+and the top of the black erection on Wilkinson's shoulders, and
+enquired, "Second class, eh?" The dominie was angry, his face
+crimsoned, his hand shook with indignation. Being a moral man, he would
+not use bad language, but he roared in his most stentorian academic
+tone, a tone which appalled the young agent with rapid visions of
+unfortunate school days, "Second Tom-cats! Does the company put you
+there to insult gentlemen?" It was the agent's turn to redden, and then
+to apologize, as he mildly laid the tickets down, without the usual
+slap, and fumbled over their money. The feminine giggling redoubled, and
+Coristine, who had regained his equilibrium, met his friend with a
+hearty laugh, and the loud greeting, "O Lord, Wilks, didn't I tell you
+the fools would be taking us for bagmen?" But Wilkinson's irritation was
+deep, and he marched to the incoming train, ejaculating, "Fool, idiot,
+puppy; I shall report him for incivility, according to the printed
+invitation of the company. Second! ach! I was never so insulted in my
+life."
+
+There was room enough inside the car to give the travellers a double
+seat, half for themselves and the other for their knapsacks. These
+impedimenta being removed the occupants of the carriage became aware
+that they were in the company of two good-looking men, of refined
+features, and in plain but gentlemanly attire. The lady passengers
+glanced at them, from time to time, with approbation not unmingled with
+amusement, but no responsive glance came from the bachelors. Wilkinson
+had opened his knapsack, and had taken out his pocket Wordsworth, the
+true poet, he said, for an excursion. Coristine had a volume of Browning
+in his kit, but left it there, and went into the smoking-car for an
+after breakfast whiff. The car had been swept out that morning by the
+joint efforts of a brakesman and the newsagent, so that it was less
+hideously repulsive than at a later stage in the day, when tobacco
+juice, orange peel, and scraps of newspapers made it unfit for a decent
+pig. The lawyer took out his plug, more easily carried than cut tobacco,
+and whittled it down with his knife to fill his handsome Turk's head
+meerschaum. When all was ready, he discovered, to his infinite disgust,
+that he had no matches nor pipe-lights of any description. The news
+agent, Frank, a well-known character on the road, supplied him with a
+box of Eddy's manufacture, for which he declined to receive payment.
+However, he pressed his wares upon the grateful Coristine, recommending
+warmly the Samantha books and Frank Stockton's stories. "Are there any
+women in them?" asked the smoker. "Full of them," replied Frank; "Why,
+Samantha is a woman." "Take them away, and bring me something
+different." The news agent returned with a volume made up of cartoons
+and other illustrations from _Puck_, and soon the Irishman was shaking
+his sides over the adventures of Brudder Sunrise Waterbury and similar
+fictitious characters. So absorbed was he in this trivial literature
+that he failed to notice the entrance of an old man, respectably dressed
+who took a seat on the opposite side of the aisle, and was preparing to
+smoke his three inches of clay. He was aroused by the salutation and
+request:--
+
+"Good marnin', Sor, an' moight Oi be afther thrubblin' yeez for a loight
+to my poipe?"
+
+"Certainly, with pleasure; glad to be of any use to a fellow
+countryman," replied Coristine, looking up, and perceiving that his new
+acquaintance, though old and stooped, had a soldierly air. "You have
+been in service?" he continued.
+
+"Troth I have, puff, puff, now she's goin' aisy. Oi was in the Furren
+Laygion in South Ameriky, an' my cornel was the foinest man you iver
+see. It was Frinch he was by his anshesters, an' his name it was
+Jewplesshy. Wan toime we was foightin' wid the Spanyerds an' the poor
+deluded haythen Injuns, when a shpint bullet rickyshayed an' jumped into
+my mouth, knockin' out the toot' ye'll percaive is missin' here. Will,
+now, the cornel he was lookin' at me, an', fwhen Oi shput out the bullet
+and the broken toot' on the ground, he roides up to me, and says, says
+he, 'It's a brave bhoy, yeez are, Moikle Terry, an' here's a' suverin to
+get a new toot' put in whin the war is over, says he. Oh, that suverin
+wint to kape company wid a lot more that Oi'd be proud to see the face
+av in my owld age. But, sorra a toot' did the dintist put in for me, for
+fwhere wud the nate hole for the poipe have been thin, till me that,
+now?"
+
+Mr. Coristine failed to answer this conundrum, but continued the
+conversation with the old soldier. He learnt that Michael had
+accompanied his colonel to Canada, and, after serving him faithfully for
+many years, had wept over his grave. One of the old man's sons was a
+sergeant in the Royal Artillery, and his daughter was married to a
+Scotch farmer named Carruthers, up in the County of Grey.
+
+"She was a good gyurl, as nate an' swate as a picter, whin she lift the
+cornel's lady's sarvice, an' wint an' tuk up wid Carruthers, a foine man
+an' a sponsible, not a bit loike the common Scotch. Carruthers and her,
+they axed me wud Oi go an' pay thim a visit, an' say to the comfort av
+her young lady on the way."
+
+"What young lady?" asked Coristine, and immediately repented the
+question.
+
+"Miss Jewplesshy, to be sure, the cornel's darter, and an illigant wan
+she is, av she has to make her livin' by the wroitin'."
+
+At this juncture, the lawyer, with lively satisfaction, hailed the
+arrival of Frank, who came straight towards him.
+
+"Are you Mr. Coristine, the lawyer?" he half whispered. "Yes; that's my
+name," his victim replied, thinking that Wilkinson had sent him a
+message.
+
+"Well, there's a lady in the rear car wanted to know, and I said I'd
+find out."
+
+"Fwhat's that you'll be sayin' av a lady in the rare car, my lad?"
+questioned the old soldier, who had overheard part of the conversation.
+
+"It's the tall girl in the travelling duster and the blue ribbons that
+wants to know if Mr. Coristine is here."
+
+"Fwhat? my own dare young mishtress, Miss Ceshile Jewplesshy; shure it's
+her that do have the blue ribbins, an' the dushter. Do yeez know that
+swate young crathur, Sor?"
+
+"I do not," replied Coristine abruptly, and added, _sotto voce_, "thank
+goodness!" Then he relit his pipe, and buried his head in the Puck book,
+from the contemplation of which the Irish veteran was too polite to seek
+to withdraw his attention. In a few minutes, the door opened and closed
+with a slam, and Wilkinson, pale and trembling, stood before him.
+
+"Eugene, my dear friend," he stammered, "I'll never forgive myself for
+leading you and me into a trap, a confounded, diabolical, deep-laid
+trap, sir, a gin, a snare, a woman's wile. Let us get off anywhere, at
+Aurora, Newmarket, Holland Landing, Scanlans, anywhere to escape these
+harpies."
+
+"What's the matter, old man?" enquired Coristine, with a poor attempt at
+calmness.
+
+"Matter!" replied Wilkinson, "it's this matter, that they have found us
+out, and the girl with the cream coloured ribbons and crimson wrapper
+has asked that villainous news-agent if my name is not Wilkinson, and if
+I don't teach in the Sacheverell Street School. The rascal says her name
+is Miss Marjorie Carmichael, the daughter of old Dr. Carmichael, that
+was member for Vaughan, and that her friend, the long girl with the blue
+ribbons, knows you. O, my dear friend, this is awful. Better be back in
+Toronto than shut up in a railway car with two unblushing women."
+
+"Stay here," said Coristine, making way for his friend, "they'll never
+dare come into this car after us." Yet his eye followed the retreating
+form of the South American warrior with apprehension. What if he should
+bring his 'dare young misthress' and her friend into the atmosphere of
+stale tobacco after their lawful game? Wilkinson sat down despairingly
+and coughed. "I feel very like the least little nip," he said faintly,
+"but it's in my knapsack, and I will not enter that car of foul
+conspiracy again for all the knapsacks and flasks in the world."
+
+Now, Coristine had smoked two big pipes, and felt that it was dry work,
+but loyalty to his friend made him braver than any personal necessity
+would have done. "It's sick you're looking, Farquhar, my dear," he said,
+"and it's no friend of your's I'd be, and leave you without comfort in
+such a time of trouble. Here's for the knapsack, and woe betide the man
+or woman that stops me." So up he rose, and strode out of the car,
+glowering fiercely at the second-class passengers and all the rest, till
+he reached the vacated seats, from which he silently, and in deep inward
+wrath, gathered up the creations of cardboard and patent cloth, and
+retreated, grinding his teeth as he heard the veteran call out behind
+him, "Would yeez moind comin' this way a bit, Mishter?" He paid no
+attention to that officious old man, but hurried back to the
+smoking-car, where he extracted Wilkinson's flask from its flannel
+surroundings, removed the metal cup, poured out a stiff horn, and
+diluted it at the filter. "Take this, old man," he said sternly,
+pressing it to the lips of the sufferer, "it'll set you up like a new
+pin." So the schoolmaster drank and was comforted, and Coristine took a
+nip also, and they felt better, and laughed and joked, and said
+simultaneously, "It's really too absurd about these girls, ha, ha!"
+
+Apprehension made the time seem long to the travellers, who gazed out of
+the windows upon a fine agricultural country, with rolling fields of
+grain, well-kept orchards and substantial houses and barns. They admired
+the church on the hill at Holland Landing, and the schoolmaster told his
+friend of a big anchor that had got stuck fast there on its way to the
+Georgian Bay in 1812. "I bet you the sailors wouldn't have left it
+behind if it had been an anchor of Hollands," said Coristine, whereupon
+Wilkinson remarked that his puns were intolerable. At Bradford the track
+crossed the Holland River, hardly flowing between its flat, marshy banks
+towards Lake Simcoe. "This," said the schoolmaster, "is early
+Tennysonian scenery, a Canadian edition of the fens of Lincolnshire,"
+but he regretted uttering the words when the lawyer agreed with him that
+it was an of-fens-ive looking scene. But Lake Simcoe began to show up in
+the distance to the right, and soon the gentlemanly conductor took their
+tickets. "Leefroy," shouted the brakesman. They gathered up their
+knapsacks, dropped off the smoker, and sped inside the station, out of
+the windows of which they peered cautiously to see that no attempt at a
+pursuit was made by the ladies and their military protector. The train
+sped on its way northward, and feeling that, for a time, they were safe,
+the pedestrians faced each other with a deep-drawn sigh of relief. The
+station-master told them to walk back along the track till they met the
+old side-line that used to go to Belle Ewart. So they helped each other
+to strap on their knapsacks, and virtually began their pedestrian tour.
+The station-master would have liked to detain them for explanations, but
+they were unwilling to expose themselves to further misunderstanding.
+Walking on a railway track is never very pleasant exercise, but this
+old Belle Ewart track was an abomination of sand and broken rails and
+irregular sleepers. Coristine tried to step in time over the rotting
+cedar and hemlock ties, but, at the seventh step, stumbled and slid down
+the gravel bank of the road-bed. "Where did the seven sleepers do their
+sleeping, Wilks?" he enquired. "At Ephesus," was the curt reply. "Well,
+if they didn't efface us both, they nearly did for one of us."
+"Coristine, if you are going to talk in that childlish way, we had
+better take opposite ends of the track; there are limits, sir."
+
+"That's just what's troubling me; there are far too many limits. If this
+is what you call pedestrianizing, I say, give me a good sidewalk or the
+loan of an uneven pair of legs. It's dislocation of the hip or
+inflammatory rheumatism of the knee-joint I'll be getting with this hop
+and carry one navigation." Wilkinson plodded on in dignified silence,
+till the sawmills of the deserted village came in sight, and, beyond it,
+the blue green waters of Lake Simcoe. "Now," he said, "we shall take to
+the water." "What?" enquired Coristine, "on our knapsacks?" to which his
+companion answered, "No, on the excellent steamer _Emily May_."
+
+There was no excellent steamer _Emily May_; there had not been for a
+long time; it was a memory of the past. The railway had ruined
+navigation. What was to be done? It would never do to retrace their
+steps over the railroad ties, and the roads about Belle Ewart led
+nowhere, while to track it along the hot lake shore was not to be
+thought of. Wilkinson's plans had broken down; so Coristine left him at
+the village hostelry, and sallied forth on exploration bent. In the
+course of his wanderings he came to a lumber wharf, alongside which lay
+an ancient schooner.
+
+"Schooner ahoy!" he shouted, when a shock-headed man of uncertain middle
+age poked his head up through a hatchway, and answered: "Ahoy yourself,
+and see how you like it." This was discouraging, but not to a limb of
+the law. Coristine half removed his wide awake, and said: "I have the
+pleasure of addressing the captain of the ship _Susan Thomas_," the name
+he had seen painted in gold letters on the stern.
+
+"Not adzackly," replied the shock headed mariner, much mollified; "he's
+my mate, and he'll be along as soon as he's made up his bundle. I'm
+waitin' for him to sail this yere schooner."
+
+"Where is the _Susan Thomas_ bound for?"
+
+"For Kempenfeldt Bay, leastways Barrie."
+
+"Could you take a couple of passengers, willing to pay properly for
+their passage?"
+
+"Dassent; it's agin the law; not but what I'd like to have yer, fer its
+lonesome, times. Here comes the old man hisself; try him."
+
+A stout grizzled man of between fifty and sixty came walking along the
+wharf, with his bundle over his shoulder, and Coristine tried him. The
+Captain was a man of few words, so, when the situation was explained, he
+remarked: "Law don't allow freight boats to take money off passengers,
+but law don't say how many hands I have to have, nor what I'm to pay 'em
+or not to pay 'em. If you and your friend want to ship for the trip to
+Barrie, you'd better hurry up, for we're going to start right away."
+
+Coristine was filled with the wildest enthusiasm. He dashed back to the
+hotel, the bar of which was covered with maps and old guide-books,
+partly the property of Wilkinson, partly of mine host, who was lazily
+helping him to lay out a route. "Hurry, hurry!" cried the excited
+lawyer, as he swept the maps into his friend's open knapsack. Then he
+yelled "hurroo!" and sang:--
+
+     For the ship, it is ready, and the wind is fair,
+     And I am bound for the sea, Mary Ann.
+
+Like a whirlwind he swept Wilkinson and the two knapsacks out of the
+hotel door, along the sawdust paths and on to the wharf just in time to
+see the first sail set. "What in the name of common sense is the meaning
+of this conduct?" asked the amazed schoolmaster as soon as he got his
+breath.
+
+"Meaning! why, we're indentured, you and I, as apprentice mariners on
+board the good ship _Susan Thomas_, bound for Kempenfeldt Bay.
+
+     Brave Kempenfeldt is gone,
+     His victories are o'er;
+     And he and his eight hundred
+     Shall plough the waves no more.
+
+But we'll plough them, Wilks, my boy. We'll splice the spanker boom,
+and port the helm to starboard, and ship the taffrail on to the lee
+scuppers of the after hatch, and dance hornpipes on the mizzen peak.
+Hulloa, captain, here's my mate, up to all sorts of sea larks; he can
+box the compass and do logarithm sums, and work navigation by single or
+double entry." The schoolmaster blushed for his companion, at whose
+exuberant spirits the sedate captain smiled, while the shock-headed man,
+whom Coristine named The Crew, displayed a large set of fairly preserved
+yellowish teeth, and guffawed loud and long.
+
+"Do I understand, Captain, that you are willing to take us to Barrie in
+your--ah--vessel?" asked Wilkinson, politely.
+
+"Aye, aye, my man," answered the ancient mariner, "get your leg aboard,
+for we're going to sail right away. Hi, you, Sylvanus there, give
+another haul on them halliards afore you're too mighty ready to belay,
+with your stupid cackle."
+
+So the indentured apprentices and their knapsacks got on board, while
+Sylvanus, _alias_ The Crew, stopped laughing, and put a pound or two
+extra on to the halliards. "Wilks," said Coristine, "it'll puzzle the
+women to find us out on our ocean home."
+
+Wilkinson saw the captain hauling at the halliards of the after-mainsail
+and went to his assistance, while Coristine, doffing his coat, lent a
+hand to The Crew, when, by their combined efforts, the sails were all
+hoisted and the schooner floated away from the pier. The lawyer walked
+over the deck with a nautical air, picking up all loose ends of rope and
+coiling them neatly over his left arm. The coils he deposited carefully
+about the feet of the masts, to the astonishment of Wilkinson, who
+regarded his friend as a born seaman, and to the admiration of the
+captain and The Crew. The schoolmaster felt that Wordsworth was not the
+thing for the water; he should have brought Falconer or Byron. So he
+stuck to the captain, who was a very intelligent man of his class, and
+discussed with him the perils and advantages of lake navigation. They
+neither of them smoked, nor, said the captain, did he often drink; when
+he did, he liked to have it good. Thereupon Wilkinson produced what
+remained in his flask, which his commanding officer took down neat at a
+gulp, signifying, as he ruefully gazed upon the depleted vessel, that a
+man might go long before he'd get such stuff as that. Then the
+conversation turned on the prohibitory Scott Act, which opened the vials
+of the old man's wrath, for making "the biggest lot of hypocrites and
+law-breakers and unlicensed shebeens and drunkards the country had ever
+seen." The schoolmaster, as in duty bound, tried to defend the Act, but
+all in vain, so he was glad to change the subject and discuss the crops,
+politics, and education. This conversation took place at what the
+captain called "the hellum", against the tiller of which he occasionally
+allowed his apprentice to lean his back while he attended to other work.
+Wilkinson was proud. This was genuine navigation, this steering a large
+vessel with your back; any mere landsman, he now saw, could coil up
+ropes like Coristine. The subject of this reflection was quite happy in
+the bow, chumming with The Crew. Smoking their pipes together, Sylvanus
+confided to his apprentice that a sailor's life was the lonesomest life
+out of jail, when the cap'n was that quiet and stand off like as one he
+knowed that wasn't far away, nuther. Coristine sympathized with him.
+"The bossest time that ever was on this yere old _Susan Thomas_," he
+continued, "was last summer wonst when the cap'n's niece, she come along
+fer a trip. There was another gal along with her, a regular stunner, she
+was. Wot her name was I raley can't tell, 'cos that old owl of a cap'n,
+whenever he'd speak to her, allers said Miss Do Please. I reckon that's
+what she used to say to him, coaxin' like, and he kep' it up on her.
+Well, we was becalmed three days right out on the lake, and I had to row
+the blessed dingy in the bilin' sun over to Snake Island to get bread
+and meat from the Snakes."
+
+"From the snakes!" ejaculated Coristine, "why this beats Elijah's ravens
+all to nothing."
+
+"Oh, the Snakes is Injuns, and Miss Carmichael, that's the cap'n's gal,
+says their rale name is Kinapick."
+
+"Look here, Sylvanus, what did you say the captain's name is?"
+
+"Oh, the old pill's name is Thomas, like the schooner, but, you see, he
+married one of the pretty Carruthers gals, and a good match it was; for,
+I tell ye, them Carruthers gals hold their heads mighty high. Why, the
+ansomest of them married Dr. Carmichael that was member, and, of they
+did say he married below him, there wasn't a prouder nor a handsomer
+woman in all the country. There's a brother of the Carruthers gals lives
+on a farm out in Grey, and he took up with a good lookin' Irish gal that
+was lady's maid or some such truck. That's marryin' below yourself ef
+you like, but, bless you, Miss Carmichael don't bear him no spite for
+it. She goes and stays with him times in the holidays, just like she
+does along o' the old man here. My! what a three days o' singin' and fun
+it was when them two gals was aboard; never see nothing like it afore
+nor sence."
+
+"By George!" groaned the lawyer.
+
+"What's up, Mister? turned sick, eh? smell o' the tar too much fer your
+narves? It do make some city folks a bit squarmish. Wish I'd a drop o'
+stuff for you, but we don't carry none; wouldn't do, you know."
+Coristine was touched by the good fellow's kindness, and opened his
+flask for their joint benefit, after which he felt better, and The Crew
+said it made him like a four-year-old.
+
+"Hi, Sylvanus, come aft here to your dog watch," cried the captain, and
+The Crew retired, while his superior officer and Wilkinson came forward.
+The former went down into the hold, leaving the dominie free for
+conversation with his friend. "It's all up again, Wilks," said Coristine
+sadly; "those two girls were on board this very schooner, no later than
+last summer, and the one that spotted you is the captain's niece."
+
+"I know," groaned Wilkinson; "did he not tell me that he had a niece, a
+wonderfully fine girl, if he did say it, in the public schools, and made
+me promise to look her up when I go back to town! This kind of thing
+will be the death of me, Corry. Tell me, is your friend at the helm
+another uncle?"
+
+"Oh, no," laughed Coristine, "he's a simple-hearted, humble sort of
+creature, who worships the boards these girls trod upon. He has a
+tremendous respect for the Carmichaels. What a lucky thing it is they
+didn't come on board at Belle Ewart! Do you think they'll be on hand at
+Barrie?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder."
+
+"Then, Wilks, I tell you what it is, we must slope. When it gets dark,
+I'll slip over the stern into the dingy and bring her round to the side
+for you; then we'll sail away for parts unknown."
+
+"Corry, I am ashamed of you for imagining that I would lend myself to
+base treachery, and robbery, or piracy rather, on the high seas, laying
+us open, as you, a lawyer, must know, to penalties that would blast our
+reputations and ruin our lives. No, sir, we must face our misfortune
+like men. In the meanwhile, I will find out, from the captain, where his
+niece and her friend are likely to be."
+
+Coristine walked aft to The Crew, and served his apprenticeship to
+sitting on the tiller and propelling the rudder thereby in the desired
+direction. When he went wrong, while The Crew was lighting his pipe, the
+flapping of the sails warned him to back the tiller to its proper place.
+When hauling at the halliards, he had sung to his admiring companion in
+toil the "Sailor's Shanty":--
+
+     My Polly said she'd marry me when I came home,
+       Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together;
+     But when I came I found she'd been and took my messmate Tom,
+       Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together.
+
+Now, therefore, The Crew was urgent for a song to cheer up the
+lonesomeness a bit, and the lawyer, nothing loath, sang with genuine
+pathos:--
+
+                A baby was sleeping;
+                Its mother was weeping.
+     For her husband was far on the wide rolling sea.
+
+When he came to the sea-ee-ee-ee-ee at the end of the third line, The
+Crew, who had been keeping time with one foot on the deck and with one
+hand on the tiller, aided him in rolling it forth, and, when the singing
+was over, he characterized it as "pooty and suitin' like," by which he
+meant that the references to the howling tempest and the raging billow
+were appropriate to the present nautical circumstances. After much
+persuasion The Crew was induced to add to the harmony of the evening.
+His voice was strong, but, like many strong things, under imperfect
+control; his tune was nowhere, and his intended pathetic unction was
+simply maudlin. Coristine could recall but little of the long ballad to
+which he listened, the story of a niggardly and irate father, who
+followed and fought with the young knight that had carried off his
+daughter. Two verses, however, could not escape his memory, on account
+of the disinterested and filial light in which they made the young lady
+appear:--
+
+     "O stay your hand," the old man cried,
+     A-lying on the ground,
+     "And you shall have my daughter,
+     And twenty thousand pound."
+
+     "Don't let him up, dear sweetheart,
+     The portion is too small."
+     "O stay your hand," the old man said,
+       "And you shall have it all."
+
+The lawyer was loud in his admiration of this classical piece, and what
+he afterwards found was The Crew's original and only tune. "That was the
+kind of wife for a poor man," remarked Sylvanus, meditatively; "but she
+was mighty hard on her old dad."
+
+"They're a poor lot, the whole pack of them," said the lawyer, savagely,
+thinking of the quandary in which he and his friend were placed.
+
+"Who is?" asked The Crew.
+
+"Why, the women, to be sure."
+
+"Look here, Mister, my name may be Sylvanus, but I know I'm pretty
+rough, for all that. But, rough as I am, I don't sit quiet and let any
+man, no, not as good friends as you and me has been, say a word agin the
+wimmen. When I think o' these yere gals as was in this blessed schooner
+last summer, I feel it my juty, bein' I'm one o' them as helped to sail
+her then, to stand up fer all wimmen kind, and, no offence meant. I
+guess your own mother's one o' the good sort, now wasn't she?"
+
+"I should say she is," replied Coristine; "there are splendid women in
+the world, but they're all married."
+
+"That don't stand to reason, nohow," said The Crew, with gravity, "'cos
+there was a time wonst when they wasn't married, and if they was good
+arter they was good afore. And, moreover, what was, is, and ever shall
+be, Amen!"
+
+"All right, Sylvanus, we won't quarrel over them, and to show I bear no
+malice, I'll sing a song about the sex," whereupon he trolled out:
+"Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen." Wilkinson came running aft
+when he heard the strain, and cried: "Good heavens! Coristine, whatever
+has got into you, are you mad or intoxicated?"
+
+"I'll bet you your boots and your bottom dollar that he ain't that,
+Mister," interposed The Crew, "fer you couldn't scare up liquor enough
+on this yere _Susan Thomas_ to turn the head of a canary."
+
+"We are exchanging musical treats," said Coristine in defence. "Sylvanus
+here favoured me with an old ballad, not in the Percy collection, and I
+have been giving him one of the songs from the dramatists."
+
+"But about women!" protested the dominie.
+
+"There ain't no songs that ain't got somethin' about women in 'em that's
+wuth a cent," indignantly replied The Crew, and Wilkinson sullenly
+retired to the bow.
+
+When the captain emerged from the hold he was hardly recognizable.
+Instead of his common sleeved waist coat and overalls, he was attired in
+a dark blue suit of broadcloth, the vest and frock coat of which were
+resplendent with gilt buttons. These clothes, with a befitting peaked
+cap and a pair of polished boots, had evidently come out of the large
+bundle he had brought from Belle Ewart, where the garments had probably
+done Sunday duty, for a smaller bundle, which he now threw upon the
+deck, contained his discarded working dress. Wilkinson was confirmed, by
+the spectacle presented, in his dire suspicion that the captain's niece
+would appear at Barrie, and, then and there, begin an acquaintance with
+him that might have the most disastrous consequences. But hope springs
+eternal in the human breast, as the poet says, so the schoolmaster
+tackled the commander, congratulated him on his fine appearance, and
+began to pump him as to the whereabouts of Miss Carmichael. The old
+gentleman, for such he looked now, was somewhat vain in an off-hand sort
+of way, and felt that he was quite the dominie's equal. He was cheerful,
+even jovial, in spite of the contrary assertions of The Crew, as he
+replied to Wilkinson's interrogations.
+
+"Ah, you sly young dog," he said, "I see what you're at now. You'd like
+to hear that the pair of them are waiting for us at Barrie; but they're
+not. They've gone to stay with my brother-in-law, Carruthers, in the
+County of Grey, where I'll go and see their pretty faces myself in a few
+days."
+
+Wilkinson swallowed the "sly young dog" for the sake of the
+consolation, and, hurriedly making his way aft, communicated the joyful
+news to Coristine. That gentleman much amused The Crew by throwing an
+arm round the schoolmaster's waist and waltzing his unwilling partner
+over the deck. All went merry as a marriage bell till the waltzers
+struck a rope coil, when, owing to the dominie's struggles, they went
+down together. Recovering themselves, they sat on deck glaring at each
+other.
+
+"You're a perfect idiot, Coristine."
+
+"You're a regular old muff, Wilkinson."
+
+The Crew, thinking this was a special pantomime got up impromptu for his
+benefit, roared with laughter, and applauded on the tiller. He was about
+to execute a hoedown within tiller limits to testify his sympathy with
+the fun, when the captain appeared in all his Sunday finery.
+
+"Let her away, you laughing hyena," he yelled to the unlucky Sylvanus,
+who regained his mental balance and laid his back to the tiller the
+other way.
+
+"Sorry I've no chairs for you gentlemen," he remarked to the seated
+travellers; "but I guess the deck's as soft as the wooden kind."
+
+"Don't mention it, my dear captain," said Coristine, as he sprang to his
+feet; "we were only taking the latitude and longitude, but it's hard
+work on the bones."
+
+"You allow yourself too much latitude, sir, both in your actions and in
+your unjustifiable remarks," muttered the pedagogue, more slowly
+assuming the perpendicular.
+
+"Now, captain," cried the lawyer, "I leave it you, sir, as a judge of
+language, good and bad. What is the worst thing to call a man, a muff or
+an idiot!"
+
+The captain toyed with the lanyard of his tortoise shell rimmed glasses,
+then put them deliberately across his nose, coughed judiciously, and
+gave his opinion:--
+
+"An ijit is a man that's born without sense and can't keep himself, d'ye
+see? But a muff is that stupid, like Sylvanus here, that he can't use
+the sense he's got. That being the case, a muff is worse than an ijit."
+
+"Mr. Wilkinson, I bow, as in duty bound, to the verdict of the court,
+and humbly apologize for having called you something worse than an
+idiot. In my poor opinion, sir, you are not worse than the unfortunate
+creature thus described."
+
+Wilkinson was about to retort, when The Crew called out that the
+schooner was in the Bay, and that the lights of Barrie could be seen in
+the distance.
+
+"Keep to your helm, Sylvanus," growled the captain; "there's three pair
+of eyes here as good as yourn, and I hope with more sense abaft 'em."
+
+Sylvanus relapsed into silence of a modified kind, merely whistling in a
+soft way his original copyright tune. As the travellers had never seen
+Kempenfeldt Bay before, they admired it very much, and forgot their
+little misunderstanding, while arm in arm they leaned over the bulwarks,
+and quoted little snatches of poetry in one another's ears. The
+twinkling lights of the town upon the cliffs suggested many a pleasing
+passage, so that Wilkinson told his dear Corry he was more than repaid
+for the trouble incident on their expedition by the sweet satisfaction
+of gazing on such a scene in company with a kindred spirit of poesy. To
+this his comrade replied, "Wilks, my dear boy, next to my mother you're
+the best friend I ever hope to have."
+
+"Let us cherish these sentiments for one another, kind friend, and the
+cloud on the horizon of our tour will never rise to darken its happy
+future," after which the learned dominie recited the words of Ducis:--
+
+"_Noble et tendre amitié, je te chante en mes vers_."
+
+"Murder!" cried Coristine, "Do you know that that Miss Jewplesshy, or Do
+Please, or whatever her name is, is French?"
+
+"O, Corry, Corry, how could you break in upon a scene of purest
+friendship and nature worship like this with your wretched misses? O,
+Corry, be a man!"
+
+"The anchor's agoin' out," remarked The Crew, as he passed by; so the
+travellers rushed to the capstan and got hold of the spikes. Out went
+the cable, as Coristine sang:--
+
+     Do! my Johnny Boker,
+     I'm a poo-er sailor,
+     Do! my Johnny Boker,
+                     Do!!!
+
+The ship made fast, the captain said, "Sylvanus will take you gentlemen
+ashore in the dingy. It only holds three, so I'll wait till he comes
+back." The pedestrians protested, but in vain. Sylvanus should take them
+ashore first. So they bade the captain good-bye with many thanks and
+good wishes, and tumbled down into the dingy, which The Crew brought
+round. The captain shouted from the bulwarks in an insinuating way,
+"I'll keep my eye on you, Mr Wilkinson, trying to steal an old man's
+niece away from him," at which the victim shuddered. Away went the dingy
+some fifty yards or more, when Coristine called out, "Have you got the
+knapsacks, Farquhar, my dear?"
+
+"Why, bless me, no," he answered. "I thought you had them." "Row back
+for your life, Sylvanus, to get the blessed knapsacks;" and Sylvanus,
+patient creature, did as he was told. The captain threw them over the
+side with another farewell speech, and then the dingy made for the bank,
+while Coristine sang in a rich voice:--
+
+     Pull for the shore, sailor,
+       Pull for the shore.
+
+They landed, and, much against The Crew's will, he was compelled to
+receive a dollar from each of his passengers.
+
+"I'll see you again," he said, as he rowed back for the captain. "I'll
+see you again up in Grey, along of the old man and the gals, mark my
+word if I don't."
+
+"Glad to see you, Sylvy, old fresh (he was going to say 'old salt,' but
+corrected himself in time), glad to see you anywhere," bawled the
+lawyer, "but we've made a vow to dispense with female society in our
+travels. Ta, ta!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     Barrie--Next of Kin--Nightmare--On the Road--Strawberries and
+     Botany--Poetry and Sentiment--The Virago--Luncheon and
+     Wordsworth--Waterplants, Leeches and Verse--Cutting Sticks--Rain,
+     Muggins and Rawdon.
+
+
+The travellers carried their knapsacks in their hands by the straps, to
+the nearest hotel, where, after brief delay, a special supper was set
+for them. Having discussed the frugal meal, they repaired to the
+combined reading and smoking room, separate from the roughish crowd at
+the bar. Wilkinson glanced over a Toronto paper, while his companion,
+professing an interest in local news, picked up an organ of the town and
+read it through, advertisements and all, in which painstaking effort he
+was helped by his pipe. Suddenly he grasped the paper, and, holding it
+away from his face, exclaimed, "Is it possible that they are the same?"
+
+"Who, who?" ejaculated Wilkinson; "do not tell me that the captain was
+mistaken, that they are really here."
+
+"Do you know old Carmichael's initials, the doctor's, that was member
+for Vaughan?" his friend asked, paying no attention to the
+schoolmaster's question.
+
+"James D.," replied that authority; "I remember, because I once made the
+boys get up the members' names along with their constituencies, so as to
+give the latter a living interest."
+
+"Now, listen to this: 'Next of kin; information wanted concerning the
+whereabouts of James Douglas Carmichael, or his heirs at law. He left
+the University of Edinburgh, where he was in attendance on the Faculty
+of Medicine, in the spring of 1848, being at the time twenty-one years
+of age. The only trace of his farther life is a fragment of a letter
+written by him to a friend two years later, when he was serving as a
+soldier in the military station of Barrief, Upper Canada. Reward offered
+for the same by P.R. MacSmaill, W.S., 19 Clavers Row, Edinburgh.' If
+James Douglas Carmichael, ex-medical student, wasn't the member and the
+father of that girl of yours, I'm a Dutchman."
+
+"Mr. Coristine, I insist, sir, before another word passes between us,
+that you withdraw and apologize for the deeply offensive expression,
+which must surely have escaped your lips unperceived, 'that girl of
+yours.'"
+
+"Oh, there, now, I'm always putting my foot in it. I meant the girl you
+are interested in--no, it isn't that other--the girl that's interested
+in you--oh, wirra wisha! it's not that at all--it's the girl the captain
+was joking you about."
+
+"A joke from a comparatively illiterate man like the captain of the
+schooner, to whom we were under travelling obligations, and a joke from
+my equal, a scholar and a gentleman, are two distinct things. I wish the
+expression, 'that girl of yours,' absolutely and forever withdrawn."
+
+"Well, well, I consent to withdraw it absolutely and apologize for
+saying it, but that 'forever' clause goes against my legal judgment. If
+the late Dr. Carmichael's heiress comes in for a fortune, we might
+repent that 'forever.'"
+
+"What has that to do with me, sir, fortune or no fortune? Your
+insinuations are even more insulting than your open charges of
+infidelity to our solemn compact."
+
+It was Coristine's turn to be angry. He rose from the table at which he
+had been sitting, with the paper still in his hand, and said: "You make
+mountains out of molehills, Wilkinson. I've made you a fair and full
+apology, and shall do no more, if you sulk your head off." So saying, he
+stalked out of the room, and Wilkinson was too much angered to try to
+stop him.
+
+The lawyer asked the landlord if he would spare him the newspaper for an
+hour and supply him with pen and ink and a few sheets of paper. Then he
+took his lamp and retired to his room. "Poor old Farquhar," he
+soliloquized, as he arranged his writing materials; "he'll feel mighty
+bad at being left all alone, but it's good for his health, and business
+is business. Let me see, now. Barrie was never a military station,
+besides the letter had Barrief on it, a name that doesn't exist. But the
+letter was torn there, or the corner worn away in a man's pocket. By the
+powers, it's Barriefield at Kingston, and there's the military station
+for you. I'll write our correspondent there, and I'll set one of the
+juniors to work up Dr. Carmichael's record in Vaughan County, and I'll
+notify MacSmaill, W.S., that I am on the track, and--shall I write the
+girl, there's the rub?" The three letters were written with great care
+and circumspection, but not the fourth. When carefully sealed, directed
+and stamped, he carried them to the post-office and personally deposited
+them in the slit for drop-letters. Returning to the hotel, he restored
+the newspaper to the table of the reading-room, minus the clipped
+advertisement to the next of kin, which he stowed away in his
+pocketbook. This late work filled the lawyer with a satisfaction that
+crowned the pleasures of the day, and he longed to communicate some of
+it to his friend, but that gentleman, the landlord said, had retired for
+the night, looking a bit put out--he hoped supper had been to his
+liking. Coristine said the supper was good. "What was the number of Mr.
+Wilkinson's room?"
+
+Mine host replied that it was No. 32, the next to his own. Before
+retiring, Coristine looked at the fanlight over the door of No. 32; it
+was dark. Nevertheless he knocked, but failed to evoke a response.
+"Farquhar, my dear," he whispered in an audible tone, but still there
+was no answer. So he heaved a sigh, and, returning to his apartment,
+read a few words out of his pocket prayer-book, and went to bed. There
+he had an awful dream, of the old captain leading Wilkinson by the
+collar and tail of his coat up to the altar, where Miss Carmichael
+stood, resplendent in pearls and diamonds, betokening untold wealth; of
+an attempt at rescue by himself and The Crew, which was nipped in the
+bud by the advent of the veteran, his daughter and Miss Jewplesshy. The
+daughter laid violent hands upon The Crew and waltzed him out of the
+church door, while the veteran took Coristine's palsied arm and placed
+that of his young mistress upon it, ordering them, with military words
+of command, to accompany the victims, as bridesmaid and groomsman. When
+the dreamer recovered sufficiently to look the officiating clergyman
+full in the face, he saw that this personage was no other than Frank,
+the news-agent, whereupon he laughed immediately and awoke.
+
+"Corry, Corry, my dear fellow, are you able to get up, or shall I break
+the door in?" were the words that greeted his ear on awaking.
+
+"The omadhaun!" he said to himself under the bedclothes; "it would be a
+good thing to serve him with the sauce of silence, as he did me last
+night." But better counsels prevailed in his warm Irish heart, and he
+arose to unlock the door, when suddenly it flew open, and Wilkinson,
+with nothing but a pair of trousers added to his night attire, fell
+backwards into his arms. It was broad daylight as each looked into the
+other's face for explanations.
+
+"But you're strong, Wilks!" said the lawyer with admiration.
+
+"Corry, when I heard you groan that way, I was sure you were in a fit."
+
+"Oh, it was nothing," replied his friend, who found it hard to keep from
+laughing, "only a bad nightmare."
+
+"What were you dreaming about to bring it on?"
+
+Now, this was just what Coristine dared not tell, for the truth would
+bring up all last night's misunderstanding. So he made up a story of
+Wilkinson's teaching The Crew navigation and the use of the globes, when
+the captain interfered and threatened to kick master and pupil
+overboard. Then he, Coristine, interposed, and the captain fell upon
+him. "And you know, Wilks, he's a heavy man."
+
+"Well, I am heartily glad it is no worse. Get a wash and get your
+clothes on, and come down to breakfast, like a good boy, for I hear the
+bell ringing."
+
+Over their coffee and toast, eggs and sausages, the two were as kind and
+attentive to one another's wants, as if no dispute had ever marred their
+friendship. The dominie got out his sketch map of a route and opened it
+between them. "We shall start straight for the bush road into the north,
+if that suits you," he said, "and travel by easy stages towards
+Collingwood, where we shall again behold one of our inland seas. But, as
+it may be sometime before we reach a house of entertainment, it may be
+as well to fill the odd corners of our knapsacks with provisions for the
+way."
+
+"I say amen to that idea," replied the lawyer, and the travellers arose,
+paid their bill, including the price of the door-lock, seized their
+knapsacks by the straps and sallied forth. They laid in a small stock of
+captain's biscuits, a piece of good cheese, and some gingersnaps for
+Wilkinson's sweet tooth; they also had their flask refilled, and
+Coristine invested in some pipe-lights. Then they sallied forth, not
+into the north as Wilkinson had said, it being a phrase he was fond of,
+but, at first, in a westerly, and, on the whole, in a north-westerly
+direction.
+
+When the last house on the outskirts was left behind them, they helped
+each other on with their knapsacks, and felt like real pedestrians. The
+bush enclosed them on either side of the sandy road, so that they had
+shade whenever they wanted it. Occasionally a wayfarer would pass them
+with a curt "good morning," or a team would rattle by, its driver
+bestowing a similar salutation. The surface of the country was flat, but
+this did not hinder Wilkinson reciting:--
+
+     Mount slowly, sun! and may our journey lie
+     Awhile within the shadow of this hill,
+     This friendly hill, a shelter from thy beams!
+
+"That reminds me," said Coristine, "of a fellow we had in the office
+once, whose name was Hill. He was a black-faced, solemn-looking genius,
+and the look of him would sink the spirits of a skylark down to zero.
+'What's come over you?' said Woodruff to me one fine afternoon, when I
+was feeling a bit bilious. 'Oh,' said I, 'I've been within the shadow of
+this Hill,' and he laughed till he was black in the face."
+
+"Corry, if I were not ashamed of making a pun, or, as we say in academic
+circles, being guilty of antanaclasis, I would say that you are
+in-corri-gible."
+
+Coristine laughed, and then remarked seriously, "Here am I, with a
+strap-press full of printing paper in my knapsack, and paying no
+attention to science at all. We must begin to take life in airnest now,
+Wilks, my boy, and keep our eyes skinned for specimens. Sorry I am I
+didn't call and pay my respects to my botanical friend at the Barrie
+High School. He could have given us a pointer or two about the flowers
+that grow round here."
+
+"Flowers are scarce in July," said the schoolmaster, "they seem to take
+a rest in the hot weather. The spring is their best time. Of course you
+know that song about the flowers in spring?"
+
+"Never heard it in my life; sing it to us, Farquhar, like a darlin'."
+
+Now, the dominie was not given to singing, but thus adjured, and the
+road being clear, he sang in a very fair voice:--
+
+     We are the flowers,
+     The fair young flowers
+     That come with the voice of Spring,
+             Tra la la, la la la, la la,
+                            Tra la, tra la a a a.
+
+Coristine revelled in the chorus, which, at the "a a a," went up to the
+extreme higher compass of the human voice and beyond it. He made his
+friend repeat the performance, called him a daisy, and tra la la'd to
+his heart's content. Then he sat down on a grassy bank by the wayside
+and laughed loud and long. "Oh, it's a nice pair of fair young flowers
+we are, coming with the voice of spring; but we're not hayseeds,
+anyway." When the lawyer turned himself round to rise, Wilkinson asked
+seriously, "Did you hurt yourself then, Corry?"
+
+"Never a bit, except that I'm weak with the laughing; and for why?"
+
+"Because there is some red on your trousers, and I thought it might be
+blood--that you had sat down on some sharp thing."
+
+"It'll be strawberry blite, I'll wager, _Blitum capitatum_, and a fine
+thing it is. Mrs. Marsh, that keeps our boarding house, has a garden
+where it grows wild in among the peas. She wanted some colouring for the
+icing of a cake, and hadn't a bit of cochineal or anything of the kind
+in the house. She was telling me her trouble, for it was a holiday and
+the shops were shut, and she's always that friendly with me; when, says
+I, 'There is no trouble about that.' So I went to the garden and got two
+lovely stalks of _Blitum capitatum_. 'Is it poison?' said she. 'Poison!'
+said I; 'and it belonging to the _Chenopodiaceæ_, the order that owns
+beets and spinach, and all the rest of them. Trust a botanist, ma'am,' I
+said. It made the sweetest pink icing you ever saw, and Mrs. Marsh is
+for ever deeply grateful, and rears that _Blitum_ with fond and anxious
+care."
+
+"I would like to see that plant," said Wilkinson. So they retraced
+their steps to the bank, over which Coristine leaned tenderly, picking
+something which he put into his mouth. "Come on, Wilks," he cried; "it
+isn't blite, but something better. It's wild strawberries themselves,
+and lashings of them. Sure any fool might have known them by the leaves,
+even if he was a herald, the worst fool of all, and only knew them from
+a duke's coronet."
+
+For a time there was silence, for the berries were numerous, and,
+although small, sweet and of delicate flavour.
+
+"Corry, they are luscious; this is Arcadia and Elysium."
+
+"Foine, Wilks, foine," mumbled the lawyer, with his mouth full of
+berries.
+
+"This folly of mine, sitting down on the blessings of
+Providence--turning my back upon them, so to speak," he remarked, after
+the first hunger was over, "reminds me of a man who took the gold medal
+in natural science. He had got his botany off by rote, so, when he was
+travelling between Toronto and Hamilton, a friend that was sitting
+beside him said, 'Johnson, what's in that field out there?' Johnson
+looked a bit put out, but said boldly, 'It's turnips.' There was an old
+farmer in the seat behind him, and he spoke up and said, 'Turmuts!' said
+he, 'them's hoats--ha, ha, ha!'"
+
+As they tramped along, the botanist found some specimens: two lilies,
+the orange and the Turk's cap; the willow herb, the showy ladies'
+slipper, and three kinds of milkweed. He opened his knapsack, took out
+the strap press, and carefully bestowed his floral treasures between
+sheets of unglazed printers' paper. Wilkinson took a friendly interest
+in these proceedings, and insisted on being furnished with the botanical
+names of all the specimens.
+
+"That willow-herb, now, _Epilobium angustifolium_, is called fire-weed,"
+said the botanist, "and is an awful nuisance on burnt ground. There was
+a Scotchman out here once, about this time of the year, and he thought
+it was such a pretty pink flower that he would take some home with him.
+So, when the downy-winged seeds came, he gathered a lot, and, when he
+got back to Scotland, planted them. Lord! the whole country about Perth
+got full of the stuff, till the farmers cursed him for introducing the
+American Saugh."
+
+"The American what?" demanded Wilkinson.
+
+"Saugh; it's an old Scotch word for willow, and comes from the French
+_saule_, I suppose."
+
+"I am not sorry for them," said Wilkinson; "they say that pest, the
+Canada thistle, came from the Old Country."
+
+"Yes, that's true; and so did Pusley, which Warner compares with
+original sin; and a host of other plants. Why, on part of the Hamilton
+mountain you won't find a single native plant. It is perfectly covered,
+from top to bottom, with dusty, unwholesome-looking weeds from Europe
+and the Southern States. But we paid them back."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"You know, a good many years ago, sailing vessels began to go from the
+Toronto harbour across the Atlantic to British ports. There's a little
+water-plant that grows in Ashbridge's Bay, called the Anacharis, and
+this little weed got on to the bottom of the ocean vessels. Salt water
+didn't kill it, but it lived till the ships got to the Severn, and there
+it fell off and took root, and blocked up the canals with a solid mass
+of subaqueous vegetation that made the English canal men dredge night
+and day to get rid of it. I tell you we've got some pretty hardy things
+out here in Canada."
+
+"Do you not think," asked Wilkinson, "that our talk is getting too like
+that of Charles and his learned father in Gosse's 'Canadian
+Naturalist'?"
+
+"All right, my boy, I'll oppress you no longer with a tender father's
+scientific lore, but, with your favourite poet, say:--
+
+     "To me the meanest flower that blows can give
+     Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
+
+"That is because of their associations, a merely relative reason," said
+the dominie.
+
+"It isn't though, at least not altogether. Listen, now, to what Tennyson
+says, or to something like what he says:--
+
+     Little flower in the crannied wall,
+     Peeping out of the crannies,
+     I hold you, root and all, in my hand;
+     Little flower, if I could understand
+     What you are, root and all, and all in all,
+     I should know what God and man is.
+
+There's no association nor relation in that; the flower brings you at
+once face to face with infinite life. Do you know what these
+strawberries brought to me?"
+
+"A pleasant feast I should say."
+
+"No, they made me think how much better it would have been if I had had
+somebody to gather them for; I don't say a woman, because that's tabooed
+between us, but say a child, a little boy or girl. There's no
+association or relation there at all; the strawberries called up love,
+which is better than a pleasant feast."
+
+"According to Wordsworth, the flower in the crannied wall and the
+strawberry teach the same lesson, for does he not say:--
+
+     That life is love and immortality.
+
+          *     *     *     *     *
+
+     Life, I repeat, is energy of love,
+     Divine or human, exercised in pain,
+     In strife and tribulation, and ordained,
+     If so approved and sanctified, to pass
+     Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy?
+
+At any rate, that is what he puts into his Parson's lips.
+
+"Farquhar, my boy, I think we'd better stop, for I'm weakening fast.
+It's sentimental the flowers and the fruit are making me. I mind, when I
+was a little fellow in the old sod, my mother gathering wild flowers
+from the hedges and putting them all round the ribbon of my straw hat. I
+can't pay her the debt of that mark of love the same way, but I feel I
+should pay it to somebody. You never told me about your mother."
+
+"No, because she is dead and gone long ago, and my father married again,
+and brought a vixen, with two trollops of girls, to take the place of an
+angel. These three women turned my stomach at all the sex. Look, there's
+a pretty woman for you!"
+
+They had reached a clearing in the bush, consisting of a corn patch and
+a potato field, in which a woman, with a man's hat on her head and a
+pair of top-boots upon her nether extremities, looking a veritable guy,
+was sprinkling the potato plants with well-diluted Paris green. The
+shanty pertaining to the clearing was some little distance from the
+road, and, hoping to get a drink of water there, Coristine prepared to
+jump the rail fence and make his way towards it. The woman, seeing what
+he was about, called: 'Hi, Jack, Jack!' and immediately a big mongrel
+bull-dog came tearing towards the travellers, barking as he ran.
+
+"Come back, Corry, for heaven's sake, or he'll bite you!" cried
+Wilkinson.
+
+"Never a fear," answered the lately sentimental botanist; "barking dogs
+don't bite as a rule." So he jumped the fence in earnest, and said
+soothingly, as if he were an old friend: "Hullo, Jack, good dog!"
+whereupon the perfidious Jack grovelled at his feet and then jumped up
+for a caress. But the woman came striding along, picking up a grubbing
+hoe by the way to take the place of the treacherous defender of the
+house.
+
+"Hi, git out o' that, quick as yer legs'll take yer; git out now! we
+don't want no seeds, ner fruit trees, ner sewin' machines, ner fambly
+Bibles. My man's jist down in the next patch, an' if yer don't git, I'll
+set him on yer."
+
+"Madam," said Coristine, lifting his hat, "permit me to explain--"
+
+"Go 'long, I tell yer; that's the way they all begin, with yer madam an'
+explainin'; I'll explain this hoe on yer if yer take another step."
+
+"We are not agents, nor tramps, nor tract distributors, nor collectors
+for missions," cried Coristine, as soon as he had a chance to speak. "My
+friend, here, is a gentleman engaged in education, and I am a lawyer,
+and all we want is a glass of water."
+
+"A liyer, eh?" said the Amazon, in a very much reduced tone; "Why didn't
+yer say so at wonst, an' not have me settin' that good for nuthin' brute
+on yer? I never see liyers with a pack on their backs afore. Ef yer
+wants a drink, why don't yer both come on to the house?"
+
+Wilkinson, at this not too cordial invitation, vaulted over the fence
+beside his companion, and they walked housewards, the woman striding on
+ahead, and the dog sniffing at Wilkinson's heels in the rear. A rather
+pretty red-haired girl of about fifteen was washing dishes, evidently
+in preparation for the mid-day meal. Her the woman addressed as Anna
+Maria, and ordered her to go and get a pail of fresh water for the
+gentlemen. But Wilkinson, who felt he must do something to restore his
+credit, offered to get the water if Anna Maria would show him the well
+or pump that contained it. The girl gave him a tin pail, and he
+accompanied her to the back of the house, where the well and a bucket
+with a rope were. In vain he tried to sink that bucket; it would not
+sink. At last the girl took it out of his hands, turned the bucket
+upside down, and, letting it fall with a vicious splash, brought it up
+full of deliciously cool water, which she transferred to the pail.
+
+"You are very clever to do that the first time," remarked the
+schoolmaster, wishing to be polite to the girl, who looked quite
+pleasant and comely, in spite of her bare feet and arms.
+
+"There ain't no cleverness about it," she replied, with a harsh nasal
+accent; "any fool most could do as much." Wilkinson carried the tin pail
+to the shanty disillusioned, took his drink out of a cup that seemed
+clean enough, joined his friend in thanking mother and daughter for
+their hospitality, and retired to the road.
+
+"Do you find your respect for the fair sex rising?" he asked Coristine,
+cynically.
+
+"The mother's an awful old harridan--"
+
+"Yes, and when the daughter is her age she will be a harridan, too, the
+gentle rustic beauties have gone out of date, like the old poets. The
+schoolmaster is much needed here to teach young women not to compare
+gentlemen even if they are pedestrianizing, to 'any fool most.'"
+
+"Oh, Wilks, is that where you're hit? I thought you and she were long
+enough over that water business for a case of Jacob and Rachel at the
+well, ha, ha!"
+
+"Come, cease this folly, Coristine, and let us get along."
+
+Sentiment had received a rude shock. It met with a second when Coristine
+remarked "I'm hungry." Still, he kept on for another mile or so, when
+the travellers sighted a little brook of clear water rippling over
+stones. A short distance to the left of the road it was shaded by trees
+and tall bushes, not too close together, but presenting, here and
+there, little patches of grass and the leaves of woodland flowers.
+Selecting one of these patches, they unstrapped their knapsacks, and
+extracted from them a sufficiency of biscuits and cheese for luncheon.
+Then one of the packs, as they had irreverently been called, was turned
+over to make a table. The biscuits and cheese were moistened with small
+portions from the contents of the flasks, diluted with the cool water of
+the brook. The meal ended, Wilkinson took to nibbling ginger snaps and
+reading Wordsworth. The day was hot, so that a passing cloud which came
+over the face of the sun was grateful, but it was grateful to beast as
+well as to man, for immediately a swarm of mosquitoes and other flies
+came forth to do battle with the reposing pedestrians. Coristine's pipe
+kept them from attacking him in force, but Wilkinson got all the more in
+consequence. He struck savagely at them with Wordsworth, anathematized
+them in choice but not profane language, and, at last, rose to his feet,
+switching his pocket handkerchief fiercely about his head. Coristine
+picked up the deserted Wordsworth, and laughed till the smoke of his
+pipe choked him and the tears came into his eyes.
+
+"I see no cause for levity in the sufferings of a fellow creature," said
+the schoolmaster, curtly.
+
+"Wilks, my darling boy, it's not you I'm laughing at; it's that old
+omadhaun of a Wordsworth. Hark to this, now:--
+
+     He said, ''Tis now the hour of deepest noon.
+     At this still season of repose and peace,
+     This hour, when all things which are not at rest
+     Are cheerful; while this multitude of flies
+     Is filling all the air with melody;
+     Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?'
+
+O Wilks, but this beats cock-fighting; 'Why should a tear be in an old
+man's eye?' Sorra a bit do I know, barring it's the multitude of flies.
+O Wordy, Wordy, bard of Rydal Mount, it's sick with laughing you'll be
+making me. All things not at rest are cheerful. Dad, if he means the
+flies, they're cheerful enough, but if it's my dear friend, Farquhar
+Wilkinson, it's a mistake the old gentleman is making. See, this is more
+like it, at the very beginning of 'The Excursion':--
+
+              Nor could my weak arm disperse
+     The host of insects gathering round my face,
+     And ever with me as I paced along.
+
+That's you, Wilks, you to a dot. What a grand thing poetic instinct is,
+that looks away seventy years into the future and across the Atlantic
+Ocean, to find a humble admirer in the wilds of Canada, and tell how he
+looked among the flies. 'Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?' O,
+holy Moses, that's the finest line I've sighted in a dog's age. Cheer
+up, old man, and wipe that tear away, for I see the clouds have rolled
+by, Jenny."
+
+"Man, clod, profaner of the shrine of poesy, cease your ignorant
+cackle," cried the irate dominie. Silently they bathed faces and hands
+in the brook, donned their knapsacks, and took to the road once more.
+
+The clouds had not all passed by as the pedestrians found to their cost,
+for, where there are clouds over the bush in July, there also are
+mosquitoes. Physically as well as psychically, Wilkinson was
+thin-skinned, and afforded a ready and appetizing feast to the
+blood-suckers. His companion still smoked his pipe in defence, but for a
+long time in silence. "The multitude of flies" made him gurgle
+occasionally, as he gazed upon the schoolmaster, whose blue and yellow
+silk handkerchief was spread over the back of his head and tied under
+his chin. To quote Wordsworth then would have been like putting a match
+to a powder magazine. The flies were worst on the margin of a pond
+formed by the extension of a sluggish black stream. "Go on, Wilks, my
+boy, out of the pests, while I add some water plants to my collection;"
+but this, Wilkinson's chivalrous notions of friendship would not allow
+him to do. He broke off a leafy branch from a young maple, and slashed
+it about him, while the botanist ran along the edge of the pond looking
+for flowers within reach. As usual, they were just out of reach and no
+more. So he had to take off shoes and socks, turn up the legs of his
+trousers, and wade in after them. "Look at that now!" he said with pride
+as he returned with his booty, "Nymphæa odorata, Nuphar advena, and
+Brasenia peltata; aren't they beauties?"
+
+"What is that black object on your leg?" the dominie managed to gasp.
+
+"I'm thankful to you for saying that, my kind friend, for it's a
+murdering leech."
+
+"Salt is the only thing to take them off with," remarked Wilkinson
+really interested; "and that is just what we are deficient in."
+
+"I say, Wilks, try a drop of the crater on him; don't waste the
+blessings of Providence, but just let the least particle fall on his
+nose, while I scrape him off."
+
+The surgical operation succeeded, and the schoolmaster half forgot his
+own troubles in doing good to his friend. While the latter was
+reclothing his feet, and pressing his specimens, the maple branch ceased
+working, and its owner finely apostrophized the field of white and
+yellow blossoms.
+
+     There sits the water lily like a sovereign,
+     Her little empire is a fairy world,
+     The purple dragon-fly above it hovering,
+     As when her fragile ivory uncurled,
+         A thousand years ago.
+
+"Bravo, Wilks, if you are poaching on my preserves; but I wish that same
+purple dragon-fly would hover round here in thousands for a minute. It's
+a pleasure to see them sail along and gobble up the mosquitoes."
+
+The dominie continued:--
+
+     To-day I saw the dragon-fly
+     Come from the wells where he did lie.
+
+     An inner impulse rent the veil
+     Of his old husk; from head to tail
+     Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
+
+     He dried his wings: like gauze they grew,
+     Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
+     A living flash of light he flew.
+
+"Hurroo!" cried Coristine, as with knapsack readjusted, he took his
+companion by the arm and resumed the journey; "Hurroo again, I say, it's
+into the very heart of nature we're getting now. Bless the mosquito and
+the leech for opening the well of English undefiled."
+
+Wilkinson was wound up to go, and repeated with fine conversational
+effect:--
+
+     But now, perplexed by what th' old man had said,
+     My question eagerly did I renew
+     How is it that you live, and what is it you do?
+
+     He, with a smile, did then his words repeat;
+     And said, that, gathering leeches far and wide,
+     He travell'd; stirring thus about his feet
+     The waters of the ponds where they abide.
+     "Once I could meet with them on every side;
+     But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
+     Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."
+
+"Dad, if the old man had been here, he might have made his fortune by
+this time. 'Stirring thus about his feet the waters of the ponds where
+they abide' may be fine employment, but the law's good enough for me,
+seeing they're bound to dwindle long by slow decay. You don't happen to
+have a scrap on a botanist, do you?"
+
+"Yes," replied the schoolmaster, "and on a blind one, too:--
+
+     And he knows all shapes of flowers: the heath, the fox-glove with
+         its bells,
+     The palmy fern's green elegance, fanned in soft woodland smells;
+     The milkwort on the mossy turf his nice touch fingers trace,
+     And the eye-bright, though he sees it not, he finds it in its place."
+
+"A blind botanist, and in the Old Country, too; well that's strange!
+True, a blind man could know the lovely wallflowers and hyacinths and
+violets and all these sweet-scented things by their smell. But to know
+the little blue milkwort and the Euphrasia by touch, bangs me. If it was
+our fine, big pitcher plant, or the ladies' slipper, or the
+giant-fringed orchis, or the May apple, I could understand it; but
+perhaps he knew the flowers before he got to be blind. I think I could
+find my way blindfolded to some spots about Toronto where special plants
+grow. I believe, Wilks, that a man couldn't name a subject you wouldn't
+have a quotation for; you're wonderful!"
+
+Wilkinson was delighted. This flattery was meat and drink to him.
+Holding the arm of his admiring friend, he poured out his soul in verse,
+allowing his companion, from time to time, the opportunity of
+contributing a little to the poetic feast. The two virtually forgot to
+notice the level, sandy road and tame scenery, the clouded sun, the
+troublesome flies. For the time being, they were everything, the one to
+the other. By their own spirits were they deified, or thought they were,
+at the moment.
+
+Though the schoolmaster was revelling in the appreciation of his friend,
+he could not fail to perceive that he limped a little. "You have hurt
+your foot, Corry, my dear fellow, and never told me."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," replied the light-hearted lawyer; "I trod on a stick
+in that pond where I got the Brasenia and things, and my big toe's a bit
+sore, that's all."
+
+"Corry, we have forgotten the blackthorns. Now, in this calm hour,
+sacred to friendship, let us present each other with nature's staff, a
+walking-stick cut from the bush, humble tokens of our mutual esteem."
+
+Coristine agreed, and the result was a separation and careful scrutiny
+of the underbrush on both sides of the road, which ended in the finding
+of a dogwood by the lawyer, and of a striped maple by the dominie--both
+straight above and curled at the root. These, having removed from the
+bush, they brought into shape with their pocket-knives. Then Coristine
+carved "F.W." on the handle of his, while Wilkinson engraved "E.C." on
+the one he carried. This being done, each presented his fellow with
+"this utterly inadequate expression of sincere friendship," which was
+accepted "not for its intrinsic worth, but because of the generous
+spirit which prompted the gift." "Whenever my eye rests on these letters
+by friendship traced," said the dominie, "my pleasant companion of this
+happy day will be held in remembrance."
+
+"And when my fingers feel 'E.C.' on the handle," retorted the lawyer,
+"I'll be wishing that my dear friend's lot, that gave it me, may be easy
+too. Faith but that's a hard pun on an Irishman."
+
+"Seriously, now, Corry, does it give you any satisfaction to be guilty
+of these--ah--rhetorical figures?"
+
+"All the delight in the world, Wilks, my boy."
+
+"But it lowers the tone of your conversation; it puts you on a level
+with common men; it grieves me."
+
+"If that last is the case, Farquhar, I'll do my best to fight against my
+besetting sin. You'll admit I've been very tender of your feelings with
+them."
+
+"How's your foot now?"
+
+"Oh, splendid! This stick of yours is a powerful help to it.
+
+     Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
+       And merrily hent the stile-a:
+     A merry heart goes all the day,
+       Your sad tires in a mile-a.
+
+Shakespeare's songs remind me of young Witherspoon. There was a party at
+old Tylor's, and a lady was singing 'Tell me where is fancy bred?' when
+young Witherspoon comes up to the piano in a hurry, and says: 'Why,
+don't you know?--at Nasmith's and Webb's.'
+
+"Lord! how savage old Tylor was! I thought he would have kicked the
+young ass out."
+
+"That is just what we lovers of literature have to endure from the
+Philistines. But, Corry, my dear fellow, here is the rain!"
+
+The rain fell, at first drop by drop, but afterwards more smartly,
+forcing the pedestrians to take refuge under some leafy pines. There
+they sat quietly for a time, till their interest was excited by a deep
+growl, which seemed to come round a jog in the road just ahead.
+
+"Is that a bear or a wolf, Corry?" the dominie asked in a whisper.
+
+"More like a wild cat or a lynx," cheerfully responded his friend.
+
+The growl was repeated, and then a human like voice was heard which
+quieted the ferocious animal.
+
+"Whatever it is, it's got a keeper," whispered Coristine, "so we needn't
+be afraid."
+
+Then the sun shone forth brightly and a rainbow spanned the sky.
+
+"The rainbow comes and goes," said the lawyer, which gave the
+schoolmaster occasion to recite:--
+
+     My heart leaps up when I behold
+       A rainbow in the sky.
+     So was it when my life began;
+     So is it now I am a man;
+       So be it when I shall grow old
+       Or let me die!
+     The child is father of the man;
+     And I could wish my days to be
+     Bound each to each by natural piety.
+
+"Brayvo, well done, ancore!" cried a cheery and cheeky voice coming
+round the jog; "oo'd a thought of meetin' a play hactor 'ere in the
+bush! Down, Muggins, down," the latter to a largish and wiry-looking
+terrier, the author of the ominous growls.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Wilkinson with dignity, "I have nothing
+to do with the stage, beyond admiring the ancient ornaments of the
+English drama."
+
+"Hall right, no hoffence meant and none taken, I 'ope. But you did it
+well, sir, devilish well, I tell you. My name is Rawdon, and I'm a
+workin' geologist and minerologist hon the tramp."
+
+The stranger, who had thus introduced himself, was short, about five
+feet five, fairly stout, with a large head covered with curly reddish
+hair, his whiskers and goatee of the same hue, his eyes pale grayish,
+his nose retroussé, and his mouth like a half-moon lying on its back. He
+was dressed in a tweed suit of a very broad check; his head was crowned
+with a pith hat, almost too large even for it; and he wore gaiters. But,
+what endeared him to the pedestrians was his knapsack made of some kind
+of ribbed brown waterproof cloth.
+
+"Either of you gents take any hinterest in science?" he asked affably,
+whereupon the schoolmaster took it upon himself to reply.
+
+"I, as an educationist, dabble a little in geology, mineralogy, and
+palæontology. My friend is a botanist. You are Mr. Rawdon. Allow me, Mr.
+Rawdon, to introduce my friend Mr. Eugene Coristine, of Osgood Hall,
+Barrister, and my humble self, Farquhar Wilkinson, of the Toronto
+Schools."
+
+Mr. Rawdon bowed and shook hands, then threw himself into a stage
+attitude, and said: "His it possible that I am face to face with
+Farquhar Wilkinson, the describer of a hentirely new species of
+Favosites? Sir, this is a perroud day for a workin' geologist. Your
+servant, Dr. Coristine!"
+
+"I'm no doctor, Mr. Rawdon," replied the lawyer, a bit angrily; "I
+passed all my examinations in the regular way."
+
+"Hif it's a fair question, gents, ware are you a goin'"? asked the
+working geologist.
+
+"We intend, if nothing intervenes, to spend the night at the village of
+Peskiwanchow," answered Wilkinson, whose heart warmed to the knapsack
+man that knew his great discovery.
+
+"Beastly 'ole!" remarked Mr. Rawdon; "but, as I'm a long way hoff
+Barrie, I'll go there with you, if Mr. Currystone is hagreeable. I don't
+want to miss the hopportunity of making your better hacquaintance, Dr.
+Wilkinson."
+
+"I am sure that my friend and I will be charmed with your excellent
+society, as a man, a fellow pedestrian and a lover of science," the
+dominie effusively replied.
+
+"Well, Muggins, we're a-goin' back, hold dog, along o' two gents as
+haint above keepin' company wi' you and me," whereat Muggins barked and
+sought to make friends with his new companions. Coristine liked Muggins,
+but he did not love Muggins' master. Sotto voce, he said: "A cheeky
+little cad!"
+
+Mr. Rawdon and Wilkinson forged on ahead. Coristine and Muggins brought
+up the rear.
+
+"What are you working at now, Mr. Rawdon?" asked the schoolmaster.
+
+"I'm workin' hup the Trenton and Utica, the Udson River and Medina
+formations. They hall crop hup between 'ere and Collin'wood. It's the
+limestone I'm hafter, you know," he said, sinking his voice to a
+whisper, "the limestone grits, dolomites, and all that sort of thing.
+Wen I can get a good grinstun quarry, I'll be a made man."
+
+"Grinstun?" queried Wilkinson, helplessly.
+
+"Yes, you know, g, r, i, n, d, s, t, o, n, e, grinstun, for sharpenin'
+tools on; turn 'em with a handle and pour water on top. Now, sir, hevery
+farm 'ouse 'as got to 'ave a grinstun, and there's 'ow many farm 'ouses
+in Canidy? wy, 'undreds of thousands. You see, there's money in it. Let
+me find a grinstun quarry and I'm a made man. And wot's more, I've found
+the grinstun quarry."
+
+"You have? Where?" asked the dominie.
+
+The working geologist drew off, and playfully planted the forefinger of
+his right hand on the side of his upturned nose, saying "Walker!" Then
+he relented, and, reapproaching his companion, said: "Honour bright,
+now, you're no workin' geologist, lookin' out for the blunt? You're a
+collector of Favosites Wilkinsoma, Stenopora fibrosa, Asaphus
+Canadensis, Ambonychia radiata, Heliopora fragilis, and all that rot,
+ain't you now?"
+
+"I certainly seek to make no money out of science, and am a lover of the
+fossil records of ancient life in our planet, but, above all, I assure
+you that I would no more think of betraying your confidence than of
+picking your pocket. If you have any doubts, do not make me your
+confidant."
+
+"Hall right, hold cock, I mean, my dear sir. You're safe has a church.
+There's a 'undred hacre lot hup in the township of Flanders, has full
+of grinstuns as a hegg's full of meat. It belongs to a Miss Do
+Please-us, but who the dooce she is, I dunno. That's just wot I'm
+a-goin' to find hout. If she hain't paid her taxes, bein' hon the
+non-resident roll, I maybe hable to pick hup the land for less than ten
+dollars, and it'll bring me hin tens of thousands. Then I'll skip back
+to hold Hingland and cut it fat."
+
+Coristine was not so taken up with Muggins that he failed to overhear
+the conversation. He did not catch it all, but he learned that a lady, a
+maiden lady, whose name mediated between Jewplesshy and Do Please, owned
+valuable mineral lands, of which the working geologist intended to
+deprive her by unfair means. Miss Do-Please-us was nothing to him, but
+justice was something, and the man Rawdon was an unutterable cad. How
+Wilkinson could take any pleasure in his society he could not
+understand. He had a good mind to chuck the dominie's stick into the
+next creek and let it float to Jericho. He did throw it away along the
+road, but Muggins brought it back. Deserted by his bosom friend for a
+common, low down cad like that; Oh, by Jove! He strode along in silence,
+while Muggins, his only friend, came and rubbed himself against his leg.
+No, he would not give in to fate in the shape of a Rawdon. He had
+important secrets regarding the welfare of two women, that Providence
+seemed to have thrown in his way, in his possession. If Wilks turned
+traitor, he could break the pact, and make one of these women happy.
+Pity he wasn't a Turk to take care of the pair of them. Night had
+fallen, but the moon shone out and the stars, and it was very pleasant
+walking, if only Wilkinson would give the least hint that he was
+conscious of his friend's existence. But the schoolmaster was happy with
+the mining adventurer, who knew his man well enough to mix a few fossils
+with the grinstuns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     Peskiwanchow Tavern--Bad Water--A Scrimmage and Timotheus--The
+     Wigglers--Pure Water and Philosophy--Archæology and Muggins--Mrs.
+     Thomas and Marjorie--Dromore--Rawdon's Insolence and Checks--On the
+     Road and Tramp's Song--Maguffin and the Pole-cart.
+
+
+"Ere's this beastly 'ole of a Peskiwanchow," said Mr. Rawdon as the
+pedestrians came to a rather larger clearing than usual, prominent in
+which was the traditional country tavern.
+
+"Is it clean?" asked Wilkinson.
+
+"Well, there hain't hany pestilence that walketh hin darkness there, not
+to my knowledge; though they say hif you keep your lamp lit hall night,
+they won't come near you; but then, the blessed lamp brings the
+mosquitoes, don't you see?"
+
+Mr. Wilkinson did see, but was glad of the information, as the look of
+the hotel was not reassuring.
+
+"Ullo, Matt!" cried his new friend to the coatless landlord. "I'm back,
+you see, hand 'ave brought you a couple of guests. Look sharp with
+supper, for we're hall 'ungry as 'awks."
+
+The ham which they partook of, with accompanying eggs and lukewarm
+potatoes, was very salt, so that in spite of his three cups of tea
+Wilkinson was thirsty. He went to the bar, situated in the only common
+room, except the dining-room, in the house, and asked for a glass of
+water. A thick, greenish fluid was handed to him, at which, as he held
+it to the light, he looked aghast. Adjusting his eye-glass, he looked
+again, and saw not only vegetable and minute animal organisms, but also
+unmistakable hairs.
+
+"Where do you get this water?" he asked in a very serious tone.
+
+"Out of the well," was the answer.
+
+"Are you aware that it is one mass of animal and vegetable impurities,
+and that you are liable to typhoid and every other kind of disease as
+the natural effect of drinking such filth?"
+
+The landlord stared, and then stammered that he would have the well
+cleaned out in the morning, not knowing what sort of a health officer
+was before him. But the crowd at the bar said it was good enough for
+them, as long as the critters were well killed off with a good drop of
+rye or malt. Wilkinson asked for a glass of beer, which came out sour
+and flat. "See me put a head on that," said the landlord, dropping a
+pinch of soda into the glass and stirring it in with a spoon. The
+schoolmaster tried to drink the mixture, but in vain; it did not quench
+the thirst, but produced a sickening effect. He felt like a man in a
+strange land, like a wanderer in the desert, a shipwrecked mariner. Oh,
+to be on the _Susan Thomas_, with miles of pure water all round! Or even
+at home, where the turning of a tap brought all Lake Ontario to one's
+necessities.
+
+"Is there no other water than this about?" he asked in despair.
+
+"Wy, yees," answered Matt; "thay's the crick a ways down the track, but
+it's that black and masshy I guess you wouldn't like it no better."
+
+"Well, get us some from there, like a good man, to wash with if we
+cannot drink it, and have it taken up to our room," for it had appeared
+that the two pedestrians were to inhabit a double-bedded apartment.
+
+"'Ere, you Timotheus, look spry and go down to the crick and fetch a
+pail of water for No. 6."
+
+A shambling man, almost a hobbledehoy, of about twenty five, ran out to
+obey the command, and, when he returned from No. 6, informed Wilkinson
+civilly that the water was in his room. Something in his homely but
+pleasant face, in his shock head and in his voice, seemed familiar to
+the dominie, yet he could not place his man; when Coristine came along
+and said, "You've got a brother on the _Susan Thomas_, haven't you, and
+his name is Sylvanus?" The young man shuffled with his feet, opened a
+mouth the very counterpart of "The Crew's," and answered: "Yes, mister,
+he's my oldest brother, is Sylvanus; do you happen to know Sylvanus?"
+
+"Know him?" said the unblushing lawyer, "like a brother; sailed all over
+Lake Simcoe with him."
+
+The lad was proud, and went to his menial tasks with a new sense of the
+dignity of his family. He was called for on all sides, and appeared to
+be the only member of the household in perpetual request; but, though
+many liberties were taken with him personally, none were taken with his
+name, which was always given in full, "Ti-mo-thé-us!" Wilkinson was too
+tired, thirsty and generally disgusted to do anything but sit, as he
+never would have sat elsewhere, on a chair tilted against the wall.
+Coristine would fain have had a talk with "The Crew's" brother, but that
+worthy was ever flitting about from bar-room to kitchen, and from well
+to stable; always busy and always cheerful.
+
+The Grinstun man came swaggering up after treating all hands at the bar
+to whisky, in which treat the pedestrians were included by invitation,
+declined with thanks, and suggested a game of cards--any game they
+liked--stakes to be drinks; or, if the gents preferred it, cigars.
+Coristine somewhat haughtily refused, and Wilkinson, true to his
+principles, but in a more conciliatory tone, said that he did not play
+them. He was obliged, therefore, to get the landlord, Matt, and a couple
+of bar-room loafers to take hands with him.
+
+"Wilks, my dear boy, get out your draft-board and I'll play you a game,"
+said Coristine.
+
+The board was produced, the flat, cardboard chessmen turned upside down,
+and the corner of a table, on which a few well-thumbed newspapers lay,
+utilized for the game. The players were so interested in making moves
+and getting kings that, at first, they did not notice the talk of the
+card players which was directed against them; for Matt, being called
+away to his bar, was replaced by a third loafer. Gradually there came to
+their ears the words, "conceited, offish, up-settin', pedlars, tramps,
+pious scum," with condemnatory and other adjectives prefixed, and then
+they knew that their characters and occupations were undergoing
+unfavourable review. Mr. Rawdon was too "hail fellow well met" with the
+loafers to offer any protest. He joined in the laugh that greeted each
+new sally of vulgar abuse, and occasionally helped his neighbours on by
+such remarks as, "We musn't be too 'ard on 'em, they hain't used to such
+company as hus," which was followed by a loud guffaw. Wilkinson was
+playing badly, for he felt uncomfortable. Coristine chewed his
+moustache and became red in the face. The landlord looked calmly on. At
+last the card players, having had their third drink since the game
+began, came over to the little table. One of the roughest and
+worst-tongued of the three picked up a pile of dirty newspapers, looked
+at one of them for a moment, pshawed as if there was nothing in them,
+and threw the pile down with a twist of his hand fair on to the
+draft-board, sweeping it half off the table and all the cardboard men to
+the floor. In a moment Coristine was up, and laid hold of the fellow by
+the shoulder. Pale but resolute, the schoolmaster, who had done physical
+duty by unruly boys, stood beside him. The working geologist and the
+landlord, Matt, looked on to see the fun of a fight between two city men
+and three country bullies.
+
+"Get down there," said Coristine to his man, trembling with indignation,
+"get down there, and pick up all these chessmen, or I'll wring your neck
+for you." The fellow made a blow at him with his free hand, a blow that
+Coristine parried, and then the Irishman, letting go of his antagonist's
+arm, gave him a sounding whack with all the might of his right fist,
+that sent him sprawling to the ground.
+
+"Pile in on 'im, boys!" cried the prostrate ruffian, who had lost a
+tooth and bled freely at the nose. The other two prepared to pile, when
+the schoolmaster faced one of them, and kept him off. It is hard to say
+how matters would have gone, had not a tornado entered the bar room in
+the shape of Timotheus. How he did it, no one could tell, but, in less
+than two minutes, the two standing bullies and the prostrate one were
+all outside the tavern door, which was locked behind them. Peace once
+more reigned in the hotel, and it was in order for Matt and the Grinstun
+man to congratulate Coristine on his knock down blow. He showed no
+desire for their commendation, but, with his friend, whom Timotheus
+helped to pick up the chessmen, retired to his room. The Crew's brother
+had disappeared before he had had a chance to thank him.
+
+Before retiring for the night, the lawyer was determined to be upsides
+with Mr. Rawdon. He asked his roomfellow if he had any writing
+materials, and was at once provided with paper, envelopes, and a
+fountain pen.
+
+"I hope I'm not depriving you of these, Wilks, my dear," he said, when
+the party thus addressed almost threw himself upon his neck, saying,
+"Corry, my splendid, brave fellow, everything I have is at your absolute
+disposal, 'supreme of heroes--bravest, noblest, best!'" for he could not
+forget his Wordsworth. Coristine wrote to the clerk of the municipality
+of Flanders, to know where Miss Jewplesshy or Do Please-us had a lot,
+and whether the taxes on it had been paid. He directed him to answer to
+his office in Toronto, and also wrote to his junior, instructing him how
+to act upon this reply. These letters being written and prepared for the
+post, he and the dominie read together out of the little prayer book,
+left the window open and the lamp burning, and went to bed. Before they
+fell asleep, they heard the barking of a dog. "It's that poor brute,
+Muggins," said Coristine; "I'll go, and let him in, if that brute of a
+master of his won't." So, in spite of Wilkinson's remonstrances, he
+arose and descended the stairs to the bar-room. Nobody was there but
+Timotheus sleeping in a back tilted chair. He slipped quietly along in
+his bare feet, but Timotheus, though sleeping, was on guard. The Crew's
+brother awoke, soon as he tried the door, and in a moment, was on his
+back. "It's I, my good Timotheus," said the lawyer, and at once the grip
+relaxed. "I want to let that poor dog, Muggins, in." Then Timotheus
+unlocked the door, and Coristine whistled, and called "Hi Muggins,
+Muggins, Muggy, Mug, Mug, Mug, Mug!" when the mongrel came bounding in,
+with every expression of delight. Coristine warmly thanked The Crew's
+brother, pressed a dollar on his acceptance, and then retired to No. 6.
+Muggins followed him, and lay down upon the rag carpet outside that
+apartment, to keep watch and ward for the rest of the night, entirely
+ignoring his owner, the Grinstun man.
+
+There was a pail of swamp water in the middle of the room, at the bottom
+of which lay some little black things. As this water became warm, these
+little fellows began to rise and become frolicksome. Like minute
+porpoises or dolphins, they joined in the mazy dance, and rose higher
+and higher. All night long, by the light of the kerosene lamp, they
+indulged in silent but unceasing hilarity. The snores of the sleepers,
+the watchful dream-yaps of Muggins, did not affect them. They were bound
+to have a good time, and they were having it. Morning came, and the sun
+stole in through the window. Then, the wiggler grew tired, and came,
+like many tired beings, to the top. For a time he was quiescent, but
+soon the sun's rays gave force to the inner impulse which "rent the veil
+of his old husk," and transformed it into a canoe or raft, containing a
+draggle-tailed-looking creature with a big head and six staggery legs.
+Poising itself upon the raft, the outcome of the wiggler sunned its
+crumplety wings, till "like gauze they grew," and then all of it, a
+whole pailful of it, made for the sleepers, to help its more mature
+relations, which had come in through the open window to the light, to
+practice amateur phlebotomy upon them. The pedestrians awoke to feel
+uncomfortable, and rub and scratch their faces, heads, necks, and hands.
+"It's clean devoured I am, Wilks," cried Coristine. "The plagues of
+Egypt have visited us," replied the dominie. So, they arose and dressed
+themselves, and descended to the noisome bar-room. There they found
+Timotheus, awake and busy, while, at their heels, frisking about and
+looking for recognition, was their night guard Muggins. Timotheus
+informed them that he had already been out probing the well with a pike
+pole, and had brought up the long defunct bodies of a cat and a hen,
+with an old shoe and part of a cabbage, to say nothing of other things
+as savoury. They decided to take no more meals cooked with such water in
+that house, paid their bill to Timotheus, buckled on their knapsacks,
+and, with staff in hand, sallied forth into the pure outside air of the
+morning. Coristine ran over to the store in which the post office was
+kept, and posted his two letters. There was no sign of Matt, the
+landlord, of Mr. Rawdon, or of their assailants of the night before.
+Muggins, however, followed them, and no entreaties, threats, or stones
+availed to drive the faithful creature back to his master and the hotel
+where he slept.
+
+The pedestrians passed the black, sluggish creek, out of which the
+wigglers had come, and struck into a country, flat but more interesting
+than that they had left behind them. After they had gone a couple of
+miles they came to a clear running stream, in which they had a splendid
+wash, that tended to allay the irritation of the mosquito bites. Then
+they brought forth the remains of their biscuits and cheese, and partook
+of a clean meal, which Coristine called a good foundation for a smoke,
+Muggins sitting upon his hind legs and catching fragments of captain's
+biscuits and whole gingersnaps in his mouth, as if he had never done
+anything else. It was very pleasant to sit by the brook on that bright
+July morning, after the horrors of the Peskiwanchow tavern, to have
+clean food and abundance of pure water. As the dominie revelled in it,
+he expressed the opinion that Pindar was right when he said "ariston men
+hudor," which, said the lawyer, means that water is the best of all the
+elements, but how would Mr. Pindar have got along without earth to walk
+on, air to breathe, and fire to cook his dinner?
+
+"I'm no philosopher, Wilks, like you, but it seems to me that perfection
+is found in no one thing. If it was, the interdependence of the universe
+would be destroyed; harmony would be gone, and love, which is just the
+highest harmony, be lost. That's just why I couldn't be a unitarian of
+any kind. As Tennyson says, 'one good custom would corrupt the world.'"
+
+"Pardon me, Corry, he does not say that, but makes Arthur say:--
+
+             God fulfils himself in many ways,
+     Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
+
+"Better and better! but that's what the churches don't see, nor the
+politicians, nor the socialists, nor the prohibitionists, nor the
+scientists, nor anybody else hardly, it seems to me. When a man's got
+two eyes to see with, why should he shut one and keep out half the view?
+This 'ariston men hudor' idea--I'm not arguing against temperance, for
+it's temperate enough we are both--but this one thing is best notion
+would bring the beautiful harmonious world into dull, dead uniformity.
+There's a friend of mine that studies his Bible without any reference to
+the old systems of theology, and finds these old systems have made some
+big mistakes in interpreting its sayings, when a newspaper blockhead
+comes along and says if he won't conform let him go out of the church.
+There's a one-eyed man for you, an ecclesiastical Polyphemus! Our
+politicians are just the same, without a broad, liberal idea to clothe
+their naked, thieving policies with. And the scientists! some of them
+stargazing, like Thales, so that they fall into the ditch of disrepute
+by failing to observe what's nearer home, and others, like Bunyan's man
+in Interpreter's house, so busy with the muckrake that they are ignorant
+of the crown held over their heads. Now, you and I are liberal and
+broad, we can love nature and love God too, we can admire poetry and put
+our hands to any kind of honest work; you can teach boys with your
+wonderful patience, and, with your pluck, knock a door in, and stand up,
+like a man, to fight for your friend. But, Wilks, my boy, I'm afraid
+it's narrow we are, too, about the women."
+
+"Come, come, Corry, that subject, you know--"
+
+"All right, not another word," interposed the lawyer, laughing and
+springing to his feet; "let us jog along
+
+     A village schoolmaster was he,
+       With hair of glittering grey;
+     As blithe a man as you could see
+       On a spring holiday.
+
+     And on that morning, through the grass,
+       And by the streaming rills,
+     We travelled merrily, to pass
+       A day among the hills."
+
+"When did you take to Wordsworth, Corry?"
+
+"Oh, many a time, but I refreshed my memory with that yesterday, when I
+came across the tear in the old man's eye."
+
+"It is most appropriate, for there, on the right, are actual hills."
+
+As the travellers approached the rising ground, which the dominie had
+perceived, the lawyer remarked that the hillocks had an artificial look.
+
+"And they are undoubtedly artificial," replied Wilkinson.
+
+"This is the township of Nottawasaga, once inhabited by the Tobacco
+tribe of the Hurons, who had many villages, and grew tobacco and corn,
+besides making beads, pipes, and other articles, for sale or barter.
+They made their pipes out of the Trenton sandstone. A great many village
+sites and ossuaries have been found in the township, the latter
+containing thousands of skeletons. They have all been opened up by the
+settlers for the sake of the copper kettles and other objects buried in
+them. These long, narrow hillocks are earthworks, the foundation of a
+rude fortification or palisade round a village. The Archæological
+Reports of the Canadian Institute contain very full and interesting
+accounts of the explorations made in this very region. We are on
+historic ground, Corry."
+
+"Poor old Lo!" ejaculated the lawyer, "whatever is that dog after? Hi,
+Muggins, Muggins!"
+
+But Muggins would not leave the earthwork into which he was digging with
+rapidly moving forepaws. As Coristine remarked, it was a regular
+Forepaugh's circus. When the pedestrians came up to him, he had a large
+hole made in apparently fresh dug earth, and had uncovered a tin box,
+japanned above. This the pair disinterred with their walking-sticks,
+amid great demonstrations from the terrier. The lawyer opened it
+judicially, and found it to contain a lot of fragments of hard
+limestone, individually labelled. Looking over these, his eye rested on
+one marked P.B. Miss Du Plessis, lot 3, concession 2, township of
+Flanders. Others were labelled T. Mulcahy, S. Storch, R. McIver, O.
+Fish, with their lots, concessions and townships, and the initials F.M.
+and P.
+
+"What is the import of this?" asked the schoolmaster.
+
+"Import or export, it's the Grinstun man, the owner of this sagacious
+dog, that buried this box till he had time to bring a waggon for it.
+These are samples of grindstone rock, and, if I am not a Dutchman, F
+means fair, M, middling, P, poor, and P.B., prime boss, and that is Miss
+Du Plessis. Gad! we've got her now, Jewplesshy, Do Please, Do Please-us,
+are just Du Plessis. It's a pleasant sort of name, Wilks, my boy?"
+
+"What are you going to do with this treasure trove, might I ask?"
+inquired the dominie.
+
+"Bury it," replied the lawyer.
+
+"I trust you will make no unfair use of the information it contains,
+part of which was confided to me privately, and under seal of secrecy,
+by Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"Now, Wilks, howld your tongue about that. I ask you no questions, you
+tell me no lies nor anything else. If you think I'm going to see a girl
+cheated, just because she is a girl, you don't know your friend. But
+you do, you honest old Wilks, don't you now?"
+
+"Very well, only remember I breathed no hint of this in your ear."
+
+"All right, old man," answered Miss Du Plessis' self-constituted
+advocate, as he shovelled the earth in over the tin box. "Muggins, you
+rascal, if you dig that up again, I'll starve you to death."
+
+The pedestrians deserted the archæological find, and trudged away into
+the north west.
+
+"Wilks, my dear, I feel like the black crow," said Coristine, as they
+journeyed along the pleasant highway.
+
+"Like what?" asked the dominie, adjusting his eye-glass.
+
+"Like the crow, don't you know?
+
+     Said one black crow unto his mate,
+     What shall we do for grub to ate?
+
+Faith, it'll be an awful thing if we're going to die of starvation in
+the wilderness."
+
+"I thought you were a botanist, Corry?"
+
+"So I am, in a small way."
+
+"Then, what bushes are those in that beaver meadow?"
+
+In another minute, the lawyer, closely followed by Muggins, was in the
+meadow, exclaiming "Vaccinium Canadense! Come on, Wilks, and have a
+feast." Muggins was eating the berries with great satisfaction, and
+Coristine kept him company. The dominie also partook of them, remarking:
+"This is the whortleberry, or berry of the hart, vulgarly called the
+huckleberry, although huckle means a hump, which is most inappropriate."
+
+"That reminds me of a man with a hump, though there wasn't much heart to
+him," said Coristine, his mouth full of fruit. "He undertook to write on
+Canada after spending a month here. He said the Canadians have no fruit
+but a very inferior raspberry, and that they actually sell bilberries in
+the shops. As a further proof of their destitution, he was told that
+haws and acorns are exposed for sale in the Montreal markets. Such a
+country, he said, is no place for a refined Englishman. I don't wonder
+my countrymen rise up against the English."
+
+"You forget, Corry, that I am English, and proud of my descent from the
+Saxon Count Witikind."
+
+"Beg your pardon, Wilks, but you're a good Englishman, and I never
+dreamt your progenitor was that awful heathen:--
+
+     Save us, St. Mary, from flood and from fire,
+     From famine and pest, and Count Witikind's ire.
+
+As the Englishmen said, there is no need to hask 'ow the hell got into
+your name."
+
+"Corry, this is most unseemly. I wonder you are not ashamed to speak
+thus, with that innocent dog beside you."
+
+"O, dad, he's heard worse things than that; haven't you now, Muggins?
+Trust him to live with a cad of a Grinstun man, and not to pick up bad
+language."
+
+"Ullo, there, you dog-stealers!" fell upon the ears of the berry-pickers
+like a thunder clap. They looked up, and saw a neat waggonette, drawn by
+a team of well-kept bay horses, in which, on a back seat, sat Mr. Rawdon
+and a little girl with long fair hair. On the front seat were two
+well-dressed women, one of whom was driving; the other wore a widow's
+cap, and had a gentle, attractive face. The waggon stopped for them to
+come on to the road, which, leaving their berries, they did, taking off
+their hats to the ladies as they approached.
+
+"We did all we could, Mr. Rawdon, to make your dog go back to the hotel,
+but he insisted on following us," said Wilkinson, apologetically.
+
+"All very fine, my beauty, you 'ooked 'im and got 'im to shew you ware
+this 'ere box was. I'm hup to your larks, and you such a hinnocent too!"
+
+Wilkinson was indignant, and denied having anything to do with the box.
+
+"Be careful what you say, Mr. Rawdon," said Coristine, "I'm a lawyer,
+and may make a case, if you are not judicious in your language."
+
+"Oh come hoff, I don't mean no 'arm; it's just my fun. 'Ave you any
+hobjection to give these 'ere gents a lift, Mrs. Thomas?"
+
+"None, whatever," replied the lady who was driving.
+
+"Then, if you don't mind, I'll get hin halongside hof your sister hin
+front, hand leave them to keep company with little Marjorie 'ere," said
+the working geologist; and climbed over into the front seat outside of
+the attractive widow. Still, the pedestrians hesitated, till Mrs.
+Thomas, a by no means uncomely woman, said: "Get in, gentlemen, we shall
+be pleased to have your company." This decided them. They sprang into
+the waggon, one on each side of the little girl called Marjorie. The
+horses trotted along, and Muggins hovered about them, with an occasional
+ecstatic bark.
+
+"I like you and your little dog," said Marjorie to Coristine, who
+replied: "God bless you for a little darling." After this interchange of
+confidence, they became great friends. Wilkinson found himself somewhat
+left out, but the Grinstun man threw him an odd bone, now and then, in
+the shape of a geological remark, keeping clear, however, of
+grindstones.
+
+"What's your name, Marjorie?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"My name is Marjorie," she replied.
+
+"Yes, but what's your other name?"
+
+"Marjorie Carmichael."
+
+"Is that your father's name?"
+
+"No, my papa's name is Captain Thomas."
+
+"And has he got a ship on Lake Simcoe?"
+
+"Yes, how did you know? He's got a ship, and a lumber yard, and a saw
+mill, and a farm, and a lot of things. Saul is on the farm, and Mr.
+Pratt works the mill, and Gudgeon looks after the yard, and Sylvanus is
+on the boat."
+
+"Who is Saul?"
+
+"He's the father of Sylvanus and Timotheus. Only Timotheus doesn't work
+for us. He wouldn't say his catechism on Sundays, so Saul said he had to
+go. I don't wonder he wouldn't say his catechism, do you? It speaks
+about God's getting awful angry and cursing. God doesn't get angry with
+little boys and girls and curse them, does he, Mr. What's your name?"
+
+"My name is Coristine, but the name my little sister would have called
+me, if I had had a little sister like you, would be Eugene. No, I never
+read that God cursed any little girls and boys, nor anybody, not even
+the devil."
+
+"And he's very very bad, isn't he? My cousin Marjorie Carruthers, that
+I'm called after, says Timotheus should have learned his catechism; but
+she doesn't think God curses children. Then I said he oughtn't to learn
+what isn't true."
+
+"O my darlint, but it's right you are. I wish I had you up on the dais
+at the Synod, to teach the bishops and all the clergy. Is she a nice
+little girl, your cousin Marjorie?"
+
+"She's nice, but she isn't little, not a single bit. She lives away away
+in Toronto, and teaches school. Now, put your head down and I'll whisper
+something in your ear."
+
+Coristine put his head down beside the long, fair curls, and Marjorie
+whispered, pointing a finger at the same time towards the widow: "That's
+my Aunt Marjorie, and she's Marjorie's mother."
+
+"Where is cousin Marjorie now!"
+
+"She's up at Uncle Carruthers', along with Miss Du Plessis. Do you know
+Miss Du Plessis? Oh, she's lovely, and, do you know?--put down your head
+again--that ugly little man sitting by Auntie says he's going to marry
+her. Isn't it too bad?"
+
+"Infernal little beast! O, my dear Marjorie, I beg your pardon. I was
+thinking of that rascal of a mosquito on your hand--there, he's dead!
+Yes, it would be too bad, but she'll never marry such a man as that."
+
+"Perhaps she'll have to, because she's very poor, and he says he's going
+to make heaps and heaps of money. People shouldn't marry for money,
+should they?"
+
+"No, dear, they should marry for love, if they marry at all. Will you
+marry me when you grow to be a young lady?"
+
+"No, you'll be too old then. Put your head down. You go and take away
+Miss Du Plessis from that naughty, bad little man, and I'll love you, O,
+ever so much.'
+
+"But perhaps she won't have me."
+
+"Oh, yes she will, because you would look very nice if you would take
+that black stuff that scratched me off your face."
+
+"I will, I'll get a clean shave at Collingwood this very night."
+
+"Then I'll get Auntie to write to Marjorie and tell her that my own
+Prince Charming, with a clean shave, is coming to take Cecile away from
+the ugly little rich man that says: 'An' 'ow is my young friend?' Won't
+that be nice?"
+
+"Oh, please don't tell your aunt to write that."
+
+"But I will, so there!"
+
+The waggonette was now in the midst of a rather pretty village situated
+on a branch of the Nottawasaga River, and came to a stand still opposite
+the post office.
+
+"If you gentlemen have business in the village, you can get out here,"
+said Mrs. Thomas, "but, if not, we shall be pleased to have you dine
+with us."
+
+The pedestrians thought of their last tavern experience, and felt
+disposed to accept the hospitable invitation, but Marjorie clinched
+their resolution by saying: "Eugene is coming to dinner with me, and his
+friend may come too," at which everybody laughed. The waggon moved on
+for another half mile, and then stopped in front of a pretty and
+commodious frame house, painted white, with red-brown doors and window
+frames and green shutters. Porch and verandah were covered with Virginia
+creeper, climbing roses and trumpet honeysuckle. Mr. Rawdon looked after
+himself, but Wilkinson and Coristine helped the ladies and the little
+girl to dismount, while an old man with a shock head, evidently Saul,
+took the horses round. Muggins greeted the whole party with a series of
+wiggles and barks, whereupon the Grinstun man gave him a savage kick
+that sent the dog away yelping.
+
+"I said you were a naughty, bad, cruel man to my own self and to people
+I like," said Marjorie with indignation, "but now I say it right out to
+you, and for everybody to hear that wants to--a nasty, ugly, cruel
+little man!"
+
+The working geologist was very angry and got very red in the face. Had
+he dared, he would probably have kicked the girl too. Policy compelled
+him to keep his temper outwardly, so he turned it off with a laugh, and
+said: "You don't know that little beast has I do, Marjorie, or you
+wouldn't go hand take 'is part. Of all the hungrateful, treacherous,
+sneakin', bad-'earted curs that ever gnawed a bone, 'e's the
+top-sawyer."
+
+"I don't believe it," answered Marjorie stoutly, and with all the
+license allowed to a late and only child.
+
+When the ladies took off their bonnets and rejoined their guests in the
+parlour, the pedestrians were much struck with their appearance and
+demeanour, especially in the case of Mrs. Carmichael, than whom no lady
+could have been more gentle mannered and gracious. She had evidently had
+enough of Mr. Rawdon, for she turned in the most natural way to
+Wilkinson and engaged him in conversation on a variety of topics. The
+schoolmaster found her a charming talker and an interested listener.
+Marjorie and Coristine sat on a sofa with Muggins between them, while
+the working geologist banged about some photographs on a centre table.
+At dinner, to which Mrs. Thomas soon summoned them, Coristine had the
+post of honour with Marjorie to his right. Mrs. Carmichael sat at the
+foot of the table with Wilkinson by her side, and Rawdon was at Mrs.
+Thomas' left. While doing justice to an excellent repast, the lawyer
+informed his hostess that he was not an entire stranger to her family,
+and gave an account of his passage in the _Susan Thomas_ from Belle
+Ewart to Barrie. He also referred to Sylvanus and Timotheus, and dwelt
+upon the excellent service rendered by the latter. The Grinstun man
+disliked the turn things were taking, as he felt himself out in the
+cold, for the widow absorbed the dominie, and Marjorie would not look at
+him.
+
+When dessert came on the table, he turned to the schoolmaster and rudely
+interrupted his conversation, saying: "Look 'ere, Mr. Favosites
+Wilkinsonia, I don't see as you've hany call to keep hall the widder's
+talk to yourself. I move we change places," and he rose to effect the
+change.
+
+"Really," said Wilkinson, with offended dignity, "I am not accustomed to
+anything of that description at a dinner party where there are ladies;
+but, if it's Mrs. Carmichael's desire that we should interchange seats,
+I am ready to comply."
+
+Mrs. Carmichael evidently did not relish being called "the widder," nor
+the society of Mr. Rawdon, for she answered, "Certainly not, Mr.
+Wilkinson," and resumed her conversation with him. The baffled geologist
+turned to the hostess, while Marjorie engaged Coristine's attention, and
+in a petulant way stated his case. "You know the kind of man I ham, Mrs.
+Thomas, I'm a man of haction. I strike wen the hiron's 'ot. By good
+luck, I went back to Peskiwanchow last night, though it is a beastly
+'ole, and got letters hat the post hoffice this mornin'. My hagent, at
+Toronto says, Mrs. Do Please-us is pretty badly hout for want of chink,
+hand that the girl's ready to jump hat hany reasonable hoffer. Now, hall
+I say his, give a man a chance. If she's the stunner they say she his,
+I'll marry her hinside of a week and make a lady of 'er, and hallow the
+hold 'ooman a pound a week, yes, I'll go has 'igh has thirty shillin',
+that's seven dollars and a 'arf. You get me a hinvite or give me a
+hintroduction to your brother's 'ouse in Flanders, and get the widder to
+back it hup with a good word to 'er daughter that's Miss Do Please-us's
+bosom friend, and I'll give the capting the contrack to carry hall the
+grinstuns shipped to Lake Simcoe ports." Then, sinking his voice to a
+whisper, he continued, "I'll do one better; I'll show you ware there's
+has fine a quarry of buildin' stun hon your farm 'ere has can be got
+hanyware in Canidy. Then, wot's to 'inder your 'avin the best 'ouse
+twixt 'ere and Collinwood?" This last stroke of policy carried his
+point, and secured him the promise of an introduction, but Mrs. Thomas
+could not promise for her sister. All the time, Coristine, who could not
+help overhearing, twisted his moustache fiercely, and, under his breath,
+called the geologist a contemptible and unspeakable little cad.
+
+Shortly afterwards, much to Marjorie's grief, the pedestrians put on
+their knapsacks and grasped their sticks for the road. They warmly
+thanked their hostess and her accomplished sister for their kind
+hospitality, and for the exceedingly pleasant hours they had spent in
+their company. They were cordially invited to call any time when they
+were near the village, and especially when the captain was at home, as
+he would never forgive himself for missing this treat. Marjorie kissed
+her Eugene, telling him to be a good boy, and remember what he had
+promised her about "you know who." "Ullo young 'ooman," said the
+Grinstun man, "you had ort to save one of them for yours
+haffectionately," at which the small lady was so indignant that she
+threatened to box his ugly big ears. "O Marjorie, how rude! whatever
+will these gentlemen from Toronto think!" Coristine could not bear to
+leave his little friend in disgrace, without a word of comfort, so he
+said: "Pardon me, Mrs. Thomas, for saying that the rudeness did not
+originate with Marjorie," for which the child gave him a grateful
+glance. "You had better keep your dog in, Mr. Rawdon," called out
+Wilkinson, "or he will be after us again." The little man ran down the
+garden walk to get a farewell kick at his property, but Muggins,
+foreseeing danger, ran out of the gate, which old Saul held open for
+him. "You can keep the beastly cur, I don't want 'im, hungrateful,
+treacherous, long legged, 'airy brute," the last two adjectives being
+put in for Coristine's benefit, as allusions to his height and his
+moustache.
+
+"Come back, Mr. Wilkinson," called Mrs. Carmichael. The dominie
+returned, and had a large fragrant rose pinned by fair hands to his
+button hole, blushing violently all the time. "You come back too,
+Eugene, but don't let Muggy in or he'll be kicked," cried Marjorie, who,
+on her favourite's return, gave him another parting salute and pinned
+two roses on his coat. Muggins waited for them till they closed the gate
+finally behind them, lifted their hats three times, and began their
+afternoon's journey.
+
+"That Mrs. Carmichael," remarked Wilkinson, "is one of the most
+intelligent and lady-like women I ever met, and she is wonderfully well
+read in the poets, Corry."
+
+"I thought that subject was tabooed between us, Wilks?"
+
+"Oh no, my dear fellow, I have no objection to the sex in a Platonic
+way."
+
+"Dad, but it wasn't very platonic you looked when the pretty widow was
+fastening that button hole for you. Was she talking about her daughter
+at the schools?"
+
+"Not a word; she did not even hint that she had a daughter. She must
+have been very young when the doctor married her."
+
+"Well, that's one thing we have to thank that howling cad of a Grinstun
+man for. I'm real sorry I missed having a chat with Saul about the
+catechism."
+
+"What is that!" So the lawyer related his conversation with Marjorie,
+and Wilkinson said, "Really, Corrie, as an educationist, I must say you
+do wrong to encourage such pertness in so young a child."
+
+"Pertness is it? It's nature's own cleverness in the sweet little lass.
+Wilks, I'd give a good deal to have that little sunbeam or one like her
+with me all the time."
+
+"Adopt one," suggested the schoolmaster.
+
+"Adopt one," replied the lawyer with a bitter laugh, "adopt one for
+Mrs. Marsh to look after? No, when I've a house of my own and a good
+housekeeper, and more time to spend on a child, I'll think over the
+hint."
+
+The pair tramped steadily on, though the sun was hot, for there was a
+pleasant breeze, and the scenery became bolder and more picturesque.
+They came to rising ground, at the foot of which lay a fertile valley,
+and beyond it the Blue Mountains. Gazing across at them, the dominie
+exclaimed:--
+
+                       Yon azure ridge,
+     Is it a perishable cloud--or there
+     Do we behold the frame of Erin's coast?
+
+"No, Wilks, no! Erin's away on the confines of Wellington and Peel, and
+we are on those of Simcoe and Grey."
+
+"Slight man, did you not perceive that I quoted poetry, and that the
+allusion is to your native isle?"
+
+"Faith. I wish the real Erin was over there; it's the old lady would be
+in my arms as fast as I could run across. But this place deserves a
+song, so here goes:--
+
+     Though down in yonder valley
+     The mist is like a sea,
+     Though the sun be scarcely risen,
+     There's light enough for me.
+     For, be it early morning,
+     Or be it late at night,
+     Cheerily ring our footsteps,
+         Right, left, right.
+
+     We wander by the woodland
+     That hangs upon the hill;
+     Hark! the cock is tuning
+     His morning clarion shrill;
+     And hurriedly awaking
+     From his nest amid the spray,
+     Cheerily now, the blackbird,
+     Whistling, greets the day.
+         For be it early morning, etc.
+
+     We gaze upon the streamlet,
+     As o'er the bridge we lean;
+     We watch its hurried ripples
+     We mark its golden green.
+     Oh, the men of the north are stalwart,
+     And the norland lasses fair;
+     And cheerily breathes around us
+     The bracing norland air.
+         We smoke our black old meerschaums,
+         We smoke from morn till night,
+         While cheerily ring our footsteps,
+             Right, left, right."
+
+"Well done, Corry! I thought at first it was your own composition, but
+I see it is an English song."
+
+"Yes, it came out long ago as 'The Tramp's Song' in _Sharpe's Magazine_,
+where I found it, and changed moor and moorland to north and norland, as
+better suited to our purpose. It's a good song."
+
+"What kind of vehicle is that just in front of us?"
+
+"It's a pole on four wheels drawn by a team of oxen, and I'm going to
+make a triumphant entry into Collingwood on it. The driver is a negro,
+as black as my boots--were." Coristine soon overtook the remarkable
+vehicle, and accosted the driver, telling him that he had ridden on
+horses, donkeys, mules, and once each on a cow, a camel and an elephant;
+in all sorts of carriages, carts and waggons, even to a gun carriage,
+but never on a pole behind an ox team. Had he any objections to letting
+him and his friend get aboard? The coloured gentleman showed a fine set
+of ivory, and said he had no dejections in the leas', and guessed the
+oxen didn't hab none. "The po-ul," he remarked, "is thar, not foh ridin'
+on, but ter keep the axles apaht, so's ter load on bodes and squab
+timbah. If yoh's that way inclined, the po-ul aint a gwine ter break
+frew, not with yoh dismenshuns. Guess the oxen doan hab ter stop fer yoh
+bof ter git aboahd?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Coristine, as he jumped on the pole behind the driver.
+"Come on, Wilks, it's a cross between the tight rope and the tiller of
+the _Susan Thomas_." But the dominie refused to be charmed or inveigled
+into a position of peril or ridicule.
+
+"Yoh best take this yeah feed-bag ter save yoh pants and fezz'etate the
+keepin' of yoh ekilibroom," said the courteous darkey, as he handed the
+lawyer one of the bags that formed his own cushion.
+
+"Wilks, with a feed-bag under you, riding on a rail is just heavenly."
+
+"If it was a rai-ul, you'd know it mighty soon, boss, fer rai-uls is
+angulish and shahp and hahd on the pants, but a po-ul is rounded and
+smoove. How are yoh comin' along?"
+
+"In great shape, Mr. ----"
+
+"Maguffin, sah, is my applenashun. Tobias Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin.
+The low down folks around, they teenames me Tobe and Toby, that's the
+shanty men and mill hans. But when I goes whar they's a meetin' of the
+bruddren, it's Mistah Maguffin, ebery time."
+
+The pole cart, as Coristine called it, was going down hill, now, and the
+oxen began to run.
+
+"Hole on tight, Mistah, them cattle's too lazy to stop runnin' befoh
+they gits to the determination ob this dercliverty," called the driver;
+and the lawyer held on in spite of frantic cries from his companion.
+"Come off, Coristine, come off, and do not make an object of yourself
+before the whole town." Coristine held on till the bottom of the hill
+was reached. Then he shook hands with his coloured brother, returned him
+the feed bag, and waited for Wilkinson. In friendly converse they
+entered the town of Collingwood, and put up at a clean and comfortable,
+almost fashionable, hotel. There, for the night, they may be left in
+safety, with this remark, that Coristine fulfilled his promise to the
+little girl, and got a clean shave before retiring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Collingwood--Colonel Morton--Maguffin Engaged--Stepping
+     Westward--Wild Thyme and a Bath--The Shale-works--Muggins and the
+     Clergymen--Durham Mustard, and Marjorie--The Squire--The Grinstun
+     Man--Lunch, Wordsworth and Original Poetry--Two Old People on the
+     Blue Mountains.
+
+
+At supper they had, for their vis-a-vis, a tall, aristocratic-looking
+man, attired airily in a mixture of jean and silk. His nose was
+aquiline, his eyes grey and piercing withal, his hair grey, but
+abundant, and his clean shaved mouth and chin mingled delicacy with
+strength of character.
+
+"The weathah has been wahm, gentlemen," he remarked; to which statement
+they assented.
+
+"I obsehved you entah the ho-tel, and pehceived that you are travelling
+for pleasuhe by yo-ah knapsacks. I also am travelling, partly foh
+pleasuhe, partly foh mattahs of family business. My ideahs, gentlemen,
+are old fashioned, too much so foh railyoads. The Mississippi is ouah
+natuhal highway from the South, but, unfohtunately, the to me unpleasant
+railyoad had to connect its head watahs with Lake Michigan, by which
+route I find myself heah, on my way to a city called To-hon-to. You know
+it, I pehsume?"
+
+Wilkinson's geographical lore was now unfolded. He discussed the
+Mississippi, although he had not been on that river, exhibited an
+intimate acquaintance with cities and routes which had never seen him in
+the flesh, and, by his quiet, gentlemanly, and, to the much older man,
+deferential tone, was admitted to the confidence of Colonel Morton, of
+Louisiana, South American trader, ship-owner and the possessor of a fine
+estate, which, although it had suffered greatly during the war, in which
+the colonel commanded a cavalry regiment, was yet productive and
+remunerative.
+
+"I am a widowah, suh, and a childless old man," continued the colonel;
+"my only boy fell in the wah ah, and it broke his mother's heaht. Pahdon
+me," he said, as his voice shook a little, and the least glimmer of a
+tear stood in his eye, "I rahely talk of these mattahs of a puhely
+pehsonal kind, but, as you are kind enough to be intehested in my
+affaiahs, I say this much by way of explanation."
+
+"I am sure, Colonel Morton, we deeply sympathize with you in so great a
+double bereavement," interposed the dominie.
+
+"Indeed we do, sir, most sincerely," added the lawyer.
+
+"I thank you, gentlemen," answered the courteous Southerner. "I was
+going to remahk that the only pehson in whom I feel a family intehest is
+my lamented wife's sistah, a Madame Du Plessis, who has resided foh many
+yeahs in yoah city of To-hon-to. May I enquiah, gentlemen, if you have,
+either of you, heahd the name befoah?"
+
+Coristine replied that, incidentally, he had heard the names of both
+Madame Du Plessis and her daughter.
+
+"I am awaah, suh, that my wife's sister has a daughtah. Can you tell me
+of my sister-in-law's suhcumstances, and what her daughtah, my niece, is
+like in appeahance?"
+
+"Only from hearsay, Colonel. Madame Du Plessis is said to be in
+straightened circumstances, and I learn, from several quarters, that
+Miss Du Plessis is an attractive and amiable young lady; 'illigant' is
+what a countryman of mine, who served under her father, termed his young
+mistress."
+
+"And her baptismal name, suh?"
+
+"Is Cecile, I think."
+
+"Ah, to be suah, my deah wife's name, Cecilia, gallicized. She and
+Madame Du Plessis were Castilians of Lima. Du Plessis was theah in the
+ahmy, I in commehcial puhsuits, and we mahhied the sistahs, the belles
+of the Rimac.
+
+     Que' es la vida? Un frenesi
+     Que' es la vida? Una ilusion,
+     Una sombra, una ficcion.
+
+You read Spanish, Mr. Wilkinson?"
+
+"A little, sir; I think I recognize Calderon in these lines."
+
+"Right, Mr. Wilkinson; I thank you, suh, foh yoah pleasing
+companionship. Good evening, gentlemen!" With a courtly bow, the colonel
+retired from the table.
+
+At the coloured barber's the pedestrians met Mr. Maguffin, who greeted
+Coristine, saying:--
+
+"Hopes yoh doan feel none the wuhse ob yoh ride on the po-ul," adding:
+"Mistah Poley, what runs this yeah stablishment, he's my nuncle's oldes'
+boy, and he abstracks a cohnah ob the same ter my disposhul foh ohfice
+pupposes, supposin' I'm wahnted by folks as cahn't find me."
+
+"That's very convenient," replied the lawyer, as he settled down in the
+barber's chair.
+
+"It am, sah. I doan' tote ox teams no moah, po-ul nor no po-ul, when I
+kin drive and ride the fasses and sassies hawses that is made; no, sah,
+not much!"
+
+"You are tired of teaming, then?"
+
+"I am wohn out, sah, wif bein' called Toby and a po-ul-cat. I doan find
+no Scripcher reffunce foh Tobias, and yoh know what a po-ul-cat is; it's
+nuffin moah no less nor a skink."
+
+The victims of the barber and his assistant kept the soap out of their
+mouths with difficulty. As his tormentor deserted him for a moment, the
+schoolmaster remarked that the Iroquois about the Lake of the Two
+Mountains called the Trappist monks there by the same savoury name, on
+account of some fancied resemblance between their dress and the coat of
+the _Mephitis Americana_.
+
+Mr. Maguffin was listening intently, thinking the conversation was meant
+for his edification, and politely interposed:--
+
+"No, sah, I ain't no Mefferdis. I was bawn and raised a Baktis. Poley,
+now, he's a Mefferdis, and I ain't a gwine ter speak no harm of no
+Crishtchun bruddern what's tryin' ter do right accordin' ter they
+lights. But ter be called Toby and Poul-cat by low down white tresh,
+that trial ob the flesh and speerut is a fohgone conclusion, sah."
+
+The shaving operation completed, the travellers returned to the hotel,
+and found Colonel Morton on what he called the piazza, smoking a good
+Havana cigar. He opened his case for his companions of the supper table,
+and Coristine accepted, while Wilkinson courteously declined.
+
+"I tell you what I want to do, Mr. Cohistine. I want to puhchase two
+saddle hawses, a good one foh myself, and not a bad one foh my sehvant.
+Unfohtunately, my boy took sick on the way, and I had to send him home
+on the Mississippi steamah. That means, I must get me a new sehvant,
+able to ride well and handle hawses. I pehsume it will be hahd to find a
+cullahed boy, a niggro, in these pahts, so I must take whateveh can be
+got that will suit."
+
+"Not at all, Colonel," replied Coristine, with effusion. "I think I can
+get you a negro who is out of place, is a good rider, and, I imagine, a
+good judge of horses. If you like, I'll go after him at once and tell
+him to report to you to-morrow morning."
+
+"My deah suh, you are altogethah too kind."
+
+"Not a bit of it; when will I tell him to call upon you?"
+
+"Would seven o'clock be too eahly? Plantation and ahmy life have made me
+a light sleepah, so that I am up befoh the genehality of hotel guests."
+
+"The very time. Excuse me for running away, I want to bag my man."
+
+So Coristine left the colonel to parade the piazza with Wilkinson, and
+resought the barber shop.
+
+The shop was closed, but a light still burned within. Coristine knocked,
+and Tobias opened the door. "You're the very man I want," cried the
+lawyer.
+
+"Anything done gwine wrong, boss?" asked Mr. Maguffin.
+
+The lawyer explained the circumstances to him at length, eulogized
+Colonel Morton, and told the negro to make his best appearance at the
+hotel, sharp at seven next morning.
+
+"Do yoh say the gemman'll gib me thirty dollars a munf and cloves ter
+boot, and me ridin' behine him all ober the roads on hawseback!" asked
+Tobias.
+
+"Yes, I think I can promise those terms," replied the legal go-between.
+
+"Then, yoh say foh me, if he's please foh ter hab me Maguffin, not
+Tobias, but Maguffin is his man, and I kin pick him out two lubby
+hawses, cheap as a po-ul-caht, and I cahn't say no cheapah. My respecs
+and humble expreshun ob gracious apprecherashun ter yoh, Mistah
+Kerosene."
+
+The lawyer rushed back to the veranda, and found the colonel and Wilks
+still in conversation, and, wonder of wonder, Wilkinson was actually
+smoking a cigar, which he occasionally inserted between his lips, and
+then held away at arm's length, while he puffed out the smoke in a thin
+blue cloud. Wisely, he did not express astonishment at this unheard of
+feat of his friend, but informed the colonel that he had seen the
+coloured man, whose name was Tobias, but preferred to be called
+Maguffin, that he was willing to engage for thirty dollars a month and
+his clothes, and that he could put his new master in the way of getting
+two suitable horses. "I think, Colonel, you can reckon on his being here
+punctually at seven to-morrow."
+
+"I shall nevah cease, Mr. Cohistine, to be sensible of yoah great
+kindness to an entiah styangah, suh. Oblige me by smoking anothah cigah,
+if they are to yoah liking."
+
+So Corry lit a fresh cigar, and the three paraded the verandah till it
+was very late, engaging in all manner of pleasant conversation. When the
+stumps were thrown away, the colonel invited the comrades to visit his
+rooms for a moment before retiring. Entering his private sitting-room,
+he produced a quaintly-shaped but large glass bottle, which he flanked
+with three tumblers and a carafe of water. "Help yohselves, gentlemen,"
+he said, courteously; "this old Bourbon is good foh countehacting the
+effects of the night aiah. Some prefer Monongahela, but good old Bourbon
+in modehation cahn't be suhpahssed." The pedestrians filled up, and
+bowed to their host as they drank, and the colonel, doing the same,
+said, "My thanks to yoh, gentlemen, foh yoah kindness to a styangah--to
+yoah good health and ouah futhah pleasant acquaintance!" Then they
+severally retired, and the hotel closed for the night.
+
+The next morning Coristine, whose room was just over the main entrance,
+was awakened by a loud discussion in the hall of the hotel. "Clare out
+now," cried the porter, "the bar's not opind yit, an' we don't want
+naygurs round whin the guests do be comin' down the stairs; clare, now,
+I tell yeez."
+
+"I'se heah, Mike, on bisness wif Cunnel Morting," said a well-known
+voice; and continued, "yoh go and tell the cunnel that Mistah Maguffin
+is waitin' foh to pay his respecs."
+
+"Go along wid yeez, Oi say, ye black scum av the airth, wid yer Cornel
+Mortins, the loikes av you! Faix, Oi'll tache yeez who's yer betthers
+wid this broom-handle."
+
+"Gently, my good man, gently!" said the colonel, soothingly, as he laid
+his hand on Mike's shoulder. "This boy has business with me. Come in
+heah, Maguffin."
+
+Tobias went in, with a triumphant glance at Mike, and, arrangements
+being completed, was soon at work, blacking his master's boots. Then he
+had a second breakfast at the servant's table, after which the colonel
+sallied forth with him, to provide him with a befitting suit of clothes,
+and to inspect the horses he had deemed suitable for the use of his new
+employer and himself. While they were gone, Wilkinson and his friend
+descended to a late breakfast, during which the hotel clerk handed the
+lawyer a telegram, signed Tylor, Woodruff, and White, and containing the
+words, "Look up Colonel Morton, Madame Du Plessis, 315 Bluebird Avenue,
+Parkdale." So the colonel had been corresponding with his firm, and he
+must either wait till that worthy returned, or leave a note for him.
+"Bawderashin, anyway, when a man's out for a holiday, can't he be left
+alone a bit!" Then, turning to his friend, he asked, "And, are they
+troubling you with letters and telegrams, too, Wilks, my darling?" The
+dominie replied, "I have only one letter about a poor lady teacher, who
+is in consumption, I fear. They want an extension of holidays for her,
+which is rather hard to get."
+
+"But you'll get it for her, Wilks, my dear?"
+
+"Of course I will, if I have to do her work as well as my own."
+
+"I knew it, Wilks, I knew it. You're as soft hearted as a girl, for all
+your adamant exterior. God bless you, my dear boy!"
+
+"Corry, Corry, what allowances must be made for your exaggerated Irish
+language! What is there like adamant about me, I should like to know?"
+
+"Good mawnin, gentlemen," said the soft voice of the colonel, "I am
+delighted to see you looking so well. I envy you Canadian gentlemen yoah
+fine fyesh complexions and yoah musical voices. We have sawft voices in
+the south, but it is a soht of niggro sawftness, gained by contact I
+pehsume. My sehvant and I byeakfasted some time ago."
+
+"I trust he is to your liking, Colonel?" enquired Coristine.
+
+"Suh, you have found me a jewel in Maguffin, and he has found me two
+splendid roadsters that are now being fitted with saddles. We staht for
+To-hon-to in an houah, gentlemen."
+
+"By the bye, Colonel, I have a telegram from my firm that concerns you.
+It says 'Look up Colonel Morton, Madame Du Plessis, 315 Bluebird Avenue,
+Parkdale."
+
+"But wheah is Pahkdale?"
+
+"It is a suburb of Toronto. You had better keep the telegram."
+
+"So, Mr. Cohistine, you are a lawyeh?"
+
+"Yes; of the firm of Tylor, Woodruff, and White, but I'm not that now,
+I'm a gentleman out on a grand stravague."
+
+"You may be a lawyeh, suh, but you are a gentleman as well, and I hope
+to meet you befoah many days are past. Good mawnin, my kind friends!"
+
+The knapsacks were put on boldly, in the very parlour of the hotel, and
+their bearers strode along the lake road into the west, as coolly as if
+they were doing Snowden or Windermere. It was a glorious morning, and
+they exulted in it, rejoicing in the joy of living. The dominie had
+written his letter to the vulgar school-trustees, and felt good, with
+the approbation of a generous conscience. He recited with feeling:--
+
+     "_What, you are stepping westward?_" "_Yea_"--
+     'Twould be a wildish destiny,
+     If we, who thus together roam
+     In a strange land, and far from home,
+     Were in this place the guests of chance;
+     Yet who would stop, or fear t' advance,
+     Though home or shelter he had none,
+     With such a sky to lead him on.
+
+     The dewy ground was dark and cold;
+
+"Faith, 'tis nothing of the kind, Wilks," interrupted Coristine; but the
+dominie went on unheeding.
+
+     Behind, all gloomy to behold,
+     And stepping westward seemed to be
+     A kind of heavenly destiny:
+     I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
+     Of something without place or bound
+     And seemed to give me spiritual right
+     To travel through that region bright.
+
+     The voice was soft, and she who spake
+     Was walking by her native lake;
+     The salutation had to me
+     The very sound of courtesy;
+     Its power was felt; and while my eye
+     Was fix'd upon the glorious sky,
+     The echo of the voice enwrought
+     A human sweetness with the thought
+     Of travelling through the world that lay
+     Before me in my endless way.
+
+"O Wilks, but you're the daisy. So you're going to travel through the
+world with the human sweetness of the soft voice of courtesy? You're a
+fraud, Wilks, you're as soft-hearted as a fozy turnip."
+
+"Corry, a little while ago you called me adamant. You are
+inconsequential, sir."
+
+"All right, Wilks, my darling. But isn't it a joy to have the colonel
+taking the bad taste of the Grinstun man out of your mouth?"
+
+"The colonel, no doubt, is infinitely preferable. He is a gentleman,
+Corry, and that is saying a good deal."
+
+"Hurroo for a specimen! look at that bank on your left, beyond that wet
+patch, it's thyme, it is. _Thymus serpyllum_, and Gray says it's not
+native, but adventitious from Europe. Maccoun says the same; I wonder
+what my dear friend, Spotton, says? But here it is, and no trace of a
+house or clearing near. It's thyme, my boy, and smells sweet as honey:--
+
+     Old father Time, as Ovid sings,
+     Is a great eater up of things,
+       And, without salt or mustard,
+     Will gulp you down a castle wall,
+     As easily as, at Guildhall,
+       An alderman eats custard."
+
+"Drop your stupid Percy anecdote poems, Corry, and listen to this,"
+cried the dominie, as he sang:--
+
+     I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,
+     I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,
+     Where oxlips and the nodding violets blow,
+     Where oxlips linger, nodding violets blow,
+     I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grow-ow-ow-ow-ows!!!
+
+The lawyer joined in the chorus, encored the song, and trolled "ow ow ow
+ow ows" until the blood vessels over his brain pan demanded a rest.
+"Wilks," he said, "you're a thing of beauty and a joy forever."
+
+Soon the road trended within a short distance of the lake shore. The
+blue waves were tumbling in gloriously, and swished up upon the shelving
+limestone rocks. "What is the time, Corry?" asked Wilkinson. "It's
+eleven by my repeater," he answered. "Then it is quite safe to bathe;
+what do you say to a dip?" The lawyer unstrapped his knapsack, and
+hastened off the road towards the beach. "Come on, Wilks," he cried,
+"we'll make believe that it's grampusses we are."
+
+"What is a grampus?" enquired the dominie.
+
+"Dad, if I know," replied his friend.
+
+"A grampus, sir, etymologically is 'un grand poisson,' but,
+biologically, it is no fish at all, being a mammal, mid-way between a
+dolphin and a porpoise."
+
+"So you got off that conundrum a porpoise to make a fool of me, Wilks?"
+
+"O, Corry, you make me shudder with your villainous puns."
+
+"That's nothing to what I heard once. There were some fellows camping,
+and they had two tents and some dogs for deerhunting. As it was raining,
+they let the hounds sleep in one of the tents, when one of the fellows
+goes round and says: 'Shut down your curtains.' 'Were you telling them
+that to keep the rain out?' asked one, when the rascal answered: 'To all
+in tents and purp houses.' Wasn't that awful, now?"
+
+The water was cold but pleasant on a hot day, and the swimmers enjoyed
+striking out some distance from shore and then being washed in by the
+homeward-bound waves. They sat, with their palms pressed down beside
+them, on smooth ledges of rock, and let the breakers lap over them. The
+lawyer was thinking it time to get out, when he saw Wilkinson back into
+the waves with a scared face. "Are you going for another swim, Wilks, my
+boy?" he asked. "Look behind you," whispered the schoolmaster. Coristine
+looked, and was aware of three girls, truly rural, sitting on the bank
+and apparently absorbed in contemplating the swimmers. "This is awful!"
+he ejaculated, as he slid down into deep water; "Wilks, it's scare the
+life out of them I must, or we'll never get back to our clothes. Now,
+listen to me." Dipping his head once more under water till it dripped,
+he let out a fearful sound, like "Gurrahow skrrr spat, you young
+gurruls, an' if yeez don't travel home as fast as yer futs'll taake
+yeez, it's I'll be afther yeez straight, och, garrahow skrr spat
+whishtubbleubbleubble!" The rural maidens took to their heels and ran,
+as Coristine swam into shore. In a minute the swimmers were into their
+clothes and packs, and resumed their march, much refreshed by the cool
+waters of the Georgian Bay.
+
+"And where is it we're bound for now, Wilks?"
+
+"For the abandoned shale-works at the foot of the Blue Mountains."
+
+"Fwhat's that, as Jimmie Butler said about the owl?"
+
+"The Utica formation, which crops out here, consists largely of
+bituminous shales, that yield mineral oil to the extent of twenty
+gallons to the ton. But, since the oil springs of the West have been in
+operation, the usefulness of these shales is gone. The Indians seem to
+have made large use of the shale, for a friend of mine found a hoe of
+that material on an island in the Muskoka lakes. Being easily split and
+worked, it was doubtless very acceptable to the metal wanting
+aborigines."
+
+"But, if the works are closed up, what will we see?"
+
+"We shall meet with fossils in the shale, with trilobites, such as the
+_Asaphus Canadensis_, a crustacean, closely allied to the wood-louse,
+and occasionally found rolled up, like it, into a defensive ball,
+together with other specimens of ancient life."
+
+"Wilks, my son, who's doing Gosse's Canadian Naturalist, now, I'd like
+to know? Pity we hadn't the working geologist along for a lesson."
+
+"I am sorry if I have bored you with my talk, but I thought you were
+interested in science. Does this suit you better?
+
+                        Many a little hand
+     Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks,
+     Many a light foot shone like a jewel set
+     In the dark crag; and then we turn'd, we wound
+     About the cliffs, the copses, out and in,
+     Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names
+     Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff,
+     Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun
+     Grew broader towards his death and fell, and all
+     The rosy heights came out above the lawns."
+
+"That's better, avic. Tennyson's got the shale there, I see. But rag and
+trap and tuff is the word, and tough the whole business is. Just look at
+that living blue bell, there, it's worth all the stony names of rock and
+fossil.
+
+     Let the proud Indian boast of his jessamine bowers,
+     His garlands of roses and moss-covered dells,
+     While humbly I sing of those sweet little flowers,
+     The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells.
+       We'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,
+       The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells."
+
+"You are a nice botanist, Mr. Coristine, to confound that campanula with
+the Scottish blue-bell, which is a scilla, or wild hyacinth."
+
+"Poetic license, my dear friend, poetic license! Hear this now:--
+
+     Let the Blue Mountains boast of their shale that's bituminous,
+     Full of trilobites, graptolites and all the rest,
+     It may not be so learned, or ancient, or luminous,
+     But the little campanula's what I love best.
+       So we'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,
+       The little campanula's worth all the rest.
+
+Whew! What do you think of that for an impromptu song, Wilks?"
+
+"I think that you are turning your back upon your own principle that
+there is no best, or no one best, and that everything is best in its
+place."
+
+"Barring old Nick and the mosquitoes, Wilks, come now?"
+
+"Well, an exception may be made in their favour, but what says the
+poet:--
+
+     O yet we trust that somehow good
+     Will be the final goal of ill.
+
+Come, along, though, for we have much to see before sunset."
+
+"You don't think that good is going to come out of the devil and
+mosquitoes?"
+
+"Yes I do; not to themselves, perhaps, but to humanity."
+
+"I saw a book once with the title "Why Doesn't God Kill the Devil?" and
+sympathized with it. Why doesn't He?"
+
+"Because man wants the devil. As soon as the world ceases to want him,
+so soon is his occupation gone."
+
+"Wilks, my dear, that's an awful responsibility lying on us men, and I
+fear what you say is too true. So here's for the shale works."
+
+The pedestrians ceased their theological discussion and went towards the
+deserted buildings, where, in former days, a bad smelling oil had been
+distilled from the slaty-looking black stones, which lay about in large
+numbers. Wilkinson picked up fossils enough, species of trilobites
+chiefly, with a few graptolites, lingulas and strophomenas, to start a
+museum. These, as Coristine had suggested in Toronto, he actually tied
+up in his silk handkerchief, which he slung on the crook of his stick
+and carried over his shoulder. The lawyer also gathered a few, and
+bestowed them in the side pocket of his coat not devoted to smoking
+materials. The pair were leaving the works for the ascent of the
+mountain, when barks were heard, then a pattering of feet, and soon the
+breathless Muggins jumped upon them with joyous demonstrations.
+
+"Where has he been? How came we not to miss him?" asked the dominie, and
+Coristine answered rather obliquely:--
+
+"I don't remember seeing him since we entered Collingwood. Surely he
+didn't go back to the Grinstun man."
+
+"It is hard to be poetical on a dog called Muggins," remarked Wilkinson;
+"Tray seems to be the favourite name. Cowper's dogs are different, and
+Wordsworth has Dart and Swallow, Prince and Music, something like
+Actaeon's dogs in 'Ovid.' Nevertheless, I like Muggins."
+
+"Oh, Tray is good, Wilks:--
+
+     To my dear loving Shelah, so far, far away,
+     I can never return with my old dog Tray;
+         He's lazy and he's blind,
+         You'll never, never find
+              A bigger thief than old dog Tray."
+
+"Corry, this is bathos of the worst description. You are like a
+caterpillar; you desecrate the living leaf you touch."
+
+"Wilks, that's hard on the six feet of me, for your caterpillar has a
+great many more. But that dog's gone back again."
+
+As they looked after his departing figure, the reason was obvious. Two
+lightly, yet clerically, attired figures were coming up the road, and on
+the taller and thinner of the twain the dog was leaping with every sign
+of genuine affection.
+
+"I'm afraid, Wilks, that Muggins is a beastly cur, a treacherous 'ound,
+a hungrateful pup; look at his antics with that cadaverous curate,
+keeping company with his sleek, respectable vicar. O Muggy, Mug, Mug!"
+
+The pedestrians waited for the clergy, who soon came up to them, and
+exchanged salutations.
+
+"My dawg appears to know you," said the tall cassocked cleric in a
+somewhat lofty, professional tone.
+
+"He ought to," replied Wilkinson, "seeing that he was given to me by a
+Mr. Rawdon, a working geologist, as he calls himself."
+
+"Ow, really now, it seems to me rather an immoral transaction for your
+ah friend, Mr. Rawdon, to give away another man's property."
+
+"Mr. Rawdon is no friend of mine, but his dog took a fancy to us, and
+followed us from Dromore to Collingwood."
+
+"Allow me to assure you that Muggins is not this ah Mr. Rawdon's dawg at
+all. I trained him from a puppy at Tossorontio. The Bishop ordered me
+from there to Flanders, and, in the hurry of moving, the dawg was lost;
+but now, I should rather say stowlen. My friend, the Reverend Mr. Errol
+and myself, my name is Basil Perrowne, Clerk, had business in
+Collingwood last night, when Muggins, most opportunely, met us, and went
+howme with me."
+
+"Well, Mr. Perrowne, I am very glad you have recovered your dog, which I
+was only too glad to rescue from a somewhat inhuman master. My name is
+Wilkinson, of the Toronto schools, my friend is Mr. Coristine, of
+Osgoode Hall, barrister."
+
+The gentlemen exchanged formal salutations, and proceeded on their way,
+Wilkinson with Perrowne, and Coristine with Erroll. Muggins was in the
+seventh heaven of delight.
+
+"You belong to Tossorontio, Mr. Perrowne?" asked Wilkinson, by way of
+starting the conversation.
+
+"Ow, now! I said I had trained Muggins from a pup there, but that ownly
+extends owver a few years. Durham is my university, which you may have
+heard of."
+
+"I am familiar by name with the university and the cathedral, although
+the juvenile geography books say that Durham is famous for its mustard."
+
+"Ow, now, really, they down't, do they? Ow dear, mustard! We Durham men
+can serve it out pretty hot, you know. You belong to the Church, of
+course, Mr. Wilkinson?"
+
+"I was brought up in the Church of England, and educated in what are
+called Church principles; I am fond of the Prayer Book and the Service,
+but, to my way of thinking, the Church is far more extensive than our
+mere Anglican communion."
+
+"Ow, yes, there are Christian people, who, I howpe, will get to heaven
+some way through the uncovenanted mercies, in spite of their horrid
+schism from the True Body. There is Errol, now, whom, out of mere
+courtesy, I call reverend, but he is no more reverend than Muggins. His
+orders are ridiculous, not worth a farthing candle."
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Perrowne, his orders are as good as those of St.
+Timothy, which were laid on him by the hands of the Presbytery."
+
+"That is precisely what the cheeky dissenter says himself. We have
+dropped that line of controversy now, for one ever so much more
+practical."
+
+"I hope you don't take off your coats and fight it out? You have the
+advantage in height and youth, but Mr. Errol seems a strong and active
+man."
+
+"Now, we down't fight. I have set a cricket club a-gowing, and he has
+turned a neglected field into a golf links. My club makes Churchmen, and
+his makes Scotch dissenters."
+
+"I thought the Presbyterian Church was established in Scotland?"
+
+"Ow, down't you see, we are not in Scotland."
+
+"Then, in Canada, there is no established church, unless it be the Roman
+Catholic in the Province of Quebec."
+
+"Ow, well, drop that, you know; we are the Church, and all the outside
+people are dissenters. I down't antagonize him. He helped me to make my
+crease, and joined my club, and I play golf with him every fine Monday
+morning. But the young fellows have now true English spirit here. Errol
+has twenty golfers to my six cricketers. When he and I are added, that
+makes eight, not near enough, you know. As a mission agency, my club has
+not succeeded yet, but every time I make a cricketer, I make a
+Churchman."
+
+"I have known some very good cricketers that were not Anglicans."
+
+"Now you haven't, my dear sir; you thought you have, but you haven't;
+that's the trouble with those who reject Church authority. The Methodist
+plays rounder, what you call base-ball; the Independents and Baptists
+played croquet and lawn tennis after other people stopped playing them;
+the Presbyterian plays golf; and the Churchman plays cricket."
+
+"To argue with one who sweeps all experience aside with a wave of his
+hand," said the schoolmaster, indignantly, "is not to argue at all. It
+is a case of _Roma locuta_."
+
+"Ow, yes, just sow, you know, we down't argue, we simply assert the
+truth."
+
+"How d'ye like the Durham mustard, Wilks, my boy?" put in Coristine from
+the rear, where he and Mr. Errol were laughing amusedly; "it's hot,
+isn't it, not much solid food, but lots of flavour? It reminds me of The
+Crew, when he said what was, is, and ever shall be, Amen. Mr. Perrowne
+is the owner of a splendid dog, and he is a splendid dogmatist. What he
+doesn't know isn't worth knowing."
+
+"Ow, thanks awfully, Mr. Coristine, you are really too flattering!"
+gravely and gratefully replied the parson. Wilkinson was afraid that his
+friend's banter might become too apparent, as the simple egotism of the
+graduate of Durham led him on, so, he changed the subject, and soon had
+the cleric quoting Virgil and Mrs. Hemans.
+
+Meanwhile Coristine and Mr. Errol were taking one another's measure. The
+lawyer recited to his companion the conversation between Marjorie and
+himself relative to Timotheus. He found that Errol knew Marjorie, who
+had often been in his church and Sunday school in Flanders. "She's a
+comical little piece," he said; "her Sunday school teacher asked her who
+killed Goliath? and what do you think was her reply!"
+
+"Give it up."
+
+"It was 'Jack,' no less than Jack the Giant-Killer."
+
+"The darlin'!" cried the lawyer, with admiration, and straightway won
+the minister's heart.
+
+"Marjorie has a cousin stopping at the house of Mr. Carruthers, one of
+my elders, since last Tuesday night, as blithe and bonnie a young leddy
+as man could wish to see. While she's here, she's just the light of the
+whole country side."
+
+Mr. Coristine did not care for this turn in the conversation.
+
+"Tell me some more about little Marjorie," he said.
+
+"Ah," replied the minister, "then you know that her cousin is called
+Marjorie, too! Little Marjorie went to church once with Miss Du Plessis,
+whom Perrowne had got to sing in the choir, that was last summer, if I
+mind right, and, when the two rideeclus candles on the altar were
+lighted, and the priest, as he calls himself, came in with his surplice
+on, she put her face down in Miss Cecile's lap. 'What's the trouble,
+Marjorie?' asked Miss Du Plessis, bending over her. 'He's going to kiss
+us all good-night,' sobbed the wee thing. 'No he is not, Marjorie; he's
+on his knees, praying,' replied the young leddy, soothingly. 'That's
+what papa always does, when he's dressed like that, before he kisses me
+good-night, but he takes off his boots and things first,' and she sobbed
+again, for fear Perrowne was coming to kiss them all, put out the
+candles, and go to bed. If Miss Du Plessis had not been a sober-minded
+lass, she would have laughed out in the middle of the choir. As it was,
+she had to hand Marjorie over to a neighbour in a back seat, before the
+bit lassie would be comforted."
+
+"Ah! did you ever now? the little innocent!"
+
+"It's not that improbable that there'll be a marriage in the church
+before long. Perrowne's just clean daft and infatuated with his
+occasional soprano. He's sent her the 'Mirror of Devotion' and the
+'Soul's Questioner,' and a lot of nicely bound trash, and walks home
+with her whenever he has the chance, to the scandal and rage of all his
+farmers' daughters. It's very injudeecious o' Perrowne, and has dreeven
+two of his best families to the Kirk. Not that she's no a braw looking
+lass, stately and deegnified, but she has na the winsomeness of Miss
+Marjorie."
+
+"Is that your quarter, Mr. Errol?"
+
+"Hech, sirs, I'm an old bachelor that'll never see five and forty again;
+but, as we say in Scotch or the vernacular Doric, 'an auld carle micht
+dae waur.' There's not a more sensible, modest, blithesome, bonnie
+lassie in all the land. It's a thousand peeties some young, handsome,
+well to do steady, God-fearing man has na asked at her to be 'the light
+o' his ain fireside.' Gin I were as young as you, Mr. Coristine, I would
+na think twice about it."
+
+"Avaunt, tempter!" cried the lawyer, "such a subject as matrimony is
+strictly tabooed between me and my friend."
+
+"I'll be your friend, I hope, but I cannot afford to taboo marriages.
+Not to speak of the fees, they're the life of a well-ordered, healthy
+congregation."
+
+A neat turn-out, similar to that of Mrs. Thomas, came rattling along the
+road. "That's John Carruthers' team," remarked the minister, and such it
+turned out to be.
+
+"Maister Errol," said its only occupant, a strong and honest-faced man
+with a full brown beard, "yon's a fine hanky panky trick to play wi'
+your ain elder an' session clerk."
+
+"Deed John," returned the minister, relapsing into the vernacular; "I
+didna ken ye were i' the toon ava, but 'oor bit dander has gien us the
+opportunity o' becomin' acquent wi' twa rale dacent lads." Then, turning
+to the lawyer, "excuse our familiar talk, Mr. Coristine, and let me
+introduce Squire Carruthers, of Flanders." The two men exchanged
+salutations, and Perrowne, having turned back with Wilkinson, the same
+ceremony was gone through with the latter. They were then all
+courteously invited to get into the waggon. Errol and Perrowne sprang
+in with an air of old proprietorship, but the two pedestrians
+respectfully declined, as they were especially anxious to explore the
+mountain beauties of this part of the country on foot and at their
+leisure.
+
+"Aweel, gentlemen," cried the squire, "gin ye'll no come the noo, we'll
+just expect to see ye before the Sawbath. The Church and the Kirk'll be
+looking for the wayfarers, and my house, thank Providence, is big eneuch
+to gie ye a kindly welcome."
+
+The parsons ably seconded Mr. Carruthers' peculiar mixture of English
+and Lowland Scotch, on the latter of which he prided himself, but only
+when in the company of someone who could appreciate it. Wilkinson looked
+at Coristine, and the lawyer looked at the dominie, for here they were
+invited to go straight into the jaws of the lion. Just then, they
+descried, climbing painfully up the hill, but some distance behind them,
+the Grinstun man; there was no mistaking him. "Hurry, and drive away,"
+cried Coristine, in an under tone; "that cad there, the same that stole
+Muggins, is going to your house, Squire. For any sake, don't facilitate
+his journey."
+
+"I'll no stir a hoof till ye promise to come to us, Mr. Coristine, and
+you, Mr. Wilkins, tae."
+
+"All right, many thanks, we promise," they cried together, and the
+waggon rattled away.
+
+"Now, Wilks, over this ditch, sharp, and into the brush, till this thief
+of the world goes by. We've deprived him of a ride, and that's one good
+thing done."
+
+Together they jumped the ditch, and squatted among the bushes, waiting
+for the Grinstun man. They heard him puffing up the rising ground, saw
+his red, perspiring face in full view, and heard him, as he mopped
+himself with a bandanna, exclaim: "Blowed if I haint bin and lost the
+chance of a lift. Teetotally blawst that hold hass of a driver, and them
+two soft-'eaded Tomfools of hamateur scientists ridin' beside 'im. I
+knew it was Muggins, the cur I stole, and guv a present of to that there
+guy of a Favosites Wilkinsonia. I don't trust 'im, the scaly beggar, for
+hall 'is fine 'eroic speeches. 'E'll be goin' and splittin' on me to
+that gal, sure as heggs. And that Currystone, six feet of 'ipocrisy and
+hinsolence, drat the long-legged, 'airy brute. O crikey, but it's 'ot;
+'owever, I must 'urry on, for grinstuns is grinstuns, and a gal, with a
+rich hold huncle, ridin' a fine 'orse, with a nigger behind 'im carryin'
+his portmantle, haint to be sneezed hat. Stre'ch your pegs, Mr. Rawdon,
+workin' geologist hand minerologist!"
+
+"By Jove!" cried Coristine, when the Grinstun man was out of sight;
+"that cad has met the colonel, and has been talking to him."
+
+"A fine nephew-in-law he will get in him!" growled Wilkinson; "I have
+half a mind--excuse me Corry."
+
+"I thought you were very much taken with the old Southerner."
+
+"Yes, that is it," and the dominie relapsed into silence.
+
+"It's about lunch time, Wilks, and, as there's sure to be no water on
+the top of the hill, I'll fill my rubber bag at the spring down there,
+and carry it up, so that we can enjoy the view while taking our
+prandial."
+
+Wilkinson vouchsafed no reply. He was in deep and earnest thought about
+something. Taking silence for consent, Coristine tripped down the hill a
+few yards, with a square india rubber article in his hand. It had a
+brass mouthpiece that partly screwed off, when it was desirable to
+inflate it with air, as a cushion, pillow, or life-preserver, or to fill
+it with hot water to take the place of a warming-pan. Now, at the spring
+by the roadside, he rinsed it well out, and then filled it with clear
+cold water, which he brought back to the place where the schoolmaster
+was leaning on his stick and pondering. Replacing the knapsack, out of
+which the india rubber bag had come, the lawyer prepared to continue the
+ascent. In order to rouse his reflective friend, he said, "Wilks, my
+boy, you've dropped your fossils."
+
+"I fear, Corry, that I have lost all interest in fossils."
+
+"Sure, that Grinstun man's enough to give a man a scunner at fossils for
+the rest of his life."
+
+"It is not exactly that, Corry," replied the truthful dominie; "but I
+need my staff and my handkerchief, and I think I will leave the
+specimens on the road, all except these two Asaphoi, the perplexing,
+bewildering relics of antiquity. This world is full of perplexities
+still, Corry." So saying, the dominie sighed, emptied his bandanna of
+all but the two fossils, which he transferred to his pocket, and, with
+staff in hand, recommenced the upward journey. In ten minutes they were
+on the summit, and beheld the far-off figure of the working geologist on
+the further slope. In both directions the view was magnificent. They sat
+by the roadside on a leafy bank overshaded with cool branches, and,
+producing the reduplication of the Barrie stores procured the night
+before at Collingwood, proceeded to lunch _al fresco_. The contents of
+the india rubber bag, qualified with the spirit in their flasks, cheered
+the hearts of the pedestrians and made them more inclined to look on the
+bright side of life. Justice having been done to the biscuits and
+cheese, Coristine lit his pipe, while the dominie took a turn at
+Wordsworth.
+
+With musical intonation, Wilkinson read aloud:--
+
+     Some thought he was a lover, and did woo:
+     Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong:
+     But verse was what he had been wedded to;
+     And his own mind did like a tempest strong
+     Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.
+
+     With him there often walked in friendly guise,
+     Or lay upon the moss by brook or tree,
+     A noticeable man with large grey eyes,
+     And a pale face that seemed undoubtedly
+     As if a blooming face it ought to be;
+     Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,
+     Depress'd by weight of musing phantasy;
+     Profound his forehead was, though not severe;
+     Yet some did think that he had little business here.
+
+     He would entice that other man to hear
+     His music, and to view his imagery.
+     And, sooth, these two did love each other dear,
+     As far as love in such a place could be;
+     There did they dwell--from earthly labour free,
+     As happy spirits as were ever seen:
+     If but a bird, to keep them company,
+     Or butterfly sate down, they were, I ween,
+     As pleased as if the same had been a maiden queen.
+
+"That's the true stuff, Wilks, and has the right ring in it, for we love
+each other dear, and are as happy spirits as were ever seen, but not a
+large grey eye, pale face, or low-hung lip between us. Just hear my
+music now, and view my imagery with your mind's eye:--
+
+     Far down the ridge, I see the Grinstun man,
+     Full short in stature and rotund is he,
+     Pale grey his watery orbs, that dare not scan
+     His interlocutor, and his goatee,
+     With hair and whiskers like a furnace be:
+     Concave the mouth from which his nose-tip flies
+     In vain attempt to shun vulgarity.
+     O haste, ye gods, to snatch from him the prize,
+     And send him hence to weep--and to geologize!"
+
+"The rhythm is all right, Corry, and the rhyme, but I hope you do not
+call that poetry?"
+
+"If that isn't superior to a good many of Wordsworth's verses, Wilks,
+I'll eat my hat, and that would be a pity this hot weather. Confess now,
+you haythen, you," cried the lawyer, making a lunge at his companion
+with his stick, which the latter warded off with his book.
+
+"There are some pretty poor ones," the schoolmaster granted grudgingly,
+"but the work of a great poet should not be judged by fragments."
+
+"Wilks, apply the rule; I have only given you one stanza of the
+unfinished epic, which unborn generations will peruse with admiration
+and awe, 'The Grinstun Quarry Restored':--
+
+     I have striven hard for my high reward
+     Through many a changing year
+     Now, the goal I reach; it is mine to teach.
+     Stand still, O man, and hear!
+
+     I shall wreathe my name, with the brightness of fame,
+     To shine upon history's pages;
+     It shall be a gem in the diadem
+     Of the past to future ages!
+
+Oh, Wilks for immortality!" cried the light-hearted lawyer, rising with
+a laugh.
+
+Looking back towards the ascent, he perceived two bowed figures
+struggling up the hill under largish, and, apparently, not very light
+burdens.
+
+"Wilks, my dear, we're young and vigorous, and down there are two poor
+old grannies laden like pack mules in this broiling sun. Let us leave
+our knapsacks here, and give them a hoist."
+
+The schoolmaster willingly assented, and followed his friend, who flew
+down the hill at breakneck speed, in a rapid but more sober manner. The
+old couple looked up with some astonishment at a well-dressed city man
+tearing down the hill towards them like a schoolboy, but their
+astonishment turned to warmest gratitude, that found vent in many
+thankful expressions, as the lawyer shouldered the old lady's big
+bundle, and, as, a minute later, the dominie relieved her partner of
+his. They naturally fell into pairs, the husband and Wilkinson leading,
+Coristine and the wife following after. In different ways the elderly
+pair told their twin burden-bearers the same story of their farm some
+distance below the western slope of the mountain, of their son at home
+and their two daughters out at service, and mentioned the fact that they
+had both been schoolteachers, but, as they said with apologetic
+humility, only on third-class county certificates. Old Mr. Hill insisted
+on getting his load back when the top of the mountain was reached, and
+the pedestrians resumed their knapsacks and staves, but the lawyer
+utterly refused to surrender his bundle to the old lady's entreaties.
+The sometime schoolteachers were intelligent, very well read in Cowper,
+Pollock, and Sir Walter Scott, as well as in the Bible, and withal
+possessed of a fair sense of humour. The old lady and Coristine were a
+perpetual feast to one another. "Sure!" said he, "it's bagmen the
+ignorant creatures have taken us for more than once, and it's a genuine
+one I am now, Mrs. Hill," at which the good woman laughed, and recited
+the Scotch ballad of the "Wee Wifukie coming frae the fair," who fell
+asleep, when "by came a packman wi' a little pack," and relieved her of
+her purse and placks, and "clippit a' her gowden locks sae bonnie and
+sae lang." This she did in excellent taste, leaving out any
+objectionable expressions in the original. When she repeated the words
+of the Wifukie at the end of each verse, "This is nae me," consequent on
+her discovery that curls and money were gone, the lawyer laughed
+heartily, causing the pair in front, who were discussing educational
+matters, to look round for the cause of the merriment. "I'm the man,"
+shouted Coristine to them, "the packman wi' a little pack." Then Mr.
+Hill knew what it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     Conversation with the Hills--Tobacco--Rural Hospitality--The
+     Deipnosophist and Gastronomic Dilemma--Mr. Hill's
+     Courtship--William Rufus rouses the Dominie's Ire--Sleep--The Real
+     Rufus--Acts as Guide--Rawdon Discussed--The Sluggard Farmer--The
+     Teamsters--The Wasps--A Difference of Opinion.
+
+
+It was very pleasant for all four, the walk down the mountain road; and
+the pedestrians enjoyed the scenery all the more with intelligent guides
+to point out places of interest. The old schoolteacher, having
+questioned Wilkinson as to his avocation, looked upon him as a superior
+being, and gratified the little corner of good-natured vanity that lies
+in most teachers' hearts. Coristine told the wife that he trusted her
+daughters had good places, where they would receive the respect due to
+young women of such upbringing; and she replied:--
+
+"O yes, sir, they are both in one family, the family of Squire
+Carruthers in Flanders. Tryphena is the eldest; she's twenty-five, and
+is cook and milker and helps with the washing. Tryphosa is only twenty,
+and attends to the other duties of the house. Mrs. Carruthers is not
+above helping in all the work herself, so that she knows how to treat
+her maids properly. Still, I am anxious about them."
+
+"Nothing wrong with their health, I hope?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"No, sir; in a bodily way they enjoy excellent health."
+
+"Pardon me, Mrs. Hill," interrupted Coristine, "for saying that your
+perfectly correct expression calls up that of a friend of mine. Meeting
+an old college professor, very stiff and precise in manner and language,
+he had occasion to tell him that, as a student, he had enjoyed very poor
+health. 'I do not know about the enjoying of it, sir,' he answered, 'but
+I know your health was very poor.' Ha, ha! but I interrupted you."
+
+"I was going to say, sir, that I have never been ambitious, save to keep
+a good name and live a humbly useful life, with food convenient for me,
+as Agur, the son of Jakeh, says in the Book of Proverbs, in which, I
+suppose, he included clothing and shelter, but I did hope my girls would
+look higher than the Pilgrims."
+
+"You don't mean John Bunyan's Christian and Christiana, and Great Heart,
+and the rest of them?"
+
+"Oh, no!" replied the old lady, laughing, "mine are living characters,
+quite unknown to the readers of books, Sylvanus and Timotheus, the sons
+of old Saul Pilgrim."
+
+"Oh, that's their name, is it? The Crew never told me his surname, nor
+did Captain Thomas."
+
+"You know Sylvanus' captain, then? But, has he many sailors besides
+Pilgrim?"
+
+"No; that's why I call him The Crew. It's like a Scotch song, 'The Kitty
+of Loch Goil,' that goes:--
+
+     For a' oor haill ship's companie,
+     Was twa laddy and a poy, prave poys
+
+Sylvanus is The Crew, who goes on a cruise, like Crusoe. O, do forgive
+me, Mrs. Hill, for so forgetting myself; we have been so long away from
+ladies' society," which, considering the circumstances of the preceding
+day, was hardly an ingenuous statement.
+
+"I am not so troubled about the elder Pilgrim and Tryphena," continued
+the old lady, "because Tryphena is getting up a little in years for the
+country; I believe they marry later in the city, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"O yes, always, very much, I'm sure," answered the lawyer, confusedly.
+
+"Tryphena is getting up, and--well, she takes after her father in looks,
+but will make any man a good wife. Then the elder Pilgrim has good
+morals, and is affectionate, soft I should be disposed to call him; and
+he has regular employment all the year round, though often away from
+home. He has money saved and in the bank, and has a hundred-acre farm in
+the back country somewhere. He says, if Tryphena refuses him, he will
+continue to risk his life among the perils of the deep, by which the
+silly fellow means Lake Simcoe." Here the quondam schoolmistress broke
+into a pleasant laugh that had once been musical.
+
+"And Miss Tryphosa, did I understand you to say you apprehend anything
+in her quarter from the Pilgrims?" enquired Coristine.
+
+"Please say Tryphosa, sir; I do not think that young girls in service
+should be miss'd."
+
+"But they are very much missed when they go away and get married; don't
+grudge me my little joke, Mrs. Hill."
+
+"I would not grudge you anything so poor," she replied, shaking a
+forefinger at the blushing lawyer. "You are right in supposing I
+apprehend danger to Tryphosa from the younger Pilgrim. She is--well,
+something like what I was when I was young, and she is only a child yet,
+though well grown. Then, this younger Pilgrim has neither money nor
+farm; besides, I am told, that he has imbibed infidel notions, and has
+lately become the inmate of a disreputable country tavern. If you had a
+daughter, sir, would you not tremble to think of her linking her lot
+with so worthless a character?" Before the lawyer could reply, the old
+man called back: "Mother, I think you had better give the gentleman a
+rest; he must be tired of hearing your tongue go like a cow-bell in fly
+time." Coristine protested, but his companion declined to continue the
+conversation.
+
+"The mistress is as proud of wagging that old tongue of hers," remarked
+the dominie's companion, "as if she had half the larnin' of the country,
+and she no more nor a third class county certificut."
+
+"Many excellent teachers have begun on them," remarked Wilkinson.
+
+"But she begun and ended there; the next certificut she got was a
+marriage one, and, in a few years, she had a class in her own house to
+tache and slipper."
+
+"Your wife seems to be a very superior woman, Mr. Hill."
+
+"That's where the shoe pinches me. Shuparior! it's that she thinks
+herself, and looks down on my book larnin' that's as good as her own.
+But, I'll tell ye, sir, I've read Shakespeare and she hasn't, not a
+word."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Her folks were a sort of Lutherian Dutch they call Brethren. They're
+powerful strict, and think it a mortal sin to touch a card or read a
+play. My own folks were what they called black-mouthed Prosbytarians,
+from the north of Ireland, but aijewcation made me liberal-minded. It
+never had that effect on the mistress, although her own taycher was an
+old Scotch wife that spent her time tayching the childer Scott, and
+Pollok's 'Course of Time,' and old Scotch ballads like that Packman one
+she was reciting to your friend. Now, I larnt my boys and gyurls, when I
+was school tayching, some pieces of Shakespeare, and got them to declaim
+at the school exhibitions before the holidays. I minded some of them
+after I was married, and, one day when it was raining hard, I declaimed
+a lovely piece before Persis, that's the mistress' name, when the woman
+began to cry, and fell on her knees by the old settle, and prayed like a
+born praycher. She thought I had gone out of my mind; so, after that, I
+had to keep Shakespeare to myself. Sometimes I've seen Tryphosa take up
+the book and read a bit, but Rufus, that's the baby, is just like his
+mother--he'll neither play a card, nor read a play, nor smoke, nor tell
+lies. I dunno what to do with the boy at all, at all."
+
+"But it is rather a good thing, or a series of good things, not to play
+cards, nor smoke, nor tell lies," remarked Wilkinson. "Perhaps the baby
+is too young to smoke or read Shakespeare."
+
+"He's eighteen and a strapping big fellow at that, our baby Rufus. He
+can do two men's work in a day all the week through, and go to meetin'
+and Sunday school on Sundays; but he's far behind in general larnin' and
+in spirit, not a bit like his father. Do I understand you object to
+smoking, sir?"
+
+"Not a bit," replied his companion, "but my friend Coristine smokes a
+pipe, and, as smokers love congenial company, I had better get him to
+join you, and relieve him of his load." So saying, Wilkinson retired to
+the silent pair in the rear, took the old lady's bundle from the lawyer
+and sent him forward to smoke with the ancient schoolmaster. The latter
+waxed eloquent on the subject of tobackka, after the pipes were filled
+and fairly set agoing.
+
+"There was a fanatic of a praycher came to our meetin' one Sunday
+morning last winter, and discoorsed on that which goeth out of a man. He
+threeped down our throats that it was tobackka, and that it was the root
+of bitterness, and the tares among the wheat, which was not rightly
+translated in our English Bible. He said using tobackka was the
+foundation of all sin, and that, if you counted up the letters in the
+Greek tobakko, because Greek has no _c_, the number would be 483, and,
+if you add 183 to that, it would make 666, the mark of the Beast; and,
+says he, any man that uses tobackka is a beast! It was a powerful
+sarmon, and everybody was looking at everybody else. When the meetin'
+was over, I met Andrew Hislop, a Sesayder, and I said to him, 'Annerew!'
+says I, 'what do you think of that blast? Must we give up the pipe or be
+Christians no more?' Says Andrew, 'Come along wi' me,' and I went to his
+house and he took down a book off a shelf in his settin' room. 'Look at
+this, Mr. Hill,' says he, 'you that have the book larnin', 'tis written
+by these godly Sesayders, Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, and is poetry.' I
+took the book and read the piece, and what do you think it was?"
+
+"Charles Lamb's farewell to tobacco," said Coristine wildly:--
+
+     Brother of Bacchus, later born,
+     The Old World were sure forlorn,
+                            Wanting thee.
+
+'No, sir; it was a 'Gospel Sonnet on Tobackka and Pipes'; pipes, mind
+you, as well--all about this Indian weed, and the pipe which is so lily
+white. Oh, sir, it was most improvin'. And that fanatic of a praycher,
+not fit to blacken the Erskines' shoes, even if they were Sesayders! I
+went home and I says, 'Rufus, my son,' and he says, 'Yes, fayther!' Says
+I, 'Rufus, am I a Christian man, though frail and human, am I a
+Christian man or am I not?' Rufus says, 'You are a Christian, fayther.'
+Then says I, 'What is the praycher, Rufus, my boy?' and Rufus, that uses
+tobackka in no shape nor form, says, 'He's a consayted, ignerant,
+bigitted bladderskite of a Pharisee!' Sir, I was proud of that boy!'
+
+"That was very fine of your son to stand up for his father like that.
+You can't say that your foes were those of your own household. In such
+cases, young people must do one of two things, despise their parents or
+despise the preacher; and, when the parents go to church, the children,
+unless they are young hypocrites, uniformly despise such preachers."
+
+"Yes, and to think I had never told Rufus a word about the 'Gospel
+Sonnets of the Sesayders!' It's a great pleasure, sir, to an old man
+like me to smoke a pipe with a gentleman like yourself."
+
+Coristine replied that it afforded him equal satisfaction, and they
+puffed away with occasional remarks on the surrounding scenery.
+
+Meanwhile, Wilkinson was striving to draw out the somewhat offended
+mistress.
+
+"Your husband tells me, Mrs. Hill, that you are of German parentage," he
+remarked blandly.
+
+"Yes," she replied; "my people were what they call Pennsylvania Dutch.
+Do you know German, sir?"
+
+"I have a book acquaintance with it," remarked the dominie.
+
+"Do you recognize this?
+
+     Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye,
+     Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye,
+     Meen fayter rue mee, Ee moos gay
+              Tsoo lowwen in der ayvig-eye."
+
+"No; I distinctly do not, although it has a Swabian sound."
+
+"That is the Pennsylvania Dutch for 'I have a Father in the Promised
+Land,' a Sunday School hymn."
+
+"Were you brought up on hymns like that?"
+
+"Oh, no; I can still remember some good German ones sung at our
+assemblies, like:--
+
+     Christi Blut und Gerechtigkeit,
+     das ist mein Schmuck und Ehrenkleid,
+     damit will ich vor Gott besteh'n,
+     wenn ich in Himmel werd 'eingeh'n.
+
+Do you know that?" asked the old lady, proud of her correct recitation.
+
+"Yes; that is Count Zinzendorff's hymn, which Wesley translated:--
+
+     Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
+     My beauty are, my glorious dress;
+     Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
+     With joy shall I lift up my head.
+
+The translation is wonderfully free, and takes unpardonable liberties
+with the original."
+
+"Graf Zinzendorff revived our Brethren when persecution had almost
+destroyed them. He was in America, too, and had his life saved by a
+rattlesnake. The Indians were going to kill him, when they saw him
+sleeping with the snake by his side, and thought it was his Manitou."
+
+"I hope that is not a snake-story, Mrs. Hill. I had a boy once in my
+school who came from Illinois, and who said that his mother had seen a
+snake, which had stiffened itself into a hoop, and taken its thorny tail
+in its mouth, trundling along over the prairie after a man. The man got
+behind a tree just in the nick of time, for the hoop unbent, and sent
+the thorny tail into the tree instead of into the man. Then the man came
+out and killed it. That was a snake story."
+
+"I give the story as I heard it from our people; you know, I suppose,
+that there is a Moravian Indian Mission on the borders of the counties
+of Kent and Middlesex. I once thought of going there as a missionary,
+before I fell in with Mr. Hill."
+
+"I knew a lady who married a clergyman, with the express understanding
+that he was to become a foreign missionary. His church missionary
+societies refused to accept him, because of some physical defect, so he
+had to settle down to a home charge. But his wife never went to hear him
+conduct service. She said she could not listen to a fraud who had
+married her under false pretences."
+
+"It is a great pity he married such a woman. If a wife has not the
+missionary spirit in her own house, how can she expect to acquire it by
+going abroad? Besides, there is so much mission work to be done in a new
+country like this. A few years ago, this place was almost as bad as
+Peskiwanchow, but now it has greatly improved."
+
+"There was a young man we met there, Mrs. Hill, in whom my friend and I
+were much interested," said the dominie, and proceeded to give an
+account of the exploit of Timotheus. He also narrated what Coristine had
+told him of his hero's attitude towards the catechism, as accounting for
+his present position. The old lady relented in her judgment of the
+younger Pilgrim, thought that Saul, perhaps, was too severe, and that
+the catechism could stand revision. Wilkinson agreed, and, the ice being
+completely broken between them, they also proceeded to view the scenery
+in a poetic light, or rather in two, the dame's a Cowperish, and the
+dominie's a Wordsworthian reflection. Suddenly, the latter saw the
+father of Tryphena and Tryphosa open a gate, and turn into a side road,
+along which the lawyer seemed not quite disposed to accompany him. The
+elder smoker, therefore, came back to the gate, and waited for Wilkinson
+and the old lady to come forward.
+
+"Mother!" said the old man, as the pair came up to the halting place,
+"you've got a soft blarneying Lutherian tongue in your head--"
+
+"Henry Cooke," she replied sharply, "how often must I tell you that
+Lutherian is wrong, and that I am not a Lutheran, and have ceased even
+to be a United Brother since I cast in my lot with you; moreover, it is
+not pleasant for an old woman like me to be accused of blarneying, as if
+I were a rough Irishman with a grin on his broad face."
+
+"Well, well, mother, I don't care a snuff if you were a Sesayder or even
+a Tommykite--"
+
+"A Tommykite?" cried Coristine, anxious to extend his knowledge and
+increase his vocabulary.
+
+"It's a man called Thomas," answered the interrupted husband, "that made
+a new sect out our way, and they call his following Tommykites; I dunno
+if he's a relation of the captain or not. Give a dog a bad name, they
+say, and you might as well hang him; but the Tommykites are living, in
+spite of their name."
+
+"Henry Cooke, your remarks are very unnecessary and irrevelant," said
+his wife, falling into bad English over a long adjective.
+
+"I was just going to say, mother, that I wanted you to try and keep
+these gentlemen from going beyond our house to-night, because you can
+put it so much better than I can."
+
+The old lady, thereupon, so judiciously blended coaxing with the apology
+of disparagement, that the only alternative left the pedestrians was
+that of remaining; for to go on would have been to treat the
+disparagement as real, and a sufficient cause for their seeking other
+shelter. The house they entered was small but neat. It consisted almost
+altogether of one room, called a living room, which answered all the
+purposes of eating, sleeping and sitting. Outside were a summer kitchen
+and a dairy or milk-house, and, a short distance off, were the barn and
+the stable, the sole occupant of the latter at the time being a cow
+that spent most of its leisure out of doors. Supper did not take long
+preparing, and the travellers did ample justice to a very enjoyable
+meal. The dominie engaged the hostess in conversation about German
+cookery, Sauer Kraut, Nudeln and various kinds of Eierkuchen, which she
+described with evident satisfaction.
+
+"Mrs. Hill and Wilkinson are regular Deipnosophists," remarked Coristine
+to the host.
+
+"That's too deep for me," he whispered back. "But tell it to the
+mistress now; she's that fond of jawbreakers she'll never forget it."
+
+"We were remarking, Mrs. Hill, that you and Wilkinson are a pair of
+Deipnosophists."
+
+The old man looked quizically at his wife, and she glanced in a
+questioning way at the dominie.
+
+"My friend is trying to show off his learning at our expense," the
+latter remarked. "One Athenæus, who lived in the second century, wrote a
+book with that name, containing conversations, like those in 'Wilson's
+Noctes Ambrosianæ,' but upon gastronomy."
+
+"I was not aware," said the hostess, "that they had gas so far back as
+that."
+
+Wilkinson bit his lip, but dared not explain, and the lawyer looked
+sheepish at the turn affairs were taking.
+
+"It's aisy remembered, mother," put in the quondam schoolmaster.
+
+"Think of astronomy, and that'll give you gastronomy; and a gastronomer
+is a deipnosophist. That's two new words in one day and both meaning the
+same thing."
+
+The hostess turned to the dominie, with a little shrug of impatience at
+her husband, and remarked: "The life of a deipnosophist in gastromical
+works must be a very trying one, from the impure air and the soft coal
+dust; do you not think so, Mr. Wilkinson?"
+
+That gentleman thought it must, and the lawyer first chewed his
+moustache, and then blew his nose severely and long. Fortunately, the
+meal was over, the host returned thanks, and the party left the table.
+The old man took a pail and went to water the stock, which seemed to
+consist of the cow, while the wife put away the supper things, and
+prepared for the evening's milking.
+
+The pedestrians, being told there was nothing they could do, strolled
+out into the neighbouring pasture, and pretended to look among the weeds
+and stones, at the end of the fence farthest away from the stock-waterer
+for botanical and geological specimens; but, in reality, they were
+having a battle royal.
+
+"Corry, you ass, whatever put it into your stupid head to make a fool of
+that kind little woman?"
+
+"Sauer Kraut and Speck Noodle, what did you begin with your abominable
+Dutch dishes for?"
+
+"I had a perfect right to talk German and of German things with Mrs.
+Hill. I did not insult her, like an ungrateful cur, I know."
+
+"I never insulted her, you blackguard, wouldn't do such a thing for my
+life. I had a perfect right, too, to talk Greek to the old man, and it
+was you put your ugly foot in it with your diabolical gastronomy. I
+wonder you don't pray the ground to open up and swallow you."
+
+"I consider, sir, an apology from you to our host and hostess absolutely
+necessary, and to be made without any delay."
+
+"I'll apologize, Wilks, for the deipnosophist part of it, but I'll be
+jiggered if I'll be responsible for your nasty gastronomy."
+
+"That means that you are going to put all the onus of this hideous and
+cruel misunderstanding on my shoulders, when I explained your expression
+in charity to all parties, and to help you out."
+
+"Help me out, is it? I think it was helping me into the ditch and
+yourself, too."
+
+"Will you or will you not accept the responsibility of this whole
+unfortunate business? Here is my ultimatum: Decline to accept it, and I
+return to Collingwood this very night."
+
+"Wilks, my boy, that would never do. It's dead tired you'd be, and I'd
+hear of you laid up with fever and chills from the night air, or perhaps
+murdered by tramps for the sake of your watch and purse."
+
+"It matters nothing. Right must be done. _Fiat justitia, ruat coelum._
+Every law of gratitude for hospitality cries aloud: 'Make restitution
+ere the sun goes down.' I understand, sir, that you refuse." So saying,
+the offended dominie moved rapidly towards the house to resume his
+knapsack and staff.
+
+"Wilks, if you don't stop I'll stone you to death with fossils," cried
+the repentant lawyer, throwing a series of trilobites from his
+tobacco-less pocket at his retreating friend. The friend stopped and
+said curtly: "What is it to be?"
+
+"Wilks, you remind me of an old darkey woman that had a mistress who was
+troubled with sneezing fits. The mistress said: 'Chloe, whenever I
+sneeze in public, you, as a faithful servant, should take out your
+handkerchief, and pretend that it was you; you should take it upon
+yourself, Chloe.' So, one day in church, the old lady made a big
+tis-haw, when Chloe jumped up and cried out: 'I'll take dat sneeze my
+ole missus snoze on mysef,' waving her handkerchief all around."
+
+"I did not delay my journey to listen to negro stories, Mr. Coristine."
+
+"It has a moral," answered the lawyer; "it means that I am going to take
+all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger ass of yours.
+I'll apologize to the pair of them for me and you."
+
+"That being the case, in spite of the objectionable words, 'bigger ass,'
+which you will live to repent, I shall stay."
+
+Mrs. Hill was proceeding to milk the cow, and her husband was busy at
+the wood-pile. Coristine sauntered up to the old lady, and carried the
+milking pail and stool for her, the latter being of the Swiss
+description, with one leg sharp enough to stick into the ground. The
+lawyer adroitly remarked:--
+
+"Turning to the subject of language, Mrs. Hill, one who has had your
+experience in education must have observed fashion in words as in other
+things, how liable speech is to change at different times and in
+different places."
+
+Yes; Mrs. Hill had noticed that.
+
+"You will, I trust, not think me guilty of too great a liberty, if I
+say, in reference to my friend's remark at the supper table, that
+gastronomy, instead of meaning the art of extracting gas from coal, has
+now come to denote the science of cookery or good living, and that the
+old meaning is now quite out of date. I thought you would like to know
+of the change, which, I imagine, has hardly found its way into the
+country yet."
+
+"Certainly, sir, I am much obliged to you for setting me right so
+kindly. Doubtless the change has come about through the use of gas
+stoves for cooking, which I have seen advertised in our Toronto
+religious paper."
+
+"I never thought of that," said the perfidious lawyer. "The very
+uncommon word deipnosophist, hardly an English word at all, when
+employed at the present day, always means a supper philosopher, one who
+talks learnedly at supper, either about cookery or about other things."
+
+"I see it very clearly now. In town, of course, supper is taken by gas
+light, so that the talker at supper is a talker by gas-light?"
+
+"Yes, but the word gas, even the idea of it, has gone out of fashion,
+through its figurative use to designate empty, vapouring talk;
+therefore, when deipnosophist and gastronomer are spoken, the former is
+employed to denote learned talkers at supper, such as we were half an
+hour ago, and the latter, to signify one who enjoys the culinary
+pleasures of the table."
+
+"I am sure I am very much indebted to you, sir, for taking the trouble
+to correct an old woman far behind the age, and to save her the
+mortification of making mistakes in conversation with those who might
+know better."
+
+"Do not mention it, I beg. Should I, do you think, say anything of this
+to Mr. Hill?"
+
+"Oh, no," replied the old lady, laughingly; "he has forgotten all about
+these new words already; and, even if he had not, he would never dare to
+make use of them, unless they were in Shakespeare or the Bible or the
+School Readers."
+
+By this time the milking was over, and the lawyer, relieved in part, yet
+with not unclouded conscience, carried pail and stool to the milkhouse.
+
+The old man and Coristine sat down on a bench outside the house and
+smoked their pipes. Mrs. Hill occupied a rocking-chair just inside the
+doorway, and the dominie sat on the doorsill at her feet.
+
+"Mother," called Mr. Hill to his spouse, "whatever has become of Rufus?"
+
+"You know very well, Henry Cooke, that Rufus is helping Andrew Hislop
+with his bee, and will not be back before morning. The young people are
+to have a dance after the bee, and then a late supper, at which the
+deipnosophists will do justice to Abigail's gastronomy." This was said
+with an approving side glance at the lawyer. When Wilkinson looked up,
+his friend perceived at once that his offence was forgiven. The husband,
+without removing the pipe from between his teeth, mumbled, "Just so, to
+be sure."
+
+"Is your son's name William Rufus, Mrs. Hill?" enquired the dominie.
+
+"No; it is simply Rufus. William, you know, is not a Scripture name. We
+thought of baptizing him Narcissus, which comes just before Tryphena,
+but my husband said, as he was the youngest, he should come lower down
+in the chapter, and after Persis, which is my name."
+
+"I was tayching school, and a bachelor," put in the said husband, "when
+there was a county meeting--they call them conventions now--that Persis
+was at. They called her Miss Persis Prophayt, but it was spelled like
+the English Prophet. She was that pretty and nice-spoken then I couldn't
+kape my eyes off her. She's gone off her nice looks and ways a dale
+since that time. Then I went back to the childer and the Scripture
+readins, with a big dictionary at my elbow for the long names. 'The
+beloved Persis' was forever coming up, till the gyurls would giggle and
+make my face as red as a turkey cock. So I had this farrum and some
+money saved, and I sent to ask the beloved Persis to put me out of my
+misery and confusion of countenance."
+
+"Indeed he did," said the old lady, with a merry laugh, "and what do you
+think was his way of popping the question?"
+
+"Oh, let us hear, Mrs. Hill," cried Coristine.
+
+"Mother, if you do," interposed the old man, "I'll put my foot down on
+your convention of retired taychers at Owen Sound." But mother paid no
+attention to the threat.
+
+"He asked if I knew the story of Mahomet and the mountain, and how
+Mahomet said, if the mountain will not come to the prophet, the prophet
+must go to the mountain. So, said he, you are the prophet and must come
+to my house under the mountain, and be a Hill yourself. It was so funny
+and clever that I came; besides I was glad to change the name Prophet.
+People were never tired making the most ridiculous plays upon it. The
+old Scotch schoolmistress, who taught me partly, was named Miss Lawson,
+so they called us Profit and Loss; and they pronounced my Christian name
+as if it was Purses, and nicknamed me Property, and took terrible
+liberties with my nomenclature." At this the whole company laughed
+heartily, after which the dominie said: "I see your pipe is out, Corry;
+you might favour our kind friends with a song." The lawyer did not know
+what to sing, but took his inspiration, finally, from Wilkinson's last
+question, and sang the ballad of William Rufus, as far as:--
+
+     Men called him William Rufus because of his red beard,
+     A proud and naughty king he was, and greatly to be feared;
+     But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, hit him in the middell,
+     And, instead of a royal stag that day, a king of England fell.
+
+Then the correct ear and literary sense of the dominie were offended,
+and he opened out on his friend.
+
+"I think, Corry, that you might at least have saved our generous hosts
+the infliction of your wretched travesties. The third line, Mrs Hill, is
+really:--
+
+     But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, the fiercest pride can quell.
+
+There is nothing so vulgar as hitting in the verse, and your ear for
+poetry must tell you that _middle_ cannot rhyme with _fell_, even if it
+were not a piece of the most Gothic barbarity. Thus a fine English song,
+such as I love to hear, is murdered."
+
+"My opinion," said the host, "my opinion is that you could'nt quell a
+man's pride better than by hitting him fair in the middle. It might be
+against the laws of war, but it would double him up, and take all the
+consayt out of him sudden. I mind when Rufus was out seeing his sisters,
+there was a parson got him to play cricket, and aggravated the boy by
+bowling him out, and catching his ball, and sneering at him for a good
+misser and a butter-fingers; so, when he went to the bat again, he
+looked carefully at the ball and got it on the tip of his bat, and, the
+next thing he knowed, the parson was doubled up like a jack knife. He
+had been hit fair in the middle, where the bad boy meant to do it. There
+was no sarvice next Sunday, no, nor for two weeks."
+
+"That was very wrong of Rufus," said the old lady with a sigh, "however,
+he did offer to remunerate Mr. Perrowne for his medical expenses, but
+the gentleman refused to accept any equivalent, and said it was the
+fortune of war, which made Rufus feel humiliated and sorry."
+
+Night had fallen, and the coal oil lamp was lit. The old lady deposited
+a large Bible on the table, to which her husband drew in a chair, after
+asking each of his guests unsuccessfully to conduct family worship. He
+read with emphasis and feeling the 91st Psalm, and thereafter, falling
+on his knees, offered a short but comprehensive prayer, in which the
+absent children were included, and the two wayfarers were not forgotten.
+While the good wife went out to the dairy to see that the milk was
+covered up from an invisible cat, the men undressed, and the pedestrians
+turned into a double bed, the property of the missing Rufus. The head of
+the household also turned in upon his couch, and coughed, the latter
+being a signal to his wife. She came in, blew out the lamp, and retired
+in the darkness. Then four voices said "good-night"; and rest succeeded
+the labours of the day. "No nightmares or fits to-night, Corry, an' you
+love me," whispered the dominie; but the lawyer was asleep soon after
+his head touched the pillow. They knew nothing till morning, when they
+were awakened by the old man's suppressed laughter. When they opened
+their eyes, the wife was already up and away to her outdoor tasks; and a
+well-built, good-looking young fellow of the farmer type was staring in
+astonishment at the two strangers in his bed. The more he stared, the
+more the father laughed. "There's not a home nor a place for you, Rufus,
+with you kapin' such onsaysonable hours. It's a sesayder you'll be
+becoming yourself, running after Annerew Hislop's pretty daughter, and
+dancing the toes out of your stockings till broad daylight. So, if
+you're going to sesayde, your mother and me, we're going to take in
+lodgers."
+
+"What are they selling?" asked the Baby.
+
+"Whisht! Rufus, whisht! come here now; it's not that they are at all,
+but gentlemen from the city on a pedestrian tower," the father replied
+in an audible whisper.
+
+"What do they want testering the beds for! Is that some new crank got
+into the guvment?"
+
+"Rufus, Rufus, you'll be the death of your poor old father yet with your
+ignorance. Who said anything about testing the beds? It's a pedestrian
+tower, a holiday walking journey for the good of their healths, the
+gentlemen are taking. Whisht, now, they're waking up. Good morning to
+you, sirs; did I wake you up laughing at the Baby?"
+
+The roused sleepers returned the salutation, and greeted the new comer,
+apologizing for depriving him of his comfortable bed. Rufus replied
+civilly, with a frank, open manner that won their respect, and, when
+they had hastily dressed, led them to the pump, where he placed a tin
+basin, soap and towels, at their disposal. After ablutions, they
+questioned him as to the events of last evening, and were soon in
+nominal acquaintance with all the country side. He was indignant at the
+free and easy conduct of a self-invited guest called Rodden, who wanted
+to dance with all the prettiest girls and to play cards. "But when he
+said cards, Annerew, that's a sesayder, told him to clare, although it
+was only four in the morning, and he had to clare, and is on his way to
+Flanders now."
+
+"I suppose you did not hear him make any enquiries regarding us?" asked
+the dominie.
+
+"But I did, and it was only when he hard that you hadn't been past the
+meetin'-house, that he stopped and said 'ee'd 'ave a lark. Do you know
+him?"
+
+"Yes," said Coristine, "he is the Grinstun man," whereat they all
+laughed; and the old lady, coming in with her milking, expressed her
+pleasure at seeing them such good friends.
+
+After prayers and breakfast, the pedestrians prepared to leave, much to
+the regret of the household.
+
+"Where are you bound for now?" asked Mr. Hill, to which Wilkinson
+replied, with the air of a guide-book, "for the Beaver River." The Baby,
+nothing the worse of last night's wakefulness, volunteered to show them
+the way by a shorter and pleasanter route than the main road, and they
+gladly availed themselves of his services. As the party walked on, the
+guide said to Coristine, "I hard fayther say that you were a lawyer, is
+that true?" Coristine answered that he was.
+
+"Then, sir, you ought to know something about that man Rodden; he's a
+bad lot."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"He knows all the doubtfullest and shadiest settlers about, and has long
+whispers with them, and gets a lot of money from them. His pocketbook is
+just bulging out with bank bills."
+
+"Perhaps it is the payment of his grindstones, Rufus."
+
+"You don't tell me that a lawyer, a clever man like you, believe in his
+grindstones?"
+
+"Why not? Doesn't he make and sell them?"
+
+"Yes; he makes them and sells them in bundles of half-a-dozen, but the
+buyer of a bundle only has two to show, and they're no good, haven't
+grit enough to sharpen a wooden spoon."
+
+"How do you know all this?"
+
+"Mostly out of big Ben Toner. He used to be a good sort of fellow, but
+is going all to ruination with the drink. I saw his grindstones and what
+came between 'em. It's more like a barl than anything else, but Ben kept
+me off looking at it close."
+
+"Where does Toner live?"
+
+"Down at the river where you're going. There's a nice, quiet tavern
+there, where you'll likely put up, and he'll be round it, likely, and
+pretty well on by noon. He don't drink there, though, nor the
+tavern-keeper don't buy no grindstones like he does. Well, here you are
+on the track, and I must get back to help dad. Keep right on till you
+come to the first clearing, and then ask your way. Good-bye, wishing you
+a good time, and don't forget that man Rodden." They shook the Baby
+warmly by the hand, and reciprocated his good wishes, Coristine
+promising to keep his eyes and ears open for news of the Grinstun man.
+
+"Did you overhear our talk, Wilks, my boy?" he asked his friend.
+
+"No; I thought it was private, and kept in the background. I do not
+consider it honourable to listen to a conversation to which one is not
+invited, and doubtless it was of no interest to me."
+
+"But it is, Wilks; listen to this now," and volubly the lawyer poured
+forth the information and his suspicions concerning Mr. Rawdon. That
+gentleman's ears would have tingled could he have heard the pleasant and
+complimentary things that Coristine said about him.
+
+The first clearing the pedestrians reached, after an hour's walk since
+parting with Rufus, was a desolate looking spot. Some fallow fields were
+covered with thistles, docks, fire-weed and stately mulleins, with, here
+and there, an evening primrose, one or two of which the lawyer inserted
+in his flower-press. There was hardly any ground under cultivation, and
+the orchard bore signs of neglect. They saw a man in a barn painfully
+rolling along a heavy cylindrical bundle which had just come off a
+waggon. As they advanced to ask him the way, he left his work and came
+to meet them, a being as unkempt as his farm, and with an unpleasant
+light in his bloodshot eye.
+
+"What are you two spyin' around fer at this time o' day, stead o'
+tendin' to your work like the rest o' folks? Ef you want anything, speak
+out, 'cause I've no time to be foolin' round."
+
+"We were directed to ask you, sir, the way to the Beaver River," said
+the dominie, politely. The man sulkily led them away out of view of the
+barn, and then pointed out a footpath through his farm, which he said
+would lead them to the highroad. As they were separating, Wilkinson
+thanked the man, and Coristine asked him casually:--
+
+"Do you happen to know if a Mr. Rawdon, who makes and sells grindstones,
+has passed this way lately?"
+
+"No," cried the sluggard farmer; "who says he has?" Then, in a quieter
+tone, he continued: "I heern tell as he passed along the meetin'-house
+way yesday. What do you want of Rawdon?"
+
+"My friend, here, is a geologist, and so is that gentleman."
+
+"Rawdon a geologist!" he cried again, with a coarse laugh. "Of course he
+is; allers arter trap rock, galeny, quartz and beryl. O yes, he's a
+geologist! Go right along that track there. Good day." Then he rapidly
+retraced his steps towards the barn, as if fearful lest some new visitor
+should interrupt him before his task was completed.
+
+"It may be smuggling," said the lawyer, "but it's liquid of some kind,
+for that dilapidated granger has given his friend away. What do
+hayseeds know about galena, quartz and beryl? These are Grinstun's
+little mineralogical jokes for gallon, quart and barrel, and trap rock
+is another little mystery of his. What do you think of the farmer that
+doesn't follow the plough, Wilks?"
+
+"I think he drinks," sententiously responded the schoolmaster.
+
+"Then he and Ben Toner are in the same box, and both are friends or
+customers of the workin' geologist. I believe it's whiskey goes between
+the grindstones, and that it's smuggled in from the States, somewhere up
+on the Georgian Bay between Collingwood and Owen Sound. The plot is
+thickening."
+
+When the pedestrians emerged from the path on a very pretty country road
+the first objects that met their view were three stout waggons, drawn by
+strong horses and driven by bleary eyed men, noisy and profane of
+speech. Their waggon loads were covered with buffalo robes and
+tarpaulins, which, however, did not effectually conceal the grindstones
+beneath. The drivers eyed the pedestrians with suspicion, and consigned
+them to the lower regions and eternal perdition.
+
+"Wilks, my dear," said the lawyer, in a sort of cool fever heat,
+"there's a revolver and a box of cartridges in my pack that I'd like to
+have in my right hand pocket for that kind of cattle."
+
+"I have one, too," said the dominie, quietly, "but we had better pass on
+and not heed them. See, they are armed as well."
+
+Just as he spoke there was a report; a pistol in the hand of the first
+teamster smoked, and a poor little squirrel, that had been whirring on
+the limb of a basswood, dropped to the ground dead.
+
+"I'd as lief as not put a hole into the back of them d----d packs," said
+the second teamster, whereupon the others swore at him to shut up and
+save his cartridges.
+
+"Wilks, I could once hit a silver dollar at twenty yards. Dad, I'll get
+the thing out anyway." The lawyer sat down, undid his knapsack and
+primed his revolver, which he then placed with the box of cartridges in
+the pocket out of which he had thrown the fossils. The dominie did the
+same, all the time saying: "No violence! my dear friend; in this world
+we must pretend not to see a great many things that we cannot help
+seeing." The teamsters went by, and no further use for the revolver
+appeared. Wilkinson would not allow his companion to shoot at birds or
+chipmunks, and, on being expostulated with, the kindly lawyer confessed
+that it would have been a shame to take their innocent young lives. At
+last they saw a gray paper-like structure of large size on the limb of
+an oak pretty high up. "I'll bet you can't hit that, Wilks," said the
+lawyer. "I shall try," replied the dominie. They fired simultaneously
+and both struck the grey mass, and then the warriors ran, ran as they
+had hardly done since they were boys, for a hundred wasps were after
+them, eager to take vengeance on the piercers of their communal home.
+After two hundred yards had been done in quick time, they stopped and
+faced each other.
+
+"I've killed three that got down my back, but the beggar that stung me
+on the lip escaped," said Coristine.
+
+"I have one sting on the left hand and another on the right temple,"
+replied Wilkinson.
+
+"Is it safe to stop yet, Wilks?"
+
+"Yes; they have given up the pursuit."
+
+"Then, my poor boy, let us go into hospital." So he produced his flask
+and bathed the dominie's temple and hand with the cooling spirit, after
+which Wilkinson loosened his friend's flannel shirt and applied the same
+remedy to his afflicted back, down which the three dead wasps slid to
+the ground. The lawyer healed his own lip by allowing a little of the
+cratur, as he termed it, to trickle over into his mouth.
+
+"It seems to me, Wilks, that, when a man is looking for war, he's bound
+to get it."
+
+"Yes; I suppose that that is what is meant by 'they that take the sword
+shall perish with the sword.'"
+
+"Bad luck to these wasps; they revolved on us."
+
+As the travellers continued their journey, Coristine turned to his
+friend and asked him for counsel.
+
+"You've studied casuistry, Wilks, and I want you, as a judge of what a
+loyal citizen should do, to say what is our duty in regard to the
+Grinstun man."
+
+"What are you, Corry, a lawyer in general practice or a revenue
+detective?"
+
+"A lawyer, of course, but a citizen too."
+
+"Have you, as lawyer or as citizen, a case against Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"As a contributor to the revenue of the country, I think I have."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, he is making money by cheating the Government."
+
+"Where is your proof?"
+
+"Look at what Rufus said, at the doings of that bogus farmer, at these
+three teams on the road."
+
+"Mere inferences based on circumstantial evidence."
+
+"They're things that should be looked into, though."
+
+"Perhaps so, but is it your business to do so? Are you a whiskey
+informer?"
+
+"Come now, Wilks, that's a pretty bad name to call a man."
+
+"That may be, but it seems to denote the rôle you have set before
+yourself."
+
+"I'd like to run that brute into the ground."
+
+"Worse and worse; you are going to prosecute, not from principle, but
+from malice."
+
+"I'm going to show up a scoundrel."
+
+"If that is your work you will never lack employment. But, seriously,
+Corry, _cui bono?_"
+
+"To keep him off Miss Du Plessis' land, to prevent him marrying her, to
+hinder him corrupting the farmers and causing their farms to go to waste
+with smuggled liquor."
+
+"As you like, but Wordsworth says:--
+
+     Whatever be the cause, 'tis sure that they who pry and pore
+     Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before."
+
+"A fig for Wordsworth, and his tear in the old man's eye! I'll not be
+happy till I bring that murdering thief of the world to justice."
+
+Further conversation was checked by the view of the river from the top
+of the hill, challenging the admiration of the two lovers of scenery,
+and they began their descent towards the hamlet that lay on either side
+of the bridge which crossed the swiftly-flowing stream. Then the lawyer
+commenced the recitation of a poem in one of the old Irish readers:--
+
+     River, river, rapid river,
+
+in which the dominie sharply interrupted him, recommending his tall,
+mustachioed friend to put a stick of candy in his mouth and go back to
+petticoats and pinafores.
+
+"Wilks, you remind me of a picture I saw once, in _Punch_ or somewhere
+else, of a nigger sandwich man advertising baths, and a sweep looking at
+him, and saying: 'It's enough to tempt one, he looks so jolly clean
+hisself.' That's the way with you, always firing out Wordsworth's silly
+twaddle, and objecting to a piece of genuine poetry because it's in a
+reader. The pig-headed impudence of you birchers beats all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     The Maple Inn--Mr. Bigglethorpe's Store--Dinner--Worms--Ben
+     Toner--The Dugout--Fishing in the Beaver River--The Upset
+     Suckers--The Indignant Dominie Propitiated and Clothed--Anecdotes
+     of Mr. Bulky--A Doctor Wanted.
+
+
+A very clean and attractive hostelry received the travellers, and
+compelled the dominie to remark cheerfully, "Now shall I take mine ease
+in mine inn," which led to his lately indignant friend's response:--
+
+     Who'er has travell'd life's dull round,
+     Where'er his stages may have been,
+     May sigh to think he still has found
+     The warmest welcome at an inn.
+
+P. Lajeunesse was the name on the sign, which displayed a vegetable
+wonder of the painter's art meant for a maple tree, for Madame
+Lajeunesse kept the Maple Inn. That lady, a portly brunette, with a
+pleasant smile and a merry twinkle in her eye, received the
+distinguished guests in person. Wilkinson replied to her bow and curtsey
+with a dignified salutation, but the lawyer shook hands with her,
+saying: "I hope you're very well, Madame; it's a lovely place you have
+here." Madame replied that it was lofely when the moustique was not, and
+summoned Pierre to help the dominie off with his knapsack, saying
+"permettit me," as she unfastened the straps of Coristine's, and removed
+that burden, which she deposited upon a table in the sitting-room
+adjoining the hall. Pierre, a bald-headed French-Canadian, hiding his
+lack of hair under a red tuque, and sporting a white moustache of large
+dimensions, arrived too late to help the schoolmaster, but he elevated
+his eyebrows, grimaced, rubbed his hands, and slid his feet apart, in
+pleased welcome.
+
+"Ze chentlemans ave come to feesh lika many in ze springa monses?
+Feeshing not so coot as zen, bot in ze cool place vare is oles onder ze
+trees feesh lorrik. Is zat spoken correct, zat vord lorrik? I ave learn
+it from Meestare Bulky. O, a ver great feesherman."
+
+Wilkinson replied that lurk was an excellent word, and very expressive
+of the conduct of fish in warm weather, explaining that he was no
+fisherman himself, but that his friend was attached to that kind of
+sport.
+
+"Dinnare, Messieu, in one hour," remarked Madame, as she returned to her
+duties.
+
+"Where can I get fishing tackle, landlord?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"At ze store, zare is onelly one. You vill not lose yourself long in
+zisa city," replied mine host with an attempt at wit.
+
+Wilkinson remained in the cool parlour, inspecting the plates on the
+walls and a few books on a side table. The latter were chiefly poor
+novels in English, left by former guests as not worth taking home, but
+among them was a thoroughly French paper-bound copy of Alphonse Karr's
+Voyage autour de mon Jardin. Falling into an easy chair, the
+schoolmaster surrendered himself to the charming style and subtle humour
+of this new found treasure.
+
+The lawyer went straight to Mr. Bigglethorpe's store, and found himself,
+at the time, its sole customer. The proprietor was an Englishman of some
+five and thirty years, tall and thin, wearing a long full beard and
+overhanging moustache. He sold fishing tackle and was himself a
+fisherman, the latter being the reason why he had come to the Beaver
+River and set up store. It occupied him when fishing was poor, and
+helped to check the consumption of his capital. Before he married, he
+locked the door, when the fishing was good, and put the key in his
+pocket, but now Mrs. Bigglethorpe minded the shop in his absence. Having
+supplied Coristine with hooks and lines, and recommended him what kind
+of a rod to cut out of the bush for ordinary still fishing, he offered
+to lend him one of his own fly rods, and opened his fly book for his
+inspection. Soon the pair were deep in all kinds of artificial flies and
+their manufacture, Black and Red and White Hackles, Peacock Fly,
+Mackerel, Green Grasshopper, Black Ant, Governor, Partridge, and a host
+more. The lawyer declined the rod, as the storekeeper informed him that,
+so late in the season and in the day, it was utterly useless to look for
+trout. He had better get old Batiste at the Inn to dig him up some
+earthworms, and go fishing with them like the boys. He would find a
+canoe moored near the bridge which he could use. Who it belonged to Mr.
+Bigglethorpe didn't know, but it was of no consequence, for everybody
+took it that wanted it for a morning or afternoon. If Mr. Coristine
+heard of any new kind of fly, perhaps he'd be good enough to remember
+him and let him know, something killing for autumn use, or, as people
+say here, for fall fishing. Mr. Coristine promised to remember him, and
+departed with his purchases, just as a voice, feminine but decided,
+called to Mr. Bigglethorpe by name to come and hold the baby, while its
+owner dished the dinner. "Talk about Hackles," said the lawyer to
+himself on the way Inn-wards, "I imagine he has somebody in there that
+can hackle him, long beard and all."
+
+The dinner bell at the Maple was ringing vigorously. Monsieur Lajeunesse
+had taken off his coat to ring it, and stood in the doorway in a flaming
+red waistcoat, the companion of his tuque, over a spotlessly white
+shirt, to let all who dwelt on the Beaver River know that the hour of
+noon had arrived. The dinner, over which Madame presided, was excellent.
+With the soup and the fish there was white wine, and good sound beer
+with the entrées and solids. The schoolmaster spoke French to the
+hostess, chiefly about the book he had been reading, and the lawyer
+discussed fishing with Pierre, who constantly referred to his great
+authority, Meestare Bulky. Madame, charmed that her guest could converse
+with her in her mother tongue, generously filled his glasses, and
+provided his plates with the most seductive morsels. Monsieur
+Veelkeenson was the white-haired boy at that table, and he felt it,
+yielded to the full satisfaction of it. He had dined royally, and was
+fit for anything. When his friend asked him if he would go fishing, he
+replied jauntily, and in a way quite unlike himself: "Why, suttenly,
+which would you rather do or go fishin'?"
+
+"O Wilks," cried the lawyer, "you're a patent pressed brick! I feel like
+old Isaac Walton's Coridon, that said, d'ye mind, 'Come, hostess, give
+us more ale, and let's drink to him,' which is natural, seeing I'm
+called Corry."
+
+The companions had a glass of ale after dinner, which was quite
+indefensible, for they had had a sufficiency at that bounteous repast.
+Evidently, the dominie was in for a good time. A wizened old fellow,
+named Batiste, with a permanent crick in his back, dug the worms, and
+presented them to the lawyer in an empty lobster tin, the outside of
+which was covered with texts of Scripture. "It seems almost profane,"
+remarked the recipient, "to carry worms inside so much Bible language."
+But the merry schoolmaster remarked that it was turn about, for he had
+heard a Scotch preacher, who seemed to know the whole Bible by heart,
+say in prayer, on behalf of himself and his people, "we are all poor
+wurrums of the airth." "Probably, however," he continued, "he would have
+objected to be treated as a worm."
+
+"They say even a worm will turn, which, if your parson was a large man,
+might be serious enough," replied the lawyer. "I remember, when I was a
+small boy, thinking that the Kings of Israel kept large men for crushing
+their enemies, because they used to say, 'Go and fall upon him, and he
+fell upon him and he died.' That might be the way with the human wurrum.
+It's not always safe to trust these humble men."
+
+"Corry, you're a profane man; your treatment of sacred things is
+scandalously irreverent," said the dominie.
+
+"Who began it?" retorted the victim.
+
+"You did, sir, with your textual lobster can," replied the reprover.
+
+"The ancient Hebrews, in the height of their pride and glory, knew not
+the luxury of lobster salad," Coristine remarked, gravely, as if
+reciting a piece.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because, if I offer a prize of a Trip to the Dark Continent to the
+first person buying a copy of our published travels, who finds the word
+lobster in the Bible, I shall never have occasion to purchase the
+ticket."
+
+As they moved in the direction of the river, Pierre came after them and
+asked:--
+
+"You make your feeshing off ze bord or in ze vatars!"
+
+"I prefer the board," replied Coristine, "if it's as good of its kind as
+that you gave us at dinner."
+
+"Keep quiet, you do not understand him," interposed the schoolmaster;
+"he means the shore, the bank of the river by the bord. N'est ce pas,
+Monsieur?"
+
+"Oui, oui, M'syae, le bord, le rivauge de la rivière."
+
+"Non, Monsieur Pierre, nous allons prendre le bateau," answered
+Wilkinson, with a dignity that his companion envied.
+
+The red-nightcapped host called Baptiste.
+
+"Vau t-en donc, Bawtiste, dépêche twa, trouve deux petits bouts de
+plaunche pour le canot."
+
+Batiste soon returned with two boards.
+
+"Canot 'ave no seat, you placea zem over two ends for seet down," said
+Pierre, relapsing into English.
+
+Wilkinson assumed the responsibility of the boards and the fishermen
+proceeded to the river bank near the bridge to find the canoe. It was
+long, and, for a dug-out, fairly wide, but ancient and black, and moist
+at the bottom, owing to an insufficiently caulked crack. Its paddles had
+seen much service, and presented but little breadth of blade.
+
+"I should like to place these boards," said Wilkinson, as he surveyed
+first them and then the dug-out; "I should like to place these boards,
+one across the bow and the other across the stern, but I really cannot
+decide which is the bow and which is the stern."
+
+"She's a sort of a fore and after, Wilks, like the slip-ferry
+steamboats. I think, if you could find a bit of chalk or charcoal, and
+write bow on one plank and stern on the other, it would make her
+ship-shape and settle the business."
+
+"I have no sympathy, Corry, with makeshifts and factitious devices. I
+wish to arrive at the true inwardness of this boat. At what end of a
+boat is the anchor let down?"
+
+"In the _Susan Thomas_ it was pretty near the bow, and I think I've seen
+yachts riding at anchor that way in Toronto harbour."
+
+"In the time of St. Paul, however, there were four anchors, if I
+remember aright, cast out of the stern."
+
+"I don't see how the anchor is going to help us. This long Tom Coffin
+has nothing of the kind."
+
+"You are sadly deficient in observation, Corry, or you would have
+observed a rope, very much abraded indeed, but still a rope, by which
+the vessel may be said, even though figuratively, to be anchored to this
+stake."
+
+"It's you're the clever man, Wilks; education has done wonders for you.
+Now, I remember that rope is the painter; that's what The Crew called it
+on the dingy, and of course it was fastened to the bow."
+
+"But to the stern of the larger vessel."
+
+"Yes, but here there is no larger vessel. If you want one, for argument
+sake, you'll have to imagine the post to be it. The coffin is bow on to
+the shore."
+
+"Corry, I insist, if I am to trust myself to this craft, that you call
+it by some other name."
+
+"Were you ever in anything of the kind before, Wilks?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Nor I." These simple words had in them a depth of meaning.
+
+A young man came on to the bridge and leaned over the rail, looking at
+the fishermen. He was respectably clad in a farmer's holiday suit, was
+tall, strongly built, and with good features that bore unmistakable
+marks of dissipation. "I'll bet you that's Ben Toner," whispered the
+lawyer, who was examining the new-found bow prior to depositing his
+boards.
+
+"Goin' fishin'?" asked the new comer, in a not unpleasant voice.
+
+"Yes," replied Coristine; "we're going in this--what do you call it?"
+
+"Dug-out, and mighty poor at that. Fishin's no good here now. River was
+a pardise for Trontah folks wunst, but it's clean fished out. I seen
+fellers go to a ho-ul up thayer," said the supposed Ben, pointing in the
+opposite direction, "and take out a hull barl-ful afore sundown. 'Taint
+to be did, not now, wuss luck! Wait to I come down, and I'll haylp you
+off with that kinew."
+
+The speaker descended, untied the frayed painter, and hauled the
+dug-out to a point where, the bank being higher, embarkation was more
+easy. He dissuaded the navigators from sitting on the boards placed over
+the gunwales, as likely to be, what he called, parlous, and recommended
+that the boards be placed on the floor of the craft to keep the water
+off their "paants." The fishermen consented, and sat down safely at each
+end facing one another, with his assistance to hold the dug-out steady,
+the dominie in the bow and the lawyer in the stern. They thanked their
+ally, bade him good afternoon, and proceeded to paddle. Ben Toner
+laughed, and cried to Coristine: "I'll lay two to one on you, Mister,
+for you've got the curnt to haylp you." The dugout, in spite of the
+schoolmaster's fierce paddling, was moving corkscrew-like in the
+opposite direction, owing largely to the current, but partly to the
+superior height of the lawyer, which gave his paddle a longer sweep.
+Still, he found progress slow, till a happy thought struck him.
+
+"Wilks, my boy, it's paddling our own canoe we are, but too much that
+way. We're a house divided against itself, Wilks. Either you must turn
+round or I must, and, if I do, then you'll be the stern and I the bow."
+
+"I thought there was something wrong, Corry, but the excitement incident
+on a new sensation absorbed my attention. Of course, I shall move, as it
+would be very confusing, not to say ridiculous, to invert the relative
+positions of the boat."
+
+"Then, Wilks dear, wait till I paddle her near the bank, for fear of
+accidents."
+
+When the bank was reached, the dominie landed, picked up his board and
+placed it farther back, then sat down gingerly, with his legs spread out
+before him, and began paddling on the same side as his companion, which
+zigzagged the frail craft more than ever, and finally brought it to the
+shore. Ben Toner, who had been laughing at the city innocents, ran down
+to a point opposite the dug-out, and told them to paddle on opposite
+sides, giving directions how to steer with one of the emaciated
+propellers. After that, the course of the vessel was a source of
+continual self-commendatory remark by the voyageurs.
+
+After a while, they came to a wooden bridge, built upon piles resting in
+the stream. "This," said the schoolmaster, "is the _Pons sublicius_,
+like that which Ancus Martius built over the Tiber. Shall we shoot it,
+Corry, or shall we call a halt and proceed to fish?"
+
+The dug-out bumped on the piles, and the navigators trembled, but
+Wilkinson, bravely gathering his legs under him and rising to his knees
+on the board, threw his arms round a pile, when, in spite of Coristine's
+efforts, the craft slewed round and the stern got under the bridge ahead
+of the bow.
+
+"Hold on, Wilks," the lawyer cried; "another bump like that and the old
+thing'll split in two. Now, then, we'll drop the paddles and slip her
+along the bridge to the bank. There's a hole under that birch tree
+there, and some fine young birches that will do for rods back of it.
+Doesn't the birch make you feel like England, home and duty, Wilks?"
+
+"The quotation, sir, is incorrect, as usual; it is England, home and
+beauty."
+
+"Well, that's a beauty of a birch, anyway."
+
+They got ashore, and fastened the painter to a sapling on the bank,
+because it was not long enough to go round a pile. Then they produced
+their knives, and, proceeding to the place where the young birches grew,
+cut down two famous rods, to which they attached lines with white and
+green floats and small hooks with gut attachments. The lobster can was
+produced, and wriggling worms fixed on the hooks. "A worm at one end and
+a fool at the other," said the lawyer. "Speak for yourself, sir,"
+replied the dominie. The next thing was to get into the canoe, which was
+safely effected. Then, the question arose, how was she to be moored in
+the current? Wilkinson suggested a stake driven into the bottom for the
+deep-sea mooring, and an attachment to the exposed root of the lovely
+overhanging birch for that to landward. So Coristine sprang ashore, cut
+a heavier birch, and trimmed one end to a point. Bringing this on board,
+he handed it to his companion, and, paddling up stream, brought him
+opposite the overarching tree. The dominie drove the stake deep into the
+river mud and pressed it down. The stake was all that could be desired
+for a deep-sea mooring, and to it the painter was attached.
+
+"What are you going to do about your end of the vessel, Corry?" he
+asked.
+
+"That's all right," replied the lawyer, who, forthwith, took off coat
+and waistcoat.
+
+"You are not going to undress, I hope," remarked his friend; "there is a
+bare possibility that people, even ladies, might be walking this way,
+sir, and I do not wish to be disgraced."
+
+"Never fear, Wilks, my boy, it's my braces I am after." With this,
+Coristine took off these articles, and, fastening a button hole over a
+rusty nail in the stern, tied the other end about a root of the birch.
+The dug-out was securely fastened, so that the current only rocked it a
+little, causing the lawyer to sing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep."
+Then they sat down on their boards and began fishing.
+
+They had a very pleasant hour hooking shiners and chub, and an
+occasional perch that looked at a distance like a trout. The dominie,
+_apropos_ of his friend's braces, told Alphonse Karr's story of the
+_bretellier_ in the Jardin des Plantes, and the credulous sceptic who
+did not believe that a suspender tree existed. He knew that cotton grew
+on a shrub, and that caoutchouc exuded from a tree, and admitted the
+possibility of their natural combination, but thought his deceivers had
+reference to braces with metal attachments.
+
+"That reminds me," said the lawyer, "of a man from Lanark that came into
+our office asking where he'd find a mining geologist. He had some
+grey-looking cork and leather wrapped up in a newspaper, and said he had
+dug them out of the ground where there was lots more of both of them. I
+told him he had likely come on the remains of an old picnic, and that
+the leather was the skin of the ham they had taken out to make
+sandwiches of; but the impudent creature laughed in my face, as if any
+child doesn't know that leather is the skin of beasts, and cork, of a
+tree!"
+
+"Nevertheless, Corry, he was no doubt right, and you were wrong in your
+scepticism. What are called mountain cork and mountain leather are forms
+of asbestos. They are of no use, unless it be for the lining of safes.
+The fibrous asbestos can be made into fire-proof clothes."
+
+"So, old Leather Corks had the laugh on me there! Dad, I'll apologize
+for sending him to the marines next time he comes in. What a thing it
+is to have the larnin' like you, Wilks!"
+
+"A mere mineralogical trifle, my dear Corry, nothing more."
+
+"Wilks, do you mind the 'Fisher's Song,' composed by the late Mr.
+William Bass, that's in the 'Complete Angler'? I don't suppose it would
+scare the fish much. It goes to the tune of 'The Pope, he leads a happy
+life,' like this:--
+
+     Of recreation there is none
+     So free as fishing is alone;
+     All other pastimes do no less
+     Than mind and body both possess;
+       My hand alone my work can do,
+       So I can fish and study too.
+
+     I care not, I, to fish in seas--
+     Fresh rivers best my mind do please,
+     Whose sweet calm course I contemplate,
+     And seek in life to imitate:
+       In civil bounds I fain would keep,
+       And for my past offences weep.
+
+     And when the timorous trout I wait
+     To take, and he devours my bait.
+     How poor a thing, sometimes I find,
+     Will captivate a greedy mind;
+       And when none bite, I praise the wise,
+       Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise.
+
+     But yet, though while I fish I fast,
+     I make good fortune my repast;
+     And thereunto my friend invite,
+     In whom I more than that delight:
+       Who is more welcome to my dish
+       Than to my angle was my fish."
+
+"Well done, Corry--a very good song and very well sung,
+
+     Jolly companions every one.
+
+Why will these wretched rhymsters couple such words as sung and one? It
+is like near and tears in the American war-song, 'The Old Camp-Ground.'
+Some people are like these fish; they have no ear at all. A practical
+joker, like you, Corry, once corrected a young lady who was singing:--
+
+     Golden years ago,
+     In a mill beside the sea,
+     There dwelt a little maiden,
+     Who plighted her troth to me.
+
+He suggested Floss for sea, because of George Eliot's Mill on the
+Floss, and, you would hardly believe it, did I not vouch for its truth,
+she actually rhymed Floss and me. It was excruciating."
+
+"I can beat that, Wilks. I was out in the country on business, and
+stopped at our client's house, a farmer he was. The man that led the
+music in his church, an old Yank, who drawled out his words in singing,
+like sweeowtest for sweetest, was teaching the farmer's daughter to play
+the organ. He offered to sing for my benefit, in an informal way, one of
+my national melodies; and he did. It was 'The harp that once through
+Tara's halls,' and--O Wilks--he sang it to a tune called Ortonville, an
+awful whining, jog-trot, Methodistical thing with a repeat. My client
+asked me privately what I thought of it, and I told him that, if Mr.
+Sprague had said he was going to sing it in an infernal way, he would
+have been nearer the truth."
+
+"Your language is strong, my friend. The late Mr. William Basse, as you
+designate him, would not have condescended to the use of such terms."
+
+"Faith, the language isn't made that's too bad for Ortonville. You've
+got a big one this time, Wilks, my boy--play him!"
+
+The dominie succeeded in bringing in his fish, a big fellow, between a
+pound and a-half and two pounds in weight, on which he gazed with
+delight, as the lawyer unhooked it, and deposited it, with a smart rap
+on the head, at the bottom of the canoe.
+
+"Is that a trout, Corry?" the Dominie asked with eager pride.
+
+"No; it's not a brook or speckled trout, for it has no speckles, and
+it's not a relative of the late William Basse, for it isn't deep enough
+in the body, nor a perch, for it's too big and has no stripes. It's
+either a salmon trout or a pickerel, Wilks."
+
+"Is there not some fable about the latter fish?"
+
+"Yes; old Isaac says that it's produced from the pickerel weed, the
+Pontederia, that should be coming into flower about now. I haven't seen
+any yet. There's another, for me this time--ugh, it's only a perch."
+
+The schoolmaster, emboldened by success, declared that he was too
+cramped, and, gathering his legs together, while he held on to the
+sides of the dug-out, succeeded in grasping the top of the deep-sea
+mooring. Then, with the other hand, he raised the board, and transferred
+it to the gunwale. Sitting upon the improvised seat with his back to the
+bow, he expressed satisfaction at facing his companion, for one thing,
+and at being out of the way of the fish in the canoe, for another.
+Coristine followed suit, and, when his plank was in position, said he
+felt something like old Woodruff in a small way.
+
+"How is that?" asked the inquisitive dominie.
+
+"He's a director in ever so many institutions, and is always out,
+sitting on boards. I have only one so far; as Shakespeare says, it's a
+poor one, but mine own."
+
+"Tut, tut," replied his disgusted friend; "more desecration."
+
+Nevertheless he smiled, as a thought came into his mind, and he remarked
+that the vessel was rather a small concern to have two boards of
+direction; to which the lawyer answered that it was no worse off in that
+respect than the Province of Quebec, or the Church, or the universities,
+which could not trust one governing body to do their work.
+
+"I have another, a large fish," shouted the schoolmaster, wildly excited
+and rising to his feet. The fish pulled hard up stream till the whole
+extent of line and rod combined was out at arm's length. Eager to secure
+the prey, and thinking nothing of the precarious foundation on which he
+stood, he placed a foot upon the gunwale in order to reach still farther
+out.
+
+"Look out, Wilks!" cried Coristine, as he also rose and grasped an
+overhanging branch of the birch; but it was too late. The dug-out
+tipped, the boards slid into the water, and with them went the dominie,
+rod, fish, and all. When the canoe recovered its equilibrium, Wilkinson,
+minus his wide awake, which was floating down the stream, was seen
+apparently climbing the deep-sea mooring post, like a bear on a pole,
+his clothes dripping where they were out of the water, his hair
+plastered over his eyes, and his face flushed with anger. The lawyer
+could not restrain his mirth, although he knew the vengeance it would
+excite in the dominie's breast.
+
+"O Wilks, Wilks, my poor drowned rat of a friend, ha! ha! ha! O Moses!
+but it's too comical you are; the nuns couldn't help it, Wilks, no, nor
+the undertaker's drum-major, nor a hired butler, even. Howld on, just
+one second more, till I'm fit to steady this divil of a dug-out for you
+to get in. If I only had a kodak, Wilks, you would be immortal, and the
+expenses of our trip would be paid. Oh, garrahow, ha! ha!"
+
+The dominie climbed on to the bow of the dug-out, while Coristine
+balanced it, and made his silent way to the shore end, from which he
+gained the bank. There he shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and
+brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. He muttered a great deal, but said
+nothing loud enough to be intelligible; his tone, however, was far from
+reassuring to his companion. The lawyer unmoored the dug-out at both
+ends, and set forth to recover the missing articles. He found the hat
+and the two boards on the shore, a short way down the river, and, in the
+middle of the stream, recaptured the fishing-rod. To his great delight,
+the fish was still on the hook, and he imparted the joyful news to his
+shivering friend, but got no single word in reply. It was another salmon
+trout, or pickerel, or some such fish, and he deposited it gleefully in
+the bottom of the canoe with the others, which had not escaped in the
+tip-over. Returning, he handed Wilkinson his hat, and hoped he was none
+the worse of his ducking. The schoolmaster took the wide-awake, but gave
+no answer. Then the lawyer invited him to take his place in the boat,
+when the storm burst.
+
+"Am I a fool, Mr. Coristine, an abject, unthinking, infatuated fool, to
+entrust my comfort, my safety, my life, to a man without the soul of a
+man, to a childish, feeble-minded, giggling and guffawing player of
+senseless, practical jokes, to a creature utterly wanting in heart,
+selfish and brutal to a degree?"
+
+"Oh, Wilks, my dear boy, this is too bad. I had nothing in the mortal
+world to do with your tumbling out of the old dug-out, 'pon my honour I
+hadn't."
+
+"Kindly keep your silence, sir, and do not outrage my sufficiently
+harrowed feelings by adding worse to bad. I shall go to the inn on
+_terra firma_, and leave you in charge of what you seem so able to
+manage in your own clownish, pantomimic way. Be good enough to bring my
+fish, and do not distinguish yourself by upsetting them into their
+native element." With these words, and in great apparent scorn, the
+draggled dominie took his course along the bank and soon disappeared
+from view. The lawyer followed in the canoe, but more slowly, as the
+current was against him, and often turned the boat round. By dint of
+strenuous efforts he gained the bridge, and found the supposed Ben
+leaning over it.
+
+"I see you've drownded your man," he remarked with a laugh.
+
+"Yes," replied Coristine; "we had a spill."
+
+"Had any luck?"
+
+"Pretty fair," the lawyer answered, exhibiting his treasures.
+
+"Perch, and chub, and shiners, and them good-for-nawthun tag ends of all
+creation, suckers."
+
+"Is that what they are?" asked the disappointed fisherman, holding up
+the spoil of Wilkinson's rod.
+
+"That's jest what they are, flabby, bony, white-livered, or'nary
+suckers. Niggers and Injuns won't touch 'em, ony in the spring; they'd
+liefer eat mudcats."
+
+The lawyer tied his dug-out to the stake, while Ben, who informed him
+that his name was Toner, got a willow twig with a crotch at the thick
+end, and strung his fish on it through the gills.
+
+"I guess you'd better fire them suckers into the drink," he said, but
+Coristine interposed to save them from such a fate.
+
+"They are my friend's catch," he said, "and I'll let him do what he
+likes with them."
+
+Then, attended by Mr. Toner, carrying the string of fish, suckers
+included, he bent his steps towards the Maple Inn.
+
+When they arrived, they found Madame standing in the doorway. She
+admired the fish, and complimented Coristine on his success. He,
+however, disclaimed most of them in favour of his friend, for whose
+health and whereabouts he enquired with much earnestness.
+
+"Ze pauvre Meestare Veelkeensen retires himselfa in ze chomber to
+shongje his vet habillement vit datta o' Pierre. I 'opes he catcha no
+cold."
+
+"Better mix him a hot drink, Madame," said Mr. Toner.
+
+"I 'ave fear, Ben, you lofe too moch hot dreenks," replied Madame.
+
+"That's jest where you're out, Missus; I take my little tods cold."
+
+"Hot or cold, you take nossing in our salon."
+
+"Naw, not so long as I can get better stuff, real white wheat that ain't
+seen the water barl."
+
+The lawyer noticed this unguarded saying of Toner's, but this did not
+hinder his asking if Madame had hot water, and could mix some real Irish
+punch for his afflicted friend. Madame had no Irish, but she had some
+good Scotcha veesky, which Coristine said would do, only, instead of
+Irish punch, the mixture would be Scotch toddy. The toddy procured, he
+sprang up-stairs, two steps at a time, meeting Monsieur Lajeunesse,
+descending with an armful of wet clothes. Bursting into the room to
+which the dominie had been led, he found him on a chair drying himself
+by detachments. Already his upper man had been rubbed by Pierre, and
+clothed with a shirt, vest and velveteen coat from his wardrobe. Now he
+was polishing his nether extremities with a towel, preparatory to adding
+a pair of gaudy striped trousers to his borrowed gear. Striding up to
+him with a ferocious air, the lawyer presented the smoking glass,
+exclaiming: "Drink this down, Wilks, or I'll kill you where you sit."
+
+"What is it?" feebly asked the schoolmaster, feeling the weakness of his
+kilted position.
+
+"It's toddy, whiskey toddy, Scotch whiskey toddy, the only thing that'll
+save your life," cried Coristine, with firmness amounting to
+intimidation. The dominie sipped the glass, stirred it with the spoon,
+and gradually finished the mixture. Then, laying the tumbler on the
+table beside his watch and pocketbook, he finished his rubbing-down, and
+encased his legs in Pierre's Sunday trousers. As he turned up the
+latter, and pulled on a pair of his own socks, he remarked to his friend
+that he felt better already, and was much obliged to him for the toddy.
+
+"Don't mention it, my boy, I'm so glad it's done you good."
+
+"I fear, Corry, that I was hasty and unjust to you when I came out of
+the water."
+
+"Oh well, Wilks darlin', let us say no more about it, or, like the late
+Mr. William Basse, I'll for my past offences weep. I don't know what it
+is exactly you're like now. If you had the faytures, you would do for
+one of the Peoplesh. You and the grinstun man could hunt in couples.
+With a billy cock-hat on the side of your head, you'd make a sporting
+gent. Are you feeling pretty well, Wilks, as far as the clothes will let
+you?"
+
+"Yes; I am all right again, I think."
+
+"Then I must damp the ardour of ingenuous youth,
+
+     And dash the cup of joy to earth
+     Ere it be running o'er.
+
+Wilks, prepare yourself for a blow."
+
+"Quick, Corry, make no delay--has the colonel fallen from his horse? Has
+his niece accepted Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"No; my dear friend, but those big fish, one of which you risked your
+precious life after, are--suckers. Ben Toner wanted to fire them into
+the drink, but I restrained his sucker-cidal hand. You seem to bear the
+news with resignation."
+
+The lawyer accompanied his resuscitated friend down stairs. The
+velveteen waistcoat exhibited an ample shirt-front, and had pockets with
+flaps like the coat. The dominie's own blue and yellow silk handkerchief
+was tied in a sailor's knot round a rakish collar, that compromised
+between a turn-down and a stand-up; and his nether garments began with
+the dark and light blue broad-striped trousers and ended in a large pair
+of felt slippers, admirable footgear, no doubt, for seasons of extreme
+cold. Thus attired, Wilkinson occupied the sitting-room, and returned to
+the study of Alphonse Karr. Mr. Toner had left the string of fish by the
+door, where it was quite safe. There seemed to be no boys, no dogs, no
+cats, about the quiet Beaver River. Once in a long while, a solitary
+figure might be perceived going to or returning from the store. The only
+possible thief of the fish would have been a stray mink or otter
+prospecting for a new home, unless, indeed, Madame's fowls had escaped
+from the poultry yard. Coristine brought the string to his disguised
+companion, just as the hostess arrived to enquire after his health and
+renew the French conversation. Having replied politely to her questions,
+the schoolmaster expressed his regret that the fish were so poor and
+especially that he had been deceived in the "suceurs." Madame did not
+comprehend, and said "Plait il?" whereupon he called his friend near and
+pointed out the offending fish. "Aw oui, M'syae, ce sont des mulets de
+l'eau douce, un petit peu trop tawrd dons la saison, autrement un
+morceau friaund." Then she proceeded to say that the smaller fish could
+be cooked for supper, "comme les éperlans de law baw," pointing with her
+finger eastward, to designate, by the latter words, the Gulf of St.
+Lawrence. She would boil the mullets, if Monsieur did not object, and
+give them to the fowls; did Monsieur take an interest in fowls?
+Generously the dominie handed over all the fish, through Coristine, for
+Madame to do what she liked with, and expressed an interest in various
+descriptions of poultry, the names of which he was entirely ignorant of.
+The interview over, he returned to his book, and the lawyer went to look
+for his civil acquaintance, Mr. Toner. Him he found on the bridge, and
+in a somewhat sulky humour, apparently by no means pleased at being
+sought out. Not wishing to intrude, Coristine made an excuse for his
+appearance in the bits of board, which he professed to have forgotten to
+take out of the dug-out. "That sort of lumber don't count for much in
+these parts," remarked Ben, suspiciously, and his intending companion
+retired, feeling that, though a limb of the law, he was a miserable
+sham.
+
+While in the chamber which witnessed the dominie's transformation, the
+lawyer had perceived that its window commanded the bridge and the
+adjoining parts of the river. Leaving his friend in the enjoyment of his
+book, he ascended to the room, and watched like a detective. Soon he saw
+a waggon roll up to the bridge, and, almost simultaneously, a large punt
+in which was Ben Toner, come from nowhere. Three bundles of apparent
+grindstones were laboriously conveyed from the waggon to the punt, after
+which the waggon went back and the punt went forward, both becoming lost
+to sight in the foliage of road and river. Once more the bell of the
+Maple Inn sounded loudly, to inform the general public that the hour of
+six had arrived, and to summon guests to the early supper. Descending to
+the sitting-room, the amateur detective found his friend there, and
+escorted him, with much unnecessary formality, to the tea table. The
+fish were there, betrayed, even afar off, by their not unpleasant odour,
+and there also was an attractive looking ham, flanked by plates of hot
+cakes and other evidences of culinary skill on Madame's part. She poured
+out a good cup of tea for the table quartette, while Pierre aided in
+distributing the solids. The conversation turned on fish, and, as
+before, the dominie spoke French to the hostess, while M. Lajeunesse
+made the lawyer acquainted with some piscatorial exploits of Mr. Bulky.
+Mr. Bulky had once been upset from the canoe, but, unlike Mr. Wilkinson,
+he could not swim. The case might have been a very serious one,
+destructive to the reputation of L'Erable ("zatta ees maybole in ze
+Fraynsh langwitch," the host explained) and of city visits to the Beaver
+River.
+
+"How was he saved?" enquired the lawyer.
+
+"He vas save by potting 'is foot to ze bottom," replied the host.
+
+"I've heard of a man putting a stone on his head and walking through a
+river under water, but haven't believed it yet," continued Coristine.
+
+"He had not necessity of a stone; 'is head was op; ze rivare vas not so
+'igh zan ze jouldares of Meestare Bulky," answered Pierre quite
+seriously.
+
+"Then he saved himself?"
+
+"No, sare, 'is foot save 'im; Meestare Bulky 'ave a veray 'eavy foot.
+Eef 'is foot hadda been also leetle as ze foot of M'syae, Meestare Bulky
+vould 'ave drown."
+
+Madame's sharp ears overheard this conversation while carrying on that
+with Wilkinson, and broke in upon her erring spouse:--
+
+"Teh twa, Pierre! c'n'est paw trop poli d'se moquer des pieds d'un bon
+pawtron."
+
+"Mez, Angélique, mwa, me moquer, mwa? et de M'syae Bulky? Aw, ma bonne
+Angélique, fi donc!" and M. Lajeunesse withdrew from the table,
+overwhelmed with the mere suspicion of such foul treachery and base
+ingratitude.
+
+Batiste had put out three wooden arm chairs, and a rocker for Madame, on
+the verandah, whither the party of the tea table retired. Coristine
+asked her permission to smoke, when it appeared that Pierre had been
+waiting for a sign that either of his guests indulged in the weed. As
+he also filled his pipe, he remarked to his fellow smoker that "Meestare
+Bulky vare good shentleman, and rest 'ere longatimes, bot ze perfume of
+ze 'bonne pipe,' same of ze cigawr makea 'im seek."
+
+"Does that interfere with your liberty to smoke?" Wilkinson asked.
+
+"Aw, preciselly; zen most I go to ze stebble and tekka ze younga guestes
+zat smoke not in chombres _bouchees_, vat you call zat?"
+
+"Literally, it means corked," replied the dominie; "but I presume you
+mean, with door and window closed, as it were, hermetically sealed."
+
+"Preciselly; ve 'ave ze vord in ze Fraynsh langwitch, _érémitique_, zat
+ees as a religious oo leeves all alone, vis person zere bot 'imselluf. I
+tekka ze guestes zat lofe not ze eremitique life to ze stebble, vare ve
+smale ze stingy tawbawc of Bawtiste. M'syae parle Francea, meh peutehtre
+ne conneh le tawbawc puant, en Anglah _stingy_, de Bawtiste. C'n'est
+paws awgréable, M'syae. Aw, non, paw de tout, je vous asshere!"
+
+"That is very considerate of you," remarked the schoolmaster,
+approvingly. "I wish all users of the narcotic were as mindful of the
+comfort and health of their neighbours. Regard for the feelings of
+others is perhaps the chief distinguishing mark of a gentleman."
+
+"Meestare Bulky ees a shentleman, bot he 'ave no sharitay for smokinga
+men," replied Pierre, ruefully.
+
+"That's where the shoe pinches, not your feet, Wilks," said the lawyer,
+with a laugh. "You could touch bottom, like Mr. Bulky, with these
+gunboats, but on all your privileged classes. Why should Bulky bulk so
+large in any place of entertainment as to send everybody else to a
+stable? Catch me smoking with that old garlic-perfumed Batiste! How
+about the garlic, and peppermint, and musk, and sauer-kraut, and all the
+other smells. Any smells about Mr. Bulky, Pierre?"
+
+"Aw yehs; 'ees feeshing goat smale, aw, eet smale an' smale of som stoff
+he call ass-afeetiter, ze feesh liike ze smale, bot I am not a feesh."
+
+"See that now, Wilks. This selfish pig of a Bulky, as Monsieur says, has
+no charity. He drives clean, wholesome smoke out of the hotel, and
+stinks the place up with as nasty a chemical mixture as disgusting
+science ever invented. He reminds me of a Toronto professor of anatomy
+who wouldn't allow the poor squeamish medicals to smoke in the
+dissecting room, because, he said, one bad smell was better than two. If
+I had my way with Bulky I'd smoke him blue in the face, if for nothing
+but to drown his abominable assafoetida, the pig!"
+
+"Aw, non, M'syae," interrupted Pierre, to protect the idol of the Maple
+Inn; "Meestare Bulky ees not a peeg, but assafeetiter is vorse zan a
+peeg-stye. N'est ce paw, Angélique?"
+
+"I 'ave no vord to say of M'syae Bulky," replied Madame, taking up her
+mending and entering the house. She was at once recalled to the verandah
+by a juvenile voice that called "Mrs. Latchness!" The speaker soon
+appeared in the person of a small boy, about twelve years old, who,
+hatless, coatless, and shoeless, ran up from the river bank. "Vat you
+vant vis me, Tommee?" asked Madame. "I come from Widder Toner's--Ben's
+dyin', she says, and can't move a stir. She wants to know if they's
+anybody here as knows anything about doctorin', and, she says, hurry
+awful quick!" cried the breathless youngster.
+
+"I 'ear you spick of medical, M'syae Coristine; do you know it? Can you
+'elp ze pauvre vidow?" asked Madam.
+
+"It's mighty little I know, Madame, but I'll go. Wait till I get my
+flask," said the lawyer, going after his knapsack in the sitting room.
+Returning, he handed it to the hostess with the request that she would
+fill it with the best, and add any remedy she had in the house. Soon she
+came out of the railed-off bar with a filled flask and a bottle of St.
+Jacob's Oil. Pocketing them both, the lawyer said, "Come on, Tommy,"
+and, with his guide, set out for Widow Toner's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     Ben's Sudden Sickness--The Spurious Priest--Coristine as
+     Doctor--Saved by the Detective--Anxiety at the Maple--A Pleasant
+     Evening--Sunday Morning and Ben--The Lawyer Rides--Nash and the
+     Dominie Talk Theology on the Road--At the Talfourds--Miss Du
+     Plessis the Real--The False Meets Mr. Rawdon--Mr. Terry and
+     Wilkinson at the Kirk.
+
+
+"What is the matter with Ben?" asked Coristine, as they single-filed
+along the narrow path by the river.
+
+"He's tumbled down over some grindstones, and hurt himself, and fainted
+right away," replied the youthful Tommy, pulling up handfuls of tall
+grass and breaking an occasional twig from a bush as he stumbled along.
+
+"What are you to the Toners?"
+
+"I ain't nuthun' to the Toners."
+
+"How did you come to be their messenger, then?"
+
+"I was runnin' to the farm to tell the widder that the priest was
+comin', when she come out cryin' and sent me off. Guess the priest's
+there by now."
+
+"What priest is it you saw?"
+
+"I didn't see no priest. Old Mum Sullivan, she saw him, and sent and
+told mother to tell widder Toner, 'cos she's a Roman, too. She said it
+was a new priest, not Father McNaughton, the old one, and she guessed he
+was all right, but she didn't like his looks as well as t'other's."
+
+"Then you are not a Roman."
+
+"Naw, what are you givin' us? I play a fife on the Twelfth."
+
+"Oh, you are an Orangeman?"
+
+"Yum, Young Briton, same thing."
+
+"So, you Orangemen run to help the Roman Catholics when they are sick or
+want to know if the priest is coming, and then, on the Twelfth, you feel
+like cutting each other's throats."
+
+"I don't want to cut nobody's throat, but we've got to sass 'em on the
+Twelfth to keep up the glorious, pious and immortal memory, and to
+whistle 'em down 'The Protestant Boys.' We've got three fifes and three
+drums in our lodge."
+
+After more of this edifying conversation, the pair arrived at a clearing
+on the river, containing a house and some out buildings, not far from
+its bank. These communicated by a private road with the public one,
+which crossed the stream about an eighth of a mile farther on. Turning
+the corner of the barn, Coristine saw a gray-haired woman, and a clean
+shaven man in clerical garb, leaning over the prostrate figure of Ben.
+
+"Are you a doctor, sir?" asked the tearful woman, rising and coming
+towards him.
+
+"Not exactly, Ma'am," replied the lawyer; "but perhaps I may be of use."
+
+He then leaned over the sick man, and saw that he not only breathed, but
+had his eyes open upon the world in quite a sensible way. "What is the
+matter?" he asked the reverend gentleman, who was also contemplating the
+recumbent Toner.
+
+"He says his back is sore, paralyzed, and that he can't move a limb,"
+replied the priest in an unprofessional tone.
+
+"How did it happen, Mr. Toner?" enquired the lawyer; and Ben, in a
+feebly and husky voice, replied:--
+
+"I was rollin' quite a loaud on the slaant, when I got ketched with a
+back sprain, and the loaud slipped and knocked me down, and rolled over
+my stummick. That's all."
+
+"Quite enough for one time," said Coristine; "is there such a thing as a
+loose door, or some boards we can make into a stretcher, anywhere
+about?" Ben called to his mother to show the doctor where the door was
+that he was going to put on the hen-yard. This was soon found, and, a
+blanket or two being laid upon it, the clergyman and the improvised
+doctor transferred the groaning patient to it, and so carried him into
+the house, where they undressed him and put him to bed on his face.
+"Say, doctor, I'll choke like this," came from the bed in the sick man's
+muffled voice, to the lawyer, who was ordering the widow to get some hot
+water and provide herself with towels or cotton cloths. "No you won't,
+Toner; turn your head to one side," he called. "That's better," remarked
+the patient, as he took advantage of the permission, and then
+continued: "I'd like ef you'd call me Ben, doctor, not Toner; seems as
+ef I'd git better sooner that way." Coristine answered, "All right,
+Ben," and withdrew to a corner with the priest for consultation. "What's
+the matter?" asked the priest, in a businesslike, unsympathetic tone.
+
+"So, you give me back my question. Well, as the water will be some time
+getting ready, and it will do our man no harm to feel serious for a few
+minutes more, I'll go into it with your reverence homeopathically. The
+root of his trouble is a whiskey back. That accidentally led to a
+muscular strain, involving something a little more paralyzing than
+lumbago. He has no bones broken in that strong frame of his, but the
+grindstones have bruised him abdominally. I hope my treatment for the
+root of the disease will be more successful than that of the oriental
+physician, who prescribed for a man that had a pain in his stomach,
+caused by eating burnt bread. The physician anointed him with eye salve,
+because he said the root of the disease lay in his eyes; had they been
+all right, he would not have eaten the burnt bread, and consequently
+would not have had the pains."
+
+The priest chuckled beneath his breath over the story; then, with
+earnestness, asked, or rather whispered: "Will he get well soon?"
+
+"Well enough, I think, to sit up in half-an-hour," replied the doctor of
+the moment.
+
+"My dear sir, may I ask you to delay your treatment until I perform a
+religious office with your patient? This is a favourable time for making
+an impression," said the hitherto callous priest.
+
+"Certainly, Father, only be short, for he is suffering physically, and
+worse from apprehension."
+
+"I shall require all persons, but the one to whom I give the comforts of
+religion, to leave the room," called the priest aloud.
+
+"It isn't the unction, Father?" cried Ben, piteously.
+
+"Oh, doctor, the boy's not going to die?" besought the mother, at the
+boiler on the stove.
+
+"I can answer for his reverence and myself," replied the lawyer; "he
+will not administer the last rites of the Church to the living, nor will
+I let my patient die."
+
+Then he and the widow retired, as the priest took out a book, knelt by
+the bedside, and opened it. The reverend gentleman, however, was in too
+great a hurry to begin, and too little sensible how far his penetrating
+voice would carry, for, at the first words of the prayer, Coristine made
+an indignant start and frowned terribly. The words he heard were,
+"Oratio pro sickibus, in articulo mortis, repentant shouldere omnes
+transgressores et confessionem makere----"
+
+He felt inclined to rush in and turn the impudent impostor and profaner
+of the sacred office out of the house neck and crop, especially as the
+poor mother took him by the arm, and, with broken voice through her
+tears, said: "O, doctor, doctor, it's the last words he's taking!" But
+his legal training acted as a check on his impetuosity, and, standing
+where he was, he answered the grief-stricken woman: "Never fear, Mrs.
+Toner, you and I will pull him through," which greatly comforted the
+widow's heart.
+
+Five minutes passed by Coristine's watch, and then he determined to
+stand the nonsense no longer. He coughed, stamped his feet, and finally
+walked in at the door, followed by the widow. The pseudo priest was
+sitting on a chair now, listening to the penitent's confidences. "Time
+is up," said the lawyer fiercely, and the impostor arose, resumed his
+three-cornered black wideawake, pocketed his book, which really was a
+large pocket book full of notes in pencil, and expressed his regret at
+leaving, as he had another family, a very sad case, to visit that night.
+As he passed Coristine, the latter refused his proffered hand and hissed
+in his ear: "You are the most damnable scoundrel I ever met, and I'll
+serve you out for this with the penitentiary." The masquerader grinned
+unclerically, his back being to the other occupants of the house, and
+whispered back, "Not much you won't, no nor the halfpenny tentiary
+either; bye-bye!"
+
+"How are you feeling, Ben?" the lawyer asked the sick man, as he
+approached his bedside.
+
+"Powerful weak and so-er," replied the patient.
+
+Coristine called the mother, poured some St. Jacob's Oil into the palm
+of her hand, and bade her rub down her son's back at the small. "Rub
+hard!" he said; and she rubbed it in. Three or four more doses followed,
+till the back was a fine healthy colour.
+
+"How does that work, Ben?"
+
+"It smarts some, but I can wriggle my back a bit."
+
+Then the doctor poured some whiskey out of his flask in the same way and
+it was applied.
+
+"Do you think you can turn round now?" he asked; and, at once, the
+patient revolved, lying in a more convenient and seemly position.
+
+"Bring the hot clothes, Mrs. Toner, and lay them on the bruised part, as
+hot as he can stand it. The patient growled a little when the clothes
+were abdominally applied, one after the other, but they warmed him up,
+and even, as he said, 'haylped his back.'"
+
+"Now, Ben, when did you take whiskey last?"
+
+"I ain't had nary a drop the hull of this blessed day."
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+"Gawspel truth, doctor, so haylp me."
+
+"If you don't promise me to quit drinking, I can do nothing for you."
+
+"But he will promise, doctor; won't you now, Benny dear?" eagerly asked
+the mother.
+
+"Yaas!" groaned the sufferer, with a new hot cloth on him; "yaas; I
+guess I'll have to."
+
+Then, the perfidious doctor emptied his flask into a glass, and poured
+in enough oil to disguise its taste. Adding a little water, he gave the
+dose as medicine to the unconscious victim, who took it off manfully,
+and naturally felt almost himself again.
+
+"Have you plenty coal-oil in the house, Mrs. Toner?" enquired the family
+physician; and the widow replied that she had. "Rub the afflicted parts
+with it, till they will absorb no more; then let him sleep till morning,
+when he can get up and go about light work. But, mind, there's to be no
+lifting of heavy weights for three days, and no whiskey at all."
+
+With these words, Coristine received the woman's warm expressions of
+gratitude, and departed.
+
+Tommy had gone, so the lawyer had to go back to the Inn alone, and in
+the dark. He turned the barn, before which one bundle of grindstones
+still lay, the one, apparently, that had floored Ben. Then he made his
+way along a path bordered with dewy grass, that did not seem quite
+familiar, so that he rejoiced when he arrived at the road and the
+bridge. But, both road and bridge were new to him, and there was no
+Maple Inn. He now saw that he had taken the wrong turning at the barn,
+and was preparing to retrace his steps, when a sound of approaching
+wheels and loud voices arrested him. On came the waggons, three in
+number, the horses urged to their utmost by drunken drivers, in whom he
+recognized the men that he and Wilkinson had met before they took the
+road to the Inn. Coristine was standing on the road close by the bridge
+as they drove up, but, as the man with the first team aimed a blow at
+him with his whip, he drew back towards the fence. "Shoot the d----d
+spy, boys," the ruffian cried to the fellows behind him, and, as they
+slacked their speed, the lawyer jumped the fence to put some solid
+obstacle between himself and their revolvers, which, he knew, they were
+only too ready to use. At that moment a horseman rode towards the party
+from the other side of the bridge, and, while aiming a blow with a stout
+stick at the first scoundrel, a blow that was effectual, called to the
+others, in a voice of authority, to put up their pistols "O Lord, boys,
+it's Nash; drive on," called one, and they whipped up their patient
+animals and rattled away in a desperate hurry. "You can come out now,
+Mr. Coristine," said the horseman; "the coast is clear."
+
+"You have the advantage of me, sir," remarked the lawyer, as he vaulted
+back again into the road.
+
+"No I have not," replied the other; "you called me a damnable scoundrel,
+and threatened me with the penitentiary, a little while ago. How's
+Toner?"
+
+"I am obliged for your interference just now on my behalf, but must
+decline any intercourse with one who has been guilty of what I regard as
+most dishonourable conduct, profaning the sacred name of religion in
+order to compass some imfamous private end."
+
+"My ends, Mr. Coristine, are public, not private, nor are they infamous,
+but for the good of the community and the individuals composing it. I
+know your firm, Tylor, Woodruff and White, and your firm knows me,
+Internal Revenue Detective Nash."
+
+"What! are you the celebrated Mr. Nash of the Penetang Bush Raid?" asked
+the lawyer, curiosity, and admiration of the man's skill and courage,
+overcoming his aversion to the latest detective trick.
+
+"The same at your service, and, as the best thing I can do for you is
+to take you to your Inn, a dry way out of the dew, you can get on my
+beast, and I'll walk for a rest," replied the detective, alighting.
+
+Coristine was tired, so, after a little pressing, he accepted the mount,
+and, of course, found it impossible to refuse his confidence to the man
+whose horse he was riding.
+
+"What did you do with your clerical garb?" he asked.
+
+"Have it on," replied Nash; "it's a great make up. This coat of black
+cord has a lot of turned up and turned down tag ends, the same with the
+vest, and the soft hat can be knocked into any shape with a dift of the
+fist. With these, and three collars, and moustache, beard, and whiskers,
+that I carry in my pocket, I can assume half-a-dozen characters and
+more."
+
+"How do you justify your assumption of the priestly character?"
+
+"I want information, and assume any character to get it, in every case
+being guilty of deception. You think my last rôle unjustifiable because
+of the confessional. Had I simulated a Methodist parson, or a
+Presbyterian minister, or a Church of England divine, you would have
+thought much less of it; and yet, if there is any bad in the thing, the
+one is as bad as the other. Personally, I regard the confessional as a
+piece of superstitious ecclesiastical machinery, and am ready to utilize
+it, like any other superstition, for the purpose of obtaining
+information. Talk about personating the clergy; I have even been bold
+enough to appear as a lawyer, a quaker, a college professor, a sailor,
+and an actress."
+
+"You have certainly led me to modify my opinion of your last
+performance."
+
+"Which nearly gave me away. So you won't send me to the penitentiary;
+thanks! And now, as I said at first, how's Toner?"
+
+"Oh, Toner's all right, with the fieriest skin on him that ever lay
+between two sheets. He has promised to give up drinking."
+
+"It's very likely he'll have to."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"They don't allow refreshments so strong in gaol."
+
+"Be as easy as you can with the poor fellow, Mr. Nash."
+
+"All depends on his future behaviour, and, in some other capacity, I
+shall let him know his danger."
+
+As the two figures came down the road toward the Inn, a voice hailed
+them, the voice of the dominie. "Is Mr. Coristine there?" it shouted.
+
+"Yes; here am I," came from the back of the horse.
+
+"What bones are broken or wounds received?" was the pitiful but correct
+question.
+
+"Not a bone nor a wound. Mr. Nash has treated me to a ride."
+
+"Aw ça!" ejaculated Pierre, "M'syae Nasha homme treh subtil, treh rusé,
+conneh tout le monde, fait pear aux mauveh sujah."
+
+"What is he?" asked the schoolmaster, speaking English, in his
+eagerness; and the landlord replied in the same.
+
+"Ee is vat you call detecteur, police offisare vis no close on 'im.
+Anysing vas to go in ze custom house and goes not, he find it out. O, a
+veray clevaire mann!"
+
+Coristine dismounted for the purpose of introducing his companion.
+Personally, he would as readily have performed this office on horseback,
+but he knew that the schoolmaster was a stickler for ceremony. While the
+introduction was going on, Pierre took Mr. Nash's horse by the bridle,
+and led the procession home. There, Madame stood in the porch eagerly
+waiting for news of "ce jeune homme si courageux, si benveillont," and
+was delighted to hear that he was safe, and that Mr. Nash, an old
+acquaintance, was with him. When the party entered the house, Wilkinson
+looked at the detective, and then, with a start, said: "Why, you are
+Dowling, the Dowling who came to the Sacheverell Street School, with a
+peremptory letter from the trustees, to take the lower division boys,
+and disappeared in ten days."
+
+"The same, Mr. Wilkinson; I knew you as soon as I heard your voice."
+
+"You disarranged our work pretty well for us, Mr. Dow--Nash. What were
+you after there, if it is a fair question?"
+
+"I was after the confidence of some innocent youngsters, who could give
+me pointers on grindstones and their relation to the family income. As I
+know you both, and our friends of the hotel are not listening, I may say
+that I am so interested in this problem as to have made up my mind to go
+into grindstones myself."
+
+These remarks led to an animated triangular conversation over the
+Grinstun man, in which the two pedestrians gave the detective all the
+information they possessed regarding that personage. They urged that an
+immediate effort should be made to hinder his acquiring the hand and
+property of Miss Du Plessis, and, thereafter, that united action should
+be taken to break up his injurious commerce. Mr. Nash prepared to
+accompany them on their walk to church in Flanders, and asked the lawyer
+if he had any objection to ride his horse part of the way, with a bundle
+behind him, if he, the detective, would carry his knapsack. Coristine
+consented, on condition that his new friend would also lend him his
+riding gaiters. Madame produced the wherewithal to spend a social
+half-hour before retiring, and, in answer to the detective, said: "Ze
+sack ees in ze commode in ze chombre of M'syae." Mr. Nash laughed, and
+over his glass and clay pipe, confided to his fellow-conspirators that
+he had a few little properties in that bag, and was much afraid that
+some of them would compel him to desecrate the Sabbath. "You are used to
+my religious performances, Mr Coristine; I hope your friend, and my old
+principal, Mr. Wilkinson, will not be as hard on me as you were."
+
+Then the dominie was informed of the events of the evening, and the
+parties separated for the night.
+
+Sunday morning dawned clear and cloudless, giving promise of a glorious
+day. Everybody in the inn was up before six o'clock; for at seven it was
+the intention of the three guests to take the road for a place of
+worship in Flanders. Ben Toner was waiting on the verandah for the
+appearance of Coristine; and, when that gentleman came out to taste the
+morning air, greeted him with clumsy effusion, endeavouring, at the same
+time, to press a two-dollar bill upon his acceptance. The lawyer
+declined the money, saying that he had no license to practise, and
+would, consequently, be liable to a heavy fine should he receive
+remuneration for his services. He enquired after Ben's health, and was
+pleased to learn that, while his heroic remedies had left the patient
+"as rayd as a biled lobister," externally, he was otherwise all right,
+except for a little stiffness. Mr. Nash came down-stairs, dressed in a
+well-fitting suit of tweed, and sporting a moustache and full beard that
+had grown up as rapidly as Jonah's gourd. Going up to the man whom he
+had confessed the night before, he asked him: "Do you know me again,
+Toner?" to which Ben replied: "You bet your life I do; you're the curous
+coon as come smellin' round my place with a sayrch warnt two weeks ago
+Friday." Satisfied that his identity in Ben's eye was safe, the
+detective led him away on to the bridge, and engaged in earnest
+conversation with him, which made Mr. Toner start, and wriggle, and back
+down, and impart information confirmatory of that extorted the night
+before, and give large promises for the future. The two returned to the
+verandah, and, before the lawyer went in to breakfast, his patient bade
+him an affectionate farewell, adding, "s'haylp me, Mr. Corstine, ef I
+don't be true to my word to you and the old woman about that blamed
+liquor. What I had I turned out o' doors this mornin', fust thing, and I
+shaant take in no more. That there bailiff's done me a good turn, and I
+won't ferget him, nor you nuther, Doctor, ef so be it's in my power to
+haylp you any." Coristine took his leave of the simple-hearted fellow,
+and went to join the company at the breakfast table. Mr. Nash was there,
+but, for convenience of eating and not to astonish the host and hostess,
+he had placed his beard and moustache in his pocket. It was handy,
+however, and could be replaced at a moment's warning.
+
+Batiste brought round the detective's horse, and the lawyer, in borrowed
+riding gaiters, bestrode him, hooking on to the back of the saddle a
+bundle somewhat larger than a cavalry man's rolled-up cloak. The bundle
+contained Mr. Nash's selected properties. That gentleman allowed Madame
+to fasten the straps of Coristine's knapsack on his shoulders, while
+Pierre did the same for Wilkinson. The dominie had paid the bill the
+night before, as he objected to commercial transactions on Sunday, so
+there was nothing to do but to say good bye, bestow a trifle on Batiste
+and take to the road. The detective, after they had done half a mile's
+pleasant walking, took command of the expedition, and ordered The
+Cavalry, as Coristine called himself, to trot forward and make a
+reconnoisance. His instructions were to get to the Carruthers' house in
+advance of the pedestrians, to find out exactly who were there, and to
+return with speed and report at headquarters, which would be somewhere
+on the road. Saluting his friend and his superior officer, the lawyer
+trotted off, his steed as well pleased as himself to travel more
+speedily through the balmy atmosphere of the morning. The dominie and
+his quondam assistant were thus left to pursue their journey in company.
+
+"Do you enjoy Wordsworth, Mr. Nash?" asked Wilkinson.
+
+"Oh yes," replied the detective, "the poet, you mean, We are seven, and
+the primrose by the river's brim. Queer old file in the stamp business
+he must have been. Wish I could make $2,500 a year like him, doing next
+to nothing."
+
+"There is a passage that seems to my mind appropriate. It is:--
+
+     Us humbler ceremonies now await;
+     But in the bosom with devout respect,
+     The banner of our joy we will erect,
+     And strength of love our souls shall elevate;
+     For, to a few collected in His name.
+     The heavenly Father will incline His ear.
+     Hallowing Himself the service which they frame.
+     Awake! the majesty of God revere!
+       Go--and with foreheads meekly bow'd,
+       Present your prayer: go--and rejoice aloud--
+     The Holy One will hear!"
+
+"You should have been a parson, Mr. Wilkinson; you do that well. I'd
+like to take lessons from you; it would help me tremendously in my
+profession. But I find it mighty hard to do the solemn. That time in
+your school was almost too much for me, and your friend twigged my
+make-up last night."
+
+"I find it hard," said the schoolmaster, "not to be solemn in such
+scenery as this on such a morning. All nature seems to worship, giving
+forth in scent and song its tribute of adoration to the Creator, to
+whose habitation made with hands we are on our way as worshippers."
+
+"'Fraid I shan't do much worshipping, church or no church. You see, Mr.
+Wilkinson, my business is a very absorbing one. I'll be looking for
+notes, and spotting my men, and working up my clues all the time the
+parson's bumming away."
+
+"Ah, you have read Tennyson's 'Northern Farmer'?"
+
+"Never heard tell of it; but I've got my eyes on some northern farmers,
+and they'll have my attention soon."
+
+"Your expression, 'bumming away,' occurs in it, so I thought you had
+found it there. It is rather a severe way in which to characterize the
+modern preacher, who, take him on the whole, deserves credit for what I
+regard as a difficult task, the presentation of some fresh subject of
+religious thought every Sunday all the year round."
+
+"My mind works too fast for most of them. I can see where the conclusion
+is before they have half got started. There's no fun in that, you know."
+
+"Do you not sometimes meet with clergymen that interest you?"
+
+"Now and then. The learned bloke who cuts his text into three, and
+expounds them in detail, I can't stand; nor the wooden logical machine
+that makes a proposition and proceeds to prove it; nor the unctuous
+fellow that rambles about, and says, 'dear friends,' and makes you wish
+he had studied his sermon. But, now and then, I fall in with a man who
+won't let me do any private thinking till he's done. You hear his text
+and his introduction, and wonder, how the dickens he is going to
+reconcile the two. He carries you on and on and on, till he does it in a
+grand whirl at the end, that lifts you up and away with it, like the
+culminating arguments of the counsel for the prosecution, or the
+peeler's joyful run in of a long-sought gaol-bird. I like that sort of a
+parson; the rest are jackdaws."
+
+"Perhaps they suit the average mind?"
+
+"If they did, we ought to have graded churches as well as graded
+schools. But they don't, except, in this way, that people have got
+accustomed to the bumming. The preachers I like would keep up the
+interest of a child. There was one I heard on the text, 'I form the
+light and create darkness.' His introduction was, 'God is light and in
+Him is no darkness at all.' He jerked us up into the light and banged
+us down into the darkness, almost laughing one minute and crying the
+next. Then he went to hunt up his man, and found him in the devil and
+the devil's own, all fallen creations of God. Any schoolboy could follow
+that sermon and take its lessons home with him. There was a logical
+bloke, at least he thought himself logical, who took for his text
+Joseph's coat of many colours, a sort of plaid kilt I should think; and
+said, 'I shall now proceed to prove that this was a sacerdotal or
+priestly garment. First, it occupies a prominent position in the
+narrative; second, it excited the enmity of Joseph's brethren; and
+third, they dipped it in blood when they sold their younger brother.' I
+could have proved it as logically to be Stuart tartan, and, at the same
+time, the original of the song 'Not for Joe,' because he lost it before
+he became steward to Pharaoh. Bah! that's what makes people sick of
+going to church. I've pretty nigh quit it."
+
+The pedestrians trudged on for a time silently, the detective,
+doubtless, revolving schemes in his brain, the dominie inwardly sighing
+over his companion's captious criticism, to which he could not well
+reply, and over the absence of his legal friend, whose warm Irish heart
+would have responded sympathetically to the inspiration of the Sabbath
+morning walk. At last, Mr. Nash resumed the conversation, saying:--
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Wilkinson, that you think me a pretty hard-hearted,
+worldly man, and, perhaps, that my calling makes me so."
+
+"I have no right to judge you, Mr. Nash," answered the schoolmaster;
+"but I should think that the work of hunting down law-breakers would
+have the effect of deadening one's sensibilities."
+
+"It shouldn't, any more than the work of a clergyman, a doctor, a
+teacher, or a lawyer. We all, if we are honest, want to benefit society
+by correcting evils. I see a lot of the dark side of human nature, but a
+little of the bright too, for, thank Heaven, there is no man so bad as
+not to have some little good in him. There's that Toner, once a fine
+young fellow; I hate to see him going to the dogs, wasting his property,
+breaking his old mother's heart. I'd rather save that man any day than
+gaol him."
+
+"Give me your hand, sir," said the dominie, heartily, transferring his
+staff to his left, and offering the right; "I honour you for the saying,
+and wish there were more officers of the law like you."
+
+"Oh, as for that matter," replied the detective, "I and my colleagues
+have tried to save many a young fellow, but then--"
+
+"What is the obstacle?"
+
+"The obstacle is that there are men who simply won't be saved."
+
+"Oh, I suppose that is true theologically as well as legally."
+
+"Of course; if the law don't want to have a lot of criminals to hunt out
+and shut up and punish, it stands to reason that the Source of all law
+doesn't. But, for the good of society and the world, these criminals
+have to be separated from them, and their bad work stopped. To say that
+the law hates them, and takes vengeance on them like a Corsican, is
+utterly to misunderstand the nature of law. Yet, that is what
+nine-tenths of the parsons teach."
+
+"That is very unfortunate."
+
+"Unfortunate? it's diabolical. If I were to go into a good man's house,
+and present his children with a hideous caricature of their father, so
+as to terrify some and drive others clean away from him, wouldn't I
+deserve to be kicked out? I should think so! Now, I say every good thing
+in man must be found a million times better in man's Maker. If the
+foundation principle of human law is benevolence to society, the
+foundation principle of divine law must be something higher and better,
+not revenge. But you know these things better than I do."
+
+"Not at all; I could not express myself better. What you have found out
+is stated by Dr. Whewell, the famous Master of Trinity, in the Platonic
+form, that every good thing in man and in the world has its archetype in
+the Divine Mind. Every bad thing, such as revenge and anger, has no such
+archetype, but is a falling away, a deflection, from the good."
+
+"How do you explain the imputation of bad things to God, such as hate,
+revenge, terrorism, disease, death, beasts of prey, and all the rest?"
+
+"In two ways; first, as a heathen survival in Christianity, borrowed
+partly from pagan national religions, partly from the misunderstood
+phraseology of the Old Testament; and, second, as the necessary result
+of a well-meant attempt to escape from Persian and Manichaean dualism."
+
+"But there is a dualism in law, in morals, in nature, and in human
+nature, everywhere in this world; there's no getting over it."
+
+"Of course there is, but the difference between the dualism of fact and
+that of the Persian system is, that the evil is not equal, but inferior
+and subordinate, to the good."
+
+"It gets the upper hand pretty often, as far as this world is
+concerned."
+
+"And why? Just for the same reason that bad governments and corrupt
+parties often get the upper hand, namely, by the vote of the majority,
+through which the minority has to suffer. Talk about vicarious
+suffering! Every good man suffers vicariously."
+
+"These are deep things, Mr. Wilkinson, too deep for the average parson,
+who doesn't trouble himself much with facts unless he find them
+confirmed by his antiquated articles."
+
+"Yet my attention has been drawn to them by thoughtful clergymen of
+different denominations."
+
+"Well, I don't think I'll trouble the clergymen to-day, thoughtful or
+not thoughtful. I've had my sermon in the open air, a sort of walking
+camp meeting. What did they call these fellows who studied on the move?"
+
+"Peripatetics."
+
+"That's it; we're a peripatetic church."
+
+"But, without praise or prayer or scripture lessons, which are more
+important than the sermon."
+
+"Oh, you can do the praise and prayer part in a quiet way, as a piece of
+poetry says that I learnt when I was a boy. It ends something like
+this:--
+
+     So we lift our trusting eyes
+     To the hills our fathers trod,
+     To the quiet of the skies,
+     And the Sabbath of our God.
+
+That's pretty, now! Hallo! here's the doctor!"
+
+Coristine came up at the gallop, and reported that all the people he
+expected to find at the Carruthers' were there, Grinstun man, Mrs.
+Carmichael, and Marjorie, included, all except Miss Du Plessis, who was
+staying at a house three miles this side of the farm, helping to nurse a
+sick neighbour.
+
+"Has Rawdon seen her?" asked the detective. The lawyer did not know, but
+suggested that they could find out by calling at the house of Mrs.
+Talfourd, the sick woman, on the way.
+
+"How far are we from it?" enquired Mr. Nash.
+
+"About a mile or a mile and a-half," replied Coristine.
+
+"Then, Mr. Wilkinson, let us stir our stumps a bit. Can you sing or
+whistle? There's nothing like a good tune to help a quick march."
+
+"Yes; sing up, Wilks," cried The Cavalry; and the dominie started
+"Onward, Christian Soldiers," in which the others joined, the detective
+in a soft falsetto, indistinguishable from a half-cultivated woman's
+voice. He was combining business with pleasure, dissimulation with
+outward praise.
+
+"Pretty good that for a blooming young lady of five foot ten," remarked
+Mr. Nash, at the end of the hymn.
+
+"Blooming young ladies with a tonsure," replied Coristine, gazing on the
+detective's momentarily uncovered head, "are open to suspicion."
+
+"Wait till you see my hair." chuckled the ex-priest.
+
+The mile and a-half was soon covered, and the trio stood before a roomy
+farm-house. A boy, not unlike Tommy, but better dressed, was swinging on
+the gate, and him the detective asked if he could see Miss Du Plessis on
+important business. The boy ran into the house to enquire, and came back
+to the gate, accompanied by the lady in question. She changed colour as
+her eye took in The Cavalry, immovable as a life guardsman on sentry.
+The detective handed her his professional card, and explained that he
+and his two friends had been entrusted with the duty of protecting her
+property and herself. "You need have no doubts, Miss Du Plessis, for the
+Squire, as a J.P., knows me perfectly," he continued.
+
+"I have no fear, Mr. Nash," answered the lady, in a pleasant voice, with
+just a suspicion of a foreign accent; "your name is known to me, and you
+are in good company."
+
+Wilkinson, standing by his friend's stirrup, heard this last statement,
+and blushed, while The Cavalry thought he had heard a voice like that
+before.
+
+"Has Mr. Rawdon seen you, or have you seen him?" asked the detective.
+
+"Neither; but the two Marjories have been here, and have told me about
+him. They do not seem to admire Mr. Rawdon."
+
+"The darlins!" ejaculated the lawyer; whereupon Wilkinson pinched his
+leg, and made him cry "Owch!"
+
+The rest of the conversation between the plotters at the gate was
+inaudible. At its conclusion, the lady's face was beaming with
+amusement.
+
+"Give me that bundle for Miss Du Plessis," said Nash to Coristine, who
+lifted his hat to her, and handed the parcel over.
+
+"Now, for instructions," continued the commander-in-chief. "The Cavalry
+will go to Bridesdale, that's Squire Carruthers' place, and keep Mr.
+Rawdon from going to church, or bring him back if he has started, which
+isn't likely. This branch of the Service will also make sure that all
+children are out of the way somewhere, and inform older people, who may
+be about, that Miss Du Plessis is coming to the house during church
+time, and is very much altered by night-watching and sick-nursing, so
+that they need not express astonishment before Mr. Rawdon. Fasten these
+knapsacks about you somehow, Horse-Doctor; put the beast up where he'll
+get a drink and a feed; and go to church like a good Christian. The
+Infantry will halt for the present, and afterwards act as Miss Du
+Plessis' escort. Infantry, attention! Cavalry, form threes, trot!"
+
+Coristine took the knapsacks, made another bow, and trotted away, while
+the dominie walked up to the gate, and was introduced to the fair
+conspirator.
+
+After showing the detective and his bundle into an unoccupied apartment,
+Miss Du Plessis returned to the sitting-room where she left the dominie.
+In the few minutes at their disposal, he informed his new acquaintance
+of his chance-meeting with her uncle, of whose arrival in Canada she was
+in complete ignorance. The imparting and receiving this news established
+such a bond between the two as the schoolmaster had hitherto thought
+impossible should exist between himself and one of the weaker sex. Yet,
+in her brief absence, he had taken pains to dust himself, and shake up
+his hair and whiskers. His companion was preparing to tell how she had
+heard of him from Miss Carmichael, when another young lady, almost her
+counterpart in general appearance, entered the room.
+
+"Now," said the newcomer, in a deep but feminine voice, "now the false
+Miss Du Plessis will go on with her nursing, while the real one takes
+Mr. Wilkinson's arm and keeps her appointment at the Squire's."
+
+Miss Du Plessis clapped her hands together and laughed heartily.
+Wilkinson, thinking, all the time, what a pretty, musical laugh it was,
+could not help joining in the amusement, for Nash was complete from his
+wig down to his boots. The colonel's niece threw a light, woolly shawl
+over the detective's shoulders, and accompanied the pair to the gate,
+where, before dismissing them, she warned her double not to compromise
+her to Mr. Rawdon.
+
+"I hope soon to have the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Wilkinson, under
+more favourable circumstances," she called after that gentleman, as they
+moved off, and then ran into the house to hide her laughter.
+
+The dominie felt his face getting red, with a pretty young lady hoping
+to meet him again, on the one hand, and a not by any means ill-looking
+personation of one hanging on to his arm, on the other. After a minute,
+the detective withdrew his hand from his companion's arm, but continued
+to practise his assumed voice upon him, in every imaginable enquiry as
+to what he knew of Miss Du Plessis, of her friend Miss Carmichael, and
+of the working geologist's intentions. He was thus pretty well primed,
+and all promised well, till, within a quarter of a mile of the house, a
+vision appeared that filled him and the disguised Nash, to whom he
+communicated his fears, with grave apprehensions as to the success of
+the plot. It was no less a person than the veteran, Mr. Michael Terry,
+out for a Sunday walk with the Grinston man. Their dread increased as
+the old man came running forward, crying: "An' it's comin' back yez are,
+my darlin' Mish Ceshile. It's a throifle pale yer lookin', an' no
+wonder." Saying this, Michael shook hands with Nash, and whispered:
+"Niver fare, sorr, Mishter Coristine towld me all about it."
+
+The made-up lady introduced her father's old servant to Wilkinson,
+whose apprehensions were dispelled in a similar way, so that all were
+prepared to give Mr. Rawdon the reception intended.
+
+"Ullo, hold Favosites Wilkinsonia," cried the working geologist,
+swaggering up with a cigar in his mouth, "'ow's yer bloomin' 'ealth?
+That hold bloke of a Hirish haint in a 'urry to do the hamiable between
+'is hold guvner's gal an' yours truly. My name, Miss, is Rawdon,
+Haltamont Rawdon, workin' geologist and minerologist, and, between you
+and me and the bedpost, a pretty warm man."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Rawdon," replied the pseudo Miss Du Plessis, "you look--well,
+not pretty--but warm."
+
+"O, dash it hall, that haint wot I meant, Miss Do Please-us; I mean hi'm
+a man that's got the dibs, the rhino, the blunt, you know, wot makes the
+mare go. I don't go geologizin' round for nothin'."
+
+"You pick up stones, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; grinstuns, limestun grit, that's the stuff to make you jolly."
+
+"I have heard of drawing blood out of a stone, Mr. Rawdon, but never of
+extracting merriment or exhilaration from a grindstone."
+
+"Then you don't know my grinstuns, Miss; they're full o' fun."
+
+"Are they indeed? How amusing! In what way does the fun display itself?"
+
+"A bundle of my grinstuns, distributed at a loggin' bee, a raisin' bee,
+or a campaign caucus, ware there's a lot of haxes to grind, can make
+more fun than the Scott Act'll spile in a month. But silence is silence
+'twixt partners, which I opes you and me is to be."
+
+The fictitious Miss Du Plessis, with much simpering and affectation,
+quite unworthy of the original, drew the working geologist out, and
+inspired him with hopes of securing her hand and property. Mr. Rawdon
+spoke very freely of the wealth he had in the hand and in the bush, of
+his readiness to make allowance for Madame Du Plessis, if that "haffable
+hold gent," her brother in law, was not prepared to provide for her.
+When they reached the house, they found that no one was at home but
+Tryphena, who was confined to the kitchen by culinary duties. They,
+therefore, occupied the parlour, the Grinstun man seeing no impropriety
+in being there alone with a young lady whom he had met for the first
+time. Indeed, he was much gratified to find that the lady was not at all
+stiff and offish, as he had feared, but as "haffable as her huncle and
+more." The lady laughed, and blushed at loud compliments, as loud as the
+check of Mr. Rawdon's clothes, and asked flattering questions, which he
+answered with a jolliky and recklessness that almost astonished himself.
+Was there no romance, no spice of daring in his occupation? she had
+asked, and he, remembering that he was talking to a soldier's daughter,
+who would, doubtless, appreciate courage, replied enigmatically that the
+grinstun business was about the riskiest business on earth, and required
+'eroism of no hordinary kind.
+
+While this conversation was going on, the dominie and the veteran were
+walking churchward, for, as the former had signified his intention of
+going to a place of worship, the old man insisted on accompanying him.
+
+"Oi was born a Catholic, sorr, and a Catholic Oi'll doie, though my
+darter is a Pratestant, and what's more, a Prosbytarian. She rades her
+Boible an' Oi rade moine, an' there's sorra a bit av differance betwane
+thim. If the church is good enough for her, it's good enough for the
+loikes av me."
+
+"That is what I call being a Catholic in the truest sense of the term.
+We will not deprive people of the kingdom of Heaven because they refuse
+to go our way."
+
+"Till me now, sorr, what's that that's pertindin' to be my dear young
+misthress, Miss Ceshile?"
+
+"An old soldier knows how to keep a secret, I am sure. It is the famous
+detective, Mr. Nash."
+
+"Sure I hope, by my sowl, that he'll make the crathur gnash his tayth.
+It was all I could do to kape my hands aff him, as we were walkin' along
+to mate yez. Him to make up to the cornel's darter, the misherable,
+insignifikint, bad shpokin, thavin' scrap av impidence!"
+
+The church bell had ceased ringing, the horses and waggons were in the
+driving shed without any attendant, and, as the pair approached, they
+could hear the sound of hearty singing coming through the open windows.
+They entered together, the old man crossing himself as he did so, and
+sat down in a pew near the door. The schoolmaster saw that the church
+was that of Mr. Errol, who occupied the pulpit. He looked round, but
+could not see his friend Coristine; nor was little Marjorie anywhere
+visible. They must have strolled on farther to Mr. Perrowne's
+consecrated edifice for the sake of the walk. Then, with reverent mind,
+the dominie joined in the simple worship of the Kirk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     The Services--Nash Routs Rawdon--The Dinner Talk--The Pedestrians
+     with the Ladies--Singing out of One Hymn-book--Grinstuns Again--The
+     Female Vagrant and the Idiot Boy--Little Marjorie--Nash's
+     Thoughts--The Captain and the Plot--Arrival of Rufus and Ben--To
+     Arms!
+
+
+Mr. Errol's sermon was on the text, "Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an
+hard man." He elaborated the unfaithful servant's harsh opinion of God,
+and, before he sat down, completely exonerated the Father in Heaven from
+the blasphemous judgment of those who call themselves His children.
+There is a thief in the world who comes to steal and kill and destroy;
+he is not God, but the enemy of God's children. The dominie's heart
+warmed to the man who, though of a different communion, fulfilled St.
+Paul's ideal of a clergyman, in that he arrogated no dominion over the
+people's faith, but was a helper of their joy. The sermon lifted the
+schoolmaster up, and brought God very near; and the hearty hymns and
+reverent prayers helped him greatly. When the service was over, he
+waited, and soon Carruthers presented his comely, matronly wife, while
+Mrs. Carmichael recalled herself to his remembrance; and, finally, the
+minister, having divested himself of gown and bands in the vestry, came
+down the aisle with cheery step and voice to bid him welcome to
+Flanders. Wilkinson was happy--happier than he had been for many a long
+year. He seemed to have so many friends, and they were all so cordial,
+so glad to see him--not a hard man or woman among them; and, therefore,
+God could not be hard. He walked with the minister, who was going to
+dine at Bridesdale and then ride five miles to preach at another
+station. He thanked him for his sermon, and talked over it with him,
+and, of course, quoted "The Excursion":--
+
+                              If the heart
+     Could be inspected to its inmost folds,
+     By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,
+     Who shall be named--in the resplendent line
+     Of sages, martyrs, confessors--the man
+     Whom the best might of conscience, truth and hope,
+     For one day's little compass, has preserved
+     From painful and discreditable shocks
+     Of contradiction from some vague desire
+     Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse
+     To some unsanctioned fear.
+
+"That's just all the trouble, Mr. Wilkinson," said the delighted
+minister. "People think to honour and glorify God by being afraid of
+Him, forgetting that perfect love casts out the fear that hath torment,
+and he that feareth is not made perfect in love."
+
+With such conversation they beguiled the way till they stood at the gate
+of Bridesdale, and entered the hospitable mansion, there to be received
+by the odious Grinstun man.
+
+"What in aa' the warld, Marjorie, did Susan mean, sending us yon
+godless, low-lived chairact o' a Rawdon?" asked the Squire of his
+sister, Mrs. Carmichael.
+
+"I cannot understand it, John," she answered; "for her own Marjorie
+fairly detests the little man. Perhaps it is some business affair with
+the Captain."
+
+"Aweel, aweel, we maun keep the peace, sin' I'm a judge o't; but I do
+not like thee, Dr. Fell."
+
+Then they all entered the house together. Wilkinson found the spurious
+Miss Du Plessis gone.
+
+The dominie saw that the working geologist was boring Mrs. Carmichael,
+after her return to the drawing-room from laying aside her walking
+attire, and valorously interposed to save her. He enquired for her
+niece, Marjorie, and learned that that young lady had annexed Coristine
+as her lawful prey, and, introducing him to her grown-up cousin, had
+arranged the triangular journey to Mr. Perrowne's church. The service
+there was longer than in the kirk, so that half an hour would probably
+elapse before the two Anglican perverts appeared with their captive, the
+lawyer. Before the absentees made their appearance, a man--dressed in
+Mr. Nash's clothes, but with the beard and moustache recognized by Ben
+Toner as those of the bailiff--was ushered in and greeted by the Squire
+as Mr. Chisholm. The rest of the company seemed to know the transformed
+detective, including the Grinstun man, whom he rallied on his attentions
+to a young lady.
+
+"You're a nice man, Rawdon, when every decent person has gone to church,
+gallivanting with young ladies. I saw you at the Talfourds."
+
+"Don't care a 'ang if you did," replied Rawdon, "if Miss Do Pleas us
+takes a shine to a warm man, and gives you 'and-to-mouth beggars the
+go-by, that honly shows 'er common sense."
+
+"What has Miss Du Plessis got to do with it?"
+
+"She's got this to do with it, that she's promised to be my missus
+before the week's hout."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Wy, this mornin'; 'ere in this blessed room."
+
+"Oh, come, Rawdon, you are joking. Miss Du Plessis hasn't been out of
+Mrs. Talfourd's to-day."
+
+"Don't you try none of your larks hon me, Mr. Chisholm. You can't take a
+rise hout of this kid, hinnercent has he looks."
+
+"But, I tell you she has not. Who do you think that girl was you brought
+home Talfourd's place?"
+
+"Wy, Miss Do Please us, of course; 'oo else could it be?"
+
+Mr. Chisholm laughed loud and long, and at last ejaculated: "Miss Du
+Plessis! Oh, but you're a green hand, Rawdon, to take Martha Baggs for
+her; the daughter of old Baggs, in the revenue service. Hope you didn't
+give your friends away, Rawdon?"
+
+"You think you're pretty clever, Mr. Chisholm, comin' hover me with your
+Marther Baggses. Hold Hirish knows Miss Do Please-us, I should say, and
+wouldn't go takin' no Marther Baggs for 'er."
+
+"Mr. Rawdon," interposed the Squire, "I'll thank you to speak more
+respectfully of my father-in-law; as good a man, I judge, as yourself."
+
+"No hoffence, Squire; but I wish you'd hask the hold gent to come 'ere
+and shut up this 'ere bailiff's mouth with 'is Marther Baggs."
+
+Mr. Terry, who preferred the society of the kitchen to that of the
+parlour, was produced, and, on being asked if the lady with Mr. Rawdon
+was Miss Du Plessis, answered that his "sight was gettin' bad, an' the
+sinse av hairin' too, an' if it wor Miss Jewplesshy, she had changed her
+vice intoirely, an' got to be cruel rough an' common in her ways. Av
+coorse, it moight have been the young misthress; but Talfer's was nigh
+to han', an' it was aisy axin'."
+
+A horrible suspicion came over the Grinstun man, and paled his rubicund
+visage. He darted up to his room, and speedily re-appeared with knapsack
+on back and staff in hand, ready for the road. Mr. Carruthers pressed
+him to stay at least for dinner, but he was resolved to solve the
+mystery by a visit to the Talfourds, and said that, if Mr. Chisholm was
+right, he would not be back for a while. His retreating figure was
+watched with positive pleasure by most of the company, and with still
+greater satisfaction by the small party returning from the Anglican
+service.
+
+"What garred ye fricht Rawdon awa, Mr. Chisholm?" asked the Squire.
+
+"I wanted to eat my dinner comfortably," replied the detective, putting
+beard and moustache in his pocket, when all the company, except the
+dominie who knew, cried out, "it's Mr. Nash."
+
+"To think of you deceiving me," exclaimed Mr. Carruthers, "and me a
+justice of the peace. I've a thocht to bring you up for conspiracy."
+
+"There can be no conspiracy without at least two persons," answered the
+detective.
+
+"But, man, you are two persons, that I've known off and on as Chisholm
+and Nash."
+
+"When he was one of my masters," put in the dominie, "his name was
+Dowling."
+
+"And this morning," remarked the man of aliases, with a smile, "I was
+Miss Du Plessis or Martha Baggs, so Rawdon will have hard work to find
+the lady of his affections."
+
+At this juncture Coristine and his fair companions entered, and, while
+the young Marjorie renewed her acquaintance, Wilkinson was gravely
+introduced to one of his own teachers, to the no little amusement of the
+lady herself, of the lawyer, and of the company generally who were in
+the secret. Miss Carmichael explained that Mr. Perrowne had declined to
+come to dinner, but would look in later in the day when Cecile came
+home; whereat many smiled, and the dominie frowned heavily. Mrs.
+Carruthers now announced dinner, when the Squire took in his sister,
+Wilkinson, her daughter, Coristine, Marjorie, and Mr. Errol, the
+hostess. All the pairs agreed in congratulating themselves on the
+absence of the Grinstun man, and looked with approbation on Mr. Nash,
+who, all alone but cheerful, brought up the rear. There was no room at
+the table for the five youthful Carruthers, who rejoiced in the fact and
+held high carnival in the kitchen with Tryphena and Tryphosa and their
+maternal grandfather. Mr. Errol had said grace, and dinner was in
+progress, when the hall door was heard to open, and, immediately, on
+went the detective's facial disguise. But the lightness of the step that
+followed it reassured him, so that his smooth features once more
+appeared. Shortly afterwards Miss Du Plessis entered, apologizing for
+her lateness, and taking the vacant chair between the host and the
+dominie.
+
+"I was really frightened," she said to the former, "by a dreadful little
+man, with an Indian hat and a knapsack, who stopped and asked me if I
+was Miss Do Please-us. When I told him that my name was Du Plessis, he
+became much agitated, and cried 'Then I'm done, sold again and the money
+paid,' after which he used such very bad language that I actually ran
+away from him. I looked round, however, and saw him hurrying away
+towards the Talfourds'." Wilkinson looked very fierce and warlike, and
+attacked his food as if it were the obnoxious Rawdon.
+
+"Cecile," said Miss Carmichael across the indignant dominie, "I told a
+fib about you this morning, but quite innocently. I said you would not
+be home to dinner."
+
+"Neither I would, were it not that Mrs. Talfourd's sister came in after
+church, and offered to stay with her the rest of the day. Whom did you
+tell?"
+
+"Your devoted friend, Mr. Perrowne."
+
+Miss Du Plessis blushed a little, and the schoolmaster cut the clergyman
+up several times and stuck his fork into him savagely. Then he commenced
+a conversation with the Squire, into which the lady between them was
+almost necessarily drawn. Mr. Nash edified Mrs. Carmichael; her
+daughter conversed with the minister, to the latter's delight; while
+Coristine divided his attentions between the hostess and Marjorie.
+
+"What was Mr. Perrowne preaching on, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Carruthers.
+
+"Pillows on the ground," replied that young person.
+
+Her cousin laughed, and came to the rescue, saying: "It was the Church,
+the pillar and ground of the truth; Marjorie seems to associate all
+English Church services with bedtime."
+
+"There wasn't much bedtime about the service this morning," interposed
+the lawyer; "the parson rattled along in grand style, and gave Miss
+Carmichael, and all other broken reeds of dissenters, some piping hot
+Durham mustard. Did it sting, Miss Carmichael?"
+
+"Is that the effect mustard has on broken reeds, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"It is rather a mixing of metaphors, but you must make allowance for an
+Irishman."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers at once conversed with her countryman, or rather her
+father's countryman, on Ireland, its woes and prospects, during which
+Marjorie informed Mr. Errol that she had not known what made her
+cousin's cheeks so red when looking on Eugene's prayer-book. Now she
+knew; it was Durham mustard that stings. There must have been some in
+the book. The victim of these remarks looked severely at the culprit,
+but all in vain; she was not to be suppressed with a frown. She remarked
+that Saul had a hymn-book that made you sneeze, and she asked him why,
+and he said it was the snuff.
+
+"What did Eugene put mustard in his prayer-book for?"
+
+"Mr. Coristine didna say he put mustard in his bookie, Marjorie," said
+the minister; "he said that Mr. Perrowne put mustard in his sermon,
+because it was so fiery."
+
+"I don't like mustard sermons; I like stories."
+
+"Aye, we all like them, when they're good stories and well told, but
+it's no easy work getting good stories. That was the way our Saviour
+taught the people, and you couldna get a higher example."
+
+"Why have we hardly any of that kind of teaching now?" asked Miss
+Carmichael.
+
+"Because the preachers are afraid for one thing, and lazy, for another.
+They're afraid of the most ignorant folk in their congregation, who will
+be sure to charge them with childishness and a contempt for the
+intellect of their people. Then, it takes very wide and varied reading
+to discover suitable stories that will point a Scripture moral."
+
+"You seem to be on gude solid releegious groond doon there, meenister,"
+interrupted the master of the house; "but Miss Du Plessis and Mrs.
+Carmichael here are just corruptin' the minds o' Maister Wilkinson and
+Maister Nash wi' the maist un-Sawbath like havers I ever hard at an
+elder's table. We had better rise, gudewife!"
+
+Shortly after the company returned to the parlour, Mr. Errol signified
+that he must take his departure for the Lake Settlement, where his
+second congregation was. At this Mr. Nash pricked up his ears, and said
+he would saddle his horse and ride over with him. "Na, na!" cried the
+Squire, "he'll no ride the day; I'll just get the waggon oot, and drive
+ye baith there and back." Orders were given through Tryphosa, a comely,
+red-cheeked damsel, who appeared in a few minutes to say that Timotheus
+was at the gate. All went out to see the trio off, and there, sure
+enough, was Timotheus of Peskiwanchow holding the restive horses. It
+transpired that Carruthers, having lost his house servant through the
+latter's misconduct, had commissioned his sister to find him a
+substitute, and Marjorie's interest in Timotheus had resulted in his
+being chosen to fill the vacant situation. He grinned his pleased
+recognition of the two pedestrians, who bravely withstood all the
+temptations to get into the waggon and visit the Lake Settlement. When
+the waggon departed, Mrs. Carruthers went to her children, taking
+Marjorie with her, and Mrs. Carmichael went upstairs for a read of a
+religious paper and a nap. The young ladies and the tourists were the
+sole occupants of the sitting-room. The lawyer went over to Miss Du
+Plessis, and left his friend perforce to talk to Miss Carmichael.
+
+"I hear, Miss Du Plessis, that you own a farm and valuable mineral
+land," said Coristine.
+
+"Did Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff and White give you that information?" she
+asked in return.
+
+"No, indeed; do you know my firm?"
+
+"Very well, seeing I have been two years in Mr. Tylor's office."
+
+"Two years in Tylor's office, and me not know it?"
+
+"You do not seem to take much interest in feminine stenographers and
+typewriters."
+
+"No, I don't, that's a fact; but if I had known that it was you who were
+one, it would have been a different thing."
+
+"Now, Mr. Coristine, please make no compliments of doubtful sincerity."
+
+"I never was more sincere in my life. But you haven't answered me about
+the land."
+
+"Well, I will answer you; I have no farm or valuable minerals, but my
+father left me two hundred acres of water and wild land near what's
+called the Lake Settlement, which he bought when Honoria married Mr.
+Carruthers and took up her residence here."
+
+"Do you know if the taxes are paid on your land?"
+
+"No, I was not aware that wild land and water could be taxed."
+
+"Taxed is it? You don't know these municipalities. If you had a little
+island in your name, no bigger than this room, they'd tax you for it,
+and make you pay school rate, and do statute labour beside, though there
+wasn't a school or a road within ten miles of it. For downright jewing
+and most unjustifiable extortion on non-residents, commend me to a
+township council. You'll be sold out by the sheriff of the county, sure
+as eggs, and the Grinstun man'll buy your property for the arrears of
+taxes."
+
+"Whatever shall I do, Mr. Coristine?" asked the alarmed young lady; "I
+do not wish to lose my father's gift through negligence."
+
+"You should have taken advice from the junior member of Tylor, Woodruff
+and White," replied the lawyer, with a peculiar smile; "but the Grinstun
+man has bagged your estate."
+
+"Oh, do not say that, Mr Coristine. Tell me, what shall I do? And who is
+the man you mean?"
+
+"The man I mean is the one that met you when you came here to dinner. He
+is going to quarry in your farm for grindstones, and make his fortune.
+But, as he wants yourself into the bargain, I imagine he can't get the
+land without you, so that somebody must have paid the taxes."
+
+"Then it is the little wretch Marjorie told me of, the cruel creature
+who kicked a poor dog?"
+
+"The very same; he is the Grinstun man. I've got a poem on him I'll read
+you some day."
+
+"That will be delightful; I am very fond of good poetry."
+
+"Wilks says it isn't good poetry; but any man that grovels over
+Wordsworth, with a tear in the old man's eye, is a poor judge."
+
+"I admire Wordsworth, Mr. Coristine, and am afraid that you are not in
+earnest about poetry. To me it is like life, a very serious thing. But,
+tell me, do you think the land is safe?"
+
+"Oh yes; I wrote to one of the salaried juniors, giving him instructions
+to look after it, just as soon as I heard what Grinstuns had his eye
+on."
+
+"Mr. Coristine! How shall I ever thank you for your kindness, you, of
+all men, who profess to treat us workers for our living as positive
+nonentities?"
+
+"By forgetting the past, Miss Du Plessis, and allowing me the honour of
+your acquaintance in future. By the-bye, as you admire Wordsworth, and
+good poetry, and airnest, serious men, I'll just go and send Wilks to
+you. I have a word for Miss Carmichael. Is she constructed on the same
+poetic principles as yourself?"
+
+"Go away then, _farceur_! No; Marjorie is inclined to frivolity."
+
+With a wave of her fan, she dismissed the lawyer, who began to think
+lady stenographers and typewriters a class worthy of platonic attention.
+"Short hand!" he muttered to himself; "hers is rather a long one and
+pretty, and she is a favourable type of her kind, but I'm afraid a pun
+would make her faint, when Wilks would certainly call me out and shoot
+me dead with his revolver."
+
+"Wilks, my boy," said Coristine aloud, when he reached the stiff chair
+in which the dominie sat erect, facing Miss Carmichael on a lounge at
+safe distance; "Miss Du Plessis would like to hear you discuss
+Wordsworth and other Sunday poets. She doesn't seem to care about
+hearing my composition on the Grinstun man."
+
+The dominie eagerly but properly arose, answering: "Miss Du Plessis does
+too much honour to my humble poetic judgment, and, in regard to your
+doggrel, shows her rare good sense." He then walked across the room to
+the object of his laudation, and, taking Coristine's vacated chair,
+remarked that few poets preach a sermon so simply and beautifully as the
+author of "The Excursion." Would Miss Du Plessis allow him to bring down
+his pocket volume of the Rydal bard? Miss Du Plessis would be charmed;
+so the schoolmaster withdrew, and soon reappeared with the book all
+unconsciously open at "She was a phantom of delight." With guilty eyes,
+he closed it, and, turning over the pages, stopped at the fifth book of
+"The Excursion," announcing its subject, "The Pastor." It was now the
+lady's turn to be uncomfortable, with the suggestion of Mr. Perrowne.
+The lawyer, whose back had been turned to the poetic pair, looked
+unutterable things at Miss Carmichael, who, not knowing to what extreme
+of the ludicrous her companion might lead her, suggested a visit to the
+garden, if Mr. Coristine did not think it too warm. "It's the very thing
+for me," answered the lawyer, as they arose together and proceeded to
+the French windows opening upon the verandah; "it's like 'Come into the
+garden, Maud.'" They were outside by this time, and Miss Carmichael,
+lifting a warning finger, said: "Mr. Coristine, I am a school teacher,
+and am going to take you in hand as a naughty boy; you know that is not
+for Sunday, don't you now?"
+
+"If it was only another name that begins with the same letter," replied
+the incorrigible Irishman, "I'd say the line would be good for any day
+of the week in fine weather; but I'm more than willing to go to school
+again."
+
+"Sometimes," said the schoolteacher quietly, "sometimes the word
+'garden' makes me sad. Papa had a great deal of trouble. He lost all his
+children but me, and almost all his property, and he had quarrelled with
+his relations in Scotland, or they had quarrelled with him; so that he
+was, in spite of his public life, a lonely, afflicted man. When he was
+dying, he repeated part of a hymn, and the refrain was 'The Garden of
+Gethsemane.'"
+
+"Ah, Miss Carmichael, dear, forgive me, the stupid, blundering idiot
+that I am, to go and vex your tender heart with my silly nonsense. I'm
+ashamed, and could cry to think of it."
+
+"I will forgive you, Mr. Coristine," she replied, recovering from her
+serious fit, and looking at the victim in a way that blended amusement
+with imperiousness: "I will forgive you this once, if you promise future
+good behaviour."
+
+An impulse came over the lawyer to shake Miss Carmichael's hand, but she
+made him no shadow of an excuse for so doing. It was plain that the
+mutual confidences of the girls, which embraced, using the word in a
+mere logical sense, their year long distant acquaintance with the
+transformed pedestrians had given maturity to the closer and more
+pleasant acquaintance of the day. Little Marjorie's appropriation of the
+lawyer as her Eugene added another ripening element to its growth; so
+that the two garden explorers felt none of the stiffness and uncertainty
+of a first introduction. What Miss Carmichael's thoughts were she only
+could tell, but she knew that the impetuous and affectionate Coristine
+required the merest trifle of encouragement to change the steady
+decorous tide of advancing knowledge and respect into an abruptly
+awkward cataract, threatening the rupture of pleasant relations or the
+loss of self-respect. She would have preferred talking with Wilkinson,
+as a check upon the fervour of his friend, but, although she laughed at
+the dominie's culpable ignorance of her city existence, in her secret
+soul it piqued her not a little. No; she would rather take refuge with
+the clergy, Mr. Errol or Mr. Perrowne.
+
+Many roses were still in bloom, but, spite of many hints, Coristine's
+button hole remained empty. He admired the pinks, the carnations, the
+large-eyed pansies, "like Shakespeare's winking Mary-buds," he said, but
+all in vain, save a civil answer. The Day-lilies and the sweet-scented
+pure white and Japan lilies, the early Phloxes, the Honeysuckles against
+the arbours, and many other floral beauties he stopped to inspect, and
+wondered if Mrs. Carruthers would mind his gathering a few, although the
+house was full of flowers. His companion did not satisfy his wonder,
+only answering that she thought flowers looked so much better growing.
+Then he pulled himself together, and answered naturally, joking on the
+tall Scarlet Lychnis, now almost a garden flower of the past, which boys
+call scarlet likeness and scarlet lightning, and ran on into accounts
+of botanical rambles, descriptions of curious plants, with here a little
+bit of reverent natural theology, and there an appropriate scrap from
+some flower loving poet, or a query as to where the worshippers of
+Wordsworth had got, if they had left "The Excursion" for the smaller
+pieces on the Daisy, and the Celandine, the Broom, the Thorn and the
+Yew. In thus talking he gained his end without knowing it, for, instead
+of a mere routine lawyer and impulsive Irishman, Miss Carmichael found
+in her companion an intelligent, thoughtful, and cultured acquaintance,
+whose society she thoroughly enjoyed. Occasionally an unconscious and
+half-timid lifting of her long eye-lashes towards his animated, handsome
+face thrilled the botanist with a new, if fleeting, sensation of
+delight. As they passed through a gate into a hillside meadow, at the
+foot of which ran a silvery brook, they were made aware of voices in
+song. The voices were two, one a sweet but somewhat drawly female
+soprano, the other, a raucous, loud, overmastering shout, that almost
+drowned the utterance of its companion. The masculine one furnished the
+words to the promenaders, and these were:--
+
+     Shayll we gaythurr at thee rivverr
+     Whayerr bright angel feet have traw-odd?
+
+"Do you know who these are?" asked Miss Carmichael.
+
+"If I thought he knew as much tune," replied Coristine, "I should say he
+was The Crew."
+
+"Oh, tell me, please, who is The Crew?" Thereupon the lawyer launched
+out into a description of his travels, so comical a one that his fair
+companion laughed until the tears stood in her eyes, and she accused him
+of making her break the Sabbath. "No," she said at last; "that is not
+Sylvanus, but it is his brother Timotheus with Tryphosa. They are
+sitting in a ferny hollow under these birches down the hill, with a
+hymn-book between them, and as grave as if they were in church. Do you
+not think, Mr. Coristine, that that is a very nice and proper way for
+young people to improve their acquaintance?"
+
+"Very much so, Miss Carmichael. May I go in and get a hymn book? I can
+run like a deer, and won't take a minute over it. One will be enough,
+won't it?"
+
+The lady laughed a little pleasant laugh, and replied: "I think not,
+sir. We are not servants, at least in the same sense, and the piano and
+organ are at our disposal when we wish to exercise our musical powers."
+
+"Snubbed again," muttered Coristine to himself; then aloud: "I wish I
+were Timotheus."
+
+"If you prefer Tryphosa's company to mine, sir, you are at liberty to
+go; but I think your champion of Peskiwanchow would object to such
+rivalry."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean with Tryphosa."
+
+"You do not know what you mean, nor anybody else. Let us return to the
+house."
+
+As they sauntered back, the lawyer suddenly cried out: "What a forgetful
+blockhead I am. I have had ever so many business questions to put to
+you, and have forgotten all about them."
+
+"Had you not better leave business till to-morrow, Mr. Coristine?" asked
+the lady, gravely, almost severely.
+
+"Your father's name was James Douglas Carmichael, was it not?" asked
+Coristine, ignoring this quietus.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"He came to Canada in 1848, and was, for a time, in military service at
+Kingston, before he completed his medical studies. Am I right?"
+
+"How do you happen to know these things? My father was singularly
+reticent about his past life; but you are right."
+
+The lawyer opened his pocket-book and took out a newspaper cutting,
+which he handed to his companion. "I found that at Barrie," he said,
+"and trust I have not taken too great a liberty in constituting myself
+your solicitor, and opening correspondence with Mr. MacSmaill, W.S.,
+regarding your interests."
+
+"It was very kind of you," she answered; "do you think it will bring us
+any money, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"Yes; it must bring some, as it is directed to heirs. How much, depends
+upon the wealth of your father's family."
+
+"They were very wealthy. Papa told mamma to write home to them, but she
+would not. She is too independent for that."
+
+"Will you sanction my action, and allow me to work this case up? Your
+mother cannot be an heir, you know, save in a roundabout way; so that
+you, being of age, are sole authority in the matter."
+
+"How do you know I am of age?"
+
+"I don't; but thought that, perhaps, you might be, seeing you are so
+mature and circumspect in your ways."
+
+"Thank you for the doubtful compliment. I am of age, however."
+
+"Then will you authorize me to proceed?"
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"Do you know it makes me very sorry to become your solicitor?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because henceforth ours are mere business relations, and I, a
+struggling junior partner, must be circumspect too, and stand in proper
+awe and distant respect for a prospective heiress."
+
+"Do not allow your reverence to carry you too far to an opposite
+extreme. You have been very good during most of our walk, and I have
+enjoyed it very much."
+
+As she tripped in at the French window, Coristine could not reply. It is
+probable that he ejaculated inwardly, "the darlin'!" but, outwardly, he
+took out his pipe and sought consolation in the bowl of the Turk's head.
+While patrolling the long path down towards the meadow, he heard a low
+whistle, and, proceeding to the point in the fence whence it came, found
+Mr. Rawdon, as pale as he well could be, and much agitated. "Look 'ere,
+Mr. Currystone," he said, "I've bin down to Talfourds and a good bit
+further, and I find a fellow called Nash 'as bin about, plottin' to 'urt
+my business along of that brute of a Chisholm. They can't 'urt it much,
+but I can 'urt them, and, wot's more, I will. 'Ow I found out wot
+they're about is my haffair. I hain't got no time to lose, so you tell
+the genniwin Simon Pure Miss Do Please-us as I'll hoffer 'er a thousan'
+dollars cash for that there farm of 'ers till to-morrow mornin'. 'Er
+hacceptance must be hat the Post-hoffice hup the road hany time before
+ten o'clock, and the deed can be drawn hup between you and me and the
+Squire just has soon therehafter as she pleases. Ha, ha! pretty good,
+eh? Miss Do Please-us, she pleases! Bye, bye! Mr. Currystone, don't you
+forget, for it's business."
+
+The Grinstun man stole along the meadow fence and travelled over the
+fields, back way, towards the Lake Settlement. Emptying his pipe, the
+lawyer found Miss Du Plessis and at once announced Mr. Rawdon's
+proposal, which he urged her not to accept. She said the land was
+certainly not worth any more, if it were worth that amount, and that a
+thousand dollars would be of much immediate use to her mother. But
+Coristine reminded her that Colonel Morton was, in all probability, with
+her mother now, and begged her at least to wait until their joint
+opinion could be procured. To this she agreed, and further conversation
+was checked by the arrival of Marjorie, the five young Carruthers and
+Mr. Michael Terry.
+
+The whole party sallied out of the windows on to the verandah, the lawn,
+and thence out of the front gate, where they found the dominie in a
+state of radiant abstraction, strutting up and down the road, and
+quoting pages of his favourite poet. He had just completed the lines:--
+
+     And yet a spirit still, and bright
+     With something of an angel light.
+
+The lawyer went up to him before he came near and hissed at his friend,
+"What about our compact?" to which the dominie, with a fierce
+cheerfulness, replied, "It is broken, sir; shivered to atoms; buried in
+oblivion. When a so-called honourable man takes a young lady walking in
+garden and meadow alone, and breathes soft trifles in her ear, the
+letter, the spirit, the whole periphery of the compact is gone. Your
+conduct, sir, leaves me free to act as I please towards the world's
+chief soul and radiancy. I shall do as I please, sir; I shall read
+Louisa and Ruth and Laodamia and the Female Vagrant, none daring to make
+me afraid. A single tress of ebon hair, a single beam of a dove-like
+eye, shall be enough to fortify my heart against all your legal lore,
+your scorn, your innuendos, your coward threats."
+
+"Wilks, you're intoxicated."
+
+"Such intoxication as mine is that of the soul--a thing to glory in."
+
+"Well, go and glory, and read what you please; only add the Idiot Boy to
+the Female Vagrant and you'll be a lovely pair. I'm going to do as I
+please, too, so we're both happy at last."
+
+Thus saying, the lawyer returned to Marjorie, while the dominie stood
+stock still in the road, like a man thunderstruck, repeating: "The Idiot
+Boy, the Female Vagrant, a pair?--and he was once my friend! A pair, a
+pair--the Female Vagrant, the Idiot Boy!--and that slimy, crawling,
+sickening caterpillar of a garden slug was once known to me! Truly, a
+strange awaking!"
+
+It was now six o'clock, the time under ordinary circumstances for tea;
+but the circumstances were extraordinary, as the Squire, Mr. Nash and
+the minister had to be waited for. The party was in the road waiting for
+them. "Look, Eugene!" cried Marjorie; "there's Muggins. Here Muggy,
+Muggy, good doggie!" Muggins came on at full speed, and, striding at a
+very respectable pace, his master followed.
+
+"Ow, Mr. Coristine, sow glad to see you again, I'm shore. I was
+delighted to see you bringing two straye sheep into the true fowld this
+morning. I howpe Miss Marjorie will turn out a good churchwoman; woun't
+you now, Marjorie?"
+
+"I'm not a woman, and I won't be one. A woman wears dirty clothes and a
+check apron and a sun-bonnet. We've had a charwoman like that in our
+house, and a washerwoman; and in Collingwood there's a fish-woman and an
+apple-woman. I've seen them with my very own eyes. I don't think it a
+bit nice of you, Mr. Brown, to call me a charwoman."
+
+"I said churchwoman, my dear, not charwoman."
+
+"It's the same thing; they scrub out churches. I've seen them do it. And
+they're as old and ugly--worse than Tryphena!"
+
+"Hush, hush, Marjorie!" interposed Miss Du Plessis; "you must not speak
+like that of good Tryphena. Besides, Mr. Perrowne means by a churchwoman
+one who is like me, and goes to the Church of England."
+
+"If it's to be like you, and you will marry Eugene and go to the Church
+of England, I will be a churchwoman and go with you."
+
+Mr. Perrowne glowered at the lawyer, whom, a moment before, he had
+greeted in so friendly a way. Coristine laughed, as he could afford to,
+and said: "I'm sorry, Marjorie, that it cannot be as you wish. I am not
+serious enough for Miss Du Plessis, nor a sufficient judge of good
+poetry. Your friend wouldn't have me at any price; would you now, Miss
+Du Plessis?"
+
+"Certainly not with that mode of asking. How unpleasantly personal
+children make things."
+
+Muggins and the young Carruthers were having lots of fun. He sat up and
+begged for bread, he ran after sticks and stones thrown by feeble hands,
+he shook paws with the children, had his ears stroked and his tail
+pulled with the greatest good-nature. Right under the eyes of the still
+dumbfoundered dominie, his owner accompanied Miss Du Plessis into the
+house, while Coristine prevailed on Marjorie to sing a hymn with a
+pretty plaintive tune, commencing:--
+
+     Once in royal David's city
+     Stood a lowly cattle shed,
+     Where a mother laid her infant
+     In a manger for his bed;
+     Mary was that mother mild,
+     Jesus Christ her little child.
+
+The old soldier left his grandchildren with Muggins and came to hear the
+hymn. "The Howly Vargin bliss the little pet," he ejaculated, and then
+crooned a few notes at the end of each verse.
+
+"Fwat is it the Howly Scripchers says, sorr, about little childher an'
+the good place?" he asked Coristine.
+
+The lawyer took off his hat, and reverently replied: "Of such is the
+Kingdom of Heaven."
+
+The veteran crossed himself, and said: "There niver was a thruer word
+shpoke or in wroitin', an' fwat does the childher, the innicents, know
+about Pratishtants an' Cathlics, till me that now?"
+
+As Coristine could not, the pair refilled their pipes and smoked in
+company, an ideal Evangelical Alliance.
+
+Soon the waggonette came rattling along the road, and Marjorie ran to
+meet her Uncle John and the minister, with both of whom she was a great
+favourite. Mr. Nash also had a word to say to her: "You remember
+scolding me for not going to church when I was Mr. Chisholm? Well, I've
+been there this afternoon, and Mr. Errol told us we are all getting
+ready here for what we are to do in Heaven. Now, you're a wise little
+girl, and I want you to tell me what I will be able to do when I get
+there. It can't be to hunt up bad people, because there are no bad
+people in Heaven. What do you think about it?"
+
+"I know," answered Marjorie, gravely; "play chess with dead uncles and
+ministers, and teach tricks to the little children that never growed
+up."
+
+"Out of the mouths of babes!" ejaculated Mr. Errol, who overheard the
+conversation; then continued: "Could anything be truer? The training in
+observation and rapid mental combinations, which has made you successful
+in your profession, is the foundation of your prowess on the chess
+board. Your skill in every sort of make-up enables you to manipulate
+handkerchiefs and oranges for children's amusement. The same training
+and skill our Father can turn to good account in the upper sanctuary."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Errol, thank you, Marjorie, my dear. Perhaps the good
+God will be kinder than we think, and find some use for a poor, lonely,
+careless detective." Mr. Nash was unusually thoughtful, yet still had an
+eye to business. He made diligent enquiries about Rawdon, and, at last,
+getting on the scent through Miss Du Plessis, found out all that
+Coristine and Timotheus had to tell of him. The latter had watched the
+working geologist slinking off in the Lake Settlement direction across
+the fields and by bush tracks. Mr. Terry and the children, having
+partaken of tea, remained out in the front with Muggins, and sang some
+more hymns, Marjorie leading their choir. The rest of the household,
+reinforced by Mr. Perrowne, who, much to Wilkinson's disgust,
+monopolized Miss Du Plessis, sat round the ample tea-table. In a
+shamefaced way, as if engaged in an illegal ecclesiastical transaction,
+the English clergyman mumbled: "For what we are about to receive," and
+the evening meal proceeded. The Squire had ceded his end of the table to
+his sister, and had taken his post at her left, where he talked to the
+dominie, his next neighbour, and across the table to Mr. Errol. Perrowne
+flanked the hostess on the right, and Nash on the left. Miss Du Plessis
+sat between Perrowne and Wilkinson, a stately and elegant bone of
+contention; while the lawyer had the detective on one side and Miss
+Carmichael on the other. As that young lady had something to do with the
+arrangement of the table by Tryphosa, in the matter of napkin rings, it
+was, if Coristine only knew it, a mark of her confidence in him that
+she permitted his presence on her right. Nevertheless he profited little
+by it, as she gave all her conversation to the minister, save when the
+attention of that elderly admirer was taken up by her uncle. As Perrowne
+was compelled to be civil to Mrs. Carruthers, while Mr. Nash entertained
+the lawyer, an opportunity was afforded the schoolmaster of improving
+his acquaintance with Miss Du Plessis, of which he took joyful
+advantage, feeling that in so doing with all brilliancy he was planting
+thorns in the breasts of two innocent beings, whom he inwardly
+characterized as a clerical puppy and an ungrateful, perfidious,
+slanderous worm. Neither the puppy nor the worm were happy, as he
+joyfully perceived.
+
+The meal was over, and they were preparing to have early evening prayers
+for the sake of the children, when a vehicle drove up, and a burly form,
+clad in navy blue broadcloth with a plentiful trimming of gilt buttons,
+descending from it, came along the path towards the house, accompanied
+by Marjorie.
+
+"It's papa!" she cried to Carruthers and his wife, who had gone to the
+door to see who their visitor was, and call the children in. It was the
+Captain, and in the buggy, holding the reins, sat The Crew. "Don't sit
+grinning there, you blockhead!" shouted the ancient mariner to Sylvanus;
+"hev ye been so long aboard ship ye can't tell a stable when you see it?
+Drive on, you slabsided swab!" The Captain's combination of lumbering
+with nautical pursuits gave a peculiar and not always congruous flavour
+to his pet phrases; but Sylvanus did not mind; he drove round the lane
+and met Timotheus.
+
+"We have just finished tea, Captain," said Mrs. Carruthers with her
+pretty touch of a cultivated Irish accent; "but Marjorie will tell
+Tryphosa to set yours on the table at once."
+
+"All right, Honoria!" growled Mr. Thomas; "I'm in port here for the
+night, and I'm a goin' to make fast; so be I hev to belay on to the lee
+side of a stack of shingle bolts. Now, Marjorie, my pet, give daddy
+another kiss, and run away for a bit. John, I want you right away."
+
+With the latter words, the Captain took the Squire off to the far end of
+the verandah, and sat down with his legs dangling over among the
+flowers, causing his brother-in-law to do the same. "John," said he,
+taking off his naval cap, and mopping his forehead, "you're all goin' to
+be murdered to-night in your bunks, else I wouldn't ha' quit dock o'
+Sunday."
+
+"Whatever do you mean, Thomas?"
+
+"I mean what I say, and well to you and yourn. Sylvanus was down at
+Peskiwanchow, gettin' some things his brother left there, when he
+shipped for you. There's a bad crew in that whiskey mill, and, fool as
+he is, he was sharp enough to hear them unbeknown. Says one of 'em,
+'Better get out the fire-engines from town,' and he laughed. Says
+another, 'Guess the boys'll hev a nice bonefire waitin' for us, time we
+get to Flanders.' Then the low-down slab-pilers got their mutinous heads
+together, and says, 'The J.P. and the bailiff's got to be roasted
+anyway, wisht we could heave Nash in atop.' I've left the cursing and
+swearin' out, because it's useless ballast, and don't count in the deal
+any more'n sawdust. Now, John, what do you think of that?"
+
+"It looks serious, Thomas, if your man is to be depended on."
+
+"My man depended on? Sylvanus Pilgrim to be depended on? There's no more
+dependable able-bodied seaman and master mill-hand afloat nor ashore.
+He's true as the needle to the pole and the gang-saw to the plank. Don't
+you go saying wrong of Sylvanus."
+
+"I must take Nash into confidence with us, and call up your informant,"
+said the Squire, leading the Captain into the house and setting him
+carefully down at the tea table, where Mrs. Carruthers waited upon him.
+Then he looked up Sylvanus in the kitchen, and told him to report as
+soon as he had taken his supper. "We have no time to lose, Pilgrim," he
+added, "so let Tryphena alone till our talk is over. She'll keep."
+
+"I ain't agoin' ter persume ter tech Trypheeny, Square, an' I'll be
+along in a half tack," replied The Crew.
+
+Next, Nash was found smoking a cigar, and talking very earnestly with
+Mr. Errol about presentiments, and sudden remembrances of childhood's
+days. He dropped the conversation at once when business was mentioned,
+and, in a few minutes, the Squire's official room contained five men,
+with very serious faces, seeking to come to a full understanding of what
+seemed a diabolical plot on the part of some spiteful malefactors. Four
+of these have already been indicated; the fifth was the lawyer, who
+proved a useful addition for pumping Sylvanus dry and taking careful
+notes.
+
+While the consultation was in progress, a gentle tap came to the door,
+and, following it, a voice that thrilled the lawyer, saying, "May I come
+in, uncle; I have some news for you?" Carruthers opened the door, when
+Miss Carmichael told him that young Hill, the girls' brother, had
+arrived with another man, and wanted to see him immediately on special
+business that would not wait, and that they seemed to have been out
+shooting. The Squire went out and returned with Rufus and Ben Toner. The
+former related how Ben had gone to afternoon meetin' to tell what he
+knew of the conspiracy to clean out all the scabs in Flanders, and have
+trade run smooth. Coristine examined his old patient, who readily
+responded, and Nash, who was now Chisholm in beard and moustache, helped
+the interrogation. Toner's information, like that of Sylvanus, came from
+accidentally overhearing the talk of four men in a waggon, driving
+Flanders way during church time, while he was fishing in the river.
+
+"I heerd 'em say as they'd be a big blayuz afore mornin', and as Squier
+Cruthers, and the bailiff, and Nash, and a raivenue gaal, had got to go
+to kingdom come. One on 'em says he seen Mr. Nash and got a hit off his
+stick. He's a goin' to lay for him straight and for them two walkin'
+spies likeways."
+
+"What made you look up Rufus?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"I thort the raivenue gaal might a been one of his sisters that's here.
+Besides, he's got a gun, and so have I, and I'm a goin' to be true to my
+word, Doctor, to you and the bailiff too, ef I have to shoot aivery
+mother's son of them vilyins."
+
+The Captain and Sylvanus, with Rufus and Ben, all testified to the
+moving of several teams, with rough-looking characters on board, along
+the roads that led towards Flanders, and the Lake Settlement in
+particular. The Squire and Mr. Nash had noticed the same.
+
+"Ben," said the latter, taking off his disguise, "I think I can trust
+you. I am the detective Nash."
+
+Toner started, but quickly recovered himself, and, rising, gave his hand
+to the man of aliases, saying, "You kin, Mr. Nash, s'haylp me. Old man
+Newcome swears he's a goin' to hev your life, but he won't ef I'm any
+good."
+
+The detective shook hands warmly, and, taking Ben aside, found that he
+had no personal knowledge of Rawdon, the Newcome of whom he spoke being
+apparently the go between. The intimacy between them, which was near
+ruining the young man, had come about through Toner's attention to
+Newcome's daughter, Sarah Eliza. "But," continued the unhappy lover,
+"the old man's been and had Serlizer off for more'n a year, and puts me
+off and off and better off, till I just up and wouldn't stand it no
+more. I ain't a goin' to sell his stuff, nor drink his stuff, nor hev
+nawthun more to do along of his gang, but I'd like to know where
+Serlizer's put to, and I'm here and my gun, with a lot of powder and
+shot and slugs, for the stummik of any gallihoot as lays a finger on
+you, Mr. Nash, or the doctor or the gals."
+
+Returning to the group, the detective urged immediate defensive action,
+leaving the offensive till the morrow. The Squire at once looked up his
+armoury, consisting of a rifle, a fowling piece (double-barrelled) and a
+pair of heavy horse-pistols, with abundant ammunition. The Captain
+reported that Sylvanus had a shotgun (single-barrelled), and that he had
+brought the blunderbuss with which he fired salutes off the _Susan
+Thomas_. Coristine answered for the revolvers carried by himself and the
+dominie. The clergy were called in and the situation explained, when
+both volunteered for service. Mr. Perrowne had a very good gun at his
+lodgings; and his landlady, whose father had been in the army, possessed
+a relic of him in the shape of an ancient carbine, which he was sure she
+would lend to Mr. Errol, with bayonet complete. He went for them, under
+escort of Rufus and Ben. When Mr. Terry was told, he begged for his son
+in law's "swate-lukin' roifle," and was as cheerful as if a wedding was
+in progress. Finally, Timotheus got the fowling piece and the Squire
+looked to the priming of his pistols. Mr. Nash, of course, had both
+revolver and dirk knife concealed somewhere about his person. Then Mr.
+Errol conducted family prayers, the children were sent to bed, the
+ladies briefly informed of the situation, and the garrison bidden a more
+than usually affectionate good-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     The Squire Posts Sentries--Sylvanus Arrests Tryphosa--Change of
+     Watchword--Nash Leads an Advance--The Cheek of Grinstuns--The
+     Hound--Guard-room Conversation--Incipient Fires Extinguished--The
+     Idiot Boy--Grinstun's Awful Cheek--The Lawyer and the Parson
+     Theologize--Coristine's Hands--Doctor and Miss Halbert.
+
+
+The full strength of the garrison was twelve able-bodied men, of whom
+five carried fowling pieces, one a blunderbuss, another a carbine,
+another a rifle, and four were armed with pistols. The Squire was in
+supreme command, and Mr. Nash was adjutant. They decided that the
+garrison as a whole should go on guard for the night, that is, from ten
+o'clock till six in the morning, a period of eight hours, making, as the
+Captain put it, four watches of two hours each. Thus the remaining ten
+were divided into two guards of five, and, as the morning guard, from
+four to six, would probably not be required, it was determined to put
+those who had most need of rest on the companion one from twelve to two.
+These were Captain Thomas, the veteran Terry, the two parsons, with
+Wilkinson, who was thrown in simply as a pistol man, the only other of
+the kind being the lawyer. With ammunition in their pockets, or slung
+round their shoulders, the first guard sallied forth under the Squire's
+guidance. Coristine was left to watch the front of the house behind the
+shrubbery bordering the fence, and keep up communication with Nash, who
+patrolled the road on horseback. Ben Toner's station was the path
+running parallel with the palings on the left of the garden, beyond
+which was an open field, not altogether destitute of stumps. Silvanus
+was posted on the edge of the meadow, at the back of the garden and
+out-houses; and Timotheus, on the right of the stables and connected
+buildings. Just where the beats of the brothers met, there was a little
+clump of timber, the only point affording cover to an advancing enemy,
+and to that post of honour and danger Rufus was appointed. Having
+placed his men, the Squire returned to the guard-room, his office, and
+ordered Tryphosa to bring refreshments for the guard, to which he added
+a box of cigars. The guard discussed the cold ham, the cheese and
+biscuits, and, in addition, Mr. Errol indulged in some diluted sherry,
+Perrowne and Wilkinson in a glass of beer, and the Captain and the
+veteran in a drop of whiskey and water. The Squire took a cigar with
+those who smoked, but maintained his wakefulness on cold tea. Every half
+hour he was out inspecting the sentries. Coristine had suggested that
+the friendly answer to a challenge should be Bridesdale, but, lest the
+enemy should hear this and take advantage of it, all suspicious persons
+should be required also to give the countersign, Grinstuns. The dominie
+sneered at him for the latter; but, when he saw his friend sally forth
+with loaded pistol to the post of danger, his enmity died, and, rising,
+he silently shook hands with him at the door. Returning to the
+guard-room, he breathed a silent prayer for his friend's safety, and
+then fortified his inner man with the fare provided. Conversation
+accompanied the impromptu supper, and the subsequent cigar or pipe, at
+first led by the divines, but afterwards taken clean out of their mouths
+by the Captain and the veteran, who furnished exciting accounts of their
+experience in critical situations.
+
+The Squire had gone out for the second time to inspect the sentries. It
+was eleven o'clock. Coristine, who was first visited, reported a sound
+of voices at the back of the house, and Toner confirmed the report. The
+commander-in-chief hastened to the gate leading into the hill meadow,
+and perceived a figure struggling in the strong grasp of Sylvanus. The
+sentinel's left arm was round the prisoner, and the gun was in his right
+hand. As they came towards the gate, the Squire heard piteous entreaties
+in a feminine voice to be let go, and the answer: "'Tain't no kind o'
+use, Tryphosy, even ef ye was arter Timotheus an' not me; that ain't it,
+at all. It's this: yer didn't say Bridesdale when I charlinged yer, nor
+yer couldn't bar-sign Grinstuns. All suspicious carriters has got to be
+took up, and, ef that ain't bein' a suspicious carriter, this mate on
+the starn watch don't know what is. I'm rale sorry for yer, and I'm
+sorry for Timotheus, but juty is juty and orders is strict. Come on,
+now, and let us hope the Square'll be marciful."
+
+"What is the meaning of this nonsense, Pilgrim?" asked the commander,
+angrily.
+
+"It's a suspicious carriter as can't give no account of itself, Square.
+She might ha' been shot as like as not, ef I hadn't gone and took her
+pris'ner."
+
+"Let the girl alone, and don't make a laughing stock of yourself. You've
+already said the passwords loud enough for any lurker to hear, so that
+we'll hae to change them aa because o' your stupeedity. Be serious and
+keep your eyes and gun for strange folk, men or women."
+
+Tryphosa fled into the house, whither Tryphena--who, falling into the
+same error, had crossed the beat of Timotheus--had already betaken
+herself, being driven off the field by the more sensible and merciful
+younger Pilgrim. When the Squire had completed his rounds, he returned
+to the guard-room, and, telling the story of Sylvanus' folly, which
+roused the Captain's ire, showed the necessity for new watchwords and
+better instruction of sentries.
+
+"It maun be something the lads and all the rest o' us ken weel, Squire.
+What think ye o' Cricket and Golf?" asked Mr. Errol.
+
+"I am afraid that Ben Toner might not know these words," put in the
+dominie.
+
+"What?" cried Mr. Perrowne, "do you really mean to say that
+this--ah--Towner needs to be towld what cricket is?"
+
+"I fear so," Wilkinson answered; with the effect that no heathen could
+have fallen lower in the parson's estimation than did Ben.
+
+"I say good, ship-shape words are Starbud and Port," growled the
+Captain.
+
+"In Sout Ameriky it was Constituthion and Libertad," suggested Mr.
+Terry.
+
+"Pork and Beans 'll no' do; nor Burdock and Blood Bitters; nor Powder
+and Shot," said the Squire, ruminating; "for the one ca's up the tither
+ower nayteral like. What say ye, Maister Wilkinson?"
+
+Wilkinson was taken aback by the suddenness of the question, and blurted
+out what had been only too much in his thoughts; "Idiot and Boy."
+
+"Capital!" "Well said!" "The very thing!" "Jest suits Sylvanus!" the
+various voices responded; and the Squire went out to the sentries to
+make the desired change. The lawyer chuckled when he received the new
+words, and all the other sentinels repeated to themselves the poetic
+terms "Eejut and Boy."
+
+It was just on the stroke of midnight, time to relieve the guards, when
+the distant sound of pistol shots in rapid succession fell
+simultaneously on the ears of Coristine, Ben and Sylvanus. The lawyer,
+stepping hastily to the house, called out the armed inmates, and in
+another minute or so Nash came galloping up. "Stay where you are,
+Squire, with your sentries; and, you other men, look to your loading and
+come on with me. I've been fired at by a waggon load of them." The five
+unposted men hastened out into the road and away after the detective to
+the left. After going a short distance, the adjutant called a halt, and
+told the veteran to advance in military order. "Now, min," said Mr.
+Terry quietly, "extind about tin paces from aich another to the lift,
+an' Oi'll be the lifthand man. Thin kape wan eye on me an' the other
+before yeez, and advance whin Oi advance undher cover av the stumps and
+finces and things. Riddy now--extind!" The movement was well executed,
+and, as the veteran was eager for the fray, he led them more rapidly
+than it could be thought the old man had the power to run, until they
+reached the spot where the waggon had halted. It was gone, without a
+sign; so the gallant skirmishers re-formed in the road and marched back
+to quarters. When they arrived at the gate, Coristine could not resist
+the temptation of a challenge, unnecessary as it was. The dominie was
+leading, and him he hailed: "Who goes there?" With momentary hesitation,
+Wilkinson answered in the same undertone:--
+
+"Friends."
+
+"The word, friends?"
+
+"Idiot."
+
+"The countersign, Idiot?"
+
+"Boy."
+
+"Pass, Idiot Boy, and all's well!"
+
+The schoolmaster could have boxed that sentry's ears, have slapped his
+face, have caned him within an inch of his life; for there was a light
+in an upper window, and he knew that bright eyes were looking down
+through the slats of the closed green shutters, and that sharp ears had
+caught the sound of the obnoxious words. He could detect the accents of
+a voice, which he knew so well, pleading the cause of silence with
+another that trembled with suppressed laughter as it made ineffectual
+promises to be quiet. The two clergymen also heard the friendly
+altercation at the window, so still was everything else, and chuckled as
+they filed past the legal sentry, now on the broad grin. The Captain and
+Mr. Terry were above taking notice of such trifles, for they were
+eagerly persuading each other to take just the least drop before going
+out into the heavy night dews. No sooner had the five entered the
+guard-room than the Squire re-formed them and marched them off to
+relieve the old sentries. The lawyer's place was taken by the dominie,
+Toner's by the Captain, that of Sylvanus by Perrowne, that of Timotheus
+by Errol, and Rufus' post of honour by the veteran, who would accept no
+other. There was a sixth guard in the person of Muggins, who kept his
+master company and behaved with the greatest propriety and silence.
+Sylvanus and Timotheus, Rufus and Ben had a separate guard-house of
+their own in the kitchen, where Mrs. Carmichael, who could not sleep
+because of her apprehensions of evil to some unknown defender, furnished
+them with bread and cheese and innocuous hot elderberry wine and cold
+cider. After partaking plentifully of the refreshments, Sylvanus and Ben
+lit their pipes, and the latter communicated to the company the story of
+his woes in the case of Serlizer. Sylvanus related his adventure in
+capturing Tryphosa, which caused Timotheus to move into a corner with
+Rufus and declare solemnly and in a low tone, that "Ef Sylvanus warn't
+my brother and older'n me, and the next thing t' engaged to Trypheeny,
+I'd be shaved an' shampooed ef I wouldn't bust his old cocoanut open."
+Rufus, however, replied that girls had no business to be about in war
+times, unless it was to nurse the sick and wounded, which was only done
+in hospitals, thus justifying Sylvanus' action as a pure matter of
+military duty, and reconciling Timotheus to the slight put upon his lady
+love.
+
+The Squire and Coristine were alone in the guard-room, save when Mrs.
+Carmichael put her head in to ask after the welfare of the party,
+especially of the older members.
+
+"Grandfather knows campaigning and can take care of himself," the Squire
+answered; "and the Captain's used to out-door life; but there's the
+minister now, puir man! Weel, weel, Marjorie, when I gang the roonds,
+I'll see if he needs onything."
+
+Then the pair chatted away, chiefly about the Grinstun man, whom
+Carruthers came to regard in the light of a spy. Though surrounded on
+every side by suspicious circumstances, there was nothing definite
+against him, the nearest evidence to a conviction being the geological
+or mineralogical expressions which the unguarded dilapidated farmer on
+the way to the Beaver River had coupled with his name, and his own
+admissions to the spurious Miss Du Plessis.
+
+"Maister Coristine," said the Squire, "gin I thocht yon deevil, seein'
+it's Monday mornin' the noo, was at the foondation o' this ploy, I'd
+think naething o' spendin' five thoosand to pit an end til's tricks."
+
+"All right, Squire; I think I'll go into criminal law, and work it up
+for you."
+
+"What's yon? I maun gang out, for I hear Mr. Wilkinson calling me."
+
+The lawyer accompanied him to the door. Nash was at the gate to report
+that he had seen small parties and single individuals, some distance off
+the road on both sides of the house, whose actions were more than
+suspicious. Had they carried firearms larger than pistols he would have
+been sure to detect the gleam of steel. He was sorry now he had drawn
+the fire of the waggon on himself, and thus given the miscreants to
+understand that their plot was known. Still, they were at it, and meant
+mischief. As he could do no further good patrolling the road, he would
+put up his horse, and help the Squire to guard the house and
+outbuildings. Hardly was his horse in the stable, and himself in the
+guard-room, than Mr. Errol's voice, and then the dominie's, were heard
+challenging loudly. The Squire flew to the minister, and Nash to
+Wilkinson. A stout but elastic figure, so far as the step went, was
+coming along the road from the right, whistling "The Girl I left behind
+Me." As it came near, the whistling stopped, and Rawdon, with knapsack
+on back and staff in hand, appeared before the astonished eyes of the
+sentinels. He started at the sight of the minister's carbine. "Wy, Mr.
+Herl," he said, "wot the dooce are you a doin' of at this time o' night?
+Are you lookin' for night 'awks or howls hafter the chickins, or did you
+think I was a wistlin' bear. And you too, Squire! I thought the Hinjins
+was all killed bout. Blowed if there haint hold Favosites Wilkinsonia,
+and a man as looks like Chisholm! Are you campin' out, 'avin' summer
+midnight manoovers for the fun o' the thing?"
+
+Nash went back to the house. "If it's a fair question, Mr. Rawdon," said
+the Squire, "where are you going at this time of night?"
+
+"Fair enough, Squire; I'm bound for Collinwood to ketch the mornin'
+train. Bye, bye! no time to lose." Off trudged the Grinstun man, once
+more whistling, but this time his tune was "It's no use a knockin' at
+the door."
+
+The Squire, the detective, and the lawyer held a council of war.
+
+"Pity we hadn't arrested that chap," remarked Mr. Nash.
+
+"Couldn't do it," said Coristine; "there is no warrant for his arrest,
+no definite charge against him. A justice of the peace can't issue one
+on mere suspicion, nor can he institute martial law, which would of
+course cover the case."
+
+"If what Maister Nash has seen be as he thinks," added the Squire, "it's
+as weel we laid nae han' on him, for it would just hae preceepitated
+metters, and hae brocht the haill o' thae Lake Settlement deevils doon
+upon us. D'ye think Rawdon's gaun to Collingwood, Nash?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. I believe he came past here, openly and dressed as he
+was, for three reasons. First, he wants to prove an alibi for himself,
+whatever happens. Second, he wanted to see how we are guarded, and by
+that loud whistling has informed his confederates not far off that it is
+useless to try the house from the front. Thirdly, he has circled round
+to take command of the villains that fired on me out of the waggon we
+couldn't find."
+
+"What's to be done then?" asked the Squire and the lawyer in a breath.
+
+"We must watch the means of access from the left to the right. You see,
+there are bushes, young willows and alders, all along the bank of the
+creek, behind which they can steal towards that ferny hollow under the
+birches, and, from thence, either make for the bit of bush Mr. Terry is
+guarding, or creep behind the scattered boulders towards the fence. Your
+shrubberies about the house and live hedges and little meadow copses are
+very pretty and picturesque, Squire, but a bare house on the top of a
+treeless hill would be infinitely better to stand a siege."
+
+"Aye, aye, Nash; but I'm no gaun tae cut doon my bonnie trees an' busses
+for a wheen murderin' vagabones."
+
+"Well, I'll get a gun from one of the men in the kitchen, and explore
+the hillside below the Captain."
+
+Having secured Ben Toner's gun, the best of the lot, the detective
+walked down the garden to the gate, where he found Perrowne vainly
+endeavouring to comfort Muggins. The poor dog did not even whine, but
+shivered as he stood, otherwise paralyzed with abject terror.
+
+"Crouch down by the fence," whispered the detective in the parson's ear,
+and at once crouched down beside him.
+
+"Do you see that moving object coming up the hill from the birches? By
+Jove! there's another crawling behind it. What is it?"
+
+"It's an animal of some sawrt," answered Perrowne.
+
+"That accounts for your dog's fear. It isn't a bear, is it? There may be
+some about after early berries."
+
+"Now, it's not a bear, though I've been towld dawgs are very much afraid
+of bears."
+
+Just then the animal keeled over, and immediately there followed the
+report of a rifle. The crawler behind the beast slid back into the
+hollow and disappeared. Then, from the left of the house came a volley
+that woke the echoes all round; it was the explosion of the Captain's
+blunderbuss. The detective ran along the fence to Mr. Terry's beat, and
+found the veteran reloading his rifle from the muzzle. "Keep your post,
+Mr. Terry," he cried, "while I run and see what it is you have bagged. I
+imagine your son-in-law will look after the Captain." Mr. Nash ran down
+the hill, closely followed by the lawyer, who had come out to see the
+fun. All the bedroom windows were lit up, and eager eyes strained to
+learn the cause of the firing, while the remaining sentinels prepared
+for action. The animal shot was a large bloodhound, in life a dangerous
+brute with horrid, cruel-looking fangs, but now in the agonies of death.
+The detective drew his long dagger-like knife, and drove it into the
+creature's heart. Then, while Coristine lifted it by the two hind legs,
+he took a grasp of its collar, and they carried the trophy of the
+veteran's rifle on to the lawn in front of the house. There they learned
+that the Captain, being half asleep with no chance of an enemy in sight,
+dreamt his ship had been saluted coming into port on a holiday, and, as
+in duty bound, returned the salute. The blunderbuss had not exploded; it
+always made that grand, booming, rattling, diffusive sort of a report.
+The dead hound's collar was examined, and was discovered to bear the
+initials A.R. "Who is A.R.?" asked the Squire; and Mr. Nash replied: "He
+is no doubt my affianced bridegroom, Haltamont Rawdon."
+
+It was two o'clock in the morning; so the guard was relieved, and the
+former sentries returned to their posts; but the Squire noticed, with a
+frown, that, just as the relief arrived at Mr. Errol's beat, a female
+form clothed in black darted round the stables towards the kitchen door.
+Also, he saw that the minister had a most unmilitary muffler, in the
+shape of a lady's cloud, round his neck, which he certainly had not when
+he went on duty. His high respect for the reverend gentleman hindered
+any outward expression of his combined amusement and annoyance. Muggins
+came back with Mr. Perrowne, but obstinately refused to go near the dead
+hound.
+
+"Do you think he has ever seen it before?" asked the detective.
+
+"I shouldn't be at all surprised," replied the clergyman.
+
+"I lawst Muggins, you know, at Tossorontio, and there was a man there at
+the time, a short man in a pea-jacket or cowt, down't you know, who had
+a big dawg. When Muggins disappeared, I thought the big dawg might have
+killed him. But now I think the man with the pea-cowt saved him from the
+big dawg, and that's how Muggins came to gow after him. What do you
+imagine that beast was after, coming up the hill towards Muggins?"
+
+"I think he was coming to overpower you, Mr. Perrowne, and bring all
+our forces to your aid, while the fellow behind him slipped in and fired
+the house or did some similar mischief."
+
+"I tell you, Mr. Nash, he'd have had my two barrels first, and I'm a
+pretty fair shot, down't you know? But, look here, it's dry work
+mounting guard, sow I'll have another pull at the tankard."
+
+The Squire came in from guard mounting, somewhat fatigued. He had been
+on the stretch mentally and physically ever since the Captain's arrival.
+"You had better go to bed, grandfather, and take Thomas with you," he
+said to the veteran.
+
+"Not a wink this blissid noight, Squoire," replied Mr. Terry, "the smill
+av the powther has put new loife into my owld carcash. The Captin can go
+iv he plazes."
+
+"Avast, there! I say, messmate," growled Captain Thomas, "I don't run
+this mill, but my youngster's here under hatches, and I'm a goin' to
+keep watch on, watch off along of any other man. I don't think that o'
+yours is half up to the mark, Mr. Terry."
+
+"Oi was thinkin' I was a bit wake mysilf," replied the old soldier,
+filling up his glass, and handing the decanter to his neighbour, who
+likewise improved the occasion.
+
+"Oi'm suppawsin now, sorr," continued the veteran, addressing the
+dominie, "that this is yer first apparance on shintry."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Terry, in your supposition."
+
+"An', sorr, it's a cridit to yeez to be shtandin' an' facin' the inimy
+wid divel a thing in yer hand but a pishtil. Oi moind a big sthrappin'
+liftinant av ours was called Breasel, an' sid he was discinded from the
+great Breasel Breck av Oirish hishtry. Wan noight he was slapin', whin
+four nagurs av Injuns kim into his tint, an' picked the sword an'
+pishtils and the unifarm aff the bid he was on. Thin he woke up, an' him
+havin' sorra a thing to difind himself wid but a good Oirish tongue in
+his hid. But it's Tipperary the liftinant foired at the haythens, an' it
+moight ha' been grape an' canister, for they dhropped the plundher and
+run for loife, all but wan that got howlt av an anhevis drawin' plashter
+the liftinant had for a bile an the back av his neck, an' wasn't usin'
+at the toime. Someways the plashter got on to his nakid chist an'
+gripped him, an' he was that wake wid froight, the other nagurs had to
+carry him away. Afther that the Injuns called Breasel by the name of
+Shupay, a worrud that in their spache manes the divil--savin' yer
+prisence, Mishter Wilkinson."
+
+"One time the _Susan Thomas_ was at Belle Ewart loadin' on lumber,"
+growled the Captain. "Sylvanus heerd as how the Mushrats, that's the
+folks acrost on t'other side of the bay, was a comin' over to fasten him
+and me down in the hold and paint the schooner. They was a goin' to
+paint her The Spotted Dog, than which there's no meaner kind o' fish.
+So, I bid Sylvanus pile a great heap of useless, green, heavy, barky
+slabs on top o' the good lumber; then we took the occasion of a little
+wind, and stood her out to anchor a little ways from the dock. Sure
+enough, when night come, the Mushrats came a hollerin' aand yellin'.
+Unfortnitly I'd left the salutin' blunderbuss here at home, and hadn't
+but one pike-pole aboard. 'How many boat loads of 'em is there,
+Sylvanus?' I says. 'Two,' says he. 'All right,' says I, 'that's one
+apiece. Take off your coat, and roll up your shirt sleeves, Sylvanus,'
+says I, 'for you're a goin' to have heavy work slab heavin'!' On they
+come to board us, one on each side. 'Fire out them or'nary useless
+slabs, Sylvanus,' says I. 'But there's a boat with a lot of men in it,'
+says he, a-chucklin' like an ijut. Hope I haven't given the pass word
+away, John? Well, I said: 'Fire out the slabs, and let the men get out
+o' the way.' And he began firing, and I kept my side a-goin', and the
+slabs fell flat and heavy and fast, knockin' six at a shot, till they
+cussed and swore, and hollered and yelled murder, and that was the last
+we two saw of the Mushrats and the paintin' of the _Susan Thomas_."
+
+Subdued but hearty laughter followed these stories, and, when the
+Captain ended, the veteran pushed the decanter towards him, remarking:
+"A good shtory is a foine thing, Captin, dear, but it makes ye just a
+throifle dhroy." The Captain responded, and told Mr. Terry that he was
+neglecting himself, an omission which that gentleman proceeded to
+rectify. Mr. Errol, with his muffling cloud still round his neck, was
+asleep in an easy chair. In his sleep he dreamt, the dream ending in an
+audible smack of his lips, and the exclamation "Very many thanks, ma'am;
+the toddy's warm and comforting." When his own voice aroused him, he was
+astonished to witness the extreme mirth of all parties, and was hardly
+convinced when it was attributed to the stories of the veteran and the
+Captain. The Squire, though amused, was resolved to have a word with his
+widowed sister.
+
+The lawyer paced up and down in the cool night, trying to combine two
+things which do not necessarily go together, warmth and wakefulness.
+Everything was so quiet, that he seemed to hear Timotheus and Sylvanus
+pacing about rapidly like himself, when suddenly a little spark of fire
+appeared at the far end of the verandah towards the stables. Cautiously,
+under cover of bushes he approached the spot, but saw nothing, although
+he smelt fire. Then he knelt down and peered under the flower laden
+structure. The light was there, growing. In a moment it became a flame,
+and, as he rushed to the spot, a lad fell into his arms. Clutching his
+collar with his left hand in spite of kicks and scratches, he hauled his
+prisoner back to the verandah, and, thrusting in his right arm beneath
+the floor, drew out the blazing rags and threw them on the gravel walk
+or on the grass until he was sure that not one remained. Some watcher at
+the front window had alarmed the guard-room, for out tumbled its
+occupants, and the lad was secured by Nash, and handed over to the
+Captain and Mr. Errol. Calling to Toner to keep an eye on the whole
+front, the detective, taking in the situation, hastened to the stables
+along with the lawyer, while the Squire and Mr. Perrowne went round the
+back way on the same errand. No guard was visible, and there was fire in
+two places, both happily outside sheds, one abutting on the garden
+fence, the other farther to the right. The Squire went for water-pails,
+while Nash and the veteran followed the course of the incendiaries
+towards the bush guarded by Rufus. But the lawyer and the parson,
+seizing stout poles, which were apparently Tryphena's clothes props,
+knocked the blazing sheds to pieces with them, and scattered the burning
+boards over the ground. Before the water came, the report of a rifle, a
+fowling piece, and of several pistol shots, rang through the air. No
+more signs of fire were discovered, so the water was poured upon the
+still burning boards, and the firemen waited for the report of the
+pursuers. While thus waiting, they heard a groan, and, going to the
+place whence it proceeded, discovered Timotheus, with a gag plaster on
+his mouth and an ugly wound on the back of his head, lying close to the
+garden fence below the fired shed. Some water on his face revived him,
+and at the same time moistened the plaster, but as it would not come
+off, Coristine cut it open with his penknife between the lips of the
+sufferer. Even then he could hardly articulate, yet managed to ask if
+all was safe and to thank his deliverers. He was helped into the house,
+and delivered over to the awakened and dressed Tryphena and Tryphosa,
+the latter behaving very badly and laughing in a most unfeeling way at
+the comical appearance cut by her humble swain. When Tryphena removed
+the plaster, and Tryphosa, returning to duty with an effort, bathed his
+head, the wounded sentry felt almost himself again, and guaised he must
+ha' looked a purty queer pictur. Soon after, Rufus staggered into the
+kitchen in a similar condition, and his affectionate sisters had to turn
+their attention to the Baby. These were all the casualties on the part
+of the garrison, and, overpowered though the two sentries had been,
+their arms had not been taken by the enemy.
+
+The Squire went forward to see after the welfare of his father-in-law,
+and found Mr. Terry carrying his own rifle and the gun of Sylvanus,
+while the said Pilgrim helped the detective to carry a groaning mass of
+humanity towards the kitchen hospital.
+
+"Oi tuk my man this toime, Squire," said Mr. Terry, gleefully; "Oi wuz
+marciful wid the crathur and aimed for the legs av' im. It's a foine
+nate little howl this swate roifle has dhrilled in his shkin, an' niver
+a bone shplit nor a big blood vissel tapped, glory be, say Oi!"
+
+It appeared, on examination of the parties, that Ben Toner and Sylvanus
+had indulged in a prolonged talk at the point where their beats met,
+during which a party of six, including the two prisoners, creeping up
+silently through the bush, prostrated Rufus with the blow of a bludgeon
+on the back of the head. Then, they advanced and repeated the operation
+on Timotheus, after which three of them, with cotton cloths soaked in
+oil, fired the sheds and the verandah. But for the lawyer's discovery of
+the spark under the latter, the fire might have been beyond control in a
+few minutes, and the end of the murderous gang accomplished. The whole
+household was roused; indeed, save in the case of the children, it can
+hardly be said to have been asleep. Mrs. Carruthers descended, and,
+sending Tryphosa to look after her young family, helped her father to
+bind up the wound of the grizzled incendiary, who refused to give any
+account of himself. "I know him," said the detective to the Squire; "his
+name is Newcome and he's a bad lot." Soon the Captain and Mr. Errol
+brought their prisoner in. The hospital and guard-room was the winter
+kitchen of the house, a spacious apartment almost unused during the
+summer months. When the lad was brought into it, he seemed to recognize
+the place with his dull big grey eyes, and spoke the first words he had
+uttered since his capture. "Bread and meat for Monty." "Why," said
+Tryphena, "it's the ijut boy." "So it is," ejaculated Mrs. Carruthers,
+"What is your name, Monty?" With an idiotic smile on his face, but no
+light in those poor eyes, he answered: "Monty Rawn, and mother's in the
+water place." Mrs. Carruthers explained that the lad had been often in
+the kitchen in winter, and that she had told Tryphena to feed him well
+and be kind to him, so that it is no wonder he recognized the scene of
+his former enjoyment. "Puir laddie," said the Squire, "he's no'
+responsible, but the born deevil that set him on should be hanged,
+drawn, and quartered."
+
+"Squire," answered Mr. Errol, "I'm aye on the side o' maircy, but to yon
+I say Amen."
+
+"Come, come!" Carruthers cried hastily, regaining his natural speech;
+"we must take off these haverals, Sylvanus and Toner, and bring them in
+to guard the prisoners. They are not fit for sentry duty." Leaving the
+Captain and the veteran as temporary guards, he sallied forth, followed
+by the lawyer and the two parsons.
+
+To the Squire's great delight, he found the dominie walking up and down
+the front of the house, humming "A charge to keep I have." "Mr.
+Wilkinson," he said, "you're a pairfec' treasure," and that so loud
+that the schoolmaster was sure it was heard by the occupants of the
+window over the porch. He marched along with redoubled pride and
+devotion. Mr. Perrowne took Toner's place, and the lawyer that of
+Sylvanus. Carruthers marched the two haverals to the kitchen, and placed
+the prisoners in their charge, after roundly abusing them for talking on
+guard. This set free the Captain and Mr. Terry, who were posted together
+by the outbuildings, although the veteran was very anxious to go down to
+the bush for the purpose of potting the Lake Settlement haythens. There
+being no post for the minister, he was appointed hospital chaplain and
+commander of the prisoners' guard. Mr. Nash, carrying Ben's gun, was
+investigating the strip of bush and the clump of birches down the hill
+for traces of the enemy. While so doing, two pistol bullets flew past
+his head and compelled him to seek the cover of a tree trunk. Finding he
+could do nothing in the imperfect light, he retired gradually towards
+the sentries, and aided them in their weary watch. At length, as
+daylight was coming in, and affording a pretext for the fair occupants
+of the front room, whose windows hailed the beams of the rising sun, to
+leave their seclusion and mingle with the wakeful ones below, the sound
+of wheels was heard coming along the road to the left. Hurriedly, the
+detective became Mr. Chisholm, and joined the dominie at the gate. There
+were three men in the waggon, and one of them was the Grinstun man, as
+cheerful as ever. What was in the waggon could not be seen, as it was
+covered over with buffalo robes and tarpaulin, but the detective could
+have sworn he saw it move, and give forth a sound not unlike a groan.
+Mr. Rawdon jumped down, telling a certain Jones of truculent countenance
+to drive on, as he guessed he'd walk the rest of the way this fine
+morning. The waggon drove off accordingly and at a rapid rate, while the
+working geologist accosted the sentinels.
+
+"Wy, wot's hup 'ere, gents? 'Ere you hare on guard yet, and Jones there
+terls me 'ee 'eard shots fired has 'ee was comin' along slowly. I 'ope
+there hain't no gang o' city burglars bin tryin' hany o' their larks on
+the Squire. We don't want none o' that sort hout in rural parts."
+
+The dominie and the detective declined to satisfy him, but the former
+said:--
+
+"I thought you had pressing business at Collingwood, Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"So I 'ad, and stand to lose two or three 'undred dollars by missin' the
+mornin' train. But, wen I got quite a step on the road, all of a sudding
+I remembers my hoffer to Miss Do Please-us, and 'er hanswer as was to be
+hat the Post Hoffice before ten. So I turned back, hand, lucky for me,
+fell in with Jones and 'is man takin' 'ome some things from town. But,
+come! tell a man can't you? 'As there bin any burglary or hanythink, any
+haccident, anybody 'urt? I've got an hour and more to spare, if I can be
+of any 'elp."
+
+"I don't think we need trouble you, Rawdon," said the false Chisholm.
+"Your suspicions are correct so far, that an attempt has been made to
+fire the Squire's house, but by whom is a mystery, for there is no man
+more respected in the neighbourhood."
+
+"Respected! I should say 'ee is. Fire 'is 'ouse! O Lor'! wot a bloomin'
+shame! Really, I must go him, if it's honly for a hinstant to hexpress
+my feelins of hindignation to the Carrutherses."
+
+The Grinstun man entered the gate, which was just what the detective did
+not want. However, he held it open for him, saying: "You'll find the
+Squire in his office talking to Nash, but I don't suppose he'll mind
+being interrupted for a minute. Mrs. Carruthers is in the kitchen, and
+you'll likely meet an old acquaintance of yours there, Mr. Perrowne of
+Tossorontio."
+
+Rawdon drew back. Nash he knew: Mr. Perrowne, of Tossorontio, he did
+not; but the unknown to men of his stamp is often more dreaded than the
+known. He wouldn't intrude upon his friends just now, while everything
+must be upset. Playfully, he asked Favosites Wilkinsonia to remind Miss
+Do Please-us of that hoffer and the hanswer before ten, and straightway
+resumed his journey in the direction of the Lake Settlement.
+
+"Of all the impudent blackguards that I have met in the course of my
+experience, that fellow takes the cake," said the detective, removing
+his disguise.
+
+"What about Jones and the waggon?" asked the dominie.
+
+"The waggon is the one I saw when patrolling. Jones and his man are two
+of the ruffians who were in it. Old Newcome, here, is a third. The
+boy--by-the-bye, what a wonderful inspiration that was of yours to give
+us Idiot and Boy for passwords--well, the boy must have come from some
+other quarter. But there's either one or two wounded men under these
+buffaloes and bits of canvas, for I hit one in the waggon and sent the
+contents of Ben's gun after another down the hill. They both squealed.
+Men of that kind almost always squeal when they're hit. The impudence of
+that fellow Rawdon! Pon't forget Miss Du Plessis' letter; that's our
+card now. Never in all my life have I met with such colossal cheek!"
+
+The Squire came out and dismissed the guard. The parson and the lawyer
+strolled in together after Wilkinson and Nash. Coristine remarked "The
+sunshine is a glorious birth, as my friend Wilkinson would say."
+
+"Yes," answered Perrowne; "it brings to memory one verse of Holy Writ:
+'Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to
+behold the sun.' The words are very simple, but beautiful in their
+simplicity. People are apt to say there's no dogma in them, and that's
+why they are so acceptable to all. But that's a mistake. They contain a
+double dogma; for they make a dogmatic statement about light, and
+another about the relation of the sun to the human eye. In the Church we
+down't get much training in dogma, outside of the dogma of the Church,
+and a little in the Articles and the Catechism. Sow Mr. Enrol often
+flores me with his texts. But I down't bear him any malice, you know,
+nor any malice to dogma, so long as it's the dogma of the Holy
+Scriptures; because that is just like the verse I quoted, it says what
+is true of a thing in itself, or in its relation to man. To reject that
+sort of dogma is to reject the truth."
+
+"Still," replied the lawyer, "a man in a burning desert, or who had been
+sunstruck, might curse the sun."
+
+"Very true; but you know how wrong is the motto _ex uno disce omnes_.
+Believe that, and we are all scoundrels, because your Grinstun man was
+once under this roof."
+
+"There are, however, many ecclesiastical dogmas professedly taken from
+the Bible, against which good men, and earnest seekers after truth,
+rebel."
+
+"Of course! Mr. Errol says--I do wish he were a Churchman, he is such a
+thoughtful, clever fellow--he says prejudice, imperfect induction, a
+wrong application of deductive logic, and one-sided interpretation,
+down't you know, literal, figurative, and all that sort of thing, are
+causes of false dogmatic assertions."
+
+"My friend Wilkinson, who is a long way past me in these matters, thinks
+the dogmatists forget that Revelation was a gradual thing, that the ages
+it came to were like classes in a graded school, and each class got only
+as much as it could understand, both mentally and morally; and as, of
+course, it was able to express."
+
+"Yes; Errol says the same, but with exceptions; because the prophets
+said a whowle lot of things they didn't understand. But, my dear fellow,
+whatever is the matter with your hands and face? You're burnt, you pore
+sowl, and never said a word about it. Come on here, I saye; come on!"
+
+Mr. Perrowne laid hold on the lawyer's arm, and dragged him into the
+hall. "Miss Marjorie!" he called; "hi! Miss Carmichael, come along here,
+quick, I beg of you, please." The lady invoked came running out of the
+breakfast room, looking very pretty in her fright. "Look here, Miss
+Marjorie, at our pore friend's hands and face, all got by saving you
+ladies from being burnt alive."
+
+Miss Carmichael exhibited great concern, and took the patient, who
+insisted his wounds were nothing to make a fuss over, into the work
+room, setting him down, with the pressure of her two hands on his broad
+shoulders, in a comfortable chair between a sewing machine and a small
+table. Then she brought warm water, and sponged the hands, anointed the
+wounds with some home-made preparation, and clothed them in a pair of
+her uncle's kid gloves, which were so large and baggy that she had to
+sit down and laugh at her victim, who felt very happy and very foolish.
+Finally she found that Mr. Errol, whose hands were more shapely, had an
+old pair of gloves in his pocket. So the Squire's were taken off, and
+the discovery made that the hands needed more washing, soaping, and
+anointing. Coristine said his ring, a very handsome one, hurt him;
+would Miss Carmichael please take it off and keep it for him? Miss
+Carmichael removed the obnoxious ring, and did not know where to put it,
+but, in the meantime, to prevent its being lost, slipped it on to one of
+her own fingers, which almost paralyzed the lawyer with joy. He could
+have sat there forever; but the gong sounded for prayers, and he
+accompanied his nurse into the dining-room. There the whole household
+was assembled, even to the idiot Monty, with the exception of Tryphena,
+engaged in culinary duties, and Sylvanus, who mounted guard over the
+wounded Newcome. Ben Toner also was absent, having ridden off to summon
+Dr. Halbert. Mr. Perrowne, at the Squire's request, read the chapter for
+the day, and the minister offered a prayer, brief but fervent, returning
+thanks for the deliverance of the past night, and imploring help in
+every time of need, after which the entire company, Mr. Terry included,
+joined in the Lord's Prayer. Adjourning to the breakfast room, the
+events of the night were discussed over the porridge, the hot rolls and
+coffee and the other good things provided. Mr. Terry had been induced to
+desert the kitchen for once, and he and Coristine were the heroes of the
+hour. The lawyer put in a good word for the parson, and the Squire for
+Wilkinson, so that Miss Du Plessis and the other ladies were compelled
+to smile on both gentlemen. While the dominie blushed, the Captain
+settled his eye on him. "I told him when he was aboard the _Susan
+Thomas_ that, with all his innercent sort of looks, he was a sly dog,
+with his questions about an old man's pretty niece. I knowed I'd see him
+in Flanders makin' up to the gals, the sly dog! Got set down right beam
+on to their weather ports every time, even when he wasn't told to go on
+watch at all, the sly dog. Wilkison is his name; it'll be Will-kiss-em
+some day, ha! ha! ha! the sly dog!"
+
+The schoolmaster was dreadfully uncomfortable, and his lady teacher
+hardly less so. It was a blessed relief when a buggy drove up to the
+gate, and Mrs. Carruthers, having left her sister-in-law in charge while
+she went out to meet its occupants, returned shortly with the doctor and
+his blooming daughter, who, as a friend of the family, insisted on
+accompanying him to offer her services if she could be of help.
+
+"Come, Doctor!" said the Squire, rising with the rest of the party to
+greet him and his companion; "the patients are in no immediate danger,
+so you and Miss Fanny must sit down and help us with breakfast."
+
+Miss Fanny was nothing loath to do so, after an invigorating drive, and
+in the company of such a number of eligible bachelors as was rarely seen
+in Flanders. She had a word for Mr. Errol, for the detective, for the
+lawyer and the dominie, but to Wilkinson's great relief she finally
+pitched upon Mr. Perrowne and held him captive. Then Wilkinson improved
+the time with Miss Du Plessis, using as his excuse the letter or note
+she was to send to Rawdon declining his offer for the present, which the
+schoolmaster expressed his desire personally to take to the office.
+Breakfast over, the doctor inspected his patients, Newcome, Rufus, and
+Timotheus. The two latter he dismissed as all the better of a little
+blood letting, recommending lots of cold water applied externally. The
+case of the incendiary was more serious, but not likely to be fatal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     Doctor Summoned to the Select Encampment--Newcome
+     Interviewed--Nash's Discovery--His Venture--Drop the
+     Handkerchief--The Dominie's Indignation--The Pedestrians
+     Detained--The Doctor Stays--A Trip to the Lakes--Conversation on
+     the Way--The Richards--Fishing--Songs--The Barrier in the
+     Channel--Nash's Dead Body Found--His Crazed Sister Comes to
+     Bridesdale.
+
+
+It was only eight o'clock when the elders finished their breakfast, and
+the children prepared to succeed them. All the party, except Mrs.
+Carruthers and Mrs. Carmichael, who had domestic duties before them, and
+Miss Du Plessis, who had her note to write, strolled out into the garden
+in groups. Shortly, a buckboard drove up to the gate, and its occupant,
+a washed out looking youth, enquired if the doctor was there, Dr.
+Halbert. The subject of the enquiry went forward, and found that he was
+wanted at the Select Encampment, for a man who had shot himself.
+
+"I tell you frankly, my man," said the doctor, "I don't care to go to
+your Select Encampment; there is too much mystery about it."
+
+"I guess the pay's all O.K.," answered the youth.
+
+"Why do you not get Dr. Smallpiece to look after your man?"
+
+"'Cos we don't know nuthun about him, and he's too small a piece for our
+boss. You best hurry up yer cakes and come on, doctor."
+
+Re-entering the house for his instruments, the doctor confided to
+Carruthers his distaste for the work before him, on account of the
+mystery surrounding it, but said he supposed it was his duty to relieve
+human suffering.
+
+"Where is it?" asked the Squire.
+
+"All I can tell you is that it is out on the lakes beyond the Lake
+Settlement."
+
+"I thocht as muckle," remarked the Squire to the detective, after the
+doctor was carried away on the buckboard.
+
+"Let as go and see Newcome," said the detective; and the pair went round
+to the kitchen, where the wounded man lay on an improvised couch, and
+was waited upon by big Ben Toner, anxious for news of Serlizer. Mr. Nash
+began:--
+
+"The doctor says that talking won't hurt you, Newcome."
+
+"Dawn't spause 'twull," answered the surly fellow.
+
+"Setting fire to buildings with intent to take life is a hanging matter,
+Newcome."
+
+"Oo said t'warnt?"
+
+"You seem prepared for your fate."
+
+"Ma vate was aw raight to I got t'bahl i'my laig."
+
+"I mean, you don't seem to care if you are going to be hanged."
+
+"Oo's a gaun to hahng us an' vor wat?"
+
+"You'll be hanged for arson with intent to kill. There are witnesses to
+prove you threatened to kill me at least."
+
+Newcome started, and so did Ben.
+
+"Yaw cahn't prove nowt."
+
+"Yes I can. I've got your pocket book and the odd papers out of your
+coat pocket."
+
+"Aw'll hae yaw oop vor stalun as well as shootun, zee iv I dawn't, yaw
+bloody thafe!"
+
+"Keep a civil tongue in your head, man, or I'll send you to the lockup
+at once," interposed the Squire.
+
+"Leave him to me Squire; I'll manage him," whispered Nash.
+
+Then, turning to the injurious Newcome, he continued:
+
+"Your daughter, Sarah Eliza, is at Rawdon's Select Encampment, where the
+stuff you sell is turned out. She can give some fine evidence. The
+Peskiwanchow crowd, the man that pretends to be called Jones, and the
+rest of them, were picked up by you in a waggon, I know, last night. The
+coal oil and fire marks are on your hands still, and this pretty rag
+came out of your side pocket. What is more, I don't need to ask the
+Squire here to commit you. I've got a warrant already, on the evidence
+of Henry and Stokes and Steadman. I'll serve that warrant on you now,
+and have you off to the county gaol, where Dr. Stapfer is bound to cut
+off your leg, if you don't own up quick, for I have no time to lose."
+
+"Daw yaw thenk as Stapper ull ambitate ma laig?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. He always does; he has a perfect mania for amputation.
+You know Driver?"
+
+"Yaas."
+
+"Who cut off his leg for a little bruise?"
+
+"T'wer Stapper."
+
+"And who cut of Sear's arm at the shoulder for a trifle of a rusty
+nail?"
+
+"Stapper taw. O, aw zay, Mezder Nahsh, dawn't zend us ta naw Stappers."
+
+"But I will, I must, if you don't confess immediately all that the
+Squire and I want to know. Turn Queen's evidence, and make a clean
+breast of it. You can't save Rawdon and his gang; we have them tight.
+But confess, and I'll get you out on bail, and send you home to your
+wife to be nursed; and, when the trials come, I'll get you off your
+liquor charge with a fine. Refuse to, and you go straight to Stapfer's
+to lose your leg, and then to the gallows."
+
+"Aw dawn't moind chancin' t'gallas, but ma laig! Wat daw yaw wahn't ta
+knaw?"
+
+At once all the people, Ben included, were ordered out of the hospital,
+and Coristine, much to his disgust, sent for. His hands were useless
+for writing, but, as he had a good memory, he could help in the
+examination. So Mr. Errol was called in to act as clerk, Mr. Perrowne
+refusing to do so, on the ground that all confessions made in the
+presence of a clergyman are sacred. Little by little the hardened old
+sinner revealed Rawdon's business, its centre and methods, his
+accomplices and victims. Then the whole story of the plot which
+culminated in the night attack was drawn from him, appearing blacker and
+more diabolical at every new revelation of villainy. It appeared that
+the Grinstun man had with him in the attack, which he conducted
+personally, his own six men from the so called Encampment, together with
+the idiot boy, and two lots of teamsters or distributors, the five from
+Peskiwanchow brought by Newcombe, and four from another quarter. He had
+thus sixteen ruffians in his force, besides himself and the boy.
+
+"Whose boy is that?" asked the detective, eagerly. He had been looking
+closely at the lad more than once and listening to his voice.
+
+"Ah beeslong ta Rowdon."
+
+"Who is his mother?" asked Nash, with a strange light in his eye.
+
+"Her's cawd Tilder."
+
+"Is she Rawdon's wife? Speak, man!"
+
+"Naw, nawt az aw niver heerd."
+
+"What was her name before he--brought her there?"
+
+"Aw donno, but t'lahd's cawd Mawnta Nehgull."
+
+"O my God!" cried the detective, as he fell back in his chair, and
+seemed to lose all power of speech.
+
+"Come away, Nash," said the Squire, taking one arm of the stricken man,
+while Mr. Errol, handing his notes to the lawyer, took the other. They
+led him tenderly to the office, where Carruthers forced a glass of wine
+upon him. Nash revived, and begged that the door might be closed and
+locked.
+
+"I may never have a chance to tell this again, so I want to tell it to
+you two, and to you alone. My real name is Nagle, not Nash. I was born
+in Hamilton, where my father was a wheelwright. I got a good schooling,
+and went into a lawyer's office, for father wanted me to become a
+lawyer. But I got reading detective books, and did a few sharp things
+for the firm that got me into notice and brought me private detective
+business. So I got on till I rose to be what I am, such as it is. When
+my parents died they left my sister Matilda in my care. I was only
+twenty then, and she, eighteen, a bright, pretty girl. She kept my rooms
+for me, but I was away most of the time, so she became tired of it, as
+we had no relations and hardly any friends we cared to associate with.
+She insisted on leaving me and learning the millinery in Toronto; so I
+had to let her go. I saw her often, and frequently sent her money. She
+got good wages at last and dressed well, and seemed to have respectable
+people about her. Suddenly her letters stopped. I went to her place of
+business, and heard that she had left to be married to a rich man in the
+country; but nobody, not even her closest acquaintances among the girls,
+knew where, or who the man was. I advertised, neglected business to hunt
+up every clue, travelled all over the country looking for my lost
+sister, promised my dead parents never to marry till I found her. And at
+last, at last, O God! I have found Matilda, and you know where, a woman
+without name or character, the victim of the greatest scoundrel unhung,
+the associate of brutal criminals, the unlawful mother of an idiot boy!
+No! no more wine, Squire, not a drop. I want a steady head and a strong
+hand this morning more than any day of my life. Open the door and the
+windows now, please; and give me a little air."
+
+Nash, for so he may still be called, sent Coristine away to Talfourd's
+for his bundle, and Miss Du Plessis, having handed the note for Rawdon
+to the dominie, accompanied the hero of the gloves in the Squire's
+buggy, so as to lose no time. Wilkinson was warned not to post the
+letter before his comrade's return. While waiting in the office, Mr.
+Errol, whose heart was deeply touched, locked the door again, saying:
+"John, let us kneel down and pray our Heavenly Father to comfort our
+friend in his great sorrow, and bless him in his present work." The
+Squire knelt with the minister, and the detective fell on his knees
+beside him, their hearts joining in the quiet but earnest supplications
+of the good man of religion. When they rose from their knees, Nash,
+almost tearfully, pressed their hands and bade God bless them.
+
+Coristine enjoyed the society of Miss Du Plessis; nevertheless he drove
+fast, for the business demanded haste. The buggy returned in little over
+half an hour, and the bundle was handed to the detective, who took it up
+stairs, and, soon after, descended as a countryman, in flannel shirt,
+light soiled coat, and overalls. The rim of his wideawake was drawn down
+all round, half hiding his face disguised with a ragged beard. It could
+not conceal his refined, almost aristocratic, features, but such a
+country type is not uncommon in many parts of Canada, even accompanied
+with perfect boorishness. His boots were small, which also was quite
+Canadian, but he had rubbed the blacking off, and trusted to the dust
+still further to disguise them. Smiling and courteous, he bade everybody
+whom he could trust good-bye, and slipped a large pocket-book full of
+money and memoranda into the hands of the Squire. "You can keep it till
+I come back," he said; "if I don't, get Mr. Errol and this lawyer chap,
+who seems a good fellow, to help you to make it out." Then, the dominie
+expressed his readiness to take the note to the post office, and Miss Du
+Plessis, a little piqued at Coristine's apparent want of attention to
+her, said that, if Mr. Wilkinson had no objections, she should, above
+all things, like a short walk after a cramping drive. The schoolmaster
+was only too delighted, in spite of Mr. Perrowne's glance of jealousy,
+which Miss Halbert saw and noted with a tap of her dainty foot on the
+verandah. So, Wilkinson and his inamorata tripped along the road, and,
+some distance behind them, shambled Simon Larkin, the hawbuck from away
+back, alias Mr. Nash. The children came out to play, led by Marjorie.
+Perrowne was still talking to Miss Halbert, Mr. Errol was closeted with
+the Squire, and the Captain and the veteran, on a garden bench, were
+telling yarns. "Cousin Marjorie," said her juvenile namesake, "we are
+going to play drop the handkerchief, because we've got such a lot of
+nice people to play it" Miss Carmichael answered: "Oh no, Marjorie, try
+some other game." But Marjorie insisted. So, a ring was formed, with
+Marjorie as handkerchief holder, outside. The ring consisted of the
+Captain and little Susan Carruthers, Mr. Perrowne and Marjorie of the
+same family, Coristine and Miss Halbert, Mr. Terry, pipe and all, and
+Honoria junior, John Carruthers junior and Miss Carmichael, and baby
+Michael, but with whom? Marjorie suggested the two aunties and Tryphosa,
+but finally concluded that there had to be an odd one any way, so baby
+Michael took the Captain's hand and Miss Carmichael's, and the game
+began. Of course Marjorie dropped the handkerchief on her Eugene, and
+Eugene caught her and kissed her with great gusto. Then he had to drop
+it, and Honoria saluted him with effusion. Mr. Perrowne was her choice,
+and the parson, tell it not in Gath, the perfidious parson gave himself
+away on Miss Halbert, who captured him, blushed, and submitted. The
+Captain and Mr. Terry were becoming indignant and shocked. Miss Halbert
+had mercy on John Carruthers junior, who went wild with delight, and
+brought out Miss Carmichael. She, pitying the Captain, gave him the
+handkerchief and a long chase, but Mr. Thomas finally triumphed, and
+chose Susan Carruthers as his victim. Susan took grandpa, who pocketed
+his pipe, and, after a sounding smack, passed the handkerchief on to his
+grandchild Marjorie. She, true to her name, chose the lawyer, and that
+gentleman, emboldened by the parson's precedent, dropped the terrible
+symbol on the shoulder of the girl who was all the world to him. She
+pursued him, and he ran as he well could do, but at last he got weak and
+tired, and she overtook him against her will and his, and Coristine was
+in the seventh heaven of delight. They could take him and trample on
+him, and flaunt his recreancy before Wilkinson even; he didn't want to
+kiss any more, even the fresh young lips of the children. He wanted that
+one impression to stay forever.
+
+Miss Du Plessis and the dominie were not in a hurry to get back to
+Bridesdale. She had received a letter from her mother, saying that Uncle
+Morton was coming to see her, and that she would try to induce him to
+accompany her to the country, as she did not wish to shorten her
+daughter's brief holiday by calling her home. Imparting the news to
+Wilkinson, a long and interesting conversation began which branched off
+into a variety of topics, treated seriously, at times poetically, by the
+kindred minds. Miss Da Plessis was quite unreserved, yet dignified, and
+without a trace of coquetry; nevertheless, the dominie assured himself
+that Mr. Perrowne had not a ghost of a chance in that quarter. She was
+pleased with the generous way in which he referred to his companion
+pedestrian, in spite of the provocation which she knew the lawyer had
+given his friend. The adventures of the past night, the fresh air of the
+morning, the rural scenery and his delightful companionship, made the
+schoolmaster eloquent; yet his sense of propriety and natural politeness
+kept him from monopolizing the conversation, so that his silent
+attention was even more flattering than his appeals to the lady's
+intelligence and culture. Outside of the English classics and current
+literature, her reading lay chiefly among French and Spanish authors,
+most of which were not unknown to the studious dominie. A few ripples of
+well-bred amusement were raised by his recital of his experience at the
+Beaver River, where he found the Voyage autour de mon Jardin, especially
+by his specimens of Lajeunesse French and the story of the dug-out. Of
+course, he did not offend a lady's ear with a word so vulgar; it was
+always the canoe. Too soon the pleasant morning walk was over, and they
+stood before the garden gate at Bridesdale, just at the moment when
+Coristine accidentally stumbled and was captured by the fair possessor
+of the handkerchief. "How good of your friend to please the children by
+taking part in their games," remarked Miss Du Plessis in all sincerity.
+"I cannot express the depth of my humiliation," replied the dominie; "it
+is scandalous--a violation of the rights of hospitality."
+
+"But, see! Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Perrowne is there; and Fanny also."
+
+"I have nothing to do, Miss Du Plessis, judging them that are without;
+Mr. Coristine pertains to my inner circle, and shall know my opinion of
+his shameful conduct before the sun rises much higher in the heavens."
+
+"Hi! there, shipmate," bawled the Captain, "come on and add a link to
+this here endless chain. I told you your real name, you sly dog! Ha, ha!
+Will-kiss-em, eh Marjorie? Not you, you little puss; but your cousin
+there, colourin' up like a piney rose."
+
+"I relinquished such sports with my pinafores," answered the dominie,
+grandly.
+
+It was very unjustifiable of Mr. Perrowne, but two things annoyed him;
+one being the fact that he was equally guilty with the lawyer, the
+other that Miss Du Plessis had deserted him for this prig of a
+schoolmaster. Loud enough to be heard by all, he remarked:--
+
+"A very learned and distinguished man was once playing with some
+children, when he suddenly cried, 'Children, we must stop, for I see a
+fool coming.' What do you think of that, Captain!"
+
+"Never said a truer word in your life," growled Mr. Thomas, and
+continued, "anything as calls itself a man and can't romp with the
+youngsters, nor give a joke and take it, had ought to be set in a high
+chair with a bib, let alone petticuts."
+
+"He said pinnies, papa," Marjorie corrected.
+
+"Pinnies or petticuts, it's all the same thing. Me and Terry here, old
+enough to be his fathers!"
+
+"An' it 'ud be a grate 'anner for me, anyway, to be father to a foine,
+praper, illigant gintleman loike Mishter Wilkerson," put in the veteran,
+anxious to keep the peace. The embers, however, were smoking on both
+sides when little Marjorie ran up to the dominie and, taking his hand,
+said beseechingly: "Please don't scold the poor boys and girls, Wilks,
+because it was my fault--all my fault. I made them play. Now, put down
+your head and kiss me, and say, 'I forgive you this once, but don't you
+go to do it again'; just like papa says."
+
+There was no help for it, though everybody laughed to hear the terror of
+the Sacheverell Street school called Wilks, and the grown-up people,
+girls and boys. The dominie had to repeat the formula and seal it with a
+kiss, when the perfidious child turned upon him very gravely, saying:
+"Now, sir, you can't speak, for you've done it your very own self." Thus
+it was that a storm was averted, and "drop the handkerchief" broke up in
+good nature.
+
+"Corry," said his friend, "I'm going upstairs for my knapsack. You had
+better get yours, and prepare to follow our route. Colonel Morton and
+Miss Du Plessis are coming here, so that we, as entire strangers, ought
+no longer to intrude upon the hospitality of Mrs. Carruthers."
+
+"All right, Wilks, my boy!" replied the tender-hearted lawyer, who felt
+as if his heart was breaking. In a few minutes the pedestrians descended
+ready for the road, when the Squire opened his office door and threw up
+his arms in amazement.
+
+"What in aa conscience is the meanin' o' this?"
+
+Wilkinson explained, and expressed a desire to find Mrs. Carruthers,
+that he might thank her for her kind hospitality.
+
+"Here, gudewife, and as ye four Marjories, and Miss Cecile," cried
+Carruthers, lustily, "come ye as here, and garr thae twa wanderin' Jews
+bide."
+
+Then there was a commotion, as the ladies flocked with the children into
+the hall, with many exclamations of astonishment and reproach,
+surrounding the recreant young men. Mr. Errol, the Captain, the veteran,
+and even Mr. Perrowne, came to learn what was the matter. When they
+heard the intentions of the pair, Mr. Thomas and the parson were
+prepared to make the most abject apologies to the dominie, who insisted
+that there was no necessity; on the contrary, he alone was to blame, but
+all that was past. Mrs. Carruthers would not hear of their going just as
+they were becoming so pleasantly acquainted, assured them that
+Bridesdale had ample accommodation, and commanded the veteran to form a
+company of his grandchildren and arrest the would-be deserters. Marjorie
+clung to her Eugene's right leg. Mr. Errol accused him of stealing away
+with his gloves, and finally the lawyer confided to Mrs. and Miss
+Carmichael that he didn't want to go a bit, was never happier in his
+life. Miss Du Plessis put a hand on the dominie's arm, a hand that
+tingled away in to his very heart, and said her uncle would be so
+disappointed when he arrived to find that his friends of Collingwood had
+not deemed him worth waiting for. Finally, the Squire took them both
+aside, and, speaking seriously, said he had no right selfishly to detain
+them, but the time was critical, poor Nash was away on a dangerous
+errand, and their services, already great and highly appreciated, might
+yet be of the greatest importance. Besides, after the fatigue and
+excitement of the past night, they were not fit to travel. The dominie
+confessed that, with all the excitement and possible danger, he had
+enjoyed himself amazingly, that his only motive for leaving was the fear
+of trespassing upon the kindness of Mrs. Carruthers, and that, if his
+humble services were of any value, he trusted the Squire would draw
+upon them to the utmost. The lawyer, hearing his companion's decision,
+wanted to give a wild Irish hurroo, but, checking himself, ground the
+Squire's right hand with his own kid-gloved afflicted member, as if he
+had been a long lost brother. When they next reached the hall, Miss
+Halbert was there taking in the situation with the other young ladies.
+She had already seen enough to know that neither of her fair companions
+was capable of properly addressing the culprits, so she made up for
+their deficiency, saying: "Go upstairs at once, you naughty boys, and
+take off these pads." The naughty boys ascended, with a strangely
+combined feeling of joy and smallness, and, when the knapsacks were
+removed, Coristine sank into a chair laughing. "O Lord, Wilks," he said,
+"she called them pads!"
+
+The doctor arrived in time for dinner, and reported three wounded men
+instead of one. Two had pistol wounds that had evidently been attended
+to from the first, the other had a gunshot in the back, and must have
+dragged himself a long way after it, for he was almost gone with loss of
+blood. "That'll be the chiel' puir Nash fired at wi' Ben's gun," said
+Carruthers.
+
+"Can your wife put me and Fanny up for the night, John?" asked the
+doctor, looking serious.
+
+"Just delighted to do so," replied the Squire; "we have more space than
+we know how to fill."
+
+"I must tell you why. These rough fellows at the Encampment are furious,
+and one of them, in his gratitude, warned me, on no account, to be in or
+near your house to-night."
+
+"Doctor, that's another thing. I have no right to let you risk yourself
+and Miss Fanny in time of danger in my house."
+
+"But we will, John. Come here, Fanny!" Telling his daughter the
+circumstances, the doctor asked her decision, and she at once answered:
+"Of course, Mr. Carruthers, we shall stay. Papa has two pistols in his
+gig, and, if necessary, will lend me one. I am a good shot, am I not,
+papa?"
+
+"Yes, John, she has a fine eye and nerve for a mark."
+
+At the dinner table Doctor Halbert conversed with the pedestrians about
+the scenery they had passed through, and recommended them, by all
+means, not to fail in visiting the Flanders' lakes. He informed them
+that they constitued a long and perplexing chain, being more like a long
+continuous sheet of water, narrowing every here and there into straits,
+affording little more than room enough for two boats to pass through,
+than an actual succession of lakes. To penetrate far in would be
+dangerous, but his guide had informed him that no visitors to the first
+three ran any risk of interference.
+
+"By the bye, Miss Cecile," interrupted the Squire, "some of these lakes
+are your property, are they not?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Carruthers," the lady replied; "but they would be so no longer
+if a very kind friend had not paid the taxes for them."
+
+"Hoot toot, lassie, what's the taxes on a bittock o' wild land and
+useless water?"
+
+"I should like above all things to see these lakes," remarked the
+dominie.
+
+"Do you know," said Mr. Perrowne, "for sow long a time as I have been in
+Flanders, I have never seen the lakes. One down't like to gow alowne,
+you know."
+
+"I say we go this afternoon," proposed the lawyer.
+
+"I'm with you, sir," responded the minister. "We'll drop cricket and
+golf, the day, Perrowne." Then in a whisper to Carruthers, "I'm anxious
+about poor Nash."
+
+"Then, meenister, see that ye aa tak' your revolvers and cartridges. I
+can supply you and Perrowne."
+
+Coristine proposed to botanize, but did not care to detain the
+expedition by continually opening his knapsack, nor to incommode himself
+with the burden of the strap press. He regretted that he had not brought
+his vasculum, when Miss Carmichael spoke up, and said that she would
+furnish him with one when the party was ready to start. After dinner the
+company lounged for half an hour on the verandah and in the garden.
+There the Captain made up his mind to go with the exploring party, and
+take charge of Richards' scow on the first lake, that being the only
+craft available. Ben Toner came round from the kitchen and asked the
+Squire if he had anything for him to do, as Sylvanus wanted to stay with
+old man Newcome and read the Bible to him.
+
+"Do you know the lakes, Toner?" asked Mr. Carruthers.
+
+"If you don't mind Squier, I'd sooner you'd call me Ben."
+
+"Well, Ben, then?"
+
+"Yaas, leastways I've ben at the laiuk as is nighes to han.'"
+
+"Do you mind taking your gun, and looking out for sport with these
+gentlemen?"
+
+"They isn't nawthin I'd laike bettr'en that."
+
+So, Ben got his gun and ammunition, and the Captain was furnished with a
+stout walking-cane loaded in the head. The two parsons, the dominie, and
+the lawyer had pistols in their pockets. When ready to start, Miss
+Carmichael came up to Coristine carrying some mysterious object behind
+her back. Rapidly bringing it forward, she threw a thick green cord over
+the lawyer's shoulders, from which depended a browny black japanned tin
+candle-box. Of course, it was an accident that the cord was short, and
+that Coristine bent his head just as the fair damsel stood on tiptoe to
+adjust the improvised vasculum.
+
+"I hope I didn't hurt you with my awkwardness, Miss Carmichael," pleaded
+the penitent knight of the order of the candle-box.
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Coristine, it was my fault. I am afraid your nose
+suffered."
+
+"Ha! ha!" chuckled the Captain, "young fellows can stand a lot o' that
+sort o' punishment. Reefs o' that kind don't do human vessels no harm."
+
+Wilkinson was getting sick of the Captain and his aggressive vulgarity.
+Coristine didn't mind him; anybody belonging to Miss Carmichael was, for
+the present, delightful. Nevertheless, for marching purposes, he fell in
+with Toner, while the Captain accompanied Mr. Errol, and Wilkinson, Mr.
+Perrowne. They had six miles to tramp, which took them a good hour and
+a-half. The Captain discussed navigation in Scripture times with the
+minister, and decided that the Jews might have been good at punting
+round, but were a poor seafaring lot. The dominie and the parson were
+deep in the philosophy of the affections, in the course of which
+excursus the former quoted the words:--
+
+     Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
+     Love gives itself, it is not bought
+     Nor voice nor sound betrays
+     Its deep, impassionated gaze.
+
+     It comes, the beautiful, the free,
+     The crown of all humanity,
+     In silence and alone.
+     To seek the elected one.
+
+Mr. Perrowne was struck with these verses, and, taking out his note
+book, begged that his companion would repeat them, as he recorded their
+sublime sentiment for future use. They then proceeded to eulogize Miss
+Du Plessis, of whom the parson formed a very high estimate, which he
+qualified by the statement that, were he not in holy orders, he would
+say Miss Fanny Halbert was more fun and ever so much jollier. Mr.
+Wilkinson really could not say, speaking conscientiously and without
+reserve, that he regarded jollity as an essential element in true
+womanhood. In his estimation it sank the peculiar grace and sacred
+dignity of the sex too nearly to a level with ordinary prosaic humanity.
+Mr. Perrowne concurred in a measure, but thought it was awfully nice for
+men of serious occupations, like the dominie and himself, to have
+somebody to liven them up a little; not too much, down't you know, but
+just enough to dispel the blues. The lawyer interrogated Toner. "Well,
+Ben, have you got any news of your young lady?"
+
+"Yaas, Doctor."
+
+"Never mind calling me doctor, Ben, because I'm not one yet. My name is
+Coristine."
+
+"Then, Mr. Corsten, I heern from old man Newcome as Serlizer's out in
+that there Slec Camp in the laiuks. She's cookin' for twainty dollars a
+month, and that's tarble good wages for gals, ef so be she gets her
+money all right."
+
+"Not a very nice place for a good girl to be, Ben."
+
+"No, it ain't; log roll and timber slide the hull consarn."
+
+"These are queer expressions you've got."
+
+"Yaas, Mr. Corsten, I waynt and promised that there priest as looked
+like Mr. Nash, guaiss it must ha' bin his brother, as I wouldn't sweaur
+no moer. And now, it keeps my mind workin' mornin' and night, so'st to
+know what to spit out when I'm raiul mad and hoppen."
+
+"It must be quite an anxiety to you, Ben."
+
+"Anxiety? It's wearin' my life away. I've got a bit of a rest jest now
+on loggin' and lumberin', but them words 'll soon be used up."
+
+"What's to hinder you repeating them, or leaving them out altogether? I
+hardly ever feel the need of them."
+
+"It's the way you're broughten up, like your food. What 'ud do you for
+dinner, wouldn't be nigh enough for me. Same ways in speakin', they must
+be something to fill your talk out."
+
+"Swearing is a poor business, Ben. Our Saviour, when He was on earth,
+said, Swear not at all."
+
+"Is that in the Bible, Mr. Corsten?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Wall, it may be in some, but t'aint in the one Sylvanus was readin' to
+old man Newcome, fer that says in black and white as Jesus cussed the
+barrn fig tree, and I'd laike to know what's odds between cussin' and
+swearin'. It stands to reason and natur that He wouldn't go and tell
+folks not to do things He did Himself; don't it?"
+
+"If you had read the chapters, there are two of them, that tell the
+story of the fig tree, you would have found that the disciples called it
+cursing when it was only a quiet saying: 'Let no fruit grow on thee
+henceforth.' You wouldn't call that cursing, would you?"
+
+"O my, no, that ain't wuth callin' a cuss; they ain't no cuss about it.
+Now, fer whole souled, brimstun heeled cuss words, they's----"
+
+"Never mind telling me any. They wouldn't do me any good, and the
+clergyman forward there might hear them."
+
+"Do these clergy belong to the Church?"
+
+"They both think they do in different ways, but, strange to say, neither
+of them belongs to your Church."
+
+"Wall, I ain't got no quarrl at 'em. I guaiss all the good folks 'll get
+to Heaven somehow."
+
+"Amen!" answered the lawyer, and the conversation ended.
+
+There was no visible cart track to the lakes. If Rawdon's whiskey mill,
+as Ben called it, was really somewhere among them, there must of
+necessity have been a road tapping their shores at some point, for an
+extensive business employing so many men could hardly exist without a
+means of easy transportation. To the neighbourhood of the Lakes
+Settlement, however, this road was a mystery. The party halted at a log
+house by the side of the road proper, and Mr. Perrowne, who claimed
+Richards as a parishioner, asked his wife if he and his friends could
+have the use of her boat. Mrs. Richards gave the required permission
+very graciously, and the excursionists struck into the bush path which
+led to Lake No. 1, or Richards' Lake. The bush had once been
+underbrushed, perhaps a long time back by the Indians who generally made
+for water; but the underbrush was now replaced by a dense growth of
+Canadian yew, commonly called Ground Hemlock, the crimson berry of which
+is one of the prettiest objects in the vegetable world. It, and other
+shrubs and small saplings, encroached on the narrow path, and, in
+places, almost obliterated it. The land rose into a ridge a short
+distance from the water, so that it was invisible until the crest was
+reached. Then, a dark circular lake, seemingly altogether shut in by the
+elsewhere dense forest, made its appearance. There were remains of a log
+shelter near the shore on the left, and, between it and the somewhat
+muddy beach, Toner lit a fire of drift wood to drive away the flies
+which followed the party out of the bush. The punt was soon discovered
+moored to a stake, a punt with three seats flush with the gunwales, one
+each fore and aft, and one in the centre.
+
+"O, I saye," cried Mr. Perrowne, "look at that lovely little island out
+there! See, you can hardly see it because of the black shadows. What a
+place to fish! and here we are without a single rod."
+
+"Ain't no need to trouble about rods," remarked Ben; "I kin cut you
+half-a-dozen in two shakes of a dead lamb's taiul."
+
+"And I've got three hooked lines," added the lawyer, producing part of
+his Beaver River purchase from his breast pocket. The dominie did not
+wish to trust himself in a doubtful craft with Coristine again, and he
+distrusted the Captain, save on the _Susan Thomas_. His former success
+in fishing, and his present pleasant relations with Perrowne, prompted
+him to join that gentleman in practising the gentle art. But what about
+bait? The question having been put to Toner, who returned with three
+springy saplings, and worms having been suggested, that veteran
+fisherman told Mr. Perrowne that he might as well look for a gold mine
+as for worms in new land. When, however, some envelopes were produced
+from various pockets, he proceeded to fill them with grasshoppers and
+locusts. He also excavated a little pond near the shore, and gathered a
+collection of caddice worms from the shallow border of the lake, after
+which he found an old bait tin in the log shelter, that he filled with
+water, into which he transferred the pond's inhabitants for
+transportation. "Ef them baiuts don't suit, they's a heap o' little
+frawgs in the grass of that there island," he finally remarked, before
+unmooring the scow. Then the dominie and Mr. Perrowne got on board with
+their rods, lines, and bait, and were poled and paddled by Ben over to
+their isle of beauty. Their lines were in the water, and a bass was on
+each hook, before the scow returned to the shore.
+
+Now the Captain took command of the craft, occupying the entire stern
+thwart; while Ben, with his gun resting on the floor and pointing its
+muzzles out over the bow, held that end of the vessel. The commander
+would not allow the passengers who sat amidships to do any work, but
+said they might talk or sing if they had a mind to. Then the lawyer
+sang:--
+
+     The floatin' scow ob ole Virginny
+     I've toiled for many a day,
+     Workin' among de oyster beds,
+     To me it was but play.
+
+When he ended, Mr. Errol gave the company "Flow gently, Sweet Afton,
+amang thy green braes," and Coristine wondered much if "My Mary" that
+occurs in the song had any reference to a Marjorie, one who, as he said
+inwardly,
+
+               Shall never be thine,
+     But mine, but mine, so I fondly swear,
+     For ever and ever mine!
+
+After Mr. Errol's effort, which won applause from the Captain, the
+lawyer waved his handkerchief as a farewell sign to the busy fishermen,
+for, just at that moment, the apparently land-locked shore opened, and a
+narrow channel between cliffs came into view. The second lake, into
+which they soon glided, was more beautiful than the first. A few jays
+and woodpeckers were flying about, and Toner was anxious to have a shot
+at a golden woodpecker, which he called a Highholder, and which sat
+unconcernedly on a limb within splendid range. Mr. Errol dissuaded him,
+saying he had heard that the report of a gun was carried through all the
+channels to the very end by the echoes, and reverberated there like the
+noise of thunder; after last night, they had better be as quiet as
+possible. To take his mind off the disappointment, Coristine asked Ben
+if he could sing and paddle too. He guessed he could, as paddling wasn't
+taking his breath away any. So Ben was pressed to sing, and at once
+assumed a lugubrious air, that reminded the lawyer of The Crew. The song
+was about a dying youth, who is asked what he will give in legacy to his
+mother, his sister, and various other relatives. He is liberal to all,
+till his lady-love's name is mentioned, and, for some unknown reason,
+excites his indignation. The tune was not the same as The Crew's
+copyright.
+
+     "What will you give your sweetheart, my comfort and my joy?
+     What will you give your sweetheart, my darling boy?"
+                         "Oh! a gallows to hang on!
+                         Mother, make my bed soft;
+                         I've a pain in my chest;
+                         I want to lay down."
+
+The last line was sung in a very solemn and affecting monotone.
+Coristine had to pretend to be deeply moved, to turn round facing the
+Captain, and chew first his moustache and then half of his pocket
+handkerchief. "Eh, Ben," said the graver minister, "I'm afraid that was
+no' a very Christian spirit to die in."
+
+"No, your raiverence," replied the singer, "but ef I hadn't a knowed it
+was old man Newcome as took Serlizer away, I'd be cant-hooked and
+pike-poled ef I wouldn't ha' sung jest them words, that's ef I had a
+paiun in my chaist and wanted to lay down." When they reached the third
+lake, through a channel similar to the last, the Captain said sternly:
+"I'm in command of this vessel, and expect orders to be obeyed. No more
+singin' nor laughin' out nor loud talkin'. Doctor says it's as much as
+life's worth to go beyond it. You've heerd orders; now mind 'em."
+Everything was silent, save the soft dip of the paddles in the water;
+the quiet was painfully oppressive. Ugly thoughts of bad men mingled
+with a sense of the natural beauty of the scene. Toner in the bow
+silently pointed to a square artificial-looking white object at the
+entrance to the next channel, which was the limit of the voyage. At
+last the punt came up to it, and its occupants found the channel barred
+by a heavy grating, that passed down into the water. Above it was a
+notice in the usual form, indicating the prosecution of trespassers, and
+signed by order of the proprietor, Miss Du Plessis, with the name of
+John Carruthers, J.P. "The villain!" ejaculated Mr. Errol. "John has
+neither been here nor sent here. It's a forgery, an impudent forgery."
+
+"Let us take it down and carry it back with us," said the lawyer.
+
+"Na, na, my lad; we maun just wait till we come in force."
+
+"Time to 'bout ship," growled the Captain.
+
+"Hush!" whispered the minister, "I hear a voice, a woman's voice."
+
+"Come on!" said the lawyer, jumping ashore; "will you come, Ben?"
+
+"Don't ask me that, Doctor, I dassent," replied Toner, shivering with
+superstitious fear.
+
+"Let me go with him," said the minister to the Captain; "we'll not be a
+minute away."
+
+"Look sharp, then!" growled Mr. Thomas. "Are you loaded?"
+
+The two explorers looked to their revolvers, and then climbed the bank,
+which was no easy task, as it was a mass of felled timber and dead
+brush; but the notes of a woman's voice led them on, and, at last, they
+found themselves on the shore of the fourth lake. They saw nothing, so
+they crouched down listening for the voice.
+
+"Steve, Stevy dear, wake up and let us go away. Oh, why are you sleeping
+when every moment is precious? He will come, Stevy, I know he will, and
+kill you, dear!" The voice was very near. Simultaneously the intruders
+looked up the bank, and, at the foot of a standing hemlock, saw a woman,
+with gray hair hanging loose over her shoulders, who knelt by a
+recumbent figure. "Steve, dear brother," she continued, "do wake up! You
+used to be so good and sensible." Coristine crept nearer behind some
+bushes till he was within a very short distance of the pair. With a
+white, sad face, trembling in every limb, he came back as silently to
+the minister, and whispered: "It's poor Nash, and she calls him brother;
+Mr. Errol, he's murdered, he's dead." The warm-hearted Errol, who had
+come out to look after the detective's safety, at once became a hero.
+
+"Bide you there, Coristine," he said, "bide there till I call you." Then
+he arose and went to the spot, but the woman, though he was in full
+view, took no notice of him. He stooped and touched her. For a moment
+she shrank, then looked up and saw it was not the person she dreaded.
+"Matilda Nagle," whispered the minister, "we must get poor Steevie away
+from here." Then he saw that her intellect was gone; no wonder that she
+was the mother of an idiot boy. "Oh, I am so glad you have come, Mr.
+Inglis," she cried, softly; "won't you try and wake Stevy, perhaps he
+will mind you better than me." The minister brushed the tears from his
+eyes, and strove to keep the sobs out of his voice. "I have a friend
+here and will call him," he said, "and we will carry Steevie away to the
+boat, and all go home together." So he called Coristine, and they picked
+the dead man up, the dead man from whose smooth, girl-like face the
+disguise had been torn away, and bore him painfully but tenderly over
+the rough fallen timber safely to the other side, the woman following.
+Ben shivered, as he saw the strange procession come down the hill, but,
+like the Captain, he uttered neither word nor cry. The bearers propped
+the dead man up against the middle thwart with the face towards the bow,
+and then set the woman down beside the Captain, who said: "Come along,
+my dear, and we'll see you both safely home." The old man's honest face
+won the poor sister's confidence, as she took her seat beside him and
+left her Stevy to the care of the minister and Coristine. With all their
+might and main paddled the Captain and Ben. Joyfully, all the company
+saw stretch after stretch of the lake behind them, until, at last, they
+passed the fishermen and landed on the shore. The minister and the
+lawyer laid their coats upon the boards of the log shelter, and placed
+their burden upon them. "Let him sleep a bit," said Mr. Errol to the mad
+woman; "let him sleep, and you help my friend to get a few flowers to
+take home with him." So Coristine took his candle-box from the floor of
+the punt, and, with his strange companion, gathered the skullcaps and
+loose-strifes and sundews that grew by the shore. She knew the flowers
+and where to find them, and filled the lawyer's improvised vasculum
+almost to overflowing with many a new specimen. He only took them to
+humour her, for what cared he for all the flowers that bloom when death,
+and such a death, was but a few yards away.
+
+Ben Toner brought the fishers back with two good strings of fish; but,
+when they heard the story, they threw them into the lake. Ben was a
+handy man. He cut down two stout poles, and with leather wood bark
+constructed a litter, light but strong. On this the sleeping detective
+was laid, and while Mr. Errol and the Captain stumbled through the
+ground hemlock on either side of the now cheerful mad woman, the other
+four carried their ghastly load, with scalding tears streaming from
+every eye. "S'haylp me," said Ben to the lawyer, "ef I don't hunt the
+man as killed him till he dies or me." After a painful journey they
+reached the Richards' house, and Richards was at home. Mr. Perrowne told
+him all about it, and the brave fellow answered:--
+
+"Bring it in here, passon; we've a place to put it in where it'll be
+safe till they send for it. I ain't scared, not I. You know my four boys
+in your club; they've all got guns and can use 'em, and I've got mine to
+boot." So, they left the body there, and persuaded the sister to come
+with them on their six mile walk home. It was seven o'clock before they
+had accomplished half the journey, and had been met by the
+representatives of an anxious household, the Squire and his
+father-in-law, the latter with rifle in hand, prepared for action. The
+first joy at beholding them safe and sound was damped by the news they
+brought. As soon as Carruthers could recover himself he spoke to the
+weird woman and invited her to come and rest at Bridesdale. Then he
+hastened on ahead to warn his wife and sister, and make arrangements for
+the reception of the strange visitor. When the party arrived at the
+house they found a large company, young and old, assembled to meet them,
+for, in addition to the doctor and his daughter, there was Mrs. Du
+Plessis with her daughter on one side, and, in all its soldierly
+dignity, the tall form of Colonel Morton on the other. The lawyer also
+noticed the ebon countenance of Mr. Maguffin peering over the palings in
+the direction of the stables. Matilda Nagle was hurried away to the
+back of the house by Mrs. Carruthers and her sister-in-law, there to
+find her idiot boy, to partake of necessary food provided by the
+compassionate Tryphena, and, for a time, altogether to forget the sad
+tragedy of the day. Tryphosa prepared tea for the truants in the
+breakfast room, and, after the formalities of introduction and
+reacquaintance had been gone through, Miss Carmichael poured out tea for
+the five, while Tryphosa did the same for Ben in the kitchen. The
+Captain told how Mr. Errol and the lawyer braved the terrors of the
+barred-in lakes, which appalled the stout heart of big Ben Toner. The
+two heroes hastened to put all the credit on one another's shoulders, in
+which, so far as one person's estimation was concerned, the minister
+triumphed, for, through the tears that shimmered in her eyes, Coristine
+could see that the presiding goddess was proud of him, and, with all his
+simple-heartedness, he knew that such pride has its origin in
+possession.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+     Old Man Newcome's Escape, Arrest and Conveyance Home--The Colonel's
+     Plan of Campaign--He Takes Command--Maguffin's Capture by Messrs.
+     Hill and Hislop--The Richards' Aid Enlisted--Squire as Colonel, and
+     Mr. Terry, Sergeant-Major--The Skirmish--Harding
+     Murdered--Wilkinson and Errol Improving the Time--The Young
+     Incendiary--Mr. Hill Crushes Maguffin.
+
+
+Everybody grieved for the offtaking of the detective. In the front of
+the house, the Squire and the minister, who knew his history, were most
+affected; in the back, Ben Toner was the corypheus of grief. An old man
+on a couch in an adjoining room heard the news, and, little thinking
+that his deposition and confession were safe in the Squire's possession
+along with many other documents, rejoiced thereat, and conceived a
+heroic project. At first, he thought of enlisting the idiot boy, but had
+to give up the idea; for the boy was happy with those whom he knew, and
+obstinately refused to go near the old reprobate. Sylvanus no longer
+watched him; he was basking in the smiles of Tryphena, and, at the same
+time, amusing Monty. There was a passage from the room he was in to the
+back of the main hallway, which led into the open air, independently of
+the summer kitchen. His coat was gone and his hat, both his boots were
+removed, and his wounded leg was bandaged, but he was a tough old
+criminal, and a bare back rider from a boy. He slipped off the couch,
+and helped himself along by the wall, thankful that his boots were off
+and he could move quietly. Still, simple Sylvanus, taken in by the good
+old man who loved to have the Bible read to him, neglected his duty.
+Newcome gained the hall, the porch, the open air, and, at last, could
+hardly believe his good luck to find himself in the stable unperceived.
+What a lot of horses were there with nobody to look after them! He saw
+one that suited him, a handsome beast he had seen in Collingwood, the
+travelling powers of which he knew. To that stall he went, and braced
+himself against the partition for a spring, after he had loosed the
+halter, and slipped on a bit and bridle. He backed his steed out, turned
+in the passage way and made for the door. Another moment and he would be
+free. No horse in the stable, even if saddled and bridled, would be able
+to overtake him, once he was on the road. But, at the door he met an
+obstacle in the shape of a mountain of straw, that caused the horse to
+back. The desperate man dug his knees into the flanks of the beast, and
+urged it on. Down went the straw mountain, and the luckless Timotheus
+beneath it, and Newcome rained a few exultant curses on him, as he
+forced his steed; when a well-dressed negro sprang up from nowhere, and,
+seizing the rein nearest him, spoke to the intelligent animal, and
+backed it to one side. In a moment Timotheus wriggled himself unhurt out
+of the litter, and, by main force, pulled the escaped prisoner down;
+while Mr. Maguffin remarked that "hoss thieves ain't pumculiah ter no
+paht of the habitatable yeth."
+
+Newcome squirmed and fought as well as he was able, but to no avail.
+Timotheus was simple and he was clumsy, but he was no weakling. Maguffin
+led the horse back into the stable, spread his litter, and replaced the
+bridle on the wall. Then he came out quite unruffled, and asked
+Timotheus if he would like him to use his new boots on the prisoner, to
+which that worthy replied with a grin: "I guess I've pooty nigh parlyzed
+his laigs to stop his wrastlin' tricks aready." Sylvanus, in a lucid
+moment, remembered his charge, and found the bird had flown. He came
+out to look for his Bible-loving friend, dreading the Captain's wrath,
+and great was his relief when he found him a victim in the strong arms
+of his brother. "Here, Sylvanus, you hold him, so's the Square'll think
+t'was you as cotched him," said the unselfish Timotheus. So Sylvanus,
+nothing loath, seized the hypocrite, and Timotheus went for the Squire,
+while Maguffin looked calmly on, occasionally glancing at his
+heavy-soled new boots, as if regretting that there was no immediate call
+for their services. The Squire was angry, for he had been kind to the
+old sinner; but he saw that the prisoner was an element of weakness in
+the house. What was to hinder him escaping again, committing murder,
+setting the place on fire? He called up Toner. "Ben," he said, "how long
+would it take you to convey Newcome to his home in a farm waggon with a
+good team?" "Ef the teeum's smart, I guaiss an houer 'ud do," answered
+the prospective son-in-law of the victim. Accordingly a springless
+waggon was produced, some straw thrown in, and Newcome securely bound
+with ropes, lying flat on his back, with his own coat and a sack or two
+put under his head for a pillow. "Timotheus," continued Mr Carruthers,
+"you had better go with Ben. Take your guns, both of you, and bring them
+back as quick as you can." Off started the ambulance, at first gently
+and humanely. When out of sight of the house, Toner grinned at
+Timotheus, and Timotheus grinned back at Ben. "It can't be haylped,
+Timotheus," remarked the latter in a low tone, "we're bound to git back
+airly, ef they's moer guyard mountin' to be did. So here goes, Serlizer
+or no Serlizer." The horses were pretty fresh, and they tore along,
+enjoying the fun, and answering with their heels to every playful flick
+of the whip. The road was rough and hilly; the jolting almost threw the
+occupants of the box seat off the waggon that had no springs. Old man
+Newcome groaned, and implored Ben, for the sake of Serlizer, to go easy
+or leave him on the roadside to die. "Ef you don't laike my teamin',"
+said Toner, in a simulated huff, "I'll quit. Here, Timotheus, you had
+ought to know them hosses better'n me." Timotheus took the reins, and
+cried: "Gerlang, we ain't no time ter lose; rattle the brimstun an'
+merlasses old malufacture over the stones, he's ony a firebug as nobody
+owns." The delight of The Crew's brother in getting off this new and
+improved version of an ancient couplet made him reckless. He and Ben
+jumped into the air like shuttlecocks, and seemed to like it. "I heern
+say," remarked Toner, while moving momentarily skywards, "I heern tayll
+as this here joltin' beats all the piulls and pads as ever was made for
+the livyer."
+
+"Yaas," cheerfully responded Timotheus, coming down with a sounding
+bump; "myuns is like what the doctor out our way said to fayther wunst.
+Says he, 'Saul, your livyer's tawpidd.' So's myun, Ben; it's most tarble
+tawpidd. Gerlang, yer lazy, good fer nawthun brutes; poor old man
+Newcome won't get home this blessed night, the way yer a-goin'."
+
+The waggon reached the Newcome shanty. The old man was unbound and
+lifted out into his own bed. Strong as he was, he had fainted, which his
+charioteers were not sorry to see. "He's had an accident, Miss Newcome,"
+said Ben to the man's wife; "but he'll soon be all right." Fortunately,
+the doctor had done his duty well, and the shaking had failed to loosen
+the bandages over the wound. The drivers got into the waggon again and
+drove home more gently, exchanging a few words with each other; one
+being: "Guaiss old man Newcome's out o' mischief fer one night."
+
+While Bridesdale was being delivered from the presence of one unwelcome
+guest, the welcome ones of the front were discussing with the Squire the
+programme for the night. He had made out a warrant for the arrest of
+Rawdon, should he again have the hardihood to turn up, and otherwise
+proposed to repeat the guards of the night before. While the
+excursionists were at tea, the colonel and Mr. Terry had been walking
+about with an object in view; and the latter gentleman informed his
+son-in-law that "the cornel has a shplindid oiday in his moind." Colonel
+Morton was requested to favour the company with it, and proceeded to do
+so. "From what infohmation I have had fuhnished me by my fellow-soldieh,
+Mr. Tehhy, I pehsume you have pehmitted the attacking fohce to select
+its own basis of opehations, and have yohselves stood almost entihely on
+the defensive. With a small fohce, this is vehy often the only couhse
+to puhsue. But, as I now undehstand from reeliable infohmation brought
+in, the enemy's fohce of seventeen is reduced by four, while that of the
+gahhison is augmented by three--the doctor, myself and my sehvant. Ah,
+no; I fohgot you have had one sad casualty, as my niece infohms me, in
+the fall of Mr. Nash; which leaves the strength of the gahhison fohteen,
+as against thihteen of the assailants. My friend, Mr. Wilkinson, infohms
+me that a small detachment of five men, well ahmed, holds a foht some
+six miles in the dihection of the enemy. Now, gentlemen of the council
+of wah, can we not obtain that this friendly outpost make a divehsion in
+conceht with the offensive paht of our ahmy? Send a scout with
+instyuctions foh them to occupy the wood neah their foht, and, eitheh
+with blank or ball cahtyidge--as you, Genehal Cahhathers, may
+dihect--meet the enemy as ouah troops dyive them back, and thus pehvent
+them seeking the coveh of the trees against us. This being done, send a
+scout, mounted if possible, to guahd against attack from the left; post
+pistol sentinels round the buildings, and fohm the rest of the available
+fohce into an attacking pahty occupying the strategic point examined by
+Mr. Tehhy and me: I allude to the plantation to the reah of the right
+wing. Just as soon as the enemy comes up to occupy that position, chahge
+them like bulldogs and drive them as fah as possible towahds the road,
+and at last bring them undeh the guns of our friendly foht. That, I
+think, is bettah than losing heaht by watching all night long and
+endangehing the safety of the ladies. Such, gentlemen, is my humble
+counsel."
+
+"Hark till him, now, jantlemen; pay attintion till him, all av yeez,"
+exclaimed Mr. Terry; "fer 'tis the wurrud av a sowldjer and an
+offisher."
+
+"Assume command, Colonel, if you please. We are all ready to obey
+orders," said the Squire. "Is that not the case, friends?"
+
+To this the whole company answered "Yes," and Colonel Morton at once
+gave his commands.
+
+The garrison was paraded on the lawn, its armament strengthened by two
+rifles borrowed in the neighbourhood, of which the Squire carried one
+and the lawyer the other. The post office had been cleared out of its
+complete stock of powder and shot by Carruthers, early in the morning,
+to the no little disgust of the Grinstun man when he went for his mail.
+"Volunteehs foh the foht, foh mounted patyol, foh plantation
+picket--three!" called out the colonel. Perrowne volunteered for the
+first, as likely to have most influence with the Richards. "Blank
+cartridge," said the Squire, as he rode away amid much waving of
+handkerchiefs. "Oi'm yer picket, cornel," said Mr. Terry, stepping out
+of the ranks with his rifle at the shoulder in true military fashion.
+"Ef it's a gennelman wot knows riden, sah, and kin fiah a pistol or
+revolvah, I respectuously dedercates my feeble servishes," volunteered
+Mr. Maguffin, who mounted and patrolled poor Nash's beat, with a
+revolver handy; while the veteran ran at a regular double to the far end
+of the strip of bush. "The Squiah had bettah take the field, as he knows
+the ground and I do not," said the colonel; "I will command the
+gahhison. I shall want the captain, the doctah, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr.
+Ehhol--four. My deah sistah-in-law can shoot; and so, I believe, can
+Miss Halbeht, so we are seven."
+
+"There's Wordsworth for you, Wilks, my boy," Coristine remarked, nudging
+his right hand man.
+
+"Corry, my dear fellow, whatever induced you to take that gun?" answered
+the dominie, apprehensive for his friend's safety in the field.
+
+"It's no gun, Wilks; it's a rifle. If I only get a sight at Grinstuns,
+I'll commit justifiable homicide. Then I wish the Squire would punish me
+by sending me down here for thirty days."
+
+"The gahhison will take three paces to the fyont; quick, mahch!"
+commanded the colonel.
+
+The four came out in pretty straggling order, and the two ladies named
+fell in beside them.
+
+"Now, Squiah, I leave yoah command of five men, which Mr. Pehhowne will
+soon augment to six, and Mr. Tehhy to seven, in yoah hands. If I have no
+fuhtheh need of a mounted patyol, my sehvant will join the gahhison."
+
+The colonel then left to post his sentries, which he did so judiciously
+that three were enough, namely, the doctor, the minister and the
+dominie. The ladies kept watch by turns on the front of the house. Soon
+a voice was heard at the gate calling for Colonel Morton. The colonel
+answered the summons in person. It was Maguffin dismounted, and behind
+him came two men, honest farmers apparently, one of whom led the
+coloured man's horse, while the other held his fowling piece at the
+port, ready for action in Maguffin's rear.
+
+"Maguffin," said the colonel, sternly, "consideh youhself undeh ahhest,
+suh."
+
+"I doan need ter hab ter, sah; that's jess wot I is this bressid minit."
+
+"Good evening!" said the two farmers, amiably, and the colonel returned
+the salutation. "Good evening, gentlemen! but I feah you have made a
+mistake in ahhesting my sehvant."
+
+"When a naygur on a fine beast gallops down on two quiet folk, and
+orders them to go back, disperse, and surrinder, and them coming to see
+after the safety of their children and friends, the only one thing to
+do, if you have your guns along, is to arrest the naygur."
+
+"Do I undehstand, Maguffin, that you ordehed these wohthy people to go
+back, dispehse, and suhhendah without any wahhant?"
+
+"And presinted his pistil, too," continued the tall man, who had already
+spoken, and who was the coloured man's guard.
+
+"Have you no answah, Maguffin?"
+
+"I fought, Cunnell, I was ter patterole this heah road and repawt all
+the folkses I see on or off'n it."
+
+"Yes, repoht to me, as youh officeh, suh."
+
+"Oh, I fought yoh meant to repawt em wif a revolvah, sah."
+
+"I suppose, gentlemen, you will let my sehvant go, when I say I deplohe
+his foolish mistake, and apologize foh his insolence?
+
+"To be shure, sir," replied the guard; "give the man his horse,
+Annerew."
+
+Maguffin remounted, and, receiving more minute instructions from his
+master, returned to his patrol duty.
+
+"We're just coming in to help the Squire, and me to look after my
+childer, Tryphena and Tryphosa and Baby Rufus. When the Baby didn't come
+back this mornin', I said to his mother, 'Persis' says I, 'I must go and
+see the boy.' So here I am. My name is Hill, sir, Henry Cooke Hill, and
+this is my neighbour, and some day, perhaps, Rufus's father-in law,
+Annerew Hislop"--then in an undertone--"a very dacent man, sir, though a
+Sesayder."
+
+"Is that the case?" asked the colonel with eagerness, advancing towards
+Andrew. "Were you on ouah side, suh, in the wahah?"
+
+"Naw, naw, surr, I'm no sodjer, but a humble maimber o' the pure gospel
+Secession kirk. As the fufty-fufth parryphrase says:--
+
+     With heevenly wappons I have focht
+     The baittles o' the Lord."
+
+"Ah yes, pahdon me my mistake. Come in, gentlemen; the Squiah will be
+happy to see you."
+
+Maguffin's captors entered, were warmly greeted by their friends in hall
+and kitchen, partook of a hasty supper, and were ready for the
+engagement of the night.
+
+Perrowne, who was a good rider, soon made his appearance, reporting that
+the Richards were only too glad to make the desired repulse of the evil
+crew from their neighbourhood, and, as members formerly of a volunteer
+company, understood something of military tactics. The parson also
+reported that he had nearly fallen in with the advancing attacking force
+of, he should say, twenty men; but, sighting them ahead, he advanced
+slowly until he saw them move solidly to his left into the fields, with
+the evident intention of coming at the house through the strip of bush.
+The villains could not be far off. "Now, Squiah," said the colonel,
+"hasten, suh, to join Mr. Tehhy; a few minutes make all the diffehence
+in case of an attack."
+
+The Squire had now nine men under his command, including his
+father-in-law, for Ben and Timotheus were safely back, having passed the
+formidable Maguffin. The other six were Sylvanus and Rufus, Messrs.
+Hill, Hislop, Perrowne, and Coristine. All were armed with loaded guns
+and rifles; the carbine and the blunderbuss remained to guard the house.
+Rapidly they reached the bush which hid them from view, and rejoiced the
+veteran's heart with their array.
+
+"Now, grandfather," said Carruthers, "you must get us all into shape."
+
+"Well now, we'll make belave this is a bittillion, an' you're cornel,
+an' Oi'm sargint-major. It's ten shtrong we are, an' there's three
+roifles an' two double barrels anyhow. You git in the rare, Cornel an'
+Mishter Coristine an' Mishter Parrowne an' Ben Toner; the rist av yeez
+shtay where yeez are, till I say 'Extind!' thin, tin paces apart for the
+front rank, an' tin for the rare rank; but the rare alternatin' wid the
+front. Whin Oi say, 'Front rank!' that rank'll diliver it's foire, an'
+go on wid its loadin' behind a three, moind! an' so on wid the rare. By
+the powers, here the varmints come. Shtiddy min, lishten till me an' be
+quoiet--Extind!"
+
+There were some loudly beating hearts at that moment, for the enemy was
+in force, and partly armed with guns of some sort. Instead of advancing
+across the fields, as the defenders had hoped, they descended to the
+creek, in order to find cover from the bushes on its bank, until they
+reached the piece of wood. The veteran, telling his command to preserve
+its formation, wheeled it to the right, and ordered perfect silence.
+Leaving his rifle at his post, he slipped from tree to tree like a cat,
+having thrown off his shoes for the purpose. When he returned, the
+enemy, moving almost as silently, had entered the bush, but,
+anticipating no sentry at that point, had sought no cover. "Shtiddy, now
+min," whispered the sarjint-major; "take good aim, Front Rank, Riddy!"
+Five guns rolled out a challenge to the invaders, and, before they had
+time to seek cover, came, "Rare Rank, Riddy," and his own rifle led the
+other four weapons of the second line. "Are yeez loaded, front an'
+rare?" asked the ancient warrior; and, satisfied that all were, he put
+himself in the front and ordered a charge to outflank the enemy and
+hinder them getting away among the bushes. All perceived his intentions,
+except, perhaps, the two Pilgrims and Toner, who, however, were borne
+along by the rest. Dashing through the creek, part of the force volleyed
+the miscreants from there, and drove them into the open, while the
+remaining part kept them from seeking refuge in the bush. The Squire's
+men had the shelter of the brook alders and willows, now, and, led by
+Mr. Terry, in single file, at a rate almost as rapid as that of Rawdon's
+retreat, faced now and again to the left to fire, and loaded as they
+ran. At last the shelter ceased, and all were in the open, both pursued
+and pursuers. "Kape it up," cried the indomitable veteran; "don't give
+the murtherin' blagyards a minit's resht!" Up, up the hill, they chased
+the said blackguards, until they reached the road. Within the skirting
+rail fences the Squire kept his men, faint but pursuing, and firing an
+occasional shot to lend the speed of terror to the miscreants' heels. In
+an hour from the beginning of the pursuit, the hunted Rawdonites were at
+the wild lands on the lakes, and prepared to enter the forest and make a
+stand or hide; when Carruthers cried: "Down flat on your faces every
+man," and five reports from in front rang through the air. The Richards
+were on guard, but either Perrowne had forgotten to tell them about
+blank cartridge, or they did not think proper to obey the order. "Come
+on a bit farther, lads, till we find where these villains turn in,"
+cried the Squire. In another minute the victors combined with the
+Richards' party, and chased the thoroughly demoralized Rawdonites, whose
+guns and pouches strewed the ground, to a desolate rocky spot beside a
+swamp, where felled trees lay in indescribable confusion, over which the
+fugitives scrambled in desperate haste for home. The lawyer caught sight
+of a figure that he knew, far up the rocky slope, preparing to leap down
+from a prostrate trunk resting on three or four others, and aimed his
+rifle at it. The Squire threw up the weapon just in the nick of time.
+"It's ower gude a death for the likes o' him, Coristine. Gie him time to
+repent, an' let the law tak' its coarse. The cunning scoundrel! Even at
+the risk o' 's life he wadna let us ken whaur his waggon road is, but
+I've a thocht, man, that it's yonner whaur the rock rises oot o' the
+swamp." Then the good Squire took off his hat, and thanked God for the
+defeat of the evil doers.
+
+Light though the night was, to continue the pursuit would have been the
+height of folly. The force was mustered and inspected by the so-called
+Colonel Carruthers, and the Sergeant-Major Terry. Including themselves,
+it was found to consist of no fewer than seventeen persons, one of whom
+was a woman, and the other a lad of about fifteen years of age, Matilda
+Nagle and her boy Monty. "I will show you where the road is," she said
+to the Squire; "it is hard to find, but I know it. When Stevy tried to
+find it, Harding and he put him to sleep, so that I couldn't wake him
+up. Harding is asleep now too; I put him, and Monty helped, didn't you,
+Monty?"
+
+Carruthers looked, and saw that the woman's right hand and that of the
+idiot boy were alike stained with blood. All his own men were safe and
+sound, not a scratch on any one of them. The veteran's rapid tactics had
+given the enemy hardly an opportunity to return the fire, and had
+destroyed their aim from the very beginning. All honour to the
+sergeant-major! All had behaved well. Father Hill and his friend Hislop
+felt like boys; and while the Sesayder took a fatherly interest in
+Rufus, the parent of Tryphena and Tryphosa was pleased with the bearing
+of the Pilgrims. Ben Toner's conscience was a little troubled about his
+treatment of old man Newcome, but he also had a feeling that he was
+getting nearer to Serlizer. The veteran and Mr. Perrowne were filled
+with mutual admiration; and Coristine felt that that night's work had
+brought to his suit, as an ordinary year's acquaintance could not have
+done, the vote and influence of the Squire. The victors gathered up the
+spoils of the vanquished, and, by a unanimous vote, handed them over to
+the grateful Richards, whom Carruthers and Perrowne warmly thanked for
+their timely aid. "It's about time, Squire, we crushed them fellows
+out," said father Richards, to which the Squire replied: "If you and
+your sons are ready, we'll do it to-morrow as soon as the inquest is
+over."
+
+"Boys," asked Richards, "are you fit for a man hunt to-morrer?"
+
+"Fitter'n a fiddle," answered the boys; "then we can go fishin' where we
+durn please."
+
+They bade their allies good bye, carrying their spoil with them, and
+twelve persons set out for a six-mile tramp home.
+
+"Yeez can march at aise, march aisy, boys," ordered the veteran; and the
+party broke up into groups. The woman clung to the Squire, and the boy
+to Sylvanus, who had made whittled trifles to amuse him. Mr. Hill
+cultivated Timotheus, and formed a high opinion of him. Rufus, of
+course, addicted himself to his future father-in-law, the Sesayder. Mr.
+Terry thought it his duty to hold out high hopes to Ben in regard to the
+rescue of Serlizer; and Perrowne and the lawyer journeyed along like
+brothers. There was a light in the post office, and the post-mistress at
+the door asked if the doctor had gone home yet, for two wounded men had
+sought shelter with her, and told her that one named Harding was lying
+down the hill near by. The Squire promised to bring the doctor to the
+wounded, and asked his father-in-law and Coristine, as if they were his
+nearest friends, to go down and see if they could find the wounded
+Harding. They went down and found him, but he was dead, with two of the
+Bridesdale kitchen-knives planted in his heart. In part, at least, the
+murder of Nash was avenged. They picked the slain assassin up and
+carried him to the road, where the post office stood, and deposited the
+body in an outbuilding to await the verdict of the morning.
+
+Meanwhile, the dominie was happy; his rival, the parson, his tormentor,
+the lawyer, were away, and even that well-meaning Goth, the tired
+Captain, was asleep in the guard-room, opposite a half-empty glass of
+the beverage in which he indulged so rarely, but which he must have
+good. The doctor's lively daughter had left Mrs. Du Plessis to guard the
+front of the house, and was talking to her father on his beat, and he
+had a suspicion that Mrs. Carmichael was wrapping that cloud again round
+the minister's neck. When the battle commenced below, the colonel was
+everywhere, directing Maguffin, inspecting the posts, guarding on all
+sides against the possibility of the enemy's attack being a mere feint.
+All unknown to the rest of the company, Miss Carmichael was up in the
+glass-enclosed observatory at the top of the house, without a light,
+watching the movements of the hostile ranks beyond the bush, and
+inwardly praying for the success of the righteous cause and for the
+safety of those she loved. Of course her uncle John was among them, and
+the simple-hearted old grandfather of her young cousins, and even, in a
+way, Mr. Perrowne, who had behaved bravely, but there was a tall,
+unclerical form, which Mr. Terry and the Squire had difficulty in
+keeping up with, that her eye followed more closely. Every report of the
+lawyer's rifle seemed to press a warm spot on her maiden cheek, and then
+make the quick blood suffuse her face, as she thought of the morning and
+Mr. Wilkinson. That gentleman was happy on guard at the top of the hill
+meadow, for a tall female figure, muffled up slightly as a preventive to
+chill from the night dews, came down the path towards his post, eager
+for news from the seat of war.
+
+"Be careful, Miss Du Plessis, I beg of you!" implored the dominie;
+"heavy firing is going on not far off, and a stray bullet might easily
+find its way hither. Permit me to conduct you to a place of safety." So
+he led her with grave courtesy within the gate, and placed her on a
+garden seat in front of two trees large of bole, and interceptive of
+possible missiles. Of course, his own safety was a matter of no moment;
+he went out of the gate and to the utmost limit of his watch to gain, by
+eye and ear, tidings of the progress of the skirmish, which he returned
+every minute or two to report to the anxious young lady. Thus it was
+that, when the colonel came to inspect the posts, he found two sentinels
+at each, pertaining to different sexes. Returning to his sister-in-law
+on the verandah, he explained to that lady the peculiar difficulty of
+his position.
+
+"You see, my deah sistah, that this is altogetheh contyahy to militahy
+discipline, and I ought to ordeh all undeh ahhest, but, were I to do so,
+madam, where would my sentinels come from?" Miss Du Plessis perceived
+the difficulty, as she handled the colonel's silver-mounted revolver,
+with an air of old practice; and proceeded to ask what her
+brother-in-law knew of the young gentleman who was furnishing Cecile
+with information of the fight. Thereupon the colonel launched out into a
+panegyric of the dominie's noble qualities, imputing to him all that
+Coristine had done on his behalf, and a chivalrous Southern exaggeration
+of the school-master's learning and expressions of sympathy. "Marjorie
+appears to think more highly of the other pedestrian," remarked Mrs. Du
+Plessis, to which Colonel Morton replied that Mr. Coristine was indeed a
+handsome and excellent young man, but lacked the correct bearing and
+dignified courtesy of his friend, and, he should judge, was much his
+inferior in point of education. When the tide of battle rolled away to
+the right, altogether out of sight and almost out of hearing, the double
+sentries were still at their posts, no doubt conversing with all
+propriety, but of what, they only individually knew. Even Miss Halbert
+did not confide to others the substance of a favourable criticism on Mr.
+Perrowne to which she treated her worthy father.
+
+It was between one and two in the morning when the victorious army
+returned, and was received with open arms, literally in the case of the
+Squire and the veteran, and of Mr. Hill and Rufus in the kitchen,
+metaphorically in that of the remaining combatants. Mr. Carruthers
+released the doctor, and took him to visit the wounded at the post
+office. The minister and the dominie were also relieved, and Mr. Hill
+and the Sesayder, at their own request, put in their vacant places;
+while Maguffin dismounted, and, being armed with a gun and set in the
+doctor's post, constituted a guardian trio with his late captors. Of
+course, the warriors and past sentries had to eat and drink in guard
+room and kitchen, the latter apartment being more hilarious than it
+would have been had the seniors on duty formed part of its company.
+There was no old Bourbon for the colonel, but he managed to find a fair
+substitute for it, and informed Coristine, in answer to that gentleman's
+enquiry, how he happened to arrive so speedily at Bridesdale.
+
+"It was Satuhday, suh, when my sehvant and I ahhived in Tohonto, and I
+met my deah sisteh in-law. At once, I sent Maguffin back by rail with
+the hohses to Collingwood, giving them Sunday to recoveh from the
+effects of the jouhney, tyavel by rail being vehy hahd on hohses. This
+mohning, or, ratheh I should say yestehday mohning, Madame Du Plessis
+and I went to Collingwood by rail, where my sehvant had secuhed her two
+places in the mail caht, and I had the honouh of escohting her to this
+pleasant place, and of beholding my chahming niece for the fihst time. I
+was indeed vehy fohtunate in ahhiving when I did, to be able to
+contribute a little to the secuhity of Bridesdale."
+
+"You are doubtless aware, Colonel, that our enemies of to-night are in
+unlawful possession of Miss Du Plessis' property?"
+
+"Suh, you astonish me. As her natuhal guahdian, I cannot, though in a
+foheign land, allow that foh a day, suh."
+
+"We think, at least Squire Carruthers thinks, of attacking them in
+force, after the double inquest to-morrow."
+
+"Then, Mr. Cohistine, I shall claim the privilege of joining yoah fohce
+as a volunteeh. I wish the ground were fit foh cavalhy manoeuvehs, suh."
+
+"We may need a few mounted men, as we hope to discover a masked road."
+
+"That is vehy intehesting, suh. Will you kindly explain to me the
+chahacteh of the ground?"
+
+The lawyer told all that he knew of the region, from hearsay and from
+personal experience. The supposed masked road, the actual rocky ascent
+covered with felled timber, an abatis, as the colonel called it, the
+access by water, and the portcullis at the narrows, were objects of
+great interest to the old soldier. He enquired as to the extent of the
+means of transportation, the probable numbers of the available force,
+and other particulars; and, when the weary Squire returned and bade all
+good people go to rest, if they could not sleep, in view of past
+wakefulness and the morrow's work, he begged, as a perfectly fresh man,
+to be excused and left in command of the guard, adding: "I shall study
+out a thyeefold convehging attack on the enemy's position, by wateh and
+by land, with cavalhy, infantry and mahines." The guard-room company
+joined in a laugh at the military joke, after which they dispersed, with
+the exception of the Captain, whom it was a pity to disturb, and
+Carruthers, who lay down upon a sofa, while the colonel went out to
+inspect his posts.
+
+The pedestrians occupied a large, double-bedded room at the right corner
+of the house, above the verandah. The dominie was sleeping peacefully,
+but the lawyer had not even removed his clothes, with the exception of
+his boots, if they may be so called, as he lay down upon his bed to
+rest, with a window half open in front of him. Precisely at the moment
+when, the night before, he had discovered the incipient conflagration,
+there came to his nostrils the smell of unctuous fire. Pocketing his
+loaded revolver, he stepped out of the window on to the sloping verandah
+roof, off which, in spite of his efforts, he slid heavily to the ground.
+At once he was seized with no gentle hands by at least three persons,
+who turned out to be Mr. Hill, the colonel, and Maguffin. "Catch that
+boy," he cried, as soon as they perceived their mistake, referring to a
+juvenile figure that he had seen slipping back towards the meadow.
+Sentry Hislop would probably have caught him, but there was no
+necessity. The idiot boy was in the arms of his wakeful mother, who,
+thinking he was going to Rawdon's quarters, as he probably was,
+intercepted him, saying: "Not back there, Monty, no, no, never again!"
+So deeply had his unnatural father, with brutal threats, impressed the
+lesson of incendiarism upon the lad that, all mechanically, he had
+repeated the attempt of the previous night. Fortunately for Coristine's
+hands, there was a garden rake at hand to draw out from under the
+verandah two kitchen towels, well steeped in coal oil, the fierce flame
+from which had already charred three or four planks of the floor. Two
+pails of water relieved all apprehensions; but the Squire awoke Sylvanus
+and ordered him to take Monty into his room, and, with his companions,
+be responsible for his safe keeping. Then, turning to the lawyer, and
+laying a friendly hand on his shoulder, he said: "If ye canna sleep, ye
+had better come in and tak' the Captain's chair; he's awa til 's bed,
+puir man." So Coristine entered the porch, and, as he did so, heard a
+voice above say: "No, Cecile, it is not your hero; it is mine again."
+"What are thae lassies gabbin' aboot at this time o' nicht?" said the
+Squire, harder of hearing. "Gang awa to the land o' Nod, and dinna spoil
+your beauty sleep, young leddies." The apostrophized damsels laughed
+lightly, whispered a few more confidences, and then relapsed into
+silence. John Carruthers had a high opinion of his niece, and said some
+very nice things about her, but, so far short did they fall of the
+lawyer's standard of appreciation, that he regarded them almost as
+desecrations. Still, it was very pleasant to be on such friendly terms
+with the Squire of the neighbourhood, the master of hospitable
+Bridesdale; and Miss Carmichael's uncle. "A splendid honest fellow," he
+said to himself, "as good every bit as Wilks' foreign aristocracy!" From
+time to time the colonel looked in upon the pair, and remarked that the
+contents of the Squire's decanter pleased him as well as Bourbon or
+Monongahela.
+
+When daylight came, the weary sentries were dismissed to the kitchen,
+where, under Tryphena's direction, the insane woman took much pleasure
+in providing for their creature comforts. The restraints upon Mr.
+Maguffin's eloquence being removed, it flowed in a grandiloquent stream.
+"Lave the cratur to me, Annerew," whispered Mr. Hill; "lave the nagur to
+me, and if I don't flummix and flabbergast his consayted voccabuelary, I
+was never a taycher." Then, turning to the coloured gentleman, he
+remarked in an incidental sort of way: "Were you ever in the company of
+deipnosophists before, Mr. Magoffin, deipnosophists mind! enjoyin' a
+gastromical repast?"
+
+Mr. Maguffin's eyes expanded, and his jaw dropped.
+
+"Yoh's got the devantidge ob yoh 'umble sarvant, Mistah Hill."
+
+"It's not possible that a gentleman of your larnin' is ignorant of such
+simple, aisy polysyllables as them?"
+
+"I'se afeard yoh's got me this time, sah."
+
+"It stands to raison that there's limits to everybody's voccabuelary,
+onless it's a great scholard like Mr. Wilkinson; but I thought, perhaps,
+it was for a school taycher you would be settin' up?"
+
+"Oh my! no, Mistah Hill, my edurecation was passimoniously insurficient.
+Most all my bettah class language I'se acquied fom clugymen ob de Baktis
+pussuasion."
+
+"And they never tayched ye deipnosophist nor gastromical?"
+
+"No, sah, they didn't, I'se humblerated ter confess."
+
+The old schoolmaster looked at Mr. Hislop with a serious expression of
+mingled incredulity and commiseration, saying: "Such ignerance, Annerew,
+such ignerance!"; and somehow Mr. Maguffin did not see his way to
+gathering up the broken threads of conversation.
+
+Timotheus was despatched by the Squire to summon a brother J.P., and the
+township constable, in order that immediate action against known
+criminal parties might be taken, as well as to notify the farmers
+adjacent that they were expected to sit in a coroner's jury. Having made
+all necessary legal arrangements, the Squire returned to the colonel,
+who, from a memorandum before him, sketched the plan of campaign. He
+proposed to put the five Richards as marines under the command of the
+Captain to break down the grating between the third and fourth lakes,
+and push on to attack the enemy from that side. He wanted four mounted
+men armed with revolvers, and with stout sticks in lieu of swords,
+fearless horsemen whom he could lead through swamp or over obstacles to
+hold the masked road. The remaining body under the Squire, he thought,
+might follow the track of the fugitives of the night, and constitute the
+main besieging force. As to those who should perform the respective
+duties, apart from the persons named, the Squire suggested waiting till
+the inquests--which would bring some additions to the local
+population--were over. He hoped much from his fellow justice of the
+peace, Mr. Walker. Tom Rigby, an old pensioner, and the township
+constable, would probably have his hands full looking after the
+prisoners. Fortunately, the post office store of ammunition was not yet
+exhausted, to say nothing of that contained in various flasks and shot
+belts, and in the shape of cartridges. The colonel, apropos of warlike
+weapons, bemoaned the absence of bayonets, and warmly advocated a
+proposition of the lawyer's, that each combatant should carry, slung
+over the shoulder or in such way as not to interfere with the handling
+of his gun, a strong stick like those proposed by the commander-in-chief
+for his cavalry. Toner and Rufus were immediately roused from their
+slumbers, and sent to cut the requisite bludgeons, and drill them with
+holes to pass a cord through. Shortly after they had departed on their
+errand, the household awoke to life and activity, and, through casually
+opened doors, there came the gratifying odours of breakfast in
+preparation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     Mr. Bangs Accredits Himself--Silences Squire Walker--Constable
+     Rigby in the Kitchen--The Inquests--Arrests, and Mr. Newberry--The
+     Beaver River Contingent--Mr. Bangs and the Squire Consult--The Army
+     Prepares--Wilkinson's Heroics--Mr. Bigglethorpe on Fishing.
+
+
+When Timotheus returned, he was not alone; a slightly built man of
+medium stature, and rather flashily attired, rode beside him. The Squire
+strode to the gate, to learn that the younger Pilgrim had accomplished
+his various missions successfully, and to be presented by him, in his
+usual clumsy way, to Mr. Bengs, a friend of Mr. Nash as was. "Yore men
+is right, Squire; my neme is Bengs, Hickey Bengs, end pore Nesh sent for
+me to kem end help ferret out a geng of dem excise slopers, end here I
+find my pore friend merdered. I tell you, Squire, it's too dem bed, O,
+too dem bed!"
+
+The Squire felt he must be cautious these times, but that did not hinder
+him being hospitable. "Come in, Mr. Bengs, and breakfast with us. My man
+will put your horse up. I have Nash's papers in my possession from his
+own hand, and, if I find they confirm your story, we will all be glad to
+take you into our confidence. You, of all men, understand the necessity
+for caution, and will, I hope, not take my precaution amiss."
+
+"O Lud, no, Squire; yo're pretty shore to find letters frem me ameng
+pore Nesh's papers, or some memorenda about me. H.B., you know, Hickey
+Bengs."
+
+Timotheus led the new detective's horse away, and the gentleman himself
+entered the house and office with the Squire. "Coristine," said the
+latter, familiarly addressing the lawyer, "would you mind looking up
+Errol quietly and sending him here?"
+
+Of course he didn't mind, and soon returned with the minister. Both
+noticed that the Squire had two loaded pistols on the table before him,
+the stranger being on the other side. "You can remain, Coristine. I must
+introduce you, and the Reverend Mr. Errol, my fellow trustee in the
+matter of these papers, to Mr. Bengs. Mr. Coristine is in the law, Mr.
+Bengs."
+
+The dapper gentleman with the red tie and large scarf pin bowed amiably
+to the two witnesses of the interview, and Mr. Carruthers, with the
+minister by his side, proceeded to examine the papers. "Here it is," he
+said, after a few minutes of painful silence, "but what in aa the
+warld's the meanin' o't? B.R.--B.T.--R.C.P. The date is Saturday night."
+
+"I think I know," interrupted the lawyer. "How will this do: Beaver
+River, Ben Toner, Roman Catholic Priest?"
+
+"The very thing! Well, here's Sabbath. Prom. cum S.W.L.C. sup. eq."
+
+Coristine had written the words down to study them. At last he said:
+"It's a mixture of French, Latin, and English abbreviations; Promenade
+or walk with Schoolmaster Wilkinson, Lawyer Coristine on the horse."
+
+"Eh, man!" ejaculated the pleased Squire; "I'll hae to turn lawyer
+mysel'. Now, here's later doon, the same day--B.D.--S.C.--P.O. scripsi
+H.B. ven. inst. Come, my prophetic friend."
+
+Triumphantly, the lawyer rolled out: "Bride's Dale, Squire Carruthers,
+Post Office. I have written H.B. to come instanter."
+
+"Have you his letter, Mr. Bengs?" the Squire asked, and at once it was
+produced with the Flanders post mark on it, written on the Bridesdale
+paper, and in Nash's peculiar way. Still Mr. Carruthers doubted. How
+could he be sure that the letter had fallen into the right hands, or
+that this smooth-spoken swell was not a cunning agent of Rawdon's?
+
+"John," said the minister, stooping, and lifting something off the
+carpet, "here's a bit of paper you've dropped out of the pocket-book, or
+perhaps out of that bookie you're reading from."
+
+The Squire eyed the paper, and then, stretching his arm over the table,
+shook the detective warmly by the hand. "It was very foolish of me, Mr.
+Bangs, not to have seen that at first. It gives notice of your arrival,
+and describes you perfectly. There's a bit of Latin, Mr. Errol, you
+might ask our friend. It seems to be a sort of watchword with a
+countersign."
+
+The minister took the paper and read, "quod quaeris?" whereupon the
+detective smiled, and answered promptly, "molares ebrii."
+
+"What in aa the warld's yon, Coristine?" enquired the Squire.
+
+"Mr. Errol asked Mr. Bangs, 'What are you looking for?' and he answered,
+'For full grindstones.'"
+
+"When a man is _ebrius_, John," continued the minister, "he's no' just
+sober. Weel, weel, the catechis is over, and ye can tak' puir Nash's
+frien' into our plans. Thank Providence, there's the breakfast gong."
+
+The ladies were astonished to see the new arrival enter the dining-room,
+the breakfast-room table being too small, with his three inquisitors. He
+was quite polite, however, though a little stiltedly so, as if not to
+the manner born. Mr. Terry insisted on vacating his seat in Mr. Bangs
+favour. He said: "There's a foine Oirishman from the narth by the name
+av Hill Oi wud be plazed to have some conversation wid, so yeez 'll jist
+koindly ekshcuse me all," and left for the kitchen. There were sixteen
+people at the table, so when Squire Walker turned up, Marjorie, who had
+been brought in to equalize the sides, had to yield her place to him,
+and follow the veteran to the lower sphere, in one apartment of which
+the children, under Tryphosa's rule, had a separate table. To this Mr.
+Terry invited his countryman, the old schoolmaster, who, in spite of his
+recent deipnosophistic repast with Mr. Maguffin, was ready for something
+warm. He confidentially whispered to Mr. Terry that no doubt nagurs had
+sowls and were human, but he wasn't pudden' fond of their society. In
+the dining-room, Mr. Bangs and Squire Walker, in the centre of the
+table, were in exile, for Wilkinson and the Captain flanked the former,
+and Coristine and Mr. Perrowne the latter. Mrs. Du Plessis sat between
+Carruthers and Mr. Thomas; Miss Halbert between the minister and Mr.
+Perrowne; Miss Du Plessis between the dominie and the doctor; and Miss
+Carmichael between Coristine and the colonel. Mrs. Carruthers, who
+occupied one end of the table, had the colonel on her right, and her
+sister-in-law, who took the other end, was supported in the same way by
+the host. Squire Walker, a portly man, but not too heavy for exercise,
+with a baldish head and large reddish whiskers, sporting a velveteen
+shooting coat, high shirt collar, and large blue silk scarf with white
+spots, was a man of much intelligence and a good talker. His
+conversation compelled attention, and, like the glittering eye of the
+ancient mariner, held, now Mr. Perrowne and now the lawyer from much
+pleasanter ones with their respective ladies. He seemed to take a
+fiendish pleasure in capturing Wilkinson from Miss Du Plessis, and the
+Captain from her mother, and even sent his conversational shafts far off
+to the Squire and the doctor, and to the presiding matrons. Mr. Errol
+and the colonel were happily sheltered from him. Perhaps the new
+detective perceived the state of unrest and terrible suspense in which
+many of the company were on account of Squire Walker's vagaries, and
+chivalrously sought to deliver them. Eyeing keenly the autocrat of the
+breakfast table, he remarked, "I'm afraid you heve fergotten me,
+Squire?"
+
+"Don't think I ever had the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir."
+
+"Oh, perdon me, you hed though. Two years ago, a large, stout, heavy
+bearded men kem to yore ohffice, with a yeng Cuban who could herdly
+speak a word of Inglish, asking you to commit him fer smeggling
+cigars--"
+
+"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed Mr. Walker, "and you were the bearded man were
+you, eh?"
+
+"Do please favour us with the whole story, Mr. Bangs," asked the
+hostess.
+
+"Go on, Bangs," added its victim, "I don't mind, haw! haw!"
+
+"The Squire asked the big revenue detective how he knew the cigars were
+smeggled, and he said that nobody could pay the duty and sell these
+cigars for seven dollars a hendred. The Squire asked to see the cigars,
+and while the pore yeng Cuban with the bleck mousteche stood twirling
+his sombrero and looking guilty, he took one, smilt it, and then smouked
+it. He said to the big detective, 'I won't let you hev a warrent for
+that pore foreigner on any sech evidence, for I ken bey the very same
+cigar at Beamish's for five dollars.' The detective said, 'Are you shore
+the cigar is the same?' when the Squire pulled a drawer open end brought
+out a box of the identical erticles. Then, the big men thenked him,
+hended him a revenue card, end took the pore Cuban away. Next day
+Beamish's was raided, end Nesh and I kem in for quite a rewerd."
+
+"Then the detective was Nash?" asked Mr Walker.
+
+"Yes, Nesh, with a big men's clowthes on, padded out."
+
+"And what were you in the matter?"
+
+"Oh, I wes the pore yeng Cuban thet could herdly speak Inglish."
+
+"I don't think he can yet," whispered Miss Carmichael to Coristine, who
+thought it an immense joke.
+
+"So you made Squire Walker an informer against his will, Mr. Bangs,"
+said Carruthers.
+
+"Yes; but it was complimentary, too. We knew if there were any good
+cigars in the village, the Squire's wes the best place to look for
+them."
+
+"You should have had me up for having smuggled goods in my possession,"
+said the complimented talker.
+
+"No, no, Squire; you see you were the next thing to Queen's evidence,
+and they always go scotfree."
+
+"A receiver and Queen's evidence! and the miserable little Cuban! Haw!
+haw! haw!"
+
+That is the story of how Squire Walker was silenced.
+
+After breakfast there were prayers, as usual, conducted by the two
+clergymen, and when they were over, the three J.P.'s, Doctor Halbert
+being one, assembled for consultation in the office. Tom Rigby, the
+constable, reported himself to the magistrate's court, and thereafter
+adjourned to the kitchen, there to hold converse with his brother
+veteran, Mr. Terry. Tom was tall, and as straight as if he had swallowed
+a ramrod. He gave the military salute with great precision and
+regularity. He was a widower, and a frequent visitor in the Bridesdale
+servants' quarters, whence it was commonly reported that he had an eye
+on Tryphena. Sylvanus had heard of this, with the effect that he lost no
+opportunity of running down the trade of a soldier, and comparing it
+most unfavourably with the free, rollicking life of the heaving sea. To
+hear Sylvanus speak, one would imagine that the _Susan Thomas_ was
+annually in the habit of circumnavigating the globe. The children's
+breakfast was over, and they were all out in the garden picking certain
+permitted flowers, and presenting them to their favourites among the
+guests; but Mr. Terry had still remained, conversing with Mr. Hill,
+whose book-larnin' was so voluminous that he made slow progress with his
+breakfast, having had his cold tea thrice removed by his eldest daughter
+and replaced with hot. When Rigby entered and saluted, the veteran rose
+and returned the salute. "Good morning, Sergeant Terry! was it company
+colour sergeant or on the staff you were, sir?"
+
+"Lasht noight, Carporal Rigby, Oi was sargint-major for the firsht toime
+in my loife. I wuz promawted loike."
+
+"That would be in the volunteer service, Sergeant-major."
+
+"Yiss; but we had a rale cornel in command that's been through the
+Amerikin war, they till me."
+
+"Sergeant-major, there are no American soldiers."
+
+"Shure, an' Oi'm thinkin', corporal," said the veteran, feeling a
+metaphorical thrid on the tail av his coat. "Oi'm thinkin' there's some
+pretty foine foightin's been done in Ameriky; Oi've sane it, carporal,
+wid my own two eyes."
+
+"A dog can fight, Sergeant-major, and cats are tantamount to the same
+thing; but where, I say, is the soldierly bearing, the discipline, the
+spree-doo-cor, as they say in France? Sergeant-major, you know and I
+know that a man cannot be a tailor today and a soldier to-morrow, and an
+agent for pictorial family bibles the day after."
+
+"I dunno, for you see you're a conshtable an' Oi'm a hid missenger in a
+governmint ahffice in the city."
+
+"A soldier, Sergeant-major, can always serve the country, is, even as a
+soldier, a government officer; that is a very different thing,
+Sergeant-major."
+
+"The cornel here was tillin' me there was min in his rigiment that was
+merchints an' lawyers an' clerks, an' shtudints, as good sowldjers as
+iver foired a carrboine or drawed a shabre on the inimy."
+
+"That was a case, Sergeant-major, of mob meeting mob. Did these men ever
+charge as our cavalry charged at Balaclava; did they ever stand,
+Sergeant-major, as we, myself included, stood at Inkerman? Never,
+Sergeant-major, never! They might have made soldiers, if taken young;
+but, as they were, they were no more soldiers than Sylvanus Pilgrim
+here."
+
+"You shet up yer tater-trap, Consterble Rigby, an' don't go fer to abuse
+better men nor you aint," angrily interrupted the subject of the
+corporal's unflattering comparison. Then, seeing the veteran, hopeless
+of convincing his opponent, retire to the garden to join the children,
+Sylvanus waxed bold. "A soldier, Trypheeny, a common soldier! Ef I owned
+a dawg, a yaller dawg, I wouldn't go and make the pore beast a soldier.
+Old pipeclay and parade, tattoo and barricks and punishment drill, likes
+ter come around here braggin' up his lazy, slavish life. Why don't he
+git a dawg collar and a chain at wonst and git tied up ter his kennel.
+Ef you want a man, Trypheeny, get one as knows
+
+     A life on the ocean wave
+     And a home on the rollin' deep,
+
+none o' your stiff starched, nigger driven, cat o' nine tails, ornery
+common soldiers."
+
+Tryphena snickered a little, but the constable went on with his
+breakfast, not deigning to waste a syllable on such unmilitary trash as
+Sylvanus, with whom it was impossible to reason, and to come to blows
+with whom might imperil his dignity. Some day, perhaps, Pilgrim might be
+his prisoner; then, the majesty of the law would be vindicated.
+
+A messenger came and summoned the constable to accompany the coroner,
+Dr. Halbert, to Richards, and bring the body of the murdered detective
+to the post office. On such an occasion, the pensioner's dignity would
+not allow him to drive the waggon, so Rufus had to be pressed into the
+service. Squire Walker, as the presiding magistrate, in view of
+Carruthers personal connection with the death of the subject of the
+jury's verdict, appointed the detective temporary clerk of the court
+that should sit after the inquests were over. Fearing that few of the
+settlers warned would turn out as jurors, through fear of the Select
+Encampment people, the master of Bridesdale chose a sufficient number of
+men for the purpose from the present sojourners at his house. These,
+some time after the doctor's departure, sauntered leisurely towards the
+most public place in the neighbourhood. Arrived at the post office, they
+found a large unfinished room in an adjoining building prepared for the
+court. This building had been begun as a boarding house, but, when
+almost completed, the conviction suddenly came to the post office people
+that there were no boarders to be had, all the transients of any
+financial value being given free quarters in the hospitable mansion of
+the Squire. Hence the house was never finished. The roof, however, was
+on, and the main room floored, so that it had been utilized for church
+and Sunday school purposes, for an Orange Lodge, for temperance and
+magic lantern itinerant lectures, and for local hops. Now, with the dead
+body of Harding laid out upon an improvised table of rough boards on
+trestles, it assumed the most solemn aspect it had ever exhibited. Three
+oldish men were there, whom people called Johnson, Newberry, and
+Pawkins; they were all the summoned jurors who had responded. Soon, from
+the other side, the waggon came in sight, and when it came forward, the
+remains of Nagle, alias Nash, were lifted reverently out and into the
+hall, where they were placed beside those of one of his murderers. The
+elder Richards accompanied the doctor, in order to give his testimony.
+The mad woman and her son were also there, in charge of Sylvanus and Ben
+Toner. Just as the party prepared to constitute the coroner's court, a
+stumpy figure on a high stepping horse came riding along. He was well
+disguised, but several persons recognized him. "Seize him," cried Squire
+Carruthers. "It's Grinstuns," said the lawyer. "Stop him!" shouted
+Bangs. But, Rawdon, having seen what he wanted, wheeled his horse and
+galloped away. There was neither saddled horse to pursue him, nor rifle
+to bring him down. "All the better," remarked Mr. Walker to his brother
+J.P.'s; "had he seen mounted men and fire-arms among us, he'd have smelt
+a rat. As it is, he thinks we are on the defensive and moving slowly."
+It was evident, from what people heard of the presiding magistrate's
+conversation, that the court had decided in favour of measures
+offensive.
+
+It was easy to get twelve good men and true for the first inquest. In
+addition to Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, there were the constable and
+Mr. Terry, Messrs. Hill and Hislop, Sylvanus, Timotheus, and Rufus, with
+Mr. Bangs and Maguffin. The colonel was an alien, and Carruthers did not
+care to sit on the jury. Dr. Halbert presided, flanked by his fellow
+justices, and Wilkinson, though a minor witness, was made clerk.
+Several persons identified the slain Nagle or Nash, and gave evidence as
+to his relations with Rawdon's gang. Ben Toner's information and
+Newcome's attested confession were noted. Mr. Errol and Coristine,
+backed by the Captain and Ben, told how the body was found. Wilkinson
+and Perrowne related their share in conveying the corpse to Richards'
+house, and Richards confirmed their story. The coroner himself, having
+examined the body, affirmed that the deceased came to his death by a
+fracture of the skull, inflicted by a heavy blow from some blunt
+instrument from behind, followed by a pistol shot in front through the
+temple. Two persons, evidently, were concerned in the murder. Who were
+they? Matilda Nagle was sworn. She repudiated the name of Rawdon. She
+testified that a man called Harding brought her a note from her long
+lost brother Steven, asking her to meet him at the barred gate in the
+narrows at a certain hour late on Monday morning. She went, but Rawdon
+would not let her go beyond the barred gate, so she called Stevy over.
+He came to the foot of a tree, where Rawdon told her she must stay; and
+then she saw Harding run up behind him and hit him over the head with an
+iron bar, and he fell down and went to sleep. Did Rawdon shoot him? She
+shivered, and didn't know, nor could any cross examination extract this
+evidence from her. Harding knocked him down with the iron bar, and he
+went to sleep, and she couldn't wake him. Then she went to the corpse
+and cried: "Oh, Stevy, Stevy, wake up, do wake up quick, for he'll come
+again." The court and jury were deeply affected. Old Mr. Newberry, the
+foreman of the jury, brought in the verdict to the effect that the
+deceased was murdered by a blow from an iron bar administered by one
+Harding, producing fracture of the skull, and by a pistol shot in the
+left temple by some unknown person. Thus the first inquest came to an
+end. The second inquest would have been a matter of difficulty, on
+account of the large number of people supposed to be implicated in
+Harding's death, had not Ben Toner, who had been called out of court,
+returned with three good men and true, namely Mr. Bigglethorpe, M.
+Lajeunesse, and a certain Barney Sullivan. These three parties, moved by
+the entreaties of Widow Toner, had set out early in the morning to look
+up the missing Ben; and were so delighted with their success, and so
+tired with their walk, that they were willing to sit on anything, even a
+coroner's jury. Accordingly, a new jury was empanelled, consisting of
+Messrs. Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, Bigglethorpe, Lajeunesse and
+Sullivan, Errol, Wilkinson and Richards, with the Captain, Mr. Bangs,
+and Squire Walker. The latter was chosen foreman. The coroner himself
+acted as clerk. Ben Toner had seen the deceased in company with one
+Newcome, and had heard him addressed as Harding. The coroner testified
+to having examined the body, which exhibited no shot wound of any kind,
+but the forehead was badly bruised, evidently by a stone, as gritty
+particles were to be seen adhering to it, and two table knives were
+still resting in the neighbourhood of the heart. The jury examined the
+corpse, and, led by the foreman under guard of the constable, went out
+across the road and over the fence into the field where Mr. Terry and
+Coristine found the dead Harding lying. The place was well marked by the
+beaten down grass, blood stains on a large boulder and on the ground,
+and by the finding of a loaded revolver. Carefully examining the spot,
+the detective pointed out, at last, the very root, not more than three
+quarters of an inch thick, which formed a loop on the surface of the
+ground, in which the unfortunate man's foot had caught, precipitating
+him upon the stone. Every member of the jury having examined it, Mr.
+Bangs took out his knife and cut it away in order to prevent similar
+accidents in future. The coroner did not think the blow sufficient to
+kill the man, though it must have rendered him insensible. The killing
+was done by means of the knives. These were identified by the Squire and
+Timotheus as belonging to the Bridesdale kitchen. There was neither time
+nor necessity for prolonging the examination. Matilda Nagle and her son
+Monty, with much satisfaction, confessed that they had followed the
+Bridesdale force and had seen the man fall, that she had turned him over
+on his back and struck him to the heart with the knife she carried,
+which she left there, because she had no further need for it. Her son
+had followed her example. The jury retired, or rather the court retired
+from the jury, and, when Squire Walker called the coroner in again, he
+read the second verdict, to the effect that the deceased Harding, while
+in a state of insensibility owing to a fall, had been murdered by one
+Matilda Nagle with a table knife, and that her son, commonly known as
+Monty, was accessory to the deed. The double inquest was over, and the
+bodies were transferred to coarse wooden shells, that of Nagle being
+claimed by his fellow detective, and Harding's being left for a time
+unburied in case some claimant should appear.
+
+The magistrates, and Mr. Bangs as clerk, now sat in close session for a
+little over half an hour, inasmuch as they had already come to certain
+conclusions in the office at Bridesdale. One result of their conference
+was the arrest of the madwoman and her son, much to the regret of the
+Squire, Mr. Errol, and many more. Rigby was ordered to treat them
+kindly, and convey them, with a written order signed by the three
+justices, to the nearest town, there to hand them over to the police
+authorities to be forwarded to their appropriate lunatic asylum. Old Mr.
+Newberry, whom the case had very much affected, volunteered to accompany
+the criminals, as he had to go to town at any rate, and offered to drive
+them and the constable there, and take his wife as company for the
+insane Matilda. Accordingly, he brought round the waggon in which he had
+driven up, and took the constable and his prisoners away towards his own
+house, which was on the road to their destination. The Squire and his
+battalion were much relieved to find that they were not responsible for
+Harding's death, although the fact reflected on their aim as
+sharpshooters. The two wounded men were informed that a magistrates'
+court was sitting, but evinced no anxiety to lodge a complaint against
+any person or persons in connection with their injuries. The coroner
+paid Messrs. Johnson and Pawkins their fee as jurymen, and, with the
+Squire's permission, invited them to dine at Bridesdale; but they
+declined the invitation with thanks, and returned, in company, to the
+bosom of their families. The lawyer, filled with military zeal as a
+recruiting officer, seeing that the new Beaver River contingent was
+armed, asked Carruthers if he had room for them.
+
+"The mair the merrier," answered the Squire, and bade him invite them.
+So Coristine invited the three to dinner, and to help in the support of
+the justices in the afternoon. Barney Sullivan said he wasn't going to
+leave Ben. Mr. Bigglethorpe, as a fisherman, had always wanted to see
+these lakes, and, if it would help the cause of good fishing, he was
+ready to lend a hand to drive out poachers and pot-hunters. Pierre
+doubted how Madame would take his absence; of course there was Bawtiste,
+but, well yes, for the sake of the poor dead M'syae Nash and Meestare
+Veelkeenson, he would stay. Que dommage, Meestare Bulky was not there, a
+man so intelligent, so clever, so subtle of mind! Mr. Bigglethorpe was
+introduced to the drawing-room, but Pierre, though invited, would not
+enter its sacred precincts. He accompanied Barney to the kitchen, and
+was introduced by Ben to the assembled company. His politeness carried
+the servants' quarters by storm, and wreathed the faces of Tryphena and
+Tryphosa in perpetual smiles. Mr. Hill and the Sesayder succumbed to his
+genial influence, and even the disheartened Maguffin, though deploring
+his poor English and lack of standing colour, confessed to Rufus that
+"his ways was kind o' takin'."
+
+"Squire Carruthers," said the detective, as they re-entered the office,
+"there is wen thing you failed to have den at the inquest."
+
+"What is that, Mr. Bangs?"
+
+"To search the bedy of the men, Herding; bet I attended to thet, and
+found pore Nesh's letter to his sister. Pore Nesh mest hev lost his head
+for wence, since he trested thet dem villain. I seppowse there's no such
+thing as a kemera ebout here?"
+
+"No; what did you want a camera for?"
+
+"To phowtogreph this Herding; there's a mystery about him. Nesh trested
+him, and he terned out a dem traitor. Nesh mest hev known him before; he
+would never trest a stranger so. Is there no wey of taking his
+likeness?"
+
+"There's a young lady staying here, you saw her at breakfast, Miss Du
+Plessis, who's very clever with brush and pencil, but it's no' a very
+pleasant task for a woman."
+
+"No, but in the interests of jestice it might be well to risk offending
+her. If you will reintroduce me more formally, I will esk the lady
+myself."
+
+Mr. Bangs was escorted to the garden, where the lady in question was
+actually sketching Marjory and the young Carruthers in a variety of
+attitudes. To the Squire's great astonishment, she professed her
+readiness to comply with the detective's desire in the afternoon, if
+somebody could be left to accompany her to the post office adjunct.
+
+"How long will it take, Miss Du Plessis?" he asked. "A few minutes," she
+answered, "a quarter of an hour at most."
+
+"Then, if you will allow me, I shell be heppy to be your escort, and
+indicate the features that should be emphasized for purposes of
+recognition. As I ride, I ken easily overtake the perty." This being
+agreed to, Mr. Bangs asked Carruthers to let him look over Nash's last
+memoranda, as they might be useful, and any recently acquired papers.
+Among the latter, taken from Newcome, was a paper of inestimable value
+in the form of a chart, indicating, undoubtedly, the way to the abode of
+Serlizer and the Select Encampment generally. In the memoranda of Nash's
+note-book the detective found a late entry F. al. H. inf. sub pot. prom,
+monst. via R., and drew the Squire's attention to it. "Look here,
+Squire, et our dog Letin again; F. perheps Foster alias H, Herding,
+informer, under my power (that's through some crime entered in this
+book), premises to show the way to Rawdon's. This premise was made last
+Tuesday, at Derham, a whole week ago."
+
+"Why is Harding called an informer?"
+
+"Because he belengs to an infamous cless raised up by our iniquitous
+kestoms administration. These informers get no selery, bet are rewerded
+with a share of the spoil they bring to the depertment. Semtimes they
+accuse honest men, and ectually hev been known to get them convicted
+falsely. Semtimes they take bribes from the greatest scoundrels, and
+protect them in their villainy. Nesh thought he hed this fellew safe by
+the law of fear; bet fear and envy and the dread of losing Rawdon's
+bribes, combined in his treacherous heart to make a merderer of him."
+
+"But Nash couldn't have written that letter last week. He knew nothing
+of his sister's whereabouts till yesterday morning."
+
+"Exectly; see here is the nowte, a sheet out of this very book fowlded
+ep. End it says: 'Meet me at wence, not later than noon, outside the
+barred chennel. You say he followed Rawdon from the powst office; then,
+at sem point behind Rawdon, this Herding must hev terned ep, end, O dem
+the brute if he is dead! hev cheated the cleverest fellow in the
+service."
+
+"But why should he have killed him? Why not leave that to Rawdon?"
+
+"Rawdon's kenning and deep. When he knew it wes Nesh, he got a fright
+himself end then frightened Herding into doing it. I'll bet you whet you
+like, thet revolver found with his body is the kelibre of the bellet
+wound in pore Nash's head. I'll look when I go ep this efternoon. His
+trick was to lay it all on Herding; I shouldn't wender if he towld thet
+med woman to kill him. It's jest like him, dem the brute!"
+
+In order that due preparations, in the shape of accoutrements, might be
+made, and after dinner delay avoided, the Squire and the colonel
+assembled the forces. Including the absent Richards family, the
+upholders and vindicators of the law numbered twenty-six. The Captain
+had already signified to Richards senior his willingness to take command
+of the scow and its complement of five men, armed with guns, and with
+axes for cutting away the barrier at the narrows. There was much romance
+about this side of the campaign, so that volunteers could have been got
+for marine service to any extent; but the means of transportation were
+limited, and even that able-bodied seaman Sylvanus had to be enrolled
+among the landsmen. Happily Tom Rigby was not there to see him descend
+once more to the level of military life. The colonel, rejoicing in
+Newcome's chart of the marked road, called for cavalry volunteers.
+Squire Walker, Mr. Bangs and Maguffin, having their horses with them,
+naturally responded. It then came to a toss-up between Mr. Perrowne and
+Coristine; the parson won, and the disappointed lawyer was relegated to
+the flat feet. As the doctor had been major in a volunteer regiment, the
+Squire ceded the command of the infantry to him. It was proposed to have
+at least one man behind as a home guard, but nobody was prepared to
+volunteer for this service, Messrs. Errol, Wilkinson, and Lajeunesse,
+who were severally proposed, expressing their sense of the honour, their
+high regard for the ladies, and anxiety for their well-being, but
+emphatically declining to be absent from the common post of duty and
+danger. Miss Halbert voiced the opinion of the fair sex that, being
+eight in number, including the maids, they were quite able to defend
+themselves. Nevertheless, the Squire inwardly determined to send old
+Styles, the post office factotum, back with Miss Du Plessis. The main
+attacking force of infantry consisted of Doctor Halbert, in command,
+sergeants Carruthers and Terry and their two squads, the first
+comprising privates Errol, Wilkinson, Coristine, Bigglethorpe,
+Lajeunesse, and Hill; the second, privates Hislop, Toner, Sullivan, Hill
+junior, and the two Pilgrims. Then, arms were inspected, and the twenty
+bludgeons dealt out, five for the cavalry, and fifteen for the infantry.
+Most of these had attachments of stout common string, but those of the
+three commanders, the Squire, the two clergymen, and the two
+pedestrians, were secured with red window cord, a mark of preference
+which rejoiced the hearts of three of them, namely, the younger men.
+With doubtful hands the dominie received his gun, and the minister more
+boldly grasped a similar weapon. At the request of the colonel the
+cavalry were served with a hasty luncheon, and thereafter set forward,
+with the exception of the detective, Miss Du Plessis' escort, to patrol
+the road and open communication with the Richards for the purpose of
+intercepting the enemy's possible scouts. Two waggons were ordered to
+take the infantry to the lake settlement, so that they might be fresh
+for the work before them.
+
+In his martial accoutrements, the dominie's soul was stirred within him.
+He repeated to his bosom friend pieces from Körner's Leyer und Schwert,
+but as the lawyer's acquaintance with the Teutonic tongues was limited,
+including _sauer kraut, lager bier, nix kum araus, donner-wetter_, and
+similar choice expressions, he failed to make an impression. Nobody in
+the house knew German, unless it were Tryphena and Tryphosa, who had
+picked up a little from their mother, and, of course, he could hardly
+lie in wait to get off his warlike quotations on them. Ha! he remembered
+Wordsworth, and rolled forth:--
+
+     "Vanguard of liberty, ye men of Kent!
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     They from their fields can see the countenance
+     Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance,
+     And hear you shouting forth your brave intent."
+
+Still failing to awake a responsive echo in the heart that once beat in
+poetic unison with his own, he turned to Mrs. Du Plessis, and, alluding
+to the departed colonel, recited in her native tongue:--
+
+     "Honor al Caudillo,
+     Honor al primero,
+     Que el patriota acero
+       Oso fulminar.
+     La Patria afligida
+     Oyo' sus acentos,
+     Y vio' sus tormentos,
+       En gozo tornar."
+
+"That is very pretty, Mr. Wilkinson, and I thank you much for recalling
+the pleasant memories of my early speech. Is there not an English
+translation of these words?"
+
+"There is, Mrs. Du Plessis, by Sir John Bowring, It is:--
+
+     Hail, hail to the Chieftain,
+     All honour to him
+     Who first in the gleam
+       Of that light bared the sword!
+     The drooping land heard him,
+     Forgetting her fears;
+     And smiled through her tears,
+       As she hung on his word."
+
+The dominie had thought only to give expression to the poetic fervour
+called forth by the circumstances, but accomplished a good deal more,
+the establishment of a common ground between himself and the nearest
+relative of a very charming and cultivated young lady. The said young
+lady came up to join in the conversation, and request Mr. Wilkinson to
+repeat all that he knew of the battle hymn. The lawyer was secretly of
+the opinion that his friend was making an ass of himself, and that, if
+he were to try that poetry quoting business on Miss Carmichael, he would
+soon discover that such was the case. Yet, if the Du Plessis liked that
+sort of thing, he had no right to interfere. He remembered that he had
+once been just such an ass himself, and wondered how he could have so
+far strayed from the path of common sense. It was worse than Tryphosa
+and Timotheus sitting down to sing with a hymn-book between them.
+
+"What are you doing out in the garden all by yourself, Eugene?" asked a
+small voice. He looked down and saw Marjorie fingering the barrel of his
+rifle. "Don't you know," she continued, "that all the people have gone
+in to dinner?"
+
+"Did the gong sound, Marjorie?"
+
+"To be sure it did. Tell me, what were you thinking about not to hear
+it?"
+
+"I was thinking about a dear little girl called Marjorie," answered the
+prevaricating lawyer, picking the child up and bestowing a hearty salute
+upon her lips.
+
+"You're a very good boy now, Eugene; you get a clean shave every day. Do
+you go to Collingwood for it in the night time, when I am in bed?"
+
+"No, Marjorie; I get the cat to lick my face," the untruthful man
+replied.
+
+"What? our pussy Felina that spits at Muggy?"
+
+"The very same."
+
+"Then I'll ask Tryphosa's father if he would like to have the loan of
+Felina. Don't you think she would do him good."
+
+Coristine laughed, as he thought of Mr. Hill's stubbly countenance, and
+carried "the darlin'" into the house.
+
+At the dinner table he found himself punished for his day-dreaming.
+Bangs was on one side of Miss Carmichael, and Bigglethorpe on the other,
+and he was out in the cold, between the latter gentleman and the
+minister. Mr. Bigglethorpe resumed the subject of fishing, and
+interrogated his right hand neighbour as to his success at the River. He
+laughed over the so-called mullets, and expressed a fisherman's contempt
+for them as devourers of valuable spawn, relating also the fact that, in
+the spring, when they swarm up into shallow parts of the stream, the
+farmers shovel them out with large wooden scoops, and feed them to the
+pigs or fertilize the land with them. Finding he had more than one
+auditor, the fishing store-keeper questioned the Squire about the
+contents of his brook, and, learning that dace, chubs, and crayfish were
+its only occupants, promised to send Mrs. Carruthers a basket of trout
+when the season came round. In order to give a classical turn to the
+conversation, the dominie mentioned the name of Isaac Walton and
+referred to his poor opinion of the chub in the river Lea. "I know the
+Lea like a book," said Mr. Bigglethorpe, "and a dirty, muddy ditch it
+has got to be since old Isaac's time. When I was a schoolboy I went
+there fishing one afternoon with some companions, and caught not a
+single fish, hardly got a nibble. We were going home disappointed, when
+we saw a man at the reservoir above the river, near the Lea bridge, with
+some eels in a basket. They were queer looking eels, but we bought them
+for sixpence, and one of our fellows, called Wickens, put them in his
+fishing can; then we maide for home. Before we could get there we had to
+cross a pretty rough part of the Kingsland road. It was pretty dark,
+but, of course, the shops were all lit up and we sawr a lot of boys,
+common cads, coming our wy. Just in front of a public house they called
+out 'Boots, Boots! fish, fish!' and out caime a stout lad of about
+eighteen to lead the gang. Three of us clubbed our rods over them,
+briking the top joints, of course, but Wickens wouldn't fall in with us.
+So Boots ran after him, followed by a crowd. When Wickens sawr he
+couldn't escype, he opened his can, took out an eel and slapped it over
+Boots' fyce. The beggar just yelled, 'O, Lawr, water snykes!' and he
+ran, and Wickens after the crowd like mad, slashing 'em with the water
+snykes. O dear, O dear, I shall never forget those snykes to my dying
+dy."
+
+"Are there any water snakes in our rivers in Canada?" enquired Mrs. Du
+Plessis.
+
+"Oh yes, ma'am," answered the fisherman, "I imagine those lykes we are
+going to visit this afternoon are pretty full of snykes. Mr. Bulky,
+whose nyme is known to Mr. Coristine, I'm sure, wears long waterproof
+boots for wyding in the Beaver River--"
+
+"But, Mr. Bigglethorpe," asked the fair questioner, "how can one ride in
+a river?"
+
+"Excuse me, ma'am, I did not say riding, I said wyding, walking in the
+water. Mr. Bulky was wyding, one morning, with rod in hand, when, all of
+a sudden, he felt something on his leg. Looking down, he sawr a big
+black water-snyke coiled round his boot, and jabbing awy at his leg. It
+hung on to him like a boa-constrictor, and squeezed his leg so tight
+that it gyve him a bad attack of gout. He had to get on shore and sawr
+it in two with his knife before the snyke would leave go. Fortunately,
+the brutes are not venomous, but that beggar's teeth scratched Mr.
+Bulky's boots up pretty badly, I must sy."
+
+When they rose from the table, Miss Carmichael went up to the lawyer and
+said: "Please forgive me for punishing myself between Mr. Bangs and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe. I sigh for good English." The lawyer answered, all
+unwittingly, of course, in his worst brogue: "Miss Carrmoikle, it's my
+frind Wilks I'll be aafther gitten' to shtarrt a noight school to tayche
+me to shpake Inglish in aal its purity." To this there could be but one
+response: "Go away, you shameful, shameless, bad man!" It pleased the
+lawyer better than a more elegant and complimentary remark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     Walk to the P.O.--Harding's Portrait--The Encampment
+     Besieged--Wilkinson Wounded--Serlizer and Other Prisoners--No
+     Underground Passage Found--Bangs and Guard Remain--The Constable's
+     New Prisoners--Wilkinson a Hero--The Constable and Maguffin--Cards.
+
+
+There was no room for twenty persons in two waggons, yet twenty proposed
+to go, seventeen to the seat of war, and three to the post-office. As
+those three were the young ladies of the house, all the warriors offered
+to surrender their seats to them. They refused to accept any surrender,
+preferring to walk, whereupon Messrs. Errol, Wilkinson and Coristine
+thought an after-dinner walk the height of luxury. Mr. Bangs saw he was
+not wanted as a fellow pedestrian, and mounted his horse instead of
+having him trot behind a waggon. The vehicles, or at least one of them,
+received instructions to wait at the post-office for the three members
+of squad No. 1. The walk was strictly proper, Mr. Errol taking Miss
+Carmichael, the dominie Miss Halbert, and the lawyer Miss Du Plessis.
+"What a goose you are, Mr. Wilkinson," said his fair companion. "What a
+goose you are to leave Cecile, whose footsteps you fairly worship, and
+to come and walk with a girl for whose society you don't care a penny."
+
+"I should care more for Miss Halbert's society if she did not say such
+unjustifiable things."
+
+"Cecile," called the young lady, "I want to change escorts with you; I
+like pleasant society."
+
+The dominie felt as if a big school-girl had declined to receive a
+reprimand from the principal, and coloured with vexation, but Miss Du
+Plessis calmly turned and said: "If Mr. Wilkinson is tired of you
+already, Fanny, I suppose I must send Mr. Coristine to comfort you,"
+whereat Mr. Errol and his companion exchanged a smile.
+
+"Did the villain shoot Wordsworth at you, Miss Halbert, or was it Hans
+Breitmann in the original, or a Spanish _cantinella_, or some such
+rubbish? If I was Miss Du Plessis I'd wear a signboard over my ears, 'No
+poetical rubbish shot here;' perhaps that might fix him."
+
+"Cecile is sentimental: she dotes on poetry."
+
+"Pardon me for saying I don't believe it. I offered to recite my
+original poem on the Grinstun man to her, and she didn't seem to want to
+hear it."
+
+"How ungrateful and unsympathetic! You will favour me with it, will you
+not?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure in the world. You know it's awful
+balderdash, but here goes."
+
+The original poem was recited with appropriate gestures, intended to
+imitate the walk of the hero of the piece and his various features. The
+people in front turned their heads to look at the performance and take
+in the words. Not to laugh was almost an impossibility, but the dominie
+succeeded in doing the impossible, and frowned heavily. He felt that his
+unworthy friend was bringing disgrace upon the causes of poetry and
+pedestrianism. When her laughter subsided, Miss Halbert said: "There is
+one thing I want to ask you seriously, Mr. Coristine." "Name it," he
+answered, "even to the half of my fortune." "It is to look after papa,
+and see that he does not expose himself too much to danger. I asked Mr.
+Perrowne too, but he is with the horsemen, you know." This last was said
+with a peculiarly arch smile, which convinced the lawyer that Perrowne
+was in deeper than was generally suspected. The first thought that
+followed in Coristine's mind was what awful cheek he had been guilty of
+in following Perrowne's precedent in drop the handkerchief. He managed,
+however, to assure the lady that he would do his best to watch over the
+safety of her father and Squire Carruthers, the latter words being
+spoken loud enough for Miss Carmichael to hear. When the post-office was
+reached Mr. Bangs dismounted, was ready to receive the ladies; and the
+three escorts, shaking hands warmly with each of their fair companions,
+entered the remaining waggon and drove away, the buts of their firearms
+rattling on the floor, and the suspended bludgeons playfully flogging
+their shoulders.
+
+It was ghastly work propping up the dead murderer's shoulders in the
+shell, and placing a rest for his head. The jaw had been tied up, but
+the eyes would not close; yet, staring though the face was, it was not a
+repulsive one. The ordinary observer could not read what Bangs saw
+there, greed and hypocrisy, envy, treachery, murder. While Miss Du
+Plessis went on calmly sketching, the other girls turned their heads
+away. No one cared to break the stillness by a word. The detective went
+out and secured the services of Styles to accompany the ladies home, and
+remain at Bridesdale till the armed band returned. Then he went over to
+the shell in which the body of his brother detective lay, and, nobody
+looking at him, allowed himself the luxury of a few tears, a silent
+tribute to the man he honoured. When the sketch was completed, he warmly
+thanked the artist, and told her that he never would have dreamt of
+proposing such a task, but for his desire to do justice to his dead
+friend, whom an informer named Flower had greatly injured in the
+department. The department had faith in his cleverness all along, but
+suspicions had been cast upon his honesty, which embittered his days,
+along with troubles that were then only known to himself.
+
+Bangs was not a detective, but a man of warm, brotherly heart, as he
+told the tale of the outwardly always cheerful, but inwardly
+sore-hearted, Nash, cut off in the midst of his years and usefulness.
+Then old Styles appeared, and, with a salute, the detective mounted and
+rode away to join the forces in front, while the ladies journeyed
+homeward. Mr. Bangs soliloquized as he rode rapidly on. "Boys read
+detective stories, and think our life an enviable one. They dowte on
+the schemes, the plots and counterplots, the risks, the triumphs, and
+look beyond to fame and rewerd, but they know nothing of the miserable
+envies and jealousies, the sespicions, the checks and counterchecks, and
+the demnable policy of the depertment, encouraging these irresponsible
+informers, dem 'em, to break up all legitimate business and merder
+honest men. O Nesh, my pore dead friend, yo're avenged in a wey, bet
+who's going to avenge yore pore sister, and even this devil of a Flower
+or Herding, whose death lies at the door of that greater devil of a
+Rawdon?"
+
+The expedition was waiting for him at Richards', the colonel in command.
+The scow had departed in charge of the captain, who had orders to do
+nothing to the barrier till he heard a signal shot; then he was to
+respond with the unmistakable blunderbuss, and batter down the
+obstruction. Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and Maguffin had patrolled,
+without meeting even a passing team or wayfarer; but the colonel judged
+it best to get off the road without delay. Accordingly the waggons were
+left in Richards' shed, and the infantry doubled forward after the
+colonel and Bangs. When the rocky ascent was reached, over which the
+fugitives of the night before had clambered, a halt was called, and the
+colonel gave Dr. Halbert instructions. Just where the rock rose out of
+the swamp, Sergeant Terry's squad entered, and easily wheeled round
+large trunks of trees resting on stone pivots, revealing a good
+waggon-track, the masked road. This the cavalry occupied, looking to the
+priming of their pistols, and bringing their clubs into handy positions.
+The Squire's squad scaled the height near the road, and Mr. Terry's took
+ground farther to the right. The doctor led the way in front of and
+between the two sections. The cavalry moved slowly, keeping pace with
+the climbers. Soon the crest was reached, and the main body began to
+descend gradually, when the dominie slipped and his piece went off, the
+trigger having caught in his red window cord, startling the echoes. Then
+came the diffusive boom and crackle of the blunderbuss, and the doctor,
+inwardly anathematizing Wilkinson, hurried his men on. They heard axes
+at work, as if trees were being felled; it was the Captain and the
+Richards at the barrier. No enemy appeared on the rocks, but pistol
+shots warned them that there was collision on the road, and the doctor
+called the second squad to wheel towards it. The dominie, on the left of
+the first, saw what was going on below. Revolvers were emptied and clubs
+brought into requisition. He could not load his old muzzle-loading piece
+to save his life, but he knew single stick. Two men were tackling the
+brave old colonel, while a third lay wounded at his horse's feet. The
+dominie sped down to the road like a chamois, and threw himself upon the
+man on the colonel's right, the dissipated farmer. He heard a shot, felt
+a sharp pain in his left arm, but with his right hit the holder of the
+pistol a skull cracker over the head, then fainted and fell to the
+ground. His luckless muzzle-loader was never found. The colonel had
+floored his antagonist on the left, and turned to behold the dominie's
+pale face. Leaving the command to the doctor, he dismounted and put a
+little old Bourbon out of a pocket flask into his lips, and then
+proceeded to bandage the wound. Wilkinson had saved his life; he was a
+hero, a grand, cultivated, sympathetic, chivalrous man, whom the colonel
+loved as his own son. When he came to, were not the very first words he
+uttered enquiries for Colonel Morton's own safety? Maguffin, having
+felled his man, held his master's horse.
+
+Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and Bangs galloped on, the latter eager to
+seize Rawdon. They and the infantry squads came almost simultaneously
+upon the select encampment, which was simply a large stone-mason's yard,
+full of grindstones in every state of preparation, and bordered by
+half-a-dozen frame buildings, one of which, more pretentious than the
+others, was evidently the dwelling-place of the head of the concern. Two
+simple-looking men in mason's aprons stood in the doorway of another,
+having retired thither when they heard the sound of firing. This was
+evidently the boarding-house of the workmen, and an object of interest
+to Ben Toner, who, with his friends Sullivan and Timotheus, pushed past
+the two stonecutters, immediately thereafter arrested by Sergeant Terry,
+and invaded the structure. Soon Ben reappeared upon the scene,
+accompanied by a young woman whose proportions were little, if at all,
+short of his own, and calling aloud to all the company, as if he had
+accomplished the main object of the expedition, "It's all raight, boys,
+I've got Serlizer!" Behind the happy pair came an old woman, gray,
+wrinkled, and with features that bore unmistakable traces of sorrow and
+suffering. "Hev they ben good to you, Serlizer?" asked Mr. Toner, after
+he had in the most public and unblushing manner saluted his long lost
+sweetheart. The large woman raised her bared arms from the elbow
+significantly, and replied, with a trace of her father's gruffness, "I
+didn't arst 'em; 'sides I allers had old Marm Flowers to keep 'em off."
+The expedition was demoralized. The colonel and his servant were with
+the dominie on the road. Ben, with Timotheus and Sullivan, was rejoicing
+in Serlizer; while Mr. Hislop and Rufus were guarding the captured
+stone-cutters. Sylvanus, not to be outdone by his companions of the
+second squad, attached himself, partly as a protector, partly as a
+prisoner's guard, to Mrs. Flower, the keeper of the boarding-house.
+Sergeant Terry, without a command, followed what remained of the first
+squad in its search for Rawdon. The first person he came upon, in his
+way down to the water, was Monsieur Lajeunesse, who could run no
+farther, and, perspiring at every pore, sat upon a log, mopping his face
+with a handkerchief.
+
+"A such coorse 'ave I not med, Meestare Terray, sinsa zat I vas a too
+ptee garsong." Mr. Terry understood, owing to large experience of
+foreigners, and could not permit the opportunity of making a
+philological remark to pass, "D'ye know, Mishter Lashness, that Frinch
+an' the rale ould Oirish is as loike as two pays? Now, there's garsan is
+as Oirish a worrud for a young bhoy as ye'll find in Connaught. But juty
+is juty, moy dare sorr, so, as they say in the arrmy, 'Fag a bealach,'
+lave the way." The sergeant's next discovery was the doctor, borne in
+the arms of the lawyer and the dismounted parson. He had sprained his
+ancle in the rapid descent to which his zeal had impelled him, and had
+thus been compelled to leave the Squire in command. Mr. Hill had been
+left behind on the left of the encampment with the horses of the three
+dismounted cavaliers, Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and the detective, so
+that Sergeant Carruthers, now acting colonel, had with him a mere
+corporal's guard, consisting of Messrs. Errol and Bigglethorpe.
+
+The junction of the land forces with those operating on the water was
+effected in good order, the latter being intact under command of the
+captain, but the former exhibiting, by their terribly reduced numbers,
+the dreadful fatality of war. Squire Walker and Mr. Bangs alone
+represented the cavalry; Carruthers and his corporal's guard, the first
+squad, and the veteran all alone, the second squad of the infantry. Even
+this remnant had its deserter, for, during the conversation between the
+Squire and the Captain, private Bigglethorpe stole away, and when next
+seen was standing far out upon a dead hemlock that had fallen into the
+lake, fishing with great contentment, and a measure of success, for
+bass. The numbers of the force were soon augmented by the appearance of
+the doctor and his bearers. The disabled physician was accommodated with
+a seat on the bottom of the scow, two of the Richards boys being
+displaced in his favour. The Captain reported a prize in the shape of a
+handsome varnished skiff, which he found drawn up on some skids or
+rollers at the foot of a great mass of rock, that seemed as if cut all
+about in regular form, in readiness for quarrying. The finding of the
+boat just opposite it, the worn appearance of the ground, the absence of
+moss or any other growth on the severed edges of the square mass of
+limestone, led the detective to ask if there was any report of a
+subterraneous passage in connection with this mysterious region. The
+doctor, whom his former guide had taken by water, and insisted on
+blindfolding at a certain point, was sure that he had walked some
+distance on rock, and, although the lamp-lit room, in which he had seen
+his patients, was lined with wood, and had blinds on apparent windows,
+he doubted much that it was built in the open air. Then, Coristine
+remembered how the dissipated farmer had coupled Rawdon's geology with
+trap rock, as well as with galena, quartz and beryl. Knives were
+produced and thrust into the seams at the top and on the two sides, as
+far as the blades would go, but along the bottom there was no horizontal
+incision answering to that above; it was perpendicular towards the
+earth, and of no great depth.
+
+It was decided, in the meanwhile, to leave the Captain with Richards
+senior, his youngest son, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, who declined to leave
+his sport, as a guard on the skiff and the adjoining mysterious stone.
+The rest of the party returned to the encampment, to consult with the
+colonel and learn the reason of his absence. Pierre Lajeunesse was found
+where Mr. Terry had left him, and gladly accepted an arm up the hill.
+Arrived at the stone-yard, the Squire and Coristine learnt with concern
+of the dominie's wound, but were rejoiced to find it was nothing more
+serious, and that his was the only casualty, besides the doctor's.
+Squire Walker and Mr. Bangs accompanied the colonel, whom Coristine
+relieved in attendance upon the dominie, and Maguffin, to look for the
+felled accomplices of Rawdon, but, of the four who certainly were
+knocked insensible by the clubs, not one was to be found, nor was there
+any sign that the pistols of the cavalry had taken effect on the other
+three. The whole seven had escaped. Meanwhile Rawdon's house and all the
+other buildings had been searched by Carruthers, without a single
+incriminating thing, save a half empty keg of peculiar white spirits,
+being brought to light. The stables contained many horses; and strong
+waggons, such as those seen by the pedestrians at the Beaver River, were
+in the sheds. The stone-cutters and the women professed to know nothing,
+and, save in the case of the woman called Flower, Bangs was of opinion
+that they spoke the truth. All the men could tell was that Rawdon paid
+them good wages, so that they were able to live without work all winter;
+that six other men worked for him elsewhere and came to the
+boarding-house for their meals, but did not sleep there; that one of
+them had got hurt in the back, and was away in the hospital, and that
+two teamsters had left shortly before the intruders arrived, along with
+the remaining five. They had also seen Rawdon ride in that morning, but
+did not know where he had gone. Did they know of any underground vaults
+or trap doors, or any buildings apart from those in the encampment? No,
+they had seen none; but, three years ago, before they returned to work
+in the spring, there must have been quarrymen about, for enormous
+quantities of stone were lying ready for them, which they had not taken
+out. Mrs. Flower declined to answer any questions, but did not scruple
+to ask if the Squire and others had seen anything of a man called
+Harding. When she learned the man's fate, as she sat in a low chair,
+she rocked it to and fro and groaned, but shed no tear nor uttered an
+articulate syllable.
+
+Bangs would not give up the search, nor would he leave the place. There
+was food enough in the boarding-house, and he would remain, even if he
+had to stay alone. Squire Walker had to be home for an engagement early
+in the morning; the two clergymen had to prepare for Wednesday evening's
+duty, and had pastoral work before them; the colonel could not leave the
+man who had saved his life. The doctor and the dominie were
+incapacitated; Ben Toner was worse than useless over Serlizer; Pierre
+dreaded his beloved Angelique's ire if he remained away over night; and
+Sullivan's folks might be kinder anxious about him. Messrs. Hill and
+Hislop also thought they had better be going. Thus the army melted away.
+Everybody insisted on the Squire going home, and getting a good night's
+rest. When, with difficulty, persuaded to do so, he offered to leave
+Timotheus as his substitute, if that worthy were willing. Timotheus
+consented, whereupon Sylvanus and Rufus volunteered, it being understood
+that Ben Toner and Maguffin would do their work about the kitchen and
+stables, while Serlizer helped the Bridesdale maids. Two other
+volunteers were Mr. Terry and the lawyer; and two of the Richards
+offered to watch with Mr. Bigglethorpe on the lake shore. Thereupon, the
+three members of that gallant family withdrew to the lake, and, while
+one boarded the scow and helped his father and younger brother, under
+the Captain's directions, to paddle home, the others hailed the
+fisherman and asked if he was going to remain. "I'm here for the night,
+boys," replied the man of the rod. "I'll turn up that skiff against the
+wind and dew, light a fire by the water, and, early in the morning, have
+the loveliest bass fishing I've had for many a day. Oh yes, I'm here.
+D'ye see my gun lying about anywhere?" Mr. Bigglethorpe's gun was found,
+and deposited in the skiff. While this was going on below, Ben Toner
+harnessed up a team, hitched them to a waggon, for which he found seats
+by depriving other waggons of their boxes, and prepared to take the
+wounded dominie, his affectionate friend, the colonel, with Serlizer and
+the woman Flower, to Bridesdale. The last named person insisted upon
+going at once to see the dead body of Harding. The two stone-cutters
+also asked to be allowed to accompany the two props of the encampment
+boarding house. Mr. Hill rode the colonel's horse, and the Squire, that
+of the detective. Along the once masked, but now unmasked, road, the
+procession of waggon, horsemen, and footmen, passed, waving a farewell
+to the allies of Mr. Bangs who held the fort. It should be added that
+Sylvanus accompanied them as far as the Richards' place, to obtain the
+Captain's permission for his volunteering, and to bring the borrowed
+waggon back.
+
+At Richards' the waggons were brought out. One was devoted to the two
+injured men, the dominie and the doctor, with their attendants, the
+colonel and the Captain, and Barney Sullivan as driver. The other was
+driven by Ben, with Serlizer beside him. It also contained the woman
+Flower, Mr. Errol, Mr. Lajeunesse, and Mr. Hislop. The cavalry,
+consisting of Squire Walker in command, Mr. Perrowne, Carruthers, Hill,
+and Maguffin, trotted forward, and the infantry and prisoners,
+comprising Tom Rigby, who turned up at the Lake Settlement, and the two
+masons, followed in the rear. The constable was angry; he had lost his
+prisoners of the morning. Having arrived at Mr. Newberry's hospitable
+house, and being asked to take some refreshments, which, esteeming the
+objects of his care to be simple souls, he had no hesitation in doing,
+he was amazed, on his return to the waggon, to find his captives gone.
+At once he started in pursuit, but, up to the time of his arrival at the
+Lake Settlement, he had seen no trace of the fugitives. Accordingly, the
+corporal made the present life of the two stone cutters a burden. He
+searched them for concealed weapons, and confiscated the innocent pocket
+knives with which they shred their plug tobacco; he forbade them to
+smoke; and, finally, tied the left hand of the one to the right of the
+other to prevent their running away, of which they disclaimed any
+intention. The cavalry came first to the gate of Bridesdale, and
+reported the casualties, Perrowne proudly relating that he and
+Coristine, who was "now end of a good fellow," had carried the doctor to
+the scow, which he called "the bowt." Ben Toner's waggon came next,
+having dropped Mrs. Flower at the post office, where, a little later,
+the constable landed his prisoners. Her companion Serlizer sought the
+kitchen with Ben, while Mr. Errol joined his brother divine; but
+Messrs. Hislop and Lajeunesse, with Mr. Hill, waited only for Sylvanus'
+appearance to take their homeward journey. At last the ambulance waggon
+drove slowly up, and tender hands lifted out the disabled and the
+wounded. Miss Halbert and Miss Carmichael relieved the Captain of his
+patient, who managed to hop cheerfully into the house, with an arm on
+each of their shoulders. The Squire and the colonel helped the dominie
+along, and up to a special single room which was to be his hospital, and
+which Mrs. and Miss Du Plessis and Mrs. Carruthers were prepared to
+enter as nurses, so soon as his bearers had put him to bed. Then the
+doctor came up with his instruments, cut off the colonel's improvised
+bandage and the shirt sleeve, bathed the wound, found and extracted the
+bullet, and tied all up tight. The meek dominie bore it all with
+patience, and apologized to his surgeon for giving him so much trouble
+while he himself was suffering. The three ladies brought the wounded
+hero all manner of good things that sick people are supposed to like or
+to be allowed to eat and drink, and Wilkinson was in a _dolce far
+niente_ elysium. Little Marjorie, having knocked timidly at the door,
+came in with some square gaudily-covered books under her arm, and asked
+if Mr. Wilks would like her to read to him. She offered the victim his
+choice of "Puss in Boots," "Mother Goose," and "Nursery Rhymes"; but
+Miss Du Plessis, who, at the sufferer's request, was looking up in
+Wordsworth that cheerful theme, The Churchyard in "The Excursion,"
+interposed, saying, some other day, when Mr. Wilkinson had grown
+stronger, he might perhaps be able to make a selection from her juvenile
+library. Marjorie told her cousin that she was sure, if it had been her
+Eugene who was sick, he would have liked her to stay and read to him.
+She had told Eugene to marry Cecile, but she would never do so any more;
+she would give him all to cousin Marjorie.
+
+The three squires sat in council, and agreed to dismiss the nominal
+captives on condition of their promising to appear when wanted as
+witnesses. This Serlizer at once agreed to. Mr. Walker rode to the post
+office and exacted the promise from Mrs. Flower and the masons, thus
+depriving the constable of his prey. He was compelled to untie their
+hands, and restore the confiscated pocket knives. The masons were
+invited to supper at Bridesdale, as was the woman; but the men proposed
+to go on to the River, as they had money to pay their way; and Mrs.
+Flower, who would not leave Harding's body, was given in charge to the
+post mistress. The supper tables in hall and kitchen were very different
+from those of the previous night. In the latter, Ben Toner, the
+constable, and Maguffin had each a lady to talk to. Their superiors
+missed the company of the lawyer, the detective, and Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+to say nothing of Mr. Terry. The doctor was stretched out upon a sofa in
+the office, where his daughter waited on him, assisted by Perrowne, who
+had to carry the other articles of food while she preceded him with the
+tea. Miss Du Plessis, similarly helped by the colonel, attended to the
+wants of the dominie. Consequently, the steady members of the supper
+circle were the three matrons and Miss Carmichael, with Squires Walker
+and Carruthers, Mr. Errol, and the Captain. All agreed that Wilkinson
+had done a very fine thing, and Mrs. Du Plessis was warm in his praise.
+"The only men that stuck to me," said the Squire, "were Mr. Errol and
+Bigglethorpe, and even Bigglethorpe went off fishing as soon as he came
+to the water, so that I may say Mr. Errol was my only faithful
+adherent." The ladies all looked with much approbation on the blushing
+minister, and Mrs. Carmichael showed her approval by immediately
+refilling his cup. Squire Walker whispered in his ear: "Fine woman, Mr.
+Errol, fine woman, that Mrs. Carmichael! Is she a widow, sir?" Mr. Errol
+did not like this whispering at table, especially on such a subject, but
+he replied affirmatively in as brief a way as possible, and went on with
+his repast. The Captain said that his mill was clean run out of gear
+with all these starboard and port watches and tacks to every point of
+the compass; and, when conversation lagged, Carruthers fairly nodded
+over his plate. Nevertheless, after supper, the occupants of the kitchen
+were called in and prayers were held, in which Mr. Errol offered
+petitions for the bereaved, the suffering, and the criminal, and
+committed the watchers at the post of danger and duty to the care of
+their Heavenly Father, to all of which Mr. Perrowne responded with a
+hearty Amen. Then, the parsons insisted on going home to their boarding
+houses, and Squire Walker mounted his horse for home. Anxiously, Mrs.
+Carruthers asked her husband if he anticipated danger where her father
+was, and Miss Carmichael asked the Captain the same question, without
+mentioning anyone, but having Coristine in view. Both endeavoured to
+reassure the minds of the half tearful women, after which they carried
+the doctor upstairs, and all went to bed. Fearing that the idiot boy
+might repeat his double attempt to fire the verandah, Mr. Perrowne had
+told Muggins to lie there and watch it, and there the faithful dog lay
+the whole night through, to the satisfaction of the inmates of
+Bridesdale, although happily nothing happened to test his quality as a
+watch dog.
+
+In the kitchen, Mr. Maguffin considered himself, next to Tryphena and
+Tryphosa, the representative of the family, as the deputy of Timotheus
+and the servant of the colonel. Ben Toner was his ally in war, but had
+no local standing, and the pensioner was simply an intruder. Yet, with
+cool effrontery, the corporal sat in the place of honour beside
+Tryphena, and regaled her with narratives of warfare, to which she had
+listened many times already. Ben and Serlizer were still full of one
+another's society. He had comforted her heart, if it needed any
+comforting, over the condition of her father, whom he and Timotheus had
+treated so cavalierly, and urged her not to go home any more, but to
+come and help the old woman. With a bad example before her at home, and
+very far from improving ones at the Select Encampment, Serlizer was yet,
+though not too cultivated, an honest steady girl, and was pleased to
+learn that Ben had really turned over a new leaf. She gave her
+sweetheart to understand that she had kept her own money, not being such
+a fool as to let the old man get his hands on it, and that it was safe
+in the bundle she had brought from the boarding-house, whereupon Ben
+said she had better put that bundle away in a safe place, for you
+couldn't tell what kind of characters might be about. Mr. Maguffin heard
+these words, and, taking them to himself, waxed indignant.
+
+"Ef yoh'se diloodin' ter this pressum comperny, Mistah Tonah, I wants
+ter say I takes the sponsability ob these young ladies on my shouldahs,
+sah, the shouldahs ob Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin, sah. Foh what remains
+ober ob the mascline paht ob it, I ain't no call foh ter spress mysef.
+It kin speak foh itsef."
+
+The corporal glowered, and smote the table with his fist.
+
+"Pardon my indignation, Miss Hill! This creature, with no military or
+other standing that I know of, calls me, a retired non-commissioned
+officer of the British army, it. In India, where I served, I called such
+things _chakar_ and _banda_, the very dust beneath my feet, Miss
+Tryphena; and it was as much as their life was worth to call me less
+than _sahib_. And, now that I have retired on a pension, with my medals
+and clasps, and am an officer of the law, a black man, a _kali_,
+presumes to _it_ me. I have known a _kali chakar_ killed, yes killed,
+for less. 'Corporal,' said the commanding officer to me, 'Corporal
+Rigby,' said he, many a time, 'order one of your men to call up that
+black dog of mine!' I assure you he did, Miss Hill."
+
+"I doan' take no erbuse ner nigger talk in this yere house, where I'm
+takin' Timothis' place, an' where my bawss is mighty high ercount, no,
+not fom consterbles nor no nuther white tresh. I didn't go foh ter call
+Mistah Rigby _it_, Miss Tryphosy, I swan ter grashus I didn't. I
+spressed the pinion as all the comperny as isn't ladies is it and so it
+is it."
+
+"Ef you go a ittin' of me Maguffin," struck in Ben, "I'm buzz sawed and
+shingled of I don't hit you back fer what you're ma guvin us." Then he
+opened up his mouth and laughed, and Serlizer laughed, and the Hill
+girls. Even Maguffin displayed his ivories, and remarked: "Mistah Tonah,
+foh a gennelman what ain't trabbled none, yoh'se mighty smaht."
+
+"Oh, Serlizer," said Ben, "we don't go traavellin' much; we ain't like
+the rollin' stones as don't gaythyer no mawss."
+
+"When the cunnel and me was ridin' ter Tronter, laast Sat'day,"
+continued Mr. Maguffin, "the cunnel he began egspashuatin' on the things
+he see. 'That there mawss' says he, 'at Hogg's Holler, minds me ob two
+coloured men was habin' a counterbessy on they bawsses. Says one of the
+gennelmen, "My bawss," (the cunnel says massa, but that's a name I doan'
+take to) "my bawss says he ain't like yoh bawss, trabellin' around all
+the time and gatherin' no mawss." "No," said the other coloured
+gennelman, "but my bawss gathers what yoh bawss want mighty bad, and
+that's a heap ob polish."'"
+
+"For polish," remarked Constable Rigby, turning to Tryphena, "for
+polish, Miss Hill, commend me to an English army officer."
+
+"My bawss," said Maguffin, "is an officer and a gennelman, and yoh
+cayn't beat him foh polish nohow."
+
+"There are no officers and no soldiers in America," replied the
+pensioner.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Rigby," interrupted Tryphosa, "I remember reading in my history
+that the American soldiers beat the British army many times in the
+Revolutionary War."
+
+"Flim-flam. Miss Tryphosa Hill, garbled reports! The British army never
+has been beaten, never can be beaten. I belonged to the British army,
+Miss Hill, I beg pardon, Miss Tryphosa, and know what I assert from
+experience."
+
+"Le'ss stop this jaw and have a game o' keerds," suggested Serlizer.
+
+Ben seconded his lady love's proposal, and thought a game of euchre
+would pass away the time. The constable said euchre was no game. There
+was only one game at cards, and that was whist. The man or woman who
+could not play whist was uneducated. Sarah Eliza professed a preference
+for High, Low, Jack, and the Game; any saphead could play that. She
+wasn't a saphead herself, but there might be some about. Maguffin
+regretted that in the Baktis pussuasion cards were not allowed; and the
+Hill girls had distinctly promised their mother to play no games of
+chance. As, however, none of the parties owned a pack of cards, nor knew
+where to find one, further controversy on the subject was useless.
+Tryphosa, looking intelligent, left the room, and speedily returned with
+a little cardboard box in her hand, labelled Countries, Cities,
+Mountains, and Rivers, with which Timotheus had once presented her. She
+said it was an improving game, and that all could play it. The shuffling
+and dealing, of course, presented an almost unavoidable chance element,
+but, apart from that, the game was a matter of science, of geographical
+knowledge. Now the Hill girls were educated, as Mr. Rigby said; and he,
+having travelled far as a soldier, was not deficient in geographical
+lore; but what about the other three?
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Miss Newcome, "at them there keerds, I guess we jist
+are sapheads. Ain't that so, Ben?"
+
+Ben said "I guaiss"; and Mr. Maguffin added: "joggrify, entermoligy,
+swinetax, and paucity was teached me, but I done clar forgit how they
+run, it's so long sence."
+
+It was, therefore, agreed to play a triangular game, the pair having the
+most books to be winners, and have the right to shuffle and deal for the
+following trial of skill. The contending pairs were the pensioner and
+Serlizer, Ben and Tryphosa, Maguffin and Tryphena, partners were allowed
+to help each other. While the British Islands, Turkey, Russia, and India
+were being played, Rigby and Miss Newcome were triumphant, but when it
+came to any other part of the world, especially to America, with the
+exception of Canada, where Serlizer scored her one victory, that pair
+was helpless. Maguffin acquired a book by his own unaided wisdom, that
+of the Southern United States; otherwise Tryphena inspired him. Ben had
+an unavailing contest with Miss Newcome over Canada, and saw her make up
+the book and slam it on the table with mingled feelings of pride in her,
+and mortification for his own want of success. But, as he said, Tryphosa
+was "a daisy and parlyzed the hull gang." Laurel after laurel she took
+from the brow of the travelled pensioner; she swooped down upon Tryphena
+and Maguffin, and robbed them of books wholesale, till Mr. Toner
+remarked that she had "quayte a libery"; in her hands the strapping
+Serlizer was helpless as a child. Magnanimously, she allowed Ben to
+shuffle and Serlizer to cut, then Ben again to deal.
+
+The second game was more exciting. Mr. Maguffin, naturally quick and
+possessing a memory cultivated by closely following the prelections of
+his coloured Baptist religious instructors, rapidly seized the hitherto
+unknown combinations, and astonished Tryphena with his bold independence
+of action. The constable's mind worked more conservatively, as became
+his rank and profession, and Serlizer was worse than useless to him,
+but, by chance, they had magnificent hands. He piled up India in quick
+marching time, as he hummed "The British Grenadiers," and accompanied it
+with a drum beat of his right foot on the floor. Calcutta, Bombay, and
+Madras, Indus, Ganges, and Godavery, Himalayas, Ghauts, and Vindhyas,
+lay captured at his right hand. Ben won Ireland from him, but he
+annexed England, Scotland, and Turkey. Once more Serlizer took Canada,
+and, owing to Mr. Toner's imperfect shuffling, laid complete books of
+Egypt, Australia, and Brazil upon the table. The stars fought against
+Tryphena and Tryphosa, and, in spite of Mr. Maguffin's gallant struggle
+against fate, the pensioner took the honours. Then Miss Newcome favoured
+him with a friendly kick under the table, accompanied by the elegant
+expression: "Bully for you, old man!" Next, the victorious damsel
+shuffled, allowed Tryphena to cut, and dealt out the cards for the third
+game. This time the deal was fair, and Mr. Rigby, glancing over his
+partner's capacious hand, beheld there no prospect of continued good
+fortune. Tryphena was on her mettle as a geographer, and Maguffin had
+stowed away in his all-embracing memory the names of half the globe's
+prominent features in city, river, and mountain. He wrested half India
+and all Russia from the pensioner, captured the whole of the United
+States, Canada, Mexico, and various states of South America. Almost the
+entire continent of Europe succumbed to Tryphena. Tryphosa fought
+doggedly, and encouraged Ben to continue the unequal contest, but the
+constable and Serlizer yielded up card after card with the muteness of
+despair. Mr. Maguffin was transported with joy, when his partner counted
+up their united books, amounting to more than those of both the other
+pairs put together.
+
+"I'se larned moah joggrify this heah bressid night nor I'd git in six
+mumfs er schoolin'. Hit makes me feel kind er smaht all ober, but not
+smaht enough foh ter ekal you, Miss Trypheeny, ner yoh pah. Ain't he
+jest a smaht man, foolin' me on Typernosties and Gasternickle, words I
+nevah knowed afoah, yah! yah! yah!"
+
+A new game was in progress, when a tap came to the inside door, and,
+immediately thereafter, a figure in a dressing gown appeared, partly
+thrust into the half-opened entrance. "Do you know Tryphena," said a
+pretty voice, "that it is very late, long past midnight, and you two
+girls have to be up by six o'clock at the latest! Take Sarah with you,
+and go to bed. Toner, you know Timotheus' room, and had better get some
+rest, which I am sure you need." As the four parties addressed somewhat
+sheepishly departed, Mrs. Carmichael turned to the remaining card
+players, who were standing, corporal Rigby at military attention, and
+said, with a somewhat tremulous accent: "There's a large fire out in the
+Lake Settlement direction, but I cannot bear to awaken Mr. Carruthers or
+the other two gentlemen, for he is very tired, and they are much older
+and require rest also. Perhaps, Maguffin, you will be kind enough to
+saddle a horse quietly, and find out where it is and see that my father
+and Mr. Coristine are safe."
+
+"I'se ony too pleased ter obey yoh commandemens, marm, wif percision an'
+dispatches," answered the coloured gentleman, hasting stablewards.
+
+"As constable, ma'am, if I may be allowed to speak," said Corporal
+Rigby, saluting for the second time, "as constable, it is my duty to be
+present at all township fires, for the purpose of keeping order and
+directing operations. I shall, therefore, with your permission, ma'am,
+respectfully take my leave."
+
+"It is a long way, constable, and you and I are not so young as we once
+were--"
+
+"Pardon an old soldier's interruption, ma'am, but you are as young as
+ever you were, the youngest married lady I know."
+
+"Thank you, corporal! What I meant to say was that you had better get
+Maguffin to saddle a horse for you, as the distance is great."
+
+"You are very good, ma'am, but I never served in the cavalry. I belonged
+to Her Majesty's Foot Guards, ma'am, and could not possibly insult the
+memory of my old comrades lying in Crimean graves, by putting the legs,
+that a merciful Providence furnished me to march with, across the back
+of a horse. Had I even served in the Artillery or in the Engineers, I
+might have been able to comply with your kind request. Being what I have
+been, I must proceed without delay to the seat of the conflagration. I
+have the honour, ma'am, of saluting you. Good night!"
+
+So Maguffin quietly escaped from the stables, and rode rapidly towards
+the fire, which shed its lurid light far over the clouded sky; and the
+pensioner trudged after him on foot, with his official baton under his
+arm, to make that conflagration acquainted with the law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     Picnic Supper--Sentries--Sylvanus' Silence--Coristine and
+     Bigglethorpe Hear Sounds--Invaders Repelled--Fire and
+     Explosions--Victims Walled In--Water Retreat in the Rain--The
+     Constable Secures Mark Davis--Walk Home in the Rain--Bangs and
+     Matilda--Into Dry Clothes--Miss Carmichael's Mistake--A Reef in Mr.
+     Bangs--Ben has no Clothes--Three Young Gentlemen in a Bad Way.
+
+
+Mr. Bangs had no fewer than eight men under his command, Bigglethorpe
+and the two Richards at the water, and Coristine and the veteran, the
+two Pilgrims and Rufus, up above. The latter tired themselves out, under
+the detective's direction, looking for an opening in the ground, but
+found none, nor anything that in the least resembled one. Some of the
+searchers wondered why the chimney in Rawdon's house was so
+unnecessarily large and strong, but no examination about its base
+revealed any connection between it and an underground passage. The
+detective, in conference with Mr. Terry and the lawyer, decided on four
+sentries, namely one each at the house and the lake, as already set, one
+at the road looking towards the entrance, and the other half way between
+the lake and the house, to keep up the connection. Some bread and meat
+and a pot of tea, with dishes, were sent down to the three men on the
+shore by the hands of Timotheus, but they rejected the cold meat, having
+already made a fire, and broiled the bass caught by Mr. Bigglethorpe.
+They had a very jolly time, telling fish stories, till about eight
+o'clock, and the fisherman of Beaver River was in wonderful spirits over
+the discovery of a new fishing ground. If those lakes had only contained
+brook trout he would move his store to the Lakes Settlement; as it was,
+he thought of setting up a branch establishment, and getting a partner
+to occupy the two places of business alternately with him. The Richards
+boys were pleased to think that their new acquaintance was likely to be
+a permanent one, and made Mr. Bigglethorpe many sincere offers of
+assistance in his fishing, and subordinate commercial, ventures. At
+eight Mr. Bangs came down the hill, and posted one of the Richards as
+sentry, while the fisherman indulged in his evening smoke, preparatory
+to turning in under the skiff with his friend Bill. "I went that fire
+put out, gentlemen," said the detective, "net now, but say efter ten
+o'clock, as it might help the enemy to spy us out," to which Bill
+Richards replied: "All right, cap'n; she'll be dead black afore ten."
+Rufus was placed on the hill side to communicate between the distant
+posts; Timotheus overlooked the encampment; and Sylvanus was given the
+station on the road. Mr. Bangs walked about nervously, and the lawyer
+and Mr. Terry, bringing some clean coverlets out of the boarding-house,
+spread them on the chip-covered ground, and lay down to smoke their
+pipes and talk of many things. "Oi tuk to yeez, sorr," said the veteran
+with warmth, "soon as Oi mit ye in the smokin' carr, and to think what a
+dale av loife we've seen since, an' here's you an' me, savin' yer
+prisince, as thick as thaves."
+
+Nothing of any moment occurred till within a quarter of ten, when
+Sylvanus saw two figures suddenly start up close by him on the right. At
+first, he thought of challenging them, but seeing one was a woman, and
+remembering the going over the Squire gave him about capturing Tryphosa,
+he resolved to await their arrival. Both figures greeted him joyfully by
+his name, for it was his two proteges, the crazy woman and her son, who
+had escaped the constable and lain concealed until darkness veiled their
+movements. "Has Steevy woke up yet?" she asked the sentinel, quietly.
+
+"Not as I know on," responded the elder Pilgrim.
+
+"Then we will slip quietly into the house, and get some supper for
+Monty, and go to bed. It's tiresome walking about all day," she
+continued.
+
+"Don't you two go fer to make no noise, 'cos they's sentries out as
+might charlinge yer with their guns," remarked the compassionate guard.
+
+"No," she whispered back; "we will be still as little mice, won't we,
+Monty? Good night, Sylvanus!" The boy added, "Good night, Sylvy!" and
+the sentinel returned the salutation, and muttered to himself: "Pore
+souls, the sight on 'em breaks me all up."
+
+Sylvanus should have reported these arrivals, when the detective came
+to relieve him, and put Mr. Terry in his place, but he did not. He had
+forgotten all about them, and was wondering if that "kicked-out-of
+service old ramrod, the corpular, was foolin' round about Trypheeny."
+Coristine relieved Timotheus; Bill Richards, Rufus; and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe, Harry Richards. The relieved men went to sleep on the
+quilts and under the skiff. Mr. Bangs came up every quarter of an hour
+to the lawyer, and asked if he had heard a noise about the house, to
+which the sentinel replied in the affirmative every time; whereupon the
+detective would take a lamp and search the building from top to bottom
+without any result. Once, after such a noise, that sounded like some
+heavy article being dragged along, Coristine thought he heard the words:
+"Keep quiet, Tilly," and, "Take it hoff," but he was not sure. The night
+was cloudy and dark, and the mosquitoes' buzzing sometimes had a human
+sound, while the snoring of the Pilgrims, and the restless moving of the
+horses, brought confusion to the ear, which sought to verify suspected
+articulations. Had he known that Matilda Nagle was about the house, he
+would not have let Bangs rest until the mystery was solved. He did not
+know; and, being very tired and sleepy, was inclined to distrust the
+evidence of his senses and lay it to the charge of imagination.
+
+Down by the water's edge Mr. Bigglethorpe sat on a stone in front of the
+carved out block, thinking of the best fly for bass, and of a great
+fishing party to the lakes that should include Mr. Bulky. Standing up to
+stretch his legs and facing the block of limestone, he thought he saw a
+narrow line of light along the left perpendicular incision. Moving over,
+he saw the same perpendicular line on the right. Just then the clouds
+drifted off the moon, and he convinced himself that the light lines were
+reflections from the sheen that glimmered over the lake. He also thought
+he heard a whining noise, such as a sick person or a child might make,
+and then a rough voice saying: "Stow that now!" but Richards, like the
+two Pilgrims above, was snoring, and Harry had a slight cold in his
+head. "What a stoopid, superstitious being I should become," said the
+fisherman to himself, "if I were out here long all alone." But, hark!
+the sound of paddles softly dipping came from the left, and at once the
+sentry lay down behind the upturned skiff, and, gun in hand, listened.
+He poked Richards with his foot, and, as he awoke, enjoined silence.
+Richards crawled out, and quietly replaced the boat in its original
+position. There were now two on guard instead of one. The boat entered
+the lake. It was the scow, Richards' scow, and Harry was indignant.
+There were five men in it, and they were talking in a low tone.
+
+"Quite sure them blarsted Squire folks has all gone home, Pete?"
+
+"Sartin, I seen 'em, the hull gang's scattered and skee-daddled, parsons
+an' all."
+
+"Where's the blarsted light, then?"
+
+"Seems to me I kin see long, thin streaks. O Lawr, boys, Rodden must ha'
+been hard put, when he drapped the block into the hole. It's shet up
+tight. Hev ye got the chisel and mallet?"
+
+"They're all right."
+
+"Then less git ashore and drap the block out, though it's an orful pity
+to lose it in the drink."
+
+"Carn't we git the blarsted thing back to its place agin?"
+
+"Onpossible; wild horses couldn't do it."
+
+Harry whispered to Bigglethorpe: "What'll we do?" and the fisherman
+answered: "Our duty is to fire, but we weren't told to kill anybody.
+Don't you fire till I reload."
+
+Then Bigglethorpe called out: "Surrender in the Queen's name," and fired
+above the scow. Two or three pistol shots rattled over the sentries'
+heads, and flattened themselves on the rock behind. "All ready!" said
+the storekeeper, and Harry let fly his duck shot into the middle of the
+crowd, who paddled vigorously from the shore. Bill Richards, having
+alarmed the upper sentries by the discharge of his gun, came running
+down, with the Pilgrims and Rufus, led by the detective, not far behind
+him. "Shove out the skiff," called Bigglethorpe. The Richards shoved it
+off, and Bill rowed, when the two sentries got on board. "Go it, Bill,
+after the old tub," cried Harry; "we'll soon catch up." The Rawdon gang
+worked hard to get to the narrows, but found it hopeless. "Give it to
+them," shouted Bangs from the shore; and in response, the guns rang out
+again, while Bill strained every muscle to the utmost. The punt
+grounded on the shore above the narrows, and four of the men jumped out
+into the water and fled up the bank, firing their pistols as they
+retired. The punt was captured, and brought back to the guarded beach,
+with a wounded man and some tools in the bottom. Only by swimming, or by
+a long detour of very many miles, could the four fugitives find their
+way back to the shore they had sought in vain.
+
+The wounded man was taken out of the punt and laid on the beach. "Is he
+dead?" asked Bigglethorpe. "No," answered the detective, feeling the
+head of the victim, and inspecting him by the aid of matches struck by
+the smoker Sylvanus; "it's a good thing for him thet yore two gens were
+louded with deck shot end thet they sketter sow, else he'd a been a dead
+men. He's got a few pellets in the beck of his head, jest eneugh to sten
+the scoundrel for a few minutes. Ah, he's hed a creck owver the top of
+his head with a cleb, the colonel's werk, very likely."
+
+"Do you want him kept?" enquired Mr. Bigglethorpe, as sentry.
+
+"Oh, dear me, yes; he's Rawdon's chief men. I wouldn't lose him fer a
+hendred dollars. Rufus, do you mind blowing his brains out if he
+attempts to escaype?"
+
+The good-natured Rufus said he didn't mind watching the prisoner, but he
+imagined clubbing would be kinder than blowing out his brains.
+
+"All right!" answered the detective, "all right, so long as you keep him
+safely."
+
+So Mr. Bangs went back to the house, followed by Sylvanus, Timotheus and
+Bill Richards, the last of whom resumed his post, namely the trunk on
+which Pierre Lajeunesse had rested.
+
+When the encampment was reached, Mr. Bangs asked Coristine if he had
+been smoking on guard or lighting matches, but he had not. He asked Mr.
+Terry the same question, which the old soldier almost took as an insult.
+"An' is it to me ye come, axin' av Oi shmoke on guarrd, an' shpind my
+toime loightin' matches loike a choild? Oi've sane sarvice, sorr, and
+nobody knows betther fwhat his juty is."
+
+"I sincerely beg your pardon, Mr. Terry. Please excuse my enxiety; I
+smell fire."
+
+"Don't mintion it, sorr, betune us. Faix, an' it's foire I shmill an'
+moighty sthrong, too."
+
+The detective came back to the front of the house, and saw the fire that
+had broken forth in a moment, and was flaming in every room of basement
+and upper storey, a fire too rapidly advanced to be got under, even had
+the means been at hand.
+
+"Quick, Sylvanus, Timotheus, get out the horses and any other live
+stock," he cried; but the lawyer had been before him, and the two
+Pilgrims and he were already leading the frightened animals past the
+house and on to the road, where they turned their heads outward and
+drove them along. Forgetting their watch, Mr. Terry and Bangs himself
+helped, until every living creature, as they thought, was safely away on
+the road to the Lake Settlement. Then, two figures, that the guilty
+Sylvanus knew, came out of the door of the boarding house, and the
+flames leaped out after them. The woman came up to Coristine, and said:
+"I know you; you helped to carry poor Steevy, who is not awake yet. He
+said it was cold down there, so Monty and I have made a fire to keep him
+warm." The lawyer thought she meant that her dead brother was cold. As
+to the fire, when he saw Monty, it did not astonish him; but how came
+they both there through the guard?
+
+The frame buildings, their light clapboards dried by the summer sun,
+burned furiously, and the flames roared in the rising wind. The sheds
+and stables caught; the fire ran over the ground, in spite of the dew,
+catching in shrubs and fallen timber, and even climbing up living trees.
+Back the beholders were driven, as far as Bill Richards' post, by the
+terrible glare and heat of the conflagration. Leaving Bigglethorpe on
+sentry, and Rufus over the prisoner, Harry came running up to learn what
+was the matter, and to tell of noises like human voices and hammer blows
+behind the slab of rock. Then, as the fire in the house burned down to
+the ground, there was an explosion that seemed to shake the earth, and a
+column of fire sprang up the standing chimney, side by side with another
+less lofty and more diffused from the right of the building. Report
+after report followed, and the whole party, half terror-stricken,
+descended to the beach. Rufus, with Bigglethorpe's help, had
+considerately transferred his prisoner to the punt, and guarded him
+there. The store-keeper, taking chisel and mallet in hand, was striking
+off chip after chip of rock, in answer to muffled cries from within; and
+now the big rock had moved half an inch. Still the brave man worked away
+amid the continued explosions, and in spite of the advancing fire. The
+block continued to slide, and Bigglethorpe cried: "Take the boats out of
+the way, and get back from me, or you will all be crushed in a minute."
+The punt was out of danger, but Bill Richards, with a single movement,
+shoved off the skiff, and, kneeling on her stern, sent her far out into
+the lake. Then he rowed the boat rapidly back into a place of safety.
+The slab was still sliding, and had cleared the rock out of which it had
+been cut by an inch. A human hand was thrust out, a dumpy, beringed
+hand, bleeding with the effort; a most audible voice cried "For God's
+sake, 'urry!" and then there came a perfect Babel of explosions, and the
+gallant deliverer was forcibly drawn out of a fierce river of liquid
+fire that streamed down into the lake, and burned even out on the water.
+The fisherman was badly burnt, hair, beard and eyelashes almost singed
+off; but still he thought of rescue. "Fire at that miserable little chip
+that holds it," he cried; "fire, since you can't hit it otherwise. Oh,
+for an asbestos suit, and I would have styed." They fired pistol and gun
+with no effect, till the lawyer, out in the skiff with Bill, got his
+rifle sighted to the point in the blue flame, where he thought the
+preventing ridge ought to be. He fired at close range, the ball hit the
+rock projection, and at once the great block slid away into the lake,
+with a splash that damped the flames with a column of spray, and
+revealed an awful corridor of fire. No living creature was there, but
+the detective, dipping his feet in the lake, took a boat hook out of the
+returning skiff, and then, standing in the flames, hauled out two
+charred masses, and extinguished them in the shallow water by the shore.
+
+Mr. Terry came running down and crying: "Out on the wather wid yeez,
+ivery mother's son av yeez; the foire's spreadin' an' the threes is
+fallin'; fer yer loife, min." Mr. Bangs, still in command, asked:--
+
+"How many will the skiff howld, Bill?"
+
+"Seven, anyway," replied the Richards of that name.
+
+"Mr. Coristine and Mr. Terry take commend and choose crew."
+
+"Come, Matilda and Monty," said the lawyer.
+
+"Come on, Sylvanus, Timotheus, Rufus," cried Mr. Terry.
+
+"I'll row," said the Irishman.
+
+"And me, too," added Sylvanus.
+
+"Look after my prisoner, Mr. Bangs," cried Rufus; and the skiff went out
+to sea.
+
+Bill transferred himself to the scow, with his brother Harry and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe. The detective lifted the two charred masses to the
+opposite side of the middle thwart from that against which the prisoner
+lay. Then, Bill and Bigglethorpe having taken the bow, he and Harry took
+the stern, and the scow followed the skiff. For a time the two boats
+stood stock still, fascinated by the awful scene. The explosions were
+over, but the forest was blazing fiercely, and up towards the
+smouldering buildings, but underground, blazed a vault of blue fire that
+reached up to the standing brick chimney of Rawdon's house. Hundreds of
+animals were in the water around them, squirrels and snakes and
+muskrats, even mice, swimming for dear life. Then, pitter, patter, came
+the rain, hissing on the flames. It fell more heavily; and the lawyer,
+having doffed his coat to row, threw it over the woman's shoulders,
+while Mr. Terry put that of Sylvanus about the boy. "Lead on, Mr.
+Coristine," cried the detective; and the skiff shot through the narrows,
+with the punt hard after it. The rain fell in torrents and drenched the
+occupants of both vessels; but those whose faces were towards the stern
+could see the bush-fire still raging. "The rain'll stop it spreadin',"
+Bill called out cheerfully, and the lawyer rejoiced, because the fire
+was on Miss Du Plessis' land. Long was the journey, tired were the
+rowers and paddlers, and draggled was the crew, or rather draggled were
+the crews, that reached the Richards' homestead. The prisoner was awake
+by this time, had been so all along since he was deposited in the punt,
+and a paddle had splashed his face. When walked ashore, he had made a
+dash for liberty, but Mr. Bangs had brought him up short. "Yore in too
+great a herry, Merk Devis," he had said; "we went you, my men, and we'll
+hev you, dead or alive." So Mark Davis, since that was the name of
+Wilkinson's dissipated farmer, had to fall into line and march to the
+Richards' place. There the party found Maguffin and the constable.
+
+The colonel's servant had been much closer to the conflagration, but,
+having seen no sign of any person there, nothing but a number of
+startled horses, and the fire having taken possession of the sides of
+the masked road, he had retired to the nearest house. He at once
+enquired after the safety of Mr. Terry and the lawyer, and, finding that
+they and all the rest of the party were safe, rode back at his utmost
+speed to report. The constable, rejoiced at seeing his prisoners again,
+was about to rearrest them, when Coristine and Sylvanus interposed, the
+latter threatening to thrash the pipe-clay out of the pensioner's "old
+putrified jints" if he touched the boy. The Crew meant petrified, but
+the insult was no less offensive to the corporal on account of the
+mistake. As a private individual in the Squire's kitchen, Mr. Rigby was
+disposed to peace and unwilling to engage in a contest with big-boned
+Sylvanus, but, as a constable on duty, he was prepared to face any
+number of law-breakers and to fight them to the death. Drawing his
+baton, he advanced, and only the commands of his legal superior, Mr.
+Bangs, backed by the expostulations of the pseudo sergeant-major Terry,
+induced him to refrain from recapturing his former prisoners, and from
+adding to them the profane Pilgrim who had been guilty of interfering
+with an officer in the discharge of his duty. Finally he was mollified
+by being put in possession of a really great criminal, Mark Davis, whom
+he at once searched and deprived of various articles, including a
+revolver, all the chambers of which were fortunately empty. Then,
+producing his own revolver, the corporal gave it to his prisoner to
+smell, remarking that, if he tried any nonsense, he would have a taste
+of it that he would remember. Mrs. Richards was busy reducing the
+inflammation of Mr. Bigglethorpe's burns. She insisted that he should go
+no farther that night, and the whole Richards family, which had greatly
+taken to the fisherman, combined to hold him an honoured prisoner. Mr.
+Bigglethorpe consented to remain, and the Bridesdale contingent bade him
+and his hosts good night. The constable went first with his prisoner,
+followed by Matilda Nagle, between the lawyer and the detective. Monty
+came next, clinging to Sylvanus and Mr. Terry, while Timotheus and Rufus
+brought up the rear. Mrs. Richards had furnished the woman and her boy
+with two shiny waterproofs, called by the young Richards gum coats, so
+that Coristine and Sylvanus got back their contributions to the wardrobe
+of the insane, but, save for the look of the thing, they would have been
+better without them, since they only added a clammy burden to thoroughly
+water-soaked bodies.
+
+Still the rain fell in torrents. It trickled in many rills off the
+penthouses of the pedestrians' headgear; from the lapels of coats and
+from waistcoats it streamed down, concentrating itself upon soggy knees.
+Broad sheets, like the flow of a water-cart, radiated from coat tails of
+every description; and rivers descending trouser-legs, turned boots and
+shoes into lakes, which sodden stockinged feet pumped out in returning
+fountains. Happily there was no necessity for using gun or pistol, since
+these weapons shared in the general pervading moisture. Yet the corporal
+marched erect, with his left hand on his prisoner's shoulder. Poor
+Matilda was cheerful, though shivering, and, turning round to her boy,
+said; "It is a good thing, Monty, that we lit the fire when we did, for
+it would be very hard to light one now;" to which the lad answered, "I
+hain't a goin' to light no more fires no more." Sylvanus and the veteran
+had been telling him what a bad thing it was to set houses on fire, and
+the hypnotized boy, freed apparently from the mesmeric bond by the death
+of his unnatural father, responded to the counsels of his new friends.
+The influence lasted longer with Matilda, for as, in spite of the
+absorbing rain, her companions were able to make a study of her talk,
+they observed that it was controlled by one or two overmastering ideas,
+which were evidently the imposition of a superior will. In his
+dog-Latin, which he presumed the poor woman could not understand, Mr.
+Bangs said to the lawyer: "_Oportet dicere ad Doctorem dehypnotizere
+illem feminem._" To this elegant sentence Mr. Coristine briefly
+answered, "_Etiam_," but soon afterwards he asked: "Where did you pick
+up your Latin, Mr. Bangs."
+
+"I wes at school, you know where, with pore Nesh; _mulier nescit
+nomen_. We both took to Letin, because we could talk without being
+understood by the common crowd. You find velgar criminals thet know some
+French, German, Spenish or Portegese, bet none thet know Letin. In
+dealing with higher class criminals we used our own gibberish or
+artificial shibboleth."
+
+"A sort of Volapuk?"
+
+"Exectly; pore Nesh was ohfelly clever et it."
+
+"I am going to kill Mr. Nash as soon as I can find him," interrupted the
+woman, in an amiable tone of voice, as if she proposed to discharge some
+pleasant duty.
+
+The men shuddered, and Mr. Bangs said: "You know, my dear Matilda, what
+the Bible says, Thou shelt not kill. You surely would not kemmit the sin
+of merder?"
+
+"I am not to mind what the Bible says, or what Steevy says, or what
+clergymen or any other people say. I am only to do what he says, and I
+must."
+
+"Did he tell you to light thet fire?"
+
+"Not that fire, but the other said it was cold down there."
+
+"Why did he not come up?"
+
+"Because I covered the trap over with the big stones, and Monty helped
+me."
+
+"Surely he didn't tell you to dreg the stones on to the trep?"
+
+"Yes, he did, but not then. It was before, when Flower wanted to get up,
+and crawl away and tell, because he thought he was going to die."
+
+"Was Flower down there with him?"
+
+"Yes; that's why Monty and I put the big stones on the trap."
+
+"Flower was hert, wesn't he, shot in the beck, I think?"
+
+"Yes; he crawled in all the way on his hands and knees, and I helped his
+wife to tie him up, till the doctor came, the morning that I found
+Steevy."
+
+"How do you know thet Stephen wes esleep?"
+
+"He told me."
+
+"_Deminus Coristinus, mulier non est responsibilis pro suis ectionibus.
+Facit et credit omnia qua mendet enimel mertuus._"
+
+"_Eheu domine!_" replied the lawyer; "_sic est vita dolorosa!_"
+
+Bridesdale was all lit up, and the front door was open to receive the
+soaked wayfarers, but no one could be induced to enter it. Mr. Terry
+asked Honoria to leave his dry suit and a pair of shoes at the kitchen,
+when he would take them to the carriage house, and change there. The
+lawyer and the detective had no dry suit, so Mrs. Carruthers brought
+them some of her husband's clothes, and two umbrellas, under which they
+carried their bundles, wrapped in bath towels, to the place the veteran
+had chosen. While the three drawing-room guests stripped, rubbed
+themselves down with the grateful towels, and put on their dry attire,
+the kitchen filled up with the humid and steaming Pilgrims, Rufus, the
+idiot boy, and his mother. Constable Rigby lodged his prisoner on some
+straw in an empty stall in the stable, and, producing a pair of
+handcuffs, which he had left there, secured him, fastening also a stall
+chain round one of his legs with a padlock. The constable was severe,
+but he had lost two prisoners the previous day, had been abused by
+Sylvanus Pilgrim, and was very wet and tired. To the credit of Sylvanus
+be it said, that he came out with Ben Toner's clothes, and lent them to
+his elderly rival, and actually carried the corporal's wet garments into
+the kitchens, there to hang with a large assortment of others, drying
+before the two stoves, in full blast for the purpose. The gum coats had
+fairly protected the clothes of Matilda and Monty, but their feet needed
+reclothing, and it took some time to dry their heads. Maguffin had taken
+off his wet things, and was asleep in the loft bed, keeping one ear open
+for the safekeeping of the colonel's horses. Tryphena and Tryphosa were
+both up; and into their hands Rufus consigned the dripping habiliments
+of their two admirers as well as his own, his fraternal relation
+allowing him to appear before the ladies of the kitchen in a long white
+garment with frills that had never been constructed for a man. "Guess it
+ain't the last time you'll have to dry them clothes, gals," said the
+sportive Rufus, skipping along in his frilled surplice, when Tryphena
+chased him out of the apartment with a sounding smack between the
+shoulders. Tryphena hesitated to send the mad woman into the room in
+which Serlizer was sleeping, not knowing the nature of their relations
+at the Select Encampment. Matilda, however, evidenced no intention of
+retiring, or feeling of drowsiness. She talked, with the brightness and
+cheerfulness of other days, and in a gentle, pleasant voice, but on
+strange wild themes that terrified the two young women. Monty looked at
+the fire and then at Tryphosa, saying: "I hain't a goin' to light no
+more fires no more." "Why?" asked Tryphosa, and the answer came, which
+revealed a genuine working of the intellect: "'Cos Sylvy says hit's
+wicked." His mother turned, and said: "Monty, you must not mind what
+Sylvanus says or anybody else; you must mind what he says."
+
+The boy looked his mother full in the face, and replied in a very
+decided tone, "Hi'm blowed hif I do!"
+
+In the forepart of the house, only the ladies were up. The doctor and
+the colonel, the captain and the Squire, slept the sleep of tired men
+with good consciences, and the wounded dominie was enjoying a beautiful
+succession of rose-coloured dreams, culminating in a service, at which a
+tall soldierly man in appropriate costume gave away into his hand that
+of a very elegant and accomplished lady, saying, as he did so, "Can I do
+less for the heroic saver of her uncle's life?" Mr. Terry's appearance,
+on entering to salute his daughter, exacted no remark. The lawyer looked
+somewhat bucolic, but highly respectable. But poor little Mr. Bangs was
+buried in clothing, and tripped on his overflowing trowser legs, as he
+vainly strove to put his right hand outside of its coatsleeve, for the
+purpose of shaking hands with the company. Mrs. Carmichael took pity on
+him, and turned back his cuffs, and, his hands being thus of use to him,
+he employed them to do the same with the skirts of his trousers. The
+usually polite veteran took Coristine to a corner of the room, and,
+between violent coughs of suppressed laughter, said: "Och, Misther
+Coristine, it's the dumb aguey I'll be havin' iv his clawthes is not
+droied soon. It's Bangs by name he is and bangs by natur'. Shure, this
+bangs Banagher, an' Banagher bangs the world." The young ladies had not
+yet entered the apartment, and the three night-watchers were busy
+relating to the three matrons the terrible events of the night. The
+lawyer was sitting with his back to the door, conversing with Mrs.
+Carruthers, when Miss Carmichael came tripping in, followed by Miss Du
+Plessis and Miss Halbert. The lawyer's hair was brown, and so was her
+uncle's. The coat was the Squire's, and the white collar above it. So
+she slipped softly up to the back of the chair, took the brown head
+between her hands, and administered a salute on the forehead, with the
+words: "Why, Uncle John!--," then suddenly turned and fled, amid the
+laughter of the veteran and his daughter, and the amused blushes and
+smiles of her mother. The other young ladies came forward and joined in
+the conversation, but Miss Carmichael did not show her face until the
+family was summoned for prayers. The colonel came down in his usual
+urbane smiling way, saying that he had taken the liberty of looking in
+upon his dear friend and prisoner, and was rejoiced to find that he had
+spent a good night. The captain could be heard descending the staircase,
+and telling somebody that he was becalmed again with a spell of foul
+weather. The somebody was the Squire, who insisted that thieves had been
+through his wardrobe, and then eagerly asked for news from the
+encampment. All were shocked beyond measure when they heard of the
+terrible tragedy. "I wished the man no good," said the Squire, with a
+regretful expression on his manly face, "but, if he had been ten times
+the deep dyed villain he was, I couldn't have dreamt of such an awful
+fate for him." The captain remarked that in the midst of life we are in
+death, that the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that where a man
+makes his bed he must lie down, all of which he considered to be good
+Scripture and appropriate to the occasion. "Yoah fohce met with no moah
+casualties, I hope, Captain Bangs? I do not see our fishing friend, Mr.
+Bigglethorpe; is he safe, suh?" These questions led to an account of the
+fisherman's heroic attempt to release the self-imprisoned occupants of
+the underground passage, of his wounds, and of the subsequent exploits
+of the lawyer and the detective. Coristine escaped upstairs to put
+himself in shape for breakfast, and to visit his wounded friend. He
+found that gentleman progressing very favourably, and perfectly
+satisfied with his accommodation.
+
+After morning prayers, conducted by the Squire with unusual solemnity,
+the lawyer asked Miss Carmichael if she alone would not shake hands with
+him, making no allusion to any previous encounter. She complied, with a
+blush, and seemed pleased to infer that the Captain, above all, had not
+heard of her mistake. The two had no time for explanations, however, as,
+at the moment, Messrs. Errol and Perrowne, who had been told there was a
+fire out towards the Lake Settlement, came in to learn about it, and
+were compelled to sit down and add something substantial to their early
+cup of coffee. They reported the rain almost over, and the fire, so far
+as they could judge from the distance, the next thing to extinguished.
+Once more the trays were in requisition for the invalids, and again the
+colonel and Mr. Perrowne acted as aids to Miss Du Plessis and Miss
+Halbert. Just as soon as he could draw her attention away from the
+minister, Coristine remarked to Miss Carmichael: "I have the worst luck
+of any man; I never get sick or wounded or any other trouble that needs
+nursing." The young lady said in a peremptory manner, "Show me your
+hands;" and the lawyer had to exhibit two not very presentable paws. She
+turned them palms up, and shuddered at the scorched, blistered and
+scratched appearance of them. "Where are Mr. Errol's gloves I put on
+you?"
+
+"In the pocket of my wet coat in the kitchen."
+
+"Why did you dare to take them off when I put them on?"
+
+"Because I was like the cat in the proverb, not that I was after mice
+you know, but I couldn't fire in gloves."
+
+"Well, your firing is done now, and I shall expect you to come to me in
+the workroom, immediately after breakfast, to have these gloves put on
+again. Do you hear me, sir?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what else? Do you mean to obey?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Miss Carmichael, of course, always, with the greatest joy in
+the world."
+
+"Nobody asked you, sir, to obey always."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Carmichael, I'm afraid I'm a little confused."
+
+"Then I hope you will not put me to confusion, as you did this morning."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," said the mendacious lawyer, "but it was the coat
+and collar, you know." Then most illogically, he added, "I'd like to
+wear this coat and this collar all the time."
+
+"No, you would not; they are not at all becoming to you. Oh, do look at
+poor Mr. Bangs!"
+
+The detective's sleeves were turned back, thanks to Mrs. Carmichael,
+but, as he sat at breakfast, the voluminous coat sagged over his
+shoulder, and down came the eclipsing sleeve over his coffee cup. When
+he righted matters with his left hand, the coat slewed round to the
+other side, knocked his fork out of his hand, and fell with violence on
+his omelet. The Captain looked at him, and bawled: "I say, mate, you've
+got to have a reef took in your back topsel. You don't mind a bit of
+reef tackle in the back of your coat, do you, John?" The Squire did not
+object; so Miss Carmichael was despatched to the sewing room for two
+large pins, and she and the Captain between them pinched up the back of
+the coat longitudinally to the proper distance, and pinned the detective
+up a little more than was necessary.
+
+"Whey," asked he of his nautical ally, "em I consistent es a cherecter
+in bowth phases of my berrowed cowt?"
+
+"I know," chuckled the Captain; "'cause then you had too much slack on
+your pins, and now you've got too much pins in your slack, haw! haw!"
+
+"Try egain."
+
+Coristine ventured, "Because then your hands were in your cuffies, but
+now your coffee's in your hand." This was hooted down as perfectly
+inadmissible, Miss Carmichael asking him how he dared to make such an
+exhibition of himself. Mr. Errol was wrestling with something like
+Toulouse and Toulon, but could not conquer it. Then the detective said:
+"If the ledies will be kind eneugh not to listen, I should enswer,
+Before I wes loose in my hebits, end now I em tight."
+
+Of course the Captain applauded, but the lawyer's reprover remarked to
+him that she did not think that last at all a nice word. He agreed with
+her that it was abominable, that no language was strong enough to
+reprobate it, and then they left the table.
+
+There was trouble in the kitchen. Timotheus and Maguffin had each a
+Sunday suit of clothes, which they had donned. Sylvanus and Rufus having
+special claims on Tryphena, she had put their wet garments in a
+favourable place, and, being quite dry, handed them in to her befrilled
+brother, early in the morning, through a half open doorway. The
+constable, attired in the garb presented to him by Sylvanus, having
+fastened his prisoner securely with a second stall chain, entered the
+house, and politely but stiffly wished the cook and housemaid "Good
+morning." Breakfast was ready, and then the trouble began. Ben had no
+clothes, and the boys enjoyed the joke. The company was again a large
+one, for Serlizer and Matilda Nagle were added to the feminine part of
+it, and the constable and the boy brought its male members up to six,
+exclusive of the prostrate Ben. Mr. Terry had temporarily deserted the
+kitchen. Mr. Toner's voice could be heard three doors off calling for
+Sylvanus, Timotheus, Rufus, Mr. Rigby and Mr. Maguffin. These people
+were all smilingly deaf, enjoying their hot breakfast. Then, in despair,
+he called Serlizer.
+
+"What's the racket, Ben?"
+
+"My close is sto-ul, Serlizer."
+
+"They's some duds hangin' up here and in the back kitchen to dry. Praps
+yourn's there."
+
+"No, Serlizer, myuns never got wayt. You don't think I was sech a blame
+fooul as to go out in that there raiun do you?"
+
+"Didn't know but what yer might."
+
+"Whey's them close, anyway?"
+
+"I don't know nuthun 'bout yer clothes. Most men as ain't marrd looks
+after they own clothes."
+
+"Is that you Ben?" asked the more refined voice of Tryphena, in a tone
+of surprise.
+
+"Yaas, Trypheeny, that's jest who it is. Saay, ken you tayl me what's
+come o' my close?"
+
+"They are here, Ben, close to the table;" whereupon all the company
+glanced at Mr. Rigby, and choked.
+
+"Cayn't you take 'em off what they're on, and saynd one of the boys in
+with 'em, Trypheeny?"
+
+The cook coloured up, and laughter could no longer be restrained. The
+constable laughed, and the contagion spread to Matilda and her boy.
+
+"Dod rot it?" cried Mr. Toner, indignantly; "what are you fools and
+eejuts a screechin' and yellin' at? Gimme my close, or, s'haylp me,
+I'll come right out and bust some low down loafer's thinkin' mill."
+
+"Now, be quiet, Ben," answered Tryphena, "and I will send Rufus in with
+your breakfast. You shall have your clothes when they are ready."
+
+So, Rufus took in a plentiful breakfast to his friend Toner, who sat up
+in the big bed to enjoy it. "I'm powerful sorry for you, Ben," remarked
+the Baby. "You don't think Serlizer could ha' come in and taken your
+clothes out into the rain, do you?"
+
+"Hev they been out in the rain, Rufus?"
+
+"Why yes, didn't you know that much? If it hadn't been for the
+constable, they might ha' been out there yet. I'd say thank ye to him if
+I was you, Ben."
+
+"Consterble Rigby!" shouted Toner.
+
+"At your service, sir," replied the pensioner.
+
+"I'm awful obligated to you, consterble, fer bringin' in my wayt close."
+
+"Do not speak of it, sir," replied Mr. Rigby, with a large piece of
+toast apparently in his mouth; "I am proud to do you a service, sir."
+
+Ben was a big man, and somewhat erratic in his ways, so the constable
+retired, and came back in his own garb, which he had carried out with
+him. "I think, Miss Hill," he said, "that Mr. Toner's clothes are now
+dry enough for him to wear them with safety. What do you think, Miss
+Newcome?"
+
+"Guess we kin take them off now," answered Serlizer.
+
+"Serlizer," growled Ben, "you're an old cat, a desprit spiteful
+chessacat, to go skylarkin' on yer own feller as never did yer no harm.
+Gerlong with yer!"
+
+Rufus came in for the breakfast things, and deposited Ben's clothes on
+the bed. "It wasn't Serlizer, Ben, sure; If I was you I'd try the
+nigger. Them darkies are always up to tricks."
+
+Mr. Toner got into his clothes, resolved to have it out with somebody,
+even if Rufus himself should prove to be the traitor. When, a few
+minutes later, Mr. Terry, smoking his morning pipe, foregathered with
+Ben in the stable yard, and asked him what he was after now, the answer
+he gave was: "Lookin' araound fer somebody to whayul!" to which the
+veteran replied: "Bin, my lad, it's aisy talkin'."
+
+When the men were out of the kitchen, Mrs. Carruthers and her
+sister-in-law came in to see the mad woman and her boy. The boy they
+knew already, and had always been kind to, giving him toys and other
+little presents, as well as occasional food and shelter. They were much
+taken with the mother's quiet manners, and, having heard that she had
+been a milliner, invited her to join them in the workroom. But, when
+they unitedly arrived at the door of that apartment, they speedily
+retired to the parlour, and there engaged in conversation. Mrs. Du
+Plessis was upstairs, with the colonel to play propriety, sponging the
+dominie's face and hands, and brushing his hair, as if he were her own
+son. Every now and again Colonel Morton came up to the bedside, saying:
+"Be kind to him, my deah Tehesa, and remembeh that he saved the life of
+yoah poah sistah Cecilia's widowah." So the stately Spanish lady shook
+up the wounded man's pillows, while the colonel put his arm around him
+and held him up; and then, as he sank back again, she asked. "Are you
+strong enough to have Cecile come up and read to you?" Wilkinson, sly
+dog, as the Captain called him, said it was too much trouble to put Miss
+Du Plessis to; but his objections were overruled. Soon a beatific vision
+came once more on the scene, and Wordsworth was enthroned as the king of
+poets. Miss Halbert and Mr. Perrowne were in the garden, and the
+clergyman had a rose in his button hole which he had not plucked
+himself. If he had not been in holy orders, he would have thought Miss
+Fanny was awfully jolly. Then he said to himself, that holy orders don't
+hinder a man being a man, and Miss Fanny was, really was, awfully jolly,
+and boarding in the houses of uncultivated farmers was an awful bore.
+But this was nothing to what was going on in the studiously avoided work
+room. The lawyer's hands were being washed, because a voice from an
+arch-looking face said that he was a big baby, and didn't know how to
+wash himself. It was quite a big baby in size and aspect that was soaped
+and glycerined, and had some other stuff rubbed into his hands by other
+pretty hands, one of which wore the victim's ring. Corry felt that he
+could stand it, even to the putting on of the minister's gloves. When
+she had finished her work, the hospital nurse said, "that silly little
+Marjorie, angry because Cecile would not allow her to read fairy
+stories to Mr. Wilkinson, surrendered you to me."
+
+"O Marjorie, my darlin', and would you throw your lovely self away on a
+poor, stupid, worthless thing like me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+     Miss Carmichael Snubs and Thinks--The Constable and the
+     Prisoner--Matilda and the Doctor--The Children Botanize--Pressing
+     Specimens--Nomenclature--The Colonel Makes a Discovery--Miss
+     Carmichael Does Not Fancy Wilks--Mr. Newberry Takes Matilda--Mr.
+     Pawkins Makes Mischief and is Punished--Rounds on
+     Sylvanus--Preparations for Inquest
+
+
+"Mr. Coristine, I never gave you permission to call me by my Christian
+name, much less to think that I accepted Marjorie's foolish little
+charge. I am sorry if I have led you to believe that I acted so bold, so
+shameless a part."
+
+"Oh, Miss Carmichael, forgive me. I'm stupid, as I said, but, as the
+Bible has it, I'll try and keep a watch on the door of my lips in
+future. And you such an angel of mercy, too! Please, Miss Carmichael,
+pardon a blundering Irishman."
+
+"Nonsense," she answered. "I have nothing to pardon; only, I did not
+want you to misunderstand me." The gloves were on, and she shook hands
+with him, and laughed a comical little insincere laugh in his face, and
+ran away to her own room to have a foolish little cry. She heard her
+friend Cecile reading poetry to the wounded Wilkinson, and, looking out
+of her window, saw Mr. Perrowne helping her uncle to lift the doctor's
+chair out into the garden, and her mother, freed from conversation with
+the madwoman, plucking a flower for Mr. Errol's coat. There, too, was a
+young man, his hands encased in black kid gloves, sitting down on a
+bench with Mr. Terry, and with difficulty filling a meerschaum pipe. She
+thought he had a quiet, disappointed look, like a man's whose warm,
+generous impulses have been checked, and she felt guilty. It was true
+they had not known one another long, but what was she, a teacher in a
+common school, that was what people called them, to put on airs before
+such a man as that? If it had been Mr. Wilkinson, now; but, no; she was
+afraid of Mr. Wilkinson, the distant, the irreproachable, the autocratic
+great Mogul. She looked down again, through the blinds of course.
+Marjorie Thomas was on the lawyer's knee, and Marjorie Carruthers on the
+veteran's. The Captain's daughter was combing Coristine's brown hair
+with her fingers, and pointing the ends of his moustache, much to the
+other Marjorie's amusement and the lawyer's evident satisfaction. Miss
+Carmichael inwardly called her cousin a saucy little minx, resenting her
+familiarities with a man who was, of course, nothing to her, in a way
+that startled herself. Why had he not saved somebody's life and been
+wounded, instead of that poetic fossil of a Wilkinson? But, no; it was
+better not, for, had he saved the colonel's life, Cecile would have been
+with him, and that she could not bear to think of. Then, she remembered
+what Corry had told her of the advertisement to the next of kin. Perhaps
+she would be wealthy yet, and more than his equal socially, and then she
+could condescend, as a great lady, and put a treasure in those poor
+gloved hands. Where would they all have been without these hands, all
+scarred and blistered to save them from death? Everybody was very unkind
+to little Marjorie's Eugene, and failed to recognize his claims upon
+their gratitude. Oh, that saucy little minx, with her grand assumptions
+of proprietorship, as if she owned him, forsooth!
+
+Mr. Bangs called the justices to business. There was a prisoner to
+examine, and two charred masses of humanity for the coroner to sit upon.
+So a messenger was sent off to summon the long-suffering Johnson,
+Newberry, and Pawkins, for the coroner's inquest, and the doctor was
+carried back into the office for the examination of the prisoner, Mark
+Davis. The two Squires sat in appropriate chairs behind an official
+table, at one side of which Mr. Bangs took his seat as clerk. Constable
+Rigby produced his prisoner, loaded with fetters. "Has this man had his
+breakfast, Rigby?" asked the Squire. "Certainly not, Squire," replied
+the constable. "Then take him at once to the kitchen, take off these
+chains and handcuffs, and let him have all that he can eat," replied the
+J.P., sternly. The corporal's sense of rectitude was offended. The idea
+of feeding criminals and releasing them from irons! The next thing would
+be to present them with a medal and a clasp for each new offence against
+society. But, orders were orders, and, however iniquitous, had to be
+obeyed; so Davis was allowed to stretch his limbs, and partake of a
+bountiful, if somewhat late, morning meal. "To trespass upon your
+kindness, Miss Hill, with such as this," said the apologetic constable,
+pointing to his prisoner, "is no act of mine; Squire Carruthers, who, no
+doubt, thinks he knows best, has given orders that it has to be, and my
+duty is to carry out his orders to the letter." Breakfast seemed to
+infuse courage into the dissipated farmer. When it was over, he arose,
+and, without a note of warning, doubled up the stiff guardian of the
+peace, and made for the door, where he fell into the arms of the
+incoming Serlizer. She evidently thought that Mark Davis, smitten with
+her charms, was about to salute her, for, with the words "Scuse me!" and
+a double turn of her powerful wrists, she deposited the assailant upon
+the floor. Sadly, but officially, the constable crawled over and sat
+upon the prostrate form of the would-be fugitive from justice. The
+prisoner squirmed, and even struck the doubled-up corporal, but the
+entrance of Ben Toner put an end to that nonsense, so that, handcuffed
+and chained once more, the desperate villain was hauled into the
+presence of the magistrates. In dignified, but subordinate, language,
+Mr. Rigby related the prisoner's escapade, and, by implication, more
+than by actual statement, gave the J.P.s to understand that they knew
+nothing about the management of offenders against the law. They were,
+therefore, compelled to allow the handcuffs to remain, but summoned
+sufficient courage to insist on the removal of the stable chains.
+
+"What is your name, prisoner?" asked Squire Carruthers.
+
+"Samuel Wilson," answered the man.
+
+"Oh! kem now," interposed Mr. Bangs, "thet's a lie, you know; yore name
+is Merk Devis, end yore a brether of Metthew Devis of the Peskiwenchow
+tevern, end you were Rawdon's right hend men. We know you, my led, so
+down't you try any alias games on us."
+
+"Ef you know my name so mighty well, what do you want askin' for't?"
+
+"To see if you can speak the truth," replied Carruthers.
+
+"What other prisoners hev you got asides me?"
+
+"That is none of your business," said the Squire.
+
+"If I might be ellowed to seggest, Squire," whispered the detective, "I
+think I'd tell him. Whet do you sey?"
+
+"Go on, Mr. Bangs."
+
+"Well, my fine fellow, the Squire ellows me to sey thet the ethers are
+Newcome, the stowne ketters, and the women."
+
+The name of Newcome disconcerted Mark, but he asked, "Whar's Rawdon and
+old Flower?"
+
+"Didn't you see?" asked Mr. Bangs.
+
+"I seen the fire all right, but they wasn't such blame fools as to stay
+there when there was a way out up atop."
+
+"The epper wey wes clowsed," said the detective.
+
+"Was they burned alive then?"
+
+"Yes, they were berned to eshes."
+
+"O Lord!" ejaculated the prisoner, and then, wildly: "What do you want
+along of me anyway?"
+
+The magistrates and Mr. Bangs consulted, after which the doctor
+answered: "We want information from you on three points: first, as to
+the attempt of Rawdon's gang to burn this house; second, as to the
+murder of Detective Nash; and, third, as to the whole secret of Rawdon's
+business at the Select Encampment. You are not bound to incriminate
+yourself, as every word of this preliminary examination may be used
+against you, but, on the other hand, if you make a clean breast of what
+you know on these questions, your confession will go a long way in your
+favour with judge and jury."
+
+"Suppose'n I don't confess not a syllabub?"
+
+"Then, we shall commit you, all the same, to the County Gaol, to stand
+your trial at the assizes."
+
+"That's all right, I'll stand my durned trile. You don't get nawthin
+out'n me, you misable, interferin', ornary, bushwhackin' jedges!"
+
+"Don't strike him, Rigby!" commanded Carruthers; for the constable,
+shocked and outraged by such indecorous language in a court of justice,
+was about to club his man. Then he added: "The colonel's servant,
+Maguffin, is going to town on business, and will drive you so far, and
+help to guard your prisoner. You can tie him up as tight as you like,
+without being cruel or doing him an injury. We shall have to do without
+you at the inquest."
+
+Accordingly, while Mr. Maguffin brought round a suitable vehicle, and
+received his commissions from the colonel, the commitment papers were
+made out, and Constable Rigby securely fastened the worst criminal that
+had ever come into his hands. The said criminal did a little hard
+swearing, which called the long unused baton into active service. Davis
+was quiet and sullen when the buggy, under the pensioner's command,
+wheeled away in search of connections for the County Gaol.
+
+The two bodies were still lying in their shells, with ice about them, in
+the unfinished annex of the post office. It was, therefore, decided to
+hold the new inquest in the Bridesdale coach house, as also more
+convenient for the doctor, whose sprain might have been aggravated by
+driving. While Ben Toner was sent with a waggon to the Richards, to
+bring the ghastly remains snatched from the flames out of the punt, and
+to convey three members of that family to the coroner's jury, Mr. Bangs
+explained to Doctor Halbert his and the lawyer's thought regarding
+Matilda Nagle. The doctor consented, and the detective went to find the
+patient, who was busy and cheerful in the sewing room with Mrs.
+Carruthers. He told her that she was not looking well, and had better
+come with him to see the doctor; but, with all the cunning of insanity,
+she refused to go. He had to go after Coristine in the garden, and take
+him away from Marjorie. With the lawyer she went at once, identifying
+him, as she did not the detective, with her brother Stevy. Mechanically,
+she sat down by the kind doctor's chair, and seemed to recognize him,
+although he did not remember her. After a few enquiries as to her
+health, he took one of her hands in his, and, with the other, made
+passes over her face, until she fell into the mesmeric sleep. "Your
+husband, Mr. Rawdon, is dead," he said; "you remember that he died by
+his own hand, and left you free." The woman gave a start, and seemed to
+listen more intently. "You will kill nobody, hurt nobody, not even a
+fly," he continued. "Do you remember?" Another start of comprehension
+was made, but nothing more; so he went on: "You will read your Bible
+and go to church on Sundays, and take care of your boy, and be just the
+same to everybody as you were in the old days." Then, with a few counter
+passes, he released her hand, and the poor woman told him all that he
+had enjoined upon her, as if they were the resolutions of her own will.
+She was not sane, but she was free from the vile slavery in which her
+inhuman keeper had held her. Moreover, she understood perfectly that
+Rawdon was dead, yet without manifesting either joy or grief in the
+knowledge. The lawyer led her back to the workroom, where she confided
+her new state of mind to Mrs. Carruthers, greatly to that tender-hearted
+lady's delight. The doctor did not think it necessary to practise his
+art upon the lad Monty, in whom the power of Rawdon's will was already
+broken, and upon whom his changed mother would, doubtless, exert a
+salutary influence.
+
+Coristine had nothing to do, and almost dreaded meeting Miss Carmichael,
+which he probably would do if he remained about the house and grounds.
+Therefore he got out the improvised vasculum, and invited Marjorie and
+the older Carruthers children to come with him down to the brook to look
+for wild flowers. This met with the full approval of the young people,
+and they prepared at once for the botanizing party. The Captain saw
+Marjorie putting on her broad-brimmed straw hat, and enquired where she
+was going. She answered that she was going buttonizing with Eugene, and
+he said that he guessed he would button too, whatever that was. A very
+merry little group frisked about the steps of the two seniors, one of
+whom was explaining to the older, nautical party that he was on the hunt
+for wild flowers.
+
+"Is it yarbs you're after?" asked the Captain.
+
+"Well, not exactly, although I want to get a specimen of every kind of
+plant."
+
+"You don't want to make medicine of 'em, Mandrake, Snakeroot, Wild
+Sassyperilly, Ginsing, Bearberry, Gentian, Cohosh and all that sort o'
+stuff, eh?"
+
+"No; I want to find out their names, dry and mount them, and classify
+them according to their kinds."
+
+"What good are they agoin' to do you?"
+
+"They will help me to know Nature better and to admire God's works and
+His plan."
+
+"Keep on there, mate, fair sailin' and a good wind to you. No pay in
+it, though?"
+
+"Not a cent in money, but lots of pleasure and health."
+
+"Like collectin' post stamps and old pennies, and butterflies, and
+bugs."
+
+"Something, but you see scenery and get healthy exercise, which you
+don't in stamp and coin collecting, and you inflict no suffering, as you
+do in entomologizing."
+
+"I can tell trees when they're a growin' and timber when its cut, but I
+don't know the name of one flower from another, except it's garden ones
+and common at that. Hullo, little puss, what have you got there?"
+
+Marjorie, who had run on in advance and was not by any means ignorant of
+the flora of the neighbourhood, had secured three specimens, a late
+Valerian, an early spotted Touch-me-not, and a little bunch of
+Blue-eyed-grass. Coristine took them from her with thanks, told her
+their names and stowed them away in his candle box. The zeal to discover
+and add to the collection grew upon all the party, the Captain included.
+Near the water, where the Valerian and the Touch-me-not grew, Marjorie
+Carruthers found the Snake-head, with its large white flowers on a
+spike. Another little Carruthers brought to the botanist the purple
+Monkey flower, but the Captain excelled his youthful nephew by adding to
+the collection the rarer and smaller yellow one. Then the lawyer himself
+discovered another yellow flower, the Gratiola or Hedge Hyssop, at the
+moment when Marjorie rejoiced in the modest little Speedwell. Once more,
+the Captain distinguished himself by finding in the grass the yellow
+Wood-Sorrel, with its Shamrock leaves, which, when Marjorie saw, she
+seemed to recognize in part. Then, crossing the stepping stones of the
+brook, she ran, far up the hill on the other side, to a patch of shady
+bush, from which she soon returned victorious, with a bunch of the
+larger Wood-Sorrel in her hand, to exhibit the identity of its leaves,
+and its delicate white blossoms with their pinky-purple veins. By the
+time the other juveniles brought in the blue Vervain, pink Fireweed and
+tall yellow Mullein, the botanist thought it about time to go home and
+press his specimens.
+
+Miss Carmichael met the scientists at the door, looking, of course, for
+the children and Uncle Thomas, who was never called by his Christian
+name, Ezekiel. Learning the nature of the work in hand, she volunteered
+the use of the breakfast-room table. The lawyer brought down his strap
+press, and, carefully placing oiled paper between the dried specimens
+and the semi-porous sheets that were to receive the new ones, proceeded
+to lay them out. The new specimens had all to be examined by the
+addition to the botanical party, their botanical and vulgar names to be
+recited to her, and, then, the arranging began. This was too monotonous
+work for the Captain, who carried the children off for a romp on the
+verandah. Marjorie stayed for a minute or so after they were gone, and
+then remembered that she had not given papa his morning button-hole.
+Coristine was clumsy with the flowers, owing to the gloves he said, so
+Miss Carmichael had to spread them out on the paper under his direction,
+and hold them in their place, while he carefully and gradually pressed
+another sheet over them. Of course his fingers could not help coming
+into contact with hers. "Confound those gloves!" he thought aloud.
+
+"Mr. Coristine, if you are going to use such language, and to speak so
+ungratefully of Mr. Errol's gloves, which I put on your hands, I shall
+have to leave you to put up your specimens the best way you can."
+
+"O Miss Carmichael, now, please let me off this once, and I'll never do
+it again. You know it's so hard working in gloves. Understand me as
+saying that botanically, in a Pickwickian sense as it were, and not
+really at all."
+
+"You must not say that, either botanically or any other way."
+
+"To hear the faintest whisper of your slightest command is to obey."
+
+It was delicate work arranging these little Speedwells, and Gratiolas,
+the Wood-Sorrels, and the smaller Monkey-flower. Hands had to follow
+very close on one another, and heads to be bent to examine, and
+sometimes there was just a little brush of brown and golden hair that,
+strange to say, sent responsive tingles along the nerves, and warm
+flushes to cheek and brow. What a hopeless idiot he was not to have
+foreseen the possibility of this, and to have brought home twice the
+number of specimens! Alas! they were all in the press. But, a happy
+thought struck him: would Miss Carmichael care to look at the dried
+ones, some of which had kept their colour very well? Yes, she had a few
+minutes to spare. So, he brought chairs up to the table, and they sat
+down, side by side, and he told her all about the flowers and how he got
+them, and the poetry Wilks and he quoted over them. Then the specimens
+had to be critically examined, so as to let Miss Carmichael learn the
+distinctive characteristics of the various orders, and this brought the
+heads close together again, when suddenly their owners were started by
+the unexpected clang of the dinner gong. "Thank you so much, Mr.
+Coristine," said the lady, frankly; "you have given me a very pleasant
+half hour." The lawyer bowed his acknowledgment, but said, beneath his
+moustache: "Half an hour is it? I thought it was a lifetime rolled up in
+two minutes, no, one."
+
+What did those deceitful men, Errol and Perrowne, mean, by saying they
+had to go away to get up their Wednesday evening talk, and to visit
+their parishioners? There they were, in their old places at the table,
+Mr. Errol at Mrs. Carmichael's right, and apparently on the best of
+terms with her, and Mr. Perrowne dancing attendance upon Miss Halbert
+and her invalid father. Mrs. Du Plessis thought she would take up Mr.
+Wilkinson's dinner with the colonel's help, as Cecile had been reading
+to him so long. Accordingly, the Captain talked to that young lady,
+while Mr. Bangs monopolized Mrs. Carruthers. There was a little
+commotion, when Mr. Bigglethorpe walked in, and received the sympathetic
+expressions of the company over his singed face and scorched hands. In
+spite of these, the sufferer had been up early fishing, just after the
+rain. Fortunately, he continued, there was no cleared land about the
+lakes, hence there were very few grasshoppers washed in by the heavy
+downpour. Had there been, he wouldn't have got a fish. But he had got
+fish, a big string of them, in splendid condition. He had left some with
+his kind entertainers, the Richards, but had plenty remaining, which he
+had left in the kitchen in care of the young woman with the
+unpronounceable Scripture name. "Now," said the fisherman, "a nime is a
+very important thing to a man or a woman. Why do people give their
+children such awful names? Bigglethorpe is Dinish, they say, but Felix
+Isidore is as Latin as can be. They called me 'fib' at school."
+
+"'Tis the hoighth av impartance to have a good name, say Oi," added Mr.
+Terry. "Moy fayther, glory be to his sowl, put a shaint's name an me,
+an' I put her own mother's name, the Howly Vargin rist her, on Honoria
+here. 'An', savin' all yer prisinces, there's no foiner Scripcher name
+than John; how's that, Squoire?"
+
+"It suits me well enough, grandfather," replied Carruthers. The Captain
+was feeling uneasy. He didn't want Ezekiel to come out, so he asked Miss
+Du Plessis how her young man was. Such a question would have either
+roused Miss Carmichael to indignation or have overwhelmed her with
+confusion, but Miss Du Plessis, calm and unruffled, replied: "I suppose
+you mean Mr. Wilkinson, Captain Thomas. He has been very much shaken by
+his wound, but is doing remarkably well."
+
+"Fwhat's Mishter Wilkison's name, Miss Ceshile, iv it's a fair quishtyon
+to ax at yeez?"
+
+"It is Farquhar, is it not, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+Mr. Coristine said it was, and that it was his mother's maiden name. She
+was a Scotchwoman, he had heard, and a very lovely character. The
+colonel had just returned from his ministrations. "Did I heah you
+cohhectly, Mr. Cohistine, when I thought you said that ouah deah young
+wounded friend's mothah's name was Fahquhah, suh?"
+
+"You did, Colonel Morton."
+
+"And of Scottish pahentage?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know if any of her relatives were engaged in the Civil Wahah,
+our civil wahah?"
+
+"I believe her brother Roderic ran the blockade, and fought for the
+South, where he fell, in a cavalry regiment."
+
+"Be pleased, suh, to say that again. Rodehic Fahquhah, do you say?"
+
+"His full name, I have seen it among Wilkinson's papers, was Roderic
+Macdonald Farquhar."
+
+"Tehesa, my deah," said the colonel, his voice and manner full of
+emotion, as he turned towards his sister-in-law, "you have heard me
+mention my bosom friend, Captain Fahquhah?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, many times," replied the lady addressed.
+
+"And ouah deah boy upstairs, the pehsehveh of my pooah life, is his
+nephew, his sistah's son. I was suah there was something drawing me to
+him. I shall make that brave boy my heih, my pooah deah comhade
+Fahquhah's nephew. What a fohtunate discovehy. Kindly excuse me, madam,
+and you my deah ladies, and you Squiah; I must go and tell my deah boy."
+So the colonel bowed to Mrs. Carruthers, and went out, with his
+handkerchief up to his face.
+
+After the colonel left the table, the Captain looked over at his niece,
+saying: "Too late, Marjorie, my lass, too late! Didn't play your cards
+right, so you're cut out. Shifted his sheet anchor to the t'other bow,
+Marjorie."
+
+Miss Carmichael was annoyed with good reason, and, in order to put a
+stop to such uncalled for and vulgar remarks, said, playfully, but with
+a spice of malice: "Take care, Uncle Thomas, or, as that funny
+theological student said to the people who were talking in church, 'I'll
+call out your name before the haill congregation.'" This terrible threat
+caused Ezekiel to subside, and carry on a less personal conversation
+with Miss Du Plessis. Then Mr. Terry came to the fore again.
+
+"My little grandchilders' coushin, Mishter Coristine, do be sayin' yer
+name is Eujane, an' that's Frinch, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," replied the lawyer; "my mother was of Huguenot descent, and her
+name was Du Moulin. Some say that the Irish Mullens were once Du
+Moulins. That I don't know, but I'm not like the man-servant who applied
+for a situation, saying: 'Me name is Murphy, sorr, but me family came
+from France.' Coristine, I think, is good Irish."
+
+The name craze spread over the whole table. Miss Halbert thought Basil a
+lovely name. It was Greek, wasn't it, and meant a king? Mr. Perrowne
+thought that the sweetest name in the world was Frances or Fanny. Mr.
+Errol affected Marjorie, and Mrs. Carmichael knew nothing superior to
+Hugh.
+
+"What made you so savage with the Captain for coupling your name with
+Wilks?" asked the lawyer in an undertone.
+
+"Because he is the last man in the world I should want my name to be
+coupled with."
+
+"Oh, but that's hard on Wilks; he's a glorious fellow when you get to
+know his little ways."
+
+"I don't want to know Mr. Wilkinson's little ways. I am sorry for his
+wound, but otherwise I have not the remotest sympathy with him. He
+strikes me as a selfish, conceited man."
+
+"Not a kinder soul breathing, Miss Carmichael."
+
+"Yes, there is."
+
+"Who, then?"
+
+"Yourself."
+
+"Miss Carmichael, you make me the proudest man in the world, but I'm not
+fit to black Wilks' boots."
+
+"Well, I will not be so rude as to say I think you are. But, never talk
+that way to me again, if you want me to like you. I will not have you
+demeaning yourself, even in speech, before Cecile's friend. Now,
+remember, not a word!"
+
+The test was a severe one between loyalty to his old friend and devoted
+obedience to the girl he loved. As all the memories of past friendship
+came before him, he was inclined to be obdurate. Then, he looked at the
+golden hair which had brushed his awhile ago, and, as the head
+straightened up, at the pretty petulant lips and the blue eyes, lustrous
+with just a moist suspicion of vexation and feeling, and he wavered. He
+was lost, and was glad to be lost, as he whispered: "May I say it?"
+
+"Yes; speak out, like a man, what you have to say."
+
+"It's a bargain, Marjorie; never again!"
+
+Somehow his right hand met her left, and she did not snatch it away too
+quickly. Then he said: "You won't hate poor Wilks, my old friend,
+Marjorie?"
+
+She answered "No," and turned her face away to ask some trivial question
+of the Squire, who knew a good deal more than he saw any necessity for
+telling.
+
+The kitchen party still kept up its numbers. True, the absence of the
+constable and Maguffin left two serious blanks in the diversified talk
+of the table, but the place of these gentlemen was taken by no fewer
+than six persons, the three Richards and the three jurors, so that the
+dinner party numbered fifteen, of whom four were women. Old whitehaired
+Mr. Newberry, with the large rosy face, smooth, save for two little
+white patches of side-whiskers, took possession of Matilda Nagle, and
+rejoiced in her kindly ways and simple talk. He was a Methodist, and a
+class-leader and local preacher, but a man against whom no tongue of
+scandal wagged, and whose genuine piety and kindness of heart were so
+manifest that nobody dreamt of holding up to ridicule his oft homely
+utterances in the pulpit. If he could do good to the poor demented woman
+and her afflicted boy, he would, and he knew that his little
+quaker-bonneted wife would second him in such an effort. So he tried to
+gain her confidence and the boy's, and, after a while, found that
+Matilda would like to help Mrs. Newberry in her household duties, and
+have Monty learn useful work on the farm. When informed by the fatherly
+juror, in answer to her own questions, that she would not be expected to
+hurt a fly, and would be allowed to go to church, read her Bible and
+take care of her boy, she expressed her readiness to go away with him at
+once. Mr. Newberry felt a few qualms of conscience in connection with
+fly killing, but, having made an express stipulation that mosquitos and
+black flies should not be included in the bond, he became easier in
+mind, and said that, with Mrs. Carruthers and the Squire's permission,
+he would drive her home in the afternoon. Mr. Johnson and the elder
+Richards discussed local politics, and the tragedy calling for the
+inquest; but Mr. Pawkins attached himself to the boys, and consequently
+to the girls. This gentleman had brought his six feet of bone and
+muscle, topped with a humorous face, from which depended a Lincoln
+beard, from the States, and was now, for many years, as he said, "a
+nettrelized citizen of Kennidy." This disappointment at the absence of
+the constable was something pitiful, he did so want "to yank and rile
+the old Britisher." Still, that was not going to deprive him of his
+innocent amusement. He looked around the company and sized it up,
+deciding that he would leave the old folks alone, and mercifully add to
+them the crazy people; this still left him a constituency of nine, with
+large possibilities for fun.
+
+"Rufus," remarked Mr. Pawkins, "I seen your gal, Christy Hislop, along
+o' that spry sot up coon, Barney Sullivan, daown at the mill. He's a
+cuttin' you aout for sutten, yes sirree, you see if he ain't."
+
+"What's the use of your nonsense, Mr Pawkins? Barney went home along o'
+fayther and old man Hislop, and I guess he turned in to say we was all
+right."
+
+"If Andrew knowed you'd called him old man Hislop, he'd fire you aout o'
+the back door mighty suddent. When I see a spry, set up, young feller
+and a likely heifer of a gal a saunterin' through the bush, sort o'
+poetical like, daown to the mill, it don't take me two shakes to know
+that suthin's up. You're a poor, rejected, cast off, cut aout strip o'
+factory cotton."
+
+"What do you mean, Mr. Pawkins?"
+
+"I mean overalls, and it's all over with you, Rufus." Having planted
+this well-meant thorn in the breast of the younger Hill, and excited the
+commiseration of his sisters, the lover of innocent amusement turned to
+Ben, and asked that gentleman, whose attentions to Serlizer were most
+open and above board, "sence when he got another gal?"
+
+Mr. Toner turned angrily, and asked what Mr. Pawkins was "a givin' him."
+
+"I never see Bridget naow but she's a cryin' and rubbin' her eyes most
+aout with her cuffs," said the cheerful Pawkins; "she allaowed to me
+you'd the nighest thing to said the priest was ony waitin' for the word
+to splice; and here you air, you biggermus delooder, settin' along o'
+Newcome's gal as if you'd got a mortgage on her. Arter that, the sight
+ain't to be sawed that'll make me ashamed o' my feller-creeters, no
+sirree, boss, hull team to boot, and a big dog under the waggin!" Mr.
+Pawkins sniffed vehemently, and Ben and his affianced bride blushed and
+drew apart.
+
+"Is that so, Ben?" asked Sarah Eliza in a half whisper.
+
+"S'haylp me, Serlizer," replied the injured Toner in a similar voice,
+"that there Pawkins is the cussidest, lyinest old puke of a
+trouble-makin' Yankee as aiver come to Cannidy."
+
+"Are you engaged to Biddy Sullivan, Ben?"
+
+"No, I tell you, naiver said a word to Barney's sister I wouldn't say to
+any gal."
+
+"Then, what did Barney come here lookin' for you for?"
+
+"So did the tavern keeper and the store keeper, 'cause mother axed 'em,
+I suppose; you don't think they want me to marry their wives, do you?"
+
+"Wives an' darters is different things, Ben. Ef I'd thought you had been
+havin' goins on with Biddy, I'd flog the pair of you."
+
+"S'haylp me, Serlizer, it ain't so. Ef it was, you could whayull me till
+I was stripy as a chipmunk."
+
+"Talkin' abaout whalins," remarked the mischief-maker, who kept one ear
+open, "Miss Newcome's paa is jest a waitin' to git up and git araound,
+to give somebody, as ain't fer off'n this table, the blamedest,
+kerfoundedest lammin' as ever he knowed. He wants his gal home right
+straight for to nuss him, so's he kin git araound smart with that
+rawhide that's singein' its ends off in the oven."
+
+"What's dad got agin you, Ben?" enquired Miss Newcome.
+
+"Oh nawthin'; it's only that Pawkins' double-treed, snaffle-bitted,
+collar-bladed jaw." Mr. Pawkins smiled, but Ben and Serlizer were more
+uncomfortable than Rufus and his sisters.
+
+The naturalized Canadian turned his attention else where. "I'm kinder
+amazed," he remarked, eyeing first Sylvanus and then Timotheus, "to see
+you two a settin' here, as cam as if you never done nothin' to be sorry
+for. I s'pose you know, if you don't you had orter, that there's a
+war'nt aout agin the two Pilgrims for stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow
+tavern, or ho-tel, as Davis calls his haouse. I calclate the constable
+'ll be back with that war'nt afore night. I'd make myself skeerce if I
+was in your shoes."
+
+"O Sylvanus!" ejaculated Tryphosa.
+
+"O Timotheus!" added Tryphosa.
+
+"It's a lie!" cried Rufus; "it's a mill dam, boom jam, coffer-dam lie,
+and I won't believe a word of it."
+
+"Fact all the same," said Mr. Pawkins, calmly, "they air guilty, the two
+on 'em, of stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow ho-tel."
+
+"What did they steal out?" asked the Richards boys.
+
+"Clothes, I guess, boots, some money, books, I don't know all what, and
+it don't consarn me any; but them boys had best look spry and git aout
+o' this." With these words, the gentleman of American extraction
+finished his last piece of pie.
+
+Sylvanus rose cheerfully. He was so radiant over it that Tryphena
+thought him really handsome. He whispered to Rufus and to Ben; then
+remarked to Timotheus that he had perhaps better remain, in case the
+Squire should send for him. Next, he turned to Mr. Pawkins, and said: "A
+man mought as well be hung fer a sheep as fer a lamb, Mr. Pawkins, and
+sence they's a warn't out to 'raist me and Timotheus, we ain't a goin'
+to put the law to no more trouble 'bout a new one. Ef you'll come
+outside, I'll show you some o' them things we stoled out'n the
+Peskiwanchow tav." So Sylvanus took the accuser of the brethren by one
+arm, and Rufus linked his lovingly in the other, while Ben, with a
+glance of intelligence at Serlizer, and another at his top boots,
+followed. Mr. Pawkins, confident in his smartness and in the ignorance
+of the simple-minded Canucks, went quietly with the courteous criminal
+and his cut-out friend, till, passing the stables, they led him through
+a broad gate into the meadow. Then he hesitated.
+
+"The stoled things, leastways some on 'em, 'll be at the foot o' this
+yere slope soon's we will; so hurry, old man!" said Sylvanus. Mr.
+Pawkins demurred. "Look here, boys," he said, "a joke's a joke, ain't
+it? D'ye see, you did, the pair on you, steal aout of the hotel. I
+didn't go to say you took anythin' as didn't belong to you. I reckon
+your brother had clothes, and money, and books thar, and so, you and him
+took 'em aout. Lem me go, boys!"
+
+Sylvanus and Rufus were obdurate. "Boost him, Ben," cried the former:
+"we ain't no time ter spend foolin' with the likes o' him."
+
+Mr. Toner raised his boot and said, "One fer Serlizer!" which made the
+joker proceed. He had several other ones, before he was run down to the
+creek--for Timotheus and Tryphena, and Tryphosa, and Christie Hislop,
+and Barney and Biddy Sullivan, and old man Newcome. Ben's boot did
+capital service. With difficulty the executioners found a hole in the
+creek about two and a-half feet deep, in which, at full length and with
+great gravity, they deposited the exile from the States. Then, they
+guessed the Squire, or the Captain, or somebody, would be wanting them,
+and skipped lightly back to the house. They knew Mr. Pawkins would
+follow, since he was the last man in the settlement to miss his juror's
+fee of one dollar. After their return, there was a good deal of
+merriment in the kitchen, and the two Richards boys roundly upbraided
+the elder Pilgrim for depriving them of a share in the fun. "He baygged
+an' prayed for massy," said Mr. Toner, with a grim smile, "but we was
+the most onmassifullest craowd you ever see."
+
+Timotheus, still in Sunday garb, took his work-a-day suit, now quite
+dry, and went to meet Mr. Pawkins. Introducing him to the stable, he
+soon had that gentleman relieved of his wet toggery, when voices were
+heard without. It was the colonel, bringing his sister-in-law to see his
+horse, as a sort of relief to the strain on his feelings, consequent
+upon his interview with Wilkinson. Mr. Pawkins had only got Timotheus'
+flannel shirt on, when the stable door opened. "Shin up that ladder into
+the loft, Mr. Pawkins," cried the benevolent Pilgrim, and the spectacle
+of a pair of disappearing shanks greeted the visitors on their entrance.
+Timotheus had escaped into the coach-house, but all the clothes, wet and
+dry, save the shirt, lay over the sides of an empty stall. Immediately
+the colonel perceived the vanishing heels of the Yankee, he interposed
+his person between them and Mrs. Du Plessis. "My deah Tehesa," he said,
+hastily, "I think we had bettah retiah foh the pehsent, and visit the
+stables lateh in the day." Mrs. Du Plessis, however, once no mean judge
+of horseflesh, was scanning the good points of her brother-in-law's
+purchase, and seemed indisposed to withdraw. Soon a head and a pair of
+flannel shirted arms appeared, hanging over the loft trap, and a voice
+hailed the colonel.
+
+"Say, mister, you ain't a goin' to bring no wimmen folks up this here
+ladder, be you?"
+
+"Cehtainly not, suh!" answered the colonel, with emphasis.
+
+"If it won't hurt you, I wisht you'd sling up them dry paants and things
+daown there."
+
+The colonel looked at the man, and then at the articles, with
+impatience. Then he got a pitchfork, on the prongs of which he
+collected the garments, one by one, and so handed them up to Mr.
+Pawkins, who was still minus necktie, socks and boots. Before, however,
+he was ready for these, the visitors had retired, leaving him to
+complete his toilet in private. Hearing steps again, he hurriedly picked
+up his wet clothes and re-ascended the ladder. The colonel had evidently
+asked Sylvanus to take the place of Maguffin about the two horses, for
+he was the newcomer. Now, Mr. Pawkins bore no malice, but, when jokes
+were going, he did not like to be left the chief victim. He had had some
+fun out of the boys; now he would have some more. The Yankee could mew
+to perfection. He began, and Sylvanus called the strange cat. It would
+not come, so he climbed the ladder after it, and had almost reached the
+top, when, with vicious cries, the animal flew at him, seized him by the
+back of the neck, and drew blood that he could feel trickling down his
+back. Tugging ineffectually at the beast, he ran out to the kitchen,
+calling upon everybody to take off that mad cat that was killing him.
+The cat was taken off, amid shrieks of laughter, and proved to be Mr.
+Pawkins' rolled up wet trousers and vest, the water from which was the
+blood imagined by Sylvanus. The owner of the garments entered
+immediately behind his victim, and from his banter the elder Pilgrim
+gladly escaped to resume his stable duties, feeling that he had been
+demeaned in the eyes of the laughing Tryphena.
+
+Timotheus and Ben were busy cleaning out the coach house, putting tables
+and seats into it, and generally preparing for the inquest. Mr. Bangs,
+at the coroner's request, empanelled the jury, consisting of the Squire,
+the captain, and the two clergymen, the three Richards, the three cited
+jurors, with old Styles from the post office, and Ben Toner. The charred
+masses of humanity, pervaded by a sickening smell of spirits, were taken
+from the waggon, and placed in rough board shells, decently covered over
+with white cloths. The woman called Flower was brought from the post
+office, and kept in custody, till she gave her evidence; and Bangs
+himself, with Messrs. Terry, Coristine, and Bigglethorpe, Sylvanus,
+Rufus, and Timotheus were cited as witnesses. Some evidence was also
+expected from Matilda and her son. When the coach house doors were
+thrown open, all hilarity ceased--even the children seemed to realize
+that something very solemn was going on. A weight of trouble and danger
+was lifted off many hearts by the terrible tragedy, yet in no soul was
+there the least feeling of exultation. The fate of the victims was too
+awful, too sudden for anyone to feel aught but horror at the thought of
+it, and deep sorrow for one at least who had perished in his sins. The
+light-hearted lawyer took one look at the remains of him, whom, within
+the past few days, he had seen so often in the full enjoyment of life
+and health, and resolved that never again, in prose or verse, would he
+speak of the person, whose crimes and cunning had returned so avengingly
+upon his own head, as the Grinstun man. Mr. Pawkins joked no more, for,
+with all his playful untruthfulness, he had a feeling heart. The most
+unconcerned man outwardly was Mr. Bangs, and even he said that he would
+willingly have given a hundred dollars to see his prisoner safely in
+gaol with the chaplain, and afterwards decently hanged. The doctor was
+carefully carried out, and set in the presiding chair as coroner over
+the third inquest within two days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+     Inquest and Consequences--Orther Lom--Coolness--Evening
+     Service--Mr. Pawkins and the Constable--Two Songs--Marjorie, Mr.
+     Biggles and the Crawfish--Coristine Falls Foul of Mr. Lamb--Mr.
+     Lamb Falls Foul of the Whole Company--The Captain's Couplet--Miss
+     Carmichael Feels it Her Duty to Comfort Mr. Lamb.
+
+
+It is unnecessary to relate the details of the inquest. By various
+marks, as well as by the testimony of the woman Flower and of Mr. Bangs
+and his party, the remains were identified as those of Rawdon and his
+wounded henchman Flower. Some of the jurymen wished to bring in a
+verdict of "Died from the visitation of God," but this the Squire, who
+was foreman, would not allow. He called it flat blasphemy; so it was
+altered to: "Died by the explosion of illicit spirits, through a fire
+kindled by the wife of the principal victim, Altamont Rawdon." Nobody
+demanded the arrest of Matilda; hence the Squire and the doctor did not
+feel called upon to issue a warrant for that purpose. The widowed and
+childless Mrs. Flower, for the so-called Harding was her son, claimed
+his body, and what remained of her husband's; and asked Mr. Perrowne to
+read the burial service over them in the little graveyard behind his
+humble church. Mr. Bangs, his work over, got the use of a waggon and the
+services of Ben Toner, to take his dead comrade's coffin to Collingwood.
+Nobody claimed the remains of Rawdon, till old Mr. Newberry came
+forward, and said he would take the shell in his waggon, with the woman
+and the boy, and give it Christian burial in the plot back of the
+Wesleyan church. "We can't tell," he said, "what passed between him and
+his Maker when he was struggling for life. Gie un the bainifit o' the
+doot." So, Ben and Serlizer rolled away with Bangs, and Nash's coffin;
+and Matilda and her son accompanied Rawdon's remains, in Mr. Newberry's
+waggon. At the same time, with the sad, grey-haired woman as chief
+mourner, and Mrs. Carmichael beside her, a funeral procession passed
+from Bridesdale to the post office, and thence to the English
+churchyard, where old Styles and Sylvanus dug the double grave, around
+which, in deep solemnity, stood the Captain and Mr. Terry, the minister
+and the lawyer, while Mr. Perrowne read the service, and two victims of
+Rawdon's crime and treachery were committed, earth to earth, dust to
+dust, and ashes to ashes. Immediately the grave was covered in, the
+doubly-bereaved woman slipped away, and was never again heard of. There
+appeared no evidence, far or near, that she had done away with herself;
+it was, therefore, concluded that she had a child or children elsewhere,
+and had gone to hide the rest of her wasted life with them. The two
+clergymen went their ways to their lodgings, and the Bridesdale party
+walked silently and sorrowfully home.
+
+Mr. Bigglethorpe wanted to go back with the Richards, so that he might
+have another morning's fishing; but Mrs. Carruthers thought he had
+better take Mr. Bangs' room, and nurse his eyes and other burned parts
+before going home. Marjorie and her young cousins dragged him off, after
+his green shade was put on, to the creek, and made him rig up rods and
+lines for them in the shape of light-trimmed willow boughs, to which
+pieces of thread were attached with bent pins at the other ends.
+Fishing with these, baited with breadcrumbs, they secured quite a number
+of chub and dace, and made the valley musical with their laughter at
+each success or mishap, by the time the Bridesdale people returned from
+the impromptu funeral. The Squire was busy in his office, looking over
+Nash's legacy, preparatory to sending it to Bangs, who had begged him to
+forward the documents without delay. The only thing of note he found
+was, that Rawdon did not bank his money; he had no bank account
+anywhere. Where did he stow away the fortune he must have made? There
+was a note of the casual conversation of an assumed miser with Rawdon,
+in which Rawdon was represented as saying: "Dry sandy soil, well drained
+with two slopes, under a rain-shed, will keep millions in a cigar box."
+That the Squire noted; then he sealed up the rest of the papers, and
+addressed them to Hickey Bangs, Esq., D.I.R., ready for the post in the
+morning. The colonel, Mrs. and Miss Du Plessis were all in Wilkinson's
+room. The colonel was commenting upon the four poor souls that had gone
+before God's judgment seat, three of them, probably, with murder on
+their hands; and thanked God that his boy had died in the war, brave and
+pure and good, with no stain on his young life. "When my boy was killed,
+my deah Fahquhah, I felt like the Electoh Palatine of the Rhine, when
+young Duke Christopheh, his son, fell at Mookerheyde, accohding to
+Motley: he said ''Twas bettah thus than to have passed his time in
+idleness, which is the devil's pillow.' Suh, I honouh the Electoh
+Palatine foh that. What melancholy ghaves these pooah creatuhes fill."
+Then Mrs. Du Plessis wept, mildly, and Miss Du Plessis, and they all had
+to wipe a few tears out of Wilkinson's eyes. Had Coristine been there,
+he would have been scandalized. The lawyer's lady-love was engaged in
+very prosaic work in the sewing-room, with her aunt, running a
+sewing-machine to make much-needed clothes for the unhappy woman, whom
+the coroner's jury, by a euphemism, called Rawdon's wife. The two had
+seen her off in charge of good old Mr. Newberry, and had promised to
+send her the work, which she herself had begun; and, now, they were
+toiling with all their might to redeem the promise, as early as
+possible, in spite of the tears that would come also into their foolish
+eyes, blurring their vision and damping their material. Coristine, who
+longed for a sight of fresh young life after the vision of death, did
+not know what kept that young life within, and, like an unreasonable
+man, was inclined to be angry. He was overwrought, poor fellow,
+sleepless and tired, and emotionally excited, and, therefore, ready for
+any folly under the sun.
+
+Mrs. Carmichael had entered the house, with the Captain and Mr. Terry.
+The lawyer remained alone in the garden, waiting for something to turn
+up. Something did turn up in the shape of the stage on its way to the
+post office, which dropped its only passenger at the Bridesdale gate.
+The passenger was a young fellow of about twenty-five, rather over than
+under middle height, of good figure, and becomingly dressed. His
+features were good enough, but lacked individuality, as did his combined
+moustache and side whiskers, that formed a sort of imperfect W across
+his face. He held his nose well up in the air, spoke what, in his
+ignorance, he fondly imagined to be aristocratic English, and carried,
+with an apologetic and depressed air, a small Gladstone bag. The
+newcomer dusted his trouser legs with a cane utterly useless for walking
+purposes; then, adjusting his eye-glass, he elevated it towards the
+solitary occupant of the garden, as he entered the gate. "Haw, you sir,"
+he called out to him; "is this, haw, Mr. Corrothers' plaice?" Coristine
+was nettled at the style of address, but commanded himself to reply as
+briefly as possible that it was. "Miss Morjorie Cormichael stoying
+here?" continued the stage passenger. "Miss Carmichael is here,"
+responded the lawyer. "Haw, I thort so. Just you run in now, will you,
+ond tell Miss Morjorie thot on old friend wonts to speak to her." The
+lawyer was getting furious, in spite of himself. Taking his pipe out of
+his pocket, and proceeding to fill it with all apparent deliberation and
+calmness, he replied: "So far as I have the honour of Miss Carmichael's
+acquaintance, she is not in the habit of receiving visitors out of
+doors. There are both bell and knocker on the door before you, which
+servants will probably answer; but, if that door doesn't suit you, you
+will probably find others at the back." With this ungracious speech, he
+turned on his heel, lit his pipe, and puffed vigorously along the path
+towards the meadow gate. Then, he strolled down the hill and met the
+returning fishers, the two youngest in Mr. Bigglethorpe's arms, and with
+their arms about his neck. Coristine indulged in a kissing bee with the
+rest of them, so as to assure himself that he was the true old friend,
+the genuine Codlin, while the other man was Short. "Marjorie," he said,
+as that fishing young lady clung to him, "there's a duffer of a dude,
+with an eye-glass, up at the house, who says he's an old friend of your
+cousin Marjorie; do you know any old friend of hers?" Marjorie stopped
+to think, and, after a little pause, said: "It can't be Huggins." "Who
+is Huggins, Marjorie?" asked the lawyer. "He's the caretaker of
+Marjorie's school."
+
+"Oh no, this dude is too young and gorgeous for a caretaker."
+
+"Then, I think I know; its Orther Lom."
+
+"Who is Orther Lom?"
+
+"I don't know; only Auntie Marjorie said, she wouldn't be astonished if
+Orther Lom was to come and find cousin Marjorie out, even away up here.
+It must be Orther Lom."
+
+This was all the information the lawyer could obtain; so he and Marjorie
+joined Mr. Bigglethorpe and the other anglers, and talked about making
+domestic sardines and smelts of the chub and dace they had caught.
+
+The summons to tea greeted the wanderers before they had had time to
+cleanse their hands of fishy odours; consequently Mr. Bigglethorpe and
+the lawyer were a minute or two late. They found the man of the
+eye-glass seated on one side of Miss Carmichael, and, as she beckoned
+the fisherman to the other, she introduced her protegé to him as Mr.
+Arthur Lamb, a very old friend. Miss Halbert made way for Coristine
+beside her, and he congratulated her on the doctor's reappearance at the
+table.
+
+"Mr. Coristine," said Miss Carmichael, and the lawyer, with a somewhat
+worn society face, looked across.
+
+"Mr. Lamb, who is an old friend of ours, tells me he met you in the
+garden, but you did not introduce yourself. Let me introduce you, Mr.
+Lamb, Mr. Coristine."
+
+Coristine gave the merest nod of recognition, and went on talking to
+Miss Halbert. He thought Perrowne was right; there was some
+satisfaction conversing with a girl like that, a girl with no nonsense
+about her. The minister's gloves had got fishy, handling Marjorie's
+catch, so he had taken them off when preparing himself for tea, and had
+left them in his room. Miss Carmichael looked at the burnt hands, and
+felt disposed to scold him, but did not dare. Perhaps, he had taken the
+gloves off intentionally. She wished that ring of his were not on her
+finger. Between Mr. Lamb and Miss Halbert, she felt very uncomfortable,
+and knew that Eugene, no, Mr. Coristine, was behaving abominably. The
+colonel and his belongings had been so much about the wounded dominie
+all afternoon, that Mrs. Carruthers insisted on her right, as a hostess,
+to minister to him, while her sister-in law presided in her stead.
+Coristine at once rose to help the hostess, and regained his spirits,
+while rallying his old friend over the many attentions he was receiving
+at the hands of the fair sex. He could hardly believe his eyes and ears
+when he beheld the meek and helpless creature who had once been the
+redoubtable Wilkinson. How had the mighty fallen! "We'll put you in a
+glass case, Wilks, like the old gray horse that was jined to the
+Methodis, and kicked so high they put him in the museum."
+
+"Corry," interrupted the still correct dominie, "I have no sympathy with
+that rude song; but if you will quote it, please adhere to the original.
+It was 'my old aunt Sal that was joined to the Methodists,' not the old
+gray horse."
+
+"Thanks, Wilks, thanks, I'll try and remember. Any more toast or jam,
+old boy?"
+
+"No, I have a superabundance of good things."
+
+"Well, see you again, sometime when I have a chance. You're pretty well
+guarded you know. Au revoir."
+
+Coristine followed Mrs. Carruthers down stairs; while the dominie
+sighed, and said: "It seems as if nothing will give that boy stability
+of character and staidness of demeanour."
+
+"Who is going to service to-night?" asked the Squire. Mrs. Carruthers
+could not, because of the children; the doctor was unfit to walk; and
+the colonel and Mrs. Du Plessis had so much to say to each other over
+their dear boy that they desired to be excused. Mr. Bigglethorpe said
+he was a church-going man, but hardly cared to air his green shade in
+public; whereupon Mr. Terry volunteered to remain and smoke a pipe with
+him. Mrs. Carmichael and her daughter signified their intention of
+accompanying the Squire, and Mr. Lamb at once asked permission to join
+them. Miss Halbert stated that she would like to go to week service, if
+anybody else was going. Of course, the lawyer offered his escort, and
+Miss Du Plessis and the Captain begged to be included. Thus, four of the
+party set out for Mr. Perrowne's mid-week service, and four to Mr.
+Errol's prayer meeting. Mr. Lamb did not get much out of Miss Carmichael
+on the way, and Miss Halbert thought her escort unusually absent-minded.
+Coming home, Mr. Perrowne deprived Coristine of his fair charge, and Mr.
+Errol relieved the Squire of his sister. Accordingly, the freed
+cavaliers drew together and conversed upon the events of the day. Good
+Mr. Carruthers was startled, when the lawyer expressed his intention of
+leaving in the morning, as he could be of no further use, and felt he
+had already trespassed too long upon his generous hospitality.
+
+"Noo, Coristine," he said, falling into his doric, "what ails ye, man,
+at the lassie?"
+
+"My dear Squire, I have none but the kindest and most grateful thoughts
+towards all the ladies."
+
+"Weel, weel, it's no for me to be spierin', but ye maun na gang awa
+frae's on accoont o' yon daft haveral o' a Lamb."
+
+"Who is this Mr. Lamb?"
+
+"I ken naething aboot him, foreby that he's a moothin' cratur frae the
+Croon Lans Depairtment, wi' no owre muckle brains."
+
+Dropping the subject, the Squire proceeded to tell what he had found in
+Nash's papers, and proposed an expedition, ostensibly for fishing, in
+which the two of them, providing themselves with tools, should prospect
+for the hidden treasure of the former master of the Select Encampment.
+As it was unlikely that any claimant for Rawdon's property would appear,
+all that they found would belong to Matilda and her boy, unless it were
+judged right to indemnify Miss Du Plessis for any injury done to her
+land. There was no reason for the lawyer's departure. He had another
+week of leave, which he did not know how to put in. True, he could not
+remain until Wilkinson was perfectly well, but it would seem heartless
+to desert him so soon after he had received his wound. He had thought of
+writing the Squire about Miss Carmichael's position as her deceased
+father's next of kin, but it would save trouble to talk it over. All
+things considered, Mr. Carruthers did not find it a difficult task to
+make his pleasant new acquaintance reconsider his decision and commit
+himself to an indefinite prolongation of Bridesdale hospitality. Yet, as
+he entered the gate, he almost repented his weakness, on hearing the
+eye-glassed Lamb say: "What ohfully jawlly times we hod, Morjorie, when
+you and I were sweethorts." He wished that he could recall some
+frightfully injurious and profane expression in a foreign tongue, with
+which to anathematize the wretched, familiar, conceited Crown Lands
+Department cad. While the Squire joined the doctor and the Captain in
+the office, he went over to a corner in which the pipes of the veteran
+and Mr. Bigglethorpe were still glowing, and, lighting his own, listened
+to their military and piscatorial yarns.
+
+Rufus had remained at Bridesdale, at the urgent entreaty of his sisters
+and the Pilgrims; but the sight of the people going to prayer meeting
+smote his conscience. He knew his father and mother would be at meetin'
+in their own church, and that there would be a good deal of work to do.
+Besides he hadn't brought home the team from Mr. Hislop's since the bee.
+Nothing would stop him, therefore; he shouldered his gun, and, bidding
+all good bye, started for home. Nobody was left in the kitchen but the
+two maids and the two Pilgrims. Yes, there was one more, namely Mr.
+Pawkins, who was afeard his duds warn't dry. The nettrelized citizen of
+Kennidy was telling stories, that kept the company in peals and roars of
+laughter, about an applicant for a place in a paper mill, who was set to
+chewing a blue blanket into pulp, who was given a bottle of vinegar to
+sharpen his teeth with, and who was ignominiously expelled from the
+premises because he didn't "chaw it dry"; about a bunting billy goat;
+and a powerful team of oxen, that got beyond the control of their
+barn-moving driver, and planted the barn on the top of an almost
+inaccessible hill. Mr. Pawkins complimented the young women, and drew
+wonderful depths of knowledge out of Sylvanus and Timotheus. But, when a
+vehicle rolled into the stable yard that brought the constable and
+Maguffin to join the party, the quondam American citizen waxed jubilant,
+and beheld endless possibilities of amusement. "Good evenin',
+consterble," said Mr. Pawkins, blandly.
+
+"Good evening, sir, at your service," replied the pensioner.
+
+"Pawkins is my naum, consterble, kyind er Scotch, I reckin. They say
+pawky means sorter cute an' cunnin', like in Scotch. Never was thar
+myself, to speak on, but hev seed 'em."
+
+"The Scotch make good soldiers," said Mr Rigby.
+
+"Yaas; I reckin the oatmeal sorter stiffens 'em up."
+
+"There are military authorities who assert that the Scotch are the only
+troops that can reform under fire; but that is a mistake. In that
+respect, sir, the Guards are equal to any other Household Troops."
+
+"Fer haousehold trooeps and reformin' under fire, you had orter ha seen
+aour fellers at Bull Run. When the shooten' begun, all the Bowery plug
+uglies, bred to cussin' and drinkin' and wuss, dropped ther guns and
+fell on ther knees a reformin'; then, when they faound they couldn't
+reform so suddent, they up on ther two feet and started fer the
+haoushold. Eurrup ain't got nuthin' ter ekal aour haousehold trooeps."
+
+"You mistake me, Mr. Pawkins; the Household Troops in infantry are the
+Guards and Highlanders, whose special duty it is to guard the royal
+household."
+
+"Is it big?"
+
+"Is what big, sir?"
+
+"Why, the household! How many storeys is ther to it besides the attic
+and basement? Hev it got a mansard?"
+
+"The Household, sir, dwells in royal palaces of great dimensions. It is
+the royal family and their attendants over whom the Guards watch."
+
+"That's the Black Guards, ain't it?"
+
+"No, sir; you are thinking of the Black Watch, a name of the
+Forty-second Highlanders."
+
+"D'ye hear that, you Sambo? You orter go and git draafted inter that
+corpse, and go araound breakin' the wimmin's hyearts in a cullud flannel
+petticut."
+
+"There are no negroes, sir, in the Black Watch," interposed the
+corporal.
+
+"See heah, yoh Yankee Canajiun," answered Mr. Maguffin with feeling,
+"fo' de law ob this yeah kintry I'se jess es good a man as yoh is. So
+yoh jess keep yoh Samboo in yoh mouf atter this. Specks yoh'se got a
+mighty low down name yohsef if t'was ony knowed by respeckable pussons."
+
+"My name, Mr. Julius Sneezer Disgustus Quackenboss, my name is Pawkins,
+great grandson of Hercules Leonidas Pawkins, as was briggidier ginral
+and aijicamp to George Washington, when he drummed the haousehold
+trooeps, and the hull o' the derned British army, out'n Noo Yohk to the
+toon o' 'Yankee Doodle.'"
+
+The constable turned pale, shivered all over, and swayed about in his
+chair, almost frightening the mendacious Yankee by the sight of the
+mischief his words had wrought. Tryphena, however, quickly filled the
+shocked corporal a hot cup of tea, and mutely pressed him to drink it.
+He took off the tea at a gulp, set down the cup with a steady hand, and,
+looking Mr. Pawkins in the face, said: "I regret, sir, to have to say
+the word; but, sir, you are a liar."
+
+"That's true as death, consterble," remarked Timotheus, who did not
+share the hostile feelings of Sylvanus towards Corporal Rigby; "true as
+death, and the boys, they ducked him in the crick for't, but they's no
+washin' the lies out'n his jaws."
+
+Mr. Pawkins looked as fierce as it was possible for a man with a merry
+twinkle in his eyes to look, and roared, "Consterble, did you mean that,
+or did you only say it fer fun like?"
+
+Mr Rigby, glaring defiance, answered, "I meant it."
+
+"Oh waall," responded the Yankee Canadian, mildly, "that's all right;
+because I want you to know that I don't allaow folks to joke with me
+that way. If you meant it, that's a different thing."
+
+"What your general character may be, I do not know. As for your remarks
+on the British army, they are lies."
+
+"I guess, consterble, you ain't up in the histry of the United States of
+Ameriky, or you'd know as your Ginral Clinton was drummed aout o' Noo
+Yohk to the toon o' 'Yankee Doodle.'"
+
+"I know, sir, that a mob of Hanoverians and Hessians, whom the Americans
+could not drive out, evacuated New York, in consequence of a treaty of
+peace. If your general, as you call him, Washington, had the bad taste
+to play his ugly tune after them, it was just what might be expected
+from such a quarter."
+
+"My history," said Tryphosa, "says that the American army was driven out
+of Canada by a few regulars and some French-Canadians at the same time."
+
+"Brayvo, Phosy!" cried Timotheus.
+
+"I assert now, as I have asserted before," continued Corporal Rigby,
+"that the British army never has been defeated, and never can be
+defeated. I belong to the British army, and know whereof I speak."
+
+"Were you in the American war, Mr. Pawkins?" asked Tryphena.
+
+"Yaas, I was thar, like the consterble, in the haouse hold trooeps. When
+they come araound a draaftin', I skit aout to Kennidy. I've only got one
+thing agin the war, and that is makin' every common nigger so sassy he
+thinks he's the ekal of a white man. Soon's I think of that, the war
+makes me sick."
+
+"It is the boast of our Empire," remarked the pensioner, grandly, "that
+wherever its flag floats, the slave is free."
+
+"It's a derned pity," said Mr. Pawkins; "that there boy, Julius Sneezer
+Disgustus Quackenboss, ud be wuth heaps more'n he is, if his boss jest
+had the right to lick him straight along."
+
+"Who," shrieked Maguffin; "who'se yar Squackenbawsin' an' gibbin' nigger
+lip ter? My name's Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin, an' what's yourn?
+Pawkins! Oh massy! Pawkins, nex' thing ter punkins. I cud get er punkin,
+an' cut a hole er two in it an' make a bettah face nor yourn, Mistah
+Pawkins, candaberus, lantun jaw, down east, Yankee white tresh. What you
+doin' roun' this house, anyway?"
+
+"Arrah, hush now, childher!" said Mr. Terry, entering from the hall.
+"The aivenin's the time to make up aall dishputes, an' quoiet aal yer
+angry faylins afore yeez say yer worruds an' go to shlape, wid the howly
+angels gyardin' yeez. Good aivenin', Corporal."
+
+"Good evening, Sergeant-Major."
+
+"Mr. Terry," asked Tryphosa, timidly, "will you play a game at Cities,
+Rivers and Mountains? We were waiting for even numbers to begin." The
+veteran, who knew the game, agreed. Gallantly, the gentlemen asked the
+two ladies to choose sides, whereupon Tryphena selected Mr. Pawkins,
+Maguffin and Sylvanus; Mr. Terry, the constable, and Timotheus fell to
+Tryphosa. Peace once more reigned, save when the great-grandson of the
+brigadier general was detected in looking over his opponent's cards and
+otherwise acting illegally.
+
+Bigglethorpe and the lawyer entered the house, not far from bed time.
+The company was in the drawing-room, and a lady was at the piano
+singing, and playing her own accompaniment, while Mr. Lamb was standing
+beside her, pretending to turn over the music, of which he had as little
+knowledge as the animal whose name he bore. The song was that beautiful
+one of Burns,
+
+     O wert thou in the cauld blast
+     On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
+
+and, though a gentleman's song, it was rendered with exquisite taste and
+feeling. The singer looked up appealingly at Mr. Lamb twice, solely to
+invoke his aid in turning the music leaf. But, to Coristine's jealous
+soul, it was a glance of tenderness and mutual understanding. Four long
+days he had known her, and she had never sung for him; and now, just as
+soon as the Crown Land idiot comes along, she must favour him with her
+very best. He would not be rude, and talk while the singing was going
+on, but he would let Lamb do all the thanking; he wasn't going shares
+with that affected dude. The music ceased, and he turned to see whom he
+could talk to. Mrs. Carmichael and Miss Halbert were busy with their
+clerical adorers. The colonel and Mrs. Du Plessis had evidently bid
+their dear boy good night, for they were engaged in earnest
+conversation, in which he called her Terésa, and she called him Paul as
+often as colonel. Miss Du Plessis was turning over the leaves of an
+album. He went up to her, and asked if she would not favour the company
+with some music. "Instrumental or vocal, Mr. Coristine?" she asked. "Oh,
+vocal, if you please, Miss Du Plessis; do you sing, 'Shall I wasting in
+despair,' or anything of that kind?" Miss Du Plessis did not, but would
+like to hear Mr. Coristine sing it. He objected that he had no music,
+and was a poor accompanyist. Before the unhappy man knew where he was,
+Miss Du Plessis was by Miss Carmichael's side, begging her dear friend
+Marjorie to accompany Mr. Coristine. She agreed, for she knew the song,
+and the music was in the stand. Like a condemned criminal, Coristine was
+conducted to the piano; but the first few bars put vigour into him, and
+he sang the piece through with credit. He was compelled, of course, to
+return thanks for the excellent accompaniment, but this he did in a
+stiff formal way, as if the musician was an entire stranger. Then they
+had prayers, for the gentlemen had come in out of the office, and,
+afterwards, the clergymen went home. As the inmates of Bridesdale
+separated for the night, Miss Carmichael handed the lawyer his ring,
+saying that since his hands were fit to dispense with gloves, they must
+also be strong enough to bear its weight. He accepted the ring with a
+sigh, and silently retired to his chamber. Before turning in for the
+night, he looked in upon Wilkinson, whom he found awake. After enquiries
+as to his arm and general health, he said: "Wilks, my boy, congratulate
+me on being an ass; I've lost the finest woman in all the world by my
+own stupidity." His friend smiled at him, and answered: "Do not be
+down-hearted, Corry; I will speak to Ceci--Miss Du Plessis I mean, and
+she will arrange matters for you." The lawyer fervently exclaimed: "God
+bless you, Wilks!" and withdrew, not a little comforted. We cannot
+intrude into the apartment of the young ladies, but there was large
+comfort in their conversation for a person whose Christian name was
+Eugene. If he only had known it!
+
+By the constable, Ben Toner, and other messengers, Mr. Bigglethorpe had
+acquainted his somewhat tyrannical spouse that he was staying for a
+while at the Flanders lakes to enjoy the fishing. Mr. Rigby had brought
+from the store his best rods and lines and his fly-book. He was,
+therefore, up early on Thursday morning, lamenting that he was not at
+Richards, whence he could have visited the first lake and secured a mess
+of fish before breakfast. He was sorting out his tackle in the office,
+when Marjorie, an early riser, came in to see if Uncle John was there.
+When she found out the occupant, she said: "Come along, Mr. Biggles, and
+let us go fishing, it's so long before breakfast." Fishing children
+could do anything with Bigglethorpe; he would even help them to catch
+cat-fish and suckers. But he had an eye to business. "Marjorie," he
+asked, "do you think you could find me a pickle bottle, an empty one,
+you know?" She thought she could, and at once engaged 'Phosa and 'Phena
+in the search for one. A Crosse and Blackwell wide-mouthed bottle,
+bearing the label "mixed pickles," which really means gherkins, was
+borne triumphantly into the office. Mr. Bigglethorpe handled it
+affectionately, and said: "Put on your hat, Marjorie, and we'll go
+crawfish hunting." Without rod or line, the fisherman, holding the
+pickle bottle in his left hand, and taking Marjorie by the right, walked
+down to the creek. On its bank he sat down, and took off his shoes and
+socks, an example quickly and joyfully followed by his young companion.
+Then he splashed a little water on his head, and she did the same; after
+which they waded in the shallow brook, and turned up flat stones in its
+bed. Sometimes the crawfish lay quite still, when Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+getting his right hand, with extended thumb and forefinger, slily behind
+it, grasped the unsuspecting crustacean at the back of his great
+nippers, and landed him in the bottle filled with sparkling water.
+Sometimes a "craw," as Marjorie called them, darted away backward in a
+great hurry, and had to be looked for under another stone, and these
+were generally young active fellows, which, the fisherman said, made the
+best bait for bass. It was wild, exciting work, with a spice of danger
+in it from the chance of a nip from those terrible claws. Marjorie
+enjoyed it to the full. She laughed and shrieked, and clapped her hands
+over every new addition to the pickle bottle, and Mr. Biggles was every
+bit as enthusiastic as she was. Soon they were aware of a third figure
+on the scene. It was the sleepless lawyer. "Come in, Eugene," cried
+Marjorie; "take off your shoes and stockings, and help us to catch these
+lovely craws." He had to obey, and was soon as excited as the others
+over this novel kind of sport.
+
+Coristine looked up after securing his twelfth victim, and saw four
+figures sauntering down the hill. Three were young ladies in print
+morning gowns; the fourth was the ineffable dude, Lamb. At once he went
+back, and put himself into socks and boots, turning down his trouser
+legs, as if innocent of the childish amusement. "Haw," brayed Mr. Lamb,
+"is thot you, Cawrstine? Been poddling in the wotter, to remind yoursolf
+of the doys when you used to run round in your bare feet?" Outwardly
+calm, the lawyer advanced to meet the invaders. Bowing somewhat too
+ceremoniously to the three ladies, who looked delightfully fresh and
+cool in their morning toilets, he answered his interlocutor. "I am sure,
+Mr. Lamb, that it would afford Mr. Bigglethorpe and Marjorie additional
+satisfaction, to know that their wading after crawfish brought up
+memories of your barefooted youth. Unfortunately, I have no such
+blissful period to recall." Mr. Lamb blushed, and stammered some
+incoherencies, and Miss Carmichael, running past the lawyer towards
+Marjorie, whispered as she flitted before him, "you rude, unkind man!"
+This did not tend to make him more amiable. He snubbed the Crown Land
+gentleman at every turn, and, more than usually brilliant in talk,
+effectually kept his adversary out of conversation with the remaining
+ladies. "Look, Cecile!" said Miss Halbert; "Marjorie is actually joining
+the waders. "Mr. Lamb stroked his whisker-moustache and remarked: "Haw,
+you know, thot's nothing new for Morjorie; when we were childron
+together, we awften went poddling about in creeks for crowfish and
+minnows." Then he had the impertinence to stroll down to the brook, and
+rally the new addition to the crawfishing party. To Coristine the whole
+thing was gall and wormwood. The only satisfaction he had was, that Mr.
+Lamb could not summon courage enough to divest himself of shoes and
+stockings and take part in the sport personally. But what an
+insufferable ass he, Coristine, had been not to keep on wading, in view
+of such glorious company! What was the use of complaining: had he been
+there she would never have gone in, trust her for that! Wilkinson and he
+were right in their old compact: the female sex is a delusion and a
+snare. Thank heaven! there's the prayer gong, but will that staring,
+flat-footed, hawhawing, Civil Service idiot be looking on while she
+reattires herself! He had half a mind to descend and brain him on the
+spot, if he had any brains, so as to render impossible the woeful
+calamity. But the fates were merciful, sending Mr. Lamb up with Marjorie
+and Mr. Bigglethorpe. Now was the angry man's chance, and a rare one,
+but, like an angry man, he did not seize it. The other two ladies
+remarked to each other that it was not very polite of three gentlemen to
+allow a lady, the last of the party, to come up the hill alone. What did
+he care?
+
+At breakfast, Miss Carmichael sat between Messrs. Bigglethorpe and Lamb,
+and the lawyer between Miss Halbert and the veteran. "Who are going
+fishing to the lakes," asked the Squire, to which question the doctor
+replied, regretting his inability; and the colonel declined the
+invitation on account of his dear boy. Mr. Lamb intimated that he had
+business with Miss Du Plessis on Crown Land matters, as the department
+wished to get back into its possession the land owned by her. This was a
+bombshell in the camp. Miss Du Plessis declined to have any conference
+on the subject, referring the civil servant to her uncle, to Squire
+Carruthers, and to her solicitor, Mr. Coristine. The lawyer was disposed
+to be liberal in politics, although his friend Wilkinson was a strong
+Conservative; but the contemptible meanness of a Government department
+attempting to retire property deeded and paid for in order to gain a few
+hundred dollars or a new constituent, aroused his vehement indignation,
+and his determination to fight Lamb and his masters to the bitter end of
+the Privy Council.
+
+"Mr. Lamb," said the colonel, "is yoar business with my niece
+complicated, or is it capable of being stated bhiefly?"
+
+"I can put it in a very few words, Colonel," replied the civil service
+official; "the deportment hos received on awffer for Miss Du Plessis'
+lond which it would be fawlly to refuse."
+
+"But," interposed the Squire, "the department has naething to dae wi'
+Miss Cecile's land: it's her ain, every fit o't."
+
+"You don't know the deportment, Squire. It con take bock lond of its
+own deed, especially wild lond, by the awffer of a reasonable equivolent
+or indemnity. It proposes to return the purchase money, with five per
+cent. interest to date, and the amount of municipal toxes attested by
+receipts. Thot is regorded os a fair odjustment, ond on Miss Du Plessis
+surrendering her deed to me, the deportment will settle the claim within
+twelve months, if press of business ollows."
+
+"Such abominable, thieving iniquity, on the pairt o' a Government
+ca'ain' itself leeberal, I never hard o' in aa my life," said the
+indignant Squire.
+
+"Do you mean to say, Arthur," asked Mrs. Carmichael, "that your
+department can take away Cecile's property in that cavalier fashion, and
+without any regard to the rise in values?"
+
+"I'm ofraid so, Mrs. Cormichael."
+
+"What have you to say to that, Mr. Coristine, from a legal standpoint?"
+enquired Mrs. Carruthers.
+
+"A deed of land made by the Government, or by a private individual,
+conveys, when, as in this case, all provisions have been complied with,
+an inalienable title."
+
+"There is such a thing as expropriation," suggested Mr. Lamb, rather
+annoyed to find a lawyer there.
+
+"Expropriation is a municipal affair in cities and towns, or it may be
+national and provincial in the case of chartered railways or national
+parks, in all which cases remuneration is by arbitration, not by the
+will of any expropriating body."
+
+"The deportment may regord this as a provincial offair. Ot any rate, it
+hos octed in this way before with success."
+
+"I know that the department has induced people to surrender their rights
+for the sake of its popularity, but by wheedling, not by law or justice,
+and, generally, there has been some condition of payment, or something
+else, not complied with."
+
+"Thot's simple enough. A few lines in the bookkeeping awffice con
+involidate the deed."
+
+"One or two words, Mr. Lamb, and I have done; the quicker you answer,
+the sooner Miss Du Plessis' decision is reached. Do you represent the
+commissioner, the minister?"
+
+"Well, not exoctly."
+
+"Were you sent by his deputy, the head of the department?"
+
+"Not the head exoctly."
+
+"Is the name of the man, for whom your friend wants to expropriate Miss
+Du Plessis' land, called Rawdon, Altamont Rawdon?"
+
+"How did you know thot? Ore you one of the deportment outriggers?"
+
+"No; I have nothing to do with any kind of dirty work. You go back, and
+tell your man, first, that Rawdon is dead, and that in life he was a
+notorious criminal; second, that Miss Du Plessis' land has been
+devastated by the fire in which he perished; and, third, that if he, or
+you, or any other contemptible swindler, moves a finger in this
+direction, either above board or below, I'll have you up for foul
+conspiracy, and make the department only too happy to send you about
+your business to save its reputation before the country."
+
+As Ben Toner and his friends in the kitchen would have said, Mr. Lamb
+was paralyzed. While the lawyer had spoken with animation, there was
+something quite judicial in his manner. Miss Carmichael looked up at him
+from under her long lashes with an admiration it would have done him
+good to see, and a hum of approving remarks went all round the table.
+Then, in an evil moment, the young lady felt it her duty to comfort the
+heart of poor Orther Lom, whom everybody else regarded with something
+akin to contempt. She talked to him of old times, until the man's
+inflated English was forgotten, as well as his by no means reputable
+errand. The young man was quite incapable of any deep-laid scheme of
+wrong-doing, as he was of any high or generous impulse. He was a mere
+machine, educated up to a certain point, able to write a good hand, and
+express himself grammatically, but thinking more of his dress and his
+spurious English than of any learning or accomplishment, and the
+unreasoning tool of his official superiors. He had been checkmated by
+Coristine, and felt terribly disappointed at the failure of his mission;
+but the thought that he had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did
+not trouble him in the least. Yet, had he been offered a large bribe to
+commit robbery in the usual ways, he would have rejected the
+proposition with scorn. Miss Carmichael, knowing his character, was
+sorry for him, little thinking that his returning vivacity under her
+genial influence smote Coristine's heart, as the evidence of double
+disloyalty on the lady's part, to her friend, Miss Du Plessis, and to
+him. Tiring of her single-handed work, she turned to Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+saying: "You know Mr. Lamb, do you not!" The fisherman answered: "You
+were kind enough to introduce us last night, Miss Carmichael, but you
+will, I hope, pardon me for saying that I do not approve of Mr. Lamb."
+Then he turned away, and conversed with the Captain. When the company
+rose, the only person who approached the civil servant was the colonel,
+who said: "I pehsume, suh, aftah what my kind friend, Mr. Cohistine, has
+spoken so well, you will not annoy my niece with any moah remahks about
+her propehty. It would please that lady and me, as her guahdian, if you
+will fohget Miss Du Plessis' existence, suh, so fah as you are
+concehned." This was chilling, but chill did not hurt Mr. Lamb. The
+little Carruthers, headed by Marjorie, were in front of the verandah
+when Miss Carmichael and he went out. Marjorie had evidently been
+schooling them, for, at her word of command, they began to sing, to the
+tune of "Little Bo Peep," the original words:--
+
+     Poor Orther Lom,
+     He looks so glom.
+
+Miss Carmichael seized her namesake and shook her. "You naughty, wicked
+little girl, how dare you? Who taught you these shameful words?" she
+asked, boiling with indignation. Marjorie cried a little for vexation,
+but would not reveal the name of the author. Some said it was the
+doctor, and others, that it was his daughter Fanny; but Miss Carmichael
+was sure that the lawyer, Marjorie's great friend, Eugene, was the
+guilty party, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that the
+sooner he left Bridesdale the better. Coristine was completely innocent
+of the awful crime, which lay in the skirts of Marjorie's father, the
+Captain, as might have been suspected from the beauty of the couplet.
+The consequence of the poetic surprise was the exclusive attachment of
+Miss Carmichael to the Crown Lands man, in a long walk in the garden, a
+confidential talk, and the present of a perfectly beautiful button-hole
+pinned in by her own hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+     The Picnic--Treasure Trove--A Substantial Ghost
+     Captured--Coristine's Farewell--Ride to Collingwood--Bangs Secures
+     Rawdon--Off to Toronto--Coristine Meets the Captain--Grief at
+     Bridesdale--Marjorie and Mr. Biggles--Miss Du Plessis Frightens Mr.
+     Lamb--The Minister's Smoke--Fishing Picnic.
+
+
+After his Parthian shot, the Captain ordered Sylvanus to get out the
+gig, as he was going home. Leaving Marjorie in the hands of her aunt
+Carmichael, he saluted his daughter, his niece, and his two sisters in
+law, and took their messages for Susan. There was grief in the kitchen
+at the departure of Sylvanus, who expected to be on the rolling deep
+before the end of the week. Mr. Pawkins and Constable Rigby had already
+taken leave, travelling homeward in an amicable way. Then, Doctor
+Halbert insisted on his vehicle being brought round, as there must be
+work waiting for him at home; so a box with a cushion was placed for his
+sprained leg, and he and Miss Fanny were just on the eve of starting,
+when Mr. Perrowne came running up in great haste, and begged to be
+allowed to drive the doctor over. With a little squeezing he got in,
+and, amid much waving of handkerchiefs, the doctor's buggy drove away.
+Mr. Lamb exhibited no desire to leave, and Miss Carmichael was compelled
+to devote herself to him, a somewhat monotonous task, in spite of his
+garrulous egotism. Timotheus, by the Squire's orders, harnessed the
+horses to the waggonette, and deposited therein a pickaxe and a spade.
+Mr. Bigglethorpe brought out his fishing tackle, joyous over the
+prospect of a day's fishing, and Mr. Terry lugged along a huge basket,
+prepared by his daughter in the kitchen, with all manner of eatables and
+drinkables for the picnic. The lawyer made the fourth of the party,
+exclusive of Timotheus, who gave instructions to Maguffin how to behave
+in his absence. The colonel was with Wilkinson, but the ladies and Mr.
+Lamb came to see the expedition under way. It was arranged that
+Timotheus should drive the Squire and the lawyer to the masked road and
+leave them there, after which he was to take the others to Richards
+place, put up the horses, and help them to propel the scow through the
+lakes and channels. Accordingly, the treasure seekers got out the pick
+and shovel, and trudged along to the scene of the late fire. As they
+neared the Encampment, their road became a difficult and painful one,
+over fallen trees blackened with fire, and through beds of sodden ashes.
+At the Encampment, the ground, save where the buildings had stood, was
+comparatively bare. The lofty and enormously strong brick chimney was
+still standing in spite of the many explosions, and, here and there, a
+horse appeared, looking wistfully at the ruins of its former home.
+There, the intending diggers stood, gazing mutely for a while on the
+scene of desolation.
+
+"'Sandy soil, draining both ways, and undercover,' is what we want,
+Coristine," said the Squire. The two walked back and forward along the
+ridge, rejecting rock and depression and timbered land. They searched
+the foundations of houses and sheds, found the trap under Rawdon's own
+house that led to the now utterly caved-in tunnel, and tried likely
+spots where once the stables stood, only to find accumulations of
+rubbish. A steel square such as carpenters use, was found among the
+chips in the stone-yard, and of this Coristine made a primitive
+surveyor's implement by which he sought to take the level of the ground.
+"Bring your eye down here, Mr. Carruthers," he said. "I see," answered
+the Squire; "but, man, yon's just a conglomeration o' muckle stanes."
+The lawyer replied, "That's true, Squire, but it's the height of land,
+and that top stone lies almost too squarely to be natural. Let us try
+them at least. It will do no harm, and the day is young yet." They went
+forward to a spot beyond the stone yard, on the opposite side from the
+burnt stables, which they saw had once been railed off, for the
+blackened stumps of the posts were still in the ground. It was a
+picturesque mass of confusion, apparently an outcrop of the limestone,
+not uncommon in that region. But the lawyer probed the ground all about
+it. It was light dry soil, with no trace of a rocky bottom. Without a
+lever, their work was hard, but they succeeded in throwing off the
+large flat protecting slab, and in scattering its rocky supports. "Man,
+Coristine, I believe you're richt." ejaculated the perspiring
+Carruthers. Then he took the pick and loosened the ground, while the
+lawyer removed the earth with his spade. "There's no' a root nor a
+muckle stane in the haill o't, Coristine; this groond's been wrocht
+afore, my lad." So they kept on, till at last the pick rebounded with a
+metallic clang. "Let me clear it, Squire," asked the lawyer, and, at
+once, his spade sent the sand flying, and revealed a box of japanned
+tin, the counterpart of that discovered by Muggins, which had only
+contained samples of grindstones. A little more picking, and a little
+more spading, and the box came easily out. It was heavy, wonderfully
+heavy, and it was padlocked. The sharp edge of the spade loosened the
+lid sufficiently to admit the point of the pick, and, while Coristine
+hung on to the box, the Squire wrenched it open. The tin box was full of
+notes and gold.
+
+"There's thoosands an' thoosands here, Coristine, eneuch to keep yon
+puir body o' a Matilda in comfort aa' her days. Man, it's a graun'
+discovery, an' you're the chiel that's fund it," cried the Squire, with
+exultation. The lawyer peered in too, when, suddenly, he heard a shot, a
+bullet whizzed past his ear, and, the next moment, with a sickening
+thud, Carruthers fell to the ground. Coristine rose to his feet like
+lightning, and faced an apparition; the Grinstun man, with pistol in one
+hand and life preserver in the other, was before him. Without a moment's
+hesitation he regained his grasp of his spade, and stretched the ghost
+at his feet, mercifully with the flat of it, and then relieved his
+victim of pistol and loaded skull-cracker. He heard voices hailing, and
+recognized them as those of the veteran and the fisherman. He replied
+with a loud cry of "Hurry, hurry, help!" which roused the prostrate
+spectre. It arose and made a dash for the tin box, but Coristine threw
+himself upon the substantial ghost, and a struggle for life began. They
+clasped, they wrestled, they fell over the poor unconscious Squire, and
+upset the tin box. They clasped each other by the throat, the hair; they
+kicked with their feet, and pounded with their knees. It was Grinstun's
+last ditch, and he was game to hold it; but the lawyer was game too.
+Sometimes he was up and had his hand on his opponent's throat, and
+again, he could not tell how, he was turned over, and the heavy squat
+form of Rawdon fell like an awful nightmare on his chest. But he would
+not give in. He saw his antagonist reach for a weapon, pistol,
+skull-cracker, he knew not what it was, but that reach released one hand
+from his throat. With a tremendous effort, he turned, and lay side to
+side with his enemy, when Timotheus dashed in, and, bodily picking up
+the Grinstun man in his arms, hammered his head on the big flat stone,
+till the breathless lawyer begged him to stop. Up came Mr. Bigglethorpe
+and Mr. Terry in great consternation, and gazed with wonder upon the
+lately active ghost. "Make him fast," cried Coristine with difficulty,
+"while I look after the poor Squire." So, Timotheus and the fisher took
+off Rawdon's coat and braces, and bound him hand and foot with his own
+belongings. But the veteran had already looked to his son-in-law, and,
+from the picnic stores, had poured some spirits into his lips. "Rouse
+up, John, avic," he cried piteously, "rouse up, my darlint, or Honoria
+'ull be breakin' her poor heart. It's good min is scarce thim toimes,
+an' the good God'll niver be takin' away the bist son iver an ould man
+had." The Squire came to, although the dark blood oozed out of an ugly
+wound in the back of his head, and the amount of liquor his affectionate
+father-in law had poured into him made him light-headed. "Glory be to
+God!" said the old man, and all the others gratefully answered "Amen."
+
+The lawyer explained the circumstances, the excavation, the money, the
+assault, to his deliverers; but the resurrection of the Grinstun man was
+a mystery which he could not explain. Without being told, Timotheus,
+whose arrival had been so opportune, ran all the way to Richards, and
+brought from thence the waggon, along with Harry Richards, who
+volunteered to accompany him, and Mr. Errol, who was visiting in the
+neighbourhood. Young Richards brought an axe with him, and cleared some
+of the obstructions of the once masked road, so that the vehicle was
+able to get up within reasonable distance of the encampment. It was
+desirable to get the Squire home, lest his injuries should be greater
+than they supposed, and the prisoner ought to be in Mr. Bangs' hands at
+once. Accordingly, Mr. Errol and Harry Richards offered to stay with Mr.
+Bigglethorpe and carry out the original picnic, it being understood that
+Timotheus would either call or send for them about four o'clock.
+
+"Gin I'm gaun to be oot on the splore, I maun hae a bit smokie. Wha's
+gotten a bit pipe he's no usin'?" asked the usually sedate minister.
+Coristine handed over to him his smoking materials, penknife included;
+and Mr. Errol, taking off his coat, sat down on a stone to fill the
+pipe, saying, "Nae mair pastoral veesitation for me the day. Gin any
+body spiers whaur I am, just tell them I'm renewin' my youth." Timotheus
+and Harry carried the prisoner to the waggon, while the veteran and the
+lawyer followed, leading the Squire, and carrying the box of treasure.
+The fishermen came to see them off, and, then, they descended to the
+lake shore and began the sport of the day. Timotheus drove, and the
+Squire sat up between him and his affectionate father-in-law. The lawyer
+was in the rear seat with the prisoner, who, for greater security, was
+lashed to the back of it. Rawdon's revolver was in his captor's hand,
+and his skull-cracker in a handy place. Several times, shamming
+insensibility, the prince of tricksters endeavoured to throw his
+solitary warder off his guard, but the party reached Bridesdale without
+his succeeding in loosening a single thong. There was great
+consternation when Timotheus drove up to the gate. The children had been
+at their old game of the handkerchief, and Miss Carmichael was actually
+chasing Orther Lom, to their great glee, and to Coristine's intense
+disgust. Of course, they stopped when they saw the waggon and the
+Squire's pale face. The colonel, who had been smoking his morning cigar
+on the verandah, came forward rapidly, and, with Mr. Terry, helped the
+master of Bridesdale to alight. Then, his wife and sister took the
+wounded man in charge, and led him into the house, for he was thoroughly
+dazed and incapable of attending to any business. "If you will allow me,
+colonel," said the lawyer, "I will take charge of legal matters in this
+case," to which Colonel Morton answered, "Most cehtainly, my deah suh,
+no one moah competent."
+
+Maguffin had come round to see if his services would be required, and
+was appointed to mount guard over the prisoner in company with
+Timotheus. To Mr. Terry the lawyer gave the heavy cash box, with orders
+to put it in a safe place in the Squire's office. Then, Coristine went
+up-stairs, washed and brushed away the traces of conflict, and knocked
+at Wilkinson's door. A lady's voice told him to enter, and, on his
+complying with the invitation, he beheld Miss Du Plessis sitting by the
+bedside of his friend, with a book, which was not Wordsworth, in her
+hand. "Please to pardon my intrusion, Miss Du Plessis; the Squire is
+hurt, and we have captured Grinstuns, who was not burnt up after all. I
+must see the prisoner safely caged, and have other business to attend
+to, so that I have come to say good-bye. I am sure that you will take
+every care of my dear friend here." After this little speech, hard to
+utter, the lawyer shook his friend by the well hand, saying: "Good-bye,
+Wilks, old boy, and keep up your heart; any messages for town?" Before
+he had time to receive any such commissions, he shook hands warmly with
+the lady, and vanished. Replacing Maguffin over Rawdon, he told him to
+saddle a horse, and bring it round. His orders to Mr. Terry and
+Timotheus were to secure their prisoner between them in some lighter
+vehicle, and bring him with all speed to Collingwood, whither he would
+precede them on horseback. He found the Squire in an easy chair in the
+sitting room with three lady attendants. Shaking hands with the
+half-unconscious man, he assured him that he would attend to the
+business of the day, and then, with a few words of grateful recognition
+to Mrs. Carruthers, bade all the ladies good-bye. "Hasten back," they
+all said, and the kind hostess added: "We will think long till we see
+you again." Walking back into the kitchen, he bestowed a trifle in his
+most gracious manner, on Tryphena and Tryphosa, and then went forth to
+look for Marjorie. As he kissed her an affectionate farewell in the
+garden, the little girl intuitively guessed his absence to be no common
+one, and begged her Eugene to stay, with tears in her eyes. But he was
+obdurate with her and all the little Carruthers, on whom he showered
+quarters to buy candy at the post office. Maguffin was there with the
+horse, and, near the gate, was Miss Carmichael with that ineffable ass
+Lamb. Looking at the latter as if he would dearly love to kick him, he
+raised his hat to his companion, and extended his hand with the simple
+words "Good-bye." Miss Carmichael did not offer hers in return; she
+said: "It is hardly worth while being so formal over an absence of a few
+hours." Coristine turned as if a serpent had bitten him, slipped some
+money into Maguffin's hand, as that worthy held open the gate for him,
+and vaulted on his horse, nor did he turn to look round so long as the
+eyes of Bridesdale were on his retreating figure.
+
+The lawyer rode hard, for he was excited. He went by Talfourd's house
+like a flash, and away through the woods he had traversed on Nash's
+beast that last pleasant Sunday morning. At the Beaver River he watered
+his horse, and exchanged a word with Pierre and Batiste bidding the
+former look out that no attempt at rescuing the prisoner should be made
+in that quarter. Away he went, with madame's eyes watching him from
+afar, up the ascent, and along the road to where the Hills dwelt at the
+foot of the Blue Mountains. He doffed his hat to the old lady as he
+passed, then breasted the mountain side. For a moment, he stood on the
+summit to take in the view once more, then clattered down the other
+side, and away full pelt for the town. Soon he entered Collingwood, and
+sought the police headquarters without delay. Where was Mr. Bangs? He
+was told, to his great delight, that the detective was in town, and
+would report at four o'clock. It was now half-past three. Putting up his
+horse at the hotel, the lawyer partook of a hasty meal at a restaurant,
+and returned in time to meet Bangs on the very threshold. "Whet ere you
+doing here, Lawyer Coristine?" he asked.
+
+"You will never guess, Mr. Bangs."
+
+"Any more trebble et Bridesdele?"
+
+"No, but I'll tell you; we've caught Rawdon."
+
+"Why, the men's dead, berned to a cinder, you know."
+
+"No, he is not; that was some other man."
+
+"Ere you shore, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"Perfectly. Mr. Terry and Timotheus are bringing him here now."
+
+"Whet, only the two of them, and kemming pest the Beaver too?"
+
+"Yes; there were no more to send. I warned Pierre Lajeunesse to be on
+the lookout."
+
+"Is your beast fit to trevel eny more?"
+
+"I think so; it seems a strong animal."
+
+"Then get on hersebeck quick! Here, kensteble, hend me two betons, and a
+kerbine!"
+
+When the lawyer returned with his hard-ridden steed, he found Mr. Bangs
+mounted, with a baton by his side and a carbine slung behind him. Off
+they went along the shore and up the hill. Descending, they saw the
+buggy approaching slowly in the neighbourhood of the Hills' log shanty,
+attended by four persons who seemed to be armed. Hastening down the
+slope, they came up to it, and found the prisoner safe but awfully
+profane. The foot guards were Ben Toner, Barney Sullivan, and Rufus
+Hill, under the command of Monsieur Lajeunesse. They were relieved of
+their self-imposed duty with many thanks, and Coristine shook hands with
+the honest fellows, as he and the detective replaced them in escort
+duty. Then Timotheus whipped up his horse, and they drove and rode into
+town, an imposing spectacle for the eyes of the youth of Collingwood.
+
+Bangs could hardly believe his eyes, and could not conceal his delight,
+on beholding the murderer of his now buried friend. No pains were spared
+for the safe-keeping of the notorious criminal. In the presence of a
+magistrate, Coristine and Mr. Terry made affidavit as to his crimes and
+capture. The latter and Timotheus also related his attempts to bribe
+them into giving him his liberty, offering large sums and promising to
+leave the country. "Now, Mishter Corstine," says the veteran, "it's
+hoigh toime we was gettin' home. The good payple 'ull be gettin' onaisy
+about yeez, 'an spashly Miss Carrmoichael that was gravin' sore to think
+she niver said good-boye to yeez. Come, now, come away, an' lave the
+baste in the shtable, for it's toired roidin' ye must be."
+
+"I am not going back, Mr. Terry. I said good-bye to them all at
+Bridesdale, and must hurry away to business. Perhaps Timotheus will ride
+the horse, while you drive."
+
+"Thet pore enimel isn't fit fer eny more werk to-night, Mr. Coristine.
+I'll tell you, Mr. Terry, whet I'll do. I shell be beck here to-morrow
+evening, end will ride the horse to Bridesdele. I've got a weggon and
+team of the Squire's here, which yeng Hill will drive beck for me. Then
+he ken ride pore Nesh's horse, and I ken get my own. Strenge they didn't
+give you one of thowse beasts instead of the colonel's, Mr. Coristine."
+
+"Is this the colonel's horse?"
+
+"I should sey it is. You down't think eny ether enimel could hev brought
+you elong so fest, do you?"
+
+"God bless the kind old man!" ejaculated the lawyer.
+
+"Mishter Corstine, dear, it'll be breakin' aall the poor childer's
+hearts an' some that's growed up too if you 'll be afther lavin' us this
+way," continued Mr. Terry; and Timotheus, whom his Peskiwanchow friend
+rewarded, added his appeal: "I wisht you wouldn't go fer to go home
+jess' yet. Mister." But all entreaties were unavailing. He and Mr. Bangs
+saw the buggy off, and then retired to the hotel to get some supper. On
+the way thither, he invested in a briar root pipe and some tobacco to
+replace those he had given to Mr. Errol. They would be home from fishing
+long ago, and perhaps good Bigglethorpe would take Miss Carmichael away
+from that miserable Orther Lom. After supper, the two sat over their
+pipes and a decoction of some kind in the reading-room, talking over the
+sad and wonderful events of the past few days. Mr. Bangs took very
+kindly to the lawyer, and promised to look him up whenever he came to
+town. He advised him to keep silent about the discovery of Rawdon's
+money, as the crown might claim it, and thus deprive poor Matilda Nagle
+of her only chance of independence. He said also that he would instruct
+the Squire in the same direction on the morrow.
+
+That night, two gaol guards armed to the teeth arrived in police
+quarters to take charge of Davis, but the bigger criminal was placed in
+their care. Early in the morning there was a stir in the railway
+station, when the handcuffed prisoners were marched down under strong
+escort, and securely boxed up with their guards and Mr. Bangs. Many
+rough characters were there, among whom the lawyer recognized Matt of
+the tavern, and Bangs and he could have sworn to the identity of others,
+whom the former had met in the cavalry charge on the masked road and
+whom Coristine had seen and heard in the Richards' scow the night of the
+catastrophe. They scowled, but attempted no rescue. Thanks to the
+lawyer's generalship, things had been pushed through too quickly for
+them to combine. For some time, Coristine travelled alone. There were
+other people in the car, but he did not know them, nor did he care to
+make any new acquaintances. All his friends were at Bridesdale, and he
+was a homeless exile going back to Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house. At
+Dromore, however, he caught sight of the wide-mouthed barrel of a
+blunderbuss, and knew the Captain could not be far off. Soon that naval
+gentleman got on board, helping Mrs. Thomas up to the platform, followed
+by Sylvanus with the saluting weapon. They were to be his companions as
+far as Barrie, and much the lawyer enjoyed their society. Marjorie was
+the great subject of conversation, although, of course, the Captain had
+to be enlightened in many points of recent history. He still thought
+Wilkinson a sly dog, but wondered greatly at Coristine's going away.
+Mrs. Thomas explained the relationship of Orther Lom. He had been a poor
+neglected boy, when Marjorie Carmichael was a little girl, whom her
+father, the member, had interested himself in, giving him an education,
+and supporting him in part while at the Normal School in Toronto. Just
+before he died, he exerted his influence to obtain a Government berth
+for him, and that was the whole story. The lawyer saw it all now, and
+learned too late what a foolish fellow he had been. Of course, there
+were old times, and they had much to talk of, and she could not help
+being civil to him, and being angry when he had reminded her father's
+protegé of his early poverty. Coristine sighed, and felt that, if Lamb
+had been present, he would have apologized to him. To cheer him up, the
+Captain invited him to join Mrs. Thomas and himself on a cruise in the
+_Susan_. He would have enjoyed it immensely he said, but, having made so
+many assertions of pressing business in the city, he had to be
+consistent and miserable. At Barrie, he bade his last friends adieu,
+parted affectionately with The Crew, and then gazed longingly at the
+spars of the _Susan Thomas_ in Kempenfeldt Bay. If only the Captain had
+brought the two Marjories for a cruise, he would have shipped with him
+for a month, and have let business go to the dogs. There were no more
+objects of interest till he arrived in Toronto, took a streetcar, and
+deposited himself, much to that lady's astonishment, in his bachelor's
+quarters at Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house. After a special lunch, he sat
+down to smoke and read a little Browning.
+
+It was very late when Mr. Terry and Timotheus arrived at Bridesdale. All
+the ladies had retired, with the exception of Mrs. Carruthers, who had
+staid up to await her father's arrival. The gentlemen of the party were
+the Squire, quite clear in head and not much the worse of his crack on
+the skull, Mr. Bigglethorpe, and Mr. Errol, who had been induced to
+continue his splore in the office. He was still renewing his youth, when
+the veteran entered all alone, and said he didn't mind if he did help
+Mr. Bigglethorpe with that decanter, for it was tiresome work driving.
+
+"Where is Mr. Coristine, grandfather?" asked the Squire.
+
+"It's in Collinwud he is an his way to Teranty."
+
+"What! do you mean to say he has left us, gone for good?"
+
+"That's fwhat it is. Oi prished 'em, an' porshwaded 'em, an' towld 'em
+it was desprut anggery an' graved yeez wud aall be. Says he Oi've bud
+'em aall good-boye an' Oi'm goin' home to bishness. It was lucky for
+you, Squoire, that it wasn't lasht noight he wint."
+
+"It is that, grandfather. I'd have been a dead man. He maun hae focht
+yon deevil like a wild cat tae get oot o' the way o's pistols and
+things."
+
+"'Twas Timawtheus as kim up furrust an' tuk the thafe av a Rawdon out av
+his arrums, for he grupped 'em good an' toight."
+
+"Well done, Timotheus!" said Mr. Errol. "He's a fine lad, Mr.
+Bigglethorpe, though a bit clumsy in his ways."
+
+"We can't all be handsome, sir," answered that gentleman. "If he's got
+the good principle in him, that's the mine thing, so I always say."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers put her head into the smoke, coughed a little, and said:
+"Come, father, supper is waiting for you in the breakfast room." The
+veteran followed his daughter, and, over his evening meal, gave her a
+detailed account of the proceedings of the afternoon. "And to go away
+without a bite to eat, and ride all that distance, and leave his
+knapsack and his flowers and I don't know what else behind him, what is
+the meaning of it, father?"
+
+"Honoria, my dear, I aalways thought women's eyes was cliverer nor
+min's. There's a little gyurl they call Marjorie, an' she's not so
+little as aall that, if she isn't quoite the hoighth av Miss Ceshile.
+That bhoy was jist dishtracted wid the crool paice, that goes aff
+philanderin wid the Shivel Sharvice shape av a Lamb. He didn't say it
+moind in wurruds, but I see it was the killin' av 'em, an' he jist
+coulden' shtand it no langer. Smaal blame to him say Oi!"
+
+So grandfather got his supper, and went back to the office to finish his
+pipe and his tumbler, while Timotheus was entertaining Tryphosa in the
+kitchen. Mrs. Carruthers retired, but, first, she visited the young
+ladies' apartment, and said, in a tone which she meant to be reproachful
+as well as regretful: "Mr. Coristine has left us never to return." The
+kindest-hearted woman in the world, having thrown this drop of
+bitterness into her niece's cup, left her to drink it to the dregs.
+Meanwhile Orther Lom was dreaming that he could not do better than marry
+the Marjorie of his youth and begin housekeeping, in spite of tailors'
+bills.
+
+The sun rose bright on Friday morning, and, peeping in upon Mr.
+Bigglethorpe in his room and upon Marjorie in the nursery bedroom, awoke
+these two early birds. They met on the stairs and came down together.
+The fisherman said he thought he would get his things bundled up,
+meaning his gun and rods, and walk home to breakfast, but Marjorie said
+he just wouldn't, for Eugene was gone, and, if he were to go, she would
+have nobody. Well broken in to respect for feminine authority, save when
+the fishing fit was on, Mr. Bigglethorpe had to succumb, and travel down
+to the creek after crawfish, chub and dace. He told his youthful
+companion fishing stories which amused her; and confided to her that he
+was going to train up his little boy to be a great fisherman. "Have you
+got a little boy, Mr. Biggles?" she asked, and then added: "How funny!"
+as if her friend ought to have been content with other people's
+children, and fish.
+
+"What is his name, Mr. Biggles?" she enquired.
+
+"He hasn't been christened yet, but I think I'll call him Isaac Walton,
+or Charles Cotton, or Piscator. Don't you think these are nice nimes?"
+
+"No, I don't. Woollen and Cotton and what Mr. Perrowne belongs to are
+not pretty. Eugene is pretty."
+
+Mr. Bigglethorpe laughed, and said: "I didn't say Woollen but Walton,
+and I said Piscator, which is the Latin for fisher, not Episcopalian,
+which Mr. Perrowne is."
+
+"Why do you want to call him a fisher? It is like a Sunday School story
+Marjorie read me, a Yankee book, about a little baby boy that was left
+on a doorstep, and the doorstep man's name was Fish, and he had him
+baptized Preserved because he was preserved, and he grew up to be a good
+man and was called Preserved Fish. Wasn't that awful?"
+
+"Oh very streinge! If my boy had been a little girl, I would have nimed
+her Marjorie."
+
+"See, Mr. Biggles, here she comes again, and Cecile, and, O horrors!
+Orther Lom."
+
+It was too true. The young ladies had come out to enjoy the morning air,
+and, after a turn in the garden, had rushed to the hill meadow to escape
+the Departmental gentleman, whose elegant morocco slippers they had
+heard on the stairs. Spite of the morning dew he had pursued them, well
+pleased with himself, and doubtful whom to conquer with his charms.
+
+"O Mr. Biggles," continued Marjorie, "that horrid man got me a naughty,
+cruel shaking, and he's sent my dear Eugene away never to come back any
+more. I know, because I went into aunty's room when I got up; and she
+told me."
+
+"It's too bad, Marjorie. Who mide that little song on Mr. Lamb?"
+
+"You'll never tell?"
+
+"No."
+
+"'Pon your honour?"
+
+"'Pon my honour."
+
+"It was papa, you old goosey."
+
+"Not Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"My I sy that it wasn't Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"O yes, don't let them think any bad things about Eugene, poor boy."
+
+"Good morning, Miss Carmichael," said Mr. Bigglethorpe, or rather he
+bawled it; "will you come here a minute, please?"
+
+Miss Carmichael gladly skipped down, leaving her companion a prey to the
+gentleman of the morocco slippers.
+
+"I want to clear our friend, Mr. Coristine, of a suspicion which you may
+not have shired," said the fisherman. "He didn't mike that little piece
+of poetry on Mr. Lamb that Marjorie and the other children sang
+yesterday morning."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Bigglethorpe; I am very glad to hear it."
+
+"Nasty pig!" said Marjorie to herself; "she drove Eugene away all the
+same."
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Lamb was conversing with Miss Du Plessis.
+
+"You don't seem to mind the doo, Miss Cecile."
+
+"Oh, but I do," she answered.
+
+"Your shoes are parfectly wat, sowking I should think."
+
+"No, they are not wet through; they are thicker than you imagine."
+
+"By the bye, where is his high mightiness, the lawyer, this mawrning?"
+
+"Mr. Coristine has returned to the city."
+
+"Haw, cawlled oway to some pettifogging jawb I suppowse?"
+
+"Such as your Crown Lands case."
+
+"Naw, you down't say, Miss Cecile, thot he's awff ofter thot jawb?"
+
+"I cannot tell what Mr. Coristine may have to do in addition to that. He
+did not confide his business to me."
+
+"I wonder whot time the stage goes awff at!"
+
+"It will pass the gate," said Miss Du Plessis, consulting her watch, "in
+ten minutes."
+
+"Haw, ofally onnoying you know, but I'll hov to pock up and leave before
+breakfost. Please remember me to Morjorie, will you Cecile, if I shont
+hov time to see her before I gow."
+
+Mr. Lamb took his morocco slippers back to the house, and soon
+reappeared at the gate, Gladstone bag and cane in hand, looking at the
+approaching stage. It was filled up with a roughish crowd, all except
+one seat in the back, into which he jumped. The driver flicked his
+horses, and Bridesdale was relieved of the presence of Orther Lom.
+
+"Marjorie," said Miss Du Plessis, "I have bad news for you."
+
+"What is it, Cecile?"
+
+"Your young man has called me by my Christian name, without even putting
+Miss before it."
+
+"Have you killed him and dug his grave with those eyes of yours?"
+
+"No, I simply told him that Mr. Coristine had returned to Toronto,
+perhaps on Crown Land business."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It terrified him so, that he packed his valise forthwith and is gone."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"By the stage. Did you not hear the horn just now?
+
+"No, I was too busy with that delightful Mr. Bigglethorpe. But do you
+mean to tell me that Arthur has left without a farewell word to
+anybody?"
+
+"He said, 'Please remember me to Marjorie, will you, Cecile?' What do
+you think of that?"
+
+"What odious impertinence! I am glad the silly creature has gone, and,
+were it not for the safety of your land, I wish he had never come."
+
+"It was not he who saved my land, Marjorie."
+
+"Oh, don't I know? Don't talk to me any more! You are hateful, Cecile!"
+
+"If you can forget fifty acts of disinterested kindness, Marjorie, it
+does not follow that I am to do the same." By which it will appear that
+Miss Du Plessis had her orders to rub it in pretty hot to her friend,
+and was rubbing it in accordingly, even though it did smart. Miss
+Carmichael broke away from her, and ran to the house, leaving her once
+dear Cecile to follow with Marjorie and Mr. Bigglethorpe.
+
+At breakfast the Squire appeared quite picturesque, with a silk
+handkerchief tied over his head to conceal and hold on what Marjorie
+called a plaster of vinegar and brown paper, having reference to the
+mishaps of Jack and Jill.
+
+"Marjorie," said Mr. Carruthers, "ye ken what Jill got for lauchin' at
+Jock's heed and the plaister."
+
+"Yes, Uncle John, but mother isn't here to do it."
+
+"Papa said I was to be your mother now, Marjorie," said Mrs. Carmichael.
+
+"You've got a Marjorie of your own, Auntie, that needs to be punished
+worse than me."
+
+The colonel looked round the table anxiously, and then addressed the
+hostess: "I fail to pehceive my deah friend, Mr. Cohistine, Mrs.
+Cahhuthehs; I sincehely trust he is not unwell afteh his gallant fight?"
+
+"I am sorry to say, Colonel, that Mr. Coristine has left us, and has
+gone back to Toronto."
+
+"O deah, that is a great loss; he was the life of our happy pahty,
+always so cheehful, so considehate, ready to sacrifice himself and lend
+a hand to anything. I expected him back on my hohse."
+
+"Timotheus tells me that Mr. Bangs is going to bring your horse over
+this evening."
+
+"I'm gey and gled to hear 't, gudewife. I'd like weel tae hae anither
+crack wi' Bangs. But it's an awfu' shame aboot Coristine; had it no'
+been for his magneeficent pluck, fleein' on yon scoundrel like a lion,
+I'd hae been brocht hame as deed as a red herrin'. Isna that true,
+granther?"
+
+"It's thrue, ivery worrud av it. Savin' the company, there's not a
+jantleman I iver tuk to the way I tuk to that foine man, and as
+simple-harrted and condiscindin' as iv he wor a choild."
+
+"Where is that lazy boy Arthur, I wonder?" asked Mrs. Carmichael;
+whereupon Miss Du Plessis told her story, and all joined in a hearty
+laugh at Mr. Lamb's fright and sudden retreat.
+
+Mr. Errol, feeling none the worse of the previous day's splore, and
+still renewing his youth over the fish he and Mr. Bigglethorpe had
+caught, suddenly remembered and confessed: "Dear me, Mrs. Carmichael, I
+forgot that I had Mr. Coristine's merschaum, and his tobacco and
+penknife. Puir lad, what'll he dae withoot his pipe?"
+
+"You naughty man, Mr. Errol, is it possible that you smoke?"
+
+"Whiles, mem, whiles."
+
+"How many pipes a day, now, Mr. Errol?"
+
+"Oh, it depends. When I'm in smoking company, I can take a good many, eh
+Mr. Bigglethorpe?"
+
+"Yesterday was a very special occaision, Mr. Errol. You called it
+renewing your youth, you know, and nimed the picnic a splore."
+
+"I felt like a laddie again at the fishing, Mrs. Carmichael, just as
+light-hearted and happy as if I were a callant on the hills."
+
+"And what do you generally feel like? Not an old man, I hope?"
+
+"I'll never be a young one again, Mrs. Carmichael."
+
+"Perfect nonsense, Mr. Errol! Don't let me hear you talk like that
+again."
+
+"Hearin's obeyin'," meekly replied the minister, showing that he was
+making some progress in his mature wooing.
+
+After breakfast, the company sat out on the verandah. The colonel had to
+smoke his morning cigar, and courteously offered his cigar case to all
+the gentlemen, who declined with thanks. "If it were not that I might
+trouble the ladies," said the minister, "I might take a draw out of poor
+Coristine's meerschaum." Mrs. Carmichael at once said: "Please do so,
+Mr. Errol; the doctor smoked, so that I am quite used to it. I like to
+see a good man enjoying his pipe."
+
+"You are quite sure, Mrs. Carmichael, that it will not be offensive? I
+would cut off my right hand rather than be a smoking nuisance to any
+lady."
+
+"Quite sure, Mr. Errol; go on and fill your pipe, unless you want me to
+fill it for you. I know how to do it."
+
+So, Mr. Errol continued the splore, and smoked the Turk's head. Mr.
+Terry lit his dudheen, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, his briar. The Squire's
+head was too sore for smoking, but he said he liked the smell o' the
+reek. While thus engaged, a buggy drove up, and Miss Halbert and Mr.
+Perrowne alighted from it, while Maguffin, always watchful, took the
+horse round to the stable yard. The doctor had heard of Rawdon's
+capture, and had sent these two innocents to see that all was right at
+Bridesdale. Miss Halbert sat down by Miss Du Plessis, and the parson
+accepting one of the colonel's cigars, joined the smokers. He also
+regretted the absence of Coristine, a splendid fellow, he said, a
+perfect trump, the girl will be lucky who gets a man like that,
+expressions that were not calculated to make Miss Carmichael happy. Mr.
+Perrowne had proposed and had been accepted. He was in wild spirits,
+when Mr. Bigglethorpe startled the company by saying, "I've got an
+idear!"
+
+"Howld on to it, Bigglethorpe, howld on; you may never get another,"
+cried the parson.
+
+"What is it?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, who was shooing the children away
+to Tryphosa.
+
+"It's a united picnic to the likes. Who's got to sty at home?"
+
+"I have for one," answered the Squire; "yon deevil o' a Rawdon has gien
+me a scunner at picnics."
+
+"I cannot go," said his wife, "for I have him and the children to keep
+me."
+
+"Paul, you must go, and Cecile also," interposed Mrs. Du Plessis; "I
+will attend to the wants of our patient."
+
+"Then," spoke up the fisherman, "we shall have Mrs. Carmichael and Mr.
+Errol, Miss Halbert and Mr. Perrowne, the colonel and Miss Carruthers,
+Mr. Terry and Miss Du Plessis, and, please Mrs. Carmichael, Marjorie and
+me. Can ten get into one waggon?"
+
+"O aye," replied the Squire, "the waggon'll haud nine, and Marjorie can
+sit on Mr. Bigglethorpe's knees. Hi, Timotheus, get oot the biggest
+waggon wi' three seats, quick, man!"
+
+Once more, the mighty ham was carved into sandwiches, and others were
+made of sardines and marmalade. Chickens were hastily roasted, and pies
+and cakes, meant for dinner and tea, stowed away in baskets, with
+bottles of ale and cider and milk, and materials for tea-making, and a
+huge chunk of ice out of the ice-house, and a black bottle that Mr.
+Terry eyed affectionately. "This is for you old men, grandpapa," said
+Mrs. Carmichael to the veteran; "now, remember, none for these boys,
+Errol and Perrowne." Mr. Terry replied: "To be sure, ma'am," but thought
+in his heart, would it be him that would deprive the boys of a bit of
+innocent recreation at such a time. Such a looking out there was of hats
+and wraps, of guns and fishing tackle. The colonel was to drive in
+person. Mr. Terry was to be chief of the commissariat under Mrs.
+Carmichael. Mr. Bigglethorpe was to direct fishing operations, and
+bring, with the assistance of Mr. Terry, the scow and Rawdon's boat to
+the Encampment lake. Marjorie was wild with delight, and insisted on
+going with the grandfather and dear Mr Biggles. It was ten o'clock when
+all the preparations were concluded, and Timotheus brought round the
+capacious waggon. All the household assembled to see the picnic party
+off, and the young Carruthers lifted up their voices and wept. The whole
+ten got in, but there was no free rollicking Irish voice to sing:--
+
+     Wait for the waggon.
+     And we'll all take a ride.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+     At the Encampment--Botany--Fishing--Matilda--The New
+     Lake--Tillycot--Luncheon--After Recreation--New Visitors to
+     Tillycot--Edifying Talk--Songs on the Way Home--Mr. Bigglethorpe's
+     Departure--Uncle and Niece--Mr. Bangs and Rufus--Ladies Catch a
+     Burglar--The Constable Secures Him--Muggins' Death--Burglars
+     Repulsed--Rebecca Toner--The Clergy Hilarious--A Young Lady Finds a
+     Poem.
+
+
+Mr. Bigglethorpe, Mr. Terry and Marjorie, with part of the picnic
+material, got off the waggon at the Richards' place, and proceeded to
+the lake. They found the punt there, but saw no sign of the skiff.
+Marjorie inherited her father's love of the water, and greatly enjoyed
+even the slow progress made by the paddles of her boatmen in the
+unwieldy craft. Meanwhile, the waggon arrived as near the encampment as
+it was possible to get; the company descended to the blackened ground;
+and Mr. Perrowne found a path for the ladies up to the ruins. The
+horses, sedate, well-behaved animals, were unhitched, and allowed to
+pick about where they pleased, after which the three gentlemen carried
+the wraps and picnic baskets and pails to where the ladies stood,
+inspecting the ravages of the fire. Muggins had come with Mr. Perrowne,
+and sniffed about, rediscovering the treasure hole which had so nearly
+proved fatal to the Squire. It was agreed to go down to the water's
+edge, and encamp upon some green spot, near good fishing, over which the
+bush fire had not run. Such a place was found to the right of the
+caved-in tunnel, a broad patch of fine-leaved native grass, shaded by
+oaks and maples of second growth. There the provisions were deposited,
+and, the rugs being spread over the grass, the ladies sat down to await
+the arrival of the boat party. A good three-quarters of an hour passed
+before they heard the splash of the paddles, and Muggins ran barking to
+meet the intruders upon the sabbath stillness of the scene. While
+waiting, Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Errol took a stroll in the dark woods
+adjoining, and brought back some floral specimens in the shape of
+Prince's Pines, Pyrolas, and Indian Pipes, which were deposited in the
+lap of the finder's daughter, with a suggestiveness that young lady felt
+disposed to resent. However, Marjorie's voice was heard just then, and
+thoughts and conversation were turned into other channels. "Where is the
+skiff?" asked the fisherman, but nobody could enlighten him; they simply
+answered that it was not there. The colonel remarked that its absence
+looked suspicious, and bade them be on their guard. He, accordingly,
+inspected the arms of the expedition, and finding them to consist of two
+fowling pieces, those of Messrs. Perrowne and Bigglethorpe, and two
+pistols borne by Mr. Terry and himself, was comforted. As the fisherman
+had inaugurated the picnic, it was obviously his duty to act as master
+of ceremonies. He proposed making two fishing parties, one off the scow,
+and another off a pier, which he and the gentlemen were about to build
+out from the shore below the picnic ground.
+
+A large pine had been felled many years before, probably by lumbermen,
+and two lengths of it, each about eight feet, had been rejected as
+unsound. These the gentlemen, colonel included, got behind, and rolled
+down into the water. Mr. Perrowne and the fisherman doffed their shoes
+and socks, rolled up their trouser legs, and waded in to get the logs in
+position as sleepers. Three spars of driftwood, bleached white, were
+found along the bank, and were laid over the logs at right angles, and
+kept in their places, as were the logs, by stakes hammered into the lake
+bottom. Mr. Errol and Mr. Terry produced some planks, saved from the
+fire that devoured the stables, and laid them over the erection, making
+a substantial pier, that would have been the better of a few spikes to
+steady the boards. Mr. Bigglethorpe provided rods and lines, and baited
+the hooks for the ladies, with grasshoppers, frogs, crawfish and
+minnows. The last were provided by Marjorie. At the fisherman's
+suggestion, she had got from Tryphena a useless wire dish-cover that had
+lost its handle, a parcel of oatmeal, and a two-quart tin pail. Mr.
+Bigglethorpe had fastened a handle cut out of the bush to the dish
+cover, thus converting it into a scoop-net. Barefooted, Marjorie stood
+in the shallow water, scattering a little oatmeal, when up came a shoal
+of minnows eager for the food thus provided. At one fell swoop, the
+young fisherwoman netted a dozen of the shiny little creatures, and
+transferred them all alive to the tin pail. Mr. Errol had a great mind
+to join her in this exciting sport, but was not sure what Mrs.
+Carmichael would think of it. The possibility that he might have become
+Mr. Coristine's father-in-law also tended to sober the renewer of his
+youth. As Marjorie had practically deserted her friend for the minnows,
+Mr. Bigglethorpe invited her cousin to accompany him, with Miss Halbert
+and Mr. Perrowne, in the scow, which paddled off to try how the fishing
+was at the narrows. The colonel did not care to fish; it was too dirty
+work for him. Neither did the remaining ladies show any appetite for it;
+but Mr. Errol and the veteran manned the lately constructed pier, and
+beguiled some bass that came seeking shelter from the sun beneath it.
+While the gentlemen were thus engaged, the colonel lying on his back
+near Marjorie's fishing ground, indulging in a second cigar, the two
+ladies strolled away, followed by Muggins, to look for more flowers.
+After they had gone about a hundred yards to the right, the dog ran on
+before them, barking furiously. Mrs. Carmichael clutched her companion's
+arm and stood still. "It may be a wild beast, Cecile, or some of those
+terrible men. Let us go back at once." But Miss Du Plessis calmly
+answered, "It may be only a bird or a squirrel; dogs often make a great
+fuss over very little." So they stood and waited.
+
+Muggins' barking ceased. The reason was apparent in the sound of a
+gentle voice they both knew, saying, "Poor Muggins, good doggie, has he
+come back again to his old friends?" It was the voice of Matilda Nagle,
+and she seemed to be alone. Taking heart, the two ladies went in its
+direction, and, guided by Muggins, who came back to lead them, they
+descended to a little bay with a sandy beach, where, in the skiff, sat
+the woman they sought. She was neatly dressed, and wore a large straw
+hat. When they greeted her, she showed no astonishment, but invited them
+to enter the skiff and see the pretty place she had back there. Miss Du
+Plessis hardly cared to accept the invitation, but the curiosity of the
+older lady was aroused and she pressed her companion to comply. Bringing
+the bow of the skiff into the shore, Matilda told them to enter the boat
+and walk back to the stern. When they had taken their seats, the stern
+was depressed, and the bow floated clear of the sand. Then, with every
+motion of an accomplished oarswoman, she rowed the skiff along the
+shore, altogether out of sight of the other picnickers in scow and on
+pier. After a few strokes, she told her companions to lower their heads,
+and, ducking her own, shot the boat through what had seemed a solid bank
+of foliage, but which was a naturally concealed channel, out into one of
+the loveliest little lakes eye ever rested upon. No fire had touched its
+shores, which were wooded down to the sandy margin, the bright green
+foliage of the hardwood in the foreground contrasting with the more
+sombre hues of the pines and hemlocks beyond. In little bays there were
+patches of white and yellow water lilies, alternating their orbed
+blossoms with the showy blue spikes of the Pickerel weed, and, beyond
+them, on the bank itself, grew many a crimson banner of the Cardinal
+flower. Another little bay was passed with its last rocky point, and
+then a clearing stood revealed, void of stump or stone or mark of fire,
+covered with grass and clover, save where, in the midst of a little
+neglected garden, stood the model of a Swiss chalet. "Do not be afraid!"
+said the woman, catching sight of Mrs. Carmichael's apprehensive look;
+"there is nobody in it or anywhere near. We are all alone; even Monty
+would not leave his work to come with me." Thus reassured, the party
+landed, gathered a few late roses and early sweet peas, and then
+proceeded to inspect the chalet. The whole building and everything in it
+was in admirable taste, even to the library smoking-room, which was only
+disfigured by ugly spittoons and half-burned cigars. Many books were
+there, chiefly on chemistry, geology and mineralogy, and there was a
+large cabinet full of geological specimens, betokening much research and
+abundant labour in their preparation and classification.
+
+The whole thing was so unexpected, so surprising, that the picnic ladies
+had to rub their eyes to be sure that it was not a dream; but their
+astonishment was increased when the woman turned to the younger one and
+said, "I know you are Miss Du Plessis, for I heard you called so at
+Bridesdale." Miss Du Plessis answered that she was right. Then Matilda
+said, "This is all your land, and of course, the land carries the
+buildings with it. I have forgotten a great many things, but I remember
+that, you see. So Tillycot is yours too; besides I do not want to stay
+here any more. Good-bye, I am going home to Monty." At first, the two
+ladies were afraid she was going to take the skiff away and leave them
+in the house, but she did not. In spite of their entreaties, she walked
+quickly up the grassy slope at the back, and disappeared in the forest
+beyond. "Is it not wonderful?" asked Miss Du Plessis. "Come, Cecile,
+hasten back, or those poor people will be starving," answered the more
+practical Mrs. Carmichael.
+
+On their return to the skiff, the presiding matron, while Miss Du
+Plessis rowed, unfolded a long piece of yellow leno she had picked up in
+one of the rooms. The channel was quite visible from, what may now be
+called, the Tillycot end, but when the passengers ducked their heads and
+emerged, they saw there would be difficulty in finding it from the other
+side. Accordingly, Mrs. Carmichael bade her companion keep the boat
+steady, while she stood up, and fastened the strip of gauze to two
+saplings, one on either side of the opening, making a landmark visible
+immediately the point was passed that intercepted the picnic party from
+their view. Rowing round this point, the two travellers appeared, to the
+astonishment of the fishers on punt and pier. The colonel was stretched
+out on the grass asleep, and Marjorie, having deserted her minnows, was
+tickling him about the ears with a long blade, greatly enjoying his
+occasional slaps at the parts affected, and his muttered anathemas on
+the flies.
+
+"Oi'm thinkin', Mishtress Carrmoikle, it's gettin' toime fer the aitin'
+an' drhinkin', wid your lave, mum; but fwhere did yez foind the
+skifft?" Brief explanations followed to the veteran and Mr. Errol, who
+were at once put under orders, the one to light a fire and produce the
+tea-kettle, the other to fill two pails with clean water, and put a
+piece of ice in one of them. Soon the colonel and Marjorie came to help,
+the cloth was laid, the sandwiches, chickens, pies and cakes, placed
+upon it, and everything got in readiness for the home-coming of the
+punt. "O Aunty," said Marjorie, "this would be so lovely, if only poor
+Eugene were here too."
+
+"So it would, dear," answered the sympathetic aunt and mother, "but we
+must try to make the best of it without him."
+
+The kettle boiled under Mr. Terry's superintendence, the tea was infused
+in the little Japanese tea-pot, and the colonel, taking from his
+waistcoat pocket a silver whistle that had done duty for a cavalry
+trumpet in former days, blew a signal for the information of the
+punters. In a minute they arrived, bearing two grand strings of fish,
+only the strings that went through the gills of the bass were hazel
+twigs. Then there was washing of hands without soap, Mr. Bigglethorpe
+showing his companions how to improvise a substitute for Pears' by
+pulling up the pretty little water-lobelia and using the unctuous clay
+about its spreading roots for the purpose. All sat about the
+table-cloth, Mr. Perrowne said, "For what we are about to receive," and
+the _al fresco_ repast began. Mrs. Carmichael dispensed the tea, and was
+displeased with Mr. Errol for declining a cup just then, because he was
+busy with a corkscrew and an ale bottle. Mr. Perrowne joined him with
+another; but the fisherman said ale made him bilious and his name was
+not William. So Mr. Terry produced his special charge, and treated the
+colonel first, then Mr. Bigglethorpe, and finally his honoured self. The
+boys, as the matron had termed the two clergymen, seemed to be happy
+with their beer, somewhat to his sorrow. "It takes moighty little,
+cornel, to shatishfy some payple, but there's aall the more av it for
+the risht av us."
+
+Miss Halbert said that Basil had eaten ten sandwiches, two plates of
+chicken, and an extra drumstick in his hand, a whole pie, and she
+couldn't count the cake. There were also some empty beer bottles at his
+feet. He said he was perfectly ashamed of Fanny's appetite, and would
+have to petition the Bishop for an allowance from the mission fund, if
+she was going through life at the same rate.
+
+"If we only had ouah deah boy with us, Cecile, what a pleasuhe it would
+be," remarked the colonel in a personal way, that caused even the
+stately Miss Du Plessis to blush.
+
+"Eugene would be better than the whole lot," added Marjorie, with an
+injured air, and added: "If some people I know hadn't been pigs, he
+would have been here, too." Mrs. Carmichael called her niece to order,
+and told the gentlemen they might go away to their pipes and cigars,
+while she and the young ladies put away the things. The black bottle
+trio adjourned to a shady nook by the shore, and carried three tumblers
+and a pail of iced water with them. The bottle revealed its neck from
+Mr. Terry's side pocket. The colonel handed his cigar case again to Mr.
+Perrowne, who selected a weed, but could not be prevailed upon to fetch
+a tumbler. Mr. Errol also declined the latter, having the fear of Mrs.
+Carmichael before his eyes, but, withdrawing a short distance in his
+brother clergyman's company, he filled the Turk's head, and said he felt
+twenty years younger. All sorts of banter and pleasant talk went on
+between the smoking gentlemen and the working ladies. Mr. Errol
+distinguished himself above his brethren by bringing up water from the
+lake and by carrying pailfuls of dishes down to it, for which he
+received great commendation. Mr. Perrowne had his ears boxed twice by
+Miss Halbert, it was said, for cheek. Mr. Terry was called upon to
+deliver up his sacred charge, but demurred. When the ladies made a raid
+upon his party to recover it, he fled, but Marjorie caught him by the
+coat-tails, and the spoil was wrested from him, although not before he
+had poured himself out a final three fingers in his tumbler. Filling it
+up with ice-water, he drank to the success of the picnic, and especially
+to absent friends. Mr. Bigglethorpe had been so long fishing in the sun
+that he thought a rest would do him good. Accordingly, he lay down on
+his back with his hat drawn over his eyes, and composed himself to
+sleep. Finally, the clergymen went over to where Mrs. Carmichael was
+sitting with Miss Halbert and Marjorie, while Miss Du Plessis, having
+had a chat with Miss Carmichael, invited her uncle and the veteran to
+go for a row in the skiff. At first, these gentlemen were disposed to
+decline, but, when they learned that there was something to be seen,
+they changed their minds, and accompanied her and Miss Carmichael to the
+shore.
+
+The colonel was entranced with the little lake, the clearing, and the
+chalet, as were Miss Carmichael and Mr. Terry. It was decided that a
+guard, in the form of a caretaker, should be put over the place as soon
+as possible, and it was suggested that Timotheus and Tryphena would make
+an ideal pair of guardians. While much of the land round about might be
+cleared to advantage, it was agreed that the wood around Tillycot lake
+should be left intact, save the breadth of a road to the main highway.
+Then they fell to discussing Rawdon, a man plainly of extensive reading,
+of scientific attainments, of taste in architecture and
+house-furnishing, and yet an utterly unprincipled and unscrupulous
+villain. "One would think," said Miss Carmichael, "that the natural
+beauties of a place like this would be a check upon evil passions and
+the baser part of one's nature." But the colonel answered, "In the
+wahah, Miss Cahmichael, I have seen soldiehs, even owah own soldiehs,
+wilfully and maliciously destyoying the most chahming spots of scenehy,
+without the least pohfit to themselves or matehial injuhy to the enemy.
+The love of destyuction is natuhal to ouah fallen human natuhe." Mr.
+Terry corroborated this statement, and added, "Faix, it sames to me
+there's jist two sarts an koinds av payple in the wurruld, thim as
+builds up an' thim as batthers down. For moy paart, I'd lafer build a
+log shanty an' clane a bit land nor pull a palish to paces." Miss Du
+Plessis assented, but drew attention to the fact that Rawdon had
+cleared, built up, and beautified the place, and improved his mind on
+the one hand, while he was warring against society and law, robbing and
+even murdering, on the other. "Mr. Errol said once," rejoined Miss
+Carmichael, "that there are two opposite natures, an old man and a new,
+in all human beings, as well as in those who are converted, and that no
+contradiction of the kind is too absurd for human nature." "Mistah Ehhol
+is quite right, my deah Miss Mahjohie, as all expehience attests. Bret
+Hahte has shewn it from a Califohnian standpoint. I have seen it in
+times of wanah and of peace, bad men, the bent of whose lives was
+destyuction, risking evehything to save some little memohial of a dead
+motheh or of a sweetheaht, and good men, the regular couhse of whose
+cahheah was to do good, guilty of an occasional outbuhst of vandalism."
+
+"Thrue fer yez, cornel, ivery bit. There was a little whipper-snapper av
+a Shunday Shcool shuperintindent out in a lake, about a hundrid moiles
+frum the city, wid some dacent lads; and, afore they knowed where they
+was, the cratur had sit a foine grane oisland a foire for the fun, he
+sid, av sayin' the blaze. Oi'd loike to have had the shuperintindin' av
+him fer foive minutes."
+
+The explorers were making their way back to the skiff when the colonel,
+who had gone back for his handkerchief which he had dropped, said:
+"There is a pehson coming down towahds the house, a woman appahently."
+Miss Du Plessis looked up the hill, and saw who it was. "It is Matilda
+Nagle," she said; "see, she is going back again." At once Miss
+Carmichael ran up the hill after the retreating figure, and, as she was
+a good runner, and the poor wanderer was tired, she soon overtook her.
+Taking both her hands in her own, and kissing the woman, she said: "Come
+with us, Matilda, and we will drive you home." The half-witted creature
+responded to the caress, and allowed herself to be led to the boat. "I
+lost my way," she said. "It is a new road I had never been on before,
+and I got turned round and came back here three times, and I am very
+tired." The colonel and Mr. Terry made her enter the boat before them,
+and then Miss Du Plessis and the veteran rowed the party back to the
+picnic ground, Miss Carmichael, at her friend's suggestion, removing the
+landmark put up by her mother as they passed out of the channel. At once
+Matilda was taken to the shady retreat where Mrs. Carmichael and Miss
+Halbert were, and all the ladies waited upon her with what was left of
+the eatables and drinkables, in spite of Mr. Perrowne's appetite. Then,
+Mr. Terry and Mr. Bigglethorpe went after the horses, and harnessed them
+to the waggon. The fisherman came back to summon the party and help to
+carry the baskets. Mr. Errol and Mr. Perrowne agreed to row the punt
+back to the Richards, and walk the rest of the way, as the addition of
+Matilda to the company would make riding uncomfortable if they did
+otherwise. The picnickers were safely seated, the baskets and the
+strings of fish stowed away, and the Colonel again took the reins for
+his party of nine. The two clergymen returned to the scow and paddled
+home, singing songs, one of which Mr. Perrowne gave in genuine cockney
+style to a Primitive Methodist hymn tune
+
+     "Oh we was rich and 'appy once,
+     And we paid all we was due,
+     But we've sold our bed to buhy some bread,
+     And we hain't, got nowt to do;
+         We're all the way from Manchesteher.
+         And we hain't got nowt to do.
+
+     "Oh him as hoppresses the pooer man
+     Is a livin on humin' lives,
+     An I will be sarved in tohother land
+     Like Lazarius and Dives,
+         And will be sarved in tohother land
+         Like Lazarius and Dives."
+
+Mr. Errol applauded the song, but thought it was hardly right to put a
+hymn tune to it. He said he "minded an auld Scotch song aboot the
+barrin' o' the door." So he sang:--
+
+     "It fell aboot the Martimas time,
+     And a gay time it was then O,
+     When our gude wife got puddins to mak',
+     And she biled them in the pan O.
+         The barrin' o' oor door weel, weel, weel.
+         And the barrin' o' oor door, weel."
+
+Thus, lightening the journey, they arrived at the last lake, said
+how-d'ye-do to the Richards, and tramped home. "How are you feeling now,
+Mr. Errol?" asked his comrade. "Man, it's just as I tellt ye, I'm
+renewin' my youth."
+
+It was just about six when the pedestrians arrived at Bridesdale. Mr.
+Newberry had been there, anxious about his charge, and had joyfully
+hailed her appearance in the waggon. Mr. Bigglethorpe insisted on going
+home; so, after a whispered consultation with Miss Halbert, Mr. Perrowne
+offered him the doctor's carriage, if he would call in and tell Dr.
+Halbert that his daughter and all the Bridesdale people were safe, which
+he agreed to do. The colonel and Miss Du Plessis were up with the dear
+boy, whose name and virtues Miss Carmichael could hardly hear mentioned
+with civility. Marjorie fairly wept over the leave-taking of Mr.
+Biggles, but commanded herself sufficiently to beg that he would not
+christen that baby Woollens, Cottons or Piscopalian. He said
+emphatically that he would not, and then departed, taking home a string
+of bass to propitiate Mrs. Bigglethorpe. The tea party, spite of Miss Du
+Plessis' marvellous story of Tillycot, was very slow. The newly engaged
+couple were full of each other. Mrs. Du Plessis, her daughter and the
+colonel had Wilkinson on the brain, Mrs. Carmichael and the minister
+were self-sufficient, and Mr. Terry was discoorsin' to his daughter,
+Honoria. The only free person for Miss Carmichael was the Squire, and
+happily she sat at his left.
+
+"Marjorie, lassie," said Uncle John, "you're no lookin' weel."
+
+"That's not very complimentary, uncle; but I am quite well."
+
+"Yon block o' a Lamb has been wearin' ye, I'm thinkin'."
+
+"Not at all, uncle; his gifts and graces are not adequate to that."
+
+"Did Coristine tell ye o' that adverteesment in the Barrie paper?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did he say he had dune onything aboot it?"
+
+"Yes, he said he had written to the Edinburgh lawyer and to other people
+about it."
+
+"That was unco gude o' the lad, Marjorie."
+
+"Yes, it was very kind."
+
+"What garred the laddie gang awa before the time, lassie?"
+
+"How should I know, uncle?"
+
+"Wha sud ken were it no you, Marjorie, my pet?"
+
+"I am not in Mr. Coristine's confidence."
+
+"I'se warrant ye, Marjorie, he's just bitin's nails to the quick at yon
+Mrs. Swamp's that's he no here the nicht."
+
+"Oh nonsense, uncle, why should he be so foolish? If he wanted to stay,
+there was no one to hinder him."
+
+"Weel, weel, lassie, we'll hear frae him sometime aboot yon neist o' kin
+business. Aiblins, ye'll be a braw leddy wi' a gran' fortune yet, and
+turn up your bonnie bit nose at puir lawyer chappies."
+
+"I don't want to turn up my nose at Mr. Coristine, uncle. I think it
+was very splendid of him to fight for you as he did; but I knew nothing
+about that when he said good-bye, and I wouldn't shake hands with him."
+
+The Squire put up his hand and stroked his niece's hair. "Puir lassie!"
+he said, "it's a gran' peety, but ye're no feelin' half as bad as he is
+the noo, gin I ken the lad, and I think I dae."
+
+It was ten when Mr. Bangs brought home the colonel's horse, and Rufus
+rattled the missing waggon and team into the stable yard. The latter
+joyfully saluted his sisters, shook hands with Timotheus, and
+courteously responded to the greeting of Maguffin. Mr. Bangs, declining
+any solid refreshment, entered the office, where, besides the Squire,
+Mr. Errol and the veteran were established. The picnic ladies were tired
+and had gone to rest, and the colonel was relating the events of the day
+to the wakeful dominie. Mr. Bangs gave his company an account of the
+safe lodgment of Rawdon and Davis, and mentioned incidentally that he
+had seen Mr. Coristine alight from the train at Toronto and go up town.
+He also cautioned the Squire against divulging the secret of the exhumed
+box of money, if he wished to save it for Matilda Nagle.
+
+"Squire," he said, "I don't went to elerm you, bet I'm efreid there's
+gowing to be more trebble to-night; I saw thet tevern-keeper from
+Peskiwenchow, Devis' brether, et the stetion this merning, with sem of
+the fellows we fought et the Enkempment. They're not in Kellingwood now,
+end yeng Hill tells me he saw strenge men kemming this way in the
+efternoon. I towld yeng Hill to bring his gen, and I brought my mounted
+petrol kerbine."
+
+"This is terribly vexatious, Mr. Bangs, just as we thought all our
+troubles were over."
+
+"It is, bet I think it will be their lest ettempt, a final effort to get
+meney and revenge. We must wound es many ef them es we ken, end ellow
+the survivors to kerry off the dead end wounded. Thet will be the end of
+it. I met Toner, end he tells me old Newcome is ep and eway. Toner kent
+come, for Newcome hes threatened to bern down his house."
+
+A gentle rap at the door interrupted the conversation. The Squire went
+to open it, and saw his niece in night attire, with a pale, scared
+face, hardly able to speak. "What is the matter, Marjorie?"
+
+"There's a man in Mr. Coristine's room, either in the cupboard-wardrobe
+or under the bed," she answered, and slipped quietly upstairs to her own
+apartment.
+
+Quickly the information was imparted, and the detective at once took
+command.
+
+"Mr. Terry, I know you are a good shot. Tek my kerbine which is loaded,
+and wetch the windows of Mr. Coristine's room outside. Give Mr. Errol a
+pistol, Squire, and kem on. Ah, Mr. Perrowne, we went you, sir; bring
+that lemp end follow us."
+
+All obeyed, and slipped up stairs with as little noise as possible. Mr.
+Bangs opened the door and listened. Intuitively, he knew that Miss
+Carmichael was right; somebody was in that room. Whispering to Mr. Errol
+to guard the door, and to the Squire to stand by the wardrobe, he took
+the lamp from Mr. Perrowne and flashed it under and over the bed. There
+was nobody there. In a moment, however, the wardrobe door burst open,
+the Squire was overturned, the light kicked over and extinguished, and
+Mr. Errol pushed aside, when three feminine voices called: "Help,
+quick!" and, tumbling over one another into the hall, the clever lookers
+for burglars found their man in the grasp of three picturesque figures
+in dressing gowns. They were at once relieved of their capture, and many
+anxious enquiries were made as to whether they had received any injuries
+from the felonious intruder. It appeared that they had not received any
+of importance, and that Miss Carmichael was the first to arrest the
+flight of the robber.
+
+The household was aroused. The colonel came down with his pistols.
+Timotheus, Rufus and Maguffin awaited orders, so he ordered them to arm,
+and posted them as sentries, relieving Mr. Terry from his watch on the
+windows. Then the examination of the prisoner began. He was the youth
+who had driven the buckboard over for the doctor on the eventful Monday
+morning. His name was Rawdon, but he was not the son of Altamont Rawdon.
+His father's name was Reginald, who was Altamont's brother.
+
+"Where is your fether?" asked Mr. Bangs.
+
+"I dunno," he answered, sulkily.
+
+"Then I ken tell you. He is dead, berned to death by yore precious encle
+Eltemont."
+
+"O my God!" exclaimed the youth; "is that so?"
+
+"Esk any of these gentlemen, end they will tell you that yore fether end
+old Flower were berned to death, end thet a keroner's jury set on their
+remains, which are buried."
+
+"You say as 'ow my huncle Haltamont did that?"
+
+"Yes, I do, end, whet's more, you know it."
+
+Having terrorized his victim, and antagonized him to Rawdon, the
+detective drew from him the information that five men, three of Rawdon's
+old employees, the tavern-keeper Matt, and Newcome, were coming at
+midnight to burglarize the house and get possession of the dug-up
+treasure. He confessed that he had slipped into the house while the
+party was away picnicking, and, knowing that Coristine had left without
+his knapsack, had looked round till he found a room with knapsacks in
+it. There he intended to remain till his confederates should require his
+services to open the house to them.
+
+"Who towld you thet awful lie ebout Rawdon's meney being in this house?"
+
+"Matt knew. Uncle Monty guv it 'im by signs, I guess. Oh, he's O.K., he
+is."
+
+"Well, sir, yore a prisoner here, end if things don't turn out es you
+sey, I'll blow yore brains out."
+
+"For goodness sake don't be aisty, mister. I've told you the 'ole truth,
+I swear."
+
+Mr. Bangs next found out that the robbers were coming in a waggon, which
+would halt some distance to the left of the house, and that their plan
+was to set one man at the end of the hall to hinder communication with
+the servants' quarters, and two on the upper landing to command the
+front and back stairs, while the remaining burglars ransacked the office
+and any other rooms in which plunder might be found. The youth's
+appointed mission was to fire the house, when the search was completed.
+Hardly had this information been received when Maguffin's challenge was
+heard, and a well-known voice in military accents replied "A friend."
+The colonel went out, and brought in Corporal Rigby, panting for want of
+breath.
+
+"You've been running, Rigby," said the astonished Squire.
+
+"Duty required it, sir," replied the constable, saluting; "I have come
+at the double, with trailed arms, all the way from Squire Halbert's.
+This is his rifle I am carrying. The enemy is on the move, sir, in
+waggon transport." "You are jest in time, kenstable," remarked Mr.
+Bangs. "Miss Kermichael and the ether ledies hev jest keptured an
+impertent prisoner. Hev you yore hendkeffs?"
+
+"I have, sir, and everything else the law requires." Mr. Terry handed a
+glass to the breathless constable, who bowed his respects to the company
+generally, smacked his lips as a public token of satisfaction, and
+proceeded to handcuff and search his prisoner. Several blasting
+cartridges with long fuses, and other incendiary material, were the
+results of the last operation.
+
+"If I had my way with him, sergeant-major," the constable remarked,
+while taking his man under the veteran's command, to the stable, "I
+would borrow an old chair from the back kitchen, not the front,
+sergeant-major, tie him to it, and set off all these cattridges under
+him. He would not go to heaven, sergeant-major, but they would help him
+a bit in that direction. The man that would cattridge a house with
+ladies in it should be made a targate out of, sergeant-major."
+
+"Poor, deluded crathur!" replied Mr. Terry, "it's but a shlip av a bhoy,
+it is, wid a burnt up father, that's been shet on to mischief by thim as
+knows betther. Kape him toight, Corporal Rigby, but be tindher wid the
+benoighted gossoon." Mr. Bangs ordered all lights out, save one in the
+thoroughly darkened office, and another in the closet back in the hall,
+which had no window. He called in the three sentries, ordered the
+constable to maintain silence in the stable, and slipped out to
+reconnoitre. The colonel, the Squire and Maguffin prepared their pistols
+for the first volley on the housebreakers. The clergymen, with Timotheus
+and Rufus, got their guns in order for the second. It was almost on the
+stroke of midnight when the detective slipped in and closed the door
+after him. "They are here," he whispered; "wait for me to ect! Now, not
+another word." Silent, as if themselves conspirators, the eight men
+crouched in the darkened hall, listening to steps on the soft grass of
+the lawn. There was the low growl of a dog, a short bark, and then a
+muttered oath, a thud, and a groan that was not human. Poor Basil
+Perrowne ground his teeth, for he had heard the last gasp of the
+faithful Muggins. A hand was on the outside knob of the door. Mr. Bangs
+turned the key and drew back the catch of the lock, when two men thrust
+themselves in. "Ware's the lights, you blarsted fool?" one of the
+ruffians asked. The detective drew back, and the others with him, till
+all five had entered. Then Mr. Perrowne threw open the office door, and
+Timotheus that of the linen closet. In the sudden light cast on the
+scene the pistol men fired and the burglars tumbled back, two hanging on
+to three. "Don't shoot," cried Mr. Bangs to the gunners, "but kem on,
+fellow them up." After the fugitives they went, not too quickly,
+although the bereaved parson was longing for a shot at the murderer of
+Muggins. The burglars were on the road, and the waggon, driven by a
+woman, was coming to meet them. "Now then," said the detective, as a
+couple of revolver shots whizzed past him, "give the scoundrels thet
+velley, before there's any denger of hitting the woman." The four guns
+were emptied with terrible effect, for the woman had to descend in order
+to get her load of villainy on. The detective gave but one minute for
+that purpose, and then ordered a pursuit; but the waggon had turned,
+and, spite of screams and oaths that made hideous the night air, the
+woman drove furiously, all unconscious, apparently, that her course
+betrayed itself by a trail of human blood. "Nen ere killed outright,"
+remarked Mr. Bangs, "bet I downt believe a single mether's sen of them
+escaped without a good big merk of recognition."
+
+"Do you think we have seen the last of them, Bangs?" asked the Squire.
+
+"Certainly! This wes a lest desperate effort of a broken-up geng."
+
+"I wonder who that woman can have been," said Mr. Errol. "I know most of
+the people about here by sight."
+
+"She's a very clever yeng woman," Mr. Bangs answered, evasively.
+
+"It'll no be Newcome's daughter?" half asked the Squire.
+
+The detective drew Mr. Carruthers aside, and said: "It wes to hev been
+Serlizer, bet she wouldn't gow, even if Ben hed ellowed her; bet a nice
+gel from wey beck, a cousin of Ben's, whom he had never seen before, end
+who hed just called on Mrs. Towner in the efternoon, offered to take her
+place. Her neme is Rebecca Towner, a very nice young person."
+
+"Losh me, Bangs, you're an awfu' man! What deevilment is this ye've been
+at?"
+
+"I didn't went you to shoot Rebecca Towner, because, next to pore Nesh,
+she is our best female personater, end her name, when she takes off
+these clowthes, is Cherley Verley."
+
+"So, you brocht thae villains here by deputy?"
+
+"Yes; they hed to kem, you know, bet I didn't know anything ebout thet
+boy end their plans, except in a general way. Rebecca woun't leave the
+pore fellows till they're pretty sick."
+
+Bridesdale was lit up again, for nobody cared to go to bed. The ladies
+came down to see that the belligerents were safe, and Miss Carmichael
+and her brave companions received the meed of praise and thanks their
+splendid services deserved. Sorry for the injuries of the would-be
+robbers, and perhaps murderers, the Squire was nevertheless relieved in
+mind by the success of the night's work. In his satisfaction he entered
+the kitchen, and ordered late supper for his allies in that quarter.
+Then he summoned Constable Rigby from the stable, bidding him bring his
+prisoner with him, and give him something to eat. The constable declined
+to sit in a prisoner's presence in an unofficial capacity, but had no
+objection to feeding him. When, therefore, the young intruder had eaten
+his supper, his gaoler standing by, he was reconducted to the separate
+stable, handcuffed, chained, and locked in, the key being deposited in
+the constable's pocket. Then, and only then, did Mr. Rigby unbend, and,
+after supper, indulge with his five companions, male and female, in the
+improving geographical game of cards. The dining room bell occasionally
+called Tryphosa away, when, as a matter of course, Timotheus played for
+her. The colonel, with a cigar in his lips, and a substitute for fine
+old Bourbon in his hand, went up-stairs to enlighten his dear boy as to
+the doings of the night, and, especially as to dear Cecile's magnificent
+courage. The dominie was terribly concerned about that lady's
+single-handed contest with the desperate robber, and would not be
+satisfied until she came in person to let him know she was not hurt in
+the least, that Marjorie deserved all the credit of the capture, and
+that the unhappy youth had seemed so taken aback by the character of his
+hall assailants as to be almost incapable of resistance. The colonel
+smoked, and sipped, and smiled incredulously, as much as to say, You may
+believe this young person if you like, my dear boy, but there is
+somebody who knows better, and can make allowance for a young lady's
+charming self-depreciation. Mrs. Carruthers, grateful for the safety of
+her husband and her father, and Mrs. Carmichael, for that of her brother
+and Mr. Errol, were prepared to be hospitable to a degree. The minister
+had another opportunity of praising the toddy which the latter lady
+brewed, and Mr. Perrowne said: "It isn't half bad, you know, but I
+down't know what Miss Crimmage's Band of Howpe would think of it, if she
+knew the two temperance champions were imbibing at three o'clock in the
+morning." The minister remarked that he didn't care for all the
+Crimmages in the world, nor the Crummages either, whatever he meant by
+that, for there was no such name in the neighbourhood. "Basil," said
+Miss Halbert, "you had better take care. I shall not allow you any
+toddy, remember, but shall subscribe for the Montreal _Weekly Witness_".
+Mr. Perrowne put a little out of the decanter into his tumbler, with a
+practised air very unlike that of a Band of Hope patron, saying:
+"Drowned the miller, Fanny! Must take time by the forelock, if you are
+going to carry out your threats. But I think I'll drop you, and ask Mrs.
+Carmichael to have compassion on me. She wouldn't deprive a poor man of
+his toddy, would you now, Mrs. Carmichael?"
+
+"Mrs. Carmichael," said Mr. Errol, answering for that lady, "would hae
+mair sense," which shut the parson effectually out of conversation in
+that quarter.
+
+Miss Carmichael listened to the conversation, and beheld the minister
+renewing his youth. She heard Mr. Bangs entertain her uncle with
+stories about a certain Charley Varley, and Mr. Terry say to Mrs Du
+Plessis, "Whin I was in Sout Ameriky wid the cornel, God save him." She
+saw her friend Fanny exciting the lighter vein in the affianced
+Perrowne, and knew that Cecile was upstairs, the light of the dominie's
+eyes. There was a blank in the company, so she retired to the room in
+which she had found the burglar, and looked at the knapsacks there. She
+knew his; would it be wrong to look inside? She would not touch Mr.
+Wilkinson's for wealth untold. If he had not wanted his knapsack opened,
+he should not have left it behind him. But it was open; not a strap was
+buckled over it. The strap press was there, and a little prayer-book,
+and a pocket volume of Browning, some cartridges and tobacco, and an
+empty flask, and a pair of socks and some collars. What was that? A
+sheet of paper that must have fallen out of Browning. It had fluttered
+to the floor, whence she picked it up, and it was poetry; perhaps the
+much-talked-of poem on the Grinstun man. No, it was another, and this
+was how it ran, as she read it, and hot and cold shivers ran alternately
+down her neck:--
+
+     The while my lonely watch I keep,
+     Dear heart that wak'st though senses sleep
+       To thee my heart turns gratefully.
+     All it can give to thee is given.
+     From all besides, its heartstrings riven.
+       Could ne'er be reft more fatefully.
+
+     For thou art all in all to me,
+     My life, my love, my Marjorie,
+       Dow'ring each day increasingly
+     With wealth of thy dear self. I swear
+     I'll love thee false, I'll love thee fair.
+       World without end, unceasingly.
+
+"O, Eugene, Eugene," she sobbed to herself, "why would you go away, when
+everybody wanted you, and I most of all?" Then she put the things back
+into the knapsack, all but the sheet of paper, which she carried away,
+and thrust into the bosom of her dress, as she saw Miss Du Plessis
+approaching. In common with the other ladies of the house, they retired
+to their rooms and to bed, leaving the gentlemen to tell stories and
+smoke, and otherwise prepare themselves for an unsatisfactory breakfast
+and a general disinclination for work in the morning. In the back of
+the house, geographical studies continued to flourish, the corporal and
+Maguffin contending with the ladies for educational honours, now being
+lifted up to the seventh heaven of success, and, now, depressed beneath
+the load of many adverse books. All the time, a little bird was singing
+in Miss Carmichael's sleeping ear, or rather in that which really does
+the hearing, certain words like, "My life, my love, my Marjorie," and
+then again "I'll love thee false, I'll love thee fair, world without
+end, unceasingly." When she awoke in the morning, the girls told her she
+had been crying in her sleep, and saying "O Eugene!" which she
+indignantly denied, and forbade them to repeat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+     The Glory Departed--The Mail--Coristine's Letters to Miss
+     Carmichael, Mrs. Carruthers and the Dominie--Sylvanus to
+     Tryphena--Burying Muggins--A Dull Week--A Letter From Coristine and
+     Four to Him--Marjorie's Letter and Book--Telegram--Mr. Douglas and
+     Miss Graves--Reception Parties--The Colonel and Marjorie.
+
+
+After breakfast on Saturday morning, Mr. Bangs departed, riding his own
+horse, while Rufus bestrode that of his late friend Nash. As the colonel
+had no need for the services of Maguffin, that gentleman drove the
+constable and his prisoner in a cart between these two mounted guards.
+The clergymen went home to look over their sermons for the morrow, and
+to make good resolutions for pastoral duty in the week to come, not that
+either of them was disposed to be negligent in the discharge of such
+duty, but a week of almost unavoidable arrears had to be overtaken. The
+Squire was busy all day looking after his farm hands, and laying out
+work to be commenced on Monday morning; and Mr. Terry went the rounds
+with him. The colonel's time was spent largely in conversation, divided
+between his dear Farquhar and his dearer Teresa. When not engaged in
+helping the hostess and her sister in-law in the press of Saturday's
+household work, the young ladies were in consultation over the new
+engagement, the ring, the day, the bridesmaids, the trousseau, and other
+like matters of great importance. Marjorie took her young cousins
+botanizing in honour of Eugene, and crawfishing in memory of Mr.
+Biggles; then she formed them into a Sunday school class, and instructed
+them feelingly in the vanity of human wishes, and the fleeting nature of
+all sublunary things. Even Timotheus could not be with Tryphosa as much
+as he would have desired, and had to console himself with thoughts of
+the morrow, and visions of two people in a ferny hollow singing hymns
+out of one hymn-book. The glory seemed to have departed from Bridesdale,
+the romance to have gone out of its existence on that humdrum Saturday.
+The morning passed in drudgery, the dinner table in prosaic talk, and
+the hot afternoon was a weariness of the flesh and spirit. Just about
+tea time the mail waggon passed the gate; there was nobody in it for
+Bridesdale. When the quiet tea was over, the veteran lit his pipe, and
+he and Marjorie went to the post office to enquire for letters, and
+invest some of Eugene's parting donations in candy. Half the mail bag
+and more was for the Squire, the post-mistress said, and it made a large
+bundle, so that she had to tie it up in a huge circus poster, which,
+being a very religious woman, she had declined to tack up on the
+post-office wall. "Marjorie," whispered Mr. Terry, so that the
+post-mistress could not hear, "I wudn't buoy any swates now, for I
+belave there's a howll box iv thim in the mail for yeez." Accordingly,
+they left without a purchase, to the loss of the candy account at the
+store.
+
+The circus poster and contents were deposited on the office table, and
+Mr. Carruthers called big Marjorie to sort the mail. So Miss Carmichael
+appeared, and gave him his own letters and papers. There were two from
+India for Mr. Terry, that had been forwarded from Toronto, and one from
+the same quarter for aunt Honoria. Some United States documents were the
+colonel's property, and a hotel envelope, with a Barrie postmark, bore
+the name of Miss Tryphena Hill. The bulk of the mail was in one
+handwriting, which the Bridesdale post-mistress had seen before. Only
+two letters were there, a thick one for aunt Honoria, and one of
+ordinary size for Mr Wilkinson, but there were several papers and
+magazines for that invalid, and at least half a dozen illustrated papers
+and as many magazines or paper-bound books for herself, which she knew
+contained material of some kind in which she had expressed an interest.
+Then came three large thick packages, one marked "Misses Marjorie,
+Susan, and Honoria Carruthers," another "Masters John and Michael
+Carruthers," and the third "Miss Marjorie C. Thomas and Co." The young
+lady with the Co. laid violent hands upon her own property; but that of
+the young Carruthers was given to their mother, along with her letters.
+Miss Du Plessis, failing to receive anything of her own, carried the
+dominie's spoil to him, and found that some of the magazines, though
+sent to his name, were really meant for her, at least dear Farquhar said
+so. Mrs. Carruthers opened her Toronto letter and read it over with
+amusement. Then she held up an enclosure between forefinger and thumb,
+saying, "You see, Marjorie, it is unsealed, so I think I must read it,
+or give it to your mother to read first, in case it should not be right
+for you to receive it." But Miss Carmichael made a dash at the document,
+and bore it off triumphantly to her own room, along with her literary
+pabulum. It was dated Friday afternoon, so that he could not have been
+long in the city when he wrote it, and ran thus:--
+
+     _My Dear Miss Carmichael_,--I wish to apologize to you very humbly,
+     and, through you, but not so humbly, to Mr. Lamb, for any harsh,
+     and apparently cruel, things I said to or about him. Your aunt,
+     Mrs. Thomas, whom I met, with the Captain and Sylvanus, on their
+     way to the schooner, enlightened me regarding Mr. Lamb's history,
+     of which I was entirely ignorant while at Bridesdale. I should be
+     sorry to think I had been guilty of wilfully wounding the feelings
+     of anyone in whom you take the slightest interest, and I trust you
+     will pardon me for writing that, apart from my natural gratitude
+     for your patience with me and your kindness to me, a mere stranger,
+     there is no one in the world I should be more sorry to offend than
+     yourself.
+     Believe me,
+
+                     My dear Miss Carmichael,
+                               Ever yours faithfully,
+                                               EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+     P.S.--I have taken the liberty of addressing to you some trifles I
+     thought might interest the kind friends at Bridesdale.     E.C.
+
+The note was satisfactory so far as it went, but there was not enough of
+it; no word about the gloves, the ring, the half confession, the
+promise, no word about coming back. Still, it was better than nothing.
+Eugene could be dignified too; she would let everybody see that letter.
+
+"I hope you had a nice letter, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Carruthers. "You
+would like, perhaps, to read what Mr. Coristine has to say to me." Her
+niece replied that the letter was quite satisfactory, and the ladies
+exchanged documents. That of Mrs. Carruthers read:--
+
+     _Dear Mrs. Carruthers_,--Since I left your hospitable mansion I
+     have been like a boy that has lost his mother, not to speak of the
+     rest of the family. I look at myself like the poor newsboy, who was
+     questioned about his parents and friends, and who, to put an end to
+     the enquiries, answered: "Say, mister, when you seen me, you seen
+     all there is on us." Please tell Marjorie Thomas, and your own
+     little ones, that, perhaps, if I am good and am allowed, I may run
+     up before the end of next month, to see if the fall flowers are
+     out, and if they have left any crawfish and shiners in the creek.
+     Will you kindly give the inclosure to Miss Carmichael, with whom,
+     through my foolishness, I had an awkward misunderstanding that
+     still troubles me a good deal. If I had known I was offending her,
+     I would not have done it for the world. I cannot sufficiently thank
+     you for your great kindness to my friend Wilkinson and me, nor
+     shall I soon forget the happiest days of my life in your delightful
+     home. Please make my sincere apologies to the Squire, and any other
+     dear friends whom I may have left abruptly, under the peculiar
+     circumstances of my departure. Remember me gratefully to Mrs.
+     Carmichael, Mrs. Du Plessis, and the young ladies, and give my love
+     to all the children.
+                      I am, dear Mrs. Carruthers,
+                              Very sincerely and thankfully yours,
+                                                       EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+     P.S.--Please forgive me for sending a few bonbons for the children
+     by this mail.                                            E.C.
+
+"That's a very nice gentlemanly letter, Marjorie," said Mrs. Carruthers,
+returning it.
+
+"I like yours better, Aunty; it is not so stiff."
+
+"Nonsense, you silly girl. I am only 'dear' and you are 'my dear.' He
+thinks of me as a mother, and of you as the chief person in the world. I
+think you are getting vain and greedy, Marjorie. Well, I must put these
+bonbons away, or the children will see them, and will be making
+themselves too ill to go to church. Where is cousin Marjorie?"
+
+"Oh, she is off with her box. Very likely she is giving some to uncle
+and grandpa. It's a great pity the Captain is not here; he has a sweet
+tooth. Do you know Tryphena has a letter from Sylvanus?"
+
+"That accounts for her delay with the dishes. What other letters did you
+get?"
+
+"None; only a lot of books, magazines, and illustrated papers from Mr.
+Coristine for the family."
+
+"For the family, Marjorie?"
+
+"Yes; did you not read the postscript?"
+
+"To be sure I did; but you know better than to take that
+literally,--Marjorie, I think you're deep, deep."
+
+"Do you think he will come here next month?"
+
+"I am going to command my niece, Marjorie Carmichael, or to ask
+Marjorie's mother, to answer his letter for me, and to insist upon his
+coming back as soon as possible."
+
+The aunt and niece had a kissing match, after which the latter said:
+"Thank you, aunt Honoria," and went out of the room, ready for the
+congratulations of the Bridesdale world.
+
+Meanwhile Miss Du Plessis, having laid the dominie's wealth of postal
+matter before his eyes, at his request read the solitary letter.
+
+     _My Dear Wilks_,--I hope that, under your excellent corps of nurses
+     and guardian angels, you are gradually recovering from your
+     Falstaffian encounter with Ancient Pistol. Don't let Miss Du
+     Plessis see this or she'll faint. I had a toughish ride to
+     Collingwood, and part of the way back, the latter at the suggestion
+     of Hickey Bangs. If I were as plucky for my size as that little
+     fellow is, I could face a regiment. He got the prisoner safely
+     caged, which is the proper thing to say about gaol birds. I came
+     down with him and his select party this morning, meeting Captain
+     and Mrs. Thomas and The Crew on the way. They wanted me to go on a
+     cruise. The kindness of the whole Carruthers family is like the
+     widow's curse; it's inexhaustible. Having been badly sold, however,
+     over a Lamb, and cheap, too, I was not eligible for more sail. I
+     write this, Wilks, more in sorrow than in anger, but I do hanker
+     after those jolly Bridesdale days. Mrs. Marsh received me
+     cordially, but not in character; she was the reverse of martial.--
+
+"Really, Farquhar, this is very terrible," said Miss Du Plessis,
+laughing; "I hardly know whether to go on. Who knows what dreadful
+things may be before us?"
+
+"The taste, Cecile, is shocking; otherwise any child might read his
+letters."
+
+"I left off at 'martial.'"
+
+     I went to the office, very unlike the Squire's, and pulled White
+     _off his_ stool before he knew I was there. He told me I had just
+     come in the nick of time, for he wants to go to some forsaken
+     watering place down the Gulf--as Madame Lajeunesse said "Law
+     baw"--and that immediately. So, I get my two weeks next month, by
+     which time I hope to have got that next of kin matter straightened
+     out. Then, if I'm let, I'll go up and have my _golf_ with Mr. Errol
+     on his links. How are his links matrimonial progressing, and
+     Perrowne's, not to mention those of Ben Toner, Timotheus, yourself,
+     and other minor personages? Will you commission me to buy the ring?--
+
+"Really, dear, I think I must stop."
+
+"Please do not, dear; there is not much more, is there?"
+
+"Not much, but it is so personal!"
+
+     The York Pioneers are having an exhibition of antiques; couldn't
+     you get somebody to send down our two knapsacks, it seems such an
+     age since we started them? Ask Miss Du Plessis and Miss Carmichael
+     what they meant giggling at them at the Brock Street station and on
+     the train that Tuesday morning.--
+
+"Farquhar, did he, did you think it was Marjorie and I who did that,
+what he calls giggling?"
+
+"I certainly never thought you did, and I think it is only his banter."
+
+"Neither Marjorie nor I could have so disgraced ourselves. Did you not
+see the school-girls behind us? I was ashamed of my sex."
+
+"When you write Corry for me, you must give him a talking to for that."
+
+"Very well; where was I, oh, yes, 'Tuesday morning.'"
+
+     I send a few lines by post. If there is anything in the world I can
+     do for you, Wilks, let me know. If my presence can help you at all,
+     I'll run up at a moment's warning. Love to all at Bridesdale. Sorry
+     I made an ass of myself running away. Mail closes and must stop.
+
+                             Your affectionate friend,
+                                            EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+     P.S.--Tell Errol to keep that pipe as a memorial of a poor deluded
+     wretch who had hoped one day to call him by the paternal name.
+     Fancy having the good minister for a step father-in-law! No such
+     luck, as Toner would say. Adieu                         E.C.
+
+"Is she fond of him, Cecile?"
+
+"Yes, very much so."
+
+"Is it not a pity, when they think so much of one another, that a mere
+trifle should keep them apart, perhaps for ever?"
+
+"Yes it is, but I am not sorry for Marjorie. Kind heart and all, she
+ought to have had more sense and more forbearance than to have openly
+preferred that selfish creature, Mr. Lamb, to your warm-hearted friend."
+
+"Corry is the soul of honour and generosity, Cecile, in spite of his
+hideous taste in language."
+
+"That is a mere eccentricity, and does not affect his sterling
+qualities. I shall make it my duty to speak to Marjorie again. Good
+night, Farquhar dear!"
+
+"Good night, Cecile, my darling, my guardian angel, as Corry rightly
+says."
+
+Miss Tryphena Hill was reading Sylvanus' letter in the kitchen, first to
+herself. It ran as follows:--
+
+                                     _A Board_ THE SUSAN THOMAS
+                                                        Friday noon.
+
+     _My ever of thee I'm fondly dreaming, Tryphena_,--U sed my spelins
+     was caple of beterment so I got the tittle out of a song buk in the
+     cars and wrot it down in the end lefe of the litel testymint you
+     giv me wile the capen and the nusboy was int lukin on. How duz it
+     tak yor i. The capen he brung Mrs. T long for a sale. I see Mr.
+     Corstoene in the cars lukin poekit lik wat is the mater of him. He
+     wooden cum long on the skuner. Giv my luv to Tryphosa and Timotheus
+     i can get there names all rite out of the testymint NEW TESTAMENT
+     Now my ever of thee Tryphena I am orf wunc more on the oshin waive
+     and the hevin depe and If i never more cum bak but the blew waives
+     role over yor Silvanus, the TESTAMENT dont spel it with a why, i
+     left my wil at farthys in the yaler spelin buk on the sheluff nere
+     the side windy levin all my property to my saley Tryphena. I wud of
+     kist u of i had dard beefor I leff wen I am more prospuz i wil dar
+     of I get slaped for it The capen has fyred the blungeybush and i
+     must go ashore with the dingy and get the tavun boy to get ma a
+     nenblope out of the orfis
+
+                             Yore onley luving afekshunit saler boy
+                                                      SYLVANUS PILGRIM.
+
+Just as Tryphena had finished this touching epistle, a knock came to the
+kitchen door. She opened it, and Mr. Perrowne appeared. "Is Timotheus
+here?" he asked. Timotheus himself answered, "Yaas sir!" when the parson
+said, "Would you mind bringing a spaide to help me to bury my poor
+dawg?" The willing Pilgrim rose, and went in quest of the implement,
+while Mr. Perrowne walked round to the verandah, under which lay the
+inanimate form of his long lost canine friend, over which he mourned
+sincerely. The Squire and Miss Halbert came out to assist at the
+obsequies, and were soon joined by Miss Carmichael and Mr. Terry, all of
+whom regretted the loss of poor Muggins, the children's friend.
+
+"Do you think you will ever see your dog again, Basil?" asked the
+doctor's daughter.
+
+"I down't know," replied the parson. "He was part of the creation that
+St. Paul says is growning and waiting for the redemption of the body
+from pain and disease and death. It used to be said that man ownly is
+naturally and necessarily immortal, but that is rubbish, built up on a
+pantheistic idea of Platow. If God continues the life of man beyond this
+world, I see no reason why He should not continue that of a dawg which
+has shared man's fight here below. There are some such good dawgs, don't
+you know, moral, kind, faithful dawgs!"
+
+"Is it not the poor Indian who thinks his faithful dog shall bear him
+company in another world?" asked Miss Carmichael.
+
+"Yes, it is Low; but really, in the great Sanscrit epic of the Bharatan
+war, King Yoodistheer is represented as refusing immortality, unless the
+god Indra will let him take his dawg to heaven along with him."
+
+"And left his wife behind, did he not? He did not even hold her
+something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse."
+
+"Ow, now, I think Draupadee died before him. Still, it is a strange fact
+though that some people do love animals better than human beings."
+
+"D'ye ken why?" asked the Squire, with a glance at his niece. "It's
+because they're no as exacting and fashious as beass."
+
+"Well, there's a lesson for you, Fanny. Good-night. I must gow to my
+sermon and the hymns." So Mr. Perrowne departed, and the mourners
+returned to the house.
+
+On Sunday it rained; nevertheless all went to their respective churches,
+except the Carruthers children, whom Tryphena kept in order, and the
+colonel, who sat with Wilkinson. Both clergymen preached impressively
+with reference to the events of the past week, and, at the close of the
+services, they both repaired to Bridesdale for dinner. In the afternoon
+they rode to their respective stations, but the Squire stayed at home to
+teach the children and read to them, while they devoured the contents of
+the lawyer's elaborate boxes. Tryphosa and Timotheus had to do their
+singing in the kitchen, in which they were joined by Tryphena and
+Maguffin. The latter had a very soft rich voice, and made a great
+addition to the musical performance. The colonel smoked an after dinner
+cigar, and Mr. Terry a pipe, on a dry part of the verandah. The young
+ladies overhauled the entire collection of literature sent to Miss
+Carmichael and to Wilkinson, and read a good many things that were not
+for Sunday. As to the three matrons, it is nobody's business what they
+did with their afternoon. Mr. Perrowne came back to his Fanny in the
+evening, and Mr. Errol, to have "a crack" with Mrs. Carmichael. Monday
+was fair enough to permit of a game of golf between the parsons, with
+the colonel and the veteran for spectators. Miss Halbert went home in
+the evening, and so, except for the wounded dominie upstairs and the
+colonel, things went on in the usual jog-trot way, for Miss Du Plessis
+had been at Bridesdale before. Letters and papers came from Coristine to
+the bedridden dominie, and another package for Marjorie, before Saturday
+night, but none for anybody else, for the reason that Miss Du Plessis
+had written him simply at Wilkinson's dictation, and Mrs. Carruthers and
+Miss Carmichael had not written at all. In her round of household duties
+and the care of a young family, the former had forgotten all about her
+letter, and the latter did not know what to say for herself, and did not
+feel disposed to humiliate her sense of self-respect by reminding her
+aunt of her promise. Another Sunday passed without other incident than
+Mr. Errol's visit. Mr. Perrowne spent most of his spare time at the
+Halbert's. But, Monday night's post brought an official envelope,
+type-written, from the offices of Tylor, Woodruff and White for Miss M.
+Carmichael. She opened it, with a feeling of irritation against
+somebody, and read the wretched type-writing:--
+
+     _Dear Madam_,--I have the honour to inform you that I have received
+     a cable message from Mr. P.R. Mac Smaill, W.S., of Edinburgh, to
+     the effect, that, as very large interests are involved in the case
+     which I had the honour to claim on your behalf as next of kin, his
+     nephew, Mr. Douglas, sailed to-day (Saturday) for Montreal, vested
+     with full powers to act in concert with your solicitors. As my firm
+     has no written instructions from you to act in the matter, I am
+     prepared to hand over the documents and information in my
+     possession to the solicitors whom you and your guardians may be
+     pleased to appoint to deal with Mr. Douglas on his arrival.
+     Awaiting your instructions, I have the honour to remain,
+
+                             Dear madam,
+                                 Your obedient servant,
+                                            EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+Nothing but the signature was in his writing; this was terrible, the
+worst blow of all.
+
+She took the letter to uncle John in the office and laid it down before
+him. He read it gravely, and then bestowed a kiss of congratulation on
+his niece. "I aye kennt your fayther was weel conneckit, Marjorie, but
+lairge interests in the cen o' writers to the signet like Mac Smaill
+means a graun' fortune, a muckle tocher, lassie. We maun caa' your
+mither doon to talk it owre." So Mrs. Carmichael came to join the party.
+Her daughter wished to appoint some other firm of lawyers in Toronto, or
+else to leave all in the hands of Mac Smaill, but the Squire and Mrs.
+Carruthers would not hear of either alternative. They knew Coristine,
+and could trust him to work in the matter like one of themselves; so the
+young lady's scruples were outwardly silenced, and the Squire was duly
+authorized to conduct the correspondence with the lawyer. This he did in
+twofold fashion. First he wrote:--
+
+     EUGENE CORISTINE, ESQ.,
+                Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff and White.
+
+     _Dear Sir_, Although my niece, Marjorie Carmichael, is of legal
+     age, it is her desire and that of her mother that I, in the
+     capacity of guardian, should authorize you or your firm, as I
+     hereby do in her name, to prosecute her claim as the heir of the
+     late Dr. James Douglas Carmichael, M.P., to the fortune advertised
+     by P.R. Mac Smaill, W.S., of Edinburgh as falling her late father,
+     and to conduct all necessary negotiations with Mr. Mac Smaill and
+     his clients in the case. Kindly notify me at once of your
+     acceptance of the trust, and make any necessary demands for funds
+     and documents as they may be required.              Yours,
+                                                  JOHN CARRUTHERS, J.P.
+
+The other letter was:--
+
+     _My Dear Coristine_, What do you mean, you scamp, by frightening
+     the wits out of my poor lassie with that typewritten bit of legal
+     formality? I have a great mind to issue a warrant for your arrest,
+     and send Rigby down with it, to bring you before me and Halbert and
+     Walker. Man, we would put you through better than Osgoode Hall!
+     But, seriously, we all want you to stick to this next of kin case.
+     Spare no expense travelling about, especially if your travel is in
+     this direction. I think you are not judging Marjorie fairly, not
+     that I would throw my bonnie niece at the head of a prince of the
+     blood, but I have taken a great liking to you, and I know that you
+     have more than a great liking for her. So, no more nonsense.
+     Honoria and Marjorie (Mrs. Carmichael), and all the rest of
+     Bridesdale, send kind love and say "come back soon."
+                                      Yours affectionately,
+                                                  JOHN CARRUTHERS.
+
+Mrs. Carruthers also wrote a note that will explain itself:--
+
+     _Dear Mr. Coristine_,--Please to overlook my long delay in replying
+     to your kind letter and in thanking you for your goodness to the
+     children, who miss you very much, I intended to get Marjorie or
+     her mother to write for me, but in the bustle of housework,
+     preserving, and so on, forgot, which was not kind of me. Father
+     desires me to remember him to you, and says he longs for another
+     smoke and talk. The others have a delicacy in writing, so I am
+     compelled to do it myself, though a very poor correspondent. John
+     has told me about Mr. Douglas coming out to see about Marjorie's
+     fortune. As I suppose he will want to see her and her mother, will
+     you please bring him up yourself, and arrange to give us a long
+     visit. Marjorie Thomas says there are many new flowers out, and
+     that she and my little ones have hardly touched the creek since you
+     left us.
+
+                          With kind regards,
+                                Your very sincere friend,
+                                        HONORIA CARRUTHERS.
+
+Coristine came home jaded on Wednesday evening. The day had been hot,
+and in the absence of all the other principals, the work had been heavy.
+He had interested himself, also, in lady typewriters since his return,
+and had compelled some to take a much-needed holiday. Four unopened
+letters from Bridesdale were in his pocket, which he had saved for after
+dinner. At that meal, the young men of Mrs. Marsh's grown-up family
+rallied him on his lack of appetite and general depression. He had not
+made a pun for four days running, a thing unprecedented. Dinner over, he
+slipped away to his rooms, lit a pipe, and read the letters, the
+contents of two of which, three including the Squire's formal one, are
+already known. Another, in a fine clerkly hand, was from Mr. Errol.
+
+     _My Dear Mr. Coristine_,--A thousand thanks for the bonny pipe,
+     which I fear you must have missed. I shall take great care of it as
+     a memorial of pleasant, though exciting, days. I wish you were here
+     to help Perrowne and me at our cricket and golf, and to have a
+     little chat now and then on practical theology. My ministerial
+     friend is that infatuated with Miss Halbert (they are engaged, you
+     know) I can get very little out of him. Mrs. Carmichael sends her
+     kind regards. Her daughter Marjorie is looking pale and lifeless, I
+     do trust the dear lassie is not going like her poor father. We all
+     love to hear her sing, but she has got that Garden of Gethsemane
+     poem of his set to music. It is very beautiful but far too sad for
+     her young life. I have been visiting your friend Mr. Wilkinson,
+     pastorally, and am just delighted with him. He is a man of a very
+     fine mind and most devout spirit. Miss Cecile and he will suit one
+     another admirably. Colonel Morton is wearying for your society, and
+     so is the good old grandfather. If it will not be putting you to
+     too much trouble, will you ask your bookseller to get me a cheap
+     Leipsic edition of Augustine's "De Civitate Dei," as I wish to
+     polish up my patristic Latin, in spite of the trash written in it,
+     that still defiles our theological teaching. I have been visiting
+     Matilda Nagle, and even that old reprobate, Newcome, who got a
+     terrible shaking in his last nefarious adventure. Matilda is doing
+     remarkably well, and her boy is quite bright and intelligent. Half
+     a dozen cases of sickness in my two charges have kept me from
+     writing, especially as one was a case of infection. Haste ye back
+     to all your warm friends here.
+
+                                   Yours very faithfully,
+                                                 HUGH ERROL.
+
+The last was a stuffy envelope addressed correctly to Mister Eugene
+Coristine, in the hand of a domestic, Tryphosa probably, and contained
+some half dried flowers, among which a blue Lobelia and a Pentstemon
+were recognizable, along with a scrap of a letter in large irregular
+characters.
+
+     _Derest Eugene_--Wat makes you stay sew long a way. This is meter
+     as Pol sed to Petre put on the gridel and take of the heter. A lot
+     more flours are out in bloome like the ones I send with my love so
+     dear fete have been in the creke sints you went a way I think that
+     pig is sory she made you go now the chilren granpa sed to me to
+     rite you to come back for a smok. Dere mister Bigls has gone too
+     and no nice one is left give my love to Tyler and say he must let
+     you go for the house is sew quite their is no more fun in it. Feena
+     got a funy leter from old Sil with moste orfle speling the pusy is
+     well but pore Mug in ded. It was verry good of you to send me
+     candes but I like to have you beter           Your litel love
+                                                               MARJORIE.
+
+The lawyer put this letter reverently away in a special drawer which
+contained his peculiar treasures, but registered a vow to reprove his
+little love for applying the word pig to a young lady. He did not know
+whether to be glad or sorry that Miss Carmichael's case was left in his
+hands. Of course he could not refuse it. If this man Douglas had to go
+up to Bridesdale, he supposed he would have to introduce him, and watch
+him on behalf of his client. A great heiress, perhaps with a title for
+all he knew, would be very unlikely to take more than a passing interest
+in her solicitor. Still, it cut him to the heart that the girl was as
+Mr. Errol represented her. Doubtless she was quite right in not
+acknowledging his business note in person. Then he laid down his pipe,
+put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, exclaiming
+bitterly, "O Marjorie, Marjorie."
+
+Before the end of the week, the Squire received answers to his official
+and non-official letters, accepting the trust confided to him, and
+regretting that Miss Carmichael had given the writer no opportunity of
+more fully explaining himself. The non-official letter also stated that
+the lady's position was so much changed by the prospect of a large
+fortune as to make it little less than dishonourable in him to press his
+suit, at least in the meantime. Mrs. Carruthers also received a promise
+that the lawyer would, if practicable, accompany Mr. Douglas to
+Bridesdale. Mr. Errol reported a nice letter received by him from the
+same quarter, along with the "Civitate Dei" and some reviews. Wilkinson
+was in clover so far as papers and magazines were concerned, and both
+Miss Carmichael and Miss Du Plessis were remembered with appropriate
+literary pabulum of the same nature. More bonbons for the juveniles
+arrived by Saturday night, and a letter for Marjorie.
+
+     _My Dear Little Love, Marjorie._--It was very kind of you to
+     remember your poor boy in his exile from home in the big, hot,
+     dusty city. I liked your dear little letter very much, all except
+     that one word about you know who. I am sure you did not think, or
+     you would never have written so of one so good and kind to you and
+     me. You will not say that any more I am sure. I have put your
+     letter and the flowers you were so kind as to pick and dry for me
+     in my best drawer where I keep my treasures. I send you a new
+     picture book just out, with many coloured plates of flowers in it.
+     When I come up you must tell me if you know their names. Please
+     tell your cousins' grandpapa that I would like very much if he were
+     here, or I were there, that we might have a nice quiet smoke and
+     talk together. I am sorry poor old Muggins is dead. You did not
+     tell me what killed him. Tryphena ought to make Sylvanus buy a
+     spelling book to study while he is on watch in your papa's ship.
+     Your papa and mamma asked me to go for a sail with them, but I had
+     to go to town. Now, my little love, be very kind and nice to
+     everybody, and above all to your dear cousins, big and little, and
+     when I come up and hear how good you have been, we will fish in the
+     creek on week days and sing some of those pretty hymns on Sunday.
+     Do you ever go to see my poor sick friend Wilks? I think he would
+     like to see a little girl some times. Try him with a bonbon and
+     with the poetry under the pictures of flowers in your new book.
+     Give my love to all the kind friends, and keep a great lot for your
+     dear little self.
+
+                         From your own                 EUGENE.
+
+"Where is the book?" asked Marjorie, when the letter was read to her by
+the lady whom she had written so slightingly of. Miss Carmichael looked
+over her own mail matter, and found a large flat volume addressed Miss
+Marjorie Carmichael, while the other packages bore simply Miss
+Carmichael. She opened it up, and found the book demanded. The lawyer
+had been so full of the name that he had written it mechanically,
+instead of Miss Marjorie Thomas. Marjorie was not well pleased that her
+cousin should have usurped her book, but loyalty to Eugene made her
+suppress any expression of indignation. Mr. Terry had to read that
+letter through his spectacles, and Tryphosa; and on Sunday she proposed
+to invade the sanctity of Mr. Wilks' chamber and interest him in both
+letter and book.
+
+The Sunday came and went, and then the slow week dragged along. Whoever
+would have thought that, a short time ago, they had been so cheerful, so
+merry, even with danger threatening and death at their door. The dominie
+was out of his room at last, walking about with his arm in a sling,
+rejoicing in changes of raiment which Coristine had sent from his
+boarding house by express and the mail waggon. The city clothes suited
+him better than his pedestrian suit, and made him the fashionable man of
+the neighbourhood. In conversation over his friend, he remarked that he
+was pleased to find Corry toning down, writing quiet sensible letters,
+without a single odious pun. "Puir laddie!" said the Squire, "if it wad
+mak him blither, I could stan' a haill foolscap sheet o' them. I'm feard
+the city's no' agreein' wi' him." Before noon on Friday there came a
+hard rider to the Bridesdale gate, a special telegraph messenger from
+Collingwood, with a telegram for Mrs. Carruthers. She took it hastily
+from Timotheus, and, breaking the seal, read to the group gathered about
+her: "If agreeable, Douglas and I will be with you by Saturday's stage.
+Please answer by bearer. Eugene Coristine." The Squire, home a little
+sooner than usual, said: "Let me answer that, Honoria," and retired to
+his office. When he came out, it was with a written paper in his hand,
+which he read for approval. "You and Douglas heartily welcome--will meet
+you at station, so do not disappoint." This was accepted by a unanimous
+vote; after which the messenger partook of a hasty meal, as did his
+horse, and then galloped back to town. "The waggonette will hold six,"
+said the Squire; "that's Coristine, Mr. Douglas and me. Who are the
+other three? Will you no come, Marjorie? The ride'll dae ye guid, lass."
+
+No, Miss Carmichael declined, and the Squire was inwardly wroth. Mrs.
+Carmichael took the place offered to her daughter, and Marjorie Thomas
+and Mr. Terry volunteered to make up the required number. It seemed
+such a long time till Saturday morning, but Marjorie tried to shorten
+it, by running everywhere and telling everybody that Eugene was coming.
+The whole house caught the infection. Tryphena and Tryphosa were kept
+busy, preparing already for a late six o'clock dinner on the morrow.
+There was a putting of rooms in order for the coming guests, during
+which Miss Carmichael, conscience stricken, returned the lawyer's verses
+to the leaves of Browning. She dreaded meeting the author of them, and
+found comfort in the fact that he was not coming alone. If she had not
+been, in her own estimation, such a coward, she would have gone on a
+visit to Fanny, but she dared not thus offend her uncle and aunt, and
+desert her mother and Cecile. What was he coming for? She had not sent
+for him. Why did she not want him to come? She did not know, and it was
+the right of nobody to question her on the subject. She only knew that
+she was very unhappy, and hoped she would not act stupidly before the
+stranger from Edinburgh.
+
+That night the Squire received a letter from Coristine, written on
+Thursday, saying that Mr. Douglas had arrived, and was a very fine
+fellow; and that, as soon as he had made up his mind to go to
+Bridesdale, a telegram would be sent. He also requested Mr. Carruthers,
+if it was not trespassing too far upon his kindness, to secure the
+rooms, which the postmistress had told him she had to let, for Miss
+Graves, a young lady in his firm's offices, who needed complete rest and
+change of scene, and who would either go up by the stage on Saturday or
+accompany Mr. Douglas and him at a later date. The letter was read at
+the tea table, and Miss Du Plessis said she knew Marion Graves very
+well, and was glad to think she would be so near, as she was a lovely
+girl; but what a strange thing for Mr. Coristine to recommend her to
+come to Flanders! "Oi'm thinkin'," remarked Mr. Terry, "that av the
+young lady in dilikit loike, it 'ud be a marcy to kape her aff that
+rough stage; so, iv yer willin', Squoire, I'll shtay at home an' lave my
+place to put the poor lady in inshtid av me." Mrs. Carruthers would not
+hear of the veteran's losing the drive, and resigned her seat. Honoria
+would probably want her at any rate, so it was very foolish and selfish
+in her to have thought of going. "There maun be some one o' the female
+persuasion, as good old Newberry calls it, to invite Miss Graves and to
+keep her company, especially if she's an invalid," said the Squire. "I
+will go, uncle," said Miss Carmichael, quietly. The uncle was amazed at
+this new turn things were taking, and arranged in his mind to have Miss
+Graves and Mr. Douglas with him in the front seat, and Coristine between
+the two Marjories behind. After tea, Timotheus and Maguffin were sent to
+invite Miss Halbert and the two clergymen to the Saturday evening
+dinner, but, by Mrs. Carruthers' directions, the postmistress was not
+notified that her rooms were wanted. If Miss Graves were all that Cecile
+said of her, she had remarked, she would be better at Bridesdale, and
+would also be an acceptable addition to the number of their guests.
+
+Saturday morning was a time of wild excitement for Marjorie. She went to
+the brook by anticipation, to look at the sportive fish, and turned up a
+flat stone or two, to be sure the crawfish, which the ignorant Timotheus
+called crabs, were still there. She was prepared to report favourably on
+the creek. Then she journeyed along the banks, looking for new flowers,
+and over the stepping stones to the opposite shore, and up the hill to
+the strip of brush, returning with a handful of showy wild blossoms.
+Next, she visited the stable yard, and watched Timotheus and Maguffin
+polishing up the waggonette and the harness of the horses. The colonel
+was there, and, in answer to Marjorie's enquiry regarding his interest
+in the scene, said: "You are not going to leave me behind, you little
+puss, although you did not invite me. I have invited myself, and am
+going to accompany you on hohseback."
+
+"Are you going to take Guff too, colonel?"
+
+"Who is Guff, my deah?"
+
+"Don't you know Guff?"
+
+"No; I am not awahe that I do."
+
+     "Oh Guffee am de niggah
+       Wif de tah on his heel;
+     He done trabble roun' so libely
+       Dat he's wuff a mighty deal."
+
+"You do not shuhly mean Maguffin?"
+
+"Of course I do; who else could be Guff?"
+
+"No, I shall not take Maguffin, seeing we come right back. Had we been
+going to put up anywheah, of couhse, he would have been indispensable."
+
+"What a funny name! Do you mean the waggonette?"
+
+"By what, Mahjohie?"
+
+"By this fencepail?"
+
+"Silly child, I did not say that. I said indispensable, which means,
+cannot be done without."
+
+"Oh!" answered Marjorie; "it's a long word, is it?"
+
+There was no necessity for starting before ten, at which hour Timotheus
+brought round the waggonette, and Maguffin the colonel's horse. The
+Squire assisted the two Marjories to the front seat, and took his place
+beside the younger. The colonel chivalrously bowed to the ladies while
+on foot; then, he mounted his horse with a bound, and the transport and
+escort trotted away. Mr. Terry, alone and neglected, betook himself to
+the Carruthers children, who soon found many uses to which a
+good-natured grandfather could be put, to the advantage and pleasure of
+his grandchildren.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+     The Collingwood Arrivals--Coristine Goes to the Post Office--Mr.
+     Perrowne is Funny--Bang's Note and the Lawyer's Fall--Coristine in
+     Hospital--Miss Carmichael Relents--Bangs on the Hunt--The
+     Barber--Mr. Rigby on Wounds--Berry-Picking with the New
+     Arrivals--The Lawyer's Crisis--Matilda's--Miss Carmichael in
+     Charge.
+
+
+The train had just come in when Squire Carruthers' party arrived at the
+station, so nicely had he timed his driving. As there was nobody to hold
+the horses, he kept his seat, while Coristine, looking faultlessly neat
+in his town dress, came forward and assisted Miss Carmichael and
+Marjorie to alight. Having asked the former's permission, the lawyer
+introduced Miss Graves, a young lady not unlike Miss Du Plessis in
+stature and carriage, but with larger, though handsome, features and
+lighter complexion. Then, Mr. Douglas, a fine-looking blonde man of
+masculine Scottish type, was made acquainted with his fair client, and
+with her nominal guardian on the box. Finally, the colonel, standing by
+his horse's head, bowed with genial dignity to the new arrivals, and
+warmly pressed the hand of his dear boy's friend. The Squire's little
+scheme was frustrated. His niece, without asking advice or permission
+from anybody, placed Miss Graves beside the driver, and established
+herself on the same seat, leaving Marjorie between the two gentlemen on
+the one behind, after they had bestowed their valises and Miss Graves'
+portmanteau in their rear. Beyond a ceremonious handshake, Miss
+Carmichael gave Coristine no recognition, although she could not have
+failed to perceive his delight at once more meeting her. To Miss Graves,
+however, she was all that could be desired, cheerful, even animated, and
+full of pleasant conversation. Marjorie kept her Eugene and the new
+gentleman busy. She reported on the creek, and presented her faded
+bouquet of wild flowers, which Eugene received with all the semblance of
+lively satisfaction. She made many enquiries regarding the big girl in
+front, and insisted especially on knowing if she was nice. Then she
+turned to Mr. Douglas and asked his name.
+
+"My name is Douglas," he answered.
+
+"Oh, I know that, even Timotheus himself knows that. I mean what's your
+real name, your very own, the name your mamma calls you?"
+
+"She used to call me James."
+
+"Oh; have you got a brother called John?"
+
+"Yes; how did you know that?"
+
+"Oh, I know. Then your papa's name is Zebedee, and your mamma's is
+Salome."
+
+"No, we are not those two James and Johns; they are dead."
+
+"They are the only James and John I know."
+
+"I don't think so. Your uncle, Dr. Carmichael, was called James Douglas,
+like me."
+
+"Marjorie's dead papa?"
+
+"Yes; your cousin is a sort of far-away cousin of mine; so you must be
+one of my cousins, too. What do you think of that?"
+
+"I think it's nice to have a growed-up man cousin. I'll call you Jim."
+
+"Marjorie!" said a reproving voice from the front seat; "you must not
+talk to Mr. Douglas in that pert way."
+
+"If my cousin lets me call him Jim, it's none of your business, cousin
+Marjorie. You will let me, won't you, cousin Jim?"
+
+"To be sure, if Miss Carmichael will allow me."
+
+"I don't think it's fair to let her boss the whole show."
+
+Mr. Douglas laughed loud and long over this expression, so novel to his
+British ears.
+
+"Where did you learn that, Marjorie?" asked Coristine.
+
+"Oh, from Guff; there's heaps of fun in Guff."
+
+Her companions occasionally took advantage of silent intervals to
+discuss the scenery, and the Canadian lawyer pointed out spots,
+memorable in the great pedestrian tour, to his Scottish compeer. Miss
+Carmichael never turned, nor did she give Miss Graves a chance to do so;
+but the Squire managed to sit sideways, without at all incommoding the
+ladies, and, keeping one eye on his horses, at the same time engaged in
+conversation with Marjorie's captives. The colonel also kept close to
+the vehicle, and furnished Coristine with new information concerning his
+wounded friend. Miss Graves was informed that she was not to be allowed
+to go to the post office, and her protests were imperiously silenced by
+Marjorie's "boss of the whole show." The horses, having come out
+quietly, went home at a rattling pace, and, a good hour before dinner
+time, the party arrived at Bridesdale, there to be greeted by Miss
+Halbert and the parsons, in addition to the occupants of the house.
+Wilkinson and Mr. Terry received Coristine with enthusiasm, but all the
+ladies bore down upon the latest arrival of their sex and carried her
+away, leaving the man, in whom they had expressed so much interest, to
+feel as if there were a plot on foot to ignore him.
+
+"It mast be very pleasant for you, Corry, to find all the ladies so
+attentive to your lady friend," remarked the Dominie.
+
+"Very pleasant for Miss Graves, no doubt; I can't say the same about
+myself."
+
+"I should have thought you would have regarded a compliment to her as
+more gratifying than one to yourself."
+
+"Haven't reached that heavenly stage of Christian self-abnegation yet,
+Wilks."
+
+"Perhaps I am mistaken in supposing you take a great interest in the
+lady?"
+
+"Interest, yes; great, more than doubtful. She's the third girl I've had
+to send away for the good of her health. The other two knew where to go,
+and went. She didn't; so I thought of establishing her at the post
+office. I never dreamt the Squire would come for us till I got his
+message. I meant to accompany her in the stage, and land her in the arms
+of Mrs. Tibbs; but here we are, like a bridal party, with Marjorie for
+bridesmaid and Douglas for best man."
+
+"Thank you, Corry; you have relieved me from a great anxiety. Miss Du
+Plessis thinks very highly of your ---- travelling companion."
+
+"Douglas, do you mean?"
+
+"No, the lady."
+
+"Oh, bother the lady! Wilks, it's a doubly grave situation. If it wasn't
+for Mr. Terry and Marjorie, I'd cut my stick. As it is, I'll run and
+engage that post-office room for myself, and be back in time for dinner
+or whatever else is up. Au revoir." With a bound he was off the
+verandah, valise in hand, and away on to the road.
+
+When Coristine returned, he was just in time for dinner. He had not been
+missed; the entire interest of the feminine part of the community was
+centred in Miss Graves. The Squire took her in, as the latest lady
+arrival, while Mr. Douglas escorted the hostess. To his infinite
+annoyance, Coristine, who had brought in Mrs. Du Plessis, was
+ostentatiously set down by the side of his invalided type-writer, to
+whom he was the next thing to uncivil. Miss Carmichael, between Mr.
+Douglas and Mr. Errol, was more than usually animated and
+conversational, to the worthy minister's great delight. The amusing man
+of the table was Mr. Perrowne. His people were building him a house,
+which Miss Halbert and he had inspected in the morning, with a view to
+the addition of many cupboards, which the lady deemed indispensable to
+proper housekeeping. Mr. Perrowne thought he would call the place
+Cubbyholes; but Miss Du Plessis asked what it would really be, the
+rectory, the vicarage or the parsonage? Miss Halbert suggested the
+basilica, to which he replied that, while a good Catholic, he was
+neither Fannytic nor a Franciscan. He derided his intended bride's taste
+in architecture, and maintained that the income of a bishop would be
+insufficient to stock half the storerooms and wardrobes, leaving all the
+rest of the house unfurnished. As it was, he feared that the charming
+Fanny would be in the predicament of old Mother Hubbard, while he,
+unfortunately, would be in that of the dog. "In that case, Basil," said
+Miss Halbert, "you would be like an inclined plane."
+
+"How so?" enquired Mr. Perrowne.
+
+"An inclined plane is a slope up, you know," answered the mischievous
+bride elect.
+
+"Talking about dawgs," remarked the victim of the terrible conundrum, "I
+asked a little girl belonging to one of my parishoners what kind her
+dawg was. She said it had been given to her as a spanuel, but she
+thought it was only a currier."
+
+"When I was at the school," said the Edinburgh gentleman, "a boy whom I
+had offended some way, offered to make the like of me with a street cur
+and an old gun. He said he could make 'one dowg less' in the time it
+took to fire the gun."
+
+"What did you do to that boy, Mr. Douglas?" asked Miss Carmichael.
+
+"I left him alone, for he was a good deal bigger than me."
+
+"You were not a Boanerges then?"
+
+"No, I was James the Less."
+
+"What are you dreaming about, Mr. Coristine," called the Squire, "to let
+all this wild talk go on without a word?"
+
+"I am sorry to say I did not hear it, Squire," replied the moody lawyer,
+whose little conversation had been wholly devoted to Mrs. Du Plessis.
+
+After dinner, the lawyer repaired to the Squire's office, and briefly
+informed him, that the fortune in funds and property to which his niece
+had fallen heir was valued at 80,000 pounds sterling, and that,
+fortunately, there was no sign of any contest or opposition in the
+matter. He also explained that, under the circumstances, he felt
+constrained to take a brief lodging at the post office, and begged Mr.
+Carruthers to apologize to his wife for the desertion of Bridesdale.
+Then, he sought out Mr Terry in the garden and smoked a pipe with him,
+while his new friend, Mr. Douglas, was chatting on the verandah between
+Miss Carmichael and Miss Graves. Nobody else seemed to want him or care
+for him; he had even lost his old friend Wilks, who was absorbed in his
+beloved Cecile. The colonel was as bad with Cecile's mother, and Mr.
+Errol with Mrs. Carmichael. The Squire was busy, so the veteran and he
+were left alone. For a time, they smoked and talked, listening all the
+while, as they could not fail, to the merry badinage of the party on the
+verandah. At last he could stand it no longer. He rose, bade his
+companion good-night, and strolled away on to the road. Once out of
+observation from the house, he walked rapidly to his new quarters. "Is
+that you, Styles?" asked Mrs. Tibbs, as he entered. He assured the
+postmistress that he was not Styles, and asked if there was anything he
+could do for her. "There is a letter here for Squire Carruthers, marked
+'immediate,' and they have not been for their mail," she answered. So,
+sorely against the grain, the lawyer had to take the letter and return
+with it to Bridesdale. Mr. Carruthers was still in his office. He opened
+the envelope and read:--
+
+                                           COLLINGWOOD, Saturday, 12 m.
+     _My Dear Squire,--_
+
+     Rawdon and his nephew have broken gaol and escaped. Be on your
+     guard. Will go to you as soon as possible.
+
+                                          Yours truly,
+                                                  J. HICKEY BANGS.
+
+"This is bad news, Coristine. It seems as if we're never to hear the
+last o' yon villain."
+
+"I'm at your service, Squire."
+
+"I canna thole to ask the colonel, puir man, to lose his nicht's rest,
+an' I'm no ower sure o' his man. Sae, the granther an' I'll watch till
+it's twal', if you wi' Timotheus 'll relieve us till two i' the mornin'.
+What say ye to thon?"
+
+"All right, I'll be here at midnight. Could you get me the cartridges
+out of my knapsack upstairs?"
+
+The Squire produced the cartridges, and the lawyer went back to his
+post-office quarters.
+
+Punctually at midnight he returned, and relieved Mr. Carruthers in
+front of the house, while Timotheus took Mr. Terry's place behind. It
+was after one when he saw a figure, which he did not recognize as
+belonging to any one in the house, steal out of the front door with a
+heavy burden. He ran towards the figure, and it stole, as rapidly as
+possible, down the garden to the hill meadow. He knew it now, outlined
+against the heavens, and fired his revolver. He knew that he had hit his
+man, and that Rawdon was wounded in the body or in the upper part of a
+leg. Hurriedly he pursued, entering the strip of woodland towards the
+brook, when something fell upon him, and two keen qualms of pain shot
+through his breast. Then he lay insensible. Meanwhile, a lithe active
+form, leaving a horse tethered at the gate, had sprung to meet a second
+intruder, issuing from the front door of Bridesdale. The opposing forces
+met, and Mr. Bangs had his hands upon the younger gaol breaker. A loud
+shout brought Timotheus on the scene, and the prisoner was secured. The
+household was aroused. The Squire found his office a scene of confusion,
+his safe broken open, the hidden treasure and many of his papers gone.
+Inwardly he muttered maledictions on the sentry of the watch, little
+knowing that the burglars had entered the house while he was himself on
+guard. In his vexation, and the general excitement, with the presence of
+Miss Graves and Messrs. Douglas and Bangs, the unhappy lawyer's absence
+was overlooked. His shot apparently had not been heard. The vicinity of
+the house was scoured for Rawdon, but without effect. He had got away
+with his own money and many incriminating papers, to be a continued
+source of annoyance and danger. Those who gave any thought to Coristine
+imagined him asleep at the post office, and wondered at his
+indifference. Chief among them were the dominie and Miss Carmichael.
+There was little more rest that night in Bridesdale. One villain at
+large was sufficient to keep the whole company in a state of
+uncomfortable disquiet and apprehension. It was still dark, when old
+Styles came to the gate and asked for Mr. Coristine, as he said the
+crazy woman was at the post office, and Mrs. Tibbs wanted to know if she
+could have the use of the spare room for the rest of the night. Then the
+Squire was alarmed, and a great revulsion of feeling took place. The
+man almost entirely ignored was now in everybody's mind, his name on all
+lips but those which had been more to him than all the rest.
+
+Stable lanterns were got out, and an active search began. Mr. Terry's
+practiced ear caught the sound of voices down the hillside, and he
+descended rapidly towards them. Soon, he came running back, tearing at
+his long iron grey hair, and the tears streaming from his eyes, to the
+place where his son-in law was standing. "Get a shate or a quilt or
+something, John, till we take it out av that Och, sorra, sorra, the
+foine, brave boy!" At once, Mr. Douglas and Timotheus accompanied the
+Squire to the little wood, and beheld the owners of the voices, Mr.
+Newcome and his intending son-in-law, Ben Toner.
+
+"Aw niver tetched un, Ben. Aw wor jest goan troo t' bush, when aw
+stoombled laike over's carkidge and fall, and got t' blood on ma claws,"
+said the former to his captor.
+
+"S'haylp me," replied Ben, "ef I thunk it was you as killed the doctor,
+I'd put the barl o' this here gun to your hayd and blow out your
+braiuns."
+
+"Don't let that man go," said the Squire to Toner.
+
+"Ain't that what I come all this way fer?" answered the lover of
+Serlizer.
+
+The Squire and the veteran, with terrible mental upbraidings, raised the
+body from its bed of leaves and wood-mould and placed it reverently upon
+the sheet, which it stained with blood at once. Then, while the colonel
+held one lantern and Wilkinson the other, Mr. Douglas and Timotheus took
+the other corners of the simple ambulance, and bore their burden to the
+house. In his own room they laid Rawdon's victim, removed the clothing
+from his wounds, washed away the clotted blood, only to despair over the
+flow that still continued, and rejoiced in the fact that life was not
+altogether extinct, when they handed him over to the care of the three
+matrons. While the colonel was sending Maguffin in search of the doctor,
+the voice of Squire Halbert was heard in the hall, saying he thought it
+must have been Miss Carmichael who had summoned him, at any rate it was
+a young lady from Bridesdale. He stanched the bleeding, administered
+stimulants, and ordered constant watching. "The body has suffered
+terribly," he said, "and has hardly any hold upon the soul, which may
+slip away from us at any moment." The good doctor professed his
+willingness to stay until the immediate crisis from loss of blood was
+overpast. To all enquiries he answered that he had very little hope, but
+he sent the kind ladies away from the death-like chamber, and
+established himself there with Wilkinson, who would not leave his
+friend.
+
+The light of a beautiful Sunday morning found Miss Du Plessis, Miss
+Halbert, and Miss Graves in bitter sorrow, and little Marjorie beside
+herself with grief. The very kitchen was full of lamentation; but one
+young woman went about, silent and serious indeed, yet tearless. This
+was Miss Carmichael. The doctor had come down to breakfast, leaving the
+dominie alone with the patient, when she took a tray from Tryphena, and
+carried up the morning repast of the watcher. Then, for the first time,
+she got a sight of the wounded man, whose eyes the doctor had closed,
+and whose jaw by gentle pressure he had brought back, till the lips were
+only half parted. She could hardly speak, as she laid a timid hand on
+her late principal's shoulder, directing his attention to the breakfast
+tray. "Look away, please, for Cecile's sake if not for mine," she
+managed to stammer, and, as he turned his head aside, she flung herself
+upon her knees beside the bed, and took the apparently dead man's hand
+in her own, covered it with tears and kisses, and transferred the ring
+she had once worn back to her own hand, replacing it with one of her own
+that would hardly slip down over the bloodless emaciated finger. Quietly
+she arose, and noiselessly left the room, when the dominie returned to
+his watching and administration of stimulants. When she came down
+stairs, outwardly calm but looking as if she had seen a ghost,
+everybody, who was in the secret of past days, knew, and respected her
+silence. Even Mr. Douglas, who had thought to improve his distant
+cousinship, read there the vanity of all his hopes, and bestowed a
+double share of attention upon Miss Graves, charming in her genuine
+sorrow over her considerate employer. Nobody cared to go to church, but
+the good Squire pointed out that few could be of any service at home,
+and that, if ever they had need of the comforts of religion, it was at
+such a time. So Mr. Perrowne and Mr. Errol each received a quota of
+grief-stricken worshippers from Bridesdale, and, at the close of their
+respective services, mingled heartfelt expressions of sorrow with
+theirs. The clergymen declined to intrude upon the saddened household,
+until they could be of some service, so the worshippers returned as they
+went.
+
+Mr. Bangs and the doctor were the lights of the dinner table, their
+professional acquaintance with all sorts of trouble hindering them from
+being overcome by anything of the kind. The former had sent for Mr.
+Rigby, and had placed the two prisoners in his charge, thus releasing
+Timotheus and Ben Toner. The latter reported that his patient was
+restored to animation, but this restoration was accompanied with fear
+and delirium, the effects of which on a rapidly enfeebled body he
+greatly dreaded. If he could keep down the cerebral excitement, all
+might be well, and for this he depended much on the presence with the
+sufferer of his friend, Mr. Wilkinson. Just as he said this, the
+dominie's voice was heard calling for assistance, and the doctor and the
+Squire sprang upstairs. The patient had broken his bandages, and was
+sitting up fighting with his attendant, whom in his delirium he
+identified with Rawdon. It was almost ludicrous to hear him cry, as he
+clutched at Wilkinson's throat: "Ah, Grinstuns, you double-dyed villain,
+I've got you now. No more free circus for you, Grinstuns!" With
+difficulty the three men got him down, and bandaged him again; but his
+struggles were so violent that they feared for his life. He recognized
+none of them. Little Marjorie heard his loud shouts, and ran to save her
+friend from his murderers, as she thought them to be. The Squire would
+have repelled her intrusion angrily, but Doctor Halbert said: "Come,
+little girl, and tell your poor friend he must be quiet, if he wants to
+live for you and the rest of us." It is hard to say what prompted her,
+but she took out a little tear-soaked handkerchief and laid it on
+Coristine's shoulder, calling, "Eugene, you silly boy". The silly boy
+closed his staring eyes, and then opened them again upon the child. "Is
+that you, pet Marjorie?" he asked feebly; and she sobbed out: "Yes,
+Eugene dear, it's me; I've come to help you to get well."
+
+"Thank you, Marjorie; have I been sick long?"
+
+"No, just a little while; but the doctor says you must be very very
+still, and do just what you're told. Will you, Eugene?"
+
+"Yes; where's your cousin, Marjorie?"
+
+"Can you turn your head? If you can, put it down, and I'll whisper
+something in your very own ear. Now listen! don't say a word till I come
+back. I'm going to bring cousin Marjorie to you." Then she slipped away
+out of the room.
+
+"Doctor," said the Squire in a shaky voice, "we had aa better gang awa
+oot o' the room till the meetin's owre." So the three men withdrew to
+the hall as the two Marjories entered.
+
+"Eugene," whispered little Marjorie, "have you been good while I was
+away, and not spoken?"
+
+"Not a word, Marjorie," breathed rather than spoke the enfeebled lawyer.
+
+"I have brought cousin Marjorie to you. You must be very good, and do
+all she says. Give me your hand." She took the limp hand, with the ring
+on the little finger, and placed it in her cousin's; then, with a
+touching little sigh, departed, leaving the two alone. Their hands lay
+clasped in one another, but they could not speak. His eyes were upon
+her, all the fierce light of delirium out of them, in spite of the fever
+that was burning in every limb, resting upon her face in a silly wistful
+way, as if he feared the vision was deceptive, or his prize might vanish
+at any moment. At last she asked: "Do you know me, Mr. Coristine?" and
+he murmured: "How could I help knowing you?" But, in a minute, he
+commanded himself, and said: "It is very kind of you to leave your
+friends and come to a stupid sick man. It is too much trouble, it is not
+right, please go away."
+
+"Look me straight in the face, Eugene," said Miss Carmichael, with an
+effort. "Now, tell me, yes or no, nothing more, mind! Am I to go away?"
+As she asked the question, her face bent towards that of the sufferer,
+over which there passed a feeble flush, poor insufficient index of the
+great joy within, and then, as they met, his half-breathed answer was
+"No." She commanded silence, shook up his pillows, bathed his forehead,
+and in many ways displayed the stolen ring. He saw it, and, for the
+first time, perceived the change on his own hand. Then, she ordered him
+to go to sleep, as if he were a child, smoothing his hair and chanting
+in a low tone a baby's lullaby, until tired nature, with a heart at
+peace, became unconscious of the outer world and slumbered sweetly. On
+tiptoe, she stole to the door, and found many waiting in the hall for
+news. Proudly, she called the doctor in and showed him his patient, in
+his right mind and resting. "Thank God!" said the good man, "he is
+saved. We must come and relieve you now, Miss Carmichael." But she
+answered: "No, my place is here. If I want assistance I will call my
+uncle or Mr. Wilkinson." Doctor Halbert told the joyful news to the
+Squire and the assembled company. The clergymen would not arrive till
+tea time, so Mr. Carruthers, as the priest of the family, gathered the
+household together, and, in simple language but full of heart, thanked
+God for the young life preserved. The doctor went away home, but without
+Miss Fanny, and, as he drove off, remarked to the Squire, significantly:
+"There is no medicine in the world like love," a sentiment with which
+the Squire thoroughly agreed.
+
+The evening was a very pleasant one. Messrs. Errol and Perrowne rejoiced
+to hear the good news from the sick room, and Mrs. Carmichael gave the
+former to understand, in a vague, yet to his intelligence perfectly
+comprehensible, way, that the assurance of her daughter's future
+happiness would remove a large obstacle in the way of her becoming the
+mistress of the manse. Mr. Perrowne appreciated Dr. Halbert's
+consideration in leaving his daughter at Bridesdale. The Du Plessis
+quartette were even farther advanced than the Carmichael four; and
+consequently Miss Graves was left to the entertainment of Mr. Douglas.
+The patient upstairs awoke, feeling very stiff and sore, but quite
+rational, and almost too happy to speak, which was a good thing, as his
+strength was that of a baby. He had to be lifted and turned, and propped
+up and let down, which the Squire generally did for him, under the head
+nurse's instructions, received from the doctor. Then he had to be fed,
+and begged to have his moustache curtailed, so as to facilitate the
+task. Two little hands, a comb, and a pair of scissors went to work,
+and, without annihilating the hirsute adornment, so trimmed it as to
+reveal a well-curved upper lip, hitherto almost invisible. It is
+astonishing what a sense of proprietorship this "barberous operation,"
+as she termed it, developed in the heiress, who thought more of it than
+of her prospective thousands. It was past ten o'clock before she
+consented to yield her post to the devoted Wilkinson, who already began
+to look upon her as a sister, and to whom she gave directions, with all
+the gravity and superior dignity of an experienced nurse. The colonel
+would willingly have taken his turn in the sick room, but Mr. Terry, Mr.
+Douglas, and the Squire insisted on relieving him. Mr. Bangs was away
+with Ben Toner and two guns hunting for the Grinstun man. The watchers
+got along very well through the night, with the exception of the
+veteran, who was a little too liberal in the application of stimulants,
+which led to a reappearance of fever, and necessitated his calling in
+the aid of the ever-willing and kindly Honoria. Both the clergymen had
+volunteered to sit up with him, whom they were proud to call their
+friend, but it was not considered fair to impose upon them after the
+labours of their hardest day.
+
+The morning saw Miss Carmichael in the sick room again, putting things
+to rights, purifying and beautifying it, as only a woman can, with the
+romantic and tearful, Shakespeare loving Tryphosa in her train. Poor
+little neglected Marjorie, who had performed for her young self an art
+of heroic sacrifice in handing over her own Eugene to her unworthy
+cousin, was allowed, a great and hitherto unheard of reward, to bring
+the patient an armful of flowers from the garden, gathering any blossoms
+she chose, to fill vases and slender button-hole glasses in every
+corner. She was even permitted to kiss Eugene, although she protested
+against the removal of that lovely moustache. She offered to bring
+Felina to lick off the stubble on her friend's chin, but that friend, in
+a wheezy whistling voice, begged that Maguffin might be substituted for
+the cat, in case pussy might scratch him. Maguffin came with the
+colonel's razors, and Marjorie looked on, while he gave the author of
+his present fortunes a clean shave, and made ironical remarks about
+moustache trimming. "Guess the man what trimmed yoh mustash fought he
+was a bahbah, sah?" The patient smiled seraphically, and whistled in
+his throat. "Never want to have a better, Maguffin."
+
+"It's awful, Guff, isn't it?" asked Miss Thomas, and continued, "it
+quite gives me the horrows!"
+
+"Dey's bahbahs and dey's bahbahs," replied the coloured gentlemen, "and
+I doan want ter blame a gennelum as cayn't help hisself."
+
+The barbering completed, Marjorie junior was dismissed with her ally
+Guff, and the senior lady of that name reigned supreme. The eyes of the
+feeble invalid, whose heart had been hungering and thirsting for love
+during a month that had seemed a lifetime, followed her all over the
+room, and almost stopped beating when she went near the door. But she
+came back, and held that hot fevered hand on which her modest ring
+glistened, and cooled his brow, and made him take his sloppy food, and
+answered back in soft but cheery tones his deprecating whispers. She had
+him now safe, and would tyrannize over him, she said; till, spite of the
+weakness and the sharp pains, his eye began to twinkle with something of
+the old happy light that seemed to be of so long ago, and, smilingly, he
+murmured: "We are not ready for our graves yet." Miss Carmichael looked
+severe, and held up a warning finger. "Repeat that, Eugene, and I will
+send her to take care of you at once," she said; "that is, if she will
+leave her dear Mr. Douglas for a poor bed-ridden creature like you." As
+an affectionate salute followed these words, it may be presumed they
+were not so harsh as they sounded. The doctor came in time for
+breakfast, but, before partaking of that meal, he visited his patient,
+eased his bandages, looked to the wounds, and praised the nurse. "He
+could not be doing better," he said, as he cheerfully descended to the
+breakfast table.
+
+The constable had respected the sanctity of the Sabbath, and was still
+in the kitchen, while his prisoners languished in the stables. Tryphena
+presided over the morning meal, at which Timotheus and Ben sat; and
+Tryphosa, who had just descended from her labours in the sick room, was
+giving them so touching and poetical an account of the invalid and his
+nurses that Timotheus began seriously to consider the propriety of
+having some frightful injury inflicted upon his own person. Mr. Toner
+related for the tenth time how the spurious doctor had cured him, and
+then proceeded to tell of Serlizer's wonderful skill in pulling through
+her shot-riddled old reprobate of a father, till "he was eenamost as
+good as new and a mighty sight heavier 'n he was, along o' the leaud in
+his old carkidge." Constable Rigby laughed at the wounds of the day, and
+characterized them as mere scratches, unworthy of mention in casualty
+despatches. "There was a man of ours, an acting corporal, called
+Brattles, in the melee at Inkerman, who broke the tip of his bagginet
+off in one Rooshian, and the butt of it in another. Then he had nothing
+to do but to club with what the French call the crosse. He forgot that
+he had not emptied his gun of the last charge so, just as he had floored
+his fourth Rooshian, the piece went off into his left breast, and the
+bullet ran clear down him and came out of his boot under the hollow of
+the left foot. Captain Clarkson thought he was done for; but Brattles
+asked him for two champagne corks, plugged up the incoming and the
+outgoing wounds with them, and stuck to it till the Rooshian bugles
+sounded the retreat. That I call a wound to speak of." Tryphena, who had
+listened to this story of her elderly admirer with becoming gravity,
+ventured to ask: "Do officers carry champagne corks about with them on
+the battle-field, Corporal Rigby?"
+
+"Not all officers, Miss Hill. I never heard that Lord Raglan or Sir
+Colin did. But the young fellows, of course. How else could they blacken
+each other's faces?"
+
+"Do they do that?"
+
+"Regular. There was a subaltern they called Baby Appleby, he was so
+white-skinned and light-haired. Well, one night we had to turn out for
+an alarm in the dark, and charged two miles up to the rifle pits of the
+first line. When we came back, the colonel halted us for inspection
+before dismiss. When he came to Mr. Appleby, he turns to his captain and
+says: 'Where did you get this nigger in uniform, Ford?' The captain
+looked at him and roared, for poor Mr. Appleby was as black as Maguffin.
+The gentlemen had amused themselves corking him when he was asleep."
+
+"Yoh finds it mighty easy, consterble, ter say disrespeckshus remahks on
+cullud folks," said the temporary barber, entering at that moment. "Ef
+the Lawd made as dahk complected, I specks the Lawd knowed what He was
+a doin', and didn't go foh ter set white folks a-sneezin' at 'em. I'se
+flissertaten myself ebery day yoh cayn't cohk me inter a white folks."
+
+"They's whitewaush, Maguffin," interpolated Ben. "A good heavy coaut o'
+whitewaush 'ud make a gashly Corkashun of you."
+
+"Yah! yah! yah! I'se got a brudder as perfesses whitewashin' an'
+colourin'. When he's done got a job, he looks moh like the consterble's
+brudder nor myuns, yah! yah! yah!"
+
+The corporal frowned, and went on with his breakfast, while Mr. Maguffin
+gave an account of his shaving adventure, and of the sight of that poor
+man whose moustache had been trimmed by a non-professional.
+
+Ben was soon after called by the detective to re-engage in the hunt for
+Rawdon, who was now known to be wounded, and, therefore, to be lurking
+somewhere in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Carmichael accompanied Mr. Errol on
+a visit to Matilda Nagle at the post office. The absence of the minister
+made the morning game of golf impossible, so that Mr. Perrowne had to
+surrender himself to the care of Miss Halbert, which he did with a fine
+grace of cheerful resignation. Mr. Douglas expressed a desire to take a
+walk in the surrounding country, and the dominie echoed it, with the
+condition that the ladies should share in the excursion. The Squire and
+Mrs. Carruthers were busy; the doctor had his patient to look after, and
+expected to be summoned to the other at the post office; and Mr. Terry
+occupied himself with the children. But Mrs. Du Plessis and her
+daughter, Miss Graves, Miss Halbert, and, of course the colonel and Mr.
+Perrowne, were willing to be pedestrians, if the proposers of the tramp
+promised not to walk too fast. There was a pretty hillside, beyond
+Talfourds on the road towards the Beaver River, from which the timber
+had once been removed, and which was now covered, but not too thickly,
+with young second growth; and thither the party determined to wend their
+way. Marjorie had intended to stay at home, in the hope of being allowed
+to see Eugene again, but the doctor had begged her to leave him alone
+for a day or two, and now the prospect of blackberry and thimbleberry
+picking on the hillside was too much for her to resist. Gaining
+permission from her aunt, she loaded Jim with baskets and little tin
+pails, and led him away to the road between herself and Miss Graves. The
+other gentlemen relieved the burdened Edinburghian of portions of his
+load, and fell into natural pairs with the ladies, Miss Du Plessis and
+Wilkinson bringing up the rear. There was a pleasant lake breeze to
+temper the heat of the fine August morning, which gave the dominie
+license to quote his favourite poet:--
+
+     And now I call the pathway by thy name,
+     And love the fir-grove with a perfect love.
+     Thither do I withdraw when cloudless suns
+     Shine hot, or wind blows troublesome and strong.
+
+Anticipating the thimbleberries, he recited:--
+
+     Thy luscious fruit the boy well knows,
+     Wild bramble of the brake.
+
+Miss Du Plessis liked that sort of thing. It was a blessed relief from
+type-written legal business letters. So she responded in the lines of
+Lamartine:--
+
+     Mon coeur à ce réveil du jour que Dieu renvoie,
+     Vers un ciel qui sourit s'éleve sar sa joie,
+     Et de ces dons nouveaux rendant grace au Seigneur,
+     Murmure en s'éveillant son hymne intérieur,
+     Demande un jour de paix, de bonheur, d'innocence,
+     Un jour qui pèse entier dans la sainte balance,
+     Quand la main qui les pèse à ses poids infinis
+     Retranchera du temps ceux qu'il n'a pas bénis!
+
+By this it will appear that the two were admirably suited to each other,
+finding in their companion peculiar excellences they might have vainly
+sought among a thousand on Canadian soil. "This is a morning of
+unalloyed happiness, Farquhar," remarked Miss Du Plessis in prose, and,
+in the same humble style of composition, he answered: "Thank God,
+Cecile! Think what it might have been had the worst happened to poor
+Corry!"
+
+"As it is," replied that lady, archly, "the worst has turned out for the
+best."
+
+"As it was with me," the dominie humbly responded, and relapsed into
+silence.
+
+Meanwhile, Marjorie trotted on ahead, and, her eyes, made observant by
+former botanical expeditions on a small scale, found the purplish blue
+five-flowered Gentian by the open roadside, the tall orange Asclepias
+or Butterfly Weed, and the purple and yellow oak leaved Gerardias or
+False Foxgloves in grassy stretches among the second growth. These she
+bestowed on Jim, who begged to be allowed to present the most perfect
+specimens to Miss Graves. The walkers were now on the top of the hill,
+and strayed off into the overgrown clearing. A shout from Marjorie
+declared that the berries had been reached, and within five minutes the
+whole party was engaged in gathering, what Mr. Douglas hailed with
+delight as "brammles." Marjorie accused the colonel of picking for his
+own mouth, but this was a libel. He picked for Mrs. Du Plessis, whom he
+established under the shade of a straggling striped maple of tender
+growth. That lady received the tribute of brother Paul very gracefully,
+and darkened her lips with the ripe berries, much to the colonel's
+amusement and their mutual gratification. Miss Halbert stood over Basil,
+and so punished him with a sunshade, whenever he abstracted fruit for
+personal consumption, that the man became infatuated and persisted in
+his career of wrong doing, till he was deprived of his basket, which he
+only received back after an abject apology delivered on his knees, and a
+solemn promise to have regard to the general weal. Miss Du Plessis and
+the dominie would have done well, had not the worship of nature and
+human nature, in prose and in verse, withheld their hands from labour,
+and fortunately, as Mr. Perrowne remarked, from picking and stealing.
+Mr. Douglas was absorbed in admiration for Miss Graves, who, thinking
+nothing of the handsome picture she made, attended strictly to business,
+and roused him to emulation in basket filling. Marjorie, with her
+oft-replenished tin can, aided them time about impartially, as the only
+honest workers worthy of recognition. Steadily, they toiled away, until
+the rising sun and shortening shadows, to say nothing of stooped backs
+and flushed faces, warned them to cease their labours, and prepare to
+take their treasures home. Then they compared baskets, to the exultation
+of some and the confusion of others. Miss Graves and Mr. Douglas were
+bracketed first with a good six quarts a piece. Miss Halbert came next,
+with Mr. Perrowne a little behind. Miss Du Plessis and Mr. Wilkinson had
+not six quarts between them; and, when Marjorie saw the colonel's
+little pail only half full, she exclaimed: "O horrows!" and said it was
+a lasting disgrace. But Mrs. Du Plessis smiled sweetly with her
+empurpled lips, and the colonel did not mind the disgrace a particle.
+They all went home very merry and full of innocent jocularity.
+
+"Cecile," said the dominie, "I trust you will excuse the adjective, but
+I should dearly love to hear Corry's jolly laugh just now. Poor fellow,
+I think I could almost bear a pun."
+
+The audacious Mr. Perrowne overheard the last words, and, with great
+exuberance of feeling, propounded a conundrum.
+
+"Mr. Wilkinson, why is a pun of our friend Coristine's like your sling?
+D'ye give it up? Because there's now arm in it now. Ha! ha!"
+
+They had only been a few hours away, but, when they returned to
+Bridesdale, it did not require clever eyes to see that a great change
+had taken place. The people were in the house, even the children, but
+they were all very quiet. Neither the doctor nor the Squire was visible,
+and instinctively the berry-pickers feared the worst. Mrs. Carruthers
+told them that excitement had been too much for the enfeebled patient.
+Happily, he was not strong enough to be delirious, but he seemed
+sinking, and had fallen into unconsciousness, only muttering little
+incoherences in his attenuated voice. Doctor Halbert hoped much from a
+strong constitution, but work and worry had reduced its vitality before
+the dreadful drain came on the life blood. Soon, he came down stairs
+with the Squire, both looking very solemn. "Let me go to my friend,
+Doctor," pleaded Wilkinson, and many other offers of service were made,
+but the doctor shook his head. "Miss Marjorie is there and will not
+leave him," he answered; "and, if she cannot pull him through, nobody
+else can. When she wants help, she will summon you." Then, turning to
+Mr. Errol, he said: "I will go with you now, and see to that poor woman
+at the post office." The minister took the good doctor's arm, and they
+went away dinnerless to attend to the wants of Matilda Nagle, suddenly
+smitten down with fever while on the way to obey the imperious infelt
+summons of the unseen Rawdon. Mr. Newberry was with her, having been
+driven over by that strange mixture of humanity, Yankee Pawkins, and
+Mrs. Tibbs was acting as the soul of kindness. The woman's case was a
+remarkable combination of natural and mesmeric causes, but presented no
+reason for serious apprehension. The doctor prescribed, and Pawkins
+drove off at breakneck speed to get the prescription filled by the
+medical student at his dispensary. Then, he and the minister returned to
+the sobered and melancholy company at Bridesdale. "Resting, but hardly
+breathing," was the bulletin that greeted them, when they enquired after
+the solitary battler for life in the upper chamber. Yet he was not
+alone; one sad stricken woman's heart was bound to that poor shadow of
+former vital wealth forever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+     Matilda Free--The Constable Captured--The Thunderstorm--Rawdon
+     Found--The Lawyer Revives--Inquest--Mr. Pawkins
+     Again--Expeditions--Greek--Committee of the Whole--Miss Graves and
+     Mr. Douglas--Weddings--The Colonel, Wilkinson and Perrowne
+     Off--Arrival of Saul--Errol, Douglas and Coristine
+     Wedded--Festivities in Hall and Kitchen--Europe--Home--Two
+     Knapsacks--Envoi.
+
+
+That was a dreary Monday afternoon inside Bridesdale, in spite of the
+beautiful weather without, for the shadow of death fell heavy and black
+on every heart. Those who had shared in the morning's merriment felt as
+if they had been guilty of sacrilege. Even Mr. Rigby exhibited his share
+in the general concern by being more than usually harsh towards his
+prisoners. About four o'clock there was an incident that made a little
+break in the monotony of waiting for the death warrant. Old Styles
+arrived, to say that the crazy woman was no longer crazy. Half an hour
+before she sat up in bed and cried "Free at last!" and since then,
+though the fever was still on her, her mind was quite clear. Doctor
+Halbert took a note of the time, and wondered what the sudden and
+beneficial change meant. Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Errol sympathized with
+him, rejoicing for the poor woman's sake. The detective and Ben Toner
+came home, very tired and disgusted with their want of success. When
+night came, the dominie again offered to stay with his friend, and, in
+his anxiety, even forced himself into the sick room. Miss Carmichael was
+very pale, but very quiet and resolute. "He is your dear friend, I
+know," she said, calmly, "but he belongs to me as he does not to anybody
+else in the world. I may not have him long, so please don't grudge me
+the comfort of watching." Wilkinson had to go away, more pained at heart
+for the sad eyed watcher awaiting the impending blow than for the
+unconscious friend on whom it was to fall more mercifully. Mr. Bangs
+took charge of the outside guard that night, in which the clergymen had
+volunteered to serve. Mr. Rigby took a grey blanket out to the stables,
+and lay down near his prisoners, with baton and pistol close at hand.
+About eleven o'clock Ben Toner, on guard before the house, saw a female
+figure approaching, and challenged. "Squit yer sojer foolins, Ben, and
+leave me pass," came from the well known voice of Serlizer. "Is the gals
+up in the kitchen?"
+
+"They is," replied Mr. Toner, humbly and laconically; and his ladylove
+proceeded thitherward. Miss Newcome looked in upon Tryphena, Tryphosa,
+and Timotheus, Mr. Maguffin being asleep, and, after a little
+conversation, guessed she'd go and see Ben. She had found out that the
+constable had two prisoners in charge, quite incidentally, and listened
+to the news as something that did not concern her. Instead of going to
+see Ben, however, she visited the stables. The corporal was evidently
+tired of lying in front of his captives, and probably proposed to
+himself an improving game of geography over a mug of cider in the
+kitchen, for he had risen and unlocked the door. Serlizer stood by it
+with a stout handkerchief in her hand, in the middle of which was
+knotted a somewhat soft and unsavoury potato. As Mr. Rigby slipped out,
+after a glance at his shackled charges, that potato went across his
+month, and was fastened in its place by the handkerchief, firmly, though
+quickly, knotted at the back of his neck. The terror of Russians and
+Sepoys struggled for liberty, but he was a child in the arms of the
+encampment cook. Halters, ropes, and chains of many kinds were hanging
+up, and with some of these the Amazon secured her prisoner in a stall.
+Then she searched him, retaliating upon the constable the indignities he
+had practised on his former victims. Handcuff and padlock keys were
+found in his pockets, and with these she silently freed her venerable
+father, who, in his turn, delivered young Rawdon from his bonds. "Now,
+you two," said the rescuer, quietly, "go round the end of the stables,
+cross the road into the bush beyont, and leg out fast as ye can. I'm
+a-goin' ter foller, and, ef I see ye take a step 'campment way, I'll
+have ye both hung, sure pop." Mr. Newcome gave the prostrate constable
+two parting kicks in the ribs, and obeyed orders, while his affectionate
+daughter followed, until she saw the fugitives safely on the homeward
+road. Then she strayed back to the kitchen, and guessed, seeing Ben was
+all safe, she'd go home, as the night was fine. She put in half an
+hour's irrelevant talk with Mr. Toner after this, and, thereafter, left
+him, suggesting, as she departed, that, when his watch was over, he
+might look into the stables, where the horses seemed to be restless.
+
+Simple-hearted Ben informed Mr. Bangs that he had heard noises in the
+stables, which was not true. Proceeding thither with a lantern he found
+only one prisoner, who, on examination, proved to be the constable. He
+had attacked the unsavoury potato with his teeth as far as the tightness
+of his gag allowed, and was now able to make an audible groan, which
+sounded slushy through the moist vegetable medium. When released, he was
+speechless with indignation, disappointment, and shame. Ben flashed the
+lantern on the handkerchief, and recognized it as the property of a
+young woman of his acquaintance, whereupon he registered an inward vow
+to throw off a Newcome and take on a Sullivan. Bridget was better
+looking than Serlizer anyway, and wasn't so powerful headstrong like.
+Mr. Bangs came to see the disconsolate corporal, and Mr. Terry sought in
+vain to comfort him. The detective was not sorry, save for the
+possibility of the fugitives effecting a junction with Rawdon, who would
+thus be at the head of a gang again. Otherwise, Newcome was not at all
+likely to leave the country, and could be had any time, if wanted. As
+for the unhappy lad, he had suffered enough, and if there were any
+chance of his amending his company, Mr. Bangs was not the man to put
+stumbling blocks in his way. But the demented constable, having
+recovered his baton, began searching. He explored the stables, the
+lofts, the coach-house, the sheds, examined every manger, and thrust a
+pitchfork into every truss of hay and heap of straw. He came outside and
+scrutinized the angle of every fence, poked every bush, peered under
+verandahs, and, according to the untruthful and unsympathetic Timotheus,
+rammed twigs down woodchucks' holes for fear the jail breakers had taken
+refuge in the bowels of the earth. Ben and Maguffin brought him in by
+force, lest in his despair he should do himself an injury, and sat him
+down in an easy chair with the wished-for cider mug before him. He had
+sense enough left to attach himself to the mug, and draw comfort from
+its depths. Then he murmured: "Thomas Rigby, eighteen years in service,
+promoted corporal for valour before the enemy, Crimean and Indian medals
+and clasps, captured by a female young woman, bound and imprisoned by
+the same, Attention! no, as you were!" Addressing Mr. Terry he
+continued: "Sergeant Major, that woman, unless I find her, will bring my
+grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."
+
+"Come, come, now, corporal dear! shure it isn't the firsht toime a foine
+lukin' owld sowljer has been captivated boy the ladies. Honoria's
+blissed mother, rist her sowl in heaven, tuk me prishner wid a luk av
+her broight black eyes, an', iv she wor livin', she cud do it agin."
+
+With the morning came a thunderstorm, altogether unexpected, for
+Monday's north-western breeze had promised fine and cooler weather. But
+the south wind had conquered for a time, and now the two blasts were
+contending in the clouds above and on the waters of the distant great
+lake below. The rain fell in torrents, like hail upon the shingled roof;
+the blue-forked lightning flashed viciously, followed instantaneously by
+peals of thunder that rattled every casement, and made the dishes dance
+on the breakfast table. The doctor had been with his patient; and as the
+clergymen were about to conduct family worship, he whispered to them
+that the soul might slip away during the terrors of the storm, as he had
+often seen before. It was a very solemn and awful time. In vain Mrs.
+Carmichael, aided by the other ladies, sought to make her daughter rest
+or even partake of food. How could she? The storm outside was nothing to
+that which raged in her own breast, calm as was her outward demeanour.
+Marjorie crouched on the mat outside the bed-room door, and quietly
+sobbed herself to sleep amid the crash of the elements. But, when
+another sad dinner was over, the colonel and Mr. Terry bethought them of
+asking the detective if he knew of the inner lake on the shore of which
+Tillycot stood. He did not, but saw the importance of searching there.
+As the last of the rain had ceased, he proposed to explore it, but told
+the Squire, with whom he communicated, that the skiff his informants had
+mentioned was not at the place where first found, or anywhere on that
+lake. Therefore Mr. Perrowne and Mr. Douglas proposed to go with Ben
+Toner to get the Richards' scow, and meet Mr. Bangs with the colonel and
+Mr. Terry at the encampment. The two parties armed and drove away. One
+of the Richards boys, namely Bill, joined the three watermen, and
+together they propelled the punt to the extent of a punt's travelling
+capacity; but it was between four and five when the explorers of
+Tillycot, leaving Ben, Timotheus and Richards on the shore, entered with
+difficulty through the veiled channel, into the beautiful hidden lake.
+They saw the skiff on the shore near the house, and soon perceived the
+numerous blood stains in it. They ran up the bank, entered the chalet,
+and, at last, in the library, beheld him whom they sought, extended upon
+the floor. He had died by his own hand, his fingers being still upon the
+pistol whose bullet had pierced his brain. Mr. Bangs seized a scrap of
+writing lying on the table, which ran thus:--
+
+"Curse you, Tilly, for leaving me to die like a rat in a hole. I have
+stood the pains of hell for thirty-eight hours, and can't stand them any
+longer. They shan't take me alive. Box and that hound Carruthers' papers
+are covered with brush and leaves under the last birch in the bush,
+where I finished that meddlesome fool of a lawyer. You know why you
+ought to give a lot to Regy's boy. It's all over. Curse the lot of you.
+Here goes, but mind you kill that damnable Squire, or I'll come when I'm
+dead and torture the life out of you."
+
+No compassion could follow the reading of this document. There was
+nothing of legal importance in the chalet, so Mr. Bangs, aided by Mr.
+Terry and Mr. Douglas, carried the dead man to the punt, and the party
+in it and in the skiff returned to the Encampment lake. Richards, Ben
+Toner, and Timotheus carried the body up the hill to the waggon on the
+masked road. Then they returned to the scow, while Mr. Bangs drove to
+the post office annex, with the colonel and Mr. Terry, Mr. Perrowne and
+Mr. Douglas. Ben Toner and Timotheus arrived in the other waggon, soon
+after the ghastly burden had been deposited in the unfinished hall, and
+were left in charge, while the others went home to inform the Squire and
+the doctor. Having done this, the detective took the former to the
+little wood, and, after a little searching, found the concealed box,
+which held the incriminating papers as well as the original treasure.
+But for Coristine's fatal shot, these would have been carried away. On
+their return, Doctor Halbert said, after consulting Mr. Bang's paper:
+"He took his life the very hour Matilda exclaimed 'Free at last.' The
+neighbourhood and the whole country may breathe more freely now that he
+is gone. Your poor friend upstairs, John, has not died in vain."
+
+"But he's not dead, Halbert!" almost sobbed the Squire.
+
+"Not yet," replied the doctor, gravely.
+
+Coristine had survived the thunderstorm and the finding of Rawdon's
+remains; and, now that all sympathy in the latter was forfeited, many a
+one would gladly have gone to the sinking man who fired the shot to tell
+him, in his own vernacular, that Grinstuns had ceased from troubling.
+But few dared intrude upon the stillness of his chamber, from the door
+of which Marjorie had to be carried bodily away. The villain dead, the
+treasure and papers recovered, Matilda Nagle in her right mind,
+confidence was restored in Bridesdale, and only one absorbing thought
+filled all minds. Yet, while the colonel shared his cigar case with Mr.
+Douglas, and Mr. Terry smoked his dudeen, Mr. Bangs wrote to Toronto an
+account of the escaped prisoner's death, Miss Du Plessis resigned her
+type writership to Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff, and White, Mr. Wilkinson
+sent in to the Board of School Trustees his resignation of the
+Sacheverell Street School, and the Squire, on behalf of his niece,
+signified that her position in the same was vacant, and informed the
+legal firm of the serious illness of their junior partner. The clergymen
+returned to their lodgings and their duties, and the constable, having
+no living criminal to watch over, relieved Timotheus and Ben Toner of
+their care of the dead. Maguffin had summoned Messrs. Newberry, Pawkins,
+and Johnson for the coroner's jury in the morning, and no excitement was
+left at Bridesdale. When night came, all retired to rest, except the one
+watcher by the bedside of despair. Early in the morning, when the sun
+began to shine upon the night dews and peep through the casements, a tap
+came to the dominie's door. He was awake, he had not even undressed,
+and, therefore, answered it at once. He knew the pale figure in the
+dressing gown. "Put on your pedestrian suit," she said with eagerness,
+"and bring your knapsack with you as quickly as possible." He put it on,
+although the arms of coat and shirt were ripped up for former surgical
+reasons, and he objected to the blood marks on the sleeves. Then he took
+up his knapsack, and went hastily to the sick room. His friend was lying
+on his side, and looking very deathly, but he was speaking, and a wan
+smile flitted over his lips. "Two knapsacks," he murmured, and, "Dear
+old Wilks," and, "rum start." Miss Carmichael said: "Put yours here on
+the table above his, where he can see them," and he obeyed. "Now, stand
+beside them, and say 'Corry,' gently." The dominie could hardly do it
+for a queer choking in his throat, but at last he succeeded in
+pronouncing the abbreviation in an interrogative tone. "Wilks," wheezed
+the sick man, "O Wilks, she called them pads!" and his eyes rested on
+the knapsacks. "Stay with him," the nurse whispered, "while I call
+Fanny." Soon Miss Halbert came, and, walking boldly but quietly up to
+the bedside, asked: "Who are you calling she, you naughty boy that want
+to leave us all?" With an effort, he answered: "I beg your pardon, Miss
+Halbert, but you know you did call them pads." "Well, so they are, you
+poor dear," she replied, bending over and kissing the white forehead,
+for which it is to be hoped Mr. Perrowne absolved her; "but you must
+stay here, for see, I have brought Marjorie to nurse you till you are
+fit to carry a knapsack again." Then Miss Carmichael came forward, and
+the patient became ceremoniously polite in a wheezing way, and was
+ashamed of himself to be ill and give so much trouble; but he allowed
+himself to be shaken up and receive his strengthening mixtures, and
+behaved like a very feeble rational man with a little, but real, hold on
+life. That was the turning point in the lawyer's career; and, when the
+doctor descended from seeing him later in the morning, he announced that
+the crisis was past, and that, with proper care, the Squire's
+prospective nephew would live. Joy reigned once more in Bridesdale, from
+Mr. Terry to Marjorie, and from the stately Mrs. Du Plessis to Maguffin
+in the kitchen.
+
+The only thing to mar the pleasure of that day was the inquest, and even
+that brought an agreeable surprise. When Matilda Nagle was called, she
+refused to acknowledge the name, insisting that she was Matilda Rawdon,
+and producing from her pocket a much crumpled marriage certificate,
+bearing the signature of a well-known clergyman who had exercised his
+sacred office in a town within thirty miles of Toronto. This she had
+taken from the library on the occasion of her last visit to Tillycot.
+Old Mr. Newberry's face beamed with delight, and that of Mr. Bangs was a
+curious study, revealing a mind which had joyfully come to a decision it
+had been struggling after in the face of serious difficulties. When the
+verdict of suicide was given, the jury dismissed, and he prepared, along
+with the constable, to deliver over the body of the escaped prisoner
+into the gaoler's hands, he bade Mrs. Rawdon an almost affectionate
+goodbye, and made touching enquiries after the welfare of her son Monty.
+As an honourable woman, she was received, in spite of her late husband's
+character, and her own unconscious crimes, into the Bridesdale circle,
+which, however, she soon left in the company of her benevolent host. The
+Squire informed her that he had a large sum of money in keeping for her
+and her son, and that Miss Du Plessis would either send her all the
+furniture of Tillycot, when she was prepared to receive it, or take it
+from her at an equitable valuation, to either alternative of which she
+strongly objectd. Before Mr. Rigby finished his midday meal, without
+which it was impossible that he, at his age, could travel, Mr. Pawkins
+twisted the British lion's tail several times, to which the corporal
+replied sadly: "Had I still been in the British army, sir, I should have
+been degraded for losing prisoners committed to my guard, but any man
+who allows himself to speak as you do, sir, of what you are too ignorant
+to judge of, is degraded already." The cautious Yankee was equally
+unsuccessful with Ben, who met him with: "Don't give me no more lip
+about Serlizer and old man Newcome, but jist you tell 'em I've waushed
+the bilin' of 'em clear off'n my hands fer a gayul as Serlizer ain't a
+patch on." Then Mr. Pawkins amused himself asking Tryphosa if it was
+Maguffin or Timotheus was her young man, giving as his private opinion
+that the nigger was the smarter man of the two. When Tryphena playfully
+ordered him out of the house, he expressed intense sorrow for Sylvanus'
+future, but was glad to hear he was getting a present rest, paddling his
+mud barge round the Simcoe pond. Mr. Pawkins was offensively personal,
+but kept the table lively, and parted with them, regretting that, having
+left his catechism at home, he was unable to favour his dear children
+with a little much-needed religious instruction. The door was slammed
+behind him, and Mr. Rigby remarked with animation: "Very properly done,
+Miss Hill, a very timely rebuke of unpardonable American insolence!"
+
+When evening came, the Squire and Mrs. Carmichael mastered courage, and
+took Coristine's pale-faced nurse away from him with gentle force, the
+mother taking the daughter's place for a time. After this, Miss
+Carmichael was allowed no night duty, Wilkinson and the Squire, the
+clergymen, Mr. Terry, and Mr. Douglas attending to it in turns, while
+all the ladies, in the same way, relieved her during part of each day.
+Very slowly, but silently and patiently, the invalid regained his lost
+strength. He was grateful, sometimes with a few words of thanks, but
+oftener mutely, with a deprecating look, to all who ministered to his
+comfort. One day Marjorie was allowed in, and, among other wise remarks,
+informed her Eugene that "cousin Marjorie wasn't you know what any
+more." "My little love," he answered, "she's an angel, and always was";
+Marjorie was not at all sure of this, but did not like to cross a sick
+man. During his progress towards health, there were walks and drives,
+picnics to Tillycot and the Beaver River, expeditions to town, fishing
+expeditions with Mr. Bigglethorpe, for whom the lawyer had brought a
+bundle of new flies, which in his anxious state of mind he had forgotten
+to deliver, and a four days' trip on the _Susan Thomas_, which pleased
+Miss Graves and Mr. Douglas immensely. Only two days were actually spent
+on the water, but, as Tryphena was there in the capacity of cook, and a
+coloured lady of Maguffin's acquaintance was temporarily engaged for
+Mrs. Du Plessis, the crew and the manservant were in the seventh heaven
+of delight. Marjorie, of course, was present, and shared the command of
+the schooner with her father. She also attached herself a good deal to
+Jim, and, although resenting the attentions he bestowed upon the big
+girl, carefully abstained from porcine epithets, a result of Eugene's
+epistolary instructions. The great Mr. Tylor came up to Bridesdale in
+person to see his junior, and was duly informed of the engagement
+between him and the heiress, Miss Carmichael, "Ah, Coristine, my dear
+fellow, we shall be losing you for the law, now, and, the first thing we
+know, you will be in Parliament. If not, I may say White is going out of
+the firm, and Woodruff and I had resolved on Tylor, Woodruff and
+Coristine for the new style. Your servant, Miss Carmichael! I
+congratulate my friend and partner on a friend and prospective partner,
+in life as well as law, so infinitely superior, and I trust you will
+allow an oldish man to congratulate you on being won by as fine a young
+fellow as ever lived." When the good Q.C. left the room, the patient
+remarked: "Everybody shows me so much kindness, now, Marjorie, when I
+have all I want in yours."
+
+"Is it kindness, Eugene, only kindness?"
+
+"No, no, it is love, Marjorie, isn't it, undying love? Would you think
+me very foolish if I were to go back for once to Wilks' and my habit of
+reciting all sorts of poetry?"
+
+"I could not stand all sorts, Eugene. There are some that Marjorie
+quotes which are simply awful. She says she gets them from Guff."
+
+"Oh, this isn't that kind. It is Greek, Modern Greek:--
+
+     Ô Erôt' anthêrotate,
+     Glyke kai hilarôtate,
+       Tou kosmou kybernêtê.
+     Esen ho nous, to sôma mou,
+     To stêthos, kai to stoma mou,
+        Latreuei kai kêryttei."
+
+"That is very pretty, Eugene, for love in a general kind of way--love in
+the aibstrac', as the metaphysical Scotch girl said."
+
+"What! Marjorie, you know Greek!"
+
+"Yes; my father taught me to read the Greek Testament, and I have read
+some of it with Mr. Errol."
+
+"Oh, you are a treasure! But I mean your love, and my mind and body,
+heart and voice."
+
+"That will do, you silly boy. Now lie down, and do not excite yourself
+any more." But she said in her heart that she did not believe Mr.
+Wilkinson could quote Greek, and, if he did, Cecile, she was sure, could
+not understand him.
+
+One evening, by general agreement, a committee of the whole sat in the
+office, the Squire in the chair. The chairman jocularly asked the
+colonel, as the senior of the meeting, his intentions. "My intentions,
+Misteh Chaihman, or ratheh ouah intentions, those of my deah Tehesa and
+me, are to be mahhied heah, if you will pehmit, by Misteh Pehhowne, whom
+we also wish to unite in holy matymony ouah daughteh Cecile to ouah deah
+boy Fahquhah. Also, with yoah pehmission, we will place Timotheus and
+Tryphosa, when mahhied, in chahge of Tillycot and Cecile's fahm heah;
+and will then jouhney westwahd to the Mississippi, and so southwahd, to
+show ouah deah childyen theih futuhe inhehitance, and save Misteh
+Wilkinson's ahm the rigouhs of yoah Canadian winteh. That is all, Misteh
+Chaihman, three weddings, a meeah tyifle, suh." The colonel laughed,
+took a little imaginary Bourbon, and whiffed his cigar, while Mrs. Du
+Plessis, her daughter, and the dominie blushed, but also smiled, to
+think that explanations had been frankly made and the coast was clear.
+"I suppose," said the Squire, "it will be my turn next to explain for
+self and freens. The doctor says my nephew that's to be maun tak' a sea
+voyage for the guid o's health, and Marjorie, wha sud be here by richts
+to speak for hersel', is gaun tae kill twa birds wi' ane stane, tak care
+o' her husband, and spier aifter her graun' fortune. But the meenister's
+wantin' tae take her mither wi' him; sae the gudewife and me, we're
+thinkin' o' sendin' aa the weans tae Susan at Dromore, and makin' a
+pairty o't. We canna leave Bridesdale unproteckit, that means Sylvanus
+and Tryphena 'll be pit in chairge till we're back, and they gang to
+Sylvanus' ain fairm. Ony mair intentions?" Mr. Perrowne sought the
+chairman's eye, and addressed him. "Mr. Chairman, unaccustomed as I am
+to public speaking (derisive cheers), and unwilling as we are to obtrude
+our private affairs upon what Virgil calls the _ignobile vulgus_ (hisses
+from Messrs. Errol and Bangs and the doctor), nevertheless, on this
+festive occasion, we owvercome our natural modesty and spirit of
+self-effacement (more derision) sow far as to remark that Cubbyholes (a
+dig from Miss Halbert) will be ready for our occupation in the second
+week of September, about which time the Bishop will make a visitation,
+including the office of howly matrimony. Meanwhile the bride elect will
+look forward with pleasant expectation to those precious tyings of the
+nuptial knot, which will enrich her housekeeping account with liberal
+marriage fees." Here the parson was compelled to stop, since one of the
+indignant Miss Fanny's hands was over his mouth, and the other actively
+engaged in boxing his mercenary ears. "Ony mair intentions?" cried the
+Squire again, warming to his work. "Pahdon me, Misteh Chaihman, foh
+rising a second time, but I am given to undehstand by Madame Du Plessis
+that Maguffin, who accompanies us, has matyimonial intentions towahds
+her new maid, Sophronia Ann Trelawny Tolliveh; that is all, suh." "I see
+Maister Bangs has a word for the chair," said the Squire, when the
+colonel ended. The detective, for the first time in his life, looked
+uneasy. "I ownly wented to sey, Mr. Chairman, thet, within a year, when
+you are all beck frem yore visit, Mrs. Metilda Rawdon hes premised to
+bekem Mrs. Bengs. I may also edd thet, frem kenversation with Ben
+Towner, I hev learned thet the priest is soon to selemnize his union
+with Miss Bridget Sellivan." The company was aghast, and cried out as
+one man, "What is to become of Serlizer?" Mr. Bangs responded: "The
+yeng weman, Sarah Eliza Newcome, wes the person who rebbed kenstable
+Rigby of his prisoners. When he kem to know the fect, he conceived sow
+high a degree of respect fer her kerrage end skill, thet he et wence
+propowsed to her, end hes been eccepted. Mr. Perrowne hes been esked, I
+believe, to merry them; is it net sow, Mr. Perrowne?"
+
+"Yes, the corporal bespowke me, as he said; but that wretched Maguffin
+insists on being married by the Baktis. I'm ashamed of you, colonel,
+allowing so unhallowed a marriage tie in your household."
+
+"I leave religion, Misteh Pehhowne, to evehy man's conscience." The
+meeting then adjourned.
+
+Two young people had been sitting on the verandah while the matrimonial
+congress was going on, and were much amused by what they occasionally
+heard of the proceedings. Next morning, Marjorie carried off one of this
+pair by the name of Jim to look for crawfish and shiners in the creek.
+Under her able tuition, Mr. Douglas was making rapid progress in
+Canadian slang, and treasured in his memory many choice extracts from
+the words of supposed coloured poets, contributed originally by Guff.
+The scraps of doleful ballads, taken from the stores of the Pilgrim
+brothers, Marjorie objected that he did not seem to take stock in. While
+up to the bared elbows in the crawfishery, the twain heard voices, those
+of Miss Graves and Mr. Terry, but they kept on turning over stones and
+shouting all the same. Marjorie had never had the veteran really
+interested in that creek, so she ran to secure him, while her friend
+pulled down his sleeves and went to meet the lady. It was a pretty
+place, the bank of that creek, an ideal spot for a morning stroll, and
+they were soon out of earshot of the fishers. Mr. Douglas remarked, in
+allusion to the previous night's committee of the whole, that Bridesdale
+was going to be Bridesdale indeed, and would soon be no place for single
+people, like himself and his companion. "But I suppose we will both be
+gone before then," she answered. "I should have been back a week ago,
+had not Mr. Tylor kindly lengthened my holiday. It is hard to have to
+leave this place."
+
+"Very," replied Mr. Douglas, "and harder to leave the people. I haven't
+known you very long Miss Graves."
+
+"No, only a few weeks, but very pleasant weeks."
+
+"They have been so to me, and the more I see of you, the more I dislike
+going away."
+
+"Yes, the people gathered here are delightful, almost a unique party."
+
+"I did not mean the people in general. I meant Miss Graves. I hope that
+blunt speech doesn't offend you."
+
+"Not at all. It is blunt, as you say, but complimentary."
+
+"I don't want to make compliments, Miss Graves, until I have the right.
+I want you to come home with me to Edinburgh as my wife."
+
+"This is very sudden and very kind, Mr. Douglas. What do you know of me,
+a poor girl working for my living?"
+
+"I know more than you think, and honour you for your work and
+independent spirit. I am not going to say I want to take you away from
+drudgery, and put you in a better position, because I want you to take
+me for myself, if I am worth taking, as a man."
+
+Miss Graves looked upon his manly honest face with eyes as honest, yet
+with the merest shade of coquetry in them, and said: "You are worth
+taking as a man."
+
+"Then, take me, Marion, and all I have."
+
+"You are not a bit like my picture of a Scotch wooer. You give a poor
+girl no chance to hold you back."
+
+"But I don't want to be held back. Shall we report ourselves to the
+matrimonial congress?"
+
+"Oh no, not yet, Mr. Douglas; you take wonderful liberties with a new
+acquaintance."
+
+Some distance off, Mr. Terry was trying to still the voice of Marjorie.
+"I saw him, granpa, I saw Jim with my very own eyes. Oh, these men will
+break my heart!"
+
+The first parties to perpetrate matrimony were Ben Toner and Biddy
+Sullivan. Mr. Toner, to use his own expressive language, was afraid
+Serlizer might round on him if he delayed. Therefore, Father McNaughton
+was called in, and, with the aid of Rufus Hill and Barney Sullivan,
+groomsmen, Norah Sullivan and Christie Hislop, bridesmaids, and the
+Bigglethorpes and Lajeunesses, spectators, the knot was tied. A
+honeymoon trip of two days to Toronto, where, in their new clothes and
+white cotton gloves, they were the admired of all beholders, rounded off
+the affair, and delivered Ben from all fear of the redoubtable Serlizer.
+Next Sunday morning there was a great commotion in the Church of St.
+Cuthbert's in the Fields. Miss Newcome, gorgeous of attire, supported by
+Tryphena in her very best, first marched proudly up the aisle, and then
+came the corporal, in full uniform, even to his stock, and adorned with
+medals and clasps which told of his warlike achievements, backed by Mr.
+Terry in an unostentatious suit of black broadcloth. Shortly before the
+close of the service, Mr. Perrowne, in his most ecclesiastical manner,
+called the parties up, and put them through their catechism. The
+corporal answered with military precision and dignity, and Serlizer,
+glancing at his martial magnificence, was so proud of the bridegroom
+that she felt equal to answering a bench of bishops. Mrs. Newcome, who
+had given her daughter away, remarked, as all the bridal party retired
+from the vestry to receive their friends' congratulations, that the
+constable, for a widower, was a very proper man, and Serlizer might have
+done much worse. To his best man, Mr. Terry, the corporal said:
+"Sergeant-major, I have got my guard. A prisoner may slip from me,
+Sergeant-major, but when that strapping woman puts her arms round him,
+he'll be as helpless as a child. I shall apply to the Council for an
+increase of pay." Soon afterwards, Maguffin got a holiday, went to
+Dromore, where Miss Tolliver was sojourning with Mrs. Thomas, took that
+lady to Collingwood, the coloured Baptist preacher of which united them,
+and came home triumphantly in the stage with his bride. They received a
+great ovation in the kitchen, and, Mr. Terry having joined the party,
+played the geographical game till midnight, as a sober, improving, and
+semi-religious way of celebrating the event. Mr. Maguffin remarked that
+the Baktis preacher had promised, out of the two-dollar fee, to insert a
+notice of the marriage in a leading paper, adding the words, "No Cards,"
+but, said Tobias, "he warn't nebber moah leff in all hees life, 'kase
+here's the keerds and heaps on 'em. Yah! yah! yah!"
+
+The colonel was getting anxious to start for the Mississippi, and
+begged his deceased wife's sister to confer with her daughter, and name
+the day. The dominie was also consulted, and, seeing it was vain to hope
+for his friend's restoration to the extent of performing groomsman's
+duty, he acquiesced in whatever decision should be reached. Mr. Douglas
+took Coristine's place, and Miss Graves that of Miss Carmichael, and,
+for both of them, the Edinburgh lawyer ordered from the city handsome
+wedding presents to bestow upon the two couples, a little proof of
+generosity gratifying to the lady whom he now regularly called Marion.
+The said Marion had definitely resigned her situation with Messrs.
+Tylor, Woodruff, and White. On Thursday morning, St. Cuthbert's in the
+Fields was a scene of wonder to the assembled rustics, with flowers and
+favours and lighted candles. Miss Du Plessis, stately and lace bedight,
+was led in by her uncle, and followed by Miss Graves and Marjorie, while
+Wilkinson, in elegant morning dress, preceded Mr. Douglas and Mr. Bangs.
+The colonel, with much emotion, gave his niece away, and Mr. Perrowne
+made them one. Then came Mrs. Du Plessis, arm in arm with her former
+husband's faithful servant, Mr. Terry, and behind her followed Miss
+Halbert, training for her own approaching celebration. Mr. Errol was the
+colonel's right hand man. The second couple was united, and, amid the
+strains of the wedding march on the parlour organ, there went on
+salutes, congratulations, and hysterical little weepings, until the
+serious business of affixing signatures in the vestry called the
+contracting and witnessing parties to order. Then they retired to
+Bridesdale, where there was a wedding breakfast, at which Mr. Perrowne,
+elated with liberal fees, was the soul of jocularity, and Mr. Douglas
+let the cat out of the bag as to his relations with Miss Graves. Mr.
+Bangs sang "He's a jolly good fellow" to every toast indiscriminately.
+The Squire was felicitous in his presidential remarks; but Mr. Terry
+broke down at the thought of parting with Madame and with Miss Ceshile
+that was. Mr. Errol made a good common-sense speech, and alluded
+roguishly to the colonel's setting a good example that even ministers
+were not too good to follow. Marjorie, in the dignity of a bridesmaid,
+slipped away to bring Cousin Marjorie down, and was accompanied by the
+new brides, who hugged Miss Carmichael, and implanted motherly and
+sisterly kisses on the cheek of the only man who was left out of the
+festivities. Lastly, Wilkinson appeared on the scene with the colonel,
+and took a most affectionate leave of his friend. "You will not forget
+me, Corry?" said the late dominie. "Never, Wilks, never, nor you me I
+hope. I'll tell you, let us each carry away our knapsacks, and, when we
+look at them, think of each other, and the happy chance that brought us
+here together." The Squire's voice rung out: "Come, come, good people,
+pack up quick, for the carriage is at the door." The valises were got
+down by Timotheus, who received large tips. The two ladies and Wilkinson
+got in with the Squire, and the new Mrs. Maguffin occupied the hind
+seat, while the colonel and his servant rode away amid much throwing of
+old shoes and rice, and waving of handkerchiefs, to make steamboat
+connections at Collingwood. The departure of so large a company left
+quite a blank at Bridesdale.
+
+The Bishop, a gentlemanly cleric in orthodox hat and gaiters, arrived on
+Saturday with his examining chaplain. Mr. Perrowne conducted them to Dr.
+Halbert's, where the Squire, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Errol, with the ladies,
+were invited to meet them. The Bishop turned out to be much more liberal
+and evangelical in his views than the clergyman under visitation. On
+Sunday, there was a confirmation service, and, on the following Monday,
+St. Cuthbert's put on its festal robes once more. Mr. Douglas and Mr.
+Errol stood by Mr. Perrowne, and Miss Graves and Miss Carmichael by Miss
+Fanny, whom the doctor gave away in person. The Bishop did his duty
+well, and afterwards honoured the wedding breakfast with his presence.
+The sight of his diocesan kept Mr. Perrowne in order, and devolved the
+jocularity on the Squire and the doctor. Mr. Terry was at home with
+Coristine, describing the ceremony; and somebody at the Halbert's
+hospitable table was longing for a chance to replace him. This, however,
+she could not effect without its being noticed. The examining chaplain
+fell foul of Mr. Errol by remarking that, when Scotch Presbyterians came
+into the church, they generally did well, both in England and in Canada,
+several of them having risen to the episcopate. "That minds me,"
+answered the minister, intentionally putting on his broad Scotch, "that
+minds me o' Jockey Strachan, that was Bishop o' Toronto. He met a Kirk
+man aince, frae Markham, I'm thinkin', that had a threadbare coat.
+'Man,' said he till's auld freend, 'yon's a shockin' worn-out coat. Can
+yer freens i' the Kirk no dae better than that by ye?' 'Toot, toot,
+Jockey,' said the Kirk man, 'what ails ye at the coat? It's no turned
+yet.'" The sensible Bishop saw that the chaplain, who was preparing to
+reply, would probably put his foot farther in, and turned the
+conversation into other channels. Then the wedding presents were
+re-examined, the bride donned her travelling costume, and, amid
+affectionate leave takings, the doctor drove off his daughter and
+son-in-law, with the clerics, toward the distant railway station, en
+route for Ottawa, Montreal and Lake George. The Bridesdale party went
+home, and, while Mrs. Carmichael and Miss Graves were attended by their
+respective cavaliers, Miss Carmichael flew to the bedside where Mr.
+Terry kept cheerful guard.
+
+Everything hinged now upon the sick man's health. "He must be got away,
+John, before the winter comes," the doctor had said to the Squire, and
+all wrought with this end in view. Some time before Maguffin left, he
+had determined, with his Marjorie's permission, to give up being shaved
+and let his beard grow, and now the beard was there, long, brown and
+silky, a very respectable beard. But the face above it was very pale
+yet, and the cruel knife wounds were still sore, and the whole man
+enfeebled in limb by long bed-keeping. One pleasant day, far on in
+September, the doctor allowed him to rise, and, between the Squire and
+Mr. Terry, he was raised up and dressed. Then they carried the wasted
+form out into the autumn sun, and laid him on a couch on the verandah.
+Marjorie and all the little Carruthers came to see him, with bouquets of
+garden flowers. Timotheus ventured to pay his respects, and even
+Tryphena came round to congratulate him on his recovery. "Shall I read
+Wordsworth to you, dear?" asked Miss Carmichael, ironically.
+
+"Marjorie," answered a beard-muffled voice, "your single word's worth
+more than all in that old duffer's poems," which the lady took as an
+indication that her patient was improving.
+
+"They are all depending on us to fix the day, Eugene; when will you be
+strong enough?"
+
+"Any time, Marjorie; what's to-day?"
+
+"Saturday, you foolish man, don't you smell the preparations for
+Sunday?"
+
+"And the New York steamer sails on Saturday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, if we are all married next Wednesday, we shall have time to get
+to New York easily on Saturday morning."
+
+"Then I will get uncle to arrange with papa Errol, and to summon the
+Captain and auntie and Sylvanus."
+
+"Oh yes, and Bigglethorpe and Bangs, and old Mrs. Hill. I would like to
+have Ben here, too, if you wouldn't mind, Marjorie."
+
+"We shall have everybody, and leave here on Thursday morning, to get you
+well on the sea."
+
+Mr. Terry came to ask if Mr. Coristine didn't think the least draw of a
+pipe would do him good. The invalid thought it would, and, while the
+veteran went upstairs to fetch the lawyer's long-unused briar, Miss
+Carmichael left him, ostensibly offended that he preferred a pipe to her
+society, yet inwardly glad that he was strong enough to relish tobacco
+again. Mr. Douglas joined the smokers, and they had a very jolly time.
+"What will you do, Mr. Terry, when we are all gone!" asked the Edinburgh
+lawyer. "It 'ull be gone too Oi will mysilf by that toime," replied the
+veteran.
+
+"I mean, when we are on the Atlantic."
+
+"Plaze God, Oi'll be an the Atlantic mysilf."
+
+"What, are you coming with us?"
+
+"Av coorse! D'ye think the departmint cud ha done so long wit'out me iv
+Oi hadn't shint in my risignaation?"
+
+"Then you are really going across for a holiday?"
+
+"Oi'm goin' to lit Honoria git a shmill av the Oirish cloimate, an' a
+peep at the ould shod, fwhere her anshisters is slapin' it's many a long
+year."
+
+"What a glorious time we're going to have!"
+
+"Troth for you, sor, an' we'll sit this bhoy on his pins agin."
+
+Many letters were despatched that afternoon, and Timotheus was kept
+busy, inviting parties whom the post was slow in reaching. On Sunday,
+there being no service at St. Cuthbert's in the Fields, the Kirk was
+crowded, and Mr. Errol announced a service of special interest on
+Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock, when his co-presbyter, the Rev. Dr.
+MacPhun, would officiate. His own text was "It is not good that the man
+should be alone," and towards the close of the service he stated that
+the Presbytery had given him leave of absence for three months, which he
+intended to spend in Britain, during which time his people would have an
+opportunity of hearing many profitable preachers, under Dr. MacPhun's
+moderatorship _pro tem_. Monday was a day of trunk packing and other
+preparations, connected with all sorts of boxes and parcels brought by
+the stage during the previous week. The next day the guests arrived. Dr.
+Halbert came first, excusing his early appearance by saying he felt
+lonely, and wanted to see young faces again. Then the Captain drove up
+in grand style, having on board Mrs. Thomas, her domestic, Malvina
+McGlashan, Sylvanus, and his strict parent, Saul. Malvina was received
+by the maids with great effusion, while the paternal Pilgrim eyed
+Timotheus, who had come forward to shake hands with his father. "What is
+the chief end of man, Timotheus?" The son answered correctly. "What is
+sin?" was appropriately solved, and "What is the reason annexed to the
+fifth commandment?" Then came, "What is repentance unto life," and on
+the answer to this Mr. Pilgrim preached a brief homily. "With grief and
+hatred of his sin, turns from it, with full purpose of, and endeavour
+after, new obedience. Is that you, Timotheus?" "Yes, fayther."
+
+"Young women," said Saul, addressing the maids, "has the walk and
+conversation of Timotheus been according to his lights, or according to
+his whilom lammentable and ungodly profession?"
+
+Tryphena could not reply, for the audacious Sylvanus, unaffected by the
+propinquity of his venerable relative, had whispered in her ear, "he's a
+livyer' 'cordin' to his lights, he is;" but Tryphosa spoke up and said
+that nobody, not even a minister, could have behaved better than
+Timotheus. Then Saul shook hands with his repentant son, solemnly, and
+producing a well-worn catechism from his tail pocket, placed it with
+reverence in the shaken hand. Looking upon Tryphosa, he remarked:
+"Remember, Timotheus, the words of wisdom, 'Favour is deceitful and
+beauty is vain, but whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.' Go thou
+and do likewise, Amen." Further improvement of the occasion was checked
+by the arrival of a well-laden waggon, driven by Rufus, and containing
+his parents, Christie Hislop, Mr. Bigglethorpe and Ben. Mr. Bigglethorpe
+was hailed with delight by Marjorie, who immediately carried off "dear
+Mr. Biggles" to see the creek, and tell her about his little boy, who
+was not yet christened, because, in the face of Marjorie's opposition,
+he could not call him Walton, Cotton or Piscator, and he could not think
+of any other name. She had objected to Felix as too catty like, and
+Isadore she had said was as bad as Is-a-window. However, he enjoyed the
+creek for a few minutes before dinner. Mrs. Hill was installed as the
+mother of the kitchen. With her great conversational powers and large
+knowledge of scripture, she rather overawed father Pilgrim, and her own
+and her husband's abundant cheerfulness revived a company, ready to
+droop under the austerities of Saul's genuine but unpleasant religion.
+Ben, as a sedate married man, gave himself largely to Mr. Hill's
+society, until Mr. Terry came in to see his friend from the north, and
+unfold his plans of an Irish tour. Later in the day Mr. Bangs rode over,
+and made excuses for Matilda, who thought it wrong to go into society so
+soon after her husband's death. Finally, the constable appeared in full
+regimentals, with the stalwart Mrs. Rigby on his arm. That lady bestowed
+on the faithless Ben a glance of withering contempt, but the constable
+shook hands with him, as if he had been his greatest earthly benefactor.
+
+It would take chapters to recite the goings on of that evening in either
+end of the house, the jokes of father Hill, and the homilies of father
+Pilgrim. Sylvanus dared and was slapped; and Timotheus followed his
+example, but was more gently dealt with. Christie and Malvina, as
+bridesmaids, had to inspect the trousseaus with Mrs. Hill. In spite of
+Saul's protest against worldly amusements, the geographical cards were
+produced, and the lady of the third-class county certificate swept the
+board, although the constable maintained his right to Russia and India,
+and Pilgrim pater easily secured all Palestine and Syria, owing to his
+extensive study of Josephus, which he recommended to Mr. Hill as a
+valuable commentar on the Old Testament Scriptures. Nor were the
+occupants of the drawing-room less jolly. The Squire and the doctor, Mr.
+Bangs and Mr. Bigglethorpe, kept the conversation lively, and would have
+hurt the feelings of Orther Lom, who arrived by the stage, if he had had
+any to hurt. The contracting parties were grave and self-contained, as
+became their position; and, to look at Mr. Errol, no one could have
+dreamt of his ever having gone on the splore. Dr. MacPhun came late, in
+his own buggy, accompanied by his daughter Maggie, a pretty girl of
+seventeen, who was just what the feminine community wanted. The reverend
+doctor warmly congratulated his co-presbyter, and jocularly quoted words
+to the effect that hope's blest dominion never ends, and the greatest
+sinner may return, which Mrs. Carmichael regarded as an unworthy
+reflection upon her intended's antiquity. Wednesday came at last, and
+the Kirk was decked at morning tide, but, unlike St. Cuthbert's, the
+tapers did not glimmer fair. The concourse was great, and the organ and
+choir were at their best. Mrs. Carmichael was attended by Miss Graves
+and Miss MacPhun, and Mr. Errol by Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lamb. When Dr.
+MacPhun had united them, and spoken a few felicitous words, he retired
+to the vestry, and yielded the gown and bands to the new bridegroom,
+before whose bar appeared Miss Graves, supported by the two Marjories,
+and Mr. Douglas with Mr. Bangs and Mr. Lamb. When little Marjorie saw
+herself paired off with Orther Lom, she thought of the Captain's
+couplet, and burst into a fit of laughter, which drew down upon the
+culprit her cousin's reproof. The Squire had given away his sister, and
+Miss Graves was handed over to Mr. Douglas by the doctor, for the reason
+that her late lamented father had been a distinguished medical man. When
+the wedded pairs passed out of the church, there was great cheering, in
+which Mr. Terry and Mr. Bigglethorpe seemed to be rival fuglemen. At
+Bridesdale, a pale young man with a long brown beard was reclining on a
+couch, and looking eagerly out of a window. His dark blue frock coat,
+light grey trousers, and white silk necktie, meant business, too. It
+would never do for little Marjorie to be three times a bridesmaid, for
+that was unlucky; so Miss MacPhun stood by Marjorie the greater, and
+Bangs helped Coristine to his feet. The two divines mercifully made the
+service brief, and two well mated souls obtained each its chief desire.
+Mr. Errol and the Squire were very patronizing towards their new made
+son and nephew. The Captain was satisfied. "I thought all along it was
+that sly dog Will-kiss-em was after the old man's niece, the sly dog;
+but he's off, and a good riddance to poor stuck-up rubbish, say I." The
+table speeches were marvellous. Dr. MacPhun exhausted Dean Ramsay's
+anecdotes, Mr. Bigglethorpe allegorized marriage as fishing in all its
+branches, Doctor Halbert said the great trouble with female nurses
+always was that they would go and marry their patients, and Mr. Bangs
+remarked that, if he could run down somebody who was wanted as quickly
+as Mr. Douglas had done, he would make his fortune. Mr. Lamb lavished
+himself on Maggie MacPhun, and, as she was young, semi-rural, and unused
+to the masculine production of cities, his attentions were agreeable,
+much to his satisfaction; his peace of mind with himself nothing could
+disturb.
+
+In the evening, Mr. Errol put on his gown once more, and Dr. MacPhun
+stood by his side, while in front of them there was a small table on
+which lay a Bible, and, a short distance off, a larger one with a
+marriage register, pen and ink, and duly filled certificates. At a given
+signal, Mr. Hill appeared, leading his daughter Tryphena, followed by
+Christie Hislop and Malvina McGlashan. Next came Sylvanus in the grasp
+of Saul Pilgrim, attended by Rufus, and the ubiquitous Mr. Bangs.
+Without being asked, Mr. Pilgrim senior ostentatiously stated, after Mr.
+Hill had bestowed his oldest daughter, that he gave his son to be that
+woman's husband, and trusted they would bring up their family, as he had
+done his, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This bombshell
+excited some merriment in the rear of the procession, where Mrs. Rigby
+was pushing the corporal forward to exhibit his uniform and medals. When
+the ceremony was over, the bride and bridegroom remained, but the
+fathers and the assistants returned to the kitchen. Tryphosa now hung
+upon her father's arm, and Timotheus was hauled in by Saul, receiving
+admonitions on the way. The groomsmen and bridesmaids were as before.
+Mrs. Hill, who stood by Mrs. Carruthers, wept copiously, when her
+favourite daughter's turn came, and Hill senior gave her away with a
+qualm, especially as the parent of Timotheus presented him as the
+prodigy's son come back from the swine husks. So the last ceremony was
+over. "Siccan a thing as five waddins in ae day was never heard o' in
+Flanders before," said the Squire, with a sigh of relief. Of course, the
+people ought all to have gone away somewhere, according to all the rules
+that govern civilized marriage. Mr. Errol went to his lodgings to pack
+up, and took Mr. Douglas with him. As for the rest of the married
+people, they simply went on with their ordinary tasks and amusements as
+if nothing personal had happened. Before these two gentlemen retired,
+however, they had to take part in a dance in the coach-house, at which
+old Styles played the fiddle, and the constable called out the figures,
+while Mr. Pilgrim groaned in the ears of Mrs. Hill over the worldly
+spirit that was sapping the foundations of spiritual life. When the
+drawing-room people left the festive coach-house, the ladies divested
+themselves of the day's finery, and the gentlemen retired to the office,
+where Mr. Errol smoked three pipes and renewed his youth. Dr. MacPhun
+told more stories, as did Messrs. Bigglethorpe and Bangs, and at last
+they all became so happy, that a deputation of the Squire and the
+minister was sent to produce their new relative Coristine, and make him
+drink a bumper of champagne to his bride's health. As the relatives
+crossed arms, and, on this improvised chair, carried the bridegroom
+round the table in triumph, the Captain roared: "Pour it down his
+scuppers, boys, for he's the A1 clipper; and that sly dog thought he'd
+have the old man's niece, with no more fun in his calf's hide than a
+basswood figure head!"
+
+Next morning early, Messrs. Errol and Douglas appeared to claim their
+brides at the Dale, and found them packed, and ready to start after
+breakfast. Mrs. Thomas was left mistress of the house, with directions
+to hand it over to Sylvanus and Mrs. S. Pilgrim when she wished to
+return home. Timotheus and Mrs. T. Pilgrim were told to go and take
+possession of Tillycot, and put in a winter of judicious clearing. Good
+bye was said all round. Coristine was lifted into the second seat,
+between Mrs. Carruthers and his new made wife, who looked her loveliest.
+Mrs. and Mr. Errol sat by the Squire, and Mr. Bigglethorpe intruded
+himself as far as the bridge on Mr. and Mrs. Douglas. Ben Toner, tired
+of being haughtily glared at by Mrs. Rigby, offered to drive the trunks
+in a separate vehicle, but, to the great delight of the junior Pilgrims,
+the Captain ordered Saul to perform that duty. Nevertheless, Ben
+accompanied Saul part of the way, and got off with Mr. Bigglethorpe. The
+patient was tired when Collingwood was reached, but recovered in the
+parlour car and arrived in Toronto in good condition, and able to
+introduce his bride to Mrs. Marsh. Mr. Douglas and he got together their
+portable effects, and Mrs. Douglas increased her travelling impedimenta.
+The party then left in time to see the glorious fall scenery of the
+Hudson in the morning, and reached New York in abundance of leisure.
+Coristine's imperious wife insisted that he should begin at once to
+spend her fortune, saying that was the only reason for her marrying him;
+but the invalid, otherwise so biddable, was very firm on this point, and
+represented that his bank account was far from exhausted. They were
+hardly on the steamer, when Mrs. Carruthers ran forward and fell into an
+old man's arms. It was Mr. Terry, who had bidden them an affectionate
+farewell at Bridesdale, and had then taken the stage in their wake to
+give them all a grand surprise. The weather was fine, the equinoctials
+all past, and the sea gently flowing. Rugs and pillows were laid on the
+deck, between camp chairs and stools, and, while the bearded lawyer lay
+propped on the former, with the most beautiful woman on board kneeling
+beside him, the rest of the company occupied the higher seats. The
+ladies worked away at airy nothings, and the gentlemen, Squire included,
+smoked cigars and pipes, all talking of the stirring events of the past,
+and forecasting the pleasures of the near future. Somehow they all
+seemed to miss little Marjorie, and wondered what sort of time she and
+the rest of them were having at Bridesdale.
+
+Three months soon passed away. Mrs. Coristine's fortune was secured, and
+transformed into Canadian securities by her legal husband, half being
+made over to Mrs. Errol. The minister took his bride to Perth, and
+introduced her to his friends, who received her as graciously as the
+Edinburgh people did Mr. Douglas' queenly wife from Canada. On Princess
+Street many a pedestrian stopped to look at the well-matched pair. Mr.
+Carruthers looked up his Scotch relations, and then crossed the Irish
+Sea to inspect the "owld shod," under Mr. Terry's proud guidance. But
+the great doctors said Mrs. Coristine must take her husband away to the
+south of France, to the Riviera, perhaps even to Algeria, for the
+winter. Mr. Douglas, who was like a brother, saw them safely established
+at Mentone, and returned to England in time to see the Flanders' five on
+board their steamer at Liverpool, laden with presents for the children
+and the servants, the Thomases and the Perrownes, not forgetting Mr.
+Bigglethorpe and Mr. Bangs. Three more months of winter passed at
+Bridesdale, then the brief spring, and at length summer came round in
+all its glory. Timotheus and his men had cleared the encampment of its
+scorched trees, had put many acres into crop, and had built the farm
+house on the site of the burnt buildings, into which he and his blooming
+wife had moved, because the Wilkinsons and the Mortons were coming to
+the chalet in July. The Bridesdale people heard that the former dominie
+had not been idle, but, by means of his geological knowledge, had
+discovered iron and lead mines, which were already yielding him a
+revenue. Mrs. Errol brought them a letter from Marjorie, saying that
+Eugene was quite restored, and that they would be home early in July,
+bringing that dear old lady, Eugene's mother, with them. Correspondence
+had also been going on between the Wilkinsons and the Coristines on both
+sides of the houses, and Mr. Terry seemed to be included in the circle.
+One fine July morning he asked for the loan of the waggonette and set
+off to town, whence he returned in the afternoon, with three ladies and
+a coloured ladies' maid, attended by a gentleman and his servant on
+horseback. Strange to say, the Errols, the Perrownes, the newly-married
+Bangs, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, were at Bridesdale. Marjorie's terrier, a
+new Muggins given her by Mr. Perrowne, but which she called Guff, ran
+barking to meet the approaching party, and the animal's mistress,
+following it, was soon in the arms of long absent friends. "Where is
+Eugene?" she cried, in a tone of disappointment. "Where is Mr.
+Wilkinson?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, in concern. "We have lost them for a
+little while," replied the ladies, cheerfully. So they changed their
+things, unpacked their trunks, dispensed many gifts, brought through all
+sorts of custom houses, and assembled in the drawing-room to await the
+stated six o'clock tea. The clock was on the stroke, when they all heard
+singing, on the road, of two male voices:--
+
+     For, be it early morning,
+     Or be it late at night,
+     Cheerily ring our footsteps,
+                 Right, left, right!
+
+Then two jovial pedestrians came swinging through the gate, with the old
+knapsacks on their backs, and newly cut staves in their hands. They
+responded heartily to the varied salutations of the company, and, as
+each bowed himself over the woman he loved best, they said: "God has
+been very good to us, and has sent us more than a marshal's baton
+through these two knapsacks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pleasant were the two summer months at Bridesdale and Tillycot, with
+visits to the Manse and Cubbyholes, to Bangslea and the Beaver River.
+Two little Pilgrim girls and a Toner boy appeared before the visitors
+went home; and, soon after their arrival at their homes, they learned
+that Basil primus was marching Basil secondus in his arms, clad in a
+nocturnal surplice. Mr. Bigglethorpe had had his baby christened Felix
+Marjoram, regarding the latter botanical word as a masculine equivalent
+of Marjorie. When, next year, the welcome visitors came to Flanders from
+Toronto and the far south, they brought each a maid and a warm little
+bundle. The bundle of Mrs. Coristine was called James Farquhar, and that
+of Mrs. Wilkinson was Marjorie Carruthers. When they cried, Mr.
+Coristine, M.P., and Dr. Wilkinson, if they were about, carried them
+round, singing outlandish songs; when they were good, the parents laid
+two knapsacks over a rag on the lawn, put pillows on top, and the babies
+against the pillows, betting quarters as to which would kick the
+highest.
+
+The culprits were all set free or left unmolested. The two Davis
+brothers disappeared, evidently across the lines. Old man Newcome is
+said to have been converted by Father Newberry and to be living a life
+in keeping with the exalted station of his daughter Serlizer. Reginald
+Rawdon's son was looked up by Mr. Bangs, and started in business in a
+new town, as a country store-keeper, on part of his uncle's ill-gotten
+money. Monty, growing a big lad, has charge of the farm at Bangslea,
+and, to see him and his grey-haired, but otherwise young-looking,
+mother, none would think they had ever been deprived of their reason.
+The character of Nagle, alias Nash, has been amply cleared by his
+friend, who has erected a suitable memorial to him at Collingwood
+cemetery. Peskiwanchow is hardly recognizable in its reformed condition,
+and the Beaver River, like the Flanders' lakes, is safer to visit,
+though otherwise as delightful as ever, than when the Maple Inn was
+invaded by two knapsacks. Mr. Bulky is still its hero, and Wilkinson,
+who does not smoke, has had him up to Tillycot with Mr. Bigglethorpe and
+without his fishing coat.
+
+
+
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+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Two Knapsacks, by John Campbell</title>
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+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Two Knapsacks, by John Campbell</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Two Knapsacks</p>
+<p>       A Novel of Canadian Summer Life</p>
+<p>Author: John Campbell</p>
+<p>Release Date: January 16, 2006  [eBook #17532]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO KNAPSACKS***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit,<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/">http://www.pgdp.net/</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Early Canadiana Online
+    (<a href="http://www.canadiana.org/eco/index.html">http://www.canadiana.org/eco/index.html</a>)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" style="background-color: #ccccff;">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+	  Early Canadiana Online. See
+      <a href="http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/00387?id=5453f8c59767d369">
+      http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/00387?id=5453f8c59767d369</a>
+    </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h1>TWO KNAPSACKS:</h1>
+
+<h2>A Novel of Canadian Summer Life.</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><span class="smcap">By</span> J CAWDOR BELL.</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p class='center'>TORONTO</p>
+
+<p class='center'>THE WILLIAMSON BOOK CO., <span class="smcap">Ltd</span>.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span><span class="smcap">Entered</span>, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in
+the year eighteen hundred and ninety-two, by <span class="smcap">the Williamson Book
+Company, Limited</span>, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture.</p></blockquote>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="index">
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#PUBLISHERS_NOTE">PUBLISHERS' NOTE.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></li>
+<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="PUBLISHERS_NOTE" id="PUBLISHERS_NOTE"></a>PUBLISHERS' NOTE.</h2>
+
+<p>The Publishers have extreme pleasure in placing this novel, by a new and
+promising native author, before the reading public of Canada. They will
+be greatly disappointed if it does not at once take its place among the
+best products of Canadian writers. While the work has peculiar interest
+for Torontonians and dwellers in the districts so graphically described,
+its admirable character drawings of many "sorts and conditions" of our
+people&mdash;its extremely clever dialect, representing Irish, Scotch,
+English, Canadian, French, Southern and Negro speech, and the working
+out of its story, which is done in such a way as would credit an
+experienced romancer&mdash;should insure the book a welcome in very many
+homes. The literary flavour is all that can be desired; the author
+evidencing a quite remarkable acquaintance with English Literature,
+especially with Wordsworth, the Poet of the Lake Country.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h1>TWO KNAPSACKS:</h1>
+
+<h2>A Novel of Canadian Summer Life.</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>BY J. CAWDOR BELL.</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Friends&mdash;The Knapsacks&mdash;The Queen's Wharf&mdash;The Northern
+Railway&mdash;Belle Ewart&mdash;The <i>Susan Thomas</i>, Captain and Crew&mdash;Musical
+Performance&mdash;The Sly Dog&mdash;Misunderstanding&mdash;Kempenfeldt Bay.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Eugene Coristine and Farquhar Wilkinson were youngish bachelors and
+fellow members of the Victoria and Albert Literary Society. Thither, on
+Wednesday evenings, when respectable church-members were wending their
+way to weekly service, they hastened regularly, to meet with a band of
+like-minded young men, and spend a literary hour or two. In various
+degrees of fluency they debated the questions of the day; they read
+essays with a wide range of style and topic; they gave readings from
+popular authors, and contributed airy creations in prose and in verse to
+the Society's manuscript magazine. Wilkinson, the older and more sedate
+of the two, who wore a tightly-buttoned blue frock coat and an eyeglass,
+was a schoolmaster, pretty well up in the Toronto Public Schools.
+Coristine was a lawyer in full practice, but his name did not appear on
+the card of the firm which profited by his services. He was taller than
+his friend, more jauntily dressed, and was of a more mercurial
+temperament than the schoolmaster, for whom, however, he entertained a
+profound respect. Different as they were, they were linked together by
+an ardent love of literature, especially poetry, by scientific pursuits,
+Coristine as a botanist, and Wilkin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>son as a dabbler in geology, and by
+a firm determination to resist, or rather to shun, the allurements of
+female society. Many lady teachers wielded the pointer in rooms not far
+removed from those in which Mr. Wilkinson held sway, but he did not
+condescend to be on terms even of bowing acquaintance with any one of
+them. There were several young lady typewriters of respectable city
+connections in the offices of Messrs. Tyler, Woodruff and White, but the
+young Irish lawyer passed them by without a glance. These bachelors were
+of the opinion that women were bringing the dignity of law and education
+to the dogs.</p>
+
+<p>It was a Wednesday evening in the beginning of July, and the heat was
+still great in the city. Few people ventured out to the evening
+services, and fewer still found their way to the Victoria and Albert
+hall; in fact, there was not a quorum, and, as the constitution stated
+that, in such a case, the meeting should be adjourned, it was adjourned
+accordingly. Coristine lit a cigar in the porch, and Wilkinson, who did
+not smoke, but said he liked the odour of good tobacco, took his arm for
+a walk along the well-lit streets. They agreed that it was time to be
+out of town. Coristine said: "Let us go together; I'll see one of the
+old duffers and get a fortnight's leave." Wilkinson had his holidays, so
+he eagerly answered: "Done! but where shall we go? Oh, not to any female
+fashion resort." At this Coristine put on the best misanthropic air he
+could call up, with a cigar between his lips, and then, as if struck by
+a happy thought, dug his elbow into his companion's side and ejaculated:
+"Some quiet country place where there's good fishing." Wilkinson
+demurred, for he was no fisherman. The sound of a military band stopped
+the conversation. It came into sight, the bandsmen with torches in their
+headgear, and, after it, surrounded and accompanied by all the small
+boys and shop-girls in the town, came the Royals, in heavy marching
+order. The friends stood in a shop doorway until the crowd passed by,
+and then, just as soon as a voice could be distinctly heard, the
+schoolmaster clapped his companion on the shoulder and cried, "Eureka!"
+Coristine thought the music had been too much for his usually staid and
+deliberate friend. "Well, old Archimedes, and what is it you've found?
+Not any new geometrical problems, I hope." "Listen to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>me," said the
+dominie, in a tone of accustomed authority, and the lawyer listened.</p>
+
+<p>"You've heard Napoleon or somebody else say that every soldier of France
+carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never heard the gentleman in my life, and don't believe it, either."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, never mind about that; but I got my idea out of a
+knapsack."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what's the use of your saying that, when its myself knows that you
+haven't got such a thing to bless yourself with?"</p>
+
+<p>"I got it out of a soldier's&mdash;a volunteer's knapsack, man."</p>
+
+<p>"O, you thief of the world! And where have you got it hid away?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my head."</p>
+
+<p>"O rubbish and nonsense&mdash;a knapsack in your head!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but the idea."</p>
+
+<p>"And where's the knapsack?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the grenadier's back."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the grenadier has the knapsack, and you the idea: I thought you
+said the idea was in the knapsack."</p>
+
+<p>"So it was; but I took it out, don't you see? My idea is the idea of a
+knapsack on a man's back&mdash;on two men's backs&mdash;on your back and on mine."</p>
+
+<p>"With a marshal's baton inside?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; with an extra flannel shirt inside&mdash;and some socks, and a flask,
+and some little book to read by the way; that's what I want."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be mortal heavy and hot this boiling weather."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. You can make one out of cardboard and patent cloth, just as
+light as a feather, and costing you next to nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"And where will you be going with your knapsack? Will it be parading
+through the streets with the volunteers you would be after?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go? We will go on a pedestrian tour through the finest scenery
+available." This was said correctly and with great dignity. It had the
+effect of sobering the incredulous Coristine, who said: "I tell ye,
+Farquhar, my boy, that's a fine idea of yours, barring the heat; but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>I
+suppose we can rest where we like and go when we like, and, if the
+knapsacks get to be a nuisance, express 'em through, C.O.D. Well, I'll
+sleep over it, and let you know to-morrow when I can get away." So the
+pair separated, to retire for the night and dream a knapsack nightmare.</p>
+
+<p>Coristine's leave did not come till the following Tuesday, so that
+Friday, Saturday and Monday&mdash;or parts of them, at least&mdash;could be
+devoted to the work of preparation. Good, strong, but not too heavy,
+tweed walking suits were ordered, and a couple of elegant flannel shirts
+that would not show the dirt were laid in; a pair of stout, easy boots
+was picked out, and a comfortable felt hat, with brim enough to keep off
+the sun. Then the lawyer bought his cardboard and his patent cloth and
+straps, and spent Saturday evening with his friend and a sharp penknife,
+bringing the knapsacks into shape. The scientists made a mistake in
+producing black and shiny articles, well calculated to attract the heat.
+White canvas would have been far better. But Wilkinson had taken his
+model from the military, hence it had to be black. The folded ends of
+the patent cloth, which looked like leather, were next to the wearer's
+back, so that what was visible to the general public was a very
+respectable looking flat surface, fastened round the shoulders with
+becoming straps, equally dark in hue. "Sure, Farquhar, it's pack-men the
+ignorant hayseeds will be taking us for," said Coristine, when the
+prospective pedestrians had strapped on their shiny baggage holders. "I
+do not agree with you there," replied the schoolmaster; "Oxford and
+Cambridgemen, and the best <i>litterateurs</i> of England, do Wales and
+Cornwall, the Lakes and the Trossachs, to say nothing of Europe, dressed
+just as we are." "All right, old man, but I'm thinking I'll add a
+bandanna handkerchief and a blackthorn. They'll come in handy to carry
+the fossils over your shoulder. There now, I've forgot the printers'
+paper and the strap flower press for my specimens. True, there's Monday
+for that; but I'm afraid I'll have to shave the boards of the flower
+press down, or it'll be a sorry burden for a poor, tired botanist. Good
+night to you, my bouchal boy, and it's a pack you might throw into a
+corner of your sack." "Cards!" replied Wilkinson; "no sir, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>my
+pocket chess box will be at your service." "Chess be hanged," said the
+lawyer; "but, see here, are they checkers when you turn them upside
+down? If they are, it's I'm your man."</p>
+
+<p>On Tuesday morning, about eight o'clock, there appeared at the Brock
+Street Station of the Northern Railway, two well-dressed men with shiny
+knapsacks on their shoulders. They had no blackthorns, for Wilkinson had
+said it would be much more romantic to cut their own sticks in the bush,
+to which Coristine had replied that, if the bush was as full of
+mosquitos as one he had known, he would cut his stick fast enough. They
+were the astonishment, rather than the admiration, of all beholders, who
+regarded them as agents, and characterized the way in which they carried
+their samples as the latest thing from the States. For a commencement,
+this was humiliating, so that the jaunty lawyer twisted his moustache
+fiercely, and felt inclined to quarrel with the self-possessed,
+clean-shaven space between Wilkinson's elaborate side-whiskers. But the
+pedagogue, in his suavest manner, remarked that Cicero, in his <i>De
+Natura Deorum</i>, makes Cotta call the common herd both fools and
+lunatics, whose opinion is of no moment whatever. "Why, then," he asked,
+"should we trouble our minds with what it pleases them to think? It is
+for us to educate public opinion&mdash;to enlighten the darkness of the
+masses. Besides, if you look about, you will see that those who are
+doing the giggling are girls, sir, positively girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Your hand on that, Farquhar, my boy; if it keeps the hussies off, I'll
+wear a knapsack every day of my life."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine did not know where he was going, being subject to the superior
+wisdom and topographical knowledge of his companion, who appeared in the
+row that besieged the window of the ticket office. "Two for Belle
+Ewart," he demanded, when his turn came.</p>
+
+<p>"Trains don't run to Belle Ewart now; you had better take Lefroy, the
+nearest point."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; two for Lefroy."</p>
+
+<p>The ticket agent looked at the attire of the speaker, and was about to
+produce the cardboard slips, then hesitated as he glanced at the straps
+and the top of the black erection on Wilkinson's shoulders, and
+enquired, "Second <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>class, eh?" The dominie was angry, his face
+crimsoned, his hand shook with indignation. Being a moral man, he would
+not use bad language, but he roared in his most stentorian academic
+tone, a tone which appalled the young agent with rapid visions of
+unfortunate school days, "Second Tom-cats! Does the company put you
+there to insult gentlemen?" It was the agent's turn to redden, and then
+to apologize, as he mildly laid the tickets down, without the usual
+slap, and fumbled over their money. The feminine giggling redoubled, and
+Coristine, who had regained his equilibrium, met his friend with a
+hearty laugh, and the loud greeting, "O Lord, Wilks, didn't I tell you
+the fools would be taking us for bagmen?" But Wilkinson's irritation was
+deep, and he marched to the incoming train, ejaculating, "Fool, idiot,
+puppy; I shall report him for incivility, according to the printed
+invitation of the company. Second! ach! I was never so insulted in my
+life."</p>
+
+<p>There was room enough inside the car to give the travellers a double
+seat, half for themselves and the other for their knapsacks. These
+impedimenta being removed the occupants of the carriage became aware
+that they were in the company of two good-looking men, of refined
+features, and in plain but gentlemanly attire. The lady passengers
+glanced at them, from time to time, with approbation not unmingled with
+amusement, but no responsive glance came from the bachelors. Wilkinson
+had opened his knapsack, and had taken out his pocket Wordsworth, the
+true poet, he said, for an excursion. Coristine had a volume of Browning
+in his kit, but left it there, and went into the smoking-car for an
+after breakfast whiff. The car had been swept out that morning by the
+joint efforts of a brakesman and the newsagent, so that it was less
+hideously repulsive than at a later stage in the day, when tobacco
+juice, orange peel, and scraps of newspapers made it unfit for a decent
+pig. The lawyer took out his plug, more easily carried than cut tobacco,
+and whittled it down with his knife to fill his handsome Turk's head
+meerschaum. When all was ready, he discovered, to his infinite disgust,
+that he had no matches nor pipe-lights of any description. The news
+agent, Frank, a well-known character on the road, supplied him with a
+box of Eddy's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>manufacture, for which he declined to receive payment.
+However, he pressed his wares upon the grateful Coristine, recommending
+warmly the Samantha books and Frank Stockton's stories. "Are there any
+women in them?" asked the smoker. "Full of them," replied Frank; "Why,
+Samantha is a woman." "Take them away, and bring me something
+different." The news agent returned with a volume made up of cartoons
+and other illustrations from <i>Puck</i>, and soon the Irishman was shaking
+his sides over the adventures of Brudder Sunrise Waterbury and similar
+fictitious characters. So absorbed was he in this trivial literature
+that he failed to notice the entrance of an old man, respectably dressed
+who took a seat on the opposite side of the aisle, and was preparing to
+smoke his three inches of clay. He was aroused by the salutation and
+request:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Good marnin', Sor, an' moight Oi be afther thrubblin' yeez for a loight
+to my poipe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, with pleasure; glad to be of any use to a fellow
+countryman," replied Coristine, looking up, and perceiving that his new
+acquaintance, though old and stooped, had a soldierly air. "You have
+been in service?" he continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Troth I have, puff, puff, now she's goin' aisy. Oi was in the Furren
+Laygion in South Ameriky, an' my cornel was the foinest man you iver
+see. It was Frinch he was by his anshesters, an' his name it was
+Jewplesshy. Wan toime we was foightin' wid the Spanyerds an' the poor
+deluded haythen Injuns, when a shpint bullet rickyshayed an' jumped into
+my mouth, knockin' out the toot' ye'll percaive is missin' here. Will,
+now, the cornel he was lookin' at me, an', fwhen Oi shput out the bullet
+and the broken toot' on the ground, he roides up to me, and says, says
+he, 'It's a brave bhoy, yeez are, Moikle Terry, an' here's a' suverin to
+get a new toot' put in whin the war is over, says he. Oh, that suverin
+wint to kape company wid a lot more that Oi'd be proud to see the face
+av in my owld age. But, sorra a toot' did the dintist put in for me, for
+fwhere wud the nate hole for the poipe have been thin, till me that,
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Coristine failed to answer this conundrum, but continued the
+conversation with the old soldier. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>learnt that Michael had
+accompanied his colonel to Canada, and, after serving him faithfully for
+many years, had wept over his grave. One of the old man's sons was a
+sergeant in the Royal Artillery, and his daughter was married to a
+Scotch farmer named Carruthers, up in the County of Grey.</p>
+
+<p>"She was a good gyurl, as nate an' swate as a picter, whin she lift the
+cornel's lady's sarvice, an' wint an' tuk up wid Carruthers, a foine man
+an' a sponsible, not a bit loike the common Scotch. Carruthers and her,
+they axed me wud Oi go an' pay thim a visit, an' say to the comfort av
+her young lady on the way."</p>
+
+<p>"What young lady?" asked Coristine, and immediately repented the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Jewplesshy, to be sure, the cornel's darter, and an illigant wan
+she is, av she has to make her livin' by the wroitin'."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture, the lawyer, with lively satisfaction, hailed the
+arrival of Frank, who came straight towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Mr. Coristine, the lawyer?" he half whispered. "Yes; that's my
+name," his victim replied, thinking that Wilkinson had sent him a
+message.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's a lady in the rear car wanted to know, and I said I'd
+find out."</p>
+
+<p>"Fwhat's that you'll be sayin' av a lady in the rare car, my lad?"
+questioned the old soldier, who had overheard part of the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the tall girl in the travelling duster and the blue ribbons that
+wants to know if Mr. Coristine is here."</p>
+
+<p>"Fwhat? my own dare young mishtress, Miss Ceshile Jewplesshy; shure it's
+her that do have the blue ribbins, an' the dushter. Do yeez know that
+swate young crathur, Sor?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not," replied Coristine abruptly, and added, <i>sotto voce</i>, "thank
+goodness!" Then he relit his pipe, and buried his head in the Puck book,
+from the contemplation of which the Irish veteran was too polite to seek
+to withdraw his attention. In a few minutes, the door opened and closed
+with a slam, and Wilkinson, pale and trembling, stood before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene, my dear friend," he stammered, "I'll never forgive myself for
+leading you and me into a trap, a con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>founded, diabolical, deep-laid
+trap, sir, a gin, a snare, a woman's wile. Let us get off anywhere, at
+Aurora, Newmarket, Holland Landing, Scanlans, anywhere to escape these
+harpies."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, old man?" enquired Coristine, with a poor attempt at
+calmness.</p>
+
+<p>"Matter!" replied Wilkinson, "it's this matter, that they have found us
+out, and the girl with the cream coloured ribbons and crimson wrapper
+has asked that villainous news-agent if my name is not Wilkinson, and if
+I don't teach in the Sacheverell Street School. The rascal says her name
+is Miss Marjorie Carmichael, the daughter of old Dr. Carmichael, that
+was member for Vaughan, and that her friend, the long girl with the blue
+ribbons, knows you. O, my dear friend, this is awful. Better be back in
+Toronto than shut up in a railway car with two unblushing women."</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here," said Coristine, making way for his friend, "they'll never
+dare come into this car after us." Yet his eye followed the retreating
+form of the South American warrior with apprehension. What if he should
+bring his 'dare young misthress' and her friend into the atmosphere of
+stale tobacco after their lawful game? Wilkinson sat down despairingly
+and coughed. "I feel very like the least little nip," he said faintly,
+"but it's in my knapsack, and I will not enter that car of foul
+conspiracy again for all the knapsacks and flasks in the world."</p>
+
+<p>Now, Coristine had smoked two big pipes, and felt that it was dry work,
+but loyalty to his friend made him braver than any personal necessity
+would have done. "It's sick you're looking, Farquhar, my dear," he said,
+"and it's no friend of your's I'd be, and leave you without comfort in
+such a time of trouble. Here's for the knapsack, and woe betide the man
+or woman that stops me." So up he rose, and strode out of the car,
+glowering fiercely at the second-class passengers and all the rest, till
+he reached the vacated seats, from which he silently, and in deep inward
+wrath, gathered up the creations of cardboard and patent cloth, and
+retreated, grinding his teeth as he heard the veteran call out behind
+him, "Would yeez moind comin' this way a bit, Mishter?" He paid no
+attention to that officious old man, but hurried back to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>the
+smoking-car, where he extracted Wilkinson's flask from its flannel
+surroundings, removed the metal cup, poured out a stiff horn, and
+diluted it at the filter. "Take this, old man," he said sternly,
+pressing it to the lips of the sufferer, "it'll set you up like a new
+pin." So the schoolmaster drank and was comforted, and Coristine took a
+nip also, and they felt better, and laughed and joked, and said
+simultaneously, "It's really too absurd about these girls, ha, ha!"</p>
+
+<p>Apprehension made the time seem long to the travellers, who gazed out of
+the windows upon a fine agricultural country, with rolling fields of
+grain, well-kept orchards and substantial houses and barns. They admired
+the church on the hill at Holland Landing, and the schoolmaster told his
+friend of a big anchor that had got stuck fast there on its way to the
+Georgian Bay in 1812. "I bet you the sailors wouldn't have left it
+behind if it had been an anchor of Hollands," said Coristine, whereupon
+Wilkinson remarked that his puns were intolerable. At Bradford the track
+crossed the Holland River, hardly flowing between its flat, marshy banks
+towards Lake Simcoe. "This," said the schoolmaster, "is early
+Tennysonian scenery, a Canadian edition of the fens of Lincolnshire,"
+but he regretted uttering the words when the lawyer agreed with him that
+it was an of-fens-ive looking scene. But Lake Simcoe began to show up in
+the distance to the right, and soon the gentlemanly conductor took their
+tickets. "Leefroy," shouted the brakesman. They gathered up their
+knapsacks, dropped off the smoker, and sped inside the station, out of
+the windows of which they peered cautiously to see that no attempt at a
+pursuit was made by the ladies and their military protector. The train
+sped on its way northward, and feeling that, for a time, they were safe,
+the pedestrians faced each other with a deep-drawn sigh of relief. The
+station-master told them to walk back along the track till they met the
+old side-line that used to go to Belle Ewart. So they helped each other
+to strap on their knapsacks, and virtually began their pedestrian tour.
+The station-master would have liked to detain them for explanations, but
+they were unwilling to expose themselves to further misunderstanding.
+Walking on a railway track is never very pleasant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>exercise, but this
+old Belle Ewart track was an abomination of sand and broken rails and
+irregular sleepers. Coristine tried to step in time over the rotting
+cedar and hemlock ties, but, at the seventh step, stumbled and slid down
+the gravel bank of the road-bed. "Where did the seven sleepers do their
+sleeping, Wilks?" he enquired. "At Ephesus," was the curt reply. "Well,
+if they didn't efface us both, they nearly did for one of us."
+"Coristine, if you are going to talk in that childlish way, we had
+better take opposite ends of the track; there are limits, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what's troubling me; there are far too many limits. If this
+is what you call pedestrianizing, I say, give me a good sidewalk or the
+loan of an uneven pair of legs. It's dislocation of the hip or
+inflammatory rheumatism of the knee-joint I'll be getting with this hop
+and carry one navigation." Wilkinson plodded on in dignified silence,
+till the sawmills of the deserted village came in sight, and, beyond it,
+the blue green waters of Lake Simcoe. "Now," he said, "we shall take to
+the water." "What?" enquired Coristine, "on our knapsacks?" to which his
+companion answered, "No, on the excellent steamer <i>Emily May</i>."</p>
+
+<p>There was no excellent steamer <i>Emily May</i>; there had not been for a
+long time; it was a memory of the past. The railway had ruined
+navigation. What was to be done? It would never do to retrace their
+steps over the railroad ties, and the roads about Belle Ewart led
+nowhere, while to track it along the hot lake shore was not to be
+thought of. Wilkinson's plans had broken down; so Coristine left him at
+the village hostelry, and sallied forth on exploration bent. In the
+course of his wanderings he came to a lumber wharf, alongside which lay
+an ancient schooner.</p>
+
+<p>"Schooner ahoy!" he shouted, when a shock-headed man of uncertain middle
+age poked his head up through a hatchway, and answered: "Ahoy yourself,
+and see how you like it." This was discouraging, but not to a limb of
+the law. Coristine half removed his wide awake, and said: "I have the
+pleasure of addressing the captain of the ship <i>Susan Thomas</i>," the name
+he had seen painted in gold letters on the stern.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>"Not adzackly," replied the shock headed mariner, much mollified; "he's
+my mate, and he'll be along as soon as he's made up his bundle. I'm
+waitin' for him to sail this yere schooner."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the <i>Susan Thomas</i> bound for?"</p>
+
+<p>"For Kempenfeldt Bay, leastways Barrie."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you take a couple of passengers, willing to pay properly for
+their passage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dassent; it's agin the law; not but what I'd like to have yer, fer its
+lonesome, times. Here comes the old man hisself; try him."</p>
+
+<p>A stout grizzled man of between fifty and sixty came walking along the
+wharf, with his bundle over his shoulder, and Coristine tried him. The
+Captain was a man of few words, so, when the situation was explained, he
+remarked: "Law don't allow freight boats to take money off passengers,
+but law don't say how many hands I have to have, nor what I'm to pay 'em
+or not to pay 'em. If you and your friend want to ship for the trip to
+Barrie, you'd better hurry up, for we're going to start right away."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine was filled with the wildest enthusiasm. He dashed back to the
+hotel, the bar of which was covered with maps and old guide-books,
+partly the property of Wilkinson, partly of mine host, who was lazily
+helping him to lay out a route. "Hurry, hurry!" cried the excited
+lawyer, as he swept the maps into his friend's open knapsack. Then he
+yelled "hurroo!" and sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>For the ship, it is ready, and the wind is fair,</div>
+<div>And I am bound for the sea, Mary Ann.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Like a whirlwind he swept Wilkinson and the two knapsacks out of the
+hotel door, along the sawdust paths and on to the wharf just in time to
+see the first sail set. "What in the name of common sense is the meaning
+of this conduct?" asked the amazed schoolmaster as soon as he got his
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning! why, we're indentured, you and I, as apprentice mariners on
+board the good ship <i>Susan Thomas</i>, bound for Kempenfeldt Bay.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Brave Kempenfeldt is gone,</div>
+<div>His victories are o'er;</div>
+<div>And he and his eight hundred</div>
+<div>Shall plough the waves no more.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>But we'll plough them, Wilks, my boy. We'll splice the spanker boom,
+and port the helm to starboard, and ship the taffrail on to the lee
+scuppers of the after hatch, and dance hornpipes on the mizzen peak.
+Hulloa, captain, here's my mate, up to all sorts of sea larks; he can
+box the compass and do logarithm sums, and work navigation by single or
+double entry." The schoolmaster blushed for his companion, at whose
+exuberant spirits the sedate captain smiled, while the shock-headed man,
+whom Coristine named The Crew, displayed a large set of fairly preserved
+yellowish teeth, and guffawed loud and long.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I understand, Captain, that you are willing to take us to Barrie in
+your&mdash;ah&mdash;vessel?" asked Wilkinson, politely.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye, my man," answered the ancient mariner, "get your leg aboard,
+for we're going to sail right away. Hi, you, Sylvanus there, give
+another haul on them halliards afore you're too mighty ready to belay,
+with your stupid cackle."</p>
+
+<p>So the indentured apprentices and their knapsacks got on board, while
+Sylvanus, <i>alias</i> The Crew, stopped laughing, and put a pound or two
+extra on to the halliards. "Wilks," said Coristine, "it'll puzzle the
+women to find us out on our ocean home."</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson saw the captain hauling at the halliards of the after-mainsail
+and went to his assistance, while Coristine, doffing his coat, lent a
+hand to The Crew, when, by their combined efforts, the sails were all
+hoisted and the schooner floated away from the pier. The lawyer walked
+over the deck with a nautical air, picking up all loose ends of rope and
+coiling them neatly over his left arm. The coils he deposited carefully
+about the feet of the masts, to the astonishment of Wilkinson, who
+regarded his friend as a born seaman, and to the admiration of the
+captain and The Crew. The schoolmaster felt that Wordsworth was not the
+thing for the water; he should have brought Falconer or Byron. So he
+stuck to the captain, who was a very intelligent man of his class, and
+discussed with him the perils and advantages of lake navigation. They
+neither of them smoked, nor, said the captain, did he often drink; when
+he did, he liked to have it good. Thereupon Wilkinson produced what
+remained in his flask, which his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>commanding officer took down neat at a
+gulp, signifying, as he ruefully gazed upon the depleted vessel, that a
+man might go long before he'd get such stuff as that. Then the
+conversation turned on the prohibitory Scott Act, which opened the vials
+of the old man's wrath, for making "the biggest lot of hypocrites and
+law-breakers and unlicensed shebeens and drunkards the country had ever
+seen." The schoolmaster, as in duty bound, tried to defend the Act, but
+all in vain, so he was glad to change the subject and discuss the crops,
+politics, and education. This conversation took place at what the
+captain called "the hellum", against the tiller of which he occasionally
+allowed his apprentice to lean his back while he attended to other work.
+Wilkinson was proud. This was genuine navigation, this steering a large
+vessel with your back; any mere landsman, he now saw, could coil up
+ropes like Coristine. The subject of this reflection was quite happy in
+the bow, chumming with The Crew. Smoking their pipes together, Sylvanus
+confided to his apprentice that a sailor's life was the lonesomest life
+out of jail, when the cap'n was that quiet and stand off like as one he
+knowed that wasn't far away, nuther. Coristine sympathized with him.
+"The bossest time that ever was on this yere old <i>Susan Thomas</i>," he
+continued, "was last summer wonst when the cap'n's niece, she come along
+fer a trip. There was another gal along with her, a regular stunner, she
+was. Wot her name was I raley can't tell, 'cos that old owl of a cap'n,
+whenever he'd speak to her, allers said Miss Do Please. I reckon that's
+what she used to say to him, coaxin' like, and he kep' it up on her.
+Well, we was becalmed three days right out on the lake, and I had to row
+the blessed dingy in the bilin' sun over to Snake Island to get bread
+and meat from the Snakes."</p>
+
+<p>"From the snakes!" ejaculated Coristine, "why this beats Elijah's ravens
+all to nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the Snakes is Injuns, and Miss Carmichael, that's the cap'n's gal,
+says their rale name is Kinapick."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Sylvanus, what did you say the captain's name is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the old pill's name is Thomas, like the schooner, but, you see, he
+married one of the pretty Carruthers gals, and a good match it was; for,
+I tell ye, them Carruthers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>gals hold their heads mighty high. Why, the
+ansomest of them married Dr. Carmichael that was member, and, of they
+did say he married below him, there wasn't a prouder nor a handsomer
+woman in all the country. There's a brother of the Carruthers gals lives
+on a farm out in Grey, and he took up with a good lookin' Irish gal that
+was lady's maid or some such truck. That's marryin' below yourself ef
+you like, but, bless you, Miss Carmichael don't bear him no spite for
+it. She goes and stays with him times in the holidays, just like she
+does along o' the old man here. My! what a three days o' singin' and fun
+it was when them two gals was aboard; never see nothing like it afore
+nor sence."</p>
+
+<p>"By George!" groaned the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"What's up, Mister? turned sick, eh? smell o' the tar too much fer your
+narves? It do make some city folks a bit squarmish. Wish I'd a drop o'
+stuff for you, but we don't carry none; wouldn't do, you know."
+Coristine was touched by the good fellow's kindness, and opened his
+flask for their joint benefit, after which he felt better, and The Crew
+said it made him like a four-year-old.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, Sylvanus, come aft here to your dog watch," cried the captain, and
+The Crew retired, while his superior officer and Wilkinson came forward.
+The former went down into the hold, leaving the dominie free for
+conversation with his friend. "It's all up again, Wilks," said Coristine
+sadly; "those two girls were on board this very schooner, no later than
+last summer, and the one that spotted you is the captain's niece."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," groaned Wilkinson; "did he not tell me that he had a niece, a
+wonderfully fine girl, if he did say it, in the public schools, and made
+me promise to look her up when I go back to town! This kind of thing
+will be the death of me, Corry. Tell me, is your friend at the helm
+another uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," laughed Coristine, "he's a simple-hearted, humble sort of
+creature, who worships the boards these girls trod upon. He has a
+tremendous respect for the Carmichaels. What a lucky thing it is they
+didn't come on board at Belle Ewart! Do you think they'll be on hand at
+Barrie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't wonder."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>"Then, Wilks, I tell you what it is, we must slope. When it gets dark,
+I'll slip over the stern into the dingy and bring her round to the side
+for you; then we'll sail away for parts unknown."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, I am ashamed of you for imagining that I would lend myself to
+base treachery, and robbery, or piracy rather, on the high seas, laying
+us open, as you, a lawyer, must know, to penalties that would blast our
+reputations and ruin our lives. No, sir, we must face our misfortune
+like men. In the meanwhile, I will find out, from the captain, where his
+niece and her friend are likely to be."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine walked aft to The Crew, and served his apprenticeship to
+sitting on the tiller and propelling the rudder thereby in the desired
+direction. When he went wrong, while The Crew was lighting his pipe, the
+flapping of the sails warned him to back the tiller to its proper place.
+When hauling at the halliards, he had sung to his admiring companion in
+toil the "Sailor's Shanty":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>My Polly said she'd marry me when I came home,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together;</div>
+<div>But when I came I found she'd been and took my messmate Tom,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now, therefore, The Crew was urgent for a song to cheer up the
+lonesomeness a bit, and the lawyer, nothing loath, sang with genuine
+pathos:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i4'>A baby was sleeping;</div>
+<div class='i4'>Its mother was weeping.</div>
+<div>For her husband was far on the wide rolling sea.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When he came to the sea-ee-ee-ee-ee at the end of the third line, The
+Crew, who had been keeping time with one foot on the deck and with one
+hand on the tiller, aided him in rolling it forth, and, when the singing
+was over, he characterized it as "pooty and suitin' like," by which he
+meant that the references to the howling tempest and the raging billow
+were appropriate to the present nautical circumstances. After much
+persuasion The Crew was induced to add to the harmony of the evening.
+His voice was strong, but, like many strong things, under imperfect
+control; his tune was nowhere, and his intended pathetic unction was
+simply maudlin. Coristine could recall but little of the long ballad to
+which he listened, the story of a niggardly and irate father, who
+followed and fought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>with the young knight that had carried off his
+daughter. Two verses, however, could not escape his memory, on account
+of the disinterested and filial light in which they made the young lady
+appear:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"O stay your hand," the old man cried,</div>
+<div>A-lying on the ground,</div>
+<div>"And you shall have my daughter,</div>
+<div>And twenty thousand pound."</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Don't let him up, dear sweetheart,</div>
+<div>The portion is too small."</div>
+<div>"O stay your hand," the old man said,</div>
+<div class='i2'>"And you shall have it all."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The lawyer was loud in his admiration of this classical piece, and what
+he afterwards found was The Crew's original and only tune. "That was the
+kind of wife for a poor man," remarked Sylvanus, meditatively; "but she
+was mighty hard on her old dad."</p>
+
+<p>"They're a poor lot, the whole pack of them," said the lawyer, savagely,
+thinking of the quandary in which he and his friend were placed.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is?" asked The Crew.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the women, to be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Mister, my name may be Sylvanus, but I know I'm pretty
+rough, for all that. But, rough as I am, I don't sit quiet and let any
+man, no, not as good friends as you and me has been, say a word agin the
+wimmen. When I think o' these yere gals as was in this blessed schooner
+last summer, I feel it my juty, bein' I'm one o' them as helped to sail
+her then, to stand up fer all wimmen kind, and, no offence meant. I
+guess your own mother's one o' the good sort, now wasn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say she is," replied Coristine; "there are splendid women in
+the world, but they're all married."</p>
+
+<p>"That don't stand to reason, nohow," said The Crew, with gravity, "'cos
+there was a time wonst when they wasn't married, and if they was good
+arter they was good afore. And, moreover, what was, is, and ever shall
+be, Amen!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Sylvanus, we won't quarrel over them, and to show I bear no
+malice, I'll sing a song about the sex," whereupon he trolled out:
+"Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen." Wilkinson came running aft
+when he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>heard the strain, and cried: "Good heavens! Coristine, whatever
+has got into you, are you mad or intoxicated?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet you your boots and your bottom dollar that he ain't that,
+Mister," interposed The Crew, "fer you couldn't scare up liquor enough
+on this yere <i>Susan Thomas</i> to turn the head of a canary."</p>
+
+<p>"We are exchanging musical treats," said Coristine in defence. "Sylvanus
+here favoured me with an old ballad, not in the Percy collection, and I
+have been giving him one of the songs from the dramatists."</p>
+
+<p>"But about women!" protested the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't no songs that ain't got somethin' about women in 'em that's
+wuth a cent," indignantly replied The Crew, and Wilkinson sullenly
+retired to the bow.</p>
+
+<p>When the captain emerged from the hold he was hardly recognizable.
+Instead of his common sleeved waist coat and overalls, he was attired in
+a dark blue suit of broadcloth, the vest and frock coat of which were
+resplendent with gilt buttons. These clothes, with a befitting peaked
+cap and a pair of polished boots, had evidently come out of the large
+bundle he had brought from Belle Ewart, where the garments had probably
+done Sunday duty, for a smaller bundle, which he now threw upon the
+deck, contained his discarded working dress. Wilkinson was confirmed, by
+the spectacle presented, in his dire suspicion that the captain's niece
+would appear at Barrie, and, then and there, begin an acquaintance with
+him that might have the most disastrous consequences. But hope springs
+eternal in the human breast, as the poet says, so the schoolmaster
+tackled the commander, congratulated him on his fine appearance, and
+began to pump him as to the whereabouts of Miss Carmichael. The old
+gentleman, for such he looked now, was somewhat vain in an off-hand sort
+of way, and felt that he was quite the dominie's equal. He was cheerful,
+even jovial, in spite of the contrary assertions of The Crew, as he
+replied to Wilkinson's interrogations.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you sly young dog," he said, "I see what you're at now. You'd like
+to hear that the pair of them are waiting for us at Barrie; but they're
+not. They've gone to stay with my brother-in-law, Carruthers, in the
+County of Grey, where I'll go and see their pretty faces myself in a few
+days."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>Wilkinson swallowed the "sly young dog" for the sake of the
+consolation, and, hurriedly making his way aft, communicated the joyful
+news to Coristine. That gentleman much amused The Crew by throwing an
+arm round the schoolmaster's waist and waltzing his unwilling partner
+over the deck. All went merry as a marriage bell till the waltzers
+struck a rope coil, when, owing to the dominie's struggles, they went
+down together. Recovering themselves, they sat on deck glaring at each
+other.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a perfect idiot, Coristine."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a regular old muff, Wilkinson."</p>
+
+<p>The Crew, thinking this was a special pantomime got up impromptu for his
+benefit, roared with laughter, and applauded on the tiller. He was about
+to execute a hoedown within tiller limits to testify his sympathy with
+the fun, when the captain appeared in all his Sunday finery.</p>
+
+<p>"Let her away, you laughing hyena," he yelled to the unlucky Sylvanus,
+who regained his mental balance and laid his back to the tiller the
+other way.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry I've no chairs for you gentlemen," he remarked to the seated
+travellers; "but I guess the deck's as soft as the wooden kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mention it, my dear captain," said Coristine, as he sprang to his
+feet; "we were only taking the latitude and longitude, but it's hard
+work on the bones."</p>
+
+<p>"You allow yourself too much latitude, sir, both in your actions and in
+your unjustifiable remarks," muttered the pedagogue, more slowly
+assuming the perpendicular.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, captain," cried the lawyer, "I leave it you, sir, as a judge of
+language, good and bad. What is the worst thing to call a man, a muff or
+an idiot!"</p>
+
+<p>The captain toyed with the lanyard of his tortoise shell rimmed glasses,
+then put them deliberately across his nose, coughed judiciously, and
+gave his opinion:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"An ijit is a man that's born without sense and can't keep himself, d'ye
+see? But a muff is that stupid, like Sylvanus here, that he can't use
+the sense he's got. That being the case, a muff is worse than an ijit."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wilkinson, I bow, as in duty bound, to the verdict of the court,
+and humbly apologize for having called you something worse than an
+idiot. In my poor opinion, sir, you are not worse than the unfortunate
+creature thus described."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>Wilkinson was about to retort, when The Crew called out that the
+schooner was in the Bay, and that the lights of Barrie could be seen in
+the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep to your helm, Sylvanus," growled the captain; "there's three pair
+of eyes here as good as yourn, and I hope with more sense abaft 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Sylvanus relapsed into silence of a modified kind, merely whistling in a
+soft way his original copyright tune. As the travellers had never seen
+Kempenfeldt Bay before, they admired it very much, and forgot their
+little misunderstanding, while arm in arm they leaned over the bulwarks,
+and quoted little snatches of poetry in one another's ears. The
+twinkling lights of the town upon the cliffs suggested many a pleasing
+passage, so that Wilkinson told his dear Corry he was more than repaid
+for the trouble incident on their expedition by the sweet satisfaction
+of gazing on such a scene in company with a kindred spirit of poesy. To
+this his comrade replied, "Wilks, my dear boy, next to my mother you're
+the best friend I ever hope to have."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us cherish these sentiments for one another, kind friend, and the
+cloud on the horizon of our tour will never rise to darken its happy
+future," after which the learned dominie recited the words of Ducis:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Noble et tendre amiti&eacute;, je te chante en mes vers</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Murder!" cried Coristine, "Do you know that that Miss Jewplesshy, or Do
+Please, or whatever her name is, is French?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, Corry, Corry, how could you break in upon a scene of purest
+friendship and nature worship like this with your wretched misses? O,
+Corry, be a man!"</p>
+
+<p>"The anchor's agoin' out," remarked The Crew, as he passed by; so the
+travellers rushed to the capstan and got hold of the spikes. Out went
+the cable, as Coristine sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Do! my Johnny Boker,</div>
+<div>I'm a poo-er sailor,</div>
+<div>Do! my Johnny Boker,</div>
+<div class='i6'>Do!!!</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The ship made fast, the captain said, "Sylvanus will take you gentlemen
+ashore in the dingy. It only holds three, so I'll wait till he comes
+back." The pedestrians protested, but in vain. Sylvanus should take them
+ashore <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>first. So they bade the captain good-bye with many thanks and
+good wishes, and tumbled down into the dingy, which The Crew brought
+round. The captain shouted from the bulwarks in an insinuating way,
+"I'll keep my eye on you, Mr Wilkinson, trying to steal an old man's
+niece away from him," at which the victim shuddered. Away went the dingy
+some fifty yards or more, when Coristine called out, "Have you got the
+knapsacks, Farquhar, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, bless me, no," he answered. "I thought you had them." "Row back
+for your life, Sylvanus, to get the blessed knapsacks;" and Sylvanus,
+patient creature, did as he was told. The captain threw them over the
+side with another farewell speech, and then the dingy made for the bank,
+while Coristine sang in a rich voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Pull for the shore, sailor,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Pull for the shore.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>They landed, and, much against The Crew's will, he was compelled to
+receive a dollar from each of his passengers.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see you again," he said, as he rowed back for the captain. "I'll
+see you again up in Grey, along of the old man and the gals, mark my
+word if I don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to see you, Sylvy, old fresh (he was going to say 'old salt,' but
+corrected himself in time), glad to see you anywhere," bawled the
+lawyer, "but we've made a vow to dispense with female society in our
+travels. Ta, ta!"</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Barrie&mdash;Next of Kin&mdash;Nightmare&mdash;On the Road&mdash;Strawberries and
+Botany&mdash;Poetry and Sentiment&mdash;The Virago&mdash;Luncheon and
+Wordsworth&mdash;Waterplants, Leeches and Verse&mdash;Cutting Sticks&mdash;Rain,
+Muggins and Rawdon.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The travellers carried their knapsacks in their hands by the straps, to
+the nearest hotel, where, after brief delay, a special supper was set
+for them. Having discussed the frugal meal, they repaired to the
+combined reading and smoking room, separate from the roughish crowd at
+the bar. Wilkinson glanced over a Toronto paper, while his companion,
+professing an interest in local news, picked up an organ of the town and
+read it through, advertisements and all, in which painstaking effort he
+was helped by his pipe. Suddenly he grasped the paper, and, holding it
+away from his face, exclaimed, "Is it possible that they are the same?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who, who?" ejaculated Wilkinson; "do not tell me that the captain was
+mistaken, that they are really here."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know old Carmichael's initials, the doctor's, that was member
+for Vaughan?" his friend asked, paying no attention to the
+schoolmaster's question.</p>
+
+<p>"James D.," replied that authority; "I remember, because I once made the
+boys get up the members' names along with their constituencies, so as to
+give the latter a living interest."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, listen to this: 'Next of kin; information wanted concerning the
+whereabouts of James Douglas Carmichael, or his heirs at law. He left
+the University of Edinburgh, where he was in attendance on the Faculty
+of Medicine, in the spring of 1848, being at the time twenty-one years
+of age. The only trace of his farther life is a fragment of a letter
+written by him to a friend two years later, when he was serving as a
+soldier in the military station of Barrief, Upper Canada. Reward offered
+for the same by P.R. MacSmaill, W.S., 19 Clavers Row, Edinburgh.' If
+James Douglas Carmichael, ex-medical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>student, wasn't the member and the
+father of that girl of yours, I'm a Dutchman."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Coristine, I insist, sir, before another word passes between us,
+that you withdraw and apologize for the deeply offensive expression,
+which must surely have escaped your lips unperceived, 'that girl of
+yours.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there, now, I'm always putting my foot in it. I meant the girl you
+are interested in&mdash;no, it isn't that other&mdash;the girl that's interested
+in you&mdash;oh, wirra wisha! it's not that at all&mdash;it's the girl the captain
+was joking you about."</p>
+
+<p>"A joke from a comparatively illiterate man like the captain of the
+schooner, to whom we were under travelling obligations, and a joke from
+my equal, a scholar and a gentleman, are two distinct things. I wish the
+expression, 'that girl of yours,' absolutely and forever withdrawn."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, I consent to withdraw it absolutely and apologize for
+saying it, but that 'forever' clause goes against my legal judgment. If
+the late Dr. Carmichael's heiress comes in for a fortune, we might
+repent that 'forever.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What has that to do with me, sir, fortune or no fortune? Your
+insinuations are even more insulting than your open charges of
+infidelity to our solemn compact."</p>
+
+<p>It was Coristine's turn to be angry. He rose from the table at which he
+had been sitting, with the paper still in his hand, and said: "You make
+mountains out of molehills, Wilkinson. I've made you a fair and full
+apology, and shall do no more, if you sulk your head off." So saying, he
+stalked out of the room, and Wilkinson was too much angered to try to
+stop him.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer asked the landlord if he would spare him the newspaper for an
+hour and supply him with pen and ink and a few sheets of paper. Then he
+took his lamp and retired to his room. "Poor old Farquhar," he
+soliloquized, as he arranged his writing materials; "he'll feel mighty
+bad at being left all alone, but it's good for his health, and business
+is business. Let me see, now. Barrie was never a military station,
+besides the letter had Barrief on it, a name that doesn't exist. But the
+letter was torn there, or the corner worn away in a man's pocket. By the
+powers, it's Barriefield at Kingston, and there's the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>military station
+for you. I'll write our correspondent there, and I'll set one of the
+juniors to work up Dr. Carmichael's record in Vaughan County, and I'll
+notify MacSmaill, W.S., that I am on the track, and&mdash;shall I write the
+girl, there's the rub?" The three letters were written with great care
+and circumspection, but not the fourth. When carefully sealed, directed
+and stamped, he carried them to the post-office and personally deposited
+them in the slit for drop-letters. Returning to the hotel, he restored
+the newspaper to the table of the reading-room, minus the clipped
+advertisement to the next of kin, which he stowed away in his
+pocketbook. This late work filled the lawyer with a satisfaction that
+crowned the pleasures of the day, and he longed to communicate some of
+it to his friend, but that gentleman, the landlord said, had retired for
+the night, looking a bit put out&mdash;he hoped supper had been to his
+liking. Coristine said the supper was good. "What was the number of Mr.
+Wilkinson's room?"</p>
+
+<p>Mine host replied that it was No. 32, the next to his own. Before
+retiring, Coristine looked at the fanlight over the door of No. 32; it
+was dark. Nevertheless he knocked, but failed to evoke a response.
+"Farquhar, my dear," he whispered in an audible tone, but still there
+was no answer. So he heaved a sigh, and, returning to his apartment,
+read a few words out of his pocket prayer-book, and went to bed. There
+he had an awful dream, of the old captain leading Wilkinson by the
+collar and tail of his coat up to the altar, where Miss Carmichael
+stood, resplendent in pearls and diamonds, betokening untold wealth; of
+an attempt at rescue by himself and The Crew, which was nipped in the
+bud by the advent of the veteran, his daughter and Miss Jewplesshy. The
+daughter laid violent hands upon The Crew and waltzed him out of the
+church door, while the veteran took Coristine's palsied arm and placed
+that of his young mistress upon it, ordering them, with military words
+of command, to accompany the victims, as bridesmaid and groomsman. When
+the dreamer recovered sufficiently to look the officiating clergyman
+full in the face, he saw that this personage was no other than Frank,
+the news-agent, whereupon he laughed immediately and awoke.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>"Corry, Corry, my dear fellow, are you able to get up, or shall I break
+the door in?" were the words that greeted his ear on awaking.</p>
+
+<p>"The omadhaun!" he said to himself under the bedclothes; "it would be a
+good thing to serve him with the sauce of silence, as he did me last
+night." But better counsels prevailed in his warm Irish heart, and he
+arose to unlock the door, when suddenly it flew open, and Wilkinson,
+with nothing but a pair of trousers added to his night attire, fell
+backwards into his arms. It was broad daylight as each looked into the
+other's face for explanations.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're strong, Wilks!" said the lawyer with admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, when I heard you groan that way, I was sure you were in a fit."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it was nothing," replied his friend, who found it hard to keep from
+laughing, "only a bad nightmare."</p>
+
+<p>"What were you dreaming about to bring it on?"</p>
+
+<p>Now, this was just what Coristine dared not tell, for the truth would
+bring up all last night's misunderstanding. So he made up a story of
+Wilkinson's teaching The Crew navigation and the use of the globes, when
+the captain interfered and threatened to kick master and pupil
+overboard. Then he, Coristine, interposed, and the captain fell upon
+him. "And you know, Wilks, he's a heavy man."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am heartily glad it is no worse. Get a wash and get your
+clothes on, and come down to breakfast, like a good boy, for I hear the
+bell ringing."</p>
+
+<p>Over their coffee and toast, eggs and sausages, the two were as kind and
+attentive to one another's wants, as if no dispute had ever marred their
+friendship. The dominie got out his sketch map of a route and opened it
+between them. "We shall start straight for the bush road into the north,
+if that suits you," he said, "and travel by easy stages towards
+Collingwood, where we shall again behold one of our inland seas. But, as
+it may be sometime before we reach a house of entertainment, it may be
+as well to fill the odd corners of our knapsacks with provisions for the
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"I say amen to that idea," replied the lawyer, and the travellers arose,
+paid their bill, including the price of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>the door-lock, seized their
+knapsacks by the straps and sallied forth. They laid in a small stock of
+captain's biscuits, a piece of good cheese, and some gingersnaps for
+Wilkinson's sweet tooth; they also had their flask refilled, and
+Coristine invested in some pipe-lights. Then they sallied forth, not
+into the north as Wilkinson had said, it being a phrase he was fond of,
+but, at first, in a westerly, and, on the whole, in a north-westerly
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>When the last house on the outskirts was left behind them, they helped
+each other on with their knapsacks, and felt like real pedestrians. The
+bush enclosed them on either side of the sandy road, so that they had
+shade whenever they wanted it. Occasionally a wayfarer would pass them
+with a curt "good morning," or a team would rattle by, its driver
+bestowing a similar salutation. The surface of the country was flat, but
+this did not hinder Wilkinson reciting:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Mount slowly, sun! and may our journey lie</div>
+<div>Awhile within the shadow of this hill,</div>
+<div>This friendly hill, a shelter from thy beams!</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"That reminds me," said Coristine, "of a fellow we had in the office
+once, whose name was Hill. He was a black-faced, solemn-looking genius,
+and the look of him would sink the spirits of a skylark down to zero.
+'What's come over you?' said Woodruff to me one fine afternoon, when I
+was feeling a bit bilious. 'Oh,' said I, 'I've been within the shadow of
+this Hill,' and he laughed till he was black in the face."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, if I were not ashamed of making a pun, or, as we say in academic
+circles, being guilty of antanaclasis, I would say that you are
+in-corri-gible."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine laughed, and then remarked seriously, "Here am I, with a
+strap-press full of printing paper in my knapsack, and paying no
+attention to science at all. We must begin to take life in airnest now,
+Wilks, my boy, and keep our eyes skinned for specimens. Sorry I am I
+didn't call and pay my respects to my botanical friend at the Barrie
+High School. He could have given us a pointer or two about the flowers
+that grow round here."</p>
+
+<p>"Flowers are scarce in July," said the schoolmaster, "they seem to take
+a rest in the hot weather. The spring <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>is their best time. Of course you
+know that song about the flowers in spring?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never heard it in my life; sing it to us, Farquhar, like a darlin'."</p>
+
+<p>Now, the dominie was not given to singing, but thus adjured, and the
+road being clear, he sang in a very fair voice:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>We are the flowers,</div>
+<div>The fair young flowers</div>
+<div>That come with the voice of Spring,</div>
+<div class='i4'>Tra la la, la la la, la la,</div>
+<div class='i8'>Tra la, tra la a a a.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Coristine revelled in the chorus, which, at the "a a a," went up to the
+extreme higher compass of the human voice and beyond it. He made his
+friend repeat the performance, called him a daisy, and tra la la'd to
+his heart's content. Then he sat down on a grassy bank by the wayside
+and laughed loud and long. "Oh, it's a nice pair of fair young flowers
+we are, coming with the voice of spring; but we're not hayseeds,
+anyway." When the lawyer turned himself round to rise, Wilkinson asked
+seriously, "Did you hurt yourself then, Corry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never a bit, except that I'm weak with the laughing; and for why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because there is some red on your trousers, and I thought it might be
+blood&mdash;that you had sat down on some sharp thing."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be strawberry blite, I'll wager, <i>Blitum capitatum</i>, and a fine
+thing it is. Mrs. Marsh, that keeps our boarding house, has a garden
+where it grows wild in among the peas. She wanted some colouring for the
+icing of a cake, and hadn't a bit of cochineal or anything of the kind
+in the house. She was telling me her trouble, for it was a holiday and
+the shops were shut, and she's always that friendly with me; when, says
+I, 'There is no trouble about that.' So I went to the garden and got two
+lovely stalks of <i>Blitum capitatum</i>. 'Is it poison?' said she. 'Poison!'
+said I; 'and it belonging to the <i>Chenopodiace&aelig;</i>, the order that owns
+beets and spinach, and all the rest of them. Trust a botanist, ma'am,' I
+said. It made the sweetest pink icing you ever saw, and Mrs. Marsh is
+for ever deeply grateful, and rears that <i>Blitum</i> with fond and anxious
+care."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>"I would like to see that plant," said Wilkinson. So they retraced
+their steps to the bank, over which Coristine leaned tenderly, picking
+something which he put into his mouth. "Come on, Wilks," he cried; "it
+isn't blite, but something better. It's wild strawberries themselves,
+and lashings of them. Sure any fool might have known them by the leaves,
+even if he was a herald, the worst fool of all, and only knew them from
+a duke's coronet."</p>
+
+<p>For a time there was silence, for the berries were numerous, and,
+although small, sweet and of delicate flavour.</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, they are luscious; this is Arcadia and Elysium."</p>
+
+<p>"Foine, Wilks, foine," mumbled the lawyer, with his mouth full of
+berries.</p>
+
+<p>"This folly of mine, sitting down on the blessings of
+Providence&mdash;turning my back upon them, so to speak," he remarked, after
+the first hunger was over, "reminds me of a man who took the gold medal
+in natural science. He had got his botany off by rote, so, when he was
+travelling between Toronto and Hamilton, a friend that was sitting
+beside him said, 'Johnson, what's in that field out there?' Johnson
+looked a bit put out, but said boldly, 'It's turnips.' There was an old
+farmer in the seat behind him, and he spoke up and said, 'Turmuts!' said
+he, 'them's hoats&mdash;ha, ha, ha!'"</p>
+
+<p>As they tramped along, the botanist found some specimens: two lilies,
+the orange and the Turk's cap; the willow herb, the showy ladies'
+slipper, and three kinds of milkweed. He opened his knapsack, took out
+the strap press, and carefully bestowed his floral treasures between
+sheets of unglazed printers' paper. Wilkinson took a friendly interest
+in these proceedings, and insisted on being furnished with the botanical
+names of all the specimens.</p>
+
+<p>"That willow-herb, now, <i>Epilobium angustifolium</i>, is called fire-weed,"
+said the botanist, "and is an awful nuisance on burnt ground. There was
+a Scotchman out here once, about this time of the year, and he thought
+it was such a pretty pink flower that he would take some home with him.
+So, when the downy-winged seeds came, he gathered a lot, and, when he
+got back to Scotland, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>planted them. Lord! the whole country about Perth
+got full of the stuff, till the farmers cursed him for introducing the
+American Saugh."</p>
+
+<p>"The American what?" demanded Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"Saugh; it's an old Scotch word for willow, and comes from the French
+<i>saule</i>, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sorry for them," said Wilkinson; "they say that pest, the
+Canada thistle, came from the Old Country."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's true; and so did Pusley, which Warner compares with
+original sin; and a host of other plants. Why, on part of the Hamilton
+mountain you won't find a single native plant. It is perfectly covered,
+from top to bottom, with dusty, unwholesome-looking weeds from Europe
+and the Southern States. But we paid them back."</p>
+
+<p>"How was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know, a good many years ago, sailing vessels began to go from the
+Toronto harbour across the Atlantic to British ports. There's a little
+water-plant that grows in Ashbridge's Bay, called the Anacharis, and
+this little weed got on to the bottom of the ocean vessels. Salt water
+didn't kill it, but it lived till the ships got to the Severn, and there
+it fell off and took root, and blocked up the canals with a solid mass
+of subaqueous vegetation that made the English canal men dredge night
+and day to get rid of it. I tell you we've got some pretty hardy things
+out here in Canada."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not think," asked Wilkinson, "that our talk is getting too like
+that of Charles and his learned father in Gosse's 'Canadian
+Naturalist'?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, my boy, I'll oppress you no longer with a tender father's
+scientific lore, but, with your favourite poet, say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"To me the meanest flower that blows can give</div>
+<div>Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"That is because of their associations, a merely relative reason," said
+the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't though, at least not altogether. Listen, now, to what Tennyson
+says, or to something like what he says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Little flower in the crannied wall,</div>
+<div>Peeping out of the crannies,</div>
+<div>I hold you, root and all, in my hand;</div>
+<div>Little flower, if I could understand</div>
+<div>What you are, root and all, and all in all,</div>
+<div>I should know what God and man is.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>There's no association nor relation in that; the flower brings you at
+once face to face with infinite life. Do you know what these
+strawberries brought to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"A pleasant feast I should say."</p>
+
+<p>"No, they made me think how much better it would have been if I had had
+somebody to gather them for; I don't say a woman, because that's tabooed
+between us, but say a child, a little boy or girl. There's no
+association or relation there at all; the strawberries called up love,
+which is better than a pleasant feast."</p>
+
+<p>"According to Wordsworth, the flower in the crannied wall and the
+strawberry teach the same lesson, for does he not say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>That life is love and immortality.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>Life, I repeat, is energy of love,</div>
+<div>Divine or human, exercised in pain,</div>
+<div>In strife and tribulation, and ordained,</div>
+<div>If so approved and sanctified, to pass</div>
+<div>Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy?</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>At any rate, that is what he puts into his Parson's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Farquhar, my boy, I think we'd better stop, for I'm weakening fast.
+It's sentimental the flowers and the fruit are making me. I mind, when I
+was a little fellow in the old sod, my mother gathering wild flowers
+from the hedges and putting them all round the ribbon of my straw hat. I
+can't pay her the debt of that mark of love the same way, but I feel I
+should pay it to somebody. You never told me about your mother."</p>
+
+<p>"No, because she is dead and gone long ago, and my father married again,
+and brought a vixen, with two trollops of girls, to take the place of an
+angel. These three women turned my stomach at all the sex. Look, there's
+a pretty woman for you!"</p>
+
+<p>They had reached a clearing in the bush, consisting of a corn patch and
+a potato field, in which a woman, with a man's hat on her head and a
+pair of top-boots upon her nether extremities, looking a veritable guy,
+was sprink<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>ling the potato plants with well-diluted Paris green. The
+shanty pertaining to the clearing was some little distance from the
+road, and, hoping to get a drink of water there, Coristine prepared to
+jump the rail fence and make his way towards it. The woman, seeing what
+he was about, called: 'Hi, Jack, Jack!' and immediately a big mongrel
+bull-dog came tearing towards the travellers, barking as he ran.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back, Corry, for heaven's sake, or he'll bite you!" cried
+Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"Never a fear," answered the lately sentimental botanist; "barking dogs
+don't bite as a rule." So he jumped the fence in earnest, and said
+soothingly, as if he were an old friend: "Hullo, Jack, good dog!"
+whereupon the perfidious Jack grovelled at his feet and then jumped up
+for a caress. But the woman came striding along, picking up a grubbing
+hoe by the way to take the place of the treacherous defender of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"Hi, git out o' that, quick as yer legs'll take yer; git out now! we
+don't want no seeds, ner fruit trees, ner sewin' machines, ner fambly
+Bibles. My man's jist down in the next patch, an' if yer don't git, I'll
+set him on yer."</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," said Coristine, lifting his hat, "permit me to explain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Go 'long, I tell yer; that's the way they all begin, with yer madam an'
+explainin'; I'll explain this hoe on yer if yer take another step."</p>
+
+<p>"We are not agents, nor tramps, nor tract distributors, nor collectors
+for missions," cried Coristine, as soon as he had a chance to speak. "My
+friend, here, is a gentleman engaged in education, and I am a lawyer,
+and all we want is a glass of water."</p>
+
+<p>"A liyer, eh?" said the Amazon, in a very much reduced tone; "Why didn't
+yer say so at wonst, an' not have me settin' that good for nuthin' brute
+on yer? I never see liyers with a pack on their backs afore. Ef yer
+wants a drink, why don't yer both come on to the house?"</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson, at this not too cordial invitation, vaulted over the fence
+beside his companion, and they walked housewards, the woman striding on
+ahead, and the dog sniffing at Wilkinson's heels in the rear. A rather
+pretty red-haired girl of about fifteen was washing dishes, evi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>dently
+in preparation for the mid-day meal. Her the woman addressed as Anna
+Maria, and ordered her to go and get a pail of fresh water for the
+gentlemen. But Wilkinson, who felt he must do something to restore his
+credit, offered to get the water if Anna Maria would show him the well
+or pump that contained it. The girl gave him a tin pail, and he
+accompanied her to the back of the house, where the well and a bucket
+with a rope were. In vain he tried to sink that bucket; it would not
+sink. At last the girl took it out of his hands, turned the bucket
+upside down, and, letting it fall with a vicious splash, brought it up
+full of deliciously cool water, which she transferred to the pail.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very clever to do that the first time," remarked the
+schoolmaster, wishing to be polite to the girl, who looked quite
+pleasant and comely, in spite of her bare feet and arms.</p>
+
+<p>"There ain't no cleverness about it," she replied, with a harsh nasal
+accent; "any fool most could do as much." Wilkinson carried the tin pail
+to the shanty disillusioned, took his drink out of a cup that seemed
+clean enough, joined his friend in thanking mother and daughter for
+their hospitality, and retired to the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you find your respect for the fair sex rising?" he asked Coristine,
+cynically.</p>
+
+<p>"The mother's an awful old harridan&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and when the daughter is her age she will be a harridan, too, the
+gentle rustic beauties have gone out of date, like the old poets. The
+schoolmaster is much needed here to teach young women not to compare
+gentlemen even if they are pedestrianizing, to 'any fool most.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Wilks, is that where you're hit? I thought you and she were long
+enough over that water business for a case of Jacob and Rachel at the
+well, ha, ha!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, cease this folly, Coristine, and let us get along."</p>
+
+<p>Sentiment had received a rude shock. It met with a second when Coristine
+remarked "I'm hungry." Still, he kept on for another mile or so, when
+the travellers sighted a little brook of clear water rippling over
+stones. A short distance to the left of the road it was shaded by trees
+and tall bushes, not too close together, but presenting, here and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>there, little patches of grass and the leaves of woodland flowers.
+Selecting one of these patches, they unstrapped their knapsacks, and
+extracted from them a sufficiency of biscuits and cheese for luncheon.
+Then one of the packs, as they had irreverently been called, was turned
+over to make a table. The biscuits and cheese were moistened with small
+portions from the contents of the flasks, diluted with the cool water of
+the brook. The meal ended, Wilkinson took to nibbling ginger snaps and
+reading Wordsworth. The day was hot, so that a passing cloud which came
+over the face of the sun was grateful, but it was grateful to beast as
+well as to man, for immediately a swarm of mosquitoes and other flies
+came forth to do battle with the reposing pedestrians. Coristine's pipe
+kept them from attacking him in force, but Wilkinson got all the more in
+consequence. He struck savagely at them with Wordsworth, anathematized
+them in choice but not profane language, and, at last, rose to his feet,
+switching his pocket handkerchief fiercely about his head. Coristine
+picked up the deserted Wordsworth, and laughed till the smoke of his
+pipe choked him and the tears came into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I see no cause for levity in the sufferings of a fellow creature," said
+the schoolmaster, curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my darling boy, it's not you I'm laughing at; it's that old
+omadhaun of a Wordsworth. Hark to this, now:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>He said, ''Tis now the hour of deepest noon.</div>
+<div>At this still season of repose and peace,</div>
+<div>This hour, when all things which are not at rest</div>
+<div>Are cheerful; while this multitude of flies</div>
+<div>Is filling all the air with melody;</div>
+<div>Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?'</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>O Wilks, but this beats cock-fighting; 'Why should a tear be in an old
+man's eye?' Sorra a bit do I know, barring it's the multitude of flies.
+O Wordy, Wordy, bard of Rydal Mount, it's sick with laughing you'll be
+making me. All things not at rest are cheerful. Dad, if he means the
+flies, they're cheerful enough, but if it's my dear friend, Farquhar
+Wilkinson, it's a mistake the old gentleman is making. See, this is more
+like it, at the very beginning of 'The Excursion':&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i4'>Nor could my weak arm disperse</div>
+<div>The host of insects gathering round my face,</div>
+<div>And ever with me as I paced along.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>That's you, Wilks, you to a dot. What a grand thing poetic instinct is,
+that looks away seventy years into the future and across the Atlantic
+Ocean, to find a humble admirer in the wilds of Canada, and tell how he
+looked among the flies. 'Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?' O,
+holy Moses, that's the finest line I've sighted in a dog's age. Cheer
+up, old man, and wipe that tear away, for I see the clouds have rolled
+by, Jenny."</p>
+
+<p>"Man, clod, profaner of the shrine of poesy, cease your ignorant
+cackle," cried the irate dominie. Silently they bathed faces and hands
+in the brook, donned their knapsacks, and took to the road once more.</p>
+
+<p>The clouds had not all passed by as the pedestrians found to their cost,
+for, where there are clouds over the bush in July, there also are
+mosquitoes. Physically as well as psychically, Wilkinson was
+thin-skinned, and afforded a ready and appetizing feast to the
+blood-suckers. His companion still smoked his pipe in defence, but for a
+long time in silence. "The multitude of flies" made him gurgle
+occasionally, as he gazed upon the schoolmaster, whose blue and yellow
+silk handkerchief was spread over the back of his head and tied under
+his chin. To quote Wordsworth then would have been like putting a match
+to a powder magazine. The flies were worst on the margin of a pond
+formed by the extension of a sluggish black stream. "Go on, Wilks, my
+boy, out of the pests, while I add some water plants to my collection;"
+but this, Wilkinson's chivalrous notions of friendship would not allow
+him to do. He broke off a leafy branch from a young maple, and slashed
+it about him, while the botanist ran along the edge of the pond looking
+for flowers within reach. As usual, they were just out of reach and no
+more. So he had to take off shoes and socks, turn up the legs of his
+trousers, and wade in after them. "Look at that now!" he said with pride
+as he returned with his booty, "Nymph&aelig;a odorata, Nuphar advena, and
+Brasenia peltata; aren't they beauties?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is that black object on your leg?" the dominie managed to gasp.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm thankful to you for saying that, my kind friend, for it's a
+murdering leech."</p>
+
+<p>"Salt is the only thing to take them off with," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>remarked Wilkinson
+really interested; "and that is just what we are deficient in."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Wilks, try a drop of the crater on him; don't waste the
+blessings of Providence, but just let the least particle fall on his
+nose, while I scrape him off."</p>
+
+<p>The surgical operation succeeded, and the schoolmaster half forgot his
+own troubles in doing good to his friend. While the latter was
+reclothing his feet, and pressing his specimens, the maple branch ceased
+working, and its owner finely apostrophized the field of white and
+yellow blossoms.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>There sits the water lily like a sovereign,</div>
+<div>Her little empire is a fairy world,</div>
+<div>The purple dragon-fly above it hovering,</div>
+<div>As when her fragile ivory uncurled,</div>
+<div class='i2'>A thousand years ago.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Bravo, Wilks, if you are poaching on my preserves; but I wish that same
+purple dragon-fly would hover round here in thousands for a minute. It's
+a pleasure to see them sail along and gobble up the mosquitoes."</p>
+
+<p>The dominie continued:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>To-day I saw the dragon-fly</div>
+<div>Come from the wells where he did lie.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>An inner impulse rent the veil</div>
+<div>Of his old husk; from head to tail</div>
+<div>Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>He dried his wings: like gauze they grew,</div>
+<div>Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew</div>
+<div>A living flash of light he flew.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Hurroo!" cried Coristine, as with knapsack readjusted, he took his
+companion by the arm and resumed the journey; "Hurroo again, I say, it's
+into the very heart of nature we're getting now. Bless the mosquito and
+the leech for opening the well of English undefiled."</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson was wound up to go, and repeated with fine conversational
+effect:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>But now, perplexed by what th' old man had said,</div>
+<div>My question eagerly did I renew</div>
+<div>How is it that you live, and what is it you do?</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>He, with a smile, did then his words repeat;</div>
+<div>And said, that, gathering leeches far and wide,</div>
+<div>He travell'd; stirring thus about his feet</div>
+<div>The waters of the ponds where they abide.</div>
+<div>"Once I could meet with them on every side;</div>
+<div>But they have dwindled long by slow decay;</div>
+<div>Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>"Dad, if the old man had been here, he might have made his fortune by
+this time. 'Stirring thus about his feet the waters of the ponds where
+they abide' may be fine employment, but the law's good enough for me,
+seeing they're bound to dwindle long by slow decay. You don't happen to
+have a scrap on a botanist, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the schoolmaster, "and on a blind one, too:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>And he knows all shapes of flowers: the heath, the fox-glove with its bells,</div>
+<div>The palmy fern's green elegance, fanned in soft woodland smells;</div>
+<div>The milkwort on the mossy turf his nice touch fingers trace,</div>
+<div>And the eye-bright, though he sees it not, he finds it in its place."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"A blind botanist, and in the Old Country, too; well that's strange!
+True, a blind man could know the lovely wallflowers and hyacinths and
+violets and all these sweet-scented things by their smell. But to know
+the little blue milkwort and the Euphrasia by touch, bangs me. If it was
+our fine, big pitcher plant, or the ladies' slipper, or the
+giant-fringed orchis, or the May apple, I could understand it; but
+perhaps he knew the flowers before he got to be blind. I think I could
+find my way blindfolded to some spots about Toronto where special plants
+grow. I believe, Wilks, that a man couldn't name a subject you wouldn't
+have a quotation for; you're wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson was delighted. This flattery was meat and drink to him.
+Holding the arm of his admiring friend, he poured out his soul in verse,
+allowing his companion, from time to time, the opportunity of
+contributing a little to the poetic feast. The two virtually forgot to
+notice the level, sandy road and tame scenery, the clouded sun, the
+troublesome flies. For the time being, they were everything, the one to
+the other. By their own spirits were they deified, or thought they were,
+at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>Though the schoolmaster was revelling in the appreciation of his friend,
+he could not fail to perceive that he limped a little. "You have hurt
+your foot, Corry, my dear fellow, and never told me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's nothing," replied the light-hearted lawyer; "I trod on a stick
+in that pond where I got the Brasenia and things, and my big toe's a bit
+sore, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, we have forgotten the blackthorns. Now, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>this calm hour,
+sacred to friendship, let us present each other with nature's staff, a
+walking-stick cut from the bush, humble tokens of our mutual esteem."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine agreed, and the result was a separation and careful scrutiny
+of the underbrush on both sides of the road, which ended in the finding
+of a dogwood by the lawyer, and of a striped maple by the dominie&mdash;both
+straight above and curled at the root. These, having removed from the
+bush, they brought into shape with their pocket-knives. Then Coristine
+carved "F.W." on the handle of his, while Wilkinson engraved "E.C." on
+the one he carried. This being done, each presented his fellow with
+"this utterly inadequate expression of sincere friendship," which was
+accepted "not for its intrinsic worth, but because of the generous
+spirit which prompted the gift." "Whenever my eye rests on these letters
+by friendship traced," said the dominie, "my pleasant companion of this
+happy day will be held in remembrance."</p>
+
+<p>"And when my fingers feel 'E.C.' on the handle," retorted the lawyer,
+"I'll be wishing that my dear friend's lot, that gave it me, may be easy
+too. Faith but that's a hard pun on an Irishman."</p>
+
+<p>"Seriously, now, Corry, does it give you any satisfaction to be guilty
+of these&mdash;ah&mdash;rhetorical figures?"</p>
+
+<p>"All the delight in the world, Wilks, my boy."</p>
+
+<p>"But it lowers the tone of your conversation; it puts you on a level
+with common men; it grieves me."</p>
+
+<p>"If that last is the case, Farquhar, I'll do my best to fight against my
+besetting sin. You'll admit I've been very tender of your feelings with
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"How's your foot now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, splendid! This stick of yours is a powerful help to it.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,</div>
+<div class='i2'>And merrily hent the stile-a:</div>
+<div>A merry heart goes all the day,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Your sad tires in a mile-a.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Shakespeare's songs remind me of young Witherspoon. There was a party at
+old Tylor's, and a lady was singing 'Tell me where is fancy bred?' when
+young Witherspoon comes up to the piano in a hurry, and says: 'Why,
+don't you know?&mdash;at Nasmith's and Webb's.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>"Lord! how savage old Tylor was! I thought he would have kicked the
+young ass out."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just what we lovers of literature have to endure from the
+Philistines. But, Corry, my dear fellow, here is the rain!"</p>
+
+<p>The rain fell, at first drop by drop, but afterwards more smartly,
+forcing the pedestrians to take refuge under some leafy pines. There
+they sat quietly for a time, till their interest was excited by a deep
+growl, which seemed to come round a jog in the road just ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a bear or a wolf, Corry?" the dominie asked in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"More like a wild cat or a lynx," cheerfully responded his friend.</p>
+
+<p>The growl was repeated, and then a human like voice was heard which
+quieted the ferocious animal.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever it is, it's got a keeper," whispered Coristine, "so we needn't
+be afraid."</p>
+
+<p>Then the sun shone forth brightly and a rainbow spanned the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"The rainbow comes and goes," said the lawyer, which gave the
+schoolmaster occasion to recite:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>My heart leaps up when I behold</div>
+<div class='i2'>A rainbow in the sky.</div>
+<div>So was it when my life began;</div>
+<div>So is it now I am a man;</div>
+<div class='i2'>So be it when I shall grow old</div>
+<div class='i2'>Or let me die!</div>
+<div>The child is father of the man;</div>
+<div>And I could wish my days to be</div>
+<div>Bound each to each by natural piety.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Brayvo, well done, ancore!" cried a cheery and cheeky voice coming
+round the jog; "oo'd a thought of meetin' a play hactor 'ere in the
+bush! Down, Muggins, down," the latter to a largish and wiry-looking
+terrier, the author of the ominous growls.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, sir," said Wilkinson with dignity, "I have nothing
+to do with the stage, beyond admiring the ancient ornaments of the
+English drama."</p>
+
+<p>"Hall right, no hoffence meant and none taken, I 'ope. But you did it
+well, sir, devilish well, I tell you. My name is Rawdon, and I'm a
+workin' geologist and minerologist hon the tramp."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>The stranger, who had thus introduced himself, was short, about five
+feet five, fairly stout, with a large head covered with curly reddish
+hair, his whiskers and goatee of the same hue, his eyes pale grayish,
+his nose retrouss&eacute;, and his mouth like a half-moon lying on its back. He
+was dressed in a tweed suit of a very broad check; his head was crowned
+with a pith hat, almost too large even for it; and he wore gaiters. But,
+what endeared him to the pedestrians was his knapsack made of some kind
+of ribbed brown waterproof cloth.</p>
+
+<p>"Either of you gents take any hinterest in science?" he asked affably,
+whereupon the schoolmaster took it upon himself to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I, as an educationist, dabble a little in geology, mineralogy, and
+pal&aelig;ontology. My friend is a botanist. You are Mr. Rawdon. Allow me, Mr.
+Rawdon, to introduce my friend Mr. Eugene Coristine, of Osgood Hall,
+Barrister, and my humble self, Farquhar Wilkinson, of the Toronto
+Schools."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rawdon bowed and shook hands, then threw himself into a stage
+attitude, and said: "His it possible that I am face to face with
+Farquhar Wilkinson, the describer of a hentirely new species of
+Favosites? Sir, this is a perroud day for a workin' geologist. Your
+servant, Dr. Coristine!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no doctor, Mr. Rawdon," replied the lawyer, a bit angrily; "I
+passed all my examinations in the regular way."</p>
+
+<p>"Hif it's a fair question, gents, ware are you a goin'"? asked the
+working geologist.</p>
+
+<p>"We intend, if nothing intervenes, to spend the night at the village of
+Peskiwanchow," answered Wilkinson, whose heart warmed to the knapsack
+man that knew his great discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Beastly 'ole!" remarked Mr. Rawdon; "but, as I'm a long way hoff
+Barrie, I'll go there with you, if Mr. Currystone is hagreeable. I don't
+want to miss the hopportunity of making your better hacquaintance, Dr.
+Wilkinson."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure that my friend and I will be charmed with your excellent
+society, as a man, a fellow pedestrian and a lover of science," the
+dominie effusively replied.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>"Well, Muggins, we're a-goin' back, hold dog, along o' two gents as
+haint above keepin' company wi' you and me," whereat Muggins barked and
+sought to make friends with his new companions. Coristine liked Muggins,
+but he did not love Muggins' master. Sotto voce, he said: "A cheeky
+little cad!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Rawdon and Wilkinson forged on ahead. Coristine and Muggins brought
+up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you working at now, Mr. Rawdon?" asked the schoolmaster.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm workin' hup the Trenton and Utica, the Udson River and Medina
+formations. They hall crop hup between 'ere and Collin'wood. It's the
+limestone I'm hafter, you know," he said, sinking his voice to a
+whisper, "the limestone grits, dolomites, and all that sort of thing.
+Wen I can get a good grinstun quarry, I'll be a made man."</p>
+
+<p>"Grinstun?" queried Wilkinson, helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you know, g, r, i, n, d, s, t, o, n, e, grinstun, for sharpenin'
+tools on; turn 'em with a handle and pour water on top. Now, sir, hevery
+farm 'ouse 'as got to 'ave a grinstun, and there's 'ow many farm 'ouses
+in Canidy? wy, 'undreds of thousands. You see, there's money in it. Let
+me find a grinstun quarry and I'm a made man. And wot's more, I've found
+the grinstun quarry."</p>
+
+<p>"You have? Where?" asked the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>The working geologist drew off, and playfully planted the forefinger of
+his right hand on the side of his upturned nose, saying "Walker!" Then
+he relented, and, reapproaching his companion, said: "Honour bright,
+now, you're no workin' geologist, lookin' out for the blunt? You're a
+collector of Favosites Wilkinsoma, Stenopora fibrosa, Asaphus
+Canadensis, Ambonychia radiata, Heliopora fragilis, and all that rot,
+ain't you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly seek to make no money out of science, and am a lover of the
+fossil records of ancient life in our planet, but, above all, I assure
+you that I would no more think of betraying your confidence than of
+picking your pocket. If you have any doubts, do not make me your
+confidant."</p>
+
+<p>"Hall right, hold cock, I mean, my dear sir. You're safe has a church.
+There's a 'undred hacre lot hup in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>township of Flanders, has full
+of grinstuns as a hegg's full of meat. It belongs to a Miss Do
+Please-us, but who the dooce she is, I dunno. That's just wot I'm
+a-goin' to find hout. If she hain't paid her taxes, bein' hon the
+non-resident roll, I maybe hable to pick hup the land for less than ten
+dollars, and it'll bring me hin tens of thousands. Then I'll skip back
+to hold Hingland and cut it fat."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine was not so taken up with Muggins that he failed to overhear
+the conversation. He did not catch it all, but he learned that a lady, a
+maiden lady, whose name mediated between Jewplesshy and Do Please, owned
+valuable mineral lands, of which the working geologist intended to
+deprive her by unfair means. Miss Do-Please-us was nothing to him, but
+justice was something, and the man Rawdon was an unutterable cad. How
+Wilkinson could take any pleasure in his society he could not
+understand. He had a good mind to chuck the dominie's stick into the
+next creek and let it float to Jericho. He did throw it away along the
+road, but Muggins brought it back. Deserted by his bosom friend for a
+common, low down cad like that; Oh, by Jove! He strode along in silence,
+while Muggins, his only friend, came and rubbed himself against his leg.
+No, he would not give in to fate in the shape of a Rawdon. He had
+important secrets regarding the welfare of two women, that Providence
+seemed to have thrown in his way, in his possession. If Wilks turned
+traitor, he could break the pact, and make one of these women happy.
+Pity he wasn't a Turk to take care of the pair of them. Night had
+fallen, but the moon shone out and the stars, and it was very pleasant
+walking, if only Wilkinson would give the least hint that he was
+conscious of his friend's existence. But the schoolmaster was happy with
+the mining adventurer, who knew his man well enough to mix a few fossils
+with the grinstuns.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Peskiwanchow Tavern&mdash;Bad Water&mdash;A Scrimmage and Timotheus&mdash;The
+Wigglers&mdash;Pure Water and Philosophy&mdash;Arch&aelig;ology and Muggins&mdash;Mrs.
+Thomas and Marjorie&mdash;Dromore&mdash;Rawdon's Insolence and Checks&mdash;On the
+Road and Tramp's Song&mdash;Maguffin and the Pole-cart.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>"Ere's this beastly 'ole of a Peskiwanchow," said Mr. Rawdon as the
+pedestrians came to a rather larger clearing than usual, prominent in
+which was the traditional country tavern.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it clean?" asked Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there hain't hany pestilence that walketh hin darkness there, not
+to my knowledge; though they say hif you keep your lamp lit hall night,
+they won't come near you; but then, the blessed lamp brings the
+mosquitoes, don't you see?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wilkinson did see, but was glad of the information, as the look of
+the hotel was not reassuring.</p>
+
+<p>"Ullo, Matt!" cried his new friend to the coatless landlord. "I'm back,
+you see, hand 'ave brought you a couple of guests. Look sharp with
+supper, for we're hall 'ungry as 'awks."</p>
+
+<p>The ham which they partook of, with accompanying eggs and lukewarm
+potatoes, was very salt, so that in spite of his three cups of tea
+Wilkinson was thirsty. He went to the bar, situated in the only common
+room, except the dining-room, in the house, and asked for a glass of
+water. A thick, greenish fluid was handed to him, at which, as he held
+it to the light, he looked aghast. Adjusting his eye-glass, he looked
+again, and saw not only vegetable and minute animal organisms, but also
+unmistakable hairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you get this water?" he asked in a very serious tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Out of the well," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you aware that it is one mass of animal and vegetable impurities,
+and that you are liable to typhoid and every other kind of disease as
+the natural effect of drinking such filth?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>The landlord stared, and then stammered that he would have the well
+cleaned out in the morning, not knowing what sort of a health officer
+was before him. But the crowd at the bar said it was good enough for
+them, as long as the critters were well killed off with a good drop of
+rye or malt. Wilkinson asked for a glass of beer, which came out sour
+and flat. "See me put a head on that," said the landlord, dropping a
+pinch of soda into the glass and stirring it in with a spoon. The
+schoolmaster tried to drink the mixture, but in vain; it did not quench
+the thirst, but produced a sickening effect. He felt like a man in a
+strange land, like a wanderer in the desert, a shipwrecked mariner. Oh,
+to be on the <i>Susan Thomas</i>, with miles of pure water all round! Or even
+at home, where the turning of a tap brought all Lake Ontario to one's
+necessities.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no other water than this about?" he asked in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Wy, yees," answered Matt; "thay's the crick a ways down the track, but
+it's that black and masshy I guess you wouldn't like it no better."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, get us some from there, like a good man, to wash with if we
+cannot drink it, and have it taken up to our room," for it had appeared
+that the two pedestrians were to inhabit a double-bedded apartment.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ere, you Timotheus, look spry and go down to the crick and fetch a
+pail of water for No. 6."</p>
+
+<p>A shambling man, almost a hobbledehoy, of about twenty five, ran out to
+obey the command, and, when he returned from No. 6, informed Wilkinson
+civilly that the water was in his room. Something in his homely but
+pleasant face, in his shock head and in his voice, seemed familiar to
+the dominie, yet he could not place his man; when Coristine came along
+and said, "You've got a brother on the <i>Susan Thomas</i>, haven't you, and
+his name is Sylvanus?" The young man shuffled with his feet, opened a
+mouth the very counterpart of "The Crew's," and answered: "Yes, mister,
+he's my oldest brother, is Sylvanus; do you happen to know Sylvanus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Know him?" said the unblushing lawyer, "like a brother; sailed all over
+Lake Simcoe with him."</p>
+
+<p>The lad was proud, and went to his menial tasks with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>a new sense of the
+dignity of his family. He was called for on all sides, and appeared to
+be the only member of the household in perpetual request; but, though
+many liberties were taken with him personally, none were taken with his
+name, which was always given in full, "Ti-mo-th&eacute;-us!" Wilkinson was too
+tired, thirsty and generally disgusted to do anything but sit, as he
+never would have sat elsewhere, on a chair tilted against the wall.
+Coristine would fain have had a talk with "The Crew's" brother, but that
+worthy was ever flitting about from bar-room to kitchen, and from well
+to stable; always busy and always cheerful.</p>
+
+<p>The Grinstun man came swaggering up after treating all hands at the bar
+to whisky, in which treat the pedestrians were included by invitation,
+declined with thanks, and suggested a game of cards&mdash;any game they
+liked&mdash;stakes to be drinks; or, if the gents preferred it, cigars.
+Coristine somewhat haughtily refused, and Wilkinson, true to his
+principles, but in a more conciliatory tone, said that he did not play
+them. He was obliged, therefore, to get the landlord, Matt, and a couple
+of bar-room loafers to take hands with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my dear boy, get out your draft-board and I'll play you a game,"
+said Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>The board was produced, the flat, cardboard chessmen turned upside down,
+and the corner of a table, on which a few well-thumbed newspapers lay,
+utilized for the game. The players were so interested in making moves
+and getting kings that, at first, they did not notice the talk of the
+card players which was directed against them; for Matt, being called
+away to his bar, was replaced by a third loafer. Gradually there came to
+their ears the words, "conceited, offish, up-settin', pedlars, tramps,
+pious scum," with condemnatory and other adjectives prefixed, and then
+they knew that their characters and occupations were undergoing
+unfavourable review. Mr. Rawdon was too "hail fellow well met" with the
+loafers to offer any protest. He joined in the laugh that greeted each
+new sally of vulgar abuse, and occasionally helped his neighbours on by
+such remarks as, "We musn't be too 'ard on 'em, they hain't used to such
+company as hus," which was followed by a loud guffaw. Wilkinson was
+playing badly, for he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>felt uncomfortable. Coristine chewed his
+moustache and became red in the face. The landlord looked calmly on. At
+last the card players, having had their third drink since the game
+began, came over to the little table. One of the roughest and
+worst-tongued of the three picked up a pile of dirty newspapers, looked
+at one of them for a moment, pshawed as if there was nothing in them,
+and threw the pile down with a twist of his hand fair on to the
+draft-board, sweeping it half off the table and all the cardboard men to
+the floor. In a moment Coristine was up, and laid hold of the fellow by
+the shoulder. Pale but resolute, the schoolmaster, who had done physical
+duty by unruly boys, stood beside him. The working geologist and the
+landlord, Matt, looked on to see the fun of a fight between two city men
+and three country bullies.</p>
+
+<p>"Get down there," said Coristine to his man, trembling with indignation,
+"get down there, and pick up all these chessmen, or I'll wring your neck
+for you." The fellow made a blow at him with his free hand, a blow that
+Coristine parried, and then the Irishman, letting go of his antagonist's
+arm, gave him a sounding whack with all the might of his right fist,
+that sent him sprawling to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Pile in on 'im, boys!" cried the prostrate ruffian, who had lost a
+tooth and bled freely at the nose. The other two prepared to pile, when
+the schoolmaster faced one of them, and kept him off. It is hard to say
+how matters would have gone, had not a tornado entered the bar room in
+the shape of Timotheus. How he did it, no one could tell, but, in less
+than two minutes, the two standing bullies and the prostrate one were
+all outside the tavern door, which was locked behind them. Peace once
+more reigned in the hotel, and it was in order for Matt and the Grinstun
+man to congratulate Coristine on his knock down blow. He showed no
+desire for their commendation, but, with his friend, whom Timotheus
+helped to pick up the chessmen, retired to his room. The Crew's brother
+had disappeared before he had had a chance to thank him.</p>
+
+<p>Before retiring for the night, the lawyer was determined to be upsides
+with Mr. Rawdon. He asked his roomfellow if he had any writing
+materials, and was at once provided with paper, envelopes, and a
+fountain pen.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>"I hope I'm not depriving you of these, Wilks, my dear," he said, when
+the party thus addressed almost threw himself upon his neck, saying,
+"Corry, my splendid, brave fellow, everything I have is at your absolute
+disposal, 'supreme of heroes&mdash;bravest, noblest, best!'" for he could not
+forget his Wordsworth. Coristine wrote to the clerk of the municipality
+of Flanders, to know where Miss Jewplesshy or Do Please-us had a lot,
+and whether the taxes on it had been paid. He directed him to answer to
+his office in Toronto, and also wrote to his junior, instructing him how
+to act upon this reply. These letters being written and prepared for the
+post, he and the dominie read together out of the little prayer book,
+left the window open and the lamp burning, and went to bed. Before they
+fell asleep, they heard the barking of a dog. "It's that poor brute,
+Muggins," said Coristine; "I'll go, and let him in, if that brute of a
+master of his won't." So, in spite of Wilkinson's remonstrances, he
+arose and descended the stairs to the bar-room. Nobody was there but
+Timotheus sleeping in a back tilted chair. He slipped quietly along in
+his bare feet, but Timotheus, though sleeping, was on guard. The Crew's
+brother awoke, soon as he tried the door, and in a moment, was on his
+back. "It's I, my good Timotheus," said the lawyer, and at once the grip
+relaxed. "I want to let that poor dog, Muggins, in." Then Timotheus
+unlocked the door, and Coristine whistled, and called "Hi Muggins,
+Muggins, Muggy, Mug, Mug, Mug, Mug!" when the mongrel came bounding in,
+with every expression of delight. Coristine warmly thanked The Crew's
+brother, pressed a dollar on his acceptance, and then retired to No. 6.
+Muggins followed him, and lay down upon the rag carpet outside that
+apartment, to keep watch and ward for the rest of the night, entirely
+ignoring his owner, the Grinstun man.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pail of swamp water in the middle of the room, at the bottom
+of which lay some little black things. As this water became warm, these
+little fellows began to rise and become frolicksome. Like minute
+porpoises or dolphins, they joined in the mazy dance, and rose higher
+and higher. All night long, by the light of the kerosene lamp, they
+indulged in silent but unceasing hilarity. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>snores of the sleepers,
+the watchful dream-yaps of Muggins, did not affect them. They were bound
+to have a good time, and they were having it. Morning came, and the sun
+stole in through the window. Then, the wiggler grew tired, and came,
+like many tired beings, to the top. For a time he was quiescent, but
+soon the sun's rays gave force to the inner impulse which "rent the veil
+of his old husk," and transformed it into a canoe or raft, containing a
+draggle-tailed-looking creature with a big head and six staggery legs.
+Poising itself upon the raft, the outcome of the wiggler sunned its
+crumplety wings, till "like gauze they grew," and then all of it, a
+whole pailful of it, made for the sleepers, to help its more mature
+relations, which had come in through the open window to the light, to
+practice amateur phlebotomy upon them. The pedestrians awoke to feel
+uncomfortable, and rub and scratch their faces, heads, necks, and hands.
+"It's clean devoured I am, Wilks," cried Coristine. "The plagues of
+Egypt have visited us," replied the dominie. So, they arose and dressed
+themselves, and descended to the noisome bar-room. There they found
+Timotheus, awake and busy, while, at their heels, frisking about and
+looking for recognition, was their night guard Muggins. Timotheus
+informed them that he had already been out probing the well with a pike
+pole, and had brought up the long defunct bodies of a cat and a hen,
+with an old shoe and part of a cabbage, to say nothing of other things
+as savoury. They decided to take no more meals cooked with such water in
+that house, paid their bill to Timotheus, buckled on their knapsacks,
+and, with staff in hand, sallied forth into the pure outside air of the
+morning. Coristine ran over to the store in which the post office was
+kept, and posted his two letters. There was no sign of Matt, the
+landlord, of Mr. Rawdon, or of their assailants of the night before.
+Muggins, however, followed them, and no entreaties, threats, or stones
+availed to drive the faithful creature back to his master and the hotel
+where he slept.</p>
+
+<p>The pedestrians passed the black, sluggish creek, out of which the
+wigglers had come, and struck into a country, flat but more interesting
+than that they had left behind them. After they had gone a couple of
+miles they came to a clear running stream, in which they had a splendid
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>wash, that tended to allay the irritation of the mosquito bites. Then
+they brought forth the remains of their biscuits and cheese, and partook
+of a clean meal, which Coristine called a good foundation for a smoke,
+Muggins sitting upon his hind legs and catching fragments of captain's
+biscuits and whole gingersnaps in his mouth, as if he had never done
+anything else. It was very pleasant to sit by the brook on that bright
+July morning, after the horrors of the Peskiwanchow tavern, to have
+clean food and abundance of pure water. As the dominie revelled in it,
+he expressed the opinion that Pindar was right when he said "ariston men
+hudor," which, said the lawyer, means that water is the best of all the
+elements, but how would Mr. Pindar have got along without earth to walk
+on, air to breathe, and fire to cook his dinner?</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no philosopher, Wilks, like you, but it seems to me that perfection
+is found in no one thing. If it was, the interdependence of the universe
+would be destroyed; harmony would be gone, and love, which is just the
+highest harmony, be lost. That's just why I couldn't be a unitarian of
+any kind. As Tennyson says, 'one good custom would corrupt the world.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, Corry, he does not say that, but makes Arthur say:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i4'>God fulfils himself in many ways,</div>
+<div>Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Better and better! but that's what the churches don't see, nor the
+politicians, nor the socialists, nor the prohibitionists, nor the
+scientists, nor anybody else hardly, it seems to me. When a man's got
+two eyes to see with, why should he shut one and keep out half the view?
+This 'ariston men hudor' idea&mdash;I'm not arguing against temperance, for
+it's temperate enough we are both&mdash;but this one thing is best notion
+would bring the beautiful harmonious world into dull, dead uniformity.
+There's a friend of mine that studies his Bible without any reference to
+the old systems of theology, and finds these old systems have made some
+big mistakes in interpreting its sayings, when a newspaper blockhead
+comes along and says if he won't conform let him go out of the church.
+There's a one-eyed man for you, an ecclesiastical Polyphemus! Our
+politicians are just the same, without a broad, liberal idea to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>clothe
+their naked, thieving policies with. And the scientists! some of them
+stargazing, like Thales, so that they fall into the ditch of disrepute
+by failing to observe what's nearer home, and others, like Bunyan's man
+in Interpreter's house, so busy with the muckrake that they are ignorant
+of the crown held over their heads. Now, you and I are liberal and
+broad, we can love nature and love God too, we can admire poetry and put
+our hands to any kind of honest work; you can teach boys with your
+wonderful patience, and, with your pluck, knock a door in, and stand up,
+like a man, to fight for your friend. But, Wilks, my boy, I'm afraid
+it's narrow we are, too, about the women."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Corry, that subject, you know&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, not another word," interposed the lawyer, laughing and
+springing to his feet; "let us jog along</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>A village schoolmaster was he,</div>
+<div class='i2'>With hair of glittering grey;</div>
+<div>As blithe a man as you could see</div>
+<div class='i2'>On a spring holiday.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>And on that morning, through the grass,</div>
+<div class='i2'>And by the streaming rills,</div>
+<div>We travelled merrily, to pass</div>
+<div class='i2'>A day among the hills."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"When did you take to Wordsworth, Corry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, many a time, but I refreshed my memory with that yesterday, when I
+came across the tear in the old man's eye."</p>
+
+<p>"It is most appropriate, for there, on the right, are actual hills."</p>
+
+<p>As the travellers approached the rising ground, which the dominie had
+perceived, the lawyer remarked that the hillocks had an artificial look.</p>
+
+<p>"And they are undoubtedly artificial," replied Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the township of Nottawasaga, once inhabited by the Tobacco
+tribe of the Hurons, who had many villages, and grew tobacco and corn,
+besides making beads, pipes, and other articles, for sale or barter.
+They made their pipes out of the Trenton sandstone. A great many village
+sites and ossuaries have been found in the township, the latter
+containing thousands of skeletons. They have all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>been opened up by the
+settlers for the sake of the copper kettles and other objects buried in
+them. These long, narrow hillocks are earthworks, the foundation of a
+rude fortification or palisade round a village. The Arch&aelig;ological
+Reports of the Canadian Institute contain very full and interesting
+accounts of the explorations made in this very region. We are on
+historic ground, Corry."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Lo!" ejaculated the lawyer, "whatever is that dog after? Hi,
+Muggins, Muggins!"</p>
+
+<p>But Muggins would not leave the earthwork into which he was digging with
+rapidly moving forepaws. As Coristine remarked, it was a regular
+Forepaugh's circus. When the pedestrians came up to him, he had a large
+hole made in apparently fresh dug earth, and had uncovered a tin box,
+japanned above. This the pair disinterred with their walking-sticks,
+amid great demonstrations from the terrier. The lawyer opened it
+judicially, and found it to contain a lot of fragments of hard
+limestone, individually labelled. Looking over these, his eye rested on
+one marked P.B. Miss Du Plessis, lot 3, concession 2, township of
+Flanders. Others were labelled T. Mulcahy, S. Storch, R. McIver, O.
+Fish, with their lots, concessions and townships, and the initials F.M.
+and P.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the import of this?" asked the schoolmaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Import or export, it's the Grinstun man, the owner of this sagacious
+dog, that buried this box till he had time to bring a waggon for it.
+These are samples of grindstone rock, and, if I am not a Dutchman, F
+means fair, M, middling, P, poor, and P.B., prime boss, and that is Miss
+Du Plessis. Gad! we've got her now, Jewplesshy, Do Please, Do Please-us,
+are just Du Plessis. It's a pleasant sort of name, Wilks, my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do with this treasure trove, might I ask?"
+inquired the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"Bury it," replied the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust you will make no unfair use of the information it contains,
+part of which was confided to me privately, and under seal of secrecy,
+by Mr. Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Wilks, howld your tongue about that. I ask you no questions, you
+tell me no lies nor anything else. If you think I'm going to see a girl
+cheated, just because <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>she is a girl, you don't know your friend. But
+you do, you honest old Wilks, don't you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, only remember I breathed no hint of this in your ear."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, old man," answered Miss Du Plessis' self-constituted
+advocate, as he shovelled the earth in over the tin box. "Muggins, you
+rascal, if you dig that up again, I'll starve you to death."</p>
+
+<p>The pedestrians deserted the arch&aelig;ological find, and trudged away into
+the north west.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my dear, I feel like the black crow," said Coristine, as they
+journeyed along the pleasant highway.</p>
+
+<p>"Like what?" asked the dominie, adjusting his eye-glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Like the crow, don't you know?</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Said one black crow unto his mate,</div>
+<div>What shall we do for grub to ate?</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Faith, it'll be an awful thing if we're going to die of starvation in
+the wilderness."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were a botanist, Corry?"</p>
+
+<p>"So I am, in a small way."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, what bushes are those in that beaver meadow?"</p>
+
+<p>In another minute, the lawyer, closely followed by Muggins, was in the
+meadow, exclaiming "Vaccinium Canadense! Come on, Wilks, and have a
+feast." Muggins was eating the berries with great satisfaction, and
+Coristine kept him company. The dominie also partook of them, remarking:
+"This is the whortleberry, or berry of the hart, vulgarly called the
+huckleberry, although huckle means a hump, which is most inappropriate."</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me of a man with a hump, though there wasn't much heart to
+him," said Coristine, his mouth full of fruit. "He undertook to write on
+Canada after spending a month here. He said the Canadians have no fruit
+but a very inferior raspberry, and that they actually sell bilberries in
+the shops. As a further proof of their destitution, he was told that
+haws and acorns are exposed for sale in the Montreal markets. Such a
+country, he said, is no place for a refined Englishman. I don't wonder
+my countrymen rise up against the English."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>"You forget, Corry, that I am English, and proud of my descent from the
+Saxon Count Witikind."</p>
+
+<p>"Beg your pardon, Wilks, but you're a good Englishman, and I never
+dreamt your progenitor was that awful heathen:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Save us, St. Mary, from flood and from fire,</div>
+<div>From famine and pest, and Count Witikind's ire.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>As the Englishmen said, there is no need to hask 'ow the hell got into
+your name."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, this is most unseemly. I wonder you are not ashamed to speak
+thus, with that innocent dog beside you."</p>
+
+<p>"O, dad, he's heard worse things than that; haven't you now, Muggins?
+Trust him to live with a cad of a Grinstun man, and not to pick up bad
+language."</p>
+
+<p>"Ullo, there, you dog-stealers!" fell upon the ears of the berry-pickers
+like a thunder clap. They looked up, and saw a neat waggonette, drawn by
+a team of well-kept bay horses, in which, on a back seat, sat Mr. Rawdon
+and a little girl with long fair hair. On the front seat were two
+well-dressed women, one of whom was driving; the other wore a widow's
+cap, and had a gentle, attractive face. The waggon stopped for them to
+come on to the road, which, leaving their berries, they did, taking off
+their hats to the ladies as they approached.</p>
+
+<p>"We did all we could, Mr. Rawdon, to make your dog go back to the hotel,
+but he insisted on following us," said Wilkinson, apologetically.</p>
+
+<p>"All very fine, my beauty, you 'ooked 'im and got 'im to shew you ware
+this 'ere box was. I'm hup to your larks, and you such a hinnocent too!"</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson was indignant, and denied having anything to do with the box.</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful what you say, Mr. Rawdon," said Coristine, "I'm a lawyer,
+and may make a case, if you are not judicious in your language."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh come hoff, I don't mean no 'arm; it's just my fun. 'Ave you any
+hobjection to give these 'ere gents a lift, Mrs. Thomas?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, whatever," replied the lady who was driving.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if you don't mind, I'll get hin halongside hof your sister hin
+front, hand leave them to keep company <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>with little Marjorie 'ere," said
+the working geologist; and climbed over into the front seat outside of
+the attractive widow. Still, the pedestrians hesitated, till Mrs.
+Thomas, a by no means uncomely woman, said: "Get in, gentlemen, we shall
+be pleased to have your company." This decided them. They sprang into
+the waggon, one on each side of the little girl called Marjorie. The
+horses trotted along, and Muggins hovered about them, with an occasional
+ecstatic bark.</p>
+
+<p>"I like you and your little dog," said Marjorie to Coristine, who
+replied: "God bless you for a little darling." After this interchange of
+confidence, they became great friends. Wilkinson found himself somewhat
+left out, but the Grinstun man threw him an odd bone, now and then, in
+the shape of a geological remark, keeping clear, however, of
+grindstones.</p>
+
+<p>"What's your name, Marjorie?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Marjorie," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but what's your other name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie Carmichael."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your father's name?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my papa's name is Captain Thomas."</p>
+
+<p>"And has he got a ship on Lake Simcoe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, how did you know? He's got a ship, and a lumber yard, and a saw
+mill, and a farm, and a lot of things. Saul is on the farm, and Mr.
+Pratt works the mill, and Gudgeon looks after the yard, and Sylvanus is
+on the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Saul?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's the father of Sylvanus and Timotheus. Only Timotheus doesn't work
+for us. He wouldn't say his catechism on Sundays, so Saul said he had to
+go. I don't wonder he wouldn't say his catechism, do you? It speaks
+about God's getting awful angry and cursing. God doesn't get angry with
+little boys and girls and curse them, does he, Mr. What's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Coristine, but the name my little sister would have called
+me, if I had had a little sister like you, would be Eugene. No, I never
+read that God cursed any little girls and boys, nor anybody, not even
+the devil."</p>
+
+<p>"And he's very very bad, isn't he? My cousin Marjorie Carruthers, that
+I'm called after, says Timotheus <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>should have learned his catechism; but
+she doesn't think God curses children. Then I said he oughtn't to learn
+what isn't true."</p>
+
+<p>"O my darlint, but it's right you are. I wish I had you up on the dais
+at the Synod, to teach the bishops and all the clergy. Is she a nice
+little girl, your cousin Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's nice, but she isn't little, not a single bit. She lives away away
+in Toronto, and teaches school. Now, put your head down and I'll whisper
+something in your ear."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine put his head down beside the long, fair curls, and Marjorie
+whispered, pointing a finger at the same time towards the widow: "That's
+my Aunt Marjorie, and she's Marjorie's mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is cousin Marjorie now!"</p>
+
+<p>"She's up at Uncle Carruthers', along with Miss Du Plessis. Do you know
+Miss Du Plessis? Oh, she's lovely, and, do you know?&mdash;put down your head
+again&mdash;that ugly little man sitting by Auntie says he's going to marry
+her. Isn't it too bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"Infernal little beast! O, my dear Marjorie, I beg your pardon. I was
+thinking of that rascal of a mosquito on your hand&mdash;there, he's dead!
+Yes, it would be too bad, but she'll never marry such a man as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she'll have to, because she's very poor, and he says he's going
+to make heaps and heaps of money. People shouldn't marry for money,
+should they?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear, they should marry for love, if they marry at all. Will you
+marry me when you grow to be a young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, you'll be too old then. Put your head down. You go and take away
+Miss Du Plessis from that naughty, bad little man, and I'll love you, O,
+ever so much.'</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps she won't have me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes she will, because you would look very nice if you would take
+that black stuff that scratched me off your face."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, I'll get a clean shave at Collingwood this very night."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll get Auntie to write to Marjorie and tell her that my own
+Prince Charming, with a clean shave, is com<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>ing to take Cecile away from
+the ugly little rich man that says: 'An' 'ow is my young friend?' Won't
+that be nice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please don't tell your aunt to write that."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will, so there!"</p>
+
+<p>The waggonette was now in the midst of a rather pretty village situated
+on a branch of the Nottawasaga River, and came to a stand still opposite
+the post office.</p>
+
+<p>"If you gentlemen have business in the village, you can get out here,"
+said Mrs. Thomas, "but, if not, we shall be pleased to have you dine
+with us."</p>
+
+<p>The pedestrians thought of their last tavern experience, and felt
+disposed to accept the hospitable invitation, but Marjorie clinched
+their resolution by saying: "Eugene is coming to dinner with me, and his
+friend may come too," at which everybody laughed. The waggon moved on
+for another half mile, and then stopped in front of a pretty and
+commodious frame house, painted white, with red-brown doors and window
+frames and green shutters. Porch and verandah were covered with Virginia
+creeper, climbing roses and trumpet honeysuckle. Mr. Rawdon looked after
+himself, but Wilkinson and Coristine helped the ladies and the little
+girl to dismount, while an old man with a shock head, evidently Saul,
+took the horses round. Muggins greeted the whole party with a series of
+wiggles and barks, whereupon the Grinstun man gave him a savage kick
+that sent the dog away yelping.</p>
+
+<p>"I said you were a naughty, bad, cruel man to my own self and to people
+I like," said Marjorie with indignation, "but now I say it right out to
+you, and for everybody to hear that wants to&mdash;a nasty, ugly, cruel
+little man!"</p>
+
+<p>The working geologist was very angry and got very red in the face. Had
+he dared, he would probably have kicked the girl too. Policy compelled
+him to keep his temper outwardly, so he turned it off with a laugh, and
+said: "You don't know that little beast has I do, Marjorie, or you
+wouldn't go hand take 'is part. Of all the hungrateful, treacherous,
+sneakin', bad-'earted curs that ever gnawed a bone, 'e's the
+top-sawyer."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it," answered Marjorie stoutly, and with all the
+license allowed to a late and only child.</p>
+
+<p>When the ladies took off their bonnets and rejoined their guests in the
+parlour, the pedestrians were much <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>struck with their appearance and
+demeanour, especially in the case of Mrs. Carmichael, than whom no lady
+could have been more gentle mannered and gracious. She had evidently had
+enough of Mr. Rawdon, for she turned in the most natural way to
+Wilkinson and engaged him in conversation on a variety of topics. The
+schoolmaster found her a charming talker and an interested listener.
+Marjorie and Coristine sat on a sofa with Muggins between them, while
+the working geologist banged about some photographs on a centre table.
+At dinner, to which Mrs. Thomas soon summoned them, Coristine had the
+post of honour with Marjorie to his right. Mrs. Carmichael sat at the
+foot of the table with Wilkinson by her side, and Rawdon was at Mrs.
+Thomas' left. While doing justice to an excellent repast, the lawyer
+informed his hostess that he was not an entire stranger to her family,
+and gave an account of his passage in the <i>Susan Thomas</i> from Belle
+Ewart to Barrie. He also referred to Sylvanus and Timotheus, and dwelt
+upon the excellent service rendered by the latter. The Grinstun man
+disliked the turn things were taking, as he felt himself out in the
+cold, for the widow absorbed the dominie, and Marjorie would not look at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>When dessert came on the table, he turned to the schoolmaster and rudely
+interrupted his conversation, saying: "Look 'ere, Mr. Favosites
+Wilkinsonia, I don't see as you've hany call to keep hall the widder's
+talk to yourself. I move we change places," and he rose to effect the
+change.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said Wilkinson, with offended dignity, "I am not accustomed to
+anything of that description at a dinner party where there are ladies;
+but, if it's Mrs. Carmichael's desire that we should interchange seats,
+I am ready to comply."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Carmichael evidently did not relish being called "the widder," nor
+the society of Mr. Rawdon, for she answered, "Certainly not, Mr.
+Wilkinson," and resumed her conversation with him. The baffled geologist
+turned to the hostess, while Marjorie engaged Coristine's attention, and
+in a petulant way stated his case. "You know the kind of man I ham, Mrs.
+Thomas, I'm a man of haction. I strike wen the hiron's 'ot. By good
+luck, I went back to Peskiwanchow last night, though it is a beastly
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>'ole, and got letters hat the post hoffice this mornin'. My hagent, at
+Toronto says, Mrs. Do Please-us is pretty badly hout for want of chink,
+hand that the girl's ready to jump hat hany reasonable hoffer. Now, hall
+I say his, give a man a chance. If she's the stunner they say she his,
+I'll marry her hinside of a week and make a lady of 'er, and hallow the
+hold 'ooman a pound a week, yes, I'll go has 'igh has thirty shillin',
+that's seven dollars and a 'arf. You get me a hinvite or give me a
+hintroduction to your brother's 'ouse in Flanders, and get the widder to
+back it hup with a good word to 'er daughter that's Miss Do Please-us's
+bosom friend, and I'll give the capting the contrack to carry hall the
+grinstuns shipped to Lake Simcoe ports." Then, sinking his voice to a
+whisper, he continued, "I'll do one better; I'll show you ware there's
+has fine a quarry of buildin' stun hon your farm 'ere has can be got
+hanyware in Canidy. Then, wot's to 'inder your 'avin the best 'ouse
+twixt 'ere and Collinwood?" This last stroke of policy carried his
+point, and secured him the promise of an introduction, but Mrs. Thomas
+could not promise for her sister. All the time, Coristine, who could not
+help overhearing, twisted his moustache fiercely, and, under his breath,
+called the geologist a contemptible and unspeakable little cad.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterwards, much to Marjorie's grief, the pedestrians put on
+their knapsacks and grasped their sticks for the road. They warmly
+thanked their hostess and her accomplished sister for their kind
+hospitality, and for the exceedingly pleasant hours they had spent in
+their company. They were cordially invited to call any time when they
+were near the village, and especially when the captain was at home, as
+he would never forgive himself for missing this treat. Marjorie kissed
+her Eugene, telling him to be a good boy, and remember what he had
+promised her about "you know who." "Ullo young 'ooman," said the
+Grinstun man, "you had ort to save one of them for yours
+haffectionately," at which the small lady was so indignant that she
+threatened to box his ugly big ears. "O Marjorie, how rude! whatever
+will these gentlemen from Toronto think!" Coristine could not bear to
+leave his little friend in disgrace, without a word of comfort, so he
+said: "Pardon me, Mrs. Thomas, for saying that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>rudeness did not
+originate with Marjorie," for which the child gave him a grateful
+glance. "You had better keep your dog in, Mr. Rawdon," called out
+Wilkinson, "or he will be after us again." The little man ran down the
+garden walk to get a farewell kick at his property, but Muggins,
+foreseeing danger, ran out of the gate, which old Saul held open for
+him. "You can keep the beastly cur, I don't want 'im, hungrateful,
+treacherous, long legged, 'airy brute," the last two adjectives being
+put in for Coristine's benefit, as allusions to his height and his
+moustache.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back, Mr. Wilkinson," called Mrs. Carmichael. The dominie
+returned, and had a large fragrant rose pinned by fair hands to his
+button hole, blushing violently all the time. "You come back too,
+Eugene, but don't let Muggy in or he'll be kicked," cried Marjorie, who,
+on her favourite's return, gave him another parting salute and pinned
+two roses on his coat. Muggins waited for them till they closed the gate
+finally behind them, lifted their hats three times, and began their
+afternoon's journey.</p>
+
+<p>"That Mrs. Carmichael," remarked Wilkinson, "is one of the most
+intelligent and lady-like women I ever met, and she is wonderfully well
+read in the poets, Corry."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that subject was tabooed between us, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, my dear fellow, I have no objection to the sex in a Platonic
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"Dad, but it wasn't very platonic you looked when the pretty widow was
+fastening that button hole for you. Was she talking about her daughter
+at the schools?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word; she did not even hint that she had a daughter. She must
+have been very young when the doctor married her."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's one thing we have to thank that howling cad of a Grinstun
+man for. I'm real sorry I missed having a chat with Saul about the
+catechism."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that!" So the lawyer related his conversation with Marjorie,
+and Wilkinson said, "Really, Corrie, as an educationist, I must say you
+do wrong to encourage such pertness in so young a child."</p>
+
+<p>"Pertness is it? It's nature's own cleverness in the sweet little lass.
+Wilks, I'd give a good deal to have that little sunbeam or one like her
+with me all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Adopt one," suggested the schoolmaster.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>"Adopt one," replied the lawyer with a bitter laugh, "adopt one for
+Mrs. Marsh to look after? No, when I've a house of my own and a good
+housekeeper, and more time to spend on a child, I'll think over the
+hint."</p>
+
+<p>The pair tramped steadily on, though the sun was hot, for there was a
+pleasant breeze, and the scenery became bolder and more picturesque.
+They came to rising ground, at the foot of which lay a fertile valley,
+and beyond it the Blue Mountains. Gazing across at them, the dominie
+exclaimed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i6'>Yon azure ridge,</div>
+<div>Is it a perishable cloud&mdash;or there</div>
+<div>Do we behold the frame of Erin's coast?</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"No, Wilks, no! Erin's away on the confines of Wellington and Peel, and
+we are on those of Simcoe and Grey."</p>
+
+<p>"Slight man, did you not perceive that I quoted poetry, and that the
+allusion is to your native isle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Faith. I wish the real Erin was over there; it's the old lady would be
+in my arms as fast as I could run across. But this place deserves a
+song, so here goes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Though down in yonder valley</div>
+<div>The mist is like a sea,</div>
+<div>Though the sun be scarcely risen,</div>
+<div>There's light enough for me.</div>
+<div>For, be it early morning,</div>
+<div>Or be it late at night,</div>
+<div>Cheerily ring our footsteps,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Right, left, right.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>We wander by the woodland</div>
+<div>That hangs upon the hill;</div>
+<div>Hark! the cock is tuning</div>
+<div>His morning clarion shrill;</div>
+<div>And hurriedly awaking</div>
+<div>From his nest amid the spray,</div>
+<div>Cheerily now, the blackbird,</div>
+<div>Whistling, greets the day.</div>
+<div class='i2'>For be it early morning, etc.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>We gaze upon the streamlet,</div>
+<div>As o'er the bridge we lean;</div>
+<div>We watch its hurried ripples</div>
+<div>We mark its golden green.</div>
+<div>Oh, the men of the north are stalwart,</div>
+<div>And the norland lasses fair;</div>
+<div>And cheerily breathes around us</div>
+<div>The bracing norland air.</div>
+<div class='i2'>We smoke our black old meerschaums,</div>
+<div class='i2'>We smoke from morn till night,</div>
+<div class='i2'>While cheerily ring our footsteps,</div>
+<div class='i4'>Right, left, right."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>"Well done, Corry! I thought at first it was your own composition, but
+I see it is an English song."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it came out long ago as 'The Tramp's Song' in <i>Sharpe's Magazine</i>,
+where I found it, and changed moor and moorland to north and norland, as
+better suited to our purpose. It's a good song."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of vehicle is that just in front of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pole on four wheels drawn by a team of oxen, and I'm going to
+make a triumphant entry into Collingwood on it. The driver is a negro,
+as black as my boots&mdash;were." Coristine soon overtook the remarkable
+vehicle, and accosted the driver, telling him that he had ridden on
+horses, donkeys, mules, and once each on a cow, a camel and an elephant;
+in all sorts of carriages, carts and waggons, even to a gun carriage,
+but never on a pole behind an ox team. Had he any objections to letting
+him and his friend get aboard? The coloured gentleman showed a fine set
+of ivory, and said he had no dejections in the leas', and guessed the
+oxen didn't hab none. "The po-ul," he remarked, "is thar, not foh ridin'
+on, but ter keep the axles apaht, so's ter load on bodes and squab
+timbah. If yoh's that way inclined, the po-ul aint a gwine ter break
+frew, not with yoh dismenshuns. Guess the oxen doan hab ter stop fer yoh
+bof ter git aboahd?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," said Coristine, as he jumped on the pole behind the driver.
+"Come on, Wilks, it's a cross between the tight rope and the tiller of
+the <i>Susan Thomas</i>." But the dominie refused to be charmed or inveigled
+into a position of peril or ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>"Yoh best take this yeah feed-bag ter save yoh pants and fezz'etate the
+keepin' of yoh ekilibroom," said the courteous darkey, as he handed the
+lawyer one of the bags that formed his own cushion.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, with a feed-bag under you, riding on a rail is just heavenly."</p>
+
+<p>"If it was a rai-ul, you'd know it mighty soon, boss, fer rai-uls is
+angulish and shahp and hahd on the pants, but a po-ul is rounded and
+smoove. How are yoh comin' along?"</p>
+
+<p>"In great shape, Mr.&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Maguffin, sah, is my applenashun. Tobias Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin.
+The low down folks around, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>they teenames me Tobe and Toby, that's the
+shanty men and mill hans. But when I goes whar they's a meetin' of the
+bruddren, it's Mistah Maguffin, ebery time."</p>
+
+<p>The pole cart, as Coristine called it, was going down hill, now, and the
+oxen began to run.</p>
+
+<p>"Hole on tight, Mistah, them cattle's too lazy to stop runnin' befoh
+they gits to the determination ob this dercliverty," called the driver;
+and the lawyer held on in spite of frantic cries from his companion.
+"Come off, Coristine, come off, and do not make an object of yourself
+before the whole town." Coristine held on till the bottom of the hill
+was reached. Then he shook hands with his coloured brother, returned him
+the feed bag, and waited for Wilkinson. In friendly converse they
+entered the town of Collingwood, and put up at a clean and comfortable,
+almost fashionable, hotel. There, for the night, they may be left in
+safety, with this remark, that Coristine fulfilled his promise to the
+little girl, and got a clean shave before retiring.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Collingwood&mdash;Colonel Morton&mdash;Maguffin Engaged&mdash;Stepping
+Westward&mdash;Wild Thyme and a Bath&mdash;The Shale-works&mdash;Muggins and the
+Clergymen&mdash;Durham Mustard, and Marjorie&mdash;The Squire&mdash;The Grinstun
+Man&mdash;Lunch, Wordsworth and Original Poetry&mdash;Two Old People on the
+Blue Mountains.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>At supper they had, for their vis-a-vis, a tall, aristocratic-looking
+man, attired airily in a mixture of jean and silk. His nose was
+aquiline, his eyes grey and piercing withal, his hair grey, but
+abundant, and his clean shaved mouth and chin mingled delicacy with
+strength of character.</p>
+
+<p>"The weathah has been wahm, gentlemen," he remarked; to which statement
+they assented.</p>
+
+<p>"I obsehved you entah the ho-tel, and pehceived that you are travelling
+for pleasuhe by yo-ah knapsacks. I also am travelling, partly foh
+pleasuhe, partly foh mattahs of family business. My ideahs, gentlemen,
+are old fashioned, too much so foh railyoads. The Mississippi is ouah
+natuhal highway from the South, but, unfohtunately, the to me unpleasant
+railyoad had to connect its head watahs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>with Lake Michigan, by which
+route I find myself heah, on my way to a city called To-hon-to. You know
+it, I pehsume?"</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson's geographical lore was now unfolded. He discussed the
+Mississippi, although he had not been on that river, exhibited an
+intimate acquaintance with cities and routes which had never seen him in
+the flesh, and, by his quiet, gentlemanly, and, to the much older man,
+deferential tone, was admitted to the confidence of Colonel Morton, of
+Louisiana, South American trader, ship-owner and the possessor of a fine
+estate, which, although it had suffered greatly during the war, in which
+the colonel commanded a cavalry regiment, was yet productive and
+remunerative.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a widowah, suh, and a childless old man," continued the colonel;
+"my only boy fell in the wah ah, and it broke his mother's heaht. Pahdon
+me," he said, as his voice shook a little, and the least glimmer of a
+tear stood in his eye, "I rahely talk of these mattahs of a puhely
+pehsonal kind, but, as you are kind enough to be intehested in my
+affaiahs, I say this much by way of explanation."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure, Colonel Morton, we deeply sympathize with you in so great a
+double bereavement," interposed the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed we do, sir, most sincerely," added the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"I thank you, gentlemen," answered the courteous Southerner. "I was
+going to remahk that the only pehson in whom I feel a family intehest is
+my lamented wife's sistah, a Madame Du Plessis, who has resided foh many
+yeahs in yoah city of To-hon-to. May I enquiah, gentlemen, if you have,
+either of you, heahd the name befoah?"</p>
+
+<p>Coristine replied that, incidentally, he had heard the names of both
+Madame Du Plessis and her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I am awaah, suh, that my wife's sister has a daughtah. Can you tell me
+of my sister-in-law's suhcumstances, and what her daughtah, my niece, is
+like in appeahance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only from hearsay, Colonel. Madame Du Plessis is said to be in
+straightened circumstances, and I learn, from several quarters, that
+Miss Du Plessis is an attractive and amiable young lady; 'illigant' is
+what a countryman of mine, who served under her father, termed his young
+mistress."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>"And her baptismal name, suh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is Cecile, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, to be suah, my deah wife's name, Cecilia, gallicized. She and
+Madame Du Plessis were Castilians of Lima. Du Plessis was theah in the
+ahmy, I in commehcial puhsuits, and we mahhied the sistahs, the belles
+of the Rimac.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Que' es la vida? Un frenesi</div>
+<div>Que' es la vida? Una ilusion,</div>
+<div>Una sombra, una ficcion.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>You read Spanish, Mr. Wilkinson?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little, sir; I think I recognize Calderon in these lines."</p>
+
+<p>"Right, Mr. Wilkinson; I thank you, suh, foh yoah pleasing
+companionship. Good evening, gentlemen!" With a courtly bow, the colonel
+retired from the table.</p>
+
+<p>At the coloured barber's the pedestrians met Mr. Maguffin, who greeted
+Coristine, saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hopes yoh doan feel none the wuhse ob yoh ride on the po-ul," adding:
+"Mistah Poley, what runs this yeah stablishment, he's my nuncle's oldes'
+boy, and he abstracks a cohnah ob the same ter my disposhul foh ohfice
+pupposes, supposin' I'm wahnted by folks as cahn't find me."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very convenient," replied the lawyer, as he settled down in the
+barber's chair.</p>
+
+<p>"It am, sah. I doan' tote ox teams no moah, po-ul nor no po-ul, when I
+kin drive and ride the fasses and sassies hawses that is made; no, sah,
+not much!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are tired of teaming, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am wohn out, sah, wif bein' called Toby and a po-ul-cat. I doan find
+no Scripcher reffunce foh Tobias, and yoh know what a po-ul-cat is; it's
+nuffin moah no less nor a skink."</p>
+
+<p>The victims of the barber and his assistant kept the soap out of their
+mouths with difficulty. As his tormentor deserted him for a moment, the
+schoolmaster remarked that the Iroquois about the Lake of the Two
+Mountains called the Trappist monks there by the same savoury name, on
+account of some fancied resemblance between their dress and the coat of
+the <i>Mephitis Americana</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Maguffin was listening intently, thinking the conversation was meant
+for his edification, and politely interposed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>"No, sah, I ain't no Mefferdis. I was bawn and raised a Baktis. Poley,
+now, he's a Mefferdis, and I ain't a gwine ter speak no harm of no
+Crishtchun bruddern what's tryin' ter do right accordin' ter they
+lights. But ter be called Toby and Poul-cat by low down white tresh,
+that trial ob the flesh and speerut is a fohgone conclusion, sah."</p>
+
+<p>The shaving operation completed, the travellers returned to the hotel,
+and found Colonel Morton on what he called the piazza, smoking a good
+Havana cigar. He opened his case for his companions of the supper table,
+and Coristine accepted, while Wilkinson courteously declined.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you what I want to do, Mr. Cohistine. I want to puhchase two
+saddle hawses, a good one foh myself, and not a bad one foh my sehvant.
+Unfohtunately, my boy took sick on the way, and I had to send him home
+on the Mississippi steamah. That means, I must get me a new sehvant,
+able to ride well and handle hawses. I pehsume it will be hahd to find a
+cullahed boy, a niggro, in these pahts, so I must take whateveh can be
+got that will suit."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Colonel," replied Coristine, with effusion. "I think I can
+get you a negro who is out of place, is a good rider, and, I imagine, a
+good judge of horses. If you like, I'll go after him at once and tell
+him to report to you to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>"My deah suh, you are altogethah too kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it; when will I tell him to call upon you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would seven o'clock be too eahly? Plantation and ahmy life have made me
+a light sleepah, so that I am up befoh the genehality of hotel guests."</p>
+
+<p>"The very time. Excuse me for running away, I want to bag my man."</p>
+
+<p>So Coristine left the colonel to parade the piazza with Wilkinson, and
+resought the barber shop.</p>
+
+<p>The shop was closed, but a light still burned within. Coristine knocked,
+and Tobias opened the door. "You're the very man I want," cried the
+lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything done gwine wrong, boss?" asked Mr. Maguffin.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer explained the circumstances to him at length, eulogized
+Colonel Morton, and told the negro to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>make his best appearance at the
+hotel, sharp at seven next morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Do yoh say the gemman'll gib me thirty dollars a munf and cloves ter
+boot, and me ridin' behine him all ober the roads on hawseback!" asked
+Tobias.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I can promise those terms," replied the legal go-between.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, yoh say foh me, if he's please foh ter hab me Maguffin, not
+Tobias, but Maguffin is his man, and I kin pick him out two lubby
+hawses, cheap as a po-ul-caht, and I cahn't say no cheapah. My respecs
+and humble expreshun ob gracious apprecherashun ter yoh, Mistah
+Kerosene."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer rushed back to the veranda, and found the colonel and Wilks
+still in conversation, and, wonder of wonder, Wilkinson was actually
+smoking a cigar, which he occasionally inserted between his lips, and
+then held away at arm's length, while he puffed out the smoke in a thin
+blue cloud. Wisely, he did not express astonishment at this unheard of
+feat of his friend, but informed the colonel that he had seen the
+coloured man, whose name was Tobias, but preferred to be called
+Maguffin, that he was willing to engage for thirty dollars a month and
+his clothes, and that he could put his new master in the way of getting
+two suitable horses. "I think, Colonel, you can reckon on his being here
+punctually at seven to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall nevah cease, Mr. Cohistine, to be sensible of yoah great
+kindness to an entiah styangah, suh. Oblige me by smoking anothah cigah,
+if they are to yoah liking."</p>
+
+<p>So Corry lit a fresh cigar, and the three paraded the verandah till it
+was very late, engaging in all manner of pleasant conversation. When the
+stumps were thrown away, the colonel invited the comrades to visit his
+rooms for a moment before retiring. Entering his private sitting-room,
+he produced a quaintly-shaped but large glass bottle, which he flanked
+with three tumblers and a carafe of water. "Help yohselves, gentlemen,"
+he said, courteously; "this old Bourbon is good foh countehacting the
+effects of the night aiah. Some prefer Monongahela, but good old Bourbon
+in modehation cahn't be suhpahssed." The pedestrians filled up, and
+bowed to their host as they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>drank, and the colonel, doing the same,
+said, "My thanks to yoh, gentlemen, foh yoah kindness to a styangah&mdash;to
+yoah good health and ouah futhah pleasant acquaintance!" Then they
+severally retired, and the hotel closed for the night.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Coristine, whose room was just over the main entrance,
+was awakened by a loud discussion in the hall of the hotel. "Clare out
+now," cried the porter, "the bar's not opind yit, an' we don't want
+naygurs round whin the guests do be comin' down the stairs; clare, now,
+I tell yeez."</p>
+
+<p>"I'se heah, Mike, on bisness wif Cunnel Morting," said a well-known
+voice; and continued, "yoh go and tell the cunnel that Mistah Maguffin
+is waitin' foh to pay his respecs."</p>
+
+<p>"Go along wid yeez, Oi say, ye black scum av the airth, wid yer Cornel
+Mortins, the loikes av you! Faix, Oi'll tache yeez who's yer betthers
+wid this broom-handle."</p>
+
+<p>"Gently, my good man, gently!" said the colonel, soothingly, as he laid
+his hand on Mike's shoulder. "This boy has business with me. Come in
+heah, Maguffin."</p>
+
+<p>Tobias went in, with a triumphant glance at Mike, and, arrangements
+being completed, was soon at work, blacking his master's boots. Then he
+had a second breakfast at the servant's table, after which the colonel
+sallied forth with him, to provide him with a befitting suit of clothes,
+and to inspect the horses he had deemed suitable for the use of his new
+employer and himself. While they were gone, Wilkinson and his friend
+descended to a late breakfast, during which the hotel clerk handed the
+lawyer a telegram, signed Tylor, Woodruff, and White, and containing the
+words, "Look up Colonel Morton, Madame Du Plessis, 315 Bluebird Avenue,
+Parkdale." So the colonel had been corresponding with his firm, and he
+must either wait till that worthy returned, or leave a note for him.
+"Bawderashin, anyway, when a man's out for a holiday, can't he be left
+alone a bit!" Then, turning to his friend, he asked, "And, are they
+troubling you with letters and telegrams, too, Wilks, my darling?" The
+dominie replied, "I have only one letter about a poor lady teacher, who
+is in consumption, I fear. They want an extension of holidays for her,
+which is rather hard to get."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>"But you'll get it for her, Wilks, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I will, if I have to do her work as well as my own."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it, Wilks, I knew it. You're as soft hearted as a girl, for all
+your adamant exterior. God bless you, my dear boy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, Corry, what allowances must be made for your exaggerated Irish
+language! What is there like adamant about me, I should like to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good mawnin, gentlemen," said the soft voice of the colonel, "I am
+delighted to see you looking so well. I envy you Canadian gentlemen yoah
+fine fyesh complexions and yoah musical voices. We have sawft voices in
+the south, but it is a soht of niggro sawftness, gained by contact I
+pehsume. My sehvant and I byeakfasted some time ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I trust he is to your liking, Colonel?" enquired Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>"Suh, you have found me a jewel in Maguffin, and he has found me two
+splendid roadsters that are now being fitted with saddles. We staht for
+To-hon-to in an houah, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye, Colonel, I have a telegram from my firm that concerns you.
+It says 'Look up Colonel Morton, Madame Du Plessis, 315 Bluebird Avenue,
+Parkdale."</p>
+
+<p>"But wheah is Pahkdale?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a suburb of Toronto. You had better keep the telegram."</p>
+
+<p>"So, Mr. Cohistine, you are a lawyeh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; of the firm of Tylor, Woodruff, and White, but I'm not that now,
+I'm a gentleman out on a grand stravague."</p>
+
+<p>"You may be a lawyeh, suh, but you are a gentleman as well, and I hope
+to meet you befoah many days are past. Good mawnin, my kind friends!"</p>
+
+<p>The knapsacks were put on boldly, in the very parlour of the hotel, and
+their bearers strode along the lake road into the west, as coolly as if
+they were doing Snowden or Windermere. It was a glorious morning, and
+they exulted in it, rejoicing in the joy of living. The dominie had
+written his letter to the vulgar school-trustees, and felt good, with
+the approbation of a generous conscience. He recited with feeling:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"<i>What, you are stepping westward?</i>" "<i>Yea</i>"&mdash;</div>
+<div>'Twould be a wildish destiny,</div>
+<div>If we, who thus together roam</div>
+<div>In a strange land, and far from home,</div>
+<div>Were in this place the guests of chance;</div>
+<div>Yet who would stop, or fear t' advance,</div>
+<div>Though home or shelter he had none,</div>
+<div>With such a sky to lead him on.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>The dewy ground was dark and cold;</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Faith, 'tis nothing of the kind, Wilks," interrupted Coristine; but the
+dominie went on unheeding.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Behind, all gloomy to behold,</div>
+<div>And stepping westward seemed to be</div>
+<div>A kind of heavenly destiny:</div>
+<div>I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound</div>
+<div>Of something without place or bound</div>
+<div>And seemed to give me spiritual right</div>
+<div>To travel through that region bright.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>The voice was soft, and she who spake</div>
+<div>Was walking by her native lake;</div>
+<div>The salutation had to me</div>
+<div>The very sound of courtesy;</div>
+<div>Its power was felt; and while my eye</div>
+<div>Was fix'd upon the glorious sky,</div>
+<div>The echo of the voice enwrought</div>
+<div>A human sweetness with the thought</div>
+<div>Of travelling through the world that lay</div>
+<div>Before me in my endless way.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"O Wilks, but you're the daisy. So you're going to travel through the
+world with the human sweetness of the soft voice of courtesy? You're a
+fraud, Wilks, you're as soft-hearted as a fozy turnip."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, a little while ago you called me adamant. You are
+inconsequential, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Wilks, my darling. But isn't it a joy to have the colonel
+taking the bad taste of the Grinstun man out of your mouth?"</p>
+
+<p>"The colonel, no doubt, is infinitely preferable. He is a gentleman,
+Corry, and that is saying a good deal."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurroo for a specimen! look at that bank on your left, beyond that wet
+patch, it's thyme, it is. <i>Thymus serpyllum</i>, and Gray says it's not
+native, but adventitious from Europe. Maccoun says the same; I wonder
+what my dear friend, Spotton, says? But here it is, and no trace of a
+house or clearing near. It's thyme, my boy, and smells sweet as honey:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Old father Time, as Ovid sings,</div>
+<div>Is a great eater up of things,</div>
+<div class='i2'>And, without salt or mustard,</div>
+<div>Will gulp you down a castle wall,</div>
+<div>As easily as, at Guildhall,</div>
+<div class='i2'>An alderman eats custard."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Drop your stupid Percy anecdote poems, Corry, and listen to this,"
+cried the dominie, as he sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,</div>
+<div>I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,</div>
+<div>Where oxlips and the nodding violets blow,</div>
+<div>Where oxlips linger, nodding violets blow,</div>
+<div>I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grow-ow-ow-ow-ows!!!</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The lawyer joined in the chorus, encored the song, and trolled "ow ow ow
+ow ows" until the blood vessels over his brain pan demanded a rest.
+"Wilks," he said, "you're a thing of beauty and a joy forever."</p>
+
+<p>Soon the road trended within a short distance of the lake shore. The
+blue waves were tumbling in gloriously, and swished up upon the shelving
+limestone rocks. "What is the time, Corry?" asked Wilkinson. "It's
+eleven by my repeater," he answered. "Then it is quite safe to bathe;
+what do you say to a dip?" The lawyer unstrapped his knapsack, and
+hastened off the road towards the beach. "Come on, Wilks," he cried,
+"we'll make believe that it's grampusses we are."</p>
+
+<p>"What is a grampus?" enquired the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"Dad, if I know," replied his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"A grampus, sir, etymologically is 'un grand poisson,' but,
+biologically, it is no fish at all, being a mammal, mid-way between a
+dolphin and a porpoise."</p>
+
+<p>"So you got off that conundrum a porpoise to make a fool of me, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, Corry, you make me shudder with your villainous puns."</p>
+
+<p>"That's nothing to what I heard once. There were some fellows camping,
+and they had two tents and some dogs for deerhunting. As it was raining,
+they let the hounds sleep in one of the tents, when one of the fellows
+goes round and says: 'Shut down your curtains.' 'Were you telling them
+that to keep the rain out?' asked one, when the rascal answered: 'To all
+in tents and purp houses.' Wasn't that awful, now?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>The water was cold but pleasant on a hot day, and the swimmers enjoyed
+striking out some distance from shore and then being washed in by the
+homeward-bound waves. They sat, with their palms pressed down beside
+them, on smooth ledges of rock, and let the breakers lap over them. The
+lawyer was thinking it time to get out, when he saw Wilkinson back into
+the waves with a scared face. "Are you going for another swim, Wilks, my
+boy?" he asked. "Look behind you," whispered the schoolmaster. Coristine
+looked, and was aware of three girls, truly rural, sitting on the bank
+and apparently absorbed in contemplating the swimmers. "This is awful!"
+he ejaculated, as he slid down into deep water; "Wilks, it's scare the
+life out of them I must, or we'll never get back to our clothes. Now,
+listen to me." Dipping his head once more under water till it dripped,
+he let out a fearful sound, like "Gurrahow skrrr spat, you young
+gurruls, an' if yeez don't travel home as fast as yer futs'll taake
+yeez, it's I'll be afther yeez straight, och, garrahow skrr spat
+whishtubbleubbleubble!" The rural maidens took to their heels and ran,
+as Coristine swam into shore. In a minute the swimmers were into their
+clothes and packs, and resumed their march, much refreshed by the cool
+waters of the Georgian Bay.</p>
+
+<p>"And where is it we're bound for now, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"For the abandoned shale-works at the foot of the Blue Mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"Fwhat's that, as Jimmie Butler said about the owl?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Utica formation, which crops out here, consists largely of
+bituminous shales, that yield mineral oil to the extent of twenty
+gallons to the ton. But, since the oil springs of the West have been in
+operation, the usefulness of these shales is gone. The Indians seem to
+have made large use of the shale, for a friend of mine found a hoe of
+that material on an island in the Muskoka lakes. Being easily split and
+worked, it was doubtless very acceptable to the metal wanting
+aborigines."</p>
+
+<p>"But, if the works are closed up, what will we see?"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall meet with fossils in the shale, with trilobites, such as the
+<i>Asaphus Canadensis</i>, a crustacean, closely allied to the wood-louse,
+and occasionally found rolled up, like it, into a defensive ball,
+together with other specimens of ancient life."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>"Wilks, my son, who's doing Gosse's Canadian Naturalist, now, I'd like
+to know? Pity we hadn't the working geologist along for a lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry if I have bored you with my talk, but I thought you were
+interested in science. Does this suit you better?</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i6'>Many a little hand</div>
+<div>Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks,</div>
+<div>Many a light foot shone like a jewel set</div>
+<div>In the dark crag; and then we turn'd, we wound</div>
+<div>About the cliffs, the copses, out and in,</div>
+<div>Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names</div>
+<div>Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff,</div>
+<div>Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun</div>
+<div>Grew broader towards his death and fell, and all</div>
+<div>The rosy heights came out above the lawns."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"That's better, avic. Tennyson's got the shale there, I see. But rag and
+trap and tuff is the word, and tough the whole business is. Just look at
+that living blue bell, there, it's worth all the stony names of rock and
+fossil.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Let the proud Indian boast of his jessamine bowers,</div>
+<div>His garlands of roses and moss-covered dells,</div>
+<div>While humbly I sing of those sweet little flowers,</div>
+<div>The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells.</div>
+<div class='i2'>We'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,</div>
+<div class='i2'>The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"You are a nice botanist, Mr. Coristine, to confound that campanula with
+the Scottish blue-bell, which is a scilla, or wild hyacinth."</p>
+
+<p>"Poetic license, my dear friend, poetic license! Hear this now:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Let the Blue Mountains boast of their shale that's bituminous,</div>
+<div>Full of trilobites, graptolites and all the rest,</div>
+<div>It may not be so learned, or ancient, or luminous,</div>
+<div>But the little campanula's what I love best.</div>
+<div class='i2'>So we'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,</div>
+<div class='i2'>The little campanula's worth all the rest.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Whew! What do you think of that for an impromptu song, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think that you are turning your back upon your own principle that
+there is no best, or no one best, and that everything is best in its
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"Barring old Nick and the mosquitoes, Wilks, come now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, an exception may be made in their favour, but what says the
+poet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>O yet we trust that somehow good</div>
+<div>Will be the final goal of ill.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Come, along, though, for we have much to see before sunset."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't think that good is going to come out of the devil and
+mosquitoes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes I do; not to themselves, perhaps, but to humanity."</p>
+
+<p>"I saw a book once with the title "Why Doesn't God Kill the Devil?" and
+sympathized with it. Why doesn't He?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because man wants the devil. As soon as the world ceases to want him,
+so soon is his occupation gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my dear, that's an awful responsibility lying on us men, and I
+fear what you say is too true. So here's for the shale works."</p>
+
+<p>The pedestrians ceased their theological discussion and went towards the
+deserted buildings, where, in former days, a bad smelling oil had been
+distilled from the slaty-looking black stones, which lay about in large
+numbers. Wilkinson picked up fossils enough, species of trilobites
+chiefly, with a few graptolites, lingulas and strophomenas, to start a
+museum. These, as Coristine had suggested in Toronto, he actually tied
+up in his silk handkerchief, which he slung on the crook of his stick
+and carried over his shoulder. The lawyer also gathered a few, and
+bestowed them in the side pocket of his coat not devoted to smoking
+materials. The pair were leaving the works for the ascent of the
+mountain, when barks were heard, then a pattering of feet, and soon the
+breathless Muggins jumped upon them with joyous demonstrations.</p>
+
+<p>"Where has he been? How came we not to miss him?" asked the dominie, and
+Coristine answered rather obliquely:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember seeing him since we entered Collingwood. Surely he
+didn't go back to the Grinstun man."</p>
+
+<p>"It is hard to be poetical on a dog called Muggins," remarked Wilkinson;
+"Tray seems to be the favourite name. Cowper's dogs are different, and
+Wordsworth has Dart and Swallow, Prince and Music, something like
+Actaeon's dogs in 'Ovid.' Nevertheless, I like Muggins."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Tray is good, Wilks:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>To my dear loving Shelah, so far, far away,</div>
+<div>I can never return with my old dog Tray;</div>
+<div class='i2'>He's lazy and he's blind,</div>
+<div class='i2'>You'll never, never find</div>
+<div class='i4'>A bigger thief than old dog Tray."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Corry, this is bathos of the worst description. You are like a
+caterpillar; you desecrate the living leaf you touch."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, that's hard on the six feet of me, for your caterpillar has a
+great many more. But that dog's gone back again."</p>
+
+<p>As they looked after his departing figure, the reason was obvious. Two
+lightly, yet clerically, attired figures were coming up the road, and on
+the taller and thinner of the twain the dog was leaping with every sign
+of genuine affection.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid, Wilks, that Muggins is a beastly cur, a treacherous 'ound,
+a hungrateful pup; look at his antics with that cadaverous curate,
+keeping company with his sleek, respectable vicar. O Muggy, Mug, Mug!"</p>
+
+<p>The pedestrians waited for the clergy, who soon came up to them, and
+exchanged salutations.</p>
+
+<p>"My dawg appears to know you," said the tall cassocked cleric in a
+somewhat lofty, professional tone.</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to," replied Wilkinson, "seeing that he was given to me by a
+Mr. Rawdon, a working geologist, as he calls himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, really now, it seems to me rather an immoral transaction for your
+ah friend, Mr. Rawdon, to give away another man's property."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rawdon is no friend of mine, but his dog took a fancy to us, and
+followed us from Dromore to Collingwood."</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me to assure you that Muggins is not this ah Mr. Rawdon's dawg at
+all. I trained him from a puppy at Tossorontio. The Bishop ordered me
+from there to Flanders, and, in the hurry of moving, the dawg was lost;
+but now, I should rather say stowlen. My friend, the Reverend Mr. Errol
+and myself, my name is Basil Perrowne, Clerk, had business in
+Collingwood last night, when Muggins, most opportunely, met us, and went
+howme with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Perrowne, I am very glad you have recovered your dog, which I
+was only too glad to rescue from a somewhat inhuman master. My name is
+Wilkin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>son, of the Toronto schools, my friend is Mr. Coristine, of
+Osgoode Hall, barrister."</p>
+
+<p>The gentlemen exchanged formal salutations, and proceeded on their way,
+Wilkinson with Perrowne, and Coristine with Erroll. Muggins was in the
+seventh heaven of delight.</p>
+
+<p>"You belong to Tossorontio, Mr. Perrowne?" asked Wilkinson, by way of
+starting the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, now! I said I had trained Muggins from a pup there, but that ownly
+extends owver a few years. Durham is my university, which you may have
+heard of."</p>
+
+<p>"I am familiar by name with the university and the cathedral, although
+the juvenile geography books say that Durham is famous for its mustard."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, now, really, they down't, do they? Ow dear, mustard! We Durham men
+can serve it out pretty hot, you know. You belong to the Church, of
+course, Mr. Wilkinson?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was brought up in the Church of England, and educated in what are
+called Church principles; I am fond of the Prayer Book and the Service,
+but, to my way of thinking, the Church is far more extensive than our
+mere Anglican communion."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, yes, there are Christian people, who, I howpe, will get to heaven
+some way through the uncovenanted mercies, in spite of their horrid
+schism from the True Body. There is Errol, now, whom, out of mere
+courtesy, I call reverend, but he is no more reverend than Muggins. His
+orders are ridiculous, not worth a farthing candle."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Mr. Perrowne, his orders are as good as those of St.
+Timothy, which were laid on him by the hands of the Presbytery."</p>
+
+<p>"That is precisely what the cheeky dissenter says himself. We have
+dropped that line of controversy now, for one ever so much more
+practical."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you don't take off your coats and fight it out? You have the
+advantage in height and youth, but Mr. Errol seems a strong and active
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, we down't fight. I have set a cricket club a-gowing, and he has
+turned a neglected field into a golf links. My club makes Churchmen, and
+his makes Scotch dissenters."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>"I thought the Presbyterian Church was established in Scotland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, down't you see, we are not in Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, in Canada, there is no established church, unless it be the Roman
+Catholic in the Province of Quebec."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, well, drop that, you know; we are the Church, and all the outside
+people are dissenters. I down't antagonize him. He helped me to make my
+crease, and joined my club, and I play golf with him every fine Monday
+morning. But the young fellows have now true English spirit here. Errol
+has twenty golfers to my six cricketers. When he and I are added, that
+makes eight, not near enough, you know. As a mission agency, my club has
+not succeeded yet, but every time I make a cricketer, I make a
+Churchman."</p>
+
+<p>"I have known some very good cricketers that were not Anglicans."</p>
+
+<p>"Now you haven't, my dear sir; you thought you have, but you haven't;
+that's the trouble with those who reject Church authority. The Methodist
+plays rounder, what you call base-ball; the Independents and Baptists
+played croquet and lawn tennis after other people stopped playing them;
+the Presbyterian plays golf; and the Churchman plays cricket."</p>
+
+<p>"To argue with one who sweeps all experience aside with a wave of his
+hand," said the schoolmaster, indignantly, "is not to argue at all. It
+is a case of <i>Roma locuta</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, yes, just sow, you know, we down't argue, we simply assert the
+truth."</p>
+
+<p>"How d'ye like the Durham mustard, Wilks, my boy?" put in Coristine from
+the rear, where he and Mr. Errol were laughing amusedly; "it's hot,
+isn't it, not much solid food, but lots of flavour? It reminds me of The
+Crew, when he said what was, is, and ever shall be, Amen. Mr. Perrowne
+is the owner of a splendid dog, and he is a splendid dogmatist. What he
+doesn't know isn't worth knowing."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, thanks awfully, Mr. Coristine, you are really too flattering!"
+gravely and gratefully replied the parson. Wilkinson was afraid that his
+friend's banter might become too apparent, as the simple egotism of the
+graduate of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>Durham led him on, so, he changed the subject, and soon had
+the cleric quoting Virgil and Mrs. Hemans.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Coristine and Mr. Errol were taking one another's measure. The
+lawyer recited to his companion the conversation between Marjorie and
+himself relative to Timotheus. He found that Errol knew Marjorie, who
+had often been in his church and Sunday school in Flanders. "She's a
+comical little piece," he said; "her Sunday school teacher asked her who
+killed Goliath? and what do you think was her reply!"</p>
+
+<p>"Give it up."</p>
+
+<p>"It was 'Jack,' no less than Jack the Giant-Killer."</p>
+
+<p>"The darlin'!" cried the lawyer, with admiration, and straightway won
+the minister's heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie has a cousin stopping at the house of Mr. Carruthers, one of
+my elders, since last Tuesday night, as blithe and bonnie a young leddy
+as man could wish to see. While she's here, she's just the light of the
+whole country side."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Coristine did not care for this turn in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me some more about little Marjorie," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," replied the minister, "then you know that her cousin is called
+Marjorie, too! Little Marjorie went to church once with Miss Du Plessis,
+whom Perrowne had got to sing in the choir, that was last summer, if I
+mind right, and, when the two rideeclus candles on the altar were
+lighted, and the priest, as he calls himself, came in with his surplice
+on, she put her face down in Miss Cecile's lap. 'What's the trouble,
+Marjorie?' asked Miss Du Plessis, bending over her. 'He's going to kiss
+us all good-night,' sobbed the wee thing. 'No he is not, Marjorie; he's
+on his knees, praying,' replied the young leddy, soothingly. 'That's
+what papa always does, when he's dressed like that, before he kisses me
+good-night, but he takes off his boots and things first,' and she sobbed
+again, for fear Perrowne was coming to kiss them all, put out the
+candles, and go to bed. If Miss Du Plessis had not been a sober-minded
+lass, she would have laughed out in the middle of the choir. As it was,
+she had to hand Marjorie over to a neighbour in a back seat, before the
+bit lassie would be comforted."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>"Ah! did you ever now? the little innocent!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's not that improbable that there'll be a marriage in the church
+before long. Perrowne's just clean daft and infatuated with his
+occasional soprano. He's sent her the 'Mirror of Devotion' and the
+'Soul's Questioner,' and a lot of nicely bound trash, and walks home
+with her whenever he has the chance, to the scandal and rage of all his
+farmers' daughters. It's very injudeecious o' Perrowne, and has dreeven
+two of his best families to the Kirk. Not that she's no a braw looking
+lass, stately and deegnified, but she has na the winsomeness of Miss
+Marjorie."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your quarter, Mr. Errol?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hech, sirs, I'm an old bachelor that'll never see five and forty again;
+but, as we say in Scotch or the vernacular Doric, 'an auld carle micht
+dae waur.' There's not a more sensible, modest, blithesome, bonnie
+lassie in all the land. It's a thousand peeties some young, handsome,
+well to do steady, God-fearing man has na asked at her to be 'the light
+o' his ain fireside.' Gin I were as young as you, Mr. Coristine, I would
+na think twice about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Avaunt, tempter!" cried the lawyer, "such a subject as matrimony is
+strictly tabooed between me and my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be your friend, I hope, but I cannot afford to taboo marriages.
+Not to speak of the fees, they're the life of a well-ordered, healthy
+congregation."</p>
+
+<p>A neat turn-out, similar to that of Mrs. Thomas, came rattling along the
+road. "That's John Carruthers' team," remarked the minister, and such it
+turned out to be.</p>
+
+<p>"Maister Errol," said its only occupant, a strong and honest-faced man
+with a full brown beard, "yon's a fine hanky panky trick to play wi'
+your ain elder an' session clerk."</p>
+
+<p>"Deed John," returned the minister, relapsing into the vernacular; "I
+didna ken ye were i' the toon ava, but 'oor bit dander has gien us the
+opportunity o' becomin' acquent wi' twa rale dacent lads." Then, turning
+to the lawyer, "excuse our familiar talk, Mr. Coristine, and let me
+introduce Squire Carruthers, of Flanders." The two men exchanged
+salutations, and Perrowne, having turned back with Wilkinson, the same
+ceremony was gone through with the latter. They were then all
+courteously <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>invited to get into the waggon. Errol and Perrowne sprang
+in with an air of old proprietorship, but the two pedestrians
+respectfully declined, as they were especially anxious to explore the
+mountain beauties of this part of the country on foot and at their
+leisure.</p>
+
+<p>"Aweel, gentlemen," cried the squire, "gin ye'll no come the noo, we'll
+just expect to see ye before the Sawbath. The Church and the Kirk'll be
+looking for the wayfarers, and my house, thank Providence, is big eneuch
+to gie ye a kindly welcome."</p>
+
+<p>The parsons ably seconded Mr. Carruthers' peculiar mixture of English
+and Lowland Scotch, on the latter of which he prided himself, but only
+when in the company of someone who could appreciate it. Wilkinson looked
+at Coristine, and the lawyer looked at the dominie, for here they were
+invited to go straight into the jaws of the lion. Just then, they
+descried, climbing painfully up the hill, but some distance behind them,
+the Grinstun man; there was no mistaking him. "Hurry, and drive away,"
+cried Coristine, in an under tone; "that cad there, the same that stole
+Muggins, is going to your house, Squire. For any sake, don't facilitate
+his journey."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll no stir a hoof till ye promise to come to us, Mr. Coristine, and
+you, Mr. Wilkins, tae."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, many thanks, we promise," they cried together, and the
+waggon rattled away.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Wilks, over this ditch, sharp, and into the brush, till this thief
+of the world goes by. We've deprived him of a ride, and that's one good
+thing done."</p>
+
+<p>Together they jumped the ditch, and squatted among the bushes, waiting
+for the Grinstun man. They heard him puffing up the rising ground, saw
+his red, perspiring face in full view, and heard him, as he mopped
+himself with a bandanna, exclaim: "Blowed if I haint bin and lost the
+chance of a lift. Teetotally blawst that hold hass of a driver, and them
+two soft-'eaded Tomfools of hamateur scientists ridin' beside 'im. I
+knew it was Muggins, the cur I stole, and guv a present of to that there
+guy of a Favosites Wilkinsonia. I don't trust 'im, the scaly beggar, for
+hall 'is fine 'eroic speeches. 'E'll be goin' and splittin' on me to
+that gal, sure as heggs. And that Currystone, six feet of 'ipocrisy and
+hinsolence, drat the long-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>legged, 'airy brute. O crikey, but it's 'ot;
+'owever, I must 'urry on, for grinstuns is grinstuns, and a gal, with a
+rich hold huncle, ridin' a fine 'orse, with a nigger behind 'im carryin'
+his portmantle, haint to be sneezed hat. Stre'ch your pegs, Mr. Rawdon,
+workin' geologist hand minerologist!"</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" cried Coristine, when the Grinstun man was out of sight;
+"that cad has met the colonel, and has been talking to him."</p>
+
+<p>"A fine nephew-in-law he will get in him!" growled Wilkinson; "I have
+half a mind&mdash;excuse me Corry."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were very much taken with the old Southerner."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is it," and the dominie relapsed into silence.</p>
+
+<p>"It's about lunch time, Wilks, and, as there's sure to be no water on
+the top of the hill, I'll fill my rubber bag at the spring down there,
+and carry it up, so that we can enjoy the view while taking our
+prandial."</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson vouchsafed no reply. He was in deep and earnest thought about
+something. Taking silence for consent, Coristine tripped down the hill a
+few yards, with a square india rubber article in his hand. It had a
+brass mouthpiece that partly screwed off, when it was desirable to
+inflate it with air, as a cushion, pillow, or life-preserver, or to fill
+it with hot water to take the place of a warming-pan. Now, at the spring
+by the roadside, he rinsed it well out, and then filled it with clear
+cold water, which he brought back to the place where the schoolmaster
+was leaning on his stick and pondering. Replacing the knapsack, out of
+which the india rubber bag had come, the lawyer prepared to continue the
+ascent. In order to rouse his reflective friend, he said, "Wilks, my
+boy, you've dropped your fossils."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear, Corry, that I have lost all interest in fossils."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, that Grinstun man's enough to give a man a scunner at fossils for
+the rest of his life."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not exactly that, Corry," replied the truthful dominie; "but I
+need my staff and my handkerchief, and I think I will leave the
+specimens on the road, all except these two Asaphoi, the perplexing,
+bewildering relics of antiquity. This world is full of perplexities
+still, Corry." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>So saying, the dominie sighed, emptied his bandanna of
+all but the two fossils, which he transferred to his pocket, and, with
+staff in hand, recommenced the upward journey. In ten minutes they were
+on the summit, and beheld the far-off figure of the working geologist on
+the further slope. In both directions the view was magnificent. They sat
+by the roadside on a leafy bank overshaded with cool branches, and,
+producing the reduplication of the Barrie stores procured the night
+before at Collingwood, proceeded to lunch <i>al fresco</i>. The contents of
+the india rubber bag, qualified with the spirit in their flasks, cheered
+the hearts of the pedestrians and made them more inclined to look on the
+bright side of life. Justice having been done to the biscuits and
+cheese, Coristine lit his pipe, while the dominie took a turn at
+Wordsworth.</p>
+
+<p>With musical intonation, Wilkinson read aloud:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Some thought he was a lover, and did woo:</div>
+<div>Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong:</div>
+<div>But verse was what he had been wedded to;</div>
+<div>And his own mind did like a tempest strong</div>
+<div>Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>With him there often walked in friendly guise,</div>
+<div>Or lay upon the moss by brook or tree,</div>
+<div>A noticeable man with large grey eyes,</div>
+<div>And a pale face that seemed undoubtedly</div>
+<div>As if a blooming face it ought to be;</div>
+<div>Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,</div>
+<div>Depress'd by weight of musing phantasy;</div>
+<div>Profound his forehead was, though not severe;</div>
+<div>Yet some did think that he had little business here.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>He would entice that other man to hear</div>
+<div>His music, and to view his imagery.</div>
+<div>And, sooth, these two did love each other dear,</div>
+<div>As far as love in such a place could be;</div>
+<div>There did they dwell&mdash;from earthly labour free,</div>
+<div>As happy spirits as were ever seen:</div>
+<div>If but a bird, to keep them company,</div>
+<div>Or butterfly sate down, they were, I ween,</div>
+<div>As pleased as if the same had been a maiden queen.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"That's the true stuff, Wilks, and has the right ring in it, for we love
+each other dear, and are as happy spirits as were ever seen, but not a
+large grey eye, pale face, or low-hung lip between us. Just hear my
+music now, and view my imagery with your mind's eye:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Far down the ridge, I see the Grinstun man,</div>
+<div>Full short in stature and rotund is he,</div>
+<div>Pale grey his watery orbs, that dare not scan</div>
+<div>His interlocutor, and his goatee,</div>
+<div>With hair and whiskers like a furnace be:</div>
+<div>Concave the mouth from which his nose-tip flies</div>
+<div>In vain attempt to shun vulgarity.</div>
+<div>O haste, ye gods, to snatch from him the prize,</div>
+<div>And send him hence to weep&mdash;and to geologize!"</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"The rhythm is all right, Corry, and the rhyme, but I hope you do not
+call that poetry?"</p>
+
+<p>"If that isn't superior to a good many of Wordsworth's verses, Wilks,
+I'll eat my hat, and that would be a pity this hot weather. Confess now,
+you haythen, you," cried the lawyer, making a lunge at his companion
+with his stick, which the latter warded off with his book.</p>
+
+<p>"There are some pretty poor ones," the schoolmaster granted grudgingly,
+"but the work of a great poet should not be judged by fragments."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, apply the rule; I have only given you one stanza of the
+unfinished epic, which unborn generations will peruse with admiration
+and awe, 'The Grinstun Quarry Restored':&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>I have striven hard for my high reward</div>
+<div>Through many a changing year</div>
+<div>Now, the goal I reach; it is mine to teach.</div>
+<div>Stand still, O man, and hear!</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>I shall wreathe my name, with the brightness of fame,</div>
+<div>To shine upon history's pages;</div>
+<div>It shall be a gem in the diadem</div>
+<div>Of the past to future ages!</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Oh, Wilks for immortality!" cried the light-hearted lawyer, rising with
+a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back towards the ascent, he perceived two bowed figures
+struggling up the hill under largish, and, apparently, not very light
+burdens.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my dear, we're young and vigorous, and down there are two poor
+old grannies laden like pack mules in this broiling sun. Let us leave
+our knapsacks here, and give them a hoist."</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster willingly assented, and followed his friend, who flew
+down the hill at breakneck speed, in a rapid but more sober manner. The
+old couple looked up with some astonishment at a well-dressed city man
+tearing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>down the hill towards them like a schoolboy, but their
+astonishment turned to warmest gratitude, that found vent in many
+thankful expressions, as the lawyer shouldered the old lady's big
+bundle, and, as, a minute later, the dominie relieved her partner of
+his. They naturally fell into pairs, the husband and Wilkinson leading,
+Coristine and the wife following after. In different ways the elderly
+pair told their twin burden-bearers the same story of their farm some
+distance below the western slope of the mountain, of their son at home
+and their two daughters out at service, and mentioned the fact that they
+had both been schoolteachers, but, as they said with apologetic
+humility, only on third-class county certificates. Old Mr. Hill insisted
+on getting his load back when the top of the mountain was reached, and
+the pedestrians resumed their knapsacks and staves, but the lawyer
+utterly refused to surrender his bundle to the old lady's entreaties.
+The sometime schoolteachers were intelligent, very well read in Cowper,
+Pollock, and Sir Walter Scott, as well as in the Bible, and withal
+possessed of a fair sense of humour. The old lady and Coristine were a
+perpetual feast to one another. "Sure!" said he, "it's bagmen the
+ignorant creatures have taken us for more than once, and it's a genuine
+one I am now, Mrs. Hill," at which the good woman laughed, and recited
+the Scotch ballad of the "Wee Wifukie coming frae the fair," who fell
+asleep, when "by came a packman wi' a little pack," and relieved her of
+her purse and placks, and "clippit a' her gowden locks sae bonnie and
+sae lang." This she did in excellent taste, leaving out any
+objectionable expressions in the original. When she repeated the words
+of the Wifukie at the end of each verse, "This is nae me," consequent on
+her discovery that curls and money were gone, the lawyer laughed
+heartily, causing the pair in front, who were discussing educational
+matters, to look round for the cause of the merriment. "I'm the man,"
+shouted Coristine to them, "the packman wi' a little pack." Then Mr.
+Hill knew what it was.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Conversation with the Hills&mdash;Tobacco&mdash;Rural Hospitality&mdash;The
+Deipnosophist and Gastronomic Dilemma&mdash;Mr. Hill's
+Courtship&mdash;William Rufus rouses the Dominie's Ire&mdash;Sleep&mdash;The Real
+Rufus&mdash;Acts as Guide&mdash;Rawdon Discussed&mdash;The Sluggard Farmer&mdash;The
+Teamsters&mdash;The Wasps&mdash;A Difference of Opinion.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>It was very pleasant for all four, the walk down the mountain road; and
+the pedestrians enjoyed the scenery all the more with intelligent guides
+to point out places of interest. The old schoolteacher, having
+questioned Wilkinson as to his avocation, looked upon him as a superior
+being, and gratified the little corner of good-natured vanity that lies
+in most teachers' hearts. Coristine told the wife that he trusted her
+daughters had good places, where they would receive the respect due to
+young women of such upbringing; and she replied:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O yes, sir, they are both in one family, the family of Squire
+Carruthers in Flanders. Tryphena is the eldest; she's twenty-five, and
+is cook and milker and helps with the washing. Tryphosa is only twenty,
+and attends to the other duties of the house. Mrs. Carruthers is not
+above helping in all the work herself, so that she knows how to treat
+her maids properly. Still, I am anxious about them."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing wrong with their health, I hope?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; in a bodily way they enjoy excellent health."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, Mrs. Hill," interrupted Coristine, "for saying that your
+perfectly correct expression calls up that of a friend of mine. Meeting
+an old college professor, very stiff and precise in manner and language,
+he had occasion to tell him that, as a student, he had enjoyed very poor
+health. 'I do not know about the enjoying of it, sir,' he answered, 'but
+I know your health was very poor.' Ha, ha! but I interrupted you."</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to say, sir, that I have never been ambitious, save to keep
+a good name and live a humbly useful life, with food convenient for me,
+as Agur, the son of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>Jakeh, says in the Book of Proverbs, in which, I
+suppose, he included clothing and shelter, but I did hope my girls would
+look higher than the Pilgrims."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean John Bunyan's Christian and Christiana, and Great Heart,
+and the rest of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" replied the old lady, laughing, "mine are living characters,
+quite unknown to the readers of books, Sylvanus and Timotheus, the sons
+of old Saul Pilgrim."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's their name, is it? The Crew never told me his surname, nor
+did Captain Thomas."</p>
+
+<p>"You know Sylvanus' captain, then? But, has he many sailors besides
+Pilgrim?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; that's why I call him The Crew. It's like a Scotch song, 'The Kitty
+of Loch Goil,' that goes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>For a' oor haill ship's companie,</div>
+<div>Was twa laddy and a poy, prave poys</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sylvanus is The Crew, who goes on a cruise, like Crusoe. O, do forgive
+me, Mrs. Hill, for so forgetting myself; we have been so long away from
+ladies' society," which, considering the circumstances of the preceding
+day, was hardly an ingenuous statement.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so troubled about the elder Pilgrim and Tryphena," continued
+the old lady, "because Tryphena is getting up a little in years for the
+country; I believe they marry later in the city, Mr. Coristine?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes, always, very much, I'm sure," answered the lawyer, confusedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Tryphena is getting up, and&mdash;well, she takes after her father in looks,
+but will make any man a good wife. Then the elder Pilgrim has good
+morals, and is affectionate, soft I should be disposed to call him; and
+he has regular employment all the year round, though often away from
+home. He has money saved and in the bank, and has a hundred-acre farm in
+the back country somewhere. He says, if Tryphena refuses him, he will
+continue to risk his life among the perils of the deep, by which the
+silly fellow means Lake Simcoe." Here the quondam schoolmistress broke
+into a pleasant laugh that had once been musical.</p>
+
+<p>"And Miss Tryphosa, did I understand you to say you apprehend anything
+in her quarter from the Pilgrims?" enquired Coristine.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>"Please say Tryphosa, sir; I do not think that young girls in service
+should be miss'd."</p>
+
+<p>"But they are very much missed when they go away and get married; don't
+grudge me my little joke, Mrs. Hill."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not grudge you anything so poor," she replied, shaking a
+forefinger at the blushing lawyer. "You are right in supposing I
+apprehend danger to Tryphosa from the younger Pilgrim. She is&mdash;well,
+something like what I was when I was young, and she is only a child yet,
+though well grown. Then, this younger Pilgrim has neither money nor
+farm; besides, I am told, that he has imbibed infidel notions, and has
+lately become the inmate of a disreputable country tavern. If you had a
+daughter, sir, would you not tremble to think of her linking her lot
+with so worthless a character?" Before the lawyer could reply, the old
+man called back: "Mother, I think you had better give the gentleman a
+rest; he must be tired of hearing your tongue go like a cow-bell in fly
+time." Coristine protested, but his companion declined to continue the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"The mistress is as proud of wagging that old tongue of hers," remarked
+the dominie's companion, "as if she had half the larnin' of the country,
+and she no more nor a third class county certificut."</p>
+
+<p>"Many excellent teachers have begun on them," remarked Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"But she begun and ended there; the next certificut she got was a
+marriage one, and, in a few years, she had a class in her own house to
+tache and slipper."</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife seems to be a very superior woman, Mr. Hill."</p>
+
+<p>"That's where the shoe pinches me. Shuparior! it's that she thinks
+herself, and looks down on my book larnin' that's as good as her own.
+But, I'll tell ye, sir, I've read Shakespeare and she hasn't, not a
+word."</p>
+
+<p>"How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her folks were a sort of Lutherian Dutch they call Brethren. They're
+powerful strict, and think it a mortal sin to touch a card or read a
+play. My own folks were what they called black-mouthed Prosbytarians,
+from the north of Ireland, but aijewcation made me liberal-minded. It
+never had that effect on the mistress, although her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>own taycher was an
+old Scotch wife that spent her time tayching the childer Scott, and
+Pollok's 'Course of Time,' and old Scotch ballads like that Packman one
+she was reciting to your friend. Now, I larnt my boys and gyurls, when I
+was school tayching, some pieces of Shakespeare, and got them to declaim
+at the school exhibitions before the holidays. I minded some of them
+after I was married, and, one day when it was raining hard, I declaimed
+a lovely piece before Persis, that's the mistress' name, when the woman
+began to cry, and fell on her knees by the old settle, and prayed like a
+born praycher. She thought I had gone out of my mind; so, after that, I
+had to keep Shakespeare to myself. Sometimes I've seen Tryphosa take up
+the book and read a bit, but Rufus, that's the baby, is just like his
+mother&mdash;he'll neither play a card, nor read a play, nor smoke, nor tell
+lies. I dunno what to do with the boy at all, at all."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is rather a good thing, or a series of good things, not to play
+cards, nor smoke, nor tell lies," remarked Wilkinson. "Perhaps the baby
+is too young to smoke or read Shakespeare."</p>
+
+<p>"He's eighteen and a strapping big fellow at that, our baby Rufus. He
+can do two men's work in a day all the week through, and go to meetin'
+and Sunday school on Sundays; but he's far behind in general larnin' and
+in spirit, not a bit like his father. Do I understand you object to
+smoking, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," replied his companion, "but my friend Coristine smokes a
+pipe, and, as smokers love congenial company, I had better get him to
+join you, and relieve him of his load." So saying, Wilkinson retired to
+the silent pair in the rear, took the old lady's bundle from the lawyer
+and sent him forward to smoke with the ancient schoolmaster. The latter
+waxed eloquent on the subject of tobackka, after the pipes were filled
+and fairly set agoing.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a fanatic of a praycher came to our meetin' one Sunday
+morning last winter, and discoorsed on that which goeth out of a man. He
+threeped down our throats that it was tobackka, and that it was the root
+of bitterness, and the tares among the wheat, which was not rightly
+translated in our English Bible. He said using tobackka was the
+foundation of all sin, and that, if you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>counted up the letters in the
+Greek tobakko, because Greek has no <i>c</i>, the number would be 483, and,
+if you add 183 to that, it would make 666, the mark of the Beast; and,
+says he, any man that uses tobackka is a beast! It was a powerful
+sarmon, and everybody was looking at everybody else. When the meetin'
+was over, I met Andrew Hislop, a Sesayder, and I said to him, 'Annerew!'
+says I, 'what do you think of that blast? Must we give up the pipe or be
+Christians no more?' Says Andrew, 'Come along wi' me,' and I went to his
+house and he took down a book off a shelf in his settin' room. 'Look at
+this, Mr. Hill,' says he, 'you that have the book larnin', 'tis written
+by these godly Sesayders, Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, and is poetry.' I
+took the book and read the piece, and what do you think it was?"</p>
+
+<p>"Charles Lamb's farewell to tobacco," said Coristine wildly:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Brother of Bacchus, later born,</div>
+<div>The Old World were sure forlorn,</div>
+<div class='i8'>Wanting thee.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>'No, sir; it was a 'Gospel Sonnet on Tobackka and Pipes'; pipes, mind
+you, as well&mdash;all about this Indian weed, and the pipe which is so lily
+white. Oh, sir, it was most improvin'. And that fanatic of a praycher,
+not fit to blacken the Erskines' shoes, even if they were Sesayders! I
+went home and I says, 'Rufus, my son,' and he says, 'Yes, fayther!' Says
+I, 'Rufus, am I a Christian man, though frail and human, am I a
+Christian man or am I not?' Rufus says, 'You are a Christian, fayther.'
+Then says I, 'What is the praycher, Rufus, my boy?' and Rufus, that uses
+tobackka in no shape nor form, says, 'He's a consayted, ignerant,
+bigitted bladderskite of a Pharisee!' Sir, I was proud of that boy!'</p>
+
+<p>"That was very fine of your son to stand up for his father like that.
+You can't say that your foes were those of your own household. In such
+cases, young people must do one of two things, despise their parents or
+despise the preacher; and, when the parents go to church, the children,
+unless they are young hypocrites, uniformly despise such preachers."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and to think I had never told Rufus a word about the 'Gospel
+Sonnets of the Sesayders!' It's a great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>pleasure, sir, to an old man
+like me to smoke a pipe with a gentleman like yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine replied that it afforded him equal satisfaction, and they
+puffed away with occasional remarks on the surrounding scenery.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Wilkinson was striving to draw out the somewhat offended
+mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"Your husband tells me, Mrs. Hill, that you are of German parentage," he
+remarked blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she replied; "my people were what they call Pennsylvania Dutch.
+Do you know German, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a book acquaintance with it," remarked the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you recognize this?</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye,</div>
+<div>Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye,</div>
+<div>Meen fayter rue mee, Ee moos gay</div>
+<div class='i4'>Tsoo lowwen in der ayvig-eye."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"No; I distinctly do not, although it has a Swabian sound."</p>
+
+<p>"That is the Pennsylvania Dutch for 'I have a Father in the Promised
+Land,' a Sunday School hymn."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you brought up on hymns like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; I can still remember some good German ones sung at our
+assemblies, like:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Christi Blut und Gerechtigkeit,</div>
+<div>das ist mein Schmuck und Ehrenkleid,</div>
+<div>damit will ich vor Gott besteh'n,</div>
+<div>wenn ich in Himmel werd 'eingeh'n.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Do you know that?" asked the old lady, proud of her correct recitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; that is Count Zinzendorff's hymn, which Wesley translated:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Jesus, thy blood and righteousness</div>
+<div>My beauty are, my glorious dress;</div>
+<div>Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,</div>
+<div>With joy shall I lift up my head.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The translation is wonderfully free, and takes unpardonable liberties
+with the original."</p>
+
+<p>"Graf Zinzendorff revived our Brethren when persecution had almost
+destroyed them. He was in America, too, and had his life saved by a
+rattlesnake. The Indians were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>going to kill him, when they saw him
+sleeping with the snake by his side, and thought it was his Manitou."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope that is not a snake-story, Mrs. Hill. I had a boy once in my
+school who came from Illinois, and who said that his mother had seen a
+snake, which had stiffened itself into a hoop, and taken its thorny tail
+in its mouth, trundling along over the prairie after a man. The man got
+behind a tree just in the nick of time, for the hoop unbent, and sent
+the thorny tail into the tree instead of into the man. Then the man came
+out and killed it. That was a snake story."</p>
+
+<p>"I give the story as I heard it from our people; you know, I suppose,
+that there is a Moravian Indian Mission on the borders of the counties
+of Kent and Middlesex. I once thought of going there as a missionary,
+before I fell in with Mr. Hill."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew a lady who married a clergyman, with the express understanding
+that he was to become a foreign missionary. His church missionary
+societies refused to accept him, because of some physical defect, so he
+had to settle down to a home charge. But his wife never went to hear him
+conduct service. She said she could not listen to a fraud who had
+married her under false pretences."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a great pity he married such a woman. If a wife has not the
+missionary spirit in her own house, how can she expect to acquire it by
+going abroad? Besides, there is so much mission work to be done in a new
+country like this. A few years ago, this place was almost as bad as
+Peskiwanchow, but now it has greatly improved."</p>
+
+<p>"There was a young man we met there, Mrs. Hill, in whom my friend and I
+were much interested," said the dominie, and proceeded to give an
+account of the exploit of Timotheus. He also narrated what Coristine had
+told him of his hero's attitude towards the catechism, as accounting for
+his present position. The old lady relented in her judgment of the
+younger Pilgrim, thought that Saul, perhaps, was too severe, and that
+the catechism could stand revision. Wilkinson agreed, and, the ice being
+completely broken between them, they also proceeded to view the scenery
+in a poetic light, or rather in two, the dame's a Cowperish, and the
+dominie's a Wordsworthian reflection. Suddenly, the latter saw the
+father of Try<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>phena and Tryphosa open a gate, and turn into a side road,
+along which the lawyer seemed not quite disposed to accompany him. The
+elder smoker, therefore, came back to the gate, and waited for Wilkinson
+and the old lady to come forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother!" said the old man, as the pair came up to the halting place,
+"you've got a soft blarneying Lutherian tongue in your head&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Henry Cooke," she replied sharply, "how often must I tell you that
+Lutherian is wrong, and that I am not a Lutheran, and have ceased even
+to be a United Brother since I cast in my lot with you; moreover, it is
+not pleasant for an old woman like me to be accused of blarneying, as if
+I were a rough Irishman with a grin on his broad face."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well, mother, I don't care a snuff if you were a Sesayder or even
+a Tommykite&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"A Tommykite?" cried Coristine, anxious to extend his knowledge and
+increase his vocabulary.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a man called Thomas," answered the interrupted husband, "that made
+a new sect out our way, and they call his following Tommykites; I dunno
+if he's a relation of the captain or not. Give a dog a bad name, they
+say, and you might as well hang him; but the Tommykites are living, in
+spite of their name."</p>
+
+<p>"Henry Cooke, your remarks are very unnecessary and irrevelant," said
+his wife, falling into bad English over a long adjective.</p>
+
+<p>"I was just going to say, mother, that I wanted you to try and keep
+these gentlemen from going beyond our house to-night, because you can
+put it so much better than I can."</p>
+
+<p>The old lady, thereupon, so judiciously blended coaxing with the apology
+of disparagement, that the only alternative left the pedestrians was
+that of remaining; for to go on would have been to treat the
+disparagement as real, and a sufficient cause for their seeking other
+shelter. The house they entered was small but neat. It consisted almost
+altogether of one room, called a living room, which answered all the
+purposes of eating, sleeping and sitting. Outside were a summer kitchen
+and a dairy or milk-house, and, a short distance off, were the barn and
+the stable, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>sole occupant of the latter at the time being a cow
+that spent most of its leisure out of doors. Supper did not take long
+preparing, and the travellers did ample justice to a very enjoyable
+meal. The dominie engaged the hostess in conversation about German
+cookery, Sauer Kraut, Nudeln and various kinds of Eierkuchen, which she
+described with evident satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Hill and Wilkinson are regular Deipnosophists," remarked Coristine
+to the host.</p>
+
+<p>"That's too deep for me," he whispered back. "But tell it to the
+mistress now; she's that fond of jawbreakers she'll never forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"We were remarking, Mrs. Hill, that you and Wilkinson are a pair of
+Deipnosophists."</p>
+
+<p>The old man looked quizically at his wife, and she glanced in a
+questioning way at the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend is trying to show off his learning at our expense," the
+latter remarked. "One Athen&aelig;us, who lived in the second century, wrote a
+book with that name, containing conversations, like those in 'Wilson's
+Noctes Ambrosian&aelig;,' but upon gastronomy."</p>
+
+<p>"I was not aware," said the hostess, "that they had gas so far back as
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson bit his lip, but dared not explain, and the lawyer looked
+sheepish at the turn affairs were taking.</p>
+
+<p>"It's aisy remembered, mother," put in the quondam schoolmaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Think of astronomy, and that'll give you gastronomy; and a gastronomer
+is a deipnosophist. That's two new words in one day and both meaning the
+same thing."</p>
+
+<p>The hostess turned to the dominie, with a little shrug of impatience at
+her husband, and remarked: "The life of a deipnosophist in gastromical
+works must be a very trying one, from the impure air and the soft coal
+dust; do you not think so, Mr. Wilkinson?"</p>
+
+<p>That gentleman thought it must, and the lawyer first chewed his
+moustache, and then blew his nose severely and long. Fortunately, the
+meal was over, the host returned thanks, and the party left the table.
+The old man took a pail and went to water the stock, which seemed to
+consist of the cow, while the wife put away the supper things, and
+prepared for the evening's milking.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>The pedestrians, being told there was nothing they could do, strolled
+out into the neighbouring pasture, and pretended to look among the weeds
+and stones, at the end of the fence farthest away from the stock-waterer
+for botanical and geological specimens; but, in reality, they were
+having a battle royal.</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, you ass, whatever put it into your stupid head to make a fool of
+that kind little woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sauer Kraut and Speck Noodle, what did you begin with your abominable
+Dutch dishes for?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had a perfect right to talk German and of German things with Mrs.
+Hill. I did not insult her, like an ungrateful cur, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"I never insulted her, you blackguard, wouldn't do such a thing for my
+life. I had a perfect right, too, to talk Greek to the old man, and it
+was you put your ugly foot in it with your diabolical gastronomy. I
+wonder you don't pray the ground to open up and swallow you."</p>
+
+<p>"I consider, sir, an apology from you to our host and hostess absolutely
+necessary, and to be made without any delay."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll apologize, Wilks, for the deipnosophist part of it, but I'll be
+jiggered if I'll be responsible for your nasty gastronomy."</p>
+
+<p>"That means that you are going to put all the onus of this hideous and
+cruel misunderstanding on my shoulders, when I explained your expression
+in charity to all parties, and to help you out."</p>
+
+<p>"Help me out, is it? I think it was helping me into the ditch and
+yourself, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you or will you not accept the responsibility of this whole
+unfortunate business? Here is my ultimatum: Decline to accept it, and I
+return to Collingwood this very night."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my boy, that would never do. It's dead tired you'd be, and I'd
+hear of you laid up with fever and chills from the night air, or perhaps
+murdered by tramps for the sake of your watch and purse."</p>
+
+<p>"It matters nothing. Right must be done. <i>Fiat justitia, ruat coelum.</i>
+Every law of gratitude for hospitality cries aloud: 'Make restitution
+ere the sun goes down.' I understand, sir, that you refuse." So saying,
+the offended <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>dominie moved rapidly towards the house to resume his
+knapsack and staff.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, if you don't stop I'll stone you to death with fossils," cried
+the repentant lawyer, throwing a series of trilobites from his
+tobacco-less pocket at his retreating friend. The friend stopped and
+said curtly: "What is it to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, you remind me of an old darkey woman that had a mistress who was
+troubled with sneezing fits. The mistress said: 'Chloe, whenever I
+sneeze in public, you, as a faithful servant, should take out your
+handkerchief, and pretend that it was you; you should take it upon
+yourself, Chloe.' So, one day in church, the old lady made a big
+tis-haw, when Chloe jumped up and cried out: 'I'll take dat sneeze my
+ole missus snoze on mysef,' waving her handkerchief all around."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not delay my journey to listen to negro stories, Mr. Coristine."</p>
+
+<p>"It has a moral," answered the lawyer; "it means that I am going to take
+all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger ass of yours.
+I'll apologize to the pair of them for me and you."</p>
+
+<p>"That being the case, in spite of the objectionable words, 'bigger ass,'
+which you will live to repent, I shall stay."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hill was proceeding to milk the cow, and her husband was busy at
+the wood-pile. Coristine sauntered up to the old lady, and carried the
+milking pail and stool for her, the latter being of the Swiss
+description, with one leg sharp enough to stick into the ground. The
+lawyer adroitly remarked:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Turning to the subject of language, Mrs. Hill, one who has had your
+experience in education must have observed fashion in words as in other
+things, how liable speech is to change at different times and in
+different places."</p>
+
+<p>Yes; Mrs. Hill had noticed that.</p>
+
+<p>"You will, I trust, not think me guilty of too great a liberty, if I
+say, in reference to my friend's remark at the supper table, that
+gastronomy, instead of meaning the art of extracting gas from coal, has
+now come to denote the science of cookery or good living, and that the
+old mean<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>ing is now quite out of date. I thought you would like to know
+of the change, which, I imagine, has hardly found its way into the
+country yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir, I am much obliged to you for setting me right so
+kindly. Doubtless the change has come about through the use of gas
+stoves for cooking, which I have seen advertised in our Toronto
+religious paper."</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought of that," said the perfidious lawyer. "The very
+uncommon word deipnosophist, hardly an English word at all, when
+employed at the present day, always means a supper philosopher, one who
+talks learnedly at supper, either about cookery or about other things."</p>
+
+<p>"I see it very clearly now. In town, of course, supper is taken by gas
+light, so that the talker at supper is a talker by gas-light?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but the word gas, even the idea of it, has gone out of fashion,
+through its figurative use to designate empty, vapouring talk;
+therefore, when deipnosophist and gastronomer are spoken, the former is
+employed to denote learned talkers at supper, such as we were half an
+hour ago, and the latter, to signify one who enjoys the culinary
+pleasures of the table."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I am very much indebted to you, sir, for taking the trouble
+to correct an old woman far behind the age, and to save her the
+mortification of making mistakes in conversation with those who might
+know better."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not mention it, I beg. Should I, do you think, say anything of this
+to Mr. Hill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," replied the old lady, laughingly; "he has forgotten all about
+these new words already; and, even if he had not, he would never dare to
+make use of them, unless they were in Shakespeare or the Bible or the
+School Readers."</p>
+
+<p>By this time the milking was over, and the lawyer, relieved in part, yet
+with not unclouded conscience, carried pail and stool to the milkhouse.</p>
+
+<p>The old man and Coristine sat down on a bench outside the house and
+smoked their pipes. Mrs. Hill occupied a rocking-chair just inside the
+doorway, and the dominie sat on the doorsill at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother," called Mr. Hill to his spouse, "whatever has become of Rufus?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>"You know very well, Henry Cooke, that Rufus is helping Andrew Hislop
+with his bee, and will not be back before morning. The young people are
+to have a dance after the bee, and then a late supper, at which the
+deipnosophists will do justice to Abigail's gastronomy." This was said
+with an approving side glance at the lawyer. When Wilkinson looked up,
+his friend perceived at once that his offence was forgiven. The husband,
+without removing the pipe from between his teeth, mumbled, "Just so, to
+be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your son's name William Rufus, Mrs. Hill?" enquired the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"No; it is simply Rufus. William, you know, is not a Scripture name. We
+thought of baptizing him Narcissus, which comes just before Tryphena,
+but my husband said, as he was the youngest, he should come lower down
+in the chapter, and after Persis, which is my name."</p>
+
+<p>"I was tayching school, and a bachelor," put in the said husband, "when
+there was a county meeting&mdash;they call them conventions now&mdash;that Persis
+was at. They called her Miss Persis Prophayt, but it was spelled like
+the English Prophet. She was that pretty and nice-spoken then I couldn't
+kape my eyes off her. She's gone off her nice looks and ways a dale
+since that time. Then I went back to the childer and the Scripture
+readins, with a big dictionary at my elbow for the long names. 'The
+beloved Persis' was forever coming up, till the gyurls would giggle and
+make my face as red as a turkey cock. So I had this farrum and some
+money saved, and I sent to ask the beloved Persis to put me out of my
+misery and confusion of countenance."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed he did," said the old lady, with a merry laugh, "and what do you
+think was his way of popping the question?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let us hear, Mrs. Hill," cried Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother, if you do," interposed the old man, "I'll put my foot down on
+your convention of retired taychers at Owen Sound." But mother paid no
+attention to the threat.</p>
+
+<p>"He asked if I knew the story of Mahomet and the mountain, and how
+Mahomet said, if the mountain will not come to the prophet, the prophet
+must go to the moun<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>tain. So, said he, you are the prophet and must come
+to my house under the mountain, and be a Hill yourself. It was so funny
+and clever that I came; besides I was glad to change the name Prophet.
+People were never tired making the most ridiculous plays upon it. The
+old Scotch schoolmistress, who taught me partly, was named Miss Lawson,
+so they called us Profit and Loss; and they pronounced my Christian name
+as if it was Purses, and nicknamed me Property, and took terrible
+liberties with my nomenclature." At this the whole company laughed
+heartily, after which the dominie said: "I see your pipe is out, Corry;
+you might favour our kind friends with a song." The lawyer did not know
+what to sing, but took his inspiration, finally, from Wilkinson's last
+question, and sang the ballad of William Rufus, as far as:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Men called him William Rufus because of his red beard,</div>
+<div>A proud and naughty king he was, and greatly to be feared;</div>
+<div>But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, hit him in the middell,</div>
+<div>And, instead of a royal stag that day, a king of England fell.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then the correct ear and literary sense of the dominie were offended,
+and he opened out on his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Corry, that you might at least have saved our generous hosts
+the infliction of your wretched travesties. The third line, Mrs Hill, is
+really:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, the fiercest pride can quell.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>There is nothing so vulgar as hitting in the verse, and your ear for
+poetry must tell you that <i>middle</i> cannot rhyme with <i>fell</i>, even if it
+were not a piece of the most Gothic barbarity. Thus a fine English song,
+such as I love to hear, is murdered."</p>
+
+<p>"My opinion," said the host, "my opinion is that you could'nt quell a
+man's pride better than by hitting him fair in the middle. It might be
+against the laws of war, but it would double him up, and take all the
+consayt out of him sudden. I mind when Rufus was out seeing his sisters,
+there was a parson got him to play cricket, and aggravated the boy by
+bowling him out, and catching his ball, and sneering at him for a good
+misser and a butter-fingers; so, when he went to the bat again, he
+looked carefully at the ball and got it on the tip of his bat, and, the
+next thing he knowed, the parson was doubled up like a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>jack knife. He
+had been hit fair in the middle, where the bad boy meant to do it. There
+was no sarvice next Sunday, no, nor for two weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"That was very wrong of Rufus," said the old lady with a sigh, "however,
+he did offer to remunerate Mr. Perrowne for his medical expenses, but
+the gentleman refused to accept any equivalent, and said it was the
+fortune of war, which made Rufus feel humiliated and sorry."</p>
+
+<p>Night had fallen, and the coal oil lamp was lit. The old lady deposited
+a large Bible on the table, to which her husband drew in a chair, after
+asking each of his guests unsuccessfully to conduct family worship. He
+read with emphasis and feeling the 91st Psalm, and thereafter, falling
+on his knees, offered a short but comprehensive prayer, in which the
+absent children were included, and the two wayfarers were not forgotten.
+While the good wife went out to the dairy to see that the milk was
+covered up from an invisible cat, the men undressed, and the pedestrians
+turned into a double bed, the property of the missing Rufus. The head of
+the household also turned in upon his couch, and coughed, the latter
+being a signal to his wife. She came in, blew out the lamp, and retired
+in the darkness. Then four voices said "good-night"; and rest succeeded
+the labours of the day. "No nightmares or fits to-night, Corry, an' you
+love me," whispered the dominie; but the lawyer was asleep soon after
+his head touched the pillow. They knew nothing till morning, when they
+were awakened by the old man's suppressed laughter. When they opened
+their eyes, the wife was already up and away to her outdoor tasks; and a
+well-built, good-looking young fellow of the farmer type was staring in
+astonishment at the two strangers in his bed. The more he stared, the
+more the father laughed. "There's not a home nor a place for you, Rufus,
+with you kapin' such onsaysonable hours. It's a sesayder you'll be
+becoming yourself, running after Annerew Hislop's pretty daughter, and
+dancing the toes out of your stockings till broad daylight. So, if
+you're going to sesayde, your mother and me, we're going to take in
+lodgers."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they selling?" asked the Baby.</p>
+
+<p>"Whisht! Rufus, whisht! come here now; it's not that they are at all,
+but gentlemen from the city on a pedestrian tower," the father replied
+in an audible whisper.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>"What do they want testering the beds for! Is that some new crank got
+into the guvment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rufus, Rufus, you'll be the death of your poor old father yet with your
+ignorance. Who said anything about testing the beds? It's a pedestrian
+tower, a holiday walking journey for the good of their healths, the
+gentlemen are taking. Whisht, now, they're waking up. Good morning to
+you, sirs; did I wake you up laughing at the Baby?"</p>
+
+<p>The roused sleepers returned the salutation, and greeted the new comer,
+apologizing for depriving him of his comfortable bed. Rufus replied
+civilly, with a frank, open manner that won their respect, and, when
+they had hastily dressed, led them to the pump, where he placed a tin
+basin, soap and towels, at their disposal. After ablutions, they
+questioned him as to the events of last evening, and were soon in
+nominal acquaintance with all the country side. He was indignant at the
+free and easy conduct of a self-invited guest called Rodden, who wanted
+to dance with all the prettiest girls and to play cards. "But when he
+said cards, Annerew, that's a sesayder, told him to clare, although it
+was only four in the morning, and he had to clare, and is on his way to
+Flanders now."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you did not hear him make any enquiries regarding us?" asked
+the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"But I did, and it was only when he hard that you hadn't been past the
+meetin'-house, that he stopped and said 'ee'd 'ave a lark. Do you know
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Coristine, "he is the Grinstun man," whereat they all
+laughed; and the old lady, coming in with her milking, expressed her
+pleasure at seeing them such good friends.</p>
+
+<p>After prayers and breakfast, the pedestrians prepared to leave, much to
+the regret of the household.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you bound for now?" asked Mr. Hill, to which Wilkinson
+replied, with the air of a guide-book, "for the Beaver River." The Baby,
+nothing the worse of last night's wakefulness, volunteered to show them
+the way by a shorter and pleasanter route than the main road, and they
+gladly availed themselves of his services. As the party walked on, the
+guide said to Coristine, "I hard fayther say that you were a lawyer, is
+that true?" Coristine answered that he was.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>"Then, sir, you ought to know something about that man Rodden; he's a
+bad lot."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"He knows all the doubtfullest and shadiest settlers about, and has long
+whispers with them, and gets a lot of money from them. His pocketbook is
+just bulging out with bank bills."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is the payment of his grindstones, Rufus."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me that a lawyer, a clever man like you, believe in his
+grindstones?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Doesn't he make and sell them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he makes them and sells them in bundles of half-a-dozen, but the
+buyer of a bundle only has two to show, and they're no good, haven't
+grit enough to sharpen a wooden spoon."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mostly out of big Ben Toner. He used to be a good sort of fellow, but
+is going all to ruination with the drink. I saw his grindstones and what
+came between 'em. It's more like a barl than anything else, but Ben kept
+me off looking at it close."</p>
+
+<p>"Where does Toner live?"</p>
+
+<p>"Down at the river where you're going. There's a nice, quiet tavern
+there, where you'll likely put up, and he'll be round it, likely, and
+pretty well on by noon. He don't drink there, though, nor the
+tavern-keeper don't buy no grindstones like he does. Well, here you are
+on the track, and I must get back to help dad. Keep right on till you
+come to the first clearing, and then ask your way. Good-bye, wishing you
+a good time, and don't forget that man Rodden." They shook the Baby
+warmly by the hand, and reciprocated his good wishes, Coristine
+promising to keep his eyes and ears open for news of the Grinstun man.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you overhear our talk, Wilks, my boy?" he asked his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I thought it was private, and kept in the background. I do not
+consider it honourable to listen to a conversation to which one is not
+invited, and doubtless it was of no interest to me."</p>
+
+<p>"But it is, Wilks; listen to this now," and volubly the lawyer poured
+forth the information and his suspi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>cions concerning Mr. Rawdon. That
+gentleman's ears would have tingled could he have heard the pleasant and
+complimentary things that Coristine said about him.</p>
+
+<p>The first clearing the pedestrians reached, after an hour's walk since
+parting with Rufus, was a desolate looking spot. Some fallow fields were
+covered with thistles, docks, fire-weed and stately mulleins, with, here
+and there, an evening primrose, one or two of which the lawyer inserted
+in his flower-press. There was hardly any ground under cultivation, and
+the orchard bore signs of neglect. They saw a man in a barn painfully
+rolling along a heavy cylindrical bundle which had just come off a
+waggon. As they advanced to ask him the way, he left his work and came
+to meet them, a being as unkempt as his farm, and with an unpleasant
+light in his bloodshot eye.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you two spyin' around fer at this time o' day, stead o'
+tendin' to your work like the rest o' folks? Ef you want anything, speak
+out, 'cause I've no time to be foolin' round."</p>
+
+<p>"We were directed to ask you, sir, the way to the Beaver River," said
+the dominie, politely. The man sulkily led them away out of view of the
+barn, and then pointed out a footpath through his farm, which he said
+would lead them to the highroad. As they were separating, Wilkinson
+thanked the man, and Coristine asked him casually:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you happen to know if a Mr. Rawdon, who makes and sells grindstones,
+has passed this way lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," cried the sluggard farmer; "who says he has?" Then, in a quieter
+tone, he continued: "I heern tell as he passed along the meetin'-house
+way yesday. What do you want of Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, here, is a geologist, and so is that gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"Rawdon a geologist!" he cried again, with a coarse laugh. "Of course he
+is; allers arter trap rock, galeny, quartz and beryl. O yes, he's a
+geologist! Go right along that track there. Good day." Then he rapidly
+retraced his steps towards the barn, as if fearful lest some new visitor
+should interrupt him before his task was completed.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be smuggling," said the lawyer, "but it's liquid of some kind,
+for that dilapidated granger has given <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>his friend away. What do
+hayseeds know about galena, quartz and beryl? These are Grinstun's
+little mineralogical jokes for gallon, quart and barrel, and trap rock
+is another little mystery of his. What do you think of the farmer that
+doesn't follow the plough, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he drinks," sententiously responded the schoolmaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he and Ben Toner are in the same box, and both are friends or
+customers of the workin' geologist. I believe it's whiskey goes between
+the grindstones, and that it's smuggled in from the States, somewhere up
+on the Georgian Bay between Collingwood and Owen Sound. The plot is
+thickening."</p>
+
+<p>When the pedestrians emerged from the path on a very pretty country road
+the first objects that met their view were three stout waggons, drawn by
+strong horses and driven by bleary eyed men, noisy and profane of
+speech. Their waggon loads were covered with buffalo robes and
+tarpaulins, which, however, did not effectually conceal the grindstones
+beneath. The drivers eyed the pedestrians with suspicion, and consigned
+them to the lower regions and eternal perdition.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my dear," said the lawyer, in a sort of cool fever heat,
+"there's a revolver and a box of cartridges in my pack that I'd like to
+have in my right hand pocket for that kind of cattle."</p>
+
+<p>"I have one, too," said the dominie, quietly, "but we had better pass on
+and not heed them. See, they are armed as well."</p>
+
+<p>Just as he spoke there was a report; a pistol in the hand of the first
+teamster smoked, and a poor little squirrel, that had been whirring on
+the limb of a basswood, dropped to the ground dead.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd as lief as not put a hole into the back of them d&mdash;&mdash;d packs," said
+the second teamster, whereupon the others swore at him to shut up and
+save his cartridges.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, I could once hit a silver dollar at twenty yards. Dad, I'll get
+the thing out anyway." The lawyer sat down, undid his knapsack and
+primed his revolver, which he then placed with the box of cartridges in
+the pocket out of which he had thrown the fossils. The dominie did the
+same, all the time saying: "No violence! my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>dear friend; in this world
+we must pretend not to see a great many things that we cannot help
+seeing." The teamsters went by, and no further use for the revolver
+appeared. Wilkinson would not allow his companion to shoot at birds or
+chipmunks, and, on being expostulated with, the kindly lawyer confessed
+that it would have been a shame to take their innocent young lives. At
+last they saw a gray paper-like structure of large size on the limb of
+an oak pretty high up. "I'll bet you can't hit that, Wilks," said the
+lawyer. "I shall try," replied the dominie. They fired simultaneously
+and both struck the grey mass, and then the warriors ran, ran as they
+had hardly done since they were boys, for a hundred wasps were after
+them, eager to take vengeance on the piercers of their communal home.
+After two hundred yards had been done in quick time, they stopped and
+faced each other.</p>
+
+<p>"I've killed three that got down my back, but the beggar that stung me
+on the lip escaped," said Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>"I have one sting on the left hand and another on the right temple,"
+replied Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it safe to stop yet, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; they have given up the pursuit."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, my poor boy, let us go into hospital." So he produced his flask
+and bathed the dominie's temple and hand with the cooling spirit, after
+which Wilkinson loosened his friend's flannel shirt and applied the same
+remedy to his afflicted back, down which the three dead wasps slid to
+the ground. The lawyer healed his own lip by allowing a little of the
+cratur, as he termed it, to trickle over into his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me, Wilks, that, when a man is looking for war, he's bound
+to get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I suppose that that is what is meant by 'they that take the sword
+shall perish with the sword.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Bad luck to these wasps; they revolved on us."</p>
+
+<p>As the travellers continued their journey, Coristine turned to his
+friend and asked him for counsel.</p>
+
+<p>"You've studied casuistry, Wilks, and I want you, as a judge of what a
+loyal citizen should do, to say what is our duty in regard to the
+Grinstun man."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you, Corry, a lawyer in general practice or a revenue
+detective?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>"A lawyer, of course, but a citizen too."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you, as lawyer or as citizen, a case against Mr. Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"As a contributor to the revenue of the country, I think I have."</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he is making money by cheating the Government."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your proof?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at what Rufus said, at the doings of that bogus farmer, at these
+three teams on the road."</p>
+
+<p>"Mere inferences based on circumstantial evidence."</p>
+
+<p>"They're things that should be looked into, though."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps so, but is it your business to do so? Are you a whiskey
+informer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Wilks, that's a pretty bad name to call a man."</p>
+
+<p>"That may be, but it seems to denote the r&ocirc;le you have set before
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to run that brute into the ground."</p>
+
+<p>"Worse and worse; you are going to prosecute, not from principle, but
+from malice."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to show up a scoundrel."</p>
+
+<p>"If that is your work you will never lack employment. But, seriously,
+Corry, <i>cui bono?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"To keep him off Miss Du Plessis' land, to prevent him marrying her, to
+hinder him corrupting the farmers and causing their farms to go to waste
+with smuggled liquor."</p>
+
+<p>"As you like, but Wordsworth says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Whatever be the cause, 'tis sure that they who pry and pore</div>
+<div>Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"A fig for Wordsworth, and his tear in the old man's eye! I'll not be
+happy till I bring that murdering thief of the world to justice."</p>
+
+<p>Further conversation was checked by the view of the river from the top
+of the hill, challenging the admiration of the two lovers of scenery,
+and they began their descent towards the hamlet that lay on either side
+of the bridge which crossed the swiftly-flowing stream. Then the lawyer
+commenced the recitation of a poem in one of the old Irish readers:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>River, river, rapid river,</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>in which the dominie sharply interrupted him, recommending his tall,
+mustachioed friend to put a stick of candy in his mouth and go back to
+petticoats and pinafores.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, you remind me of a picture I saw once, in <i>Punch</i> or somewhere
+else, of a nigger sandwich man advertising baths, and a sweep looking at
+him, and saying: 'It's enough to tempt one, he looks so jolly clean
+hisself.' That's the way with you, always firing out Wordsworth's silly
+twaddle, and objecting to a piece of genuine poetry because it's in a
+reader. The pig-headed impudence of you birchers beats all."</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Maple Inn&mdash;Mr. Bigglethorpe's Store&mdash;Dinner&mdash;Worms&mdash;Ben
+Toner&mdash;The Dugout&mdash;Fishing in the Beaver River&mdash;The Upset
+Suckers&mdash;The Indignant Dominie Propitiated and Clothed&mdash;Anecdotes
+of Mr. Bulky&mdash;A Doctor Wanted.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>A very clean and attractive hostelry received the travellers, and
+compelled the dominie to remark cheerfully, "Now shall I take mine ease
+in mine inn," which led to his lately indignant friend's response:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Who'er has travell'd life's dull round,</div>
+<div>Where'er his stages may have been,</div>
+<div>May sigh to think he still has found</div>
+<div>The warmest welcome at an inn.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>P. Lajeunesse was the name on the sign, which displayed a vegetable
+wonder of the painter's art meant for a maple tree, for Madame
+Lajeunesse kept the Maple Inn. That lady, a portly brunette, with a
+pleasant smile and a merry twinkle in her eye, received the
+distinguished guests in person. Wilkinson replied to her bow and curtsey
+with a dignified salutation, but the lawyer shook hands with her,
+saying: "I hope you're very well, Madame; it's a lovely place you have
+here." Madame replied that it was lofely when the moustique was not, and
+summoned Pierre to help the dominie off with his knapsack, saying
+"permettit me," as she unfastened the straps of Coristine's, and removed
+that burden, which she deposited upon a table in the sitting-room
+adjoining the hall. Pierre, a bald-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>headed French-Canadian, hiding his
+lack of hair under a red tuque, and sporting a white moustache of large
+dimensions, arrived too late to help the schoolmaster, but he elevated
+his eyebrows, grimaced, rubbed his hands, and slid his feet apart, in
+pleased welcome.</p>
+
+<p>"Ze chentlemans ave come to feesh lika many in ze springa monses?
+Feeshing not so coot as zen, bot in ze cool place vare is oles onder ze
+trees feesh lorrik. Is zat spoken correct, zat vord lorrik? I ave learn
+it from Meestare Bulky. O, a ver great feesherman."</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson replied that lurk was an excellent word, and very expressive
+of the conduct of fish in warm weather, explaining that he was no
+fisherman himself, but that his friend was attached to that kind of
+sport.</p>
+
+<p>"Dinnare, Messieu, in one hour," remarked Madame, as she returned to her
+duties.</p>
+
+<p>"Where can I get fishing tackle, landlord?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"At ze store, zare is onelly one. You vill not lose yourself long in
+zisa city," replied mine host with an attempt at wit.</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson remained in the cool parlour, inspecting the plates on the
+walls and a few books on a side table. The latter were chiefly poor
+novels in English, left by former guests as not worth taking home, but
+among them was a thoroughly French paper-bound copy of Alphonse Karr's
+Voyage autour de mon Jardin. Falling into an easy chair, the
+schoolmaster surrendered himself to the charming style and subtle humour
+of this new found treasure.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer went straight to Mr. Bigglethorpe's store, and found himself,
+at the time, its sole customer. The proprietor was an Englishman of some
+five and thirty years, tall and thin, wearing a long full beard and
+overhanging moustache. He sold fishing tackle and was himself a
+fisherman, the latter being the reason why he had come to the Beaver
+River and set up store. It occupied him when fishing was poor, and
+helped to check the consumption of his capital. Before he married, he
+locked the door, when the fishing was good, and put the key in his
+pocket, but now Mrs. Bigglethorpe minded the shop in his absence. Having
+supplied Coristine with hooks and lines, and recommended him what kind
+of a rod to cut out of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>the bush for ordinary still fishing, he offered
+to lend him one of his own fly rods, and opened his fly book for his
+inspection. Soon the pair were deep in all kinds of artificial flies and
+their manufacture, Black and Red and White Hackles, Peacock Fly,
+Mackerel, Green Grasshopper, Black Ant, Governor, Partridge, and a host
+more. The lawyer declined the rod, as the storekeeper informed him that,
+so late in the season and in the day, it was utterly useless to look for
+trout. He had better get old Batiste at the Inn to dig him up some
+earthworms, and go fishing with them like the boys. He would find a
+canoe moored near the bridge which he could use. Who it belonged to Mr.
+Bigglethorpe didn't know, but it was of no consequence, for everybody
+took it that wanted it for a morning or afternoon. If Mr. Coristine
+heard of any new kind of fly, perhaps he'd be good enough to remember
+him and let him know, something killing for autumn use, or, as people
+say here, for fall fishing. Mr. Coristine promised to remember him, and
+departed with his purchases, just as a voice, feminine but decided,
+called to Mr. Bigglethorpe by name to come and hold the baby, while its
+owner dished the dinner. "Talk about Hackles," said the lawyer to
+himself on the way Inn-wards, "I imagine he has somebody in there that
+can hackle him, long beard and all."</p>
+
+<p>The dinner bell at the Maple was ringing vigorously. Monsieur Lajeunesse
+had taken off his coat to ring it, and stood in the doorway in a flaming
+red waistcoat, the companion of his tuque, over a spotlessly white
+shirt, to let all who dwelt on the Beaver River know that the hour of
+noon had arrived. The dinner, over which Madame presided, was excellent.
+With the soup and the fish there was white wine, and good sound beer
+with the entr&eacute;es and solids. The schoolmaster spoke French to the
+hostess, chiefly about the book he had been reading, and the lawyer
+discussed fishing with Pierre, who constantly referred to his great
+authority, Meestare Bulky. Madame, charmed that her guest could converse
+with her in her mother tongue, generously filled his glasses, and
+provided his plates with the most seductive morsels. Monsieur
+Veelkeenson was the white-haired boy at that table, and he felt it,
+yielded to the full satisfaction of it. He had dined <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>royally, and was
+fit for anything. When his friend asked him if he would go fishing, he
+replied jauntily, and in a way quite unlike himself: "Why, suttenly,
+which would you rather do or go fishin'?"</p>
+
+<p>"O Wilks," cried the lawyer, "you're a patent pressed brick! I feel like
+old Isaac Walton's Coridon, that said, d'ye mind, 'Come, hostess, give
+us more ale, and let's drink to him,' which is natural, seeing I'm
+called Corry."</p>
+
+<p>The companions had a glass of ale after dinner, which was quite
+indefensible, for they had had a sufficiency at that bounteous repast.
+Evidently, the dominie was in for a good time. A wizened old fellow,
+named Batiste, with a permanent crick in his back, dug the worms, and
+presented them to the lawyer in an empty lobster tin, the outside of
+which was covered with texts of Scripture. "It seems almost profane,"
+remarked the recipient, "to carry worms inside so much Bible language."
+But the merry schoolmaster remarked that it was turn about, for he had
+heard a Scotch preacher, who seemed to know the whole Bible by heart,
+say in prayer, on behalf of himself and his people, "we are all poor
+wurrums of the airth." "Probably, however," he continued, "he would have
+objected to be treated as a worm."</p>
+
+<p>"They say even a worm will turn, which, if your parson was a large man,
+might be serious enough," replied the lawyer. "I remember, when I was a
+small boy, thinking that the Kings of Israel kept large men for crushing
+their enemies, because they used to say, 'Go and fall upon him, and he
+fell upon him and he died.' That might be the way with the human wurrum.
+It's not always safe to trust these humble men."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, you're a profane man; your treatment of sacred things is
+scandalously irreverent," said the dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"Who began it?" retorted the victim.</p>
+
+<p>"You did, sir, with your textual lobster can," replied the reprover.</p>
+
+<p>"The ancient Hebrews, in the height of their pride and glory, knew not
+the luxury of lobster salad," Coristine remarked, gravely, as if
+reciting a piece.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because, if I offer a prize of a Trip to the Dark Continent to the
+first person buying a copy of our published <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>travels, who finds the word
+lobster in the Bible, I shall never have occasion to purchase the
+ticket."</p>
+
+<p>As they moved in the direction of the river, Pierre came after them and
+asked:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You make your feeshing off ze bord or in ze vatars!"</p>
+
+<p>"I prefer the board," replied Coristine, "if it's as good of its kind as
+that you gave us at dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep quiet, you do not understand him," interposed the schoolmaster;
+"he means the shore, the bank of the river by the bord. N'est ce pas,
+Monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oui, oui, M'syae, le bord, le rivauge de la rivi&egrave;re."</p>
+
+<p>"Non, Monsieur Pierre, nous allons prendre le bateau," answered
+Wilkinson, with a dignity that his companion envied.</p>
+
+<p>The red-nightcapped host called Baptiste.</p>
+
+<p>"Vau t-en donc, Bawtiste, d&eacute;p&ecirc;che twa, trouve deux petits bouts de
+plaunche pour le canot."</p>
+
+<p>Batiste soon returned with two boards.</p>
+
+<p>"Canot 'ave no seat, you placea zem over two ends for seet down," said
+Pierre, relapsing into English.</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson assumed the responsibility of the boards and the fishermen
+proceeded to the river bank near the bridge to find the canoe. It was
+long, and, for a dug-out, fairly wide, but ancient and black, and moist
+at the bottom, owing to an insufficiently caulked crack. Its paddles had
+seen much service, and presented but little breadth of blade.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to place these boards," said Wilkinson, as he surveyed
+first them and then the dug-out; "I should like to place these boards,
+one across the bow and the other across the stern, but I really cannot
+decide which is the bow and which is the stern."</p>
+
+<p>"She's a sort of a fore and after, Wilks, like the slip-ferry
+steamboats. I think, if you could find a bit of chalk or charcoal, and
+write bow on one plank and stern on the other, it would make her
+ship-shape and settle the business."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no sympathy, Corry, with makeshifts and factitious devices. I
+wish to arrive at the true inwardness of this boat. At what end of a
+boat is the anchor let down?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the <i>Susan Thomas</i> it was pretty near the bow, and I think I've seen
+yachts riding at anchor that way in Toronto harbour."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>"In the time of St. Paul, however, there were four anchors, if I
+remember aright, cast out of the stern."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how the anchor is going to help us. This long Tom Coffin
+has nothing of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sadly deficient in observation, Corry, or you would have
+observed a rope, very much abraded indeed, but still a rope, by which
+the vessel may be said, even though figuratively, to be anchored to this
+stake."</p>
+
+<p>"It's you're the clever man, Wilks; education has done wonders for you.
+Now, I remember that rope is the painter; that's what The Crew called it
+on the dingy, and of course it was fastened to the bow."</p>
+
+<p>"But to the stern of the larger vessel."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but here there is no larger vessel. If you want one, for argument
+sake, you'll have to imagine the post to be it. The coffin is bow on to
+the shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, I insist, if I am to trust myself to this craft, that you call
+it by some other name."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you ever in anything of the kind before, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I." These simple words had in them a depth of meaning.</p>
+
+<p>A young man came on to the bridge and leaned over the rail, looking at
+the fishermen. He was respectably clad in a farmer's holiday suit, was
+tall, strongly built, and with good features that bore unmistakable
+marks of dissipation. "I'll bet you that's Ben Toner," whispered the
+lawyer, who was examining the new-found bow prior to depositing his
+boards.</p>
+
+<p>"Goin' fishin'?" asked the new comer, in a not unpleasant voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Coristine; "we're going in this&mdash;what do you call it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dug-out, and mighty poor at that. Fishin's no good here now. River was
+a pardise for Trontah folks wunst, but it's clean fished out. I seen
+fellers go to a ho-ul up thayer," said the supposed Ben, pointing in the
+opposite direction, "and take out a hull barl-ful afore sundown. 'Taint
+to be did, not now, wuss luck! Wait to I come down, and I'll haylp you
+off with that kinew."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker descended, untied the frayed painter, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>hauled the
+dug-out to a point where, the bank being higher, embarkation was more
+easy. He dissuaded the navigators from sitting on the boards placed over
+the gunwales, as likely to be, what he called, parlous, and recommended
+that the boards be placed on the floor of the craft to keep the water
+off their "paants." The fishermen consented, and sat down safely at each
+end facing one another, with his assistance to hold the dug-out steady,
+the dominie in the bow and the lawyer in the stern. They thanked their
+ally, bade him good afternoon, and proceeded to paddle. Ben Toner
+laughed, and cried to Coristine: "I'll lay two to one on you, Mister,
+for you've got the curnt to haylp you." The dugout, in spite of the
+schoolmaster's fierce paddling, was moving corkscrew-like in the
+opposite direction, owing largely to the current, but partly to the
+superior height of the lawyer, which gave his paddle a longer sweep.
+Still, he found progress slow, till a happy thought struck him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my boy, it's paddling our own canoe we are, but too much that
+way. We're a house divided against itself, Wilks. Either you must turn
+round or I must, and, if I do, then you'll be the stern and I the bow."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought there was something wrong, Corry, but the excitement incident
+on a new sensation absorbed my attention. Of course, I shall move, as it
+would be very confusing, not to say ridiculous, to invert the relative
+positions of the boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Wilks dear, wait till I paddle her near the bank, for fear of
+accidents."</p>
+
+<p>When the bank was reached, the dominie landed, picked up his board and
+placed it farther back, then sat down gingerly, with his legs spread out
+before him, and began paddling on the same side as his companion, which
+zigzagged the frail craft more than ever, and finally brought it to the
+shore. Ben Toner, who had been laughing at the city innocents, ran down
+to a point opposite the dug-out, and told them to paddle on opposite
+sides, giving directions how to steer with one of the emaciated
+propellers. After that, the course of the vessel was a source of
+continual self-commendatory remark by the voyageurs.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, they came to a wooden bridge, built upon piles resting in
+the stream. "This," said the school<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>master, "is the <i>Pons sublicius</i>,
+like that which Ancus Martius built over the Tiber. Shall we shoot it,
+Corry, or shall we call a halt and proceed to fish?"</p>
+
+<p>The dug-out bumped on the piles, and the navigators trembled, but
+Wilkinson, bravely gathering his legs under him and rising to his knees
+on the board, threw his arms round a pile, when, in spite of Coristine's
+efforts, the craft slewed round and the stern got under the bridge ahead
+of the bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, Wilks," the lawyer cried; "another bump like that and the old
+thing'll split in two. Now, then, we'll drop the paddles and slip her
+along the bridge to the bank. There's a hole under that birch tree
+there, and some fine young birches that will do for rods back of it.
+Doesn't the birch make you feel like England, home and duty, Wilks?"</p>
+
+<p>"The quotation, sir, is incorrect, as usual; it is England, home and
+beauty."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's a beauty of a birch, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>They got ashore, and fastened the painter to a sapling on the bank,
+because it was not long enough to go round a pile. Then they produced
+their knives, and, proceeding to the place where the young birches grew,
+cut down two famous rods, to which they attached lines with white and
+green floats and small hooks with gut attachments. The lobster can was
+produced, and wriggling worms fixed on the hooks. "A worm at one end and
+a fool at the other," said the lawyer. "Speak for yourself, sir,"
+replied the dominie. The next thing was to get into the canoe, which was
+safely effected. Then, the question arose, how was she to be moored in
+the current? Wilkinson suggested a stake driven into the bottom for the
+deep-sea mooring, and an attachment to the exposed root of the lovely
+overhanging birch for that to landward. So Coristine sprang ashore, cut
+a heavier birch, and trimmed one end to a point. Bringing this on board,
+he handed it to his companion, and, paddling up stream, brought him
+opposite the overarching tree. The dominie drove the stake deep into the
+river mud and pressed it down. The stake was all that could be desired
+for a deep-sea mooring, and to it the painter was attached.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do about your end of the vessel, Corry?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>"That's all right," replied the lawyer, who, forthwith, took off coat
+and waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going to undress, I hope," remarked his friend; "there is a
+bare possibility that people, even ladies, might be walking this way,
+sir, and I do not wish to be disgraced."</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear, Wilks, my boy, it's my braces I am after." With this,
+Coristine took off these articles, and, fastening a button hole over a
+rusty nail in the stern, tied the other end about a root of the birch.
+The dug-out was securely fastened, so that the current only rocked it a
+little, causing the lawyer to sing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep."
+Then they sat down on their boards and began fishing.</p>
+
+<p>They had a very pleasant hour hooking shiners and chub, and an
+occasional perch that looked at a distance like a trout. The dominie,
+<i>apropos</i> of his friend's braces, told Alphonse Karr's story of the
+<i>bretellier</i> in the Jardin des Plantes, and the credulous sceptic who
+did not believe that a suspender tree existed. He knew that cotton grew
+on a shrub, and that caoutchouc exuded from a tree, and admitted the
+possibility of their natural combination, but thought his deceivers had
+reference to braces with metal attachments.</p>
+
+<p>"That reminds me," said the lawyer, "of a man from Lanark that came into
+our office asking where he'd find a mining geologist. He had some
+grey-looking cork and leather wrapped up in a newspaper, and said he had
+dug them out of the ground where there was lots more of both of them. I
+told him he had likely come on the remains of an old picnic, and that
+the leather was the skin of the ham they had taken out to make
+sandwiches of; but the impudent creature laughed in my face, as if any
+child doesn't know that leather is the skin of beasts, and cork, of a
+tree!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, Corry, he was no doubt right, and you were wrong in your
+scepticism. What are called mountain cork and mountain leather are forms
+of asbestos. They are of no use, unless it be for the lining of safes.
+The fibrous asbestos can be made into fire-proof clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"So, old Leather Corks had the laugh on me there! Dad, I'll apologize
+for sending him to the marines next <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>time he comes in. What a thing it
+is to have the larnin' like you, Wilks!"</p>
+
+<p>"A mere mineralogical trifle, my dear Corry, nothing more."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, do you mind the 'Fisher's Song,' composed by the late Mr.
+William Bass, that's in the 'Complete Angler'? I don't suppose it would
+scare the fish much. It goes to the tune of 'The Pope, he leads a happy
+life,' like this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Of recreation there is none</div>
+<div>So free as fishing is alone;</div>
+<div>All other pastimes do no less</div>
+<div>Than mind and body both possess;</div>
+<div class='i2'>My hand alone my work can do,</div>
+<div class='i2'>So I can fish and study too.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>I care not, I, to fish in seas&mdash;</div>
+<div>Fresh rivers best my mind do please,</div>
+<div>Whose sweet calm course I contemplate,</div>
+<div>And seek in life to imitate:</div>
+<div class='i2'>In civil bounds I fain would keep,</div>
+<div class='i2'>And for my past offences weep.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>And when the timorous trout I wait</div>
+<div>To take, and he devours my bait.</div>
+<div>How poor a thing, sometimes I find,</div>
+<div>Will captivate a greedy mind;</div>
+<div class='i2'>And when none bite, I praise the wise,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>But yet, though while I fish I fast,</div>
+<div>I make good fortune my repast;</div>
+<div>And thereunto my friend invite,</div>
+<div>In whom I more than that delight:</div>
+<div class='i2'>Who is more welcome to my dish</div>
+<div class='i2'>Than to my angle was my fish."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Well done, Corry&mdash;a very good song and very well sung,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Jolly companions every one.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Why will these wretched rhymsters couple such words as sung and one? It
+is like near and tears in the American war-song, 'The Old Camp-Ground.'
+Some people are like these fish; they have no ear at all. A practical
+joker, like you, Corry, once corrected a young lady who was singing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Golden years ago,</div>
+<div>In a mill beside the sea,</div>
+<div>There dwelt a little maiden,</div>
+<div>Who plighted her troth to me.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>He suggested Floss for sea, because of George Eliot's Mill on the
+Floss, and, you would hardly believe it, did I not vouch for its truth,
+she actually rhymed Floss and me. It was excruciating."</p>
+
+<p>"I can beat that, Wilks. I was out in the country on business, and
+stopped at our client's house, a farmer he was. The man that led the
+music in his church, an old Yank, who drawled out his words in singing,
+like sweeowtest for sweetest, was teaching the farmer's daughter to play
+the organ. He offered to sing for my benefit, in an informal way, one of
+my national melodies; and he did. It was 'The harp that once through
+Tara's halls,' and&mdash;O Wilks&mdash;he sang it to a tune called Ortonville, an
+awful whining, jog-trot, Methodistical thing with a repeat. My client
+asked me privately what I thought of it, and I told him that, if Mr.
+Sprague had said he was going to sing it in an infernal way, he would
+have been nearer the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Your language is strong, my friend. The late Mr. William Basse, as you
+designate him, would not have condescended to the use of such terms."</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, the language isn't made that's too bad for Ortonville. You've
+got a big one this time, Wilks, my boy&mdash;play him!"</p>
+
+<p>The dominie succeeded in bringing in his fish, a big fellow, between a
+pound and a-half and two pounds in weight, on which he gazed with
+delight, as the lawyer unhooked it, and deposited it, with a smart rap
+on the head, at the bottom of the canoe.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a trout, Corry?" the Dominie asked with eager pride.</p>
+
+<p>"No; it's not a brook or speckled trout, for it has no speckles, and
+it's not a relative of the late William Basse, for it isn't deep enough
+in the body, nor a perch, for it's too big and has no stripes. It's
+either a salmon trout or a pickerel, Wilks."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there not some fable about the latter fish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; old Isaac says that it's produced from the pickerel weed, the
+Pontederia, that should be coming into flower about now. I haven't seen
+any yet. There's another, for me this time&mdash;ugh, it's only a perch."</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster, emboldened by success, declared that he was too
+cramped, and, gathering his legs together, while <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>he held on to the
+sides of the dug-out, succeeded in grasping the top of the deep-sea
+mooring. Then, with the other hand, he raised the board, and transferred
+it to the gunwale. Sitting upon the improvised seat with his back to the
+bow, he expressed satisfaction at facing his companion, for one thing,
+and at being out of the way of the fish in the canoe, for another.
+Coristine followed suit, and, when his plank was in position, said he
+felt something like old Woodruff in a small way.</p>
+
+<p>"How is that?" asked the inquisitive dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a director in ever so many institutions, and is always out,
+sitting on boards. I have only one so far; as Shakespeare says, it's a
+poor one, but mine own."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, tut," replied his disgusted friend; "more desecration."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless he smiled, as a thought came into his mind, and he remarked
+that the vessel was rather a small concern to have two boards of
+direction; to which the lawyer answered that it was no worse off in that
+respect than the Province of Quebec, or the Church, or the universities,
+which could not trust one governing body to do their work.</p>
+
+<p>"I have another, a large fish," shouted the schoolmaster, wildly excited
+and rising to his feet. The fish pulled hard up stream till the whole
+extent of line and rod combined was out at arm's length. Eager to secure
+the prey, and thinking nothing of the precarious foundation on which he
+stood, he placed a foot upon the gunwale in order to reach still farther
+out.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out, Wilks!" cried Coristine, as he also rose and grasped an
+overhanging branch of the birch; but it was too late. The dug-out
+tipped, the boards slid into the water, and with them went the dominie,
+rod, fish, and all. When the canoe recovered its equilibrium, Wilkinson,
+minus his wide awake, which was floating down the stream, was seen
+apparently climbing the deep-sea mooring post, like a bear on a pole,
+his clothes dripping where they were out of the water, his hair
+plastered over his eyes, and his face flushed with anger. The lawyer
+could not restrain his mirth, although he knew the vengeance it would
+excite in the dominie's breast.</p>
+
+<p>"O Wilks, Wilks, my poor drowned rat of a friend, ha! ha! ha! O Moses!
+but it's too comical you are; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>the nuns couldn't help it, Wilks, no, nor
+the undertaker's drum-major, nor a hired butler, even. Howld on, just
+one second more, till I'm fit to steady this divil of a dug-out for you
+to get in. If I only had a kodak, Wilks, you would be immortal, and the
+expenses of our trip would be paid. Oh, garrahow, ha! ha!"</p>
+
+<p>The dominie climbed on to the bow of the dug-out, while Coristine
+balanced it, and made his silent way to the shore end, from which he
+gained the bank. There he shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and
+brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. He muttered a great deal, but said
+nothing loud enough to be intelligible; his tone, however, was far from
+reassuring to his companion. The lawyer unmoored the dug-out at both
+ends, and set forth to recover the missing articles. He found the hat
+and the two boards on the shore, a short way down the river, and, in the
+middle of the stream, recaptured the fishing-rod. To his great delight,
+the fish was still on the hook, and he imparted the joyful news to his
+shivering friend, but got no single word in reply. It was another salmon
+trout, or pickerel, or some such fish, and he deposited it gleefully in
+the bottom of the canoe with the others, which had not escaped in the
+tip-over. Returning, he handed Wilkinson his hat, and hoped he was none
+the worse of his ducking. The schoolmaster took the wide-awake, but gave
+no answer. Then the lawyer invited him to take his place in the boat,
+when the storm burst.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I a fool, Mr. Coristine, an abject, unthinking, infatuated fool, to
+entrust my comfort, my safety, my life, to a man without the soul of a
+man, to a childish, feeble-minded, giggling and guffawing player of
+senseless, practical jokes, to a creature utterly wanting in heart,
+selfish and brutal to a degree?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Wilks, my dear boy, this is too bad. I had nothing in the mortal
+world to do with your tumbling out of the old dug-out, 'pon my honour I
+hadn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly keep your silence, sir, and do not outrage my sufficiently
+harrowed feelings by adding worse to bad. I shall go to the inn on
+<i>terra firma</i>, and leave you in charge of what you seem so able to
+manage in your own clownish, pantomimic way. Be good enough to bring my
+fish, and do not distinguish yourself by upsetting them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>into their
+native element." With these words, and in great apparent scorn, the
+draggled dominie took his course along the bank and soon disappeared
+from view. The lawyer followed in the canoe, but more slowly, as the
+current was against him, and often turned the boat round. By dint of
+strenuous efforts he gained the bridge, and found the supposed Ben
+leaning over it.</p>
+
+<p>"I see you've drownded your man," he remarked with a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Coristine; "we had a spill."</p>
+
+<p>"Had any luck?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty fair," the lawyer answered, exhibiting his treasures.</p>
+
+<p>"Perch, and chub, and shiners, and them good-for-nawthun tag ends of all
+creation, suckers."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that what they are?" asked the disappointed fisherman, holding up
+the spoil of Wilkinson's rod.</p>
+
+<p>"That's jest what they are, flabby, bony, white-livered, or'nary
+suckers. Niggers and Injuns won't touch 'em, ony in the spring; they'd
+liefer eat mudcats."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer tied his dug-out to the stake, while Ben, who informed him
+that his name was Toner, got a willow twig with a crotch at the thick
+end, and strung his fish on it through the gills.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess you'd better fire them suckers into the drink," he said, but
+Coristine interposed to save them from such a fate.</p>
+
+<p>"They are my friend's catch," he said, "and I'll let him do what he
+likes with them."</p>
+
+<p>Then, attended by Mr. Toner, carrying the string of fish, suckers
+included, he bent his steps towards the Maple Inn.</p>
+
+<p>When they arrived, they found Madame standing in the doorway. She
+admired the fish, and complimented Coristine on his success. He,
+however, disclaimed most of them in favour of his friend, for whose
+health and whereabouts he enquired with much earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>"Ze pauvre Meestare Veelkeensen retires himselfa in ze chomber to
+shongje his vet habillement vit datta o' Pierre. I 'opes he catcha no
+cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Better mix him a hot drink, Madame," said Mr. Toner.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>"I 'ave fear, Ben, you lofe too moch hot dreenks," replied Madame.</p>
+
+<p>"That's jest where you're out, Missus; I take my little tods cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Hot or cold, you take nossing in our salon."</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, not so long as I can get better stuff, real white wheat that ain't
+seen the water barl."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer noticed this unguarded saying of Toner's, but this did not
+hinder his asking if Madame had hot water, and could mix some real Irish
+punch for his afflicted friend. Madame had no Irish, but she had some
+good Scotcha veesky, which Coristine said would do, only, instead of
+Irish punch, the mixture would be Scotch toddy. The toddy procured, he
+sprang up-stairs, two steps at a time, meeting Monsieur Lajeunesse,
+descending with an armful of wet clothes. Bursting into the room to
+which the dominie had been led, he found him on a chair drying himself
+by detachments. Already his upper man had been rubbed by Pierre, and
+clothed with a shirt, vest and velveteen coat from his wardrobe. Now he
+was polishing his nether extremities with a towel, preparatory to adding
+a pair of gaudy striped trousers to his borrowed gear. Striding up to
+him with a ferocious air, the lawyer presented the smoking glass,
+exclaiming: "Drink this down, Wilks, or I'll kill you where you sit."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" feebly asked the schoolmaster, feeling the weakness of his
+kilted position.</p>
+
+<p>"It's toddy, whiskey toddy, Scotch whiskey toddy, the only thing that'll
+save your life," cried Coristine, with firmness amounting to
+intimidation. The dominie sipped the glass, stirred it with the spoon,
+and gradually finished the mixture. Then, laying the tumbler on the
+table beside his watch and pocketbook, he finished his rubbing-down, and
+encased his legs in Pierre's Sunday trousers. As he turned up the
+latter, and pulled on a pair of his own socks, he remarked to his friend
+that he felt better already, and was much obliged to him for the toddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't mention it, my boy, I'm so glad it's done you good."</p>
+
+<p>"I fear, Corry, that I was hasty and unjust to you when I came out of
+the water."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well, Wilks darlin', let us say no more about it, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>or, like the late
+Mr. William Basse, I'll for my past offences weep. I don't know what it
+is exactly you're like now. If you had the faytures, you would do for
+one of the Peoplesh. You and the grinstun man could hunt in couples.
+With a billy cock-hat on the side of your head, you'd make a sporting
+gent. Are you feeling pretty well, Wilks, as far as the clothes will let
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I am all right again, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must damp the ardour of ingenuous youth,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>And dash the cup of joy to earth</div>
+<div>Ere it be running o'er.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Wilks, prepare yourself for a blow."</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, Corry, make no delay&mdash;has the colonel fallen from his horse? Has
+his niece accepted Mr. Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; my dear friend, but those big fish, one of which you risked your
+precious life after, are&mdash;suckers. Ben Toner wanted to fire them into
+the drink, but I restrained his sucker-cidal hand. You seem to bear the
+news with resignation."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer accompanied his resuscitated friend down stairs. The
+velveteen waistcoat exhibited an ample shirt-front, and had pockets with
+flaps like the coat. The dominie's own blue and yellow silk handkerchief
+was tied in a sailor's knot round a rakish collar, that compromised
+between a turn-down and a stand-up; and his nether garments began with
+the dark and light blue broad-striped trousers and ended in a large pair
+of felt slippers, admirable footgear, no doubt, for seasons of extreme
+cold. Thus attired, Wilkinson occupied the sitting-room, and returned to
+the study of Alphonse Karr. Mr. Toner had left the string of fish by the
+door, where it was quite safe. There seemed to be no boys, no dogs, no
+cats, about the quiet Beaver River. Once in a long while, a solitary
+figure might be perceived going to or returning from the store. The only
+possible thief of the fish would have been a stray mink or otter
+prospecting for a new home, unless, indeed, Madame's fowls had escaped
+from the poultry yard. Coristine brought the string to his disguised
+companion, just as the hostess arrived to enquire after his health and
+renew the French conversation. Having replied politely to her questions,
+the schoolmaster expressed his regret that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>fish were so poor and
+especially that he had been deceived in the "suceurs." Madame did not
+comprehend, and said "Plait il?" whereupon he called his friend near and
+pointed out the offending fish. "Aw oui, M'syae, ce sont des mulets de
+l'eau douce, un petit peu trop tawrd dons la saison, autrement un
+morceau friaund." Then she proceeded to say that the smaller fish could
+be cooked for supper, "comme les &eacute;perlans de law baw," pointing with her
+finger eastward, to designate, by the latter words, the Gulf of St.
+Lawrence. She would boil the mullets, if Monsieur did not object, and
+give them to the fowls; did Monsieur take an interest in fowls?
+Generously the dominie handed over all the fish, through Coristine, for
+Madame to do what she liked with, and expressed an interest in various
+descriptions of poultry, the names of which he was entirely ignorant of.
+The interview over, he returned to his book, and the lawyer went to look
+for his civil acquaintance, Mr. Toner. Him he found on the bridge, and
+in a somewhat sulky humour, apparently by no means pleased at being
+sought out. Not wishing to intrude, Coristine made an excuse for his
+appearance in the bits of board, which he professed to have forgotten to
+take out of the dug-out. "That sort of lumber don't count for much in
+these parts," remarked Ben, suspiciously, and his intending companion
+retired, feeling that, though a limb of the law, he was a miserable
+sham.</p>
+
+<p>While in the chamber which witnessed the dominie's transformation, the
+lawyer had perceived that its window commanded the bridge and the
+adjoining parts of the river. Leaving his friend in the enjoyment of his
+book, he ascended to the room, and watched like a detective. Soon he saw
+a waggon roll up to the bridge, and, almost simultaneously, a large punt
+in which was Ben Toner, come from nowhere. Three bundles of apparent
+grindstones were laboriously conveyed from the waggon to the punt, after
+which the waggon went back and the punt went forward, both becoming lost
+to sight in the foliage of road and river. Once more the bell of the
+Maple Inn sounded loudly, to inform the general public that the hour of
+six had arrived, and to summon guests to the early supper. Descending to
+the sitting-room, the amateur detective found his friend there, and
+escorted him, with much unnecessary <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>formality, to the tea table. The
+fish were there, betrayed, even afar off, by their not unpleasant odour,
+and there also was an attractive looking ham, flanked by plates of hot
+cakes and other evidences of culinary skill on Madame's part. She poured
+out a good cup of tea for the table quartette, while Pierre aided in
+distributing the solids. The conversation turned on fish, and, as
+before, the dominie spoke French to the hostess, while M. Lajeunesse
+made the lawyer acquainted with some piscatorial exploits of Mr. Bulky.
+Mr. Bulky had once been upset from the canoe, but, unlike Mr. Wilkinson,
+he could not swim. The case might have been a very serious one,
+destructive to the reputation of L'Erable ("zatta ees maybole in ze
+Fraynsh langwitch," the host explained) and of city visits to the Beaver
+River.</p>
+
+<p>"How was he saved?" enquired the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"He vas save by potting 'is foot to ze bottom," replied the host.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard of a man putting a stone on his head and walking through a
+river under water, but haven't believed it yet," continued Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>"He had not necessity of a stone; 'is head was op; ze rivare vas not so
+'igh zan ze jouldares of Meestare Bulky," answered Pierre quite
+seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he saved himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sare, 'is foot save 'im; Meestare Bulky 'ave a veray 'eavy foot.
+Eef 'is foot hadda been also leetle as ze foot of M'syae, Meestare Bulky
+vould 'ave drown."</p>
+
+<p>Madame's sharp ears overheard this conversation while carrying on that
+with Wilkinson, and broke in upon her erring spouse:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Teh twa, Pierre! c'n'est paw trop poli d'se moquer des pieds d'un bon
+pawtron."</p>
+
+<p>"Mez, Ang&eacute;lique, mwa, me moquer, mwa? et de M'syae Bulky? Aw, ma bonne
+Ang&eacute;lique, fi donc!" and M. Lajeunesse withdrew from the table,
+overwhelmed with the mere suspicion of such foul treachery and base
+ingratitude.</p>
+
+<p>Batiste had put out three wooden arm chairs, and a rocker for Madame, on
+the verandah, whither the party of the tea table retired. Coristine
+asked her permission to smoke, when it appeared that Pierre had been
+waiting for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>a sign that either of his guests indulged in the weed. As
+he also filled his pipe, he remarked to his fellow smoker that "Meestare
+Bulky vare good shentleman, and rest 'ere longatimes, bot ze perfume of
+ze 'bonne pipe,' same of ze cigawr makea 'im seek."</p>
+
+<p>"Does that interfere with your liberty to smoke?" Wilkinson asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, preciselly; zen most I go to ze stebble and tekka ze younga guestes
+zat smoke not in chombres <i>bouchees</i>, vat you call zat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Literally, it means corked," replied the dominie; "but I presume you
+mean, with door and window closed, as it were, hermetically sealed."</p>
+
+<p>"Preciselly; ve 'ave ze vord in ze Fraynsh langwitch, <i>&eacute;r&eacute;mitique</i>, zat
+ees as a religious oo leeves all alone, vis person zere bot 'imselluf. I
+tekka ze guestes zat lofe not ze eremitique life to ze stebble, vare ve
+smale ze stingy tawbawc of Bawtiste. M'syae parle Francea, meh peutehtre
+ne conneh le tawbawc puant, en Anglah <i>stingy</i>, de Bawtiste. C'n'est
+paws awgr&eacute;able, M'syae. Aw, non, paw de tout, je vous asshere!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is very considerate of you," remarked the schoolmaster,
+approvingly. "I wish all users of the narcotic were as mindful of the
+comfort and health of their neighbours. Regard for the feelings of
+others is perhaps the chief distinguishing mark of a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"Meestare Bulky ees a shentleman, bot he 'ave no sharitay for smokinga
+men," replied Pierre, ruefully.</p>
+
+<p>"That's where the shoe pinches, not your feet, Wilks," said the lawyer,
+with a laugh. "You could touch bottom, like Mr. Bulky, with these
+gunboats, but on all your privileged classes. Why should Bulky bulk so
+large in any place of entertainment as to send everybody else to a
+stable? Catch me smoking with that old garlic-perfumed Batiste! How
+about the garlic, and peppermint, and musk, and sauer-kraut, and all the
+other smells. Any smells about Mr. Bulky, Pierre?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw yehs; 'ees feeshing goat smale, aw, eet smale an' smale of som stoff
+he call ass-afeetiter, ze feesh liike ze smale, bot I am not a feesh."</p>
+
+<p>"See that now, Wilks. This selfish pig of a Bulky, as Monsieur says, has
+no charity. He drives clean, whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>some smoke out of the hotel, and
+stinks the place up with as nasty a chemical mixture as disgusting
+science ever invented. He reminds me of a Toronto professor of anatomy
+who wouldn't allow the poor squeamish medicals to smoke in the
+dissecting room, because, he said, one bad smell was better than two. If
+I had my way with Bulky I'd smoke him blue in the face, if for nothing
+but to drown his abominable assafoetida, the pig!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, non, M'syae," interrupted Pierre, to protect the idol of the Maple
+Inn; "Meestare Bulky ees not a peeg, but assafeetiter is vorse zan a
+peeg-stye. N'est ce paw, Ang&eacute;lique?"</p>
+
+<p>"I 'ave no vord to say of M'syae Bulky," replied Madame, taking up her
+mending and entering the house. She was at once recalled to the verandah
+by a juvenile voice that called "Mrs. Latchness!" The speaker soon
+appeared in the person of a small boy, about twelve years old, who,
+hatless, coatless, and shoeless, ran up from the river bank. "Vat you
+vant vis me, Tommee?" asked Madame. "I come from Widder Toner's&mdash;Ben's
+dyin', she says, and can't move a stir. She wants to know if they's
+anybody here as knows anything about doctorin', and, she says, hurry
+awful quick!" cried the breathless youngster.</p>
+
+<p>"I 'ear you spick of medical, M'syae Coristine; do you know it? Can you
+'elp ze pauvre vidow?" asked Madam.</p>
+
+<p>"It's mighty little I know, Madame, but I'll go. Wait till I get my
+flask," said the lawyer, going after his knapsack in the sitting room.
+Returning, he handed it to the hostess with the request that she would
+fill it with the best, and add any remedy she had in the house. Soon she
+came out of the railed-off bar with a filled flask and a bottle of St.
+Jacob's Oil. Pocketing them both, the lawyer said, "Come on, Tommy,"
+and, with his guide, set out for Widow Toner's.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Ben's Sudden Sickness&mdash;The Spurious Priest&mdash;Coristine as
+Doctor&mdash;Saved by the Detective&mdash;Anxiety at the Maple&mdash;A Pleasant
+Evening&mdash;Sunday Morning and Ben&mdash;The Lawyer Rides&mdash;Nash and the
+Dominie Talk Theology on the Road&mdash;At the Talfourds&mdash;Miss Du
+Plessis the Real&mdash;The False Meets Mr. Rawdon&mdash;Mr. Terry and
+Wilkinson at the Kirk.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>"What is the matter with Ben?" asked Coristine, as they single-filed
+along the narrow path by the river.</p>
+
+<p>"He's tumbled down over some grindstones, and hurt himself, and fainted
+right away," replied the youthful Tommy, pulling up handfuls of tall
+grass and breaking an occasional twig from a bush as he stumbled along.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you to the Toners?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't nuthun' to the Toners."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you come to be their messenger, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was runnin' to the farm to tell the widder that the priest was
+comin', when she come out cryin' and sent me off. Guess the priest's
+there by now."</p>
+
+<p>"What priest is it you saw?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't see no priest. Old Mum Sullivan, she saw him, and sent and
+told mother to tell widder Toner, 'cos she's a Roman, too. She said it
+was a new priest, not Father McNaughton, the old one, and she guessed he
+was all right, but she didn't like his looks as well as t'other's."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are not a Roman."</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, what are you givin' us? I play a fife on the Twelfth."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you are an Orangeman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yum, Young Briton, same thing."</p>
+
+<p>"So, you Orangemen run to help the Roman Catholics when they are sick or
+want to know if the priest is coming, and then, on the Twelfth, you feel
+like cutting each other's throats."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to cut nobody's throat, but we've got to sass 'em on the
+Twelfth to keep up the glorious, pious and immortal memory, and to
+whistle 'em down 'The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>Protestant Boys.' We've got three fifes and three
+drums in our lodge."</p>
+
+<p>After more of this edifying conversation, the pair arrived at a clearing
+on the river, containing a house and some out buildings, not far from
+its bank. These communicated by a private road with the public one,
+which crossed the stream about an eighth of a mile farther on. Turning
+the corner of the barn, Coristine saw a gray-haired woman, and a clean
+shaven man in clerical garb, leaning over the prostrate figure of Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you a doctor, sir?" asked the tearful woman, rising and coming
+towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly, Ma'am," replied the lawyer; "but perhaps I may be of use."</p>
+
+<p>He then leaned over the sick man, and saw that he not only breathed, but
+had his eyes open upon the world in quite a sensible way. "What is the
+matter?" he asked the reverend gentleman, who was also contemplating the
+recumbent Toner.</p>
+
+<p>"He says his back is sore, paralyzed, and that he can't move a limb,"
+replied the priest in an unprofessional tone.</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen, Mr. Toner?" enquired the lawyer; and Ben, in a
+feebly and husky voice, replied:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I was rollin' quite a loaud on the slaant, when I got ketched with a
+back sprain, and the loaud slipped and knocked me down, and rolled over
+my stummick. That's all."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite enough for one time," said Coristine; "is there such a thing as a
+loose door, or some boards we can make into a stretcher, anywhere
+about?" Ben called to his mother to show the doctor where the door was
+that he was going to put on the hen-yard. This was soon found, and, a
+blanket or two being laid upon it, the clergyman and the improvised
+doctor transferred the groaning patient to it, and so carried him into
+the house, where they undressed him and put him to bed on his face.
+"Say, doctor, I'll choke like this," came from the bed in the sick man's
+muffled voice, to the lawyer, who was ordering the widow to get some hot
+water and provide herself with towels or cotton cloths. "No you won't,
+Toner; turn your head to one side," he called. "That's better," remarked
+the patient, as he took advantage of the per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>mission, and then
+continued: "I'd like ef you'd call me Ben, doctor, not Toner; seems as
+ef I'd git better sooner that way." Coristine answered, "All right,
+Ben," and withdrew to a corner with the priest for consultation. "What's
+the matter?" asked the priest, in a businesslike, unsympathetic tone.</p>
+
+<p>"So, you give me back my question. Well, as the water will be some time
+getting ready, and it will do our man no harm to feel serious for a few
+minutes more, I'll go into it with your reverence homeopathically. The
+root of his trouble is a whiskey back. That accidentally led to a
+muscular strain, involving something a little more paralyzing than
+lumbago. He has no bones broken in that strong frame of his, but the
+grindstones have bruised him abdominally. I hope my treatment for the
+root of the disease will be more successful than that of the oriental
+physician, who prescribed for a man that had a pain in his stomach,
+caused by eating burnt bread. The physician anointed him with eye salve,
+because he said the root of the disease lay in his eyes; had they been
+all right, he would not have eaten the burnt bread, and consequently
+would not have had the pains."</p>
+
+<p>The priest chuckled beneath his breath over the story; then, with
+earnestness, asked, or rather whispered: "Will he get well soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well enough, I think, to sit up in half-an-hour," replied the doctor of
+the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir, may I ask you to delay your treatment until I perform a
+religious office with your patient? This is a favourable time for making
+an impression," said the hitherto callous priest.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, Father, only be short, for he is suffering physically, and
+worse from apprehension."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall require all persons, but the one to whom I give the comforts of
+religion, to leave the room," called the priest aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't the unction, Father?" cried Ben, piteously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, doctor, the boy's not going to die?" besought the mother, at the
+boiler on the stove.</p>
+
+<p>"I can answer for his reverence and myself," replied the lawyer; "he
+will not administer the last rites of the Church to the living, nor will
+I let my patient die."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>Then he and the widow retired, as the priest took out a book, knelt by
+the bedside, and opened it. The reverend gentleman, however, was in too
+great a hurry to begin, and too little sensible how far his penetrating
+voice would carry, for, at the first words of the prayer, Coristine made
+an indignant start and frowned terribly. The words he heard were,
+"Oratio pro sickibus, in articulo mortis, repentant shouldere omnes
+transgressores et confessionem makere&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He felt inclined to rush in and turn the impudent impostor and profaner
+of the sacred office out of the house neck and crop, especially as the
+poor mother took him by the arm, and, with broken voice through her
+tears, said: "O, doctor, doctor, it's the last words he's taking!" But
+his legal training acted as a check on his impetuosity, and, standing
+where he was, he answered the grief-stricken woman: "Never fear, Mrs.
+Toner, you and I will pull him through," which greatly comforted the
+widow's heart.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes passed by Coristine's watch, and then he determined to
+stand the nonsense no longer. He coughed, stamped his feet, and finally
+walked in at the door, followed by the widow. The pseudo priest was
+sitting on a chair now, listening to the penitent's confidences. "Time
+is up," said the lawyer fiercely, and the impostor arose, resumed his
+three-cornered black wideawake, pocketed his book, which really was a
+large pocket book full of notes in pencil, and expressed his regret at
+leaving, as he had another family, a very sad case, to visit that night.
+As he passed Coristine, the latter refused his proffered hand and hissed
+in his ear: "You are the most damnable scoundrel I ever met, and I'll
+serve you out for this with the penitentiary." The masquerader grinned
+unclerically, his back being to the other occupants of the house, and
+whispered back, "Not much you won't, no nor the halfpenny tentiary
+either; bye-bye!"</p>
+
+<p>"How are you feeling, Ben?" the lawyer asked the sick man, as he
+approached his bedside.</p>
+
+<p>"Powerful weak and so-er," replied the patient.</p>
+
+<p>Coristine called the mother, poured some St. Jacob's Oil into the palm
+of her hand, and bade her rub down her son's back at the small. "Rub
+hard!" he said; and she rubbed it in. Three or four more doses followed,
+till the back was a fine healthy colour.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>"How does that work, Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>"It smarts some, but I can wriggle my back a bit."</p>
+
+<p>Then the doctor poured some whiskey out of his flask in the same way and
+it was applied.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you can turn round now?" he asked; and, at once, the
+patient revolved, lying in a more convenient and seemly position.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring the hot clothes, Mrs. Toner, and lay them on the bruised part, as
+hot as he can stand it. The patient growled a little when the clothes
+were abdominally applied, one after the other, but they warmed him up,
+and even, as he said, 'haylped his back.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Ben, when did you take whiskey last?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't had nary a drop the hull of this blessed day."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gawspel truth, doctor, so haylp me."</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't promise me to quit drinking, I can do nothing for you."</p>
+
+<p>"But he will promise, doctor; won't you now, Benny dear?" eagerly asked
+the mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas!" groaned the sufferer, with a new hot cloth on him; "yaas; I
+guess I'll have to."</p>
+
+<p>Then, the perfidious doctor emptied his flask into a glass, and poured
+in enough oil to disguise its taste. Adding a little water, he gave the
+dose as medicine to the unconscious victim, who took it off manfully,
+and naturally felt almost himself again.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you plenty coal-oil in the house, Mrs. Toner?" enquired the family
+physician; and the widow replied that she had. "Rub the afflicted parts
+with it, till they will absorb no more; then let him sleep till morning,
+when he can get up and go about light work. But, mind, there's to be no
+lifting of heavy weights for three days, and no whiskey at all."</p>
+
+<p>With these words, Coristine received the woman's warm expressions of
+gratitude, and departed.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy had gone, so the lawyer had to go back to the Inn alone, and in
+the dark. He turned the barn, before which one bundle of grindstones
+still lay, the one, apparently, that had floored Ben. Then he made his
+way along a path bordered with dewy grass, that did not seem quite
+familiar, so that he rejoiced when he arrived at the road <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>and the
+bridge. But, both road and bridge were new to him, and there was no
+Maple Inn. He now saw that he had taken the wrong turning at the barn,
+and was preparing to retrace his steps, when a sound of approaching
+wheels and loud voices arrested him. On came the waggons, three in
+number, the horses urged to their utmost by drunken drivers, in whom he
+recognized the men that he and Wilkinson had met before they took the
+road to the Inn. Coristine was standing on the road close by the bridge
+as they drove up, but, as the man with the first team aimed a blow at
+him with his whip, he drew back towards the fence. "Shoot the d&mdash;&mdash;d
+spy, boys," the ruffian cried to the fellows behind him, and, as they
+slacked their speed, the lawyer jumped the fence to put some solid
+obstacle between himself and their revolvers, which, he knew, they were
+only too ready to use. At that moment a horseman rode towards the party
+from the other side of the bridge, and, while aiming a blow with a stout
+stick at the first scoundrel, a blow that was effectual, called to the
+others, in a voice of authority, to put up their pistols "O Lord, boys,
+it's Nash; drive on," called one, and they whipped up their patient
+animals and rattled away in a desperate hurry. "You can come out now,
+Mr. Coristine," said the horseman; "the coast is clear."</p>
+
+<p>"You have the advantage of me, sir," remarked the lawyer, as he vaulted
+back again into the road.</p>
+
+<p>"No I have not," replied the other; "you called me a damnable scoundrel,
+and threatened me with the penitentiary, a little while ago. How's
+Toner?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am obliged for your interference just now on my behalf, but must
+decline any intercourse with one who has been guilty of what I regard as
+most dishonourable conduct, profaning the sacred name of religion in
+order to compass some imfamous private end."</p>
+
+<p>"My ends, Mr. Coristine, are public, not private, nor are they infamous,
+but for the good of the community and the individuals composing it. I
+know your firm, Tylor, Woodruff and White, and your firm knows me,
+Internal Revenue Detective Nash."</p>
+
+<p>"What! are you the celebrated Mr. Nash of the Penetang Bush Raid?" asked
+the lawyer, curiosity, and admiration of the man's skill and courage,
+overcoming his aversion to the latest detective trick.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>"The same at your service, and, as the best thing I can do for you is
+to take you to your Inn, a dry way out of the dew, you can get on my
+beast, and I'll walk for a rest," replied the detective, alighting.</p>
+
+<p>Coristine was tired, so, after a little pressing, he accepted the mount,
+and, of course, found it impossible to refuse his confidence to the man
+whose horse he was riding.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you do with your clerical garb?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Have it on," replied Nash; "it's a great make up. This coat of black
+cord has a lot of turned up and turned down tag ends, the same with the
+vest, and the soft hat can be knocked into any shape with a dift of the
+fist. With these, and three collars, and moustache, beard, and whiskers,
+that I carry in my pocket, I can assume half-a-dozen characters and
+more."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you justify your assumption of the priestly character?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want information, and assume any character to get it, in every case
+being guilty of deception. You think my last r&ocirc;le unjustifiable because
+of the confessional. Had I simulated a Methodist parson, or a
+Presbyterian minister, or a Church of England divine, you would have
+thought much less of it; and yet, if there is any bad in the thing, the
+one is as bad as the other. Personally, I regard the confessional as a
+piece of superstitious ecclesiastical machinery, and am ready to utilize
+it, like any other superstition, for the purpose of obtaining
+information. Talk about personating the clergy; I have even been bold
+enough to appear as a lawyer, a quaker, a college professor, a sailor,
+and an actress."</p>
+
+<p>"You have certainly led me to modify my opinion of your last
+performance."</p>
+
+<p>"Which nearly gave me away. So you won't send me to the penitentiary;
+thanks! And now, as I said at first, how's Toner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Toner's all right, with the fieriest skin on him that ever lay
+between two sheets. He has promised to give up drinking."</p>
+
+<p>"It's very likely he'll have to."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>"They don't allow refreshments so strong in gaol."</p>
+
+<p>"Be as easy as you can with the poor fellow, Mr. Nash."</p>
+
+<p>"All depends on his future behaviour, and, in some other capacity, I
+shall let him know his danger."</p>
+
+<p>As the two figures came down the road toward the Inn, a voice hailed
+them, the voice of the dominie. "Is Mr. Coristine there?" it shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; here am I," came from the back of the horse.</p>
+
+<p>"What bones are broken or wounds received?" was the pitiful but correct
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bone nor a wound. Mr. Nash has treated me to a ride."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw &ccedil;a!" ejaculated Pierre, "M'syae Nasha homme treh subtil, treh rus&eacute;,
+conneh tout le monde, fait pear aux mauveh sujah."</p>
+
+<p>"What is he?" asked the schoolmaster, speaking English, in his
+eagerness; and the landlord replied in the same.</p>
+
+<p>"Ee is vat you call detecteur, police offisare vis no close on 'im.
+Anysing vas to go in ze custom house and goes not, he find it out. O, a
+veray clevaire mann!"</p>
+
+<p>Coristine dismounted for the purpose of introducing his companion.
+Personally, he would as readily have performed this office on horseback,
+but he knew that the schoolmaster was a stickler for ceremony. While the
+introduction was going on, Pierre took Mr. Nash's horse by the bridle,
+and led the procession home. There, Madame stood in the porch eagerly
+waiting for news of "ce jeune homme si courageux, si benveillont," and
+was delighted to hear that he was safe, and that Mr. Nash, an old
+acquaintance, was with him. When the party entered the house, Wilkinson
+looked at the detective, and then, with a start, said: "Why, you are
+Dowling, the Dowling who came to the Sacheverell Street School, with a
+peremptory letter from the trustees, to take the lower division boys,
+and disappeared in ten days."</p>
+
+<p>"The same, Mr. Wilkinson; I knew you as soon as I heard your voice."</p>
+
+<p>"You disarranged our work pretty well for us, Mr. Dow&mdash;Nash. What were
+you after there, if it is a fair question?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>"I was after the confidence of some innocent youngsters, who could give
+me pointers on grindstones and their relation to the family income. As I
+know you both, and our friends of the hotel are not listening, I may say
+that I am so interested in this problem as to have made up my mind to go
+into grindstones myself."</p>
+
+<p>These remarks led to an animated triangular conversation over the
+Grinstun man, in which the two pedestrians gave the detective all the
+information they possessed regarding that personage. They urged that an
+immediate effort should be made to hinder his acquiring the hand and
+property of Miss Du Plessis, and, thereafter, that united action should
+be taken to break up his injurious commerce. Mr. Nash prepared to
+accompany them on their walk to church in Flanders, and asked the lawyer
+if he had any objection to ride his horse part of the way, with a bundle
+behind him, if he, the detective, would carry his knapsack. Coristine
+consented, on condition that his new friend would also lend him his
+riding gaiters. Madame produced the wherewithal to spend a social
+half-hour before retiring, and, in answer to the detective, said: "Ze
+sack ees in ze commode in ze chombre of M'syae." Mr. Nash laughed, and
+over his glass and clay pipe, confided to his fellow-conspirators that
+he had a few little properties in that bag, and was much afraid that
+some of them would compel him to desecrate the Sabbath. "You are used to
+my religious performances, Mr Coristine; I hope your friend, and my old
+principal, Mr. Wilkinson, will not be as hard on me as you were."</p>
+
+<p>Then the dominie was informed of the events of the evening, and the
+parties separated for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday morning dawned clear and cloudless, giving promise of a glorious
+day. Everybody in the inn was up before six o'clock; for at seven it was
+the intention of the three guests to take the road for a place of
+worship in Flanders. Ben Toner was waiting on the verandah for the
+appearance of Coristine; and, when that gentleman came out to taste the
+morning air, greeted him with clumsy effusion, endeavouring, at the same
+time, to press a two-dollar bill upon his acceptance. The lawyer
+declined the money, saying that he had no license to practise, and
+would, consequently, be liable to a heavy fine <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>should he receive
+remuneration for his services. He enquired after Ben's health, and was
+pleased to learn that, while his heroic remedies had left the patient
+"as rayd as a biled lobister," externally, he was otherwise all right,
+except for a little stiffness. Mr. Nash came down-stairs, dressed in a
+well-fitting suit of tweed, and sporting a moustache and full beard that
+had grown up as rapidly as Jonah's gourd. Going up to the man whom he
+had confessed the night before, he asked him: "Do you know me again,
+Toner?" to which Ben replied: "You bet your life I do; you're the curous
+coon as come smellin' round my place with a sayrch warnt two weeks ago
+Friday." Satisfied that his identity in Ben's eye was safe, the
+detective led him away on to the bridge, and engaged in earnest
+conversation with him, which made Mr. Toner start, and wriggle, and back
+down, and impart information confirmatory of that extorted the night
+before, and give large promises for the future. The two returned to the
+verandah, and, before the lawyer went in to breakfast, his patient bade
+him an affectionate farewell, adding, "s'haylp me, Mr. Corstine, ef I
+don't be true to my word to you and the old woman about that blamed
+liquor. What I had I turned out o' doors this mornin', fust thing, and I
+shaant take in no more. That there bailiff's done me a good turn, and I
+won't ferget him, nor you nuther, Doctor, ef so be it's in my power to
+haylp you any." Coristine took his leave of the simple-hearted fellow,
+and went to join the company at the breakfast table. Mr. Nash was there,
+but, for convenience of eating and not to astonish the host and hostess,
+he had placed his beard and moustache in his pocket. It was handy,
+however, and could be replaced at a moment's warning.</p>
+
+<p>Batiste brought round the detective's horse, and the lawyer, in borrowed
+riding gaiters, bestrode him, hooking on to the back of the saddle a
+bundle somewhat larger than a cavalry man's rolled-up cloak. The bundle
+contained Mr. Nash's selected properties. That gentleman allowed Madame
+to fasten the straps of Coristine's knapsack on his shoulders, while
+Pierre did the same for Wilkinson. The dominie had paid the bill the
+night before, as he objected to commercial transactions on Sunday, so
+there was nothing to do but to say good bye, bestow a trifle on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>Batiste
+and take to the road. The detective, after they had done half a mile's
+pleasant walking, took command of the expedition, and ordered The
+Cavalry, as Coristine called himself, to trot forward and make a
+reconnoisance. His instructions were to get to the Carruthers' house in
+advance of the pedestrians, to find out exactly who were there, and to
+return with speed and report at headquarters, which would be somewhere
+on the road. Saluting his friend and his superior officer, the lawyer
+trotted off, his steed as well pleased as himself to travel more
+speedily through the balmy atmosphere of the morning. The dominie and
+his quondam assistant were thus left to pursue their journey in company.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you enjoy Wordsworth, Mr. Nash?" asked Wilkinson.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," replied the detective, "the poet, you mean, We are seven, and
+the primrose by the river's brim. Queer old file in the stamp business
+he must have been. Wish I could make $2,500 a year like him, doing next
+to nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"There is a passage that seems to my mind appropriate. It is:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Us humbler ceremonies now await;</div>
+<div>But in the bosom with devout respect,</div>
+<div>The banner of our joy we will erect,</div>
+<div>And strength of love our souls shall elevate;</div>
+<div>For, to a few collected in His name.</div>
+<div>The heavenly Father will incline His ear.</div>
+<div>Hallowing Himself the service which they frame.</div>
+<div>Awake! the majesty of God revere!</div>
+<div class='i2'>Go&mdash;and with foreheads meekly bow'd,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Present your prayer: go&mdash;and rejoice aloud&mdash;</div>
+<div>The Holy One will hear!"</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"You should have been a parson, Mr. Wilkinson; you do that well. I'd
+like to take lessons from you; it would help me tremendously in my
+profession. But I find it mighty hard to do the solemn. That time in
+your school was almost too much for me, and your friend twigged my
+make-up last night."</p>
+
+<p>"I find it hard," said the schoolmaster, "not to be solemn in such
+scenery as this on such a morning. All nature seems to worship, giving
+forth in scent and song its tribute of adoration to the Creator, to
+whose habitation made with hands we are on our way as worshippers."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>"'Fraid I shan't do much worshipping, church or no church. You see, Mr.
+Wilkinson, my business is a very absorbing one. I'll be looking for
+notes, and spotting my men, and working up my clues all the time the
+parson's bumming away."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you have read Tennyson's 'Northern Farmer'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never heard tell of it; but I've got my eyes on some northern farmers,
+and they'll have my attention soon."</p>
+
+<p>"Your expression, 'bumming away,' occurs in it, so I thought you had
+found it there. It is rather a severe way in which to characterize the
+modern preacher, who, take him on the whole, deserves credit for what I
+regard as a difficult task, the presentation of some fresh subject of
+religious thought every Sunday all the year round."</p>
+
+<p>"My mind works too fast for most of them. I can see where the conclusion
+is before they have half got started. There's no fun in that, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not sometimes meet with clergymen that interest you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now and then. The learned bloke who cuts his text into three, and
+expounds them in detail, I can't stand; nor the wooden logical machine
+that makes a proposition and proceeds to prove it; nor the unctuous
+fellow that rambles about, and says, 'dear friends,' and makes you wish
+he had studied his sermon. But, now and then, I fall in with a man who
+won't let me do any private thinking till he's done. You hear his text
+and his introduction, and wonder, how the dickens he is going to
+reconcile the two. He carries you on and on and on, till he does it in a
+grand whirl at the end, that lifts you up and away with it, like the
+culminating arguments of the counsel for the prosecution, or the
+peeler's joyful run in of a long-sought gaol-bird. I like that sort of a
+parson; the rest are jackdaws."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they suit the average mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"If they did, we ought to have graded churches as well as graded
+schools. But they don't, except, in this way, that people have got
+accustomed to the bumming. The preachers I like would keep up the
+interest of a child. There was one I heard on the text, 'I form the
+light and create darkness.' His introduction was, 'God is light and in
+Him is no darkness at all.' He jerked us <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>up into the light and banged
+us down into the darkness, almost laughing one minute and crying the
+next. Then he went to hunt up his man, and found him in the devil and
+the devil's own, all fallen creations of God. Any schoolboy could follow
+that sermon and take its lessons home with him. There was a logical
+bloke, at least he thought himself logical, who took for his text
+Joseph's coat of many colours, a sort of plaid kilt I should think; and
+said, 'I shall now proceed to prove that this was a sacerdotal or
+priestly garment. First, it occupies a prominent position in the
+narrative; second, it excited the enmity of Joseph's brethren; and
+third, they dipped it in blood when they sold their younger brother.' I
+could have proved it as logically to be Stuart tartan, and, at the same
+time, the original of the song 'Not for Joe,' because he lost it before
+he became steward to Pharaoh. Bah! that's what makes people sick of
+going to church. I've pretty nigh quit it."</p>
+
+<p>The pedestrians trudged on for a time silently, the detective,
+doubtless, revolving schemes in his brain, the dominie inwardly sighing
+over his companion's captious criticism, to which he could not well
+reply, and over the absence of his legal friend, whose warm Irish heart
+would have responded sympathetically to the inspiration of the Sabbath
+morning walk. At last, Mr. Nash resumed the conversation, saying:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid, Mr. Wilkinson, that you think me a pretty hard-hearted,
+worldly man, and, perhaps, that my calling makes me so."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no right to judge you, Mr. Nash," answered the schoolmaster;
+"but I should think that the work of hunting down law-breakers would
+have the effect of deadening one's sensibilities."</p>
+
+<p>"It shouldn't, any more than the work of a clergyman, a doctor, a
+teacher, or a lawyer. We all, if we are honest, want to benefit society
+by correcting evils. I see a lot of the dark side of human nature, but a
+little of the bright too, for, thank Heaven, there is no man so bad as
+not to have some little good in him. There's that Toner, once a fine
+young fellow; I hate to see him going to the dogs, wasting his property,
+breaking his old mother's heart. I'd rather save that man any day than
+gaol him."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>"Give me your hand, sir," said the dominie, heartily, transferring his
+staff to his left, and offering the right; "I honour you for the saying,
+and wish there were more officers of the law like you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as for that matter," replied the detective, "I and my colleagues
+have tried to save many a young fellow, but then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is the obstacle?"</p>
+
+<p>"The obstacle is that there are men who simply won't be saved."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I suppose that is true theologically as well as legally."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; if the law don't want to have a lot of criminals to hunt out
+and shut up and punish, it stands to reason that the Source of all law
+doesn't. But, for the good of society and the world, these criminals
+have to be separated from them, and their bad work stopped. To say that
+the law hates them, and takes vengeance on them like a Corsican, is
+utterly to misunderstand the nature of law. Yet, that is what
+nine-tenths of the parsons teach."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very unfortunate."</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunate? it's diabolical. If I were to go into a good man's house,
+and present his children with a hideous caricature of their father, so
+as to terrify some and drive others clean away from him, wouldn't I
+deserve to be kicked out? I should think so! Now, I say every good thing
+in man must be found a million times better in man's Maker. If the
+foundation principle of human law is benevolence to society, the
+foundation principle of divine law must be something higher and better,
+not revenge. But you know these things better than I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all; I could not express myself better. What you have found out
+is stated by Dr. Whewell, the famous Master of Trinity, in the Platonic
+form, that every good thing in man and in the world has its archetype in
+the Divine Mind. Every bad thing, such as revenge and anger, has no such
+archetype, but is a falling away, a deflection, from the good."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you explain the imputation of bad things to God, such as hate,
+revenge, terrorism, disease, death, beasts of prey, and all the rest?"</p>
+
+<p>"In two ways; first, as a heathen survival in Chris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>tianity, borrowed
+partly from pagan national religions, partly from the misunderstood
+phraseology of the Old Testament; and, second, as the necessary result
+of a well-meant attempt to escape from Persian and Manichaean dualism."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a dualism in law, in morals, in nature, and in human
+nature, everywhere in this world; there's no getting over it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there is, but the difference between the dualism of fact and
+that of the Persian system is, that the evil is not equal, but inferior
+and subordinate, to the good."</p>
+
+<p>"It gets the upper hand pretty often, as far as this world is
+concerned."</p>
+
+<p>"And why? Just for the same reason that bad governments and corrupt
+parties often get the upper hand, namely, by the vote of the majority,
+through which the minority has to suffer. Talk about vicarious
+suffering! Every good man suffers vicariously."</p>
+
+<p>"These are deep things, Mr. Wilkinson, too deep for the average parson,
+who doesn't trouble himself much with facts unless he find them
+confirmed by his antiquated articles."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet my attention has been drawn to them by thoughtful clergymen of
+different denominations."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't think I'll trouble the clergymen to-day, thoughtful or
+not thoughtful. I've had my sermon in the open air, a sort of walking
+camp meeting. What did they call these fellows who studied on the move?"</p>
+
+<p>"Peripatetics."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it; we're a peripatetic church."</p>
+
+<p>"But, without praise or prayer or scripture lessons, which are more
+important than the sermon."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you can do the praise and prayer part in a quiet way, as a piece of
+poetry says that I learnt when I was a boy. It ends something like
+this:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>So we lift our trusting eyes</div>
+<div>To the hills our fathers trod,</div>
+<div>To the quiet of the skies,</div>
+<div>And the Sabbath of our God.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>That's pretty, now! Hallo! here's the doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>Coristine came up at the gallop, and reported that all the people he
+expected to find at the Carruthers' were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>there, Grinstun man, Mrs.
+Carmichael, and Marjorie, included, all except Miss Du Plessis, who was
+staying at a house three miles this side of the farm, helping to nurse a
+sick neighbour.</p>
+
+<p>"Has Rawdon seen her?" asked the detective. The lawyer did not know, but
+suggested that they could find out by calling at the house of Mrs.
+Talfourd, the sick woman, on the way.</p>
+
+<p>"How far are we from it?" enquired Mr. Nash.</p>
+
+<p>"About a mile or a mile and a-half," replied Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Mr. Wilkinson, let us stir our stumps a bit. Can you sing or
+whistle? There's nothing like a good tune to help a quick march."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; sing up, Wilks," cried The Cavalry; and the dominie started
+"Onward, Christian Soldiers," in which the others joined, the detective
+in a soft falsetto, indistinguishable from a half-cultivated woman's
+voice. He was combining business with pleasure, dissimulation with
+outward praise.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty good that for a blooming young lady of five foot ten," remarked
+Mr. Nash, at the end of the hymn.</p>
+
+<p>"Blooming young ladies with a tonsure," replied Coristine, gazing on the
+detective's momentarily uncovered head, "are open to suspicion."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you see my hair." chuckled the ex-priest.</p>
+
+<p>The mile and a-half was soon covered, and the trio stood before a roomy
+farm-house. A boy, not unlike Tommy, but better dressed, was swinging on
+the gate, and him the detective asked if he could see Miss Du Plessis on
+important business. The boy ran into the house to enquire, and came back
+to the gate, accompanied by the lady in question. She changed colour as
+her eye took in The Cavalry, immovable as a life guardsman on sentry.
+The detective handed her his professional card, and explained that he
+and his two friends had been entrusted with the duty of protecting her
+property and herself. "You need have no doubts, Miss Du Plessis, for the
+Squire, as a J.P., knows me perfectly," he continued.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no fear, Mr. Nash," answered the lady, in a pleasant voice, with
+just a suspicion of a foreign accent; "your name is known to me, and you
+are in good company."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>Wilkinson, standing by his friend's stirrup, heard this last statement,
+and blushed, while The Cavalry thought he had heard a voice like that
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"Has Mr. Rawdon seen you, or have you seen him?" asked the detective.</p>
+
+<p>"Neither; but the two Marjories have been here, and have told me about
+him. They do not seem to admire Mr. Rawdon."</p>
+
+<p>"The darlins!" ejaculated the lawyer; whereupon Wilkinson pinched his
+leg, and made him cry "Owch!"</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the conversation between the plotters at the gate was
+inaudible. At its conclusion, the lady's face was beaming with
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me that bundle for Miss Du Plessis," said Nash to Coristine, who
+lifted his hat to her, and handed the parcel over.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, for instructions," continued the commander-in-chief. "The Cavalry
+will go to Bridesdale, that's Squire Carruthers' place, and keep Mr.
+Rawdon from going to church, or bring him back if he has started, which
+isn't likely. This branch of the Service will also make sure that all
+children are out of the way somewhere, and inform older people, who may
+be about, that Miss Du Plessis is coming to the house during church
+time, and is very much altered by night-watching and sick-nursing, so
+that they need not express astonishment before Mr. Rawdon. Fasten these
+knapsacks about you somehow, Horse-Doctor; put the beast up where he'll
+get a drink and a feed; and go to church like a good Christian. The
+Infantry will halt for the present, and afterwards act as Miss Du
+Plessis' escort. Infantry, attention! Cavalry, form threes, trot!"</p>
+
+<p>Coristine took the knapsacks, made another bow, and trotted away, while
+the dominie walked up to the gate, and was introduced to the fair
+conspirator.</p>
+
+<p>After showing the detective and his bundle into an unoccupied apartment,
+Miss Du Plessis returned to the sitting-room where she left the dominie.
+In the few minutes at their disposal, he informed his new acquaintance
+of his chance-meeting with her uncle, of whose arrival in Canada she was
+in complete ignorance. The imparting and receiving this news established
+such a bond between the two as the schoolmaster had hitherto thought
+impos<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>sible should exist between himself and one of the weaker sex. Yet,
+in her brief absence, he had taken pains to dust himself, and shake up
+his hair and whiskers. His companion was preparing to tell how she had
+heard of him from Miss Carmichael, when another young lady, almost her
+counterpart in general appearance, entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the newcomer, in a deep but feminine voice, "now the false
+Miss Du Plessis will go on with her nursing, while the real one takes
+Mr. Wilkinson's arm and keeps her appointment at the Squire's."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Du Plessis clapped her hands together and laughed heartily.
+Wilkinson, thinking, all the time, what a pretty, musical laugh it was,
+could not help joining in the amusement, for Nash was complete from his
+wig down to his boots. The colonel's niece threw a light, woolly shawl
+over the detective's shoulders, and accompanied the pair to the gate,
+where, before dismissing them, she warned her double not to compromise
+her to Mr. Rawdon.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope soon to have the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Wilkinson, under
+more favourable circumstances," she called after that gentleman, as they
+moved off, and then ran into the house to hide her laughter.</p>
+
+<p>The dominie felt his face getting red, with a pretty young lady hoping
+to meet him again, on the one hand, and a not by any means ill-looking
+personation of one hanging on to his arm, on the other. After a minute,
+the detective withdrew his hand from his companion's arm, but continued
+to practise his assumed voice upon him, in every imaginable enquiry as
+to what he knew of Miss Du Plessis, of her friend Miss Carmichael, and
+of the working geologist's intentions. He was thus pretty well primed,
+and all promised well, till, within a quarter of a mile of the house, a
+vision appeared that filled him and the disguised Nash, to whom he
+communicated his fears, with grave apprehensions as to the success of
+the plot. It was no less a person than the veteran, Mr. Michael Terry,
+out for a Sunday walk with the Grinston man. Their dread increased as
+the old man came running forward, crying: "An' it's comin' back yez are,
+my darlin' Mish Ceshile. It's a throifle pale yer lookin', an' no
+wonder." Saying this, Michael shook hands with Nash, and whispered:
+"Niver fare, sorr, Mishter Coristine towld me all about it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>The made-up lady introduced her father's old servant to Wilkinson,
+whose apprehensions were dispelled in a similar way, so that all were
+prepared to give Mr. Rawdon the reception intended.</p>
+
+<p>"Ullo, hold Favosites Wilkinsonia," cried the working geologist,
+swaggering up with a cigar in his mouth, "'ow's yer bloomin' 'ealth?
+That hold bloke of a Hirish haint in a 'urry to do the hamiable between
+'is hold guvner's gal an' yours truly. My name, Miss, is Rawdon,
+Haltamont Rawdon, workin' geologist and minerologist, and, between you
+and me and the bedpost, a pretty warm man."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Mr. Rawdon," replied the pseudo Miss Du Plessis, "you look&mdash;well,
+not pretty&mdash;but warm."</p>
+
+<p>"O, dash it hall, that haint wot I meant, Miss Do Please-us; I mean hi'm
+a man that's got the dibs, the rhino, the blunt, you know, wot makes the
+mare go. I don't go geologizin' round for nothin'."</p>
+
+<p>"You pick up stones, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; grinstuns, limestun grit, that's the stuff to make you jolly."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard of drawing blood out of a stone, Mr. Rawdon, but never of
+extracting merriment or exhilaration from a grindstone."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you don't know my grinstuns, Miss; they're full o' fun."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they indeed? How amusing! In what way does the fun display itself?"</p>
+
+<p>"A bundle of my grinstuns, distributed at a loggin' bee, a raisin' bee,
+or a campaign caucus, ware there's a lot of haxes to grind, can make
+more fun than the Scott Act'll spile in a month. But silence is silence
+'twixt partners, which I opes you and me is to be."</p>
+
+<p>The fictitious Miss Du Plessis, with much simpering and affectation,
+quite unworthy of the original, drew the working geologist out, and
+inspired him with hopes of securing her hand and property. Mr. Rawdon
+spoke very freely of the wealth he had in the hand and in the bush, of
+his readiness to make allowance for Madame Du Plessis, if that "haffable
+hold gent," her brother in law, was not prepared to provide for her.
+When they reached the house, they found that no one was at home but
+Tryphena, who was confined to the kitchen by culinary duties. They,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>therefore, occupied the parlour, the Grinstun man seeing no impropriety
+in being there alone with a young lady whom he had met for the first
+time. Indeed, he was much gratified to find that the lady was not at all
+stiff and offish, as he had feared, but as "haffable as her huncle and
+more." The lady laughed, and blushed at loud compliments, as loud as the
+check of Mr. Rawdon's clothes, and asked flattering questions, which he
+answered with a jolliky and recklessness that almost astonished himself.
+Was there no romance, no spice of daring in his occupation? she had
+asked, and he, remembering that he was talking to a soldier's daughter,
+who would, doubtless, appreciate courage, replied enigmatically that the
+grinstun business was about the riskiest business on earth, and required
+'eroism of no hordinary kind.</p>
+
+<p>While this conversation was going on, the dominie and the veteran were
+walking churchward, for, as the former had signified his intention of
+going to a place of worship, the old man insisted on accompanying him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oi was born a Catholic, sorr, and a Catholic Oi'll doie, though my
+darter is a Pratestant, and what's more, a Prosbytarian. She rades her
+Boible an' Oi rade moine, an' there's sorra a bit av differance betwane
+thim. If the church is good enough for her, it's good enough for the
+loikes av me."</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I call being a Catholic in the truest sense of the term.
+We will not deprive people of the kingdom of Heaven because they refuse
+to go our way."</p>
+
+<p>"Till me now, sorr, what's that that's pertindin' to be my dear young
+misthress, Miss Ceshile?"</p>
+
+<p>"An old soldier knows how to keep a secret, I am sure. It is the famous
+detective, Mr. Nash."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I hope, by my sowl, that he'll make the crathur gnash his tayth.
+It was all I could do to kape my hands aff him, as we were walkin' along
+to mate yez. Him to make up to the cornel's darter, the misherable,
+insignifikint, bad shpokin, thavin' scrap av impidence!"</p>
+
+<p>The church bell had ceased ringing, the horses and waggons were in the
+driving shed without any attendant, and, as the pair approached, they
+could hear the sound of hearty singing coming through the open windows.
+They entered together, the old man crossing himself as he did <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>so, and
+sat down in a pew near the door. The schoolmaster saw that the church
+was that of Mr. Errol, who occupied the pulpit. He looked round, but
+could not see his friend Coristine; nor was little Marjorie anywhere
+visible. They must have strolled on farther to Mr. Perrowne's
+consecrated edifice for the sake of the walk. Then, with reverent mind,
+the dominie joined in the simple worship of the Kirk.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Services&mdash;Nash Routs Rawdon&mdash;The Dinner Talk&mdash;The Pedestrians
+with the Ladies&mdash;Singing out of One Hymn-book&mdash;Grinstuns Again&mdash;The
+Female Vagrant and the Idiot Boy&mdash;Little Marjorie&mdash;Nash's
+Thoughts&mdash;The Captain and the Plot&mdash;Arrival of Rufus and Ben&mdash;To
+Arms!</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Errol's sermon was on the text, "Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an
+hard man." He elaborated the unfaithful servant's harsh opinion of God,
+and, before he sat down, completely exonerated the Father in Heaven from
+the blasphemous judgment of those who call themselves His children.
+There is a thief in the world who comes to steal and kill and destroy;
+he is not God, but the enemy of God's children. The dominie's heart
+warmed to the man who, though of a different communion, fulfilled St.
+Paul's ideal of a clergyman, in that he arrogated no dominion over the
+people's faith, but was a helper of their joy. The sermon lifted the
+schoolmaster up, and brought God very near; and the hearty hymns and
+reverent prayers helped him greatly. When the service was over, he
+waited, and soon Carruthers presented his comely, matronly wife, while
+Mrs. Carmichael recalled herself to his remembrance; and, finally, the
+minister, having divested himself of gown and bands in the vestry, came
+down the aisle with cheery step and voice to bid him welcome to
+Flanders. Wilkinson was happy&mdash;happier than he had been for many a long
+year. He seemed to have so many friends, and they were all so cordial,
+so glad to see him&mdash;not a hard man or woman among them; and, therefore,
+God could not be hard. He walked with the minister, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>who was going to
+dine at Bridesdale and then ride five miles to preach at another
+station. He thanked him for his sermon, and talked over it with him,
+and, of course, quoted "The Excursion":&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i10'>If the heart</div>
+<div>Could be inspected to its inmost folds,</div>
+<div>By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,</div>
+<div>Who shall be named&mdash;in the resplendent line</div>
+<div>Of sages, martyrs, confessors&mdash;the man</div>
+<div>Whom the best might of conscience, truth and hope,</div>
+<div>For one day's little compass, has preserved</div>
+<div>From painful and discreditable shocks</div>
+<div>Of contradiction from some vague desire</div>
+<div>Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse</div>
+<div>To some unsanctioned fear.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"That's just all the trouble, Mr. Wilkinson," said the delighted
+minister. "People think to honour and glorify God by being afraid of
+Him, forgetting that perfect love casts out the fear that hath torment,
+and he that feareth is not made perfect in love."</p>
+
+<p>With such conversation they beguiled the way till they stood at the gate
+of Bridesdale, and entered the hospitable mansion, there to be received
+by the odious Grinstun man.</p>
+
+<p>"What in aa' the warld, Marjorie, did Susan mean, sending us yon
+godless, low-lived chairact o' a Rawdon?" asked the Squire of his
+sister, Mrs. Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot understand it, John," she answered; "for her own Marjorie
+fairly detests the little man. Perhaps it is some business affair with
+the Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Aweel, aweel, we maun keep the peace, sin' I'm a judge o't; but I do
+not like thee, Dr. Fell."</p>
+
+<p>Then they all entered the house together. Wilkinson found the spurious
+Miss Du Plessis gone.</p>
+
+<p>The dominie saw that the working geologist was boring Mrs. Carmichael,
+after her return to the drawing-room from laying aside her walking
+attire, and valorously interposed to save her. He enquired for her
+niece, Marjorie, and learned that that young lady had annexed Coristine
+as her lawful prey, and, introducing him to her grown-up cousin, had
+arranged the triangular journey to Mr. Perrowne's church. The service
+there was longer than in the kirk, so that half an hour would probably
+elapse before the two Anglican perverts appeared with their captive, the
+lawyer. Before the absentees made their appearance, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>man&mdash;dressed in
+Mr. Nash's clothes, but with the beard and moustache recognized by Ben
+Toner as those of the bailiff&mdash;was ushered in and greeted by the Squire
+as Mr. Chisholm. The rest of the company seemed to know the transformed
+detective, including the Grinstun man, whom he rallied on his attentions
+to a young lady.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a nice man, Rawdon, when every decent person has gone to church,
+gallivanting with young ladies. I saw you at the Talfourds."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't care a 'ang if you did," replied Rawdon, "if Miss Do Pleas us
+takes a shine to a warm man, and gives you 'and-to-mouth beggars the
+go-by, that honly shows 'er common sense."</p>
+
+<p>"What has Miss Du Plessis got to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's got this to do with it, that she's promised to be my missus
+before the week's hout."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wy, this mornin'; 'ere in this blessed room."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, Rawdon, you are joking. Miss Du Plessis hasn't been out of
+Mrs. Talfourd's to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you try none of your larks hon me, Mr. Chisholm. You can't take a
+rise hout of this kid, hinnercent has he looks."</p>
+
+<p>"But, I tell you she has not. Who do you think that girl was you brought
+home Talfourd's place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wy, Miss Do Please us, of course; 'oo else could it be?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Chisholm laughed loud and long, and at last ejaculated: "Miss Du
+Plessis! Oh, but you're a green hand, Rawdon, to take Martha Baggs for
+her; the daughter of old Baggs, in the revenue service. Hope you didn't
+give your friends away, Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"You think you're pretty clever, Mr. Chisholm, comin' hover me with your
+Marther Baggses. Hold Hirish knows Miss Do Please-us, I should say, and
+wouldn't go takin' no Marther Baggs for 'er."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rawdon," interposed the Squire, "I'll thank you to speak more
+respectfully of my father-in-law; as good a man, I judge, as yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"No hoffence, Squire; but I wish you'd hask the hold gent to come 'ere
+and shut up this 'ere bailiff's mouth with 'is Marther Baggs."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>Mr. Terry, who preferred the society of the kitchen to that of the
+parlour, was produced, and, on being asked if the lady with Mr. Rawdon
+was Miss Du Plessis, answered that his "sight was gettin' bad, an' the
+sinse av hairin' too, an' if it wor Miss Jewplesshy, she had changed her
+vice intoirely, an' got to be cruel rough an' common in her ways. Av
+coorse, it moight have been the young misthress; but Talfer's was nigh
+to han', an' it was aisy axin'."</p>
+
+<p>A horrible suspicion came over the Grinstun man, and paled his rubicund
+visage. He darted up to his room, and speedily re-appeared with knapsack
+on back and staff in hand, ready for the road. Mr. Carruthers pressed
+him to stay at least for dinner, but he was resolved to solve the
+mystery by a visit to the Talfourds, and said that, if Mr. Chisholm was
+right, he would not be back for a while. His retreating figure was
+watched with positive pleasure by most of the company, and with still
+greater satisfaction by the small party returning from the Anglican
+service.</p>
+
+<p>"What garred ye fricht Rawdon awa, Mr. Chisholm?" asked the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to eat my dinner comfortably," replied the detective, putting
+beard and moustache in his pocket, when all the company, except the
+dominie who knew, cried out, "it's Mr. Nash."</p>
+
+<p>"To think of you deceiving me," exclaimed Mr. Carruthers, "and me a
+justice of the peace. I've a thocht to bring you up for conspiracy."</p>
+
+<p>"There can be no conspiracy without at least two persons," answered the
+detective.</p>
+
+<p>"But, man, you are two persons, that I've known off and on as Chisholm
+and Nash."</p>
+
+<p>"When he was one of my masters," put in the dominie, "his name was
+Dowling."</p>
+
+<p>"And this morning," remarked the man of aliases, with a smile, "I was
+Miss Du Plessis or Martha Baggs, so Rawdon will have hard work to find
+the lady of his affections."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Coristine and his fair companions entered, and, while
+the young Marjorie renewed her acquaintance, Wilkinson was gravely
+introduced to one of his own teachers, to the no little amusement of the
+lady <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>herself, of the lawyer, and of the company generally who were in
+the secret. Miss Carmichael explained that Mr. Perrowne had declined to
+come to dinner, but would look in later in the day when Cecile came
+home; whereat many smiled, and the dominie frowned heavily. Mrs.
+Carruthers now announced dinner, when the Squire took in his sister,
+Wilkinson, her daughter, Coristine, Marjorie, and Mr. Errol, the
+hostess. All the pairs agreed in congratulating themselves on the
+absence of the Grinstun man, and looked with approbation on Mr. Nash,
+who, all alone but cheerful, brought up the rear. There was no room at
+the table for the five youthful Carruthers, who rejoiced in the fact and
+held high carnival in the kitchen with Tryphena and Tryphosa and their
+maternal grandfather. Mr. Errol had said grace, and dinner was in
+progress, when the hall door was heard to open, and, immediately, on
+went the detective's facial disguise. But the lightness of the step that
+followed it reassured him, so that his smooth features once more
+appeared. Shortly afterwards Miss Du Plessis entered, apologizing for
+her lateness, and taking the vacant chair between the host and the
+dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"I was really frightened," she said to the former, "by a dreadful little
+man, with an Indian hat and a knapsack, who stopped and asked me if I
+was Miss Do Please-us. When I told him that my name was Du Plessis, he
+became much agitated, and cried 'Then I'm done, sold again and the money
+paid,' after which he used such very bad language that I actually ran
+away from him. I looked round, however, and saw him hurrying away
+towards the Talfourds'." Wilkinson looked very fierce and warlike, and
+attacked his food as if it were the obnoxious Rawdon.</p>
+
+<p>"Cecile," said Miss Carmichael across the indignant dominie, "I told a
+fib about you this morning, but quite innocently. I said you would not
+be home to dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither I would, were it not that Mrs. Talfourd's sister came in after
+church, and offered to stay with her the rest of the day. Whom did you
+tell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your devoted friend, Mr. Perrowne."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Du Plessis blushed a little, and the schoolmaster cut the clergyman
+up several times and stuck his fork into him savagely. Then he commenced
+a conversation with the Squire, into which the lady between them was
+almost <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>necessarily drawn. Mr. Nash edified Mrs. Carmichael; her
+daughter conversed with the minister, to the latter's delight; while
+Coristine divided his attentions between the hostess and Marjorie.</p>
+
+<p>"What was Mr. Perrowne preaching on, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Carruthers.</p>
+
+<p>"Pillows on the ground," replied that young person.</p>
+
+<p>Her cousin laughed, and came to the rescue, saying: "It was the Church,
+the pillar and ground of the truth; Marjorie seems to associate all
+English Church services with bedtime."</p>
+
+<p>"There wasn't much bedtime about the service this morning," interposed
+the lawyer; "the parson rattled along in grand style, and gave Miss
+Carmichael, and all other broken reeds of dissenters, some piping hot
+Durham mustard. Did it sting, Miss Carmichael?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the effect mustard has on broken reeds, Mr. Coristine?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather a mixing of metaphors, but you must make allowance for an
+Irishman."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Carruthers at once conversed with her countryman, or rather her
+father's countryman, on Ireland, its woes and prospects, during which
+Marjorie informed Mr. Errol that she had not known what made her
+cousin's cheeks so red when looking on Eugene's prayer-book. Now she
+knew; it was Durham mustard that stings. There must have been some in
+the book. The victim of these remarks looked severely at the culprit,
+but all in vain; she was not to be suppressed with a frown. She remarked
+that Saul had a hymn-book that made you sneeze, and she asked him why,
+and he said it was the snuff.</p>
+
+<p>"What did Eugene put mustard in his prayer-book for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Coristine didna say he put mustard in his bookie, Marjorie," said
+the minister; "he said that Mr. Perrowne put mustard in his sermon,
+because it was so fiery."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like mustard sermons; I like stories."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, we all like them, when they're good stories and well told, but
+it's no easy work getting good stories. That was the way our Saviour
+taught the people, and you couldna get a higher example."</p>
+
+<p>"Why have we hardly any of that kind of teaching now?" asked Miss
+Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>"Because the preachers are afraid for one thing, and lazy, for another.
+They're afraid of the most ignorant folk in their congregation, who will
+be sure to charge them with childishness and a contempt for the
+intellect of their people. Then, it takes very wide and varied reading
+to discover suitable stories that will point a Scripture moral."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to be on gude solid releegious groond doon there, meenister,"
+interrupted the master of the house; "but Miss Du Plessis and Mrs.
+Carmichael here are just corruptin' the minds o' Maister Wilkinson and
+Maister Nash wi' the maist un-Sawbath like havers I ever hard at an
+elder's table. We had better rise, gudewife!"</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after the company returned to the parlour, Mr. Errol signified
+that he must take his departure for the Lake Settlement, where his
+second congregation was. At this Mr. Nash pricked up his ears, and said
+he would saddle his horse and ride over with him. "Na, na!" cried the
+Squire, "he'll no ride the day; I'll just get the waggon oot, and drive
+ye baith there and back." Orders were given through Tryphosa, a comely,
+red-cheeked damsel, who appeared in a few minutes to say that Timotheus
+was at the gate. All went out to see the trio off, and there, sure
+enough, was Timotheus of Peskiwanchow holding the restive horses. It
+transpired that Carruthers, having lost his house servant through the
+latter's misconduct, had commissioned his sister to find him a
+substitute, and Marjorie's interest in Timotheus had resulted in his
+being chosen to fill the vacant situation. He grinned his pleased
+recognition of the two pedestrians, who bravely withstood all the
+temptations to get into the waggon and visit the Lake Settlement. When
+the waggon departed, Mrs. Carruthers went to her children, taking
+Marjorie with her, and Mrs. Carmichael went upstairs for a read of a
+religious paper and a nap. The young ladies and the tourists were the
+sole occupants of the sitting-room. The lawyer went over to Miss Du
+Plessis, and left his friend perforce to talk to Miss Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p>"I hear, Miss Du Plessis, that you own a farm and valuable mineral
+land," said Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>"Did Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff and White give you that information?" she
+asked in return.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed; do you know my firm?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>"Very well, seeing I have been two years in Mr. Tylor's office."</p>
+
+<p>"Two years in Tylor's office, and me not know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not seem to take much interest in feminine stenographers and
+typewriters."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't, that's a fact; but if I had known that it was you who were
+one, it would have been a different thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. Coristine, please make no compliments of doubtful sincerity."</p>
+
+<p>"I never was more sincere in my life. But you haven't answered me about
+the land."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will answer you; I have no farm or valuable minerals, but my
+father left me two hundred acres of water and wild land near what's
+called the Lake Settlement, which he bought when Honoria married Mr.
+Carruthers and took up her residence here."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know if the taxes are paid on your land?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was not aware that wild land and water could be taxed."</p>
+
+<p>"Taxed is it? You don't know these municipalities. If you had a little
+island in your name, no bigger than this room, they'd tax you for it,
+and make you pay school rate, and do statute labour beside, though there
+wasn't a school or a road within ten miles of it. For downright jewing
+and most unjustifiable extortion on non-residents, commend me to a
+township council. You'll be sold out by the sheriff of the county, sure
+as eggs, and the Grinstun man'll buy your property for the arrears of
+taxes."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever shall I do, Mr. Coristine?" asked the alarmed young lady; "I
+do not wish to lose my father's gift through negligence."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have taken advice from the junior member of Tylor, Woodruff
+and White," replied the lawyer, with a peculiar smile; "but the Grinstun
+man has bagged your estate."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do not say that, Mr Coristine. Tell me, what shall I do? And who is
+the man you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"The man I mean is the one that met you when you came here to dinner. He
+is going to quarry in your farm for grindstones, and make his fortune.
+But, as he wants yourself into the bargain, I imagine he can't get the
+land without you, so that somebody must have paid the taxes."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>"Then it is the little wretch Marjorie told me of, the cruel creature
+who kicked a poor dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"The very same; he is the Grinstun man. I've got a poem on him I'll read
+you some day."</p>
+
+<p>"That will be delightful; I am very fond of good poetry."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks says it isn't good poetry; but any man that grovels over
+Wordsworth, with a tear in the old man's eye, is a poor judge."</p>
+
+<p>"I admire Wordsworth, Mr. Coristine, and am afraid that you are not in
+earnest about poetry. To me it is like life, a very serious thing. But,
+tell me, do you think the land is safe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes; I wrote to one of the salaried juniors, giving him instructions
+to look after it, just as soon as I heard what Grinstuns had his eye
+on."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Coristine! How shall I ever thank you for your kindness, you, of
+all men, who profess to treat us workers for our living as positive
+nonentities?"</p>
+
+<p>"By forgetting the past, Miss Du Plessis, and allowing me the honour of
+your acquaintance in future. By the-bye, as you admire Wordsworth, and
+good poetry, and airnest, serious men, I'll just go and send Wilks to
+you. I have a word for Miss Carmichael. Is she constructed on the same
+poetic principles as yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go away then, <i>farceur</i>! No; Marjorie is inclined to frivolity."</p>
+
+<p>With a wave of her fan, she dismissed the lawyer, who began to think
+lady stenographers and typewriters a class worthy of platonic attention.
+"Short hand!" he muttered to himself; "hers is rather a long one and
+pretty, and she is a favourable type of her kind, but I'm afraid a pun
+would make her faint, when Wilks would certainly call me out and shoot
+me dead with his revolver."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, my boy," said Coristine aloud, when he reached the stiff chair
+in which the dominie sat erect, facing Miss Carmichael on a lounge at
+safe distance; "Miss Du Plessis would like to hear you discuss
+Wordsworth and other Sunday poets. She doesn't seem to care about
+hearing my composition on the Grinstun man."</p>
+
+<p>The dominie eagerly but properly arose, answering: "Miss Du Plessis does
+too much honour to my humble <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>poetic judgment, and, in regard to your
+doggrel, shows her rare good sense." He then walked across the room to
+the object of his laudation, and, taking Coristine's vacated chair,
+remarked that few poets preach a sermon so simply and beautifully as the
+author of "The Excursion." Would Miss Du Plessis allow him to bring down
+his pocket volume of the Rydal bard? Miss Du Plessis would be charmed;
+so the schoolmaster withdrew, and soon reappeared with the book all
+unconsciously open at "She was a phantom of delight." With guilty eyes,
+he closed it, and, turning over the pages, stopped at the fifth book of
+"The Excursion," announcing its subject, "The Pastor." It was now the
+lady's turn to be uncomfortable, with the suggestion of Mr. Perrowne.
+The lawyer, whose back had been turned to the poetic pair, looked
+unutterable things at Miss Carmichael, who, not knowing to what extreme
+of the ludicrous her companion might lead her, suggested a visit to the
+garden, if Mr. Coristine did not think it too warm. "It's the very thing
+for me," answered the lawyer, as they arose together and proceeded to
+the French windows opening upon the verandah; "it's like 'Come into the
+garden, Maud.'" They were outside by this time, and Miss Carmichael,
+lifting a warning finger, said: "Mr. Coristine, I am a school teacher,
+and am going to take you in hand as a naughty boy; you know that is not
+for Sunday, don't you now?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it was only another name that begins with the same letter," replied
+the incorrigible Irishman, "I'd say the line would be good for any day
+of the week in fine weather; but I'm more than willing to go to school
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said the schoolteacher quietly, "sometimes the word
+'garden' makes me sad. Papa had a great deal of trouble. He lost all his
+children but me, and almost all his property, and he had quarrelled with
+his relations in Scotland, or they had quarrelled with him; so that he
+was, in spite of his public life, a lonely, afflicted man. When he was
+dying, he repeated part of a hymn, and the refrain was 'The Garden of
+Gethsemane.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Miss Carmichael, dear, forgive me, the stupid, blundering idiot
+that I am, to go and vex your tender heart with my silly nonsense. I'm
+ashamed, and could cry to think of it."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>"I will forgive you, Mr. Coristine," she replied, recovering from her
+serious fit, and looking at the victim in a way that blended amusement
+with imperiousness: "I will forgive you this once, if you promise future
+good behaviour."</p>
+
+<p>An impulse came over the lawyer to shake Miss Carmichael's hand, but she
+made him no shadow of an excuse for so doing. It was plain that the
+mutual confidences of the girls, which embraced, using the word in a
+mere logical sense, their year long distant acquaintance with the
+transformed pedestrians had given maturity to the closer and more
+pleasant acquaintance of the day. Little Marjorie's appropriation of the
+lawyer as her Eugene added another ripening element to its growth; so
+that the two garden explorers felt none of the stiffness and uncertainty
+of a first introduction. What Miss Carmichael's thoughts were she only
+could tell, but she knew that the impetuous and affectionate Coristine
+required the merest trifle of encouragement to change the steady
+decorous tide of advancing knowledge and respect into an abruptly
+awkward cataract, threatening the rupture of pleasant relations or the
+loss of self-respect. She would have preferred talking with Wilkinson,
+as a check upon the fervour of his friend, but, although she laughed at
+the dominie's culpable ignorance of her city existence, in her secret
+soul it piqued her not a little. No; she would rather take refuge with
+the clergy, Mr. Errol or Mr. Perrowne.</p>
+
+<p>Many roses were still in bloom, but, spite of many hints, Coristine's
+button hole remained empty. He admired the pinks, the carnations, the
+large-eyed pansies, "like Shakespeare's winking Mary-buds," he said, but
+all in vain, save a civil answer. The Day-lilies and the sweet-scented
+pure white and Japan lilies, the early Phloxes, the Honeysuckles against
+the arbours, and many other floral beauties he stopped to inspect, and
+wondered if Mrs. Carruthers would mind his gathering a few, although the
+house was full of flowers. His companion did not satisfy his wonder,
+only answering that she thought flowers looked so much better growing.
+Then he pulled himself together, and answered naturally, joking on the
+tall Scarlet Lychnis, now almost a garden flower of the past, which boys
+call scarlet likeness and scarlet lightning, and ran on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>into accounts
+of botanical rambles, descriptions of curious plants, with here a little
+bit of reverent natural theology, and there an appropriate scrap from
+some flower loving poet, or a query as to where the worshippers of
+Wordsworth had got, if they had left "The Excursion" for the smaller
+pieces on the Daisy, and the Celandine, the Broom, the Thorn and the
+Yew. In thus talking he gained his end without knowing it, for, instead
+of a mere routine lawyer and impulsive Irishman, Miss Carmichael found
+in her companion an intelligent, thoughtful, and cultured acquaintance,
+whose society she thoroughly enjoyed. Occasionally an unconscious and
+half-timid lifting of her long eye-lashes towards his animated, handsome
+face thrilled the botanist with a new, if fleeting, sensation of
+delight. As they passed through a gate into a hillside meadow, at the
+foot of which ran a silvery brook, they were made aware of voices in
+song. The voices were two, one a sweet but somewhat drawly female
+soprano, the other, a raucous, loud, overmastering shout, that almost
+drowned the utterance of its companion. The masculine one furnished the
+words to the promenaders, and these were:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Shayll we gaythurr at thee rivverr</div>
+<div>Whayerr bright angel feet have traw-odd?</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Do you know who these are?" asked Miss Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p>"If I thought he knew as much tune," replied Coristine, "I should say he
+was The Crew."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tell me, please, who is The Crew?" Thereupon the lawyer launched
+out into a description of his travels, so comical a one that his fair
+companion laughed until the tears stood in her eyes, and she accused him
+of making her break the Sabbath. "No," she said at last; "that is not
+Sylvanus, but it is his brother Timotheus with Tryphosa. They are
+sitting in a ferny hollow under these birches down the hill, with a
+hymn-book between them, and as grave as if they were in church. Do you
+not think, Mr. Coristine, that that is a very nice and proper way for
+young people to improve their acquaintance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much so, Miss Carmichael. May I go in and get a hymn book? I can
+run like a deer, and won't take a minute over it. One will be enough,
+won't it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>The lady laughed a little pleasant laugh, and replied: "I think not,
+sir. We are not servants, at least in the same sense, and the piano and
+organ are at our disposal when we wish to exercise our musical powers."</p>
+
+<p>"Snubbed again," muttered Coristine to himself; then aloud: "I wish I
+were Timotheus."</p>
+
+<p>"If you prefer Tryphosa's company to mine, sir, you are at liberty to
+go; but I think your champion of Peskiwanchow would object to such
+rivalry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I didn't mean with Tryphosa."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know what you mean, nor anybody else. Let us return to the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>As they sauntered back, the lawyer suddenly cried out: "What a forgetful
+blockhead I am. I have had ever so many business questions to put to
+you, and have forgotten all about them."</p>
+
+<p>"Had you not better leave business till to-morrow, Mr. Coristine?" asked
+the lady, gravely, almost severely.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father's name was James Douglas Carmichael, was it not?" asked
+Coristine, ignoring this quietus.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to Canada in 1848, and was, for a time, in military service at
+Kingston, before he completed his medical studies. Am I right?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you happen to know these things? My father was singularly
+reticent about his past life; but you are right."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer opened his pocket-book and took out a newspaper cutting,
+which he handed to his companion. "I found that at Barrie," he said,
+"and trust I have not taken too great a liberty in constituting myself
+your solicitor, and opening correspondence with Mr. MacSmaill, W.S.,
+regarding your interests."</p>
+
+<p>"It was very kind of you," she answered; "do you think it will bring us
+any money, Mr. Coristine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it must bring some, as it is directed to heirs. How much, depends
+upon the wealth of your father's family."</p>
+
+<p>"They were very wealthy. Papa told mamma to write home to them, but she
+would not. She is too independent for that."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sanction my action, and allow me to work <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>this case up? Your
+mother cannot be an heir, you know, save in a roundabout way; so that
+you, being of age, are sole authority in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know I am of age?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't; but thought that, perhaps, you might be, seeing you are so
+mature and circumspect in your ways."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for the doubtful compliment. I am of age, however."</p>
+
+<p>"Then will you authorize me to proceed?"</p>
+
+<p>"With all my heart."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know it makes me very sorry to become your solicitor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because henceforth ours are mere business relations, and I, a
+struggling junior partner, must be circumspect too, and stand in proper
+awe and distant respect for a prospective heiress."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not allow your reverence to carry you too far to an opposite
+extreme. You have been very good during most of our walk, and I have
+enjoyed it very much."</p>
+
+<p>As she tripped in at the French window, Coristine could not reply. It is
+probable that he ejaculated inwardly, "the darlin'!" but, outwardly, he
+took out his pipe and sought consolation in the bowl of the Turk's head.
+While patrolling the long path down towards the meadow, he heard a low
+whistle, and, proceeding to the point in the fence whence it came, found
+Mr. Rawdon, as pale as he well could be, and much agitated. "Look 'ere,
+Mr. Currystone," he said, "I've bin down to Talfourds and a good bit
+further, and I find a fellow called Nash 'as bin about, plottin' to 'urt
+my business along of that brute of a Chisholm. They can't 'urt it much,
+but I can 'urt them, and, wot's more, I will. 'Ow I found out wot
+they're about is my haffair. I hain't got no time to lose, so you tell
+the genniwin Simon Pure Miss Do Please-us as I'll hoffer 'er a thousan'
+dollars cash for that there farm of 'ers till to-morrow mornin'. 'Er
+hacceptance must be hat the Post-hoffice hup the road hany time before
+ten o'clock, and the deed can be drawn hup between you and me and the
+Squire just has soon therehafter as she pleases. Ha, ha! pretty good,
+eh? Miss Do Please-us, she pleases! Bye, bye! Mr. Currystone, don't you
+forget, for it's business."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>The Grinstun man stole along the meadow fence and travelled over the
+fields, back way, towards the Lake Settlement. Emptying his pipe, the
+lawyer found Miss Du Plessis and at once announced Mr. Rawdon's
+proposal, which he urged her not to accept. She said the land was
+certainly not worth any more, if it were worth that amount, and that a
+thousand dollars would be of much immediate use to her mother. But
+Coristine reminded her that Colonel Morton was, in all probability, with
+her mother now, and begged her at least to wait until their joint
+opinion could be procured. To this she agreed, and further conversation
+was checked by the arrival of Marjorie, the five young Carruthers and
+Mr. Michael Terry.</p>
+
+<p>The whole party sallied out of the windows on to the verandah, the lawn,
+and thence out of the front gate, where they found the dominie in a
+state of radiant abstraction, strutting up and down the road, and
+quoting pages of his favourite poet. He had just completed the lines:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>And yet a spirit still, and bright</div>
+<div>With something of an angel light.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The lawyer went up to him before he came near and hissed at his friend,
+"What about our compact?" to which the dominie, with a fierce
+cheerfulness, replied, "It is broken, sir; shivered to atoms; buried in
+oblivion. When a so-called honourable man takes a young lady walking in
+garden and meadow alone, and breathes soft trifles in her ear, the
+letter, the spirit, the whole periphery of the compact is gone. Your
+conduct, sir, leaves me free to act as I please towards the world's
+chief soul and radiancy. I shall do as I please, sir; I shall read
+Louisa and Ruth and Laodamia and the Female Vagrant, none daring to make
+me afraid. A single tress of ebon hair, a single beam of a dove-like
+eye, shall be enough to fortify my heart against all your legal lore,
+your scorn, your innuendos, your coward threats."</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks, you're intoxicated."</p>
+
+<p>"Such intoxication as mine is that of the soul&mdash;a thing to glory in."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go and glory, and read what you please; only add the Idiot Boy to
+the Female Vagrant and you'll be a lovely pair. I'm going to do as I
+please, too, so we're both happy at last."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>Thus saying, the lawyer returned to Marjorie, while the dominie stood
+stock still in the road, like a man thunderstruck, repeating: "The Idiot
+Boy, the Female Vagrant, a pair?&mdash;and he was once my friend! A pair, a
+pair&mdash;the Female Vagrant, the Idiot Boy!&mdash;and that slimy, crawling,
+sickening caterpillar of a garden slug was once known to me! Truly, a
+strange awaking!"</p>
+
+<p>It was now six o'clock, the time under ordinary circumstances for tea;
+but the circumstances were extraordinary, as the Squire, Mr. Nash and
+the minister had to be waited for. The party was in the road waiting for
+them. "Look, Eugene!" cried Marjorie; "there's Muggins. Here Muggy,
+Muggy, good doggie!" Muggins came on at full speed, and, striding at a
+very respectable pace, his master followed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, Mr. Coristine, sow glad to see you again, I'm shore. I was
+delighted to see you bringing two straye sheep into the true fowld this
+morning. I howpe Miss Marjorie will turn out a good churchwoman; woun't
+you now, Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a woman, and I won't be one. A woman wears dirty clothes and a
+check apron and a sun-bonnet. We've had a charwoman like that in our
+house, and a washerwoman; and in Collingwood there's a fish-woman and an
+apple-woman. I've seen them with my very own eyes. I don't think it a
+bit nice of you, Mr. Brown, to call me a charwoman."</p>
+
+<p>"I said churchwoman, my dear, not charwoman."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the same thing; they scrub out churches. I've seen them do it. And
+they're as old and ugly&mdash;worse than Tryphena!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush, Marjorie!" interposed Miss Du Plessis; "you must not speak
+like that of good Tryphena. Besides, Mr. Perrowne means by a churchwoman
+one who is like me, and goes to the Church of England."</p>
+
+<p>"If it's to be like you, and you will marry Eugene and go to the Church
+of England, I will be a churchwoman and go with you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Perrowne glowered at the lawyer, whom, a moment before, he had
+greeted in so friendly a way. Coristine laughed, as he could afford to,
+and said: "I'm sorry, Marjorie, that it cannot be as you wish. I am not
+serious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>enough for Miss Du Plessis, nor a sufficient judge of good
+poetry. Your friend wouldn't have me at any price; would you now, Miss
+Du Plessis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not with that mode of asking. How unpleasantly personal
+children make things."</p>
+
+<p>Muggins and the young Carruthers were having lots of fun. He sat up and
+begged for bread, he ran after sticks and stones thrown by feeble hands,
+he shook paws with the children, had his ears stroked and his tail
+pulled with the greatest good-nature. Right under the eyes of the still
+dumbfoundered dominie, his owner accompanied Miss Du Plessis into the
+house, while Coristine prevailed on Marjorie to sing a hymn with a
+pretty plaintive tune, commencing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Once in royal David's city</div>
+<div>Stood a lowly cattle shed,</div>
+<div>Where a mother laid her infant</div>
+<div>In a manger for his bed;</div>
+<div>Mary was that mother mild,</div>
+<div>Jesus Christ her little child.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The old soldier left his grandchildren with Muggins and came to hear the
+hymn. "The Howly Vargin bliss the little pet," he ejaculated, and then
+crooned a few notes at the end of each verse.</p>
+
+<p>"Fwat is it the Howly Scripchers says, sorr, about little childher an'
+the good place?" he asked Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer took off his hat, and reverently replied: "Of such is the
+Kingdom of Heaven."</p>
+
+<p>The veteran crossed himself, and said: "There niver was a thruer word
+shpoke or in wroitin', an' fwat does the childher, the innicents, know
+about Pratishtants an' Cathlics, till me that now?"</p>
+
+<p>As Coristine could not, the pair refilled their pipes and smoked in
+company, an ideal Evangelical Alliance.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the waggonette came rattling along the road, and Marjorie ran to
+meet her Uncle John and the minister, with both of whom she was a great
+favourite. Mr. Nash also had a word to say to her: "You remember
+scolding me for not going to church when I was Mr. Chisholm? Well, I've
+been there this afternoon, and Mr. Errol told us we are all getting
+ready here for what we are to do in Heaven. Now, you're a wise little
+girl, and I want you to tell me what I will be able to do when I get
+there. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>can't be to hunt up bad people, because there are no bad
+people in Heaven. What do you think about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," answered Marjorie, gravely; "play chess with dead uncles and
+ministers, and teach tricks to the little children that never growed
+up."</p>
+
+<p>"Out of the mouths of babes!" ejaculated Mr. Errol, who overheard the
+conversation; then continued: "Could anything be truer? The training in
+observation and rapid mental combinations, which has made you successful
+in your profession, is the foundation of your prowess on the chess
+board. Your skill in every sort of make-up enables you to manipulate
+handkerchiefs and oranges for children's amusement. The same training
+and skill our Father can turn to good account in the upper sanctuary."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Mr. Errol, thank you, Marjorie, my dear. Perhaps the good
+God will be kinder than we think, and find some use for a poor, lonely,
+careless detective." Mr. Nash was unusually thoughtful, yet still had an
+eye to business. He made diligent enquiries about Rawdon, and, at last,
+getting on the scent through Miss Du Plessis, found out all that
+Coristine and Timotheus had to tell of him. The latter had watched the
+working geologist slinking off in the Lake Settlement direction across
+the fields and by bush tracks. Mr. Terry and the children, having
+partaken of tea, remained out in the front with Muggins, and sang some
+more hymns, Marjorie leading their choir. The rest of the household,
+reinforced by Mr. Perrowne, who, much to Wilkinson's disgust,
+monopolized Miss Du Plessis, sat round the ample tea-table. In a
+shamefaced way, as if engaged in an illegal ecclesiastical transaction,
+the English clergyman mumbled: "For what we are about to receive," and
+the evening meal proceeded. The Squire had ceded his end of the table to
+his sister, and had taken his post at her left, where he talked to the
+dominie, his next neighbour, and across the table to Mr. Errol. Perrowne
+flanked the hostess on the right, and Nash on the left. Miss Du Plessis
+sat between Perrowne and Wilkinson, a stately and elegant bone of
+contention; while the lawyer had the detective on one side and Miss
+Carmichael on the other. As that young lady had something to do with the
+arrangement of the table by Tryphosa, in the matter of napkin rings, it
+was, if Coristine only knew it, a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>mark of her confidence in him that
+she permitted his presence on her right. Nevertheless he profited little
+by it, as she gave all her conversation to the minister, save when the
+attention of that elderly admirer was taken up by her uncle. As Perrowne
+was compelled to be civil to Mrs. Carruthers, while Mr. Nash entertained
+the lawyer, an opportunity was afforded the schoolmaster of improving
+his acquaintance with Miss Du Plessis, of which he took joyful
+advantage, feeling that in so doing with all brilliancy he was planting
+thorns in the breasts of two innocent beings, whom he inwardly
+characterized as a clerical puppy and an ungrateful, perfidious,
+slanderous worm. Neither the puppy nor the worm were happy, as he
+joyfully perceived.</p>
+
+<p>The meal was over, and they were preparing to have early evening prayers
+for the sake of the children, when a vehicle drove up, and a burly form,
+clad in navy blue broadcloth with a plentiful trimming of gilt buttons,
+descending from it, came along the path towards the house, accompanied
+by Marjorie.</p>
+
+<p>"It's papa!" she cried to Carruthers and his wife, who had gone to the
+door to see who their visitor was, and call the children in. It was the
+Captain, and in the buggy, holding the reins, sat The Crew. "Don't sit
+grinning there, you blockhead!" shouted the ancient mariner to Sylvanus;
+"hev ye been so long aboard ship ye can't tell a stable when you see it?
+Drive on, you slabsided swab!" The Captain's combination of lumbering
+with nautical pursuits gave a peculiar and not always congruous flavour
+to his pet phrases; but Sylvanus did not mind; he drove round the lane
+and met Timotheus.</p>
+
+<p>"We have just finished tea, Captain," said Mrs. Carruthers with her
+pretty touch of a cultivated Irish accent; "but Marjorie will tell
+Tryphosa to set yours on the table at once."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Honoria!" growled Mr. Thomas; "I'm in port here for the
+night, and I'm a goin' to make fast; so be I hev to belay on to the lee
+side of a stack of shingle bolts. Now, Marjorie, my pet, give daddy
+another kiss, and run away for a bit. John, I want you right away."</p>
+
+<p>With the latter words, the Captain took the Squire off to the far end of
+the verandah, and sat down with his legs dangling over among the
+flowers, causing his brother-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>in-law to do the same. "John," said he,
+taking off his naval cap, and mopping his forehead, "you're all goin' to
+be murdered to-night in your bunks, else I wouldn't ha' quit dock o'
+Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever do you mean, Thomas?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I say, and well to you and yourn. Sylvanus was down at
+Peskiwanchow, gettin' some things his brother left there, when he
+shipped for you. There's a bad crew in that whiskey mill, and, fool as
+he is, he was sharp enough to hear them unbeknown. Says one of 'em,
+'Better get out the fire-engines from town,' and he laughed. Says
+another, 'Guess the boys'll hev a nice bonefire waitin' for us, time we
+get to Flanders.' Then the low-down slab-pilers got their mutinous heads
+together, and says, 'The J.P. and the bailiff's got to be roasted
+anyway, wisht we could heave Nash in atop.' I've left the cursing and
+swearin' out, because it's useless ballast, and don't count in the deal
+any more'n sawdust. Now, John, what do you think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It looks serious, Thomas, if your man is to be depended on."</p>
+
+<p>"My man depended on? Sylvanus Pilgrim to be depended on? There's no more
+dependable able-bodied seaman and master mill-hand afloat nor ashore.
+He's true as the needle to the pole and the gang-saw to the plank. Don't
+you go saying wrong of Sylvanus."</p>
+
+<p>"I must take Nash into confidence with us, and call up your informant,"
+said the Squire, leading the Captain into the house and setting him
+carefully down at the tea table, where Mrs. Carruthers waited upon him.
+Then he looked up Sylvanus in the kitchen, and told him to report as
+soon as he had taken his supper. "We have no time to lose, Pilgrim," he
+added, "so let Tryphena alone till our talk is over. She'll keep."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't agoin' ter persume ter tech Trypheeny, Square, an' I'll be
+along in a half tack," replied The Crew.</p>
+
+<p>Next, Nash was found smoking a cigar, and talking very earnestly with
+Mr. Errol about presentiments, and sudden remembrances of childhood's
+days. He dropped the conversation at once when business was mentioned,
+and, in a few minutes, the Squire's official room contained five men,
+with very serious faces, seeking to come to a full understanding of what
+seemed a diabolical plot on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>part of some spiteful malefactors. Four
+of these have already been indicated; the fifth was the lawyer, who
+proved a useful addition for pumping Sylvanus dry and taking careful
+notes.</p>
+
+<p>While the consultation was in progress, a gentle tap came to the door,
+and, following it, a voice that thrilled the lawyer, saying, "May I come
+in, uncle; I have some news for you?" Carruthers opened the door, when
+Miss Carmichael told him that young Hill, the girls' brother, had
+arrived with another man, and wanted to see him immediately on special
+business that would not wait, and that they seemed to have been out
+shooting. The Squire went out and returned with Rufus and Ben Toner. The
+former related how Ben had gone to afternoon meetin' to tell what he
+knew of the conspiracy to clean out all the scabs in Flanders, and have
+trade run smooth. Coristine examined his old patient, who readily
+responded, and Nash, who was now Chisholm in beard and moustache, helped
+the interrogation. Toner's information, like that of Sylvanus, came from
+accidentally overhearing the talk of four men in a waggon, driving
+Flanders way during church time, while he was fishing in the river.</p>
+
+<p>"I heerd 'em say as they'd be a big blayuz afore mornin', and as Squier
+Cruthers, and the bailiff, and Nash, and a raivenue gaal, had got to go
+to kingdom come. One on 'em says he seen Mr. Nash and got a hit off his
+stick. He's a goin' to lay for him straight and for them two walkin'
+spies likeways."</p>
+
+<p>"What made you look up Rufus?" asked the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"I thort the raivenue gaal might a been one of his sisters that's here.
+Besides, he's got a gun, and so have I, and I'm a goin' to be true to my
+word, Doctor, to you and the bailiff too, ef I have to shoot aivery
+mother's son of them vilyins."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain and Sylvanus, with Rufus and Ben, all testified to the
+moving of several teams, with rough-looking characters on board, along
+the roads that led towards Flanders, and the Lake Settlement in
+particular. The Squire and Mr. Nash had noticed the same.</p>
+
+<p>"Ben," said the latter, taking off his disguise, "I think I can trust
+you. I am the detective Nash."</p>
+
+<p>Toner started, but quickly recovered himself, and, rising, gave his hand
+to the man of aliases, saying, "You <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>kin, Mr. Nash, s'haylp me. Old man
+Newcome swears he's a goin' to hev your life, but he won't ef I'm any
+good."</p>
+
+<p>The detective shook hands warmly, and, taking Ben aside, found that he
+had no personal knowledge of Rawdon, the Newcome of whom he spoke being
+apparently the go between. The intimacy between them, which was near
+ruining the young man, had come about through Toner's attention to
+Newcome's daughter, Sarah Eliza. "But," continued the unhappy lover,
+"the old man's been and had Serlizer off for more'n a year, and puts me
+off and off and better off, till I just up and wouldn't stand it no
+more. I ain't a goin' to sell his stuff, nor drink his stuff, nor hev
+nawthun more to do along of his gang, but I'd like to know where
+Serlizer's put to, and I'm here and my gun, with a lot of powder and
+shot and slugs, for the stummik of any gallihoot as lays a finger on
+you, Mr. Nash, or the doctor or the gals."</p>
+
+<p>Returning to the group, the detective urged immediate defensive action,
+leaving the offensive till the morrow. The Squire at once looked up his
+armoury, consisting of a rifle, a fowling piece (double-barrelled) and a
+pair of heavy horse-pistols, with abundant ammunition. The Captain
+reported that Sylvanus had a shotgun (single-barrelled), and that he had
+brought the blunderbuss with which he fired salutes off the <i>Susan
+Thomas</i>. Coristine answered for the revolvers carried by himself and the
+dominie. The clergy were called in and the situation explained, when
+both volunteered for service. Mr. Perrowne had a very good gun at his
+lodgings; and his landlady, whose father had been in the army, possessed
+a relic of him in the shape of an ancient carbine, which he was sure she
+would lend to Mr. Errol, with bayonet complete. He went for them, under
+escort of Rufus and Ben. When Mr. Terry was told, he begged for his son
+in law's "swate-lukin' roifle," and was as cheerful as if a wedding was
+in progress. Finally, Timotheus got the fowling piece and the Squire
+looked to the priming of his pistols. Mr. Nash, of course, had both
+revolver and dirk knife concealed somewhere about his person. Then Mr.
+Errol conducted family prayers, the children were sent to bed, the
+ladies briefly informed of the situation, and the garrison bidden a more
+than usually affectionate good-night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Squire Posts Sentries&mdash;Sylvanus Arrests Tryphosa&mdash;Change of
+Watchword&mdash;Nash Leads an Advance&mdash;The Cheek of Grinstuns&mdash;The
+Hound&mdash;Guard-room Conversation&mdash;Incipient Fires Extinguished&mdash;The
+Idiot Boy&mdash;Grinstun's Awful Cheek&mdash;The Lawyer and the Parson
+Theologize&mdash;Coristine's Hands&mdash;Doctor and Miss Halbert.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The full strength of the garrison was twelve able-bodied men, of whom
+five carried fowling pieces, one a blunderbuss, another a carbine,
+another a rifle, and four were armed with pistols. The Squire was in
+supreme command, and Mr. Nash was adjutant. They decided that the
+garrison as a whole should go on guard for the night, that is, from ten
+o'clock till six in the morning, a period of eight hours, making, as the
+Captain put it, four watches of two hours each. Thus the remaining ten
+were divided into two guards of five, and, as the morning guard, from
+four to six, would probably not be required, it was determined to put
+those who had most need of rest on the companion one from twelve to two.
+These were Captain Thomas, the veteran Terry, the two parsons, with
+Wilkinson, who was thrown in simply as a pistol man, the only other of
+the kind being the lawyer. With ammunition in their pockets, or slung
+round their shoulders, the first guard sallied forth under the Squire's
+guidance. Coristine was left to watch the front of the house behind the
+shrubbery bordering the fence, and keep up communication with Nash, who
+patrolled the road on horseback. Ben Toner's station was the path
+running parallel with the palings on the left of the garden, beyond
+which was an open field, not altogether destitute of stumps. Silvanus
+was posted on the edge of the meadow, at the back of the garden and
+out-houses; and Timotheus, on the right of the stables and connected
+buildings. Just where the beats of the brothers met, there was a little
+clump of timber, the only point affording cover to an advancing enemy,
+and to that post of honour and danger Rufus was appointed. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>Having
+placed his men, the Squire returned to the guard-room, his office, and
+ordered Tryphosa to bring refreshments for the guard, to which he added
+a box of cigars. The guard discussed the cold ham, the cheese and
+biscuits, and, in addition, Mr. Errol indulged in some diluted sherry,
+Perrowne and Wilkinson in a glass of beer, and the Captain and the
+veteran in a drop of whiskey and water. The Squire took a cigar with
+those who smoked, but maintained his wakefulness on cold tea. Every half
+hour he was out inspecting the sentries. Coristine had suggested that
+the friendly answer to a challenge should be Bridesdale, but, lest the
+enemy should hear this and take advantage of it, all suspicious persons
+should be required also to give the countersign, Grinstuns. The dominie
+sneered at him for the latter; but, when he saw his friend sally forth
+with loaded pistol to the post of danger, his enmity died, and, rising,
+he silently shook hands with him at the door. Returning to the
+guard-room, he breathed a silent prayer for his friend's safety, and
+then fortified his inner man with the fare provided. Conversation
+accompanied the impromptu supper, and the subsequent cigar or pipe, at
+first led by the divines, but afterwards taken clean out of their mouths
+by the Captain and the veteran, who furnished exciting accounts of their
+experience in critical situations.</p>
+
+<p>The Squire had gone out for the second time to inspect the sentries. It
+was eleven o'clock. Coristine, who was first visited, reported a sound
+of voices at the back of the house, and Toner confirmed the report. The
+commander-in-chief hastened to the gate leading into the hill meadow,
+and perceived a figure struggling in the strong grasp of Sylvanus. The
+sentinel's left arm was round the prisoner, and the gun was in his right
+hand. As they came towards the gate, the Squire heard piteous entreaties
+in a feminine voice to be let go, and the answer: "'Tain't no kind o'
+use, Tryphosy, even ef ye was arter Timotheus an' not me; that ain't it,
+at all. It's this: yer didn't say Bridesdale when I charlinged yer, nor
+yer couldn't bar-sign Grinstuns. All suspicious carriters has got to be
+took up, and, ef that ain't bein' a suspicious carriter, this mate on
+the starn watch don't know what is. I'm rale sorry for yer, and I'm
+sorry for Timotheus, but juty is juty and orders is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>strict. Come on,
+now, and let us hope the Square'll be marciful."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the meaning of this nonsense, Pilgrim?" asked the commander,
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a suspicious carriter as can't give no account of itself, Square.
+She might ha' been shot as like as not, ef I hadn't gone and took her
+pris'ner."</p>
+
+<p>"Let the girl alone, and don't make a laughing stock of yourself. You've
+already said the passwords loud enough for any lurker to hear, so that
+we'll hae to change them aa because o' your stupeedity. Be serious and
+keep your eyes and gun for strange folk, men or women."</p>
+
+<p>Tryphosa fled into the house, whither Tryphena&mdash;who, falling into the
+same error, had crossed the beat of Timotheus&mdash;had already betaken
+herself, being driven off the field by the more sensible and merciful
+younger Pilgrim. When the Squire had completed his rounds, he returned
+to the guard-room, and, telling the story of Sylvanus' folly, which
+roused the Captain's ire, showed the necessity for new watchwords and
+better instruction of sentries.</p>
+
+<p>"It maun be something the lads and all the rest o' us ken weel, Squire.
+What think ye o' Cricket and Golf?" asked Mr. Errol.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid that Ben Toner might not know these words," put in the
+dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" cried Mr. Perrowne, "do you really mean to say that
+this&mdash;ah&mdash;Towner needs to be towld what cricket is?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear so," Wilkinson answered; with the effect that no heathen could
+have fallen lower in the parson's estimation than did Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"I say good, ship-shape words are Starbud and Port," growled the
+Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"In Sout Ameriky it was Constituthion and Libertad," suggested Mr.
+Terry.</p>
+
+<p>"Pork and Beans 'll no' do; nor Burdock and Blood Bitters; nor Powder
+and Shot," said the Squire, ruminating; "for the one ca's up the tither
+ower nayteral like. What say ye, Maister Wilkinson?"</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson was taken aback by the suddenness of the question, and blurted
+out what had been only too much in his thoughts; "Idiot and Boy."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>"Capital!" "Well said!" "The very thing!" "Jest suits Sylvanus!" the
+various voices responded; and the Squire went out to the sentries to
+make the desired change. The lawyer chuckled when he received the new
+words, and all the other sentinels repeated to themselves the poetic
+terms "Eejut and Boy."</p>
+
+<p>It was just on the stroke of midnight, time to relieve the guards, when
+the distant sound of pistol shots in rapid succession fell
+simultaneously on the ears of Coristine, Ben and Sylvanus. The lawyer,
+stepping hastily to the house, called out the armed inmates, and in
+another minute or so Nash came galloping up. "Stay where you are,
+Squire, with your sentries; and, you other men, look to your loading and
+come on with me. I've been fired at by a waggon load of them." The five
+unposted men hastened out into the road and away after the detective to
+the left. After going a short distance, the adjutant called a halt, and
+told the veteran to advance in military order. "Now, min," said Mr.
+Terry quietly, "extind about tin paces from aich another to the lift,
+an' Oi'll be the lifthand man. Thin kape wan eye on me an' the other
+before yeez, and advance whin Oi advance undher cover av the stumps and
+finces and things. Riddy now&mdash;extind!" The movement was well executed,
+and, as the veteran was eager for the fray, he led them more rapidly
+than it could be thought the old man had the power to run, until they
+reached the spot where the waggon had halted. It was gone, without a
+sign; so the gallant skirmishers re-formed in the road and marched back
+to quarters. When they arrived at the gate, Coristine could not resist
+the temptation of a challenge, unnecessary as it was. The dominie was
+leading, and him he hailed: "Who goes there?" With momentary hesitation,
+Wilkinson answered in the same undertone:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Friends."</p>
+
+<p>"The word, friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Idiot."</p>
+
+<p>"The countersign, Idiot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Pass, Idiot Boy, and all's well!"</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster could have boxed that sentry's ears, have slapped his
+face, have caned him within an inch of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>his life; for there was a light
+in an upper window, and he knew that bright eyes were looking down
+through the slats of the closed green shutters, and that sharp ears had
+caught the sound of the obnoxious words. He could detect the accents of
+a voice, which he knew so well, pleading the cause of silence with
+another that trembled with suppressed laughter as it made ineffectual
+promises to be quiet. The two clergymen also heard the friendly
+altercation at the window, so still was everything else, and chuckled as
+they filed past the legal sentry, now on the broad grin. The Captain and
+Mr. Terry were above taking notice of such trifles, for they were
+eagerly persuading each other to take just the least drop before going
+out into the heavy night dews. No sooner had the five entered the
+guard-room than the Squire re-formed them and marched them off to
+relieve the old sentries. The lawyer's place was taken by the dominie,
+Toner's by the Captain, that of Sylvanus by Perrowne, that of Timotheus
+by Errol, and Rufus' post of honour by the veteran, who would accept no
+other. There was a sixth guard in the person of Muggins, who kept his
+master company and behaved with the greatest propriety and silence.
+Sylvanus and Timotheus, Rufus and Ben had a separate guard-house of
+their own in the kitchen, where Mrs. Carmichael, who could not sleep
+because of her apprehensions of evil to some unknown defender, furnished
+them with bread and cheese and innocuous hot elderberry wine and cold
+cider. After partaking plentifully of the refreshments, Sylvanus and Ben
+lit their pipes, and the latter communicated to the company the story of
+his woes in the case of Serlizer. Sylvanus related his adventure in
+capturing Tryphosa, which caused Timotheus to move into a corner with
+Rufus and declare solemnly and in a low tone, that "Ef Sylvanus warn't
+my brother and older'n me, and the next thing t' engaged to Trypheeny,
+I'd be shaved an' shampooed ef I wouldn't bust his old cocoanut open."
+Rufus, however, replied that girls had no business to be about in war
+times, unless it was to nurse the sick and wounded, which was only done
+in hospitals, thus justifying Sylvanus' action as a pure matter of
+military duty, and reconciling Timotheus to the slight put upon his lady
+love.</p>
+
+<p>The Squire and Coristine were alone in the guard-room, save when Mrs.
+Carmichael put her head in to ask <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>after the welfare of the party,
+especially of the older members.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandfather knows campaigning and can take care of himself," the Squire
+answered; "and the Captain's used to out-door life; but there's the
+minister now, puir man! Weel, weel, Marjorie, when I gang the roonds,
+I'll see if he needs onything."</p>
+
+<p>Then the pair chatted away, chiefly about the Grinstun man, whom
+Carruthers came to regard in the light of a spy. Though surrounded on
+every side by suspicious circumstances, there was nothing definite
+against him, the nearest evidence to a conviction being the geological
+or mineralogical expressions which the unguarded dilapidated farmer on
+the way to the Beaver River had coupled with his name, and his own
+admissions to the spurious Miss Du Plessis.</p>
+
+<p>"Maister Coristine," said the Squire, "gin I thocht yon deevil, seein'
+it's Monday mornin' the noo, was at the foondation o' this ploy, I'd
+think naething o' spendin' five thoosand to pit an end til's tricks."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Squire; I think I'll go into criminal law, and work it up
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"What's yon? I maun gang out, for I hear Mr. Wilkinson calling me."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer accompanied him to the door. Nash was at the gate to report
+that he had seen small parties and single individuals, some distance off
+the road on both sides of the house, whose actions were more than
+suspicious. Had they carried firearms larger than pistols he would have
+been sure to detect the gleam of steel. He was sorry now he had drawn
+the fire of the waggon on himself, and thus given the miscreants to
+understand that their plot was known. Still, they were at it, and meant
+mischief. As he could do no further good patrolling the road, he would
+put up his horse, and help the Squire to guard the house and
+outbuildings. Hardly was his horse in the stable, and himself in the
+guard-room, than Mr. Errol's voice, and then the dominie's, were heard
+challenging loudly. The Squire flew to the minister, and Nash to
+Wilkinson. A stout but elastic figure, so far as the step went, was
+coming along the road from the right, whistling "The Girl I left behind
+Me." As it came near, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>whistling stopped, and Rawdon, with knapsack
+on back and staff in hand, appeared before the astonished eyes of the
+sentinels. He started at the sight of the minister's carbine. "Wy, Mr.
+Herl," he said, "wot the dooce are you a doin' of at this time o' night?
+Are you lookin' for night 'awks or howls hafter the chickins, or did you
+think I was a wistlin' bear. And you too, Squire! I thought the Hinjins
+was all killed bout. Blowed if there haint hold Favosites Wilkinsonia,
+and a man as looks like Chisholm! Are you campin' out, 'avin' summer
+midnight manoovers for the fun o' the thing?"</p>
+
+<p>Nash went back to the house. "If it's a fair question, Mr. Rawdon," said
+the Squire, "where are you going at this time of night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fair enough, Squire; I'm bound for Collinwood to ketch the mornin'
+train. Bye, bye! no time to lose." Off trudged the Grinstun man, once
+more whistling, but this time his tune was "It's no use a knockin' at
+the door."</p>
+
+<p>The Squire, the detective, and the lawyer held a council of war.</p>
+
+<p>"Pity we hadn't arrested that chap," remarked Mr. Nash.</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't do it," said Coristine; "there is no warrant for his arrest, no
+definite charge against him. A justice of the peace can't issue one on
+mere suspicion, nor can he institute martial law, which would of course
+cover the case."</p>
+
+<p>"If what Maister Nash has seen be as he thinks," added the Squire, "it's
+as weel we laid nae han' on him, for it would just hae preceepitated
+metters, and hae brocht the haill o' thae Lake Settlement deevils doon
+upon us. D'ye think Rawdon's gaun to Collingwood, Nash?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it. I believe he came past here, openly and dressed as he
+was, for three reasons. First, he wants to prove an alibi for himself,
+whatever happens. Second, he wanted to see how we are guarded, and by
+that loud whistling has informed his confederates not far off that it is
+useless to try the house from the front. Thirdly, he has circled round
+to take command of the villains that fired on me out of the waggon we
+couldn't find."</p>
+
+<p>"What's to be done then?" asked the Squire and the lawyer in a breath.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>"We must watch the means of access from the left to the right. You see,
+there are bushes, young willows and alders, all along the bank of the
+creek, behind which they can steal towards that ferny hollow under the
+birches, and, from thence, either make for the bit of bush Mr. Terry is
+guarding, or creep behind the scattered boulders towards the fence. Your
+shrubberies about the house and live hedges and little meadow copses are
+very pretty and picturesque, Squire, but a bare house on the top of a
+treeless hill would be infinitely better to stand a siege."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, aye, Nash; but I'm no gaun tae cut doon my bonnie trees an' busses
+for a wheen murderin' vagabones."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll get a gun from one of the men in the kitchen, and explore
+the hillside below the Captain."</p>
+
+<p>Having secured Ben Toner's gun, the best of the lot, the detective
+walked down the garden to the gate, where he found Perrowne vainly
+endeavouring to comfort Muggins. The poor dog did not even whine, but
+shivered as he stood, otherwise paralyzed with abject terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Crouch down by the fence," whispered the detective in the parson's ear,
+and at once crouched down beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that moving object coming up the hill from the birches? By
+Jove! there's another crawling behind it. What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's an animal of some sawrt," answered Perrowne.</p>
+
+<p>"That accounts for your dog's fear. It isn't a bear, is it? There may be
+some about after early berries."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, it's not a bear, though I've been towld dawgs are very much afraid
+of bears."</p>
+
+<p>Just then the animal keeled over, and immediately there followed the
+report of a rifle. The crawler behind the beast slid back into the
+hollow and disappeared. Then, from the left of the house came a volley
+that woke the echoes all round; it was the explosion of the Captain's
+blunderbuss. The detective ran along the fence to Mr. Terry's beat, and
+found the veteran reloading his rifle from the muzzle. "Keep your post,
+Mr. Terry," he cried, "while I run and see what it is you have bagged. I
+imagine your son-in-law will look after the Captain." Mr. Nash ran down
+the hill, closely followed by the lawyer, who had come out to see the
+fun. All the bedroom windows were lit up, and eager eyes strained to
+learn the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>cause of the firing, while the remaining sentinels prepared
+for action. The animal shot was a large bloodhound, in life a dangerous
+brute with horrid, cruel-looking fangs, but now in the agonies of death.
+The detective drew his long dagger-like knife, and drove it into the
+creature's heart. Then, while Coristine lifted it by the two hind legs,
+he took a grasp of its collar, and they carried the trophy of the
+veteran's rifle on to the lawn in front of the house. There they learned
+that the Captain, being half asleep with no chance of an enemy in sight,
+dreamt his ship had been saluted coming into port on a holiday, and, as
+in duty bound, returned the salute. The blunderbuss had not exploded; it
+always made that grand, booming, rattling, diffusive sort of a report.
+The dead hound's collar was examined, and was discovered to bear the
+initials A.R. "Who is A.R.?" asked the Squire; and Mr. Nash replied: "He
+is no doubt my affianced bridegroom, Haltamont Rawdon."</p>
+
+<p>It was two o'clock in the morning; so the guard was relieved, and the
+former sentries returned to their posts; but the Squire noticed, with a
+frown, that, just as the relief arrived at Mr. Errol's beat, a female
+form clothed in black darted round the stables towards the kitchen door.
+Also, he saw that the minister had a most unmilitary muffler, in the
+shape of a lady's cloud, round his neck, which he certainly had not when
+he went on duty. His high respect for the reverend gentleman hindered
+any outward expression of his combined amusement and annoyance. Muggins
+came back with Mr. Perrowne, but obstinately refused to go near the dead
+hound.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he has ever seen it before?" asked the detective.</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't be at all surprised," replied the clergyman.</p>
+
+<p>"I lawst Muggins, you know, at Tossorontio, and there was a man there at
+the time, a short man in a pea-jacket or cowt, down't you know, who had
+a big dawg. When Muggins disappeared, I thought the big dawg might have
+killed him. But now I think the man with the pea-cowt saved him from the
+big dawg, and that's how Muggins came to gow after him. What do you
+imagine that beast was after, coming up the hill towards Muggins?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>"I think he was coming to overpower you, Mr. Perrowne, and bring all
+our forces to your aid, while the fellow behind him slipped in and fired
+the house or did some similar mischief."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Mr. Nash, he'd have had my two barrels first, and I'm a
+pretty fair shot, down't you know? But, look here, it's dry work
+mounting guard, sow I'll have another pull at the tankard."</p>
+
+<p>The Squire came in from guard mounting, somewhat fatigued. He had been
+on the stretch mentally and physically ever since the Captain's arrival.
+"You had better go to bed, grandfather, and take Thomas with you," he
+said to the veteran.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a wink this blissid noight, Squoire," replied Mr. Terry, "the smill
+av the powther has put new loife into my owld carcash. The Captin can go
+iv he plazes."</p>
+
+<p>"Avast, there! I say, messmate," growled Captain Thomas, "I don't run
+this mill, but my youngster's here under hatches, and I'm a goin' to
+keep watch on, watch off along of any other man. I don't think that o'
+yours is half up to the mark, Mr. Terry."</p>
+
+<p>"Oi was thinkin' I was a bit wake mysilf," replied the old soldier,
+filling up his glass, and handing the decanter to his neighbour, who
+likewise improved the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>"Oi'm suppawsin now, sorr," continued the veteran, addressing the
+dominie, "that this is yer first apparance on shintry."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Mr. Terry, in your supposition."</p>
+
+<p>"An', sorr, it's a cridit to yeez to be shtandin' an' facin' the inimy
+wid divel a thing in yer hand but a pishtil. Oi moind a big sthrappin'
+liftinant av ours was called Breasel, an' sid he was discinded from the
+great Breasel Breck av Oirish hishtry. Wan noight he was slapin', whin
+four nagurs av Injuns kim into his tint, an' picked the sword an'
+pishtils and the unifarm aff the bid he was on. Thin he woke up, an' him
+havin' sorra a thing to difind himself wid but a good Oirish tongue in
+his hid. But it's Tipperary the liftinant foired at the haythens, an' it
+moight ha' been grape an' canister, for they dhropped the plundher and
+run for loife, all but wan that got howlt av an anhevis drawin' plashter
+the liftinant had for a bile <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>an the back av his neck, an' wasn't usin'
+at the toime. Someways the plashter got on to his nakid chist an'
+gripped him, an' he was that wake wid froight, the other nagurs had to
+carry him away. Afther that the Injuns called Breasel by the name of
+Shupay, a worrud that in their spache manes the divil&mdash;savin' yer
+prisence, Mishter Wilkinson."</p>
+
+<p>"One time the <i>Susan Thomas</i> was at Belle Ewart loadin' on lumber,"
+growled the Captain. "Sylvanus heerd as how the Mushrats, that's the
+folks acrost on t'other side of the bay, was a comin' over to fasten him
+and me down in the hold and paint the schooner. They was a goin' to
+paint her The Spotted Dog, than which there's no meaner kind o' fish.
+So, I bid Sylvanus pile a great heap of useless, green, heavy, barky
+slabs on top o' the good lumber; then we took the occasion of a little
+wind, and stood her out to anchor a little ways from the dock. Sure
+enough, when night come, the Mushrats came a hollerin' aand yellin'.
+Unfortnitly I'd left the salutin' blunderbuss here at home, and hadn't
+but one pike-pole aboard. 'How many boat loads of 'em is there,
+Sylvanus?' I says. 'Two,' says he. 'All right,' says I, 'that's one
+apiece. Take off your coat, and roll up your shirt sleeves, Sylvanus,'
+says I, 'for you're a goin' to have heavy work slab heavin'!' On they
+come to board us, one on each side. 'Fire out them or'nary useless
+slabs, Sylvanus,' says I. 'But there's a boat with a lot of men in it,'
+says he, a-chucklin' like an ijut. Hope I haven't given the pass word
+away, John? Well, I said: 'Fire out the slabs, and let the men get out
+o' the way.' And he began firing, and I kept my side a-goin', and the
+slabs fell flat and heavy and fast, knockin' six at a shot, till they
+cussed and swore, and hollered and yelled murder, and that was the last
+we two saw of the Mushrats and the paintin' of the <i>Susan Thomas</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Subdued but hearty laughter followed these stories, and, when the
+Captain ended, the veteran pushed the decanter towards him, remarking:
+"A good shtory is a foine thing, Captin, dear, but it makes ye just a
+throifle dhroy." The Captain responded, and told Mr. Terry that he was
+neglecting himself, an omission which that gentleman proceeded to
+rectify. Mr. Errol, with his muffling <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>cloud still round his neck, was
+asleep in an easy chair. In his sleep he dreamt, the dream ending in an
+audible smack of his lips, and the exclamation "Very many thanks, ma'am;
+the toddy's warm and comforting." When his own voice aroused him, he was
+astonished to witness the extreme mirth of all parties, and was hardly
+convinced when it was attributed to the stories of the veteran and the
+Captain. The Squire, though amused, was resolved to have a word with his
+widowed sister.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer paced up and down in the cool night, trying to combine two
+things which do not necessarily go together, warmth and wakefulness.
+Everything was so quiet, that he seemed to hear Timotheus and Sylvanus
+pacing about rapidly like himself, when suddenly a little spark of fire
+appeared at the far end of the verandah towards the stables. Cautiously,
+under cover of bushes he approached the spot, but saw nothing, although
+he smelt fire. Then he knelt down and peered under the flower laden
+structure. The light was there, growing. In a moment it became a flame,
+and, as he rushed to the spot, a lad fell into his arms. Clutching his
+collar with his left hand in spite of kicks and scratches, he hauled his
+prisoner back to the verandah, and, thrusting in his right arm beneath
+the floor, drew out the blazing rags and threw them on the gravel walk
+or on the grass until he was sure that not one remained. Some watcher at
+the front window had alarmed the guard-room, for out tumbled its
+occupants, and the lad was secured by Nash, and handed over to the
+Captain and Mr. Errol. Calling to Toner to keep an eye on the whole
+front, the detective, taking in the situation, hastened to the stables
+along with the lawyer, while the Squire and Mr. Perrowne went round the
+back way on the same errand. No guard was visible, and there was fire in
+two places, both happily outside sheds, one abutting on the garden
+fence, the other farther to the right. The Squire went for water-pails,
+while Nash and the veteran followed the course of the incendiaries
+towards the bush guarded by Rufus. But the lawyer and the parson,
+seizing stout poles, which were apparently Tryphena's clothes props,
+knocked the blazing sheds to pieces with them, and scattered the burning
+boards over the ground. Before the water came, the report of a rifle, a
+fowling piece, and of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>several pistol shots, rang through the air. No
+more signs of fire were discovered, so the water was poured upon the
+still burning boards, and the firemen waited for the report of the
+pursuers. While thus waiting, they heard a groan, and, going to the
+place whence it proceeded, discovered Timotheus, with a gag plaster on
+his mouth and an ugly wound on the back of his head, lying close to the
+garden fence below the fired shed. Some water on his face revived him,
+and at the same time moistened the plaster, but as it would not come
+off, Coristine cut it open with his penknife between the lips of the
+sufferer. Even then he could hardly articulate, yet managed to ask if
+all was safe and to thank his deliverers. He was helped into the house,
+and delivered over to the awakened and dressed Tryphena and Tryphosa,
+the latter behaving very badly and laughing in a most unfeeling way at
+the comical appearance cut by her humble swain. When Tryphena removed
+the plaster, and Tryphosa, returning to duty with an effort, bathed his
+head, the wounded sentry felt almost himself again, and guaised he must
+ha' looked a purty queer pictur. Soon after, Rufus staggered into the
+kitchen in a similar condition, and his affectionate sisters had to turn
+their attention to the Baby. These were all the casualties on the part
+of the garrison, and, overpowered though the two sentries had been,
+their arms had not been taken by the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The Squire went forward to see after the welfare of his father-in-law,
+and found Mr. Terry carrying his own rifle and the gun of Sylvanus,
+while the said Pilgrim helped the detective to carry a groaning mass of
+humanity towards the kitchen hospital.</p>
+
+<p>"Oi tuk my man this toime, Squire," said Mr. Terry, gleefully; "Oi wuz
+marciful wid the crathur and aimed for the legs av' im. It's a foine
+nate little howl this swate roifle has dhrilled in his shkin, an' niver
+a bone shplit nor a big blood vissel tapped, glory be, say Oi!"</p>
+
+<p>It appeared, on examination of the parties, that Ben Toner and Sylvanus
+had indulged in a prolonged talk at the point where their beats met,
+during which a party of six, including the two prisoners, creeping up
+silently through the bush, prostrated Rufus with the blow of a bludgeon
+on the back of the head. Then, they advanced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>and repeated the operation
+on Timotheus, after which three of them, with cotton cloths soaked in
+oil, fired the sheds and the verandah. But for the lawyer's discovery of
+the spark under the latter, the fire might have been beyond control in a
+few minutes, and the end of the murderous gang accomplished. The whole
+household was roused; indeed, save in the case of the children, it can
+hardly be said to have been asleep. Mrs. Carruthers descended, and,
+sending Tryphosa to look after her young family, helped her father to
+bind up the wound of the grizzled incendiary, who refused to give any
+account of himself. "I know him," said the detective to the Squire; "his
+name is Newcome and he's a bad lot." Soon the Captain and Mr. Errol
+brought their prisoner in. The hospital and guard-room was the winter
+kitchen of the house, a spacious apartment almost unused during the
+summer months. When the lad was brought into it, he seemed to recognize
+the place with his dull big grey eyes, and spoke the first words he had
+uttered since his capture. "Bread and meat for Monty." "Why," said
+Tryphena, "it's the ijut boy." "So it is," ejaculated Mrs. Carruthers,
+"What is your name, Monty?" With an idiotic smile on his face, but no
+light in those poor eyes, he answered: "Monty Rawn, and mother's in the
+water place." Mrs. Carruthers explained that the lad had been often in
+the kitchen in winter, and that she had told Tryphena to feed him well
+and be kind to him, so that it is no wonder he recognized the scene of
+his former enjoyment. "Puir laddie," said the Squire, "he's no'
+responsible, but the born deevil that set him on should be hanged,
+drawn, and quartered."</p>
+
+<p>"Squire," answered Mr. Errol, "I'm aye on the side o' maircy, but to yon
+I say Amen."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come!" Carruthers cried hastily, regaining his natural speech;
+"we must take off these haverals, Sylvanus and Toner, and bring them in
+to guard the prisoners. They are not fit for sentry duty." Leaving the
+Captain and the veteran as temporary guards, he sallied forth, followed
+by the lawyer and the two parsons.</p>
+
+<p>To the Squire's great delight, he found the dominie walking up and down
+the front of the house, humming "A charge to keep I have." "Mr.
+Wilkinson," he said, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>"you're a pairfec' treasure," and that so loud
+that the schoolmaster was sure it was heard by the occupants of the
+window over the porch. He marched along with redoubled pride and
+devotion. Mr. Perrowne took Toner's place, and the lawyer that of
+Sylvanus. Carruthers marched the two haverals to the kitchen, and placed
+the prisoners in their charge, after roundly abusing them for talking on
+guard. This set free the Captain and Mr. Terry, who were posted together
+by the outbuildings, although the veteran was very anxious to go down to
+the bush for the purpose of potting the Lake Settlement haythens. There
+being no post for the minister, he was appointed hospital chaplain and
+commander of the prisoners' guard. Mr. Nash, carrying Ben's gun, was
+investigating the strip of bush and the clump of birches down the hill
+for traces of the enemy. While so doing, two pistol bullets flew past
+his head and compelled him to seek the cover of a tree trunk. Finding he
+could do nothing in the imperfect light, he retired gradually towards
+the sentries, and aided them in their weary watch. At length, as
+daylight was coming in, and affording a pretext for the fair occupants
+of the front room, whose windows hailed the beams of the rising sun, to
+leave their seclusion and mingle with the wakeful ones below, the sound
+of wheels was heard coming along the road to the left. Hurriedly, the
+detective became Mr. Chisholm, and joined the dominie at the gate. There
+were three men in the waggon, and one of them was the Grinstun man, as
+cheerful as ever. What was in the waggon could not be seen, as it was
+covered over with buffalo robes and tarpaulin, but the detective could
+have sworn he saw it move, and give forth a sound not unlike a groan.
+Mr. Rawdon jumped down, telling a certain Jones of truculent countenance
+to drive on, as he guessed he'd walk the rest of the way this fine
+morning. The waggon drove off accordingly and at a rapid rate, while the
+working geologist accosted the sentinels.</p>
+
+<p>"Wy, wot's hup 'ere, gents? 'Ere you hare on guard yet, and Jones there
+terls me 'ee 'eard shots fired has 'ee was comin' along slowly. I 'ope
+there hain't no gang o' city burglars bin tryin' hany o' their larks on
+the Squire. We don't want none o' that sort hout in rural parts."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>The dominie and the detective declined to satisfy him, but the former
+said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you had pressing business at Collingwood, Mr. Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"So I 'ad, and stand to lose two or three 'undred dollars by missin' the
+mornin' train. But, wen I got quite a step on the road, all of a sudding
+I remembers my hoffer to Miss Do Please-us, and 'er hanswer as was to be
+hat the Post Hoffice before ten. So I turned back, hand, lucky for me,
+fell in with Jones and 'is man takin' 'ome some things from town. But,
+come! tell a man can't you? 'As there bin any burglary or hanythink, any
+haccident, anybody 'urt? I've got an hour and more to spare, if I can be
+of any 'elp."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think we need trouble you, Rawdon," said the false Chisholm.
+"Your suspicions are correct so far, that an attempt has been made to
+fire the Squire's house, but by whom is a mystery, for there is no man
+more respected in the neighbourhood."</p>
+
+<p>"Respected! I should say 'ee is. Fire 'is 'ouse! O Lor'! wot a bloomin'
+shame! Really, I must go him, if it's honly for a hinstant to hexpress
+my feelins of hindignation to the Carrutherses."</p>
+
+<p>The Grinstun man entered the gate, which was just what the detective did
+not want. However, he held it open for him, saying: "You'll find the
+Squire in his office talking to Nash, but I don't suppose he'll mind
+being interrupted for a minute. Mrs. Carruthers is in the kitchen, and
+you'll likely meet an old acquaintance of yours there, Mr. Perrowne of
+Tossorontio."</p>
+
+<p>Rawdon drew back. Nash he knew: Mr. Perrowne, of Tossorontio, he did
+not; but the unknown to men of his stamp is often more dreaded than the
+known. He wouldn't intrude upon his friends just now, while everything
+must be upset. Playfully, he asked Favosites Wilkinsonia to remind Miss
+Do Please-us of that hoffer and the hanswer before ten, and straightway
+resumed his journey in the direction of the Lake Settlement.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all the impudent blackguards that I have met in the course of my
+experience, that fellow takes the cake," said the detective, removing
+his disguise.</p>
+
+<p>"What about Jones and the waggon?" asked the dominie.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>"The waggon is the one I saw when patrolling. Jones and his man are two
+of the ruffians who were in it. Old Newcome, here, is a third. The
+boy&mdash;by-the-bye, what a wonderful inspiration that was of yours to give
+us Idiot and Boy for passwords&mdash;well, the boy must have come from some
+other quarter. But there's either one or two wounded men under these
+buffaloes and bits of canvas, for I hit one in the waggon and sent the
+contents of Ben's gun after another down the hill. They both squealed.
+Men of that kind almost always squeal when they're hit. The impudence of
+that fellow Rawdon! Pon't forget Miss Du Plessis' letter; that's our
+card now. Never in all my life have I met with such colossal cheek!"</p>
+
+<p>The Squire came out and dismissed the guard. The parson and the lawyer
+strolled in together after Wilkinson and Nash. Coristine remarked "The
+sunshine is a glorious birth, as my friend Wilkinson would say."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Perrowne; "it brings to memory one verse of Holy Writ:
+'Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to
+behold the sun.' The words are very simple, but beautiful in their
+simplicity. People are apt to say there's no dogma in them, and that's
+why they are so acceptable to all. But that's a mistake. They contain a
+double dogma; for they make a dogmatic statement about light, and
+another about the relation of the sun to the human eye. In the Church we
+down't get much training in dogma, outside of the dogma of the Church,
+and a little in the Articles and the Catechism. Sow Mr. Enrol often
+flores me with his texts. But I down't bear him any malice, you know,
+nor any malice to dogma, so long as it's the dogma of the Holy
+Scriptures; because that is just like the verse I quoted, it says what
+is true of a thing in itself, or in its relation to man. To reject that
+sort of dogma is to reject the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," replied the lawyer, "a man in a burning desert, or who had been
+sunstruck, might curse the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"Very true; but you know how wrong is the motto <i>ex uno disce omnes</i>.
+Believe that, and we are all scoundrels, because your Grinstun man was
+once under this roof."</p>
+
+<p>"There are, however, many ecclesiastical dogmas pro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>fessedly taken from
+the Bible, against which good men, and earnest seekers after truth,
+rebel."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! Mr. Errol says&mdash;I do wish he were a Churchman, he is such a
+thoughtful, clever fellow&mdash;he says prejudice, imperfect induction, a
+wrong application of deductive logic, and one-sided interpretation,
+down't you know, literal, figurative, and all that sort of thing, are
+causes of false dogmatic assertions."</p>
+
+<p>"My friend Wilkinson, who is a long way past me in these matters, thinks
+the dogmatists forget that Revelation was a gradual thing, that the ages
+it came to were like classes in a graded school, and each class got only
+as much as it could understand, both mentally and morally; and as, of
+course, it was able to express."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Errol says the same, but with exceptions; because the prophets
+said a whowle lot of things they didn't understand. But, my dear fellow,
+whatever is the matter with your hands and face? You're burnt, you pore
+sowl, and never said a word about it. Come on here, I saye; come on!"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Perrowne laid hold on the lawyer's arm, and dragged him into the
+hall. "Miss Marjorie!" he called; "hi! Miss Carmichael, come along here,
+quick, I beg of you, please." The lady invoked came running out of the
+breakfast room, looking very pretty in her fright. "Look here, Miss
+Marjorie, at our pore friend's hands and face, all got by saving you
+ladies from being burnt alive."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Carmichael exhibited great concern, and took the patient, who
+insisted his wounds were nothing to make a fuss over, into the work
+room, setting him down, with the pressure of her two hands on his broad
+shoulders, in a comfortable chair between a sewing machine and a small
+table. Then she brought warm water, and sponged the hands, anointed the
+wounds with some home-made preparation, and clothed them in a pair of
+her uncle's kid gloves, which were so large and baggy that she had to
+sit down and laugh at her victim, who felt very happy and very foolish.
+Finally she found that Mr. Errol, whose hands were more shapely, had an
+old pair of gloves in his pocket. So the Squire's were taken off, and
+the discovery made that the hands needed more washing, soaping, and
+anointing. Coristine said his ring, a very handsome one, hurt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>him;
+would Miss Carmichael please take it off and keep it for him? Miss
+Carmichael removed the obnoxious ring, and did not know where to put it,
+but, in the meantime, to prevent its being lost, slipped it on to one of
+her own fingers, which almost paralyzed the lawyer with joy. He could
+have sat there forever; but the gong sounded for prayers, and he
+accompanied his nurse into the dining-room. There the whole household
+was assembled, even to the idiot Monty, with the exception of Tryphena,
+engaged in culinary duties, and Sylvanus, who mounted guard over the
+wounded Newcome. Ben Toner also was absent, having ridden off to summon
+Dr. Halbert. Mr. Perrowne, at the Squire's request, read the chapter for
+the day, and the minister offered a prayer, brief but fervent, returning
+thanks for the deliverance of the past night, and imploring help in
+every time of need, after which the entire company, Mr. Terry included,
+joined in the Lord's Prayer. Adjourning to the breakfast room, the
+events of the night were discussed over the porridge, the hot rolls and
+coffee and the other good things provided. Mr. Terry had been induced to
+desert the kitchen for once, and he and Coristine were the heroes of the
+hour. The lawyer put in a good word for the parson, and the Squire for
+Wilkinson, so that Miss Du Plessis and the other ladies were compelled
+to smile on both gentlemen. While the dominie blushed, the Captain
+settled his eye on him. "I told him when he was aboard the <i>Susan
+Thomas</i> that, with all his innercent sort of looks, he was a sly dog,
+with his questions about an old man's pretty niece. I knowed I'd see him
+in Flanders makin' up to the gals, the sly dog! Got set down right beam
+on to their weather ports every time, even when he wasn't told to go on
+watch at all, the sly dog. Wilkison is his name; it'll be Will-kiss-em
+some day, ha! ha! ha! the sly dog!"</p>
+
+<p>The schoolmaster was dreadfully uncomfortable, and his lady teacher
+hardly less so. It was a blessed relief when a buggy drove up to the
+gate, and Mrs. Carruthers, having left her sister-in-law in charge while
+she went out to meet its occupants, returned shortly with the doctor and
+his blooming daughter, who, as a friend of the family, insisted on
+accompanying him to offer her services if she could be of help.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>"Come, Doctor!" said the Squire, rising with the rest of the party to
+greet him and his companion; "the patients are in no immediate danger,
+so you and Miss Fanny must sit down and help us with breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fanny was nothing loath to do so, after an invigorating drive, and
+in the company of such a number of eligible bachelors as was rarely seen
+in Flanders. She had a word for Mr. Errol, for the detective, for the
+lawyer and the dominie, but to Wilkinson's great relief she finally
+pitched upon Mr. Perrowne and held him captive. Then Wilkinson improved
+the time with Miss Du Plessis, using as his excuse the letter or note
+she was to send to Rawdon declining his offer for the present, which the
+schoolmaster expressed his desire personally to take to the office.
+Breakfast over, the doctor inspected his patients, Newcome, Rufus, and
+Timotheus. The two latter he dismissed as all the better of a little
+blood letting, recommending lots of cold water applied externally. The
+case of the incendiary was more serious, but not likely to be fatal.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Doctor Summoned to the Select Encampment&mdash;Newcome
+Interviewed&mdash;Nash's Discovery&mdash;His Venture&mdash;Drop the
+Handkerchief&mdash;The Dominie's Indignation&mdash;The Pedestrians
+Detained&mdash;The Doctor Stays&mdash;A Trip to the Lakes&mdash;Conversation on
+the Way&mdash;The Richards&mdash;Fishing&mdash;Songs&mdash;The Barrier in the
+Channel&mdash;Nash's Dead Body Found&mdash;His Crazed Sister Comes to
+Bridesdale.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>It was only eight o'clock when the elders finished their breakfast, and
+the children prepared to succeed them. All the party, except Mrs.
+Carruthers and Mrs. Carmichael, who had domestic duties before them, and
+Miss Du Plessis, who had her note to write, strolled out into the garden
+in groups. Shortly, a buckboard drove up to the gate, and its occupant,
+a washed out looking youth, enquired if the doctor was there, Dr.
+Halbert. The subject of the enquiry went forward, and found that he was
+wanted at the Select Encampment, for a man who had shot himself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>"I tell you frankly, my man," said the doctor, "I don't care to go to
+your Select Encampment; there is too much mystery about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess the pay's all O.K.," answered the youth.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you not get Dr. Smallpiece to look after your man?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Cos we don't know nuthun about him, and he's too small a piece for our
+boss. You best hurry up yer cakes and come on, doctor."</p>
+
+<p>Re-entering the house for his instruments, the doctor confided to
+Carruthers his distaste for the work before him, on account of the
+mystery surrounding it, but said he supposed it was his duty to relieve
+human suffering.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is it?" asked the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"All I can tell you is that it is out on the lakes beyond the Lake
+Settlement."</p>
+
+<p>"I thocht as muckle," remarked the Squire to the detective, after the
+doctor was carried away on the buckboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Let as go and see Newcome," said the detective; and the pair went round
+to the kitchen, where the wounded man lay on an improvised couch, and
+was waited upon by big Ben Toner, anxious for news of Serlizer. Mr. Nash
+began:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor says that talking won't hurt you, Newcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Dawn't spause 'twull," answered the surly fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Setting fire to buildings with intent to take life is a hanging matter,
+Newcome."</p>
+
+<p>"Oo said t'warnt?"</p>
+
+<p>"You seem prepared for your fate."</p>
+
+<p>"Ma vate was aw raight to I got t'bahl i'my laig."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, you don't seem to care if you are going to be hanged."</p>
+
+<p>"Oo's a gaun to hahng us an' vor wat?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll be hanged for arson with intent to kill. There are witnesses to
+prove you threatened to kill me at least."</p>
+
+<p>Newcome started, and so did Ben.</p>
+
+<p>"Yaw cahn't prove nowt."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes I can. I've got your pocket book and the odd papers out of your
+coat pocket."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>"Aw'll hae yaw oop vor stalun as well as shootun, zee iv I dawn't, yaw
+bloody thafe!"</p>
+
+<p>"Keep a civil tongue in your head, man, or I'll send you to the lockup
+at once," interposed the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave him to me Squire; I'll manage him," whispered Nash.</p>
+
+<p>Then, turning to the injurious Newcome, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Your daughter, Sarah Eliza, is at Rawdon's Select Encampment, where the
+stuff you sell is turned out. She can give some fine evidence. The
+Peskiwanchow crowd, the man that pretends to be called Jones, and the
+rest of them, were picked up by you in a waggon, I know, last night. The
+coal oil and fire marks are on your hands still, and this pretty rag
+came out of your side pocket. What is more, I don't need to ask the
+Squire here to commit you. I've got a warrant already, on the evidence
+of Henry and Stokes and Steadman. I'll serve that warrant on you now,
+and have you off to the county gaol, where Dr. Stapfer is bound to cut
+off your leg, if you don't own up quick, for I have no time to lose."</p>
+
+<p>"Daw yaw thenk as Stapper ull ambitate ma laig?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure of it. He always does; he has a perfect mania for amputation.
+You know Driver?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas."</p>
+
+<p>"Who cut off his leg for a little bruise?"</p>
+
+<p>"T'wer Stapper."</p>
+
+<p>"And who cut of Sear's arm at the shoulder for a trifle of a rusty
+nail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stapper taw. O, aw zay, Mezder Nahsh, dawn't zend us ta naw Stappers."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will, I must, if you don't confess immediately all that the
+Squire and I want to know. Turn Queen's evidence, and make a clean
+breast of it. You can't save Rawdon and his gang; we have them tight.
+But confess, and I'll get you out on bail, and send you home to your
+wife to be nursed; and, when the trials come, I'll get you off your
+liquor charge with a fine. Refuse to, and you go straight to Stapfer's
+to lose your leg, and then to the gallows."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw dawn't moind chancin' t'gallas, but ma laig! Wat daw yaw wahn't ta
+knaw?"</p>
+
+<p>At once all the people, Ben included, were ordered out of the hospital,
+and Coristine, much to his disgust, sent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>for. His hands were useless
+for writing, but, as he had a good memory, he could help in the
+examination. So Mr. Errol was called in to act as clerk, Mr. Perrowne
+refusing to do so, on the ground that all confessions made in the
+presence of a clergyman are sacred. Little by little the hardened old
+sinner revealed Rawdon's business, its centre and methods, his
+accomplices and victims. Then the whole story of the plot which
+culminated in the night attack was drawn from him, appearing blacker and
+more diabolical at every new revelation of villainy. It appeared that
+the Grinstun man had with him in the attack, which he conducted
+personally, his own six men from the so called Encampment, together with
+the idiot boy, and two lots of teamsters or distributors, the five from
+Peskiwanchow brought by Newcombe, and four from another quarter. He had
+thus sixteen ruffians in his force, besides himself and the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose boy is that?" asked the detective, eagerly. He had been looking
+closely at the lad more than once and listening to his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah beeslong ta Rowdon."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is his mother?" asked Nash, with a strange light in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Her's cawd Tilder."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she Rawdon's wife? Speak, man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, nawt az aw niver heerd."</p>
+
+<p>"What was her name before he&mdash;brought her there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aw donno, but t'lahd's cawd Mawnta Nehgull."</p>
+
+<p>"O my God!" cried the detective, as he fell back in his chair, and
+seemed to lose all power of speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Come away, Nash," said the Squire, taking one arm of the stricken man,
+while Mr. Errol, handing his notes to the lawyer, took the other. They
+led him tenderly to the office, where Carruthers forced a glass of wine
+upon him. Nash revived, and begged that the door might be closed and
+locked.</p>
+
+<p>"I may never have a chance to tell this again, so I want to tell it to
+you two, and to you alone. My real name is Nagle, not Nash. I was born
+in Hamilton, where my father was a wheelwright. I got a good schooling,
+and went into a lawyer's office, for father wanted me to become a
+lawyer. But I got reading detective books, and did a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>few sharp things
+for the firm that got me into notice and brought me private detective
+business. So I got on till I rose to be what I am, such as it is. When
+my parents died they left my sister Matilda in my care. I was only
+twenty then, and she, eighteen, a bright, pretty girl. She kept my rooms
+for me, but I was away most of the time, so she became tired of it, as
+we had no relations and hardly any friends we cared to associate with.
+She insisted on leaving me and learning the millinery in Toronto; so I
+had to let her go. I saw her often, and frequently sent her money. She
+got good wages at last and dressed well, and seemed to have respectable
+people about her. Suddenly her letters stopped. I went to her place of
+business, and heard that she had left to be married to a rich man in the
+country; but nobody, not even her closest acquaintances among the girls,
+knew where, or who the man was. I advertised, neglected business to hunt
+up every clue, travelled all over the country looking for my lost
+sister, promised my dead parents never to marry till I found her. And at
+last, at last, O God! I have found Matilda, and you know where, a woman
+without name or character, the victim of the greatest scoundrel unhung,
+the associate of brutal criminals, the unlawful mother of an idiot boy!
+No! no more wine, Squire, not a drop. I want a steady head and a strong
+hand this morning more than any day of my life. Open the door and the
+windows now, please; and give me a little air."</p>
+
+<p>Nash, for so he may still be called, sent Coristine away to Talfourd's
+for his bundle, and Miss Du Plessis, having handed the note for Rawdon
+to the dominie, accompanied the hero of the gloves in the Squire's
+buggy, so as to lose no time. Wilkinson was warned not to post the
+letter before his comrade's return. While waiting in the office, Mr.
+Errol, whose heart was deeply touched, locked the door again, saying:
+"John, let us kneel down and pray our Heavenly Father to comfort our
+friend in his great sorrow, and bless him in his present work." The
+Squire knelt with the minister, and the detective fell on his knees
+beside him, their hearts joining in the quiet but earnest supplications
+of the good man of religion. When they rose from their knees, Nash,
+almost tearfully, pressed their hands and bade God bless them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>Coristine enjoyed the society of Miss Du Plessis; nevertheless he drove
+fast, for the business demanded haste. The buggy returned in little over
+half an hour, and the bundle was handed to the detective, who took it up
+stairs, and, soon after, descended as a countryman, in flannel shirt,
+light soiled coat, and overalls. The rim of his wideawake was drawn down
+all round, half hiding his face disguised with a ragged beard. It could
+not conceal his refined, almost aristocratic, features, but such a
+country type is not uncommon in many parts of Canada, even accompanied
+with perfect boorishness. His boots were small, which also was quite
+Canadian, but he had rubbed the blacking off, and trusted to the dust
+still further to disguise them. Smiling and courteous, he bade everybody
+whom he could trust good-bye, and slipped a large pocket-book full of
+money and memoranda into the hands of the Squire. "You can keep it till
+I come back," he said; "if I don't, get Mr. Errol and this lawyer chap,
+who seems a good fellow, to help you to make it out." Then, the dominie
+expressed his readiness to take the note to the post office, and Miss Du
+Plessis, a little piqued at Coristine's apparent want of attention to
+her, said that, if Mr. Wilkinson had no objections, she should, above
+all things, like a short walk after a cramping drive. The schoolmaster
+was only too delighted, in spite of Mr. Perrowne's glance of jealousy,
+which Miss Halbert saw and noted with a tap of her dainty foot on the
+verandah. So, Wilkinson and his inamorata tripped along the road, and,
+some distance behind them, shambled Simon Larkin, the hawbuck from away
+back, alias Mr. Nash. The children came out to play, led by Marjorie.
+Perrowne was still talking to Miss Halbert, Mr. Errol was closeted with
+the Squire, and the Captain and the veteran, on a garden bench, were
+telling yarns. "Cousin Marjorie," said her juvenile namesake, "we are
+going to play drop the handkerchief, because we've got such a lot of
+nice people to play it" Miss Carmichael answered: "Oh no, Marjorie, try
+some other game." But Marjorie insisted. So, a ring was formed, with
+Marjorie as handkerchief holder, outside. The ring consisted of the
+Captain and little Susan Carruthers, Mr. Perrowne and Marjorie of the
+same family, Coristine and Miss Halbert, Mr. Terry, pipe and all, and
+Honoria junior, John Carru<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>thers junior and Miss Carmichael, and baby
+Michael, but with whom? Marjorie suggested the two aunties and Tryphosa,
+but finally concluded that there had to be an odd one any way, so baby
+Michael took the Captain's hand and Miss Carmichael's, and the game
+began. Of course Marjorie dropped the handkerchief on her Eugene, and
+Eugene caught her and kissed her with great gusto. Then he had to drop
+it, and Honoria saluted him with effusion. Mr. Perrowne was her choice,
+and the parson, tell it not in Gath, the perfidious parson gave himself
+away on Miss Halbert, who captured him, blushed, and submitted. The
+Captain and Mr. Terry were becoming indignant and shocked. Miss Halbert
+had mercy on John Carruthers junior, who went wild with delight, and
+brought out Miss Carmichael. She, pitying the Captain, gave him the
+handkerchief and a long chase, but Mr. Thomas finally triumphed, and
+chose Susan Carruthers as his victim. Susan took grandpa, who pocketed
+his pipe, and, after a sounding smack, passed the handkerchief on to his
+grandchild Marjorie. She, true to her name, chose the lawyer, and that
+gentleman, emboldened by the parson's precedent, dropped the terrible
+symbol on the shoulder of the girl who was all the world to him. She
+pursued him, and he ran as he well could do, but at last he got weak and
+tired, and she overtook him against her will and his, and Coristine was
+in the seventh heaven of delight. They could take him and trample on
+him, and flaunt his recreancy before Wilkinson even; he didn't want to
+kiss any more, even the fresh young lips of the children. He wanted that
+one impression to stay forever.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Du Plessis and the dominie were not in a hurry to get back to
+Bridesdale. She had received a letter from her mother, saying that Uncle
+Morton was coming to see her, and that she would try to induce him to
+accompany her to the country, as she did not wish to shorten her
+daughter's brief holiday by calling her home. Imparting the news to
+Wilkinson, a long and interesting conversation began which branched off
+into a variety of topics, treated seriously, at times poetically, by the
+kindred minds. Miss Da Plessis was quite unreserved, yet dignified, and
+without a trace of coquetry; nevertheless, the dominie assured himself
+that Mr. Perrowne had not a ghost of a chance in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>that quarter. She was
+pleased with the generous way in which he referred to his companion
+pedestrian, in spite of the provocation which she knew the lawyer had
+given his friend. The adventures of the past night, the fresh air of the
+morning, the rural scenery and his delightful companionship, made the
+schoolmaster eloquent; yet his sense of propriety and natural politeness
+kept him from monopolizing the conversation, so that his silent
+attention was even more flattering than his appeals to the lady's
+intelligence and culture. Outside of the English classics and current
+literature, her reading lay chiefly among French and Spanish authors,
+most of which were not unknown to the studious dominie. A few ripples of
+well-bred amusement were raised by his recital of his experience at the
+Beaver River, where he found the Voyage autour de mon Jardin, especially
+by his specimens of Lajeunesse French and the story of the dug-out. Of
+course, he did not offend a lady's ear with a word so vulgar; it was
+always the canoe. Too soon the pleasant morning walk was over, and they
+stood before the garden gate at Bridesdale, just at the moment when
+Coristine accidentally stumbled and was captured by the fair possessor
+of the handkerchief. "How good of your friend to please the children by
+taking part in their games," remarked Miss Du Plessis in all sincerity.
+"I cannot express the depth of my humiliation," replied the dominie; "it
+is scandalous&mdash;a violation of the rights of hospitality."</p>
+
+<p>"But, see! Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Perrowne is there; and Fanny also."</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to do, Miss Du Plessis, judging them that are without;
+Mr. Coristine pertains to my inner circle, and shall know my opinion of
+his shameful conduct before the sun rises much higher in the heavens."</p>
+
+<p>"Hi! there, shipmate," bawled the Captain, "come on and add a link to
+this here endless chain. I told you your real name, you sly dog! Ha, ha!
+Will-kiss-em, eh Marjorie? Not you, you little puss; but your cousin
+there, colourin' up like a piney rose."</p>
+
+<p>"I relinquished such sports with my pinafores," answered the dominie,
+grandly.</p>
+
+<p>It was very unjustifiable of Mr. Perrowne, but two things annoyed him;
+one being the fact that he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>equally guilty with the lawyer, the
+other that Miss Du Plessis had deserted him for this prig of a
+schoolmaster. Loud enough to be heard by all, he remarked:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A very learned and distinguished man was once playing with some
+children, when he suddenly cried, 'Children, we must stop, for I see a
+fool coming.' What do you think of that, Captain!"</p>
+
+<p>"Never said a truer word in your life," growled Mr. Thomas, and
+continued, "anything as calls itself a man and can't romp with the
+youngsters, nor give a joke and take it, had ought to be set in a high
+chair with a bib, let alone petticuts."</p>
+
+<p>"He said pinnies, papa," Marjorie corrected.</p>
+
+<p>"Pinnies or petticuts, it's all the same thing. Me and Terry here, old
+enough to be his fathers!"</p>
+
+<p>"An' it 'ud be a grate 'anner for me, anyway, to be father to a foine,
+praper, illigant gintleman loike Mishter Wilkerson," put in the veteran,
+anxious to keep the peace. The embers, however, were smoking on both
+sides when little Marjorie ran up to the dominie and, taking his hand,
+said beseechingly: "Please don't scold the poor boys and girls, Wilks,
+because it was my fault&mdash;all my fault. I made them play. Now, put down
+your head and kiss me, and say, 'I forgive you this once, but don't you
+go to do it again'; just like papa says."</p>
+
+<p>There was no help for it, though everybody laughed to hear the terror of
+the Sacheverell Street school called Wilks, and the grown-up people,
+girls and boys. The dominie had to repeat the formula and seal it with a
+kiss, when the perfidious child turned upon him very gravely, saying:
+"Now, sir, you can't speak, for you've done it your very own self." Thus
+it was that a storm was averted, and "drop the handkerchief" broke up in
+good nature.</p>
+
+<p>"Corry," said his friend, "I'm going upstairs for my knapsack. You had
+better get yours, and prepare to follow our route. Colonel Morton and
+Miss Du Plessis are coming here, so that we, as entire strangers, ought
+no longer to intrude upon the hospitality of Mrs. Carruthers."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Wilks, my boy!" replied the tender-hearted lawyer, who felt
+as if his heart was breaking. In a few minutes the pedestrians descended
+ready for the road, when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>the Squire opened his office door and threw up
+his arms in amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"What in aa conscience is the meanin' o' this?"</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson explained, and expressed a desire to find Mrs. Carruthers,
+that he might thank her for her kind hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, gudewife, and as ye four Marjories, and Miss Cecile," cried
+Carruthers, lustily, "come ye as here, and garr thae twa wanderin' Jews
+bide."</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a commotion, as the ladies flocked with the children into
+the hall, with many exclamations of astonishment and reproach,
+surrounding the recreant young men. Mr. Errol, the Captain, the veteran,
+and even Mr. Perrowne, came to learn what was the matter. When they
+heard the intentions of the pair, Mr. Thomas and the parson were
+prepared to make the most abject apologies to the dominie, who insisted
+that there was no necessity; on the contrary, he alone was to blame, but
+all that was past. Mrs. Carruthers would not hear of their going just as
+they were becoming so pleasantly acquainted, assured them that
+Bridesdale had ample accommodation, and commanded the veteran to form a
+company of his grandchildren and arrest the would-be deserters. Marjorie
+clung to her Eugene's right leg. Mr. Errol accused him of stealing away
+with his gloves, and finally the lawyer confided to Mrs. and Miss
+Carmichael that he didn't want to go a bit, was never happier in his
+life. Miss Du Plessis put a hand on the dominie's arm, a hand that
+tingled away in to his very heart, and said her uncle would be so
+disappointed when he arrived to find that his friends of Collingwood had
+not deemed him worth waiting for. Finally, the Squire took them both
+aside, and, speaking seriously, said he had no right selfishly to detain
+them, but the time was critical, poor Nash was away on a dangerous
+errand, and their services, already great and highly appreciated, might
+yet be of the greatest importance. Besides, after the fatigue and
+excitement of the past night, they were not fit to travel. The dominie
+confessed that, with all the excitement and possible danger, he had
+enjoyed himself amazingly, that his only motive for leaving was the fear
+of trespassing upon the kindness of Mrs. Carruthers, and that, if his
+humble services were of any value, he trusted the Squire would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>draw
+upon them to the utmost. The lawyer, hearing his companion's decision,
+wanted to give a wild Irish hurroo, but, checking himself, ground the
+Squire's right hand with his own kid-gloved afflicted member, as if he
+had been a long lost brother. When they next reached the hall, Miss
+Halbert was there taking in the situation with the other young ladies.
+She had already seen enough to know that neither of her fair companions
+was capable of properly addressing the culprits, so she made up for
+their deficiency, saying: "Go upstairs at once, you naughty boys, and
+take off these pads." The naughty boys ascended, with a strangely
+combined feeling of joy and smallness, and, when the knapsacks were
+removed, Coristine sank into a chair laughing. "O Lord, Wilks," he said,
+"she called them pads!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor arrived in time for dinner, and reported three wounded men
+instead of one. Two had pistol wounds that had evidently been attended
+to from the first, the other had a gunshot in the back, and must have
+dragged himself a long way after it, for he was almost gone with loss of
+blood. "That'll be the chiel' puir Nash fired at wi' Ben's gun," said
+Carruthers.</p>
+
+<p>"Can your wife put me and Fanny up for the night, John?" asked the
+doctor, looking serious.</p>
+
+<p>"Just delighted to do so," replied the Squire; "we have more space than
+we know how to fill."</p>
+
+<p>"I must tell you why. These rough fellows at the Encampment are furious,
+and one of them, in his gratitude, warned me, on no account, to be in or
+near your house to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor, that's another thing. I have no right to let you risk yourself
+and Miss Fanny in time of danger in my house."</p>
+
+<p>"But we will, John. Come here, Fanny!" Telling his daughter the
+circumstances, the doctor asked her decision, and she at once answered:
+"Of course, Mr. Carruthers, we shall stay. Papa has two pistols in his
+gig, and, if necessary, will lend me one. I am a good shot, am I not,
+papa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, John, she has a fine eye and nerve for a mark."</p>
+
+<p>At the dinner table Doctor Halbert conversed with the pedestrians about
+the scenery they had passed through, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>and recommended them, by all
+means, not to fail in visiting the Flanders' lakes. He informed them
+that they constitued a long and perplexing chain, being more like a long
+continuous sheet of water, narrowing every here and there into straits,
+affording little more than room enough for two boats to pass through,
+than an actual succession of lakes. To penetrate far in would be
+dangerous, but his guide had informed him that no visitors to the first
+three ran any risk of interference.</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye, Miss Cecile," interrupted the Squire, "some of these lakes
+are your property, are they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Carruthers," the lady replied; "but they would be so no longer
+if a very kind friend had not paid the taxes for them."</p>
+
+<p>"Hoot toot, lassie, what's the taxes on a bittock o' wild land and
+useless water?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like above all things to see these lakes," remarked the
+dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," said Mr. Perrowne, "for sow long a time as I have been in
+Flanders, I have never seen the lakes. One down't like to gow alowne,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"I say we go this afternoon," proposed the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm with you, sir," responded the minister. "We'll drop cricket and
+golf, the day, Perrowne." Then in a whisper to Carruthers, "I'm anxious
+about poor Nash."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, meenister, see that ye aa tak' your revolvers and cartridges. I
+can supply you and Perrowne."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine proposed to botanize, but did not care to detain the
+expedition by continually opening his knapsack, nor to incommode himself
+with the burden of the strap press. He regretted that he had not brought
+his vasculum, when Miss Carmichael spoke up, and said that she would
+furnish him with one when the party was ready to start. After dinner the
+company lounged for half an hour on the verandah and in the garden.
+There the Captain made up his mind to go with the exploring party, and
+take charge of Richards' scow on the first lake, that being the only
+craft available. Ben Toner came round from the kitchen and asked the
+Squire if he had anything for him to do, as Sylvanus wanted to stay with
+old man Newcome and read the Bible to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the lakes, Toner?" asked Mr. Carruthers.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>"If you don't mind Squier, I'd sooner you'd call me Ben."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Ben, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, leastways I've ben at the laiuk as is nighes to han.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mind taking your gun, and looking out for sport with these
+gentlemen?"</p>
+
+<p>"They isn't nawthin I'd laike bettr'en that."</p>
+
+<p>So, Ben got his gun and ammunition, and the Captain was furnished with a
+stout walking-cane loaded in the head. The two parsons, the dominie, and
+the lawyer had pistols in their pockets. When ready to start, Miss
+Carmichael came up to Coristine carrying some mysterious object behind
+her back. Rapidly bringing it forward, she threw a thick green cord over
+the lawyer's shoulders, from which depended a browny black japanned tin
+candle-box. Of course, it was an accident that the cord was short, and
+that Coristine bent his head just as the fair damsel stood on tiptoe to
+adjust the improvised vasculum.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I didn't hurt you with my awkwardness, Miss Carmichael," pleaded
+the penitent knight of the order of the candle-box.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Mr. Coristine, it was my fault. I am afraid your nose
+suffered."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" chuckled the Captain, "young fellows can stand a lot o' that
+sort o' punishment. Reefs o' that kind don't do human vessels no harm."</p>
+
+<p>Wilkinson was getting sick of the Captain and his aggressive vulgarity.
+Coristine didn't mind him; anybody belonging to Miss Carmichael was, for
+the present, delightful. Nevertheless, for marching purposes, he fell in
+with Toner, while the Captain accompanied Mr. Errol, and Wilkinson, Mr.
+Perrowne. They had six miles to tramp, which took them a good hour and
+a-half. The Captain discussed navigation in Scripture times with the
+minister, and decided that the Jews might have been good at punting
+round, but were a poor seafaring lot. The dominie and the parson were
+deep in the philosophy of the affections, in the course of which
+excursus the former quoted the words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,</div>
+<div>Love gives itself, it is not bought</div>
+<div>Nor voice nor sound betrays</div>
+<div>Its deep, impassionated gaze.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>It comes, the beautiful, the free,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></div>
+<div>The crown of all humanity,</div>
+<div>In silence and alone.</div>
+<div>To seek the elected one.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Perrowne was struck with these verses, and, taking out his note
+book, begged that his companion would repeat them, as he recorded their
+sublime sentiment for future use. They then proceeded to eulogize Miss
+Du Plessis, of whom the parson formed a very high estimate, which he
+qualified by the statement that, were he not in holy orders, he would
+say Miss Fanny Halbert was more fun and ever so much jollier. Mr.
+Wilkinson really could not say, speaking conscientiously and without
+reserve, that he regarded jollity as an essential element in true
+womanhood. In his estimation it sank the peculiar grace and sacred
+dignity of the sex too nearly to a level with ordinary prosaic humanity.
+Mr. Perrowne concurred in a measure, but thought it was awfully nice for
+men of serious occupations, like the dominie and himself, to have
+somebody to liven them up a little; not too much, down't you know, but
+just enough to dispel the blues. The lawyer interrogated Toner. "Well,
+Ben, have you got any news of your young lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind calling me doctor, Ben, because I'm not one yet. My name is
+Coristine."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Mr. Corsten, I heern from old man Newcome as Serlizer's out in
+that there Slec Camp in the laiuks. She's cookin' for twainty dollars a
+month, and that's tarble good wages for gals, ef so be she gets her
+money all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a very nice place for a good girl to be, Ben."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it ain't; log roll and timber slide the hull consarn."</p>
+
+<p>"These are queer expressions you've got."</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, Mr. Corsten, I waynt and promised that there priest as looked
+like Mr. Nash, guaiss it must ha' bin his brother, as I wouldn't sweaur
+no moer. And now, it keeps my mind workin' mornin' and night, so'st to
+know what to spit out when I'm raiul mad and hoppen."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be quite an anxiety to you, Ben."</p>
+
+<p>"Anxiety? It's wearin' my life away. I've got a bit of a rest jest now
+on loggin' and lumberin', but them words 'll soon be used up."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>"What's to hinder you repeating them, or leaving them out altogether? I
+hardly ever feel the need of them."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the way you're broughten up, like your food. What 'ud do you for
+dinner, wouldn't be nigh enough for me. Same ways in speakin', they must
+be something to fill your talk out."</p>
+
+<p>"Swearing is a poor business, Ben. Our Saviour, when He was on earth,
+said, Swear not at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that in the Bible, Mr. Corsten?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, it may be in some, but t'aint in the one Sylvanus was readin' to
+old man Newcome, fer that says in black and white as Jesus cussed the
+barrn fig tree, and I'd laike to know what's odds between cussin' and
+swearin'. It stands to reason and natur that He wouldn't go and tell
+folks not to do things He did Himself; don't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you had read the chapters, there are two of them, that tell the
+story of the fig tree, you would have found that the disciples called it
+cursing when it was only a quiet saying: 'Let no fruit grow on thee
+henceforth.' You wouldn't call that cursing, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"O my, no, that ain't wuth callin' a cuss; they ain't no cuss about it.
+Now, fer whole souled, brimstun heeled cuss words, they's&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind telling me any. They wouldn't do me any good, and the
+clergyman forward there might hear them."</p>
+
+<p>"Do these clergy belong to the Church?"</p>
+
+<p>"They both think they do in different ways, but, strange to say, neither
+of them belongs to your Church."</p>
+
+<p>"Wall, I ain't got no quarrl at 'em. I guaiss all the good folks 'll get
+to Heaven somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen!" answered the lawyer, and the conversation ended.</p>
+
+<p>There was no visible cart track to the lakes. If Rawdon's whiskey mill,
+as Ben called it, was really somewhere among them, there must of
+necessity have been a road tapping their shores at some point, for an
+extensive business employing so many men could hardly exist without a
+means of easy transportation. To the neighbourhood of the Lakes
+Settlement, however, this road was a mystery. The party halted at a log
+house by the side of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>the road proper, and Mr. Perrowne, who claimed
+Richards as a parishioner, asked his wife if he and his friends could
+have the use of her boat. Mrs. Richards gave the required permission
+very graciously, and the excursionists struck into the bush path which
+led to Lake No. 1, or Richards' Lake. The bush had once been
+underbrushed, perhaps a long time back by the Indians who generally made
+for water; but the underbrush was now replaced by a dense growth of
+Canadian yew, commonly called Ground Hemlock, the crimson berry of which
+is one of the prettiest objects in the vegetable world. It, and other
+shrubs and small saplings, encroached on the narrow path, and, in
+places, almost obliterated it. The land rose into a ridge a short
+distance from the water, so that it was invisible until the crest was
+reached. Then, a dark circular lake, seemingly altogether shut in by the
+elsewhere dense forest, made its appearance. There were remains of a log
+shelter near the shore on the left, and, between it and the somewhat
+muddy beach, Toner lit a fire of drift wood to drive away the flies
+which followed the party out of the bush. The punt was soon discovered
+moored to a stake, a punt with three seats flush with the gunwales, one
+each fore and aft, and one in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>"O, I saye," cried Mr. Perrowne, "look at that lovely little island out
+there! See, you can hardly see it because of the black shadows. What a
+place to fish! and here we are without a single rod."</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't no need to trouble about rods," remarked Ben; "I kin cut you
+half-a-dozen in two shakes of a dead lamb's taiul."</p>
+
+<p>"And I've got three hooked lines," added the lawyer, producing part of
+his Beaver River purchase from his breast pocket. The dominie did not
+wish to trust himself in a doubtful craft with Coristine again, and he
+distrusted the Captain, save on the <i>Susan Thomas</i>. His former success
+in fishing, and his present pleasant relations with Perrowne, prompted
+him to join that gentleman in practising the gentle art. But what about
+bait? The question having been put to Toner, who returned with three
+springy saplings, and worms having been suggested, that veteran
+fisherman told Mr. Perrowne that he might as well look for a gold mine
+as for worms in new land. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>When, however, some envelopes were produced
+from various pockets, he proceeded to fill them with grasshoppers and
+locusts. He also excavated a little pond near the shore, and gathered a
+collection of caddice worms from the shallow border of the lake, after
+which he found an old bait tin in the log shelter, that he filled with
+water, into which he transferred the pond's inhabitants for
+transportation. "Ef them baiuts don't suit, they's a heap o' little
+frawgs in the grass of that there island," he finally remarked, before
+unmooring the scow. Then the dominie and Mr. Perrowne got on board with
+their rods, lines, and bait, and were poled and paddled by Ben over to
+their isle of beauty. Their lines were in the water, and a bass was on
+each hook, before the scow returned to the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Captain took command of the craft, occupying the entire stern
+thwart; while Ben, with his gun resting on the floor and pointing its
+muzzles out over the bow, held that end of the vessel. The commander
+would not allow the passengers who sat amidships to do any work, but
+said they might talk or sing if they had a mind to. Then the lawyer
+sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>The floatin' scow ob ole Virginny</div>
+<div>I've toiled for many a day,</div>
+<div>Workin' among de oyster beds,</div>
+<div>To me it was but play.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When he ended, Mr. Errol gave the company "Flow gently, Sweet Afton,
+amang thy green braes," and Coristine wondered much if "My Mary" that
+occurs in the song had any reference to a Marjorie, one who, as he said
+inwardly,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i4'>Shall never be thine,</div>
+<div>But mine, but mine, so I fondly swear,</div>
+<div>For ever and ever mine!</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>After Mr. Errol's effort, which won applause from the Captain, the
+lawyer waved his handkerchief as a farewell sign to the busy fishermen,
+for, just at that moment, the apparently land-locked shore opened, and a
+narrow channel between cliffs came into view. The second lake, into
+which they soon glided, was more beautiful than the first. A few jays
+and woodpeckers were flying about, and Toner was anxious to have a shot
+at a golden woodpecker, which he called a Highholder, and which sat
+unconcernedly on a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>limb within splendid range. Mr. Errol dissuaded him,
+saying he had heard that the report of a gun was carried through all the
+channels to the very end by the echoes, and reverberated there like the
+noise of thunder; after last night, they had better be as quiet as
+possible. To take his mind off the disappointment, Coristine asked Ben
+if he could sing and paddle too. He guessed he could, as paddling wasn't
+taking his breath away any. So Ben was pressed to sing, and at once
+assumed a lugubrious air, that reminded the lawyer of The Crew. The song
+was about a dying youth, who is asked what he will give in legacy to his
+mother, his sister, and various other relatives. He is liberal to all,
+till his lady-love's name is mentioned, and, for some unknown reason,
+excites his indignation. The tune was not the same as The Crew's
+copyright.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"What will you give your sweetheart, my comfort and my joy?</div>
+<div>What will you give your sweetheart, my darling boy?"</div>
+<div class='i8'>"Oh! a gallows to hang on!</div>
+<div class='i8'>Mother, make my bed soft;</div>
+<div class='i8'>I've a pain in my chest;</div>
+<div class='i8'>I want to lay down."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The last line was sung in a very solemn and affecting monotone.
+Coristine had to pretend to be deeply moved, to turn round facing the
+Captain, and chew first his moustache and then half of his pocket
+handkerchief. "Eh, Ben," said the graver minister, "I'm afraid that was
+no' a very Christian spirit to die in."</p>
+
+<p>"No, your raiverence," replied the singer, "but ef I hadn't a knowed it
+was old man Newcome as took Serlizer away, I'd be cant-hooked and
+pike-poled ef I wouldn't ha' sung jest them words, that's ef I had a
+paiun in my chaist and wanted to lay down." When they reached the third
+lake, through a channel similar to the last, the Captain said sternly:
+"I'm in command of this vessel, and expect orders to be obeyed. No more
+singin' nor laughin' out nor loud talkin'. Doctor says it's as much as
+life's worth to go beyond it. You've heerd orders; now mind 'em."
+Everything was silent, save the soft dip of the paddles in the water;
+the quiet was painfully oppressive. Ugly thoughts of bad men mingled
+with a sense of the natural beauty of the scene. Toner in the bow
+silently pointed to a square artificial-looking white object at the
+entrance to the next channel, which was the limit of the voyage. At
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>last the punt came up to it, and its occupants found the channel barred
+by a heavy grating, that passed down into the water. Above it was a
+notice in the usual form, indicating the prosecution of trespassers, and
+signed by order of the proprietor, Miss Du Plessis, with the name of
+John Carruthers, J.P. "The villain!" ejaculated Mr. Errol. "John has
+neither been here nor sent here. It's a forgery, an impudent forgery."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us take it down and carry it back with us," said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Na, na, my lad; we maun just wait till we come in force."</p>
+
+<p>"Time to 'bout ship," growled the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" whispered the minister, "I hear a voice, a woman's voice."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" said the lawyer, jumping ashore; "will you come, Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me that, Doctor, I dassent," replied Toner, shivering with
+superstitious fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go with him," said the minister to the Captain; "we'll not be a
+minute away."</p>
+
+<p>"Look sharp, then!" growled Mr. Thomas. "Are you loaded?"</p>
+
+<p>The two explorers looked to their revolvers, and then climbed the bank,
+which was no easy task, as it was a mass of felled timber and dead
+brush; but the notes of a woman's voice led them on, and, at last, they
+found themselves on the shore of the fourth lake. They saw nothing, so
+they crouched down listening for the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Steve, Stevy dear, wake up and let us go away. Oh, why are you sleeping
+when every moment is precious? He will come, Stevy, I know he will, and
+kill you, dear!" The voice was very near. Simultaneously the intruders
+looked up the bank, and, at the foot of a standing hemlock, saw a woman,
+with gray hair hanging loose over her shoulders, who knelt by a
+recumbent figure. "Steve, dear brother," she continued, "do wake up! You
+used to be so good and sensible." Coristine crept nearer behind some
+bushes till he was within a very short distance of the pair. With a
+white, sad face, trembling in every limb, he came back as silently to
+the minister, and whispered: "It's poor Nash, and she calls him brother;
+Mr. Errol, he's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>murdered, he's dead." The warm-hearted Errol, who had
+come out to look after the detective's safety, at once became a hero.</p>
+
+<p>"Bide you there, Coristine," he said, "bide there till I call you." Then
+he arose and went to the spot, but the woman, though he was in full
+view, took no notice of him. He stooped and touched her. For a moment
+she shrank, then looked up and saw it was not the person she dreaded.
+"Matilda Nagle," whispered the minister, "we must get poor Steevie away
+from here." Then he saw that her intellect was gone; no wonder that she
+was the mother of an idiot boy. "Oh, I am so glad you have come, Mr.
+Inglis," she cried, softly; "won't you try and wake Stevy, perhaps he
+will mind you better than me." The minister brushed the tears from his
+eyes, and strove to keep the sobs out of his voice. "I have a friend
+here and will call him," he said, "and we will carry Steevie away to the
+boat, and all go home together." So he called Coristine, and they picked
+the dead man up, the dead man from whose smooth, girl-like face the
+disguise had been torn away, and bore him painfully but tenderly over
+the rough fallen timber safely to the other side, the woman following.
+Ben shivered, as he saw the strange procession come down the hill, but,
+like the Captain, he uttered neither word nor cry. The bearers propped
+the dead man up against the middle thwart with the face towards the bow,
+and then set the woman down beside the Captain, who said: "Come along,
+my dear, and we'll see you both safely home." The old man's honest face
+won the poor sister's confidence, as she took her seat beside him and
+left her Stevy to the care of the minister and Coristine. With all their
+might and main paddled the Captain and Ben. Joyfully, all the company
+saw stretch after stretch of the lake behind them, until, at last, they
+passed the fishermen and landed on the shore. The minister and the
+lawyer laid their coats upon the boards of the log shelter, and placed
+their burden upon them. "Let him sleep a bit," said Mr. Errol to the mad
+woman; "let him sleep, and you help my friend to get a few flowers to
+take home with him." So Coristine took his candle-box from the floor of
+the punt, and, with his strange companion, gathered the skullcaps and
+loose-strifes and sundews that grew by the shore. She knew the flow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>ers
+and where to find them, and filled the lawyer's improvised vasculum
+almost to overflowing with many a new specimen. He only took them to
+humour her, for what cared he for all the flowers that bloom when death,
+and such a death, was but a few yards away.</p>
+
+<p>Ben Toner brought the fishers back with two good strings of fish; but,
+when they heard the story, they threw them into the lake. Ben was a
+handy man. He cut down two stout poles, and with leather wood bark
+constructed a litter, light but strong. On this the sleeping detective
+was laid, and while Mr. Errol and the Captain stumbled through the
+ground hemlock on either side of the now cheerful mad woman, the other
+four carried their ghastly load, with scalding tears streaming from
+every eye. "S'haylp me," said Ben to the lawyer, "ef I don't hunt the
+man as killed him till he dies or me." After a painful journey they
+reached the Richards' house, and Richards was at home. Mr. Perrowne told
+him all about it, and the brave fellow answered:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Bring it in here, passon; we've a place to put it in where it'll be
+safe till they send for it. I ain't scared, not I. You know my four boys
+in your club; they've all got guns and can use 'em, and I've got mine to
+boot." So, they left the body there, and persuaded the sister to come
+with them on their six mile walk home. It was seven o'clock before they
+had accomplished half the journey, and had been met by the
+representatives of an anxious household, the Squire and his
+father-in-law, the latter with rifle in hand, prepared for action. The
+first joy at beholding them safe and sound was damped by the news they
+brought. As soon as Carruthers could recover himself he spoke to the
+weird woman and invited her to come and rest at Bridesdale. Then he
+hastened on ahead to warn his wife and sister, and make arrangements for
+the reception of the strange visitor. When the party arrived at the
+house they found a large company, young and old, assembled to meet them,
+for, in addition to the doctor and his daughter, there was Mrs. Du
+Plessis with her daughter on one side, and, in all its soldierly
+dignity, the tall form of Colonel Morton on the other. The lawyer also
+noticed the ebon countenance of Mr. Maguffin peering over the palings in
+the direction of the stables. Matilda Nagle was hurried away to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>the
+back of the house by Mrs. Carruthers and her sister-in-law, there to
+find her idiot boy, to partake of necessary food provided by the
+compassionate Tryphena, and, for a time, altogether to forget the sad
+tragedy of the day. Tryphosa prepared tea for the truants in the
+breakfast room, and, after the formalities of introduction and
+reacquaintance had been gone through, Miss Carmichael poured out tea for
+the five, while Tryphosa did the same for Ben in the kitchen. The
+Captain told how Mr. Errol and the lawyer braved the terrors of the
+barred-in lakes, which appalled the stout heart of big Ben Toner. The
+two heroes hastened to put all the credit on one another's shoulders, in
+which, so far as one person's estimation was concerned, the minister
+triumphed, for, through the tears that shimmered in her eyes, Coristine
+could see that the presiding goddess was proud of him, and, with all his
+simple-heartedness, he knew that such pride has its origin in
+possession.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Old Man Newcome's Escape, Arrest and Conveyance Home&mdash;The Colonel's
+Plan of Campaign&mdash;He Takes Command&mdash;Maguffin's Capture by Messrs.
+Hill and Hislop&mdash;The Richards' Aid Enlisted&mdash;Squire as Colonel, and
+Mr. Terry, Sergeant-Major&mdash;The Skirmish&mdash;Harding
+Murdered&mdash;Wilkinson and Errol Improving the Time&mdash;The Young
+Incendiary&mdash;Mr. Hill Crushes Maguffin.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Everybody grieved for the offtaking of the detective. In the front of
+the house, the Squire and the minister, who knew his history, were most
+affected; in the back, Ben Toner was the corypheus of grief. An old man
+on a couch in an adjoining room heard the news, and, little thinking
+that his deposition and confession were safe in the Squire's possession
+along with many other documents, rejoiced thereat, and conceived a
+heroic project. At first, he thought of enlisting the idiot boy, but had
+to give up the idea; for the boy was happy with those whom he knew, and
+obstinately refused to go near the old reprobate. Sylvanus no longer
+watched him; he was basking in the smiles of Tryphena, and, at the same
+time, amusing Monty. There was a passage from the room he was in to the
+back of the main hallway, which led into the open air, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>independently of
+the summer kitchen. His coat was gone and his hat, both his boots were
+removed, and his wounded leg was bandaged, but he was a tough old
+criminal, and a bare back rider from a boy. He slipped off the couch,
+and helped himself along by the wall, thankful that his boots were off
+and he could move quietly. Still, simple Sylvanus, taken in by the good
+old man who loved to have the Bible read to him, neglected his duty.
+Newcome gained the hall, the porch, the open air, and, at last, could
+hardly believe his good luck to find himself in the stable unperceived.
+What a lot of horses were there with nobody to look after them! He saw
+one that suited him, a handsome beast he had seen in Collingwood, the
+travelling powers of which he knew. To that stall he went, and braced
+himself against the partition for a spring, after he had loosed the
+halter, and slipped on a bit and bridle. He backed his steed out, turned
+in the passage way and made for the door. Another moment and he would be
+free. No horse in the stable, even if saddled and bridled, would be able
+to overtake him, once he was on the road. But, at the door he met an
+obstacle in the shape of a mountain of straw, that caused the horse to
+back. The desperate man dug his knees into the flanks of the beast, and
+urged it on. Down went the straw mountain, and the luckless Timotheus
+beneath it, and Newcome rained a few exultant curses on him, as he
+forced his steed; when a well-dressed negro sprang up from nowhere, and,
+seizing the rein nearest him, spoke to the intelligent animal, and
+backed it to one side. In a moment Timotheus wriggled himself unhurt out
+of the litter, and, by main force, pulled the escaped prisoner down;
+while Mr. Maguffin remarked that "hoss thieves ain't pumculiah ter no
+paht of the habitatable yeth."</p>
+
+<p>Newcome squirmed and fought as well as he was able, but to no avail.
+Timotheus was simple and he was clumsy, but he was no weakling. Maguffin
+led the horse back into the stable, spread his litter, and replaced the
+bridle on the wall. Then he came out quite unruffled, and asked
+Timotheus if he would like him to use his new boots on the prisoner, to
+which that worthy replied with a grin: "I guess I've pooty nigh parlyzed
+his laigs to stop his wrastlin' tricks aready." Sylvanus, in a lucid
+moment, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>remembered his charge, and found the bird had flown. He came
+out to look for his Bible-loving friend, dreading the Captain's wrath,
+and great was his relief when he found him a victim in the strong arms
+of his brother. "Here, Sylvanus, you hold him, so's the Square'll think
+t'was you as cotched him," said the unselfish Timotheus. So Sylvanus,
+nothing loath, seized the hypocrite, and Timotheus went for the Squire,
+while Maguffin looked calmly on, occasionally glancing at his
+heavy-soled new boots, as if regretting that there was no immediate call
+for their services. The Squire was angry, for he had been kind to the
+old sinner; but he saw that the prisoner was an element of weakness in
+the house. What was to hinder him escaping again, committing murder,
+setting the place on fire? He called up Toner. "Ben," he said, "how long
+would it take you to convey Newcome to his home in a farm waggon with a
+good team?" "Ef the teeum's smart, I guaiss an houer 'ud do," answered
+the prospective son-in-law of the victim. Accordingly a springless
+waggon was produced, some straw thrown in, and Newcome securely bound
+with ropes, lying flat on his back, with his own coat and a sack or two
+put under his head for a pillow. "Timotheus," continued Mr Carruthers,
+"you had better go with Ben. Take your guns, both of you, and bring them
+back as quick as you can." Off started the ambulance, at first gently
+and humanely. When out of sight of the house, Toner grinned at
+Timotheus, and Timotheus grinned back at Ben. "It can't be haylped,
+Timotheus," remarked the latter in a low tone, "we're bound to git back
+airly, ef they's moer guyard mountin' to be did. So here goes, Serlizer
+or no Serlizer." The horses were pretty fresh, and they tore along,
+enjoying the fun, and answering with their heels to every playful flick
+of the whip. The road was rough and hilly; the jolting almost threw the
+occupants of the box seat off the waggon that had no springs. Old man
+Newcome groaned, and implored Ben, for the sake of Serlizer, to go easy
+or leave him on the roadside to die. "Ef you don't laike my teamin',"
+said Toner, in a simulated huff, "I'll quit. Here, Timotheus, you had
+ought to know them hosses better'n me." Timotheus took the reins, and
+cried: "Gerlang, we ain't no time ter lose; rattle the brimstun an'
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>merlasses old malufacture over the stones, he's ony a firebug as nobody
+owns." The delight of The Crew's brother in getting off this new and
+improved version of an ancient couplet made him reckless. He and Ben
+jumped into the air like shuttlecocks, and seemed to like it. "I heern
+say," remarked Toner, while moving momentarily skywards, "I heern tayll
+as this here joltin' beats all the piulls and pads as ever was made for
+the livyer."</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas," cheerfully responded Timotheus, coming down with a sounding
+bump; "myuns is like what the doctor out our way said to fayther wunst.
+Says he, 'Saul, your livyer's tawpidd.' So's myun, Ben; it's most tarble
+tawpidd. Gerlang, yer lazy, good fer nawthun brutes; poor old man
+Newcome won't get home this blessed night, the way yer a-goin'."</p>
+
+<p>The waggon reached the Newcome shanty. The old man was unbound and
+lifted out into his own bed. Strong as he was, he had fainted, which his
+charioteers were not sorry to see. "He's had an accident, Miss Newcome,"
+said Ben to the man's wife; "but he'll soon be all right." Fortunately,
+the doctor had done his duty well, and the shaking had failed to loosen
+the bandages over the wound. The drivers got into the waggon again and
+drove home more gently, exchanging a few words with each other; one
+being: "Guaiss old man Newcome's out o' mischief fer one night."</p>
+
+<p>While Bridesdale was being delivered from the presence of one unwelcome
+guest, the welcome ones of the front were discussing with the Squire the
+programme for the night. He had made out a warrant for the arrest of
+Rawdon, should he again have the hardihood to turn up, and otherwise
+proposed to repeat the guards of the night before. While the
+excursionists were at tea, the colonel and Mr. Terry had been walking
+about with an object in view; and the latter gentleman informed his
+son-in-law that "the cornel has a shplindid oiday in his moind." Colonel
+Morton was requested to favour the company with it, and proceeded to do
+so. "From what infohmation I have had fuhnished me by my fellow-soldieh,
+Mr. Tehhy, I pehsume you have pehmitted the attacking fohce to select
+its own basis of opehations, and have yohselves stood almost entihely on
+the defensive. With a small <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>fohce, this is vehy often the only couhse
+to puhsue. But, as I now undehstand from reeliable infohmation brought
+in, the enemy's fohce of seventeen is reduced by four, while that of the
+gahhison is augmented by three&mdash;the doctor, myself and my sehvant. Ah,
+no; I fohgot you have had one sad casualty, as my niece infohms me, in
+the fall of Mr. Nash; which leaves the strength of the gahhison fohteen,
+as against thihteen of the assailants. My friend, Mr. Wilkinson, infohms
+me that a small detachment of five men, well ahmed, holds a foht some
+six miles in the dihection of the enemy. Now, gentlemen of the council
+of wah, can we not obtain that this friendly outpost make a divehsion in
+conceht with the offensive paht of our ahmy? Send a scout with
+instyuctions foh them to occupy the wood neah their foht, and, eitheh
+with blank or ball cahtyidge&mdash;as you, Genehal Cahhathers, may
+dihect&mdash;meet the enemy as ouah troops dyive them back, and thus pehvent
+them seeking the coveh of the trees against us. This being done, send a
+scout, mounted if possible, to guahd against attack from the left; post
+pistol sentinels round the buildings, and fohm the rest of the available
+fohce into an attacking pahty occupying the strategic point examined by
+Mr. Tehhy and me: I allude to the plantation to the reah of the right
+wing. Just as soon as the enemy comes up to occupy that position, chahge
+them like bulldogs and drive them as fah as possible towahds the road,
+and at last bring them undeh the guns of our friendly foht. That, I
+think, is bettah than losing heaht by watching all night long and
+endangehing the safety of the ladies. Such, gentlemen, is my humble
+counsel."</p>
+
+<p>"Hark till him, now, jantlemen; pay attintion till him, all av yeez,"
+exclaimed Mr. Terry; "fer 'tis the wurrud av a sowldjer and an
+offisher."</p>
+
+<p>"Assume command, Colonel, if you please. We are all ready to obey
+orders," said the Squire. "Is that not the case, friends?"</p>
+
+<p>To this the whole company answered "Yes," and Colonel Morton at once
+gave his commands.</p>
+
+<p>The garrison was paraded on the lawn, its armament strengthened by two
+rifles borrowed in the neighbourhood, of which the Squire carried one
+and the lawyer the other. The post office had been cleared out of its
+complete stock <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>of powder and shot by Carruthers, early in the morning,
+to the no little disgust of the Grinstun man when he went for his mail.
+"Volunteehs foh the foht, foh mounted patyol, foh plantation
+picket&mdash;three!" called out the colonel. Perrowne volunteered for the
+first, as likely to have most influence with the Richards. "Blank
+cartridge," said the Squire, as he rode away amid much waving of
+handkerchiefs. "Oi'm yer picket, cornel," said Mr. Terry, stepping out
+of the ranks with his rifle at the shoulder in true military fashion.
+"Ef it's a gennelman wot knows riden, sah, and kin fiah a pistol or
+revolvah, I respectuously dedercates my feeble servishes," volunteered
+Mr. Maguffin, who mounted and patrolled poor Nash's beat, with a
+revolver handy; while the veteran ran at a regular double to the far end
+of the strip of bush. "The Squiah had bettah take the field, as he knows
+the ground and I do not," said the colonel; "I will command the
+gahhison. I shall want the captain, the doctah, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr.
+Ehhol&mdash;four. My deah sistah-in-law can shoot; and so, I believe, can
+Miss Halbeht, so we are seven."</p>
+
+<p>"There's Wordsworth for you, Wilks, my boy," Coristine remarked, nudging
+his right hand man.</p>
+
+<p>"Corry, my dear fellow, whatever induced you to take that gun?" answered
+the dominie, apprehensive for his friend's safety in the field.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no gun, Wilks; it's a rifle. If I only get a sight at Grinstuns,
+I'll commit justifiable homicide. Then I wish the Squire would punish me
+by sending me down here for thirty days."</p>
+
+<p>"The gahhison will take three paces to the fyont; quick, mahch!"
+commanded the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>The four came out in pretty straggling order, and the two ladies named
+fell in beside them.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Squiah, I leave yoah command of five men, which Mr. Pehhowne will
+soon augment to six, and Mr. Tehhy to seven, in yoah hands. If I have no
+fuhtheh need of a mounted patyol, my sehvant will join the gahhison."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel then left to post his sentries, which he did so judiciously
+that three were enough, namely, the doctor, the minister and the
+dominie. The ladies kept watch by turns on the front of the house. Soon
+a voice was heard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>at the gate calling for Colonel Morton. The colonel
+answered the summons in person. It was Maguffin dismounted, and behind
+him came two men, honest farmers apparently, one of whom led the
+coloured man's horse, while the other held his fowling piece at the
+port, ready for action in Maguffin's rear.</p>
+
+<p>"Maguffin," said the colonel, sternly, "consideh youhself undeh ahhest,
+suh."</p>
+
+<p>"I doan need ter hab ter, sah; that's jess wot I is this bressid minit."</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening!" said the two farmers, amiably, and the colonel returned
+the salutation. "Good evening, gentlemen! but I feah you have made a
+mistake in ahhesting my sehvant."</p>
+
+<p>"When a naygur on a fine beast gallops down on two quiet folk, and
+orders them to go back, disperse, and surrinder, and them coming to see
+after the safety of their children and friends, the only one thing to
+do, if you have your guns along, is to arrest the naygur."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I undehstand, Maguffin, that you ordehed these wohthy people to go
+back, dispehse, and suhhendah without any wahhant?"</p>
+
+<p>"And presinted his pistil, too," continued the tall man, who had already
+spoken, and who was the coloured man's guard.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no answah, Maguffin?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fought, Cunnell, I was ter patterole this heah road and repawt all
+the folkses I see on or off'n it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, repoht to me, as youh officeh, suh."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I fought yoh meant to repawt em wif a revolvah, sah."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, gentlemen, you will let my sehvant go, when I say I deplohe
+his foolish mistake, and apologize foh his insolence?</p>
+
+<p>"To be shure, sir," replied the guard; "give the man his horse,
+Annerew."</p>
+
+<p>Maguffin remounted, and, receiving more minute instructions from his
+master, returned to his patrol duty.</p>
+
+<p>"We're just coming in to help the Squire, and me to look after my
+childer, Tryphena and Tryphosa and Baby Rufus. When the Baby didn't come
+back this mornin', I said to his mother, 'Persis' says I, 'I must go and
+see the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>boy.' So here I am. My name is Hill, sir, Henry Cooke Hill, and
+this is my neighbour, and some day, perhaps, Rufus's father-in law,
+Annerew Hislop"&mdash;then in an undertone&mdash;"a very dacent man, sir, though a
+Sesayder."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the case?" asked the colonel with eagerness, advancing towards
+Andrew. "Were you on ouah side, suh, in the wahah?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, naw, surr, I'm no sodjer, but a humble maimber o' the pure gospel
+Secession kirk. As the fufty-fufth parryphrase says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>With heevenly wappons I have focht</div>
+<div>The baittles o' the Lord."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Ah yes, pahdon me my mistake. Come in, gentlemen; the Squiah will be
+happy to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Maguffin's captors entered, were warmly greeted by their friends in hall
+and kitchen, partook of a hasty supper, and were ready for the
+engagement of the night.</p>
+
+<p>Perrowne, who was a good rider, soon made his appearance, reporting that
+the Richards were only too glad to make the desired repulse of the evil
+crew from their neighbourhood, and, as members formerly of a volunteer
+company, understood something of military tactics. The parson also
+reported that he had nearly fallen in with the advancing attacking force
+of, he should say, twenty men; but, sighting them ahead, he advanced
+slowly until he saw them move solidly to his left into the fields, with
+the evident intention of coming at the house through the strip of bush.
+The villains could not be far off. "Now, Squiah," said the colonel,
+"hasten, suh, to join Mr. Tehhy; a few minutes make all the diffehence
+in case of an attack."</p>
+
+<p>The Squire had now nine men under his command, including his
+father-in-law, for Ben and Timotheus were safely back, having passed the
+formidable Maguffin. The other six were Sylvanus and Rufus, Messrs.
+Hill, Hislop, Perrowne, and Coristine. All were armed with loaded guns
+and rifles; the carbine and the blunderbuss remained to guard the house.
+Rapidly they reached the bush which hid them from view, and rejoiced the
+veteran's heart with their array.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, grandfather," said Carruthers, "you must get us all into shape."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>"Well now, we'll make belave this is a bittillion, an' you're cornel,
+an' Oi'm sargint-major. It's ten shtrong we are, an' there's three
+roifles an' two double barrels anyhow. You git in the rare, Cornel an'
+Mishter Coristine an' Mishter Parrowne an' Ben Toner; the rist av yeez
+shtay where yeez are, till I say 'Extind!' thin, tin paces apart for the
+front rank, an' tin for the rare rank; but the rare alternatin' wid the
+front. Whin Oi say, 'Front rank!' that rank'll diliver it's foire, an'
+go on wid its loadin' behind a three, moind! an' so on wid the rare. By
+the powers, here the varmints come. Shtiddy min, lishten till me an' be
+quoiet&mdash;Extind!"</p>
+
+<p>There were some loudly beating hearts at that moment, for the enemy was
+in force, and partly armed with guns of some sort. Instead of advancing
+across the fields, as the defenders had hoped, they descended to the
+creek, in order to find cover from the bushes on its bank, until they
+reached the piece of wood. The veteran, telling his command to preserve
+its formation, wheeled it to the right, and ordered perfect silence.
+Leaving his rifle at his post, he slipped from tree to tree like a cat,
+having thrown off his shoes for the purpose. When he returned, the
+enemy, moving almost as silently, had entered the bush, but,
+anticipating no sentry at that point, had sought no cover. "Shtiddy, now
+min," whispered the sarjint-major; "take good aim, Front Rank, Riddy!"
+Five guns rolled out a challenge to the invaders, and, before they had
+time to seek cover, came, "Rare Rank, Riddy," and his own rifle led the
+other four weapons of the second line. "Are yeez loaded, front an'
+rare?" asked the ancient warrior; and, satisfied that all were, he put
+himself in the front and ordered a charge to outflank the enemy and
+hinder them getting away among the bushes. All perceived his intentions,
+except, perhaps, the two Pilgrims and Toner, who, however, were borne
+along by the rest. Dashing through the creek, part of the force volleyed
+the miscreants from there, and drove them into the open, while the
+remaining part kept them from seeking refuge in the bush. The Squire's
+men had the shelter of the brook alders and willows, now, and, led by
+Mr. Terry, in single file, at a rate almost as rapid as that of Rawdon's
+retreat, faced now and again to the left to fire, and loaded as they
+ran. At last <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>the shelter ceased, and all were in the open, both pursued
+and pursuers. "Kape it up," cried the indomitable veteran; "don't give
+the murtherin' blagyards a minit's resht!" Up, up the hill, they chased
+the said blackguards, until they reached the road. Within the skirting
+rail fences the Squire kept his men, faint but pursuing, and firing an
+occasional shot to lend the speed of terror to the miscreants' heels. In
+an hour from the beginning of the pursuit, the hunted Rawdonites were at
+the wild lands on the lakes, and prepared to enter the forest and make a
+stand or hide; when Carruthers cried: "Down flat on your faces every
+man," and five reports from in front rang through the air. The Richards
+were on guard, but either Perrowne had forgotten to tell them about
+blank cartridge, or they did not think proper to obey the order. "Come
+on a bit farther, lads, till we find where these villains turn in,"
+cried the Squire. In another minute the victors combined with the
+Richards' party, and chased the thoroughly demoralized Rawdonites, whose
+guns and pouches strewed the ground, to a desolate rocky spot beside a
+swamp, where felled trees lay in indescribable confusion, over which the
+fugitives scrambled in desperate haste for home. The lawyer caught sight
+of a figure that he knew, far up the rocky slope, preparing to leap down
+from a prostrate trunk resting on three or four others, and aimed his
+rifle at it. The Squire threw up the weapon just in the nick of time.
+"It's ower gude a death for the likes o' him, Coristine. Gie him time to
+repent, an' let the law tak' its coarse. The cunning scoundrel! Even at
+the risk o' 's life he wadna let us ken whaur his waggon road is, but
+I've a thocht, man, that it's yonner whaur the rock rises oot o' the
+swamp." Then the good Squire took off his hat, and thanked God for the
+defeat of the evil doers.</p>
+
+<p>Light though the night was, to continue the pursuit would have been the
+height of folly. The force was mustered and inspected by the so-called
+Colonel Carruthers, and the Sergeant-Major Terry. Including themselves,
+it was found to consist of no fewer than seventeen persons, one of whom
+was a woman, and the other a lad of about fifteen years of age, Matilda
+Nagle and her boy Monty. "I will show you where the road is," she said
+to the Squire; "it is hard to find, but I know it. When Stevy tried to
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>find it, Harding and he put him to sleep, so that I couldn't wake him
+up. Harding is asleep now too; I put him, and Monty helped, didn't you,
+Monty?"</p>
+
+<p>Carruthers looked, and saw that the woman's right hand and that of the
+idiot boy were alike stained with blood. All his own men were safe and
+sound, not a scratch on any one of them. The veteran's rapid tactics had
+given the enemy hardly an opportunity to return the fire, and had
+destroyed their aim from the very beginning. All honour to the
+sergeant-major! All had behaved well. Father Hill and his friend Hislop
+felt like boys; and while the Sesayder took a fatherly interest in
+Rufus, the parent of Tryphena and Tryphosa was pleased with the bearing
+of the Pilgrims. Ben Toner's conscience was a little troubled about his
+treatment of old man Newcome, but he also had a feeling that he was
+getting nearer to Serlizer. The veteran and Mr. Perrowne were filled
+with mutual admiration; and Coristine felt that that night's work had
+brought to his suit, as an ordinary year's acquaintance could not have
+done, the vote and influence of the Squire. The victors gathered up the
+spoils of the vanquished, and, by a unanimous vote, handed them over to
+the grateful Richards, whom Carruthers and Perrowne warmly thanked for
+their timely aid. "It's about time, Squire, we crushed them fellows
+out," said father Richards, to which the Squire replied: "If you and
+your sons are ready, we'll do it to-morrow as soon as the inquest is
+over."</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," asked Richards, "are you fit for a man hunt to-morrer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fitter'n a fiddle," answered the boys; "then we can go fishin' where we
+durn please."</p>
+
+<p>They bade their allies good bye, carrying their spoil with them, and
+twelve persons set out for a six-mile tramp home.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeez can march at aise, march aisy, boys," ordered the veteran; and the
+party broke up into groups. The woman clung to the Squire, and the boy
+to Sylvanus, who had made whittled trifles to amuse him. Mr. Hill
+cultivated Timotheus, and formed a high opinion of him. Rufus, of
+course, addicted himself to his future father-in-law, the Sesayder. Mr.
+Terry thought it his duty to hold out high hopes to Ben in regard to the
+rescue of Serlizer; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>and Perrowne and the lawyer journeyed along like
+brothers. There was a light in the post office, and the post-mistress at
+the door asked if the doctor had gone home yet, for two wounded men had
+sought shelter with her, and told her that one named Harding was lying
+down the hill near by. The Squire promised to bring the doctor to the
+wounded, and asked his father-in-law and Coristine, as if they were his
+nearest friends, to go down and see if they could find the wounded
+Harding. They went down and found him, but he was dead, with two of the
+Bridesdale kitchen-knives planted in his heart. In part, at least, the
+murder of Nash was avenged. They picked the slain assassin up and
+carried him to the road, where the post office stood, and deposited the
+body in an outbuilding to await the verdict of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the dominie was happy; his rival, the parson, his tormentor,
+the lawyer, were away, and even that well-meaning Goth, the tired
+Captain, was asleep in the guard-room, opposite a half-empty glass of
+the beverage in which he indulged so rarely, but which he must have
+good. The doctor's lively daughter had left Mrs. Du Plessis to guard the
+front of the house, and was talking to her father on his beat, and he
+had a suspicion that Mrs. Carmichael was wrapping that cloud again round
+the minister's neck. When the battle commenced below, the colonel was
+everywhere, directing Maguffin, inspecting the posts, guarding on all
+sides against the possibility of the enemy's attack being a mere feint.
+All unknown to the rest of the company, Miss Carmichael was up in the
+glass-enclosed observatory at the top of the house, without a light,
+watching the movements of the hostile ranks beyond the bush, and
+inwardly praying for the success of the righteous cause and for the
+safety of those she loved. Of course her uncle John was among them, and
+the simple-hearted old grandfather of her young cousins, and even, in a
+way, Mr. Perrowne, who had behaved bravely, but there was a tall,
+unclerical form, which Mr. Terry and the Squire had difficulty in
+keeping up with, that her eye followed more closely. Every report of the
+lawyer's rifle seemed to press a warm spot on her maiden cheek, and then
+make the quick blood suffuse her face, as she thought of the morning and
+Mr. Wilkinson. That gentleman was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>happy on guard at the top of the hill
+meadow, for a tall female figure, muffled up slightly as a preventive to
+chill from the night dews, came down the path towards his post, eager
+for news from the seat of war.</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful, Miss Du Plessis, I beg of you!" implored the dominie;
+"heavy firing is going on not far off, and a stray bullet might easily
+find its way hither. Permit me to conduct you to a place of safety." So
+he led her with grave courtesy within the gate, and placed her on a
+garden seat in front of two trees large of bole, and interceptive of
+possible missiles. Of course, his own safety was a matter of no moment;
+he went out of the gate and to the utmost limit of his watch to gain, by
+eye and ear, tidings of the progress of the skirmish, which he returned
+every minute or two to report to the anxious young lady. Thus it was
+that, when the colonel came to inspect the posts, he found two sentinels
+at each, pertaining to different sexes. Returning to his sister-in-law
+on the verandah, he explained to that lady the peculiar difficulty of
+his position.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, my deah sistah, that this is altogetheh contyahy to militahy
+discipline, and I ought to ordeh all undeh ahhest, but, were I to do so,
+madam, where would my sentinels come from?" Miss Du Plessis perceived
+the difficulty, as she handled the colonel's silver-mounted revolver,
+with an air of old practice; and proceeded to ask what her
+brother-in-law knew of the young gentleman who was furnishing Cecile
+with information of the fight. Thereupon the colonel launched out into a
+panegyric of the dominie's noble qualities, imputing to him all that
+Coristine had done on his behalf, and a chivalrous Southern exaggeration
+of the school-master's learning and expressions of sympathy. "Marjorie
+appears to think more highly of the other pedestrian," remarked Mrs. Du
+Plessis, to which Colonel Morton replied that Mr. Coristine was indeed a
+handsome and excellent young man, but lacked the correct bearing and
+dignified courtesy of his friend, and, he should judge, was much his
+inferior in point of education. When the tide of battle rolled away to
+the right, altogether out of sight and almost out of hearing, the double
+sentries were still at their posts, no doubt con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>versing with all
+propriety, but of what, they only individually knew. Even Miss Halbert
+did not confide to others the substance of a favourable criticism on Mr.
+Perrowne to which she treated her worthy father.</p>
+
+<p>It was between one and two in the morning when the victorious army
+returned, and was received with open arms, literally in the case of the
+Squire and the veteran, and of Mr. Hill and Rufus in the kitchen,
+metaphorically in that of the remaining combatants. Mr. Carruthers
+released the doctor, and took him to visit the wounded at the post
+office. The minister and the dominie were also relieved, and Mr. Hill
+and the Sesayder, at their own request, put in their vacant places;
+while Maguffin dismounted, and, being armed with a gun and set in the
+doctor's post, constituted a guardian trio with his late captors. Of
+course, the warriors and past sentries had to eat and drink in guard
+room and kitchen, the latter apartment being more hilarious than it
+would have been had the seniors on duty formed part of its company.
+There was no old Bourbon for the colonel, but he managed to find a fair
+substitute for it, and informed Coristine, in answer to that gentleman's
+enquiry, how he happened to arrive so speedily at Bridesdale.</p>
+
+<p>"It was Satuhday, suh, when my sehvant and I ahhived in Tohonto, and I
+met my deah sisteh in-law. At once, I sent Maguffin back by rail with
+the hohses to Collingwood, giving them Sunday to recoveh from the
+effects of the jouhney, tyavel by rail being vehy hahd on hohses. This
+mohning, or, ratheh I should say yestehday mohning, Madame Du Plessis
+and I went to Collingwood by rail, where my sehvant had secuhed her two
+places in the mail caht, and I had the honouh of escohting her to this
+pleasant place, and of beholding my chahming niece for the fihst time. I
+was indeed vehy fohtunate in ahhiving when I did, to be able to
+contribute a little to the secuhity of Bridesdale."</p>
+
+<p>"You are doubtless aware, Colonel, that our enemies of to-night are in
+unlawful possession of Miss Du Plessis' property?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suh, you astonish me. As her natuhal guahdian, I cannot, though in a
+foheign land, allow that foh a day, suh."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>"We think, at least Squire Carruthers thinks, of attacking them in
+force, after the double inquest to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Mr. Cohistine, I shall claim the privilege of joining yoah fohce
+as a volunteeh. I wish the ground were fit foh cavalhy manoeuvehs, suh."</p>
+
+<p>"We may need a few mounted men, as we hope to discover a masked road."</p>
+
+<p>"That is vehy intehesting, suh. Will you kindly explain to me the
+chahacteh of the ground?"</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer told all that he knew of the region, from hearsay and from
+personal experience. The supposed masked road, the actual rocky ascent
+covered with felled timber, an abatis, as the colonel called it, the
+access by water, and the portcullis at the narrows, were objects of
+great interest to the old soldier. He enquired as to the extent of the
+means of transportation, the probable numbers of the available force,
+and other particulars; and, when the weary Squire returned and bade all
+good people go to rest, if they could not sleep, in view of past
+wakefulness and the morrow's work, he begged, as a perfectly fresh man,
+to be excused and left in command of the guard, adding: "I shall study
+out a thyeefold convehging attack on the enemy's position, by wateh and
+by land, with cavalhy, infantry and mahines." The guard-room company
+joined in a laugh at the military joke, after which they dispersed, with
+the exception of the Captain, whom it was a pity to disturb, and
+Carruthers, who lay down upon a sofa, while the colonel went out to
+inspect his posts.</p>
+
+<p>The pedestrians occupied a large, double-bedded room at the right corner
+of the house, above the verandah. The dominie was sleeping peacefully,
+but the lawyer had not even removed his clothes, with the exception of
+his boots, if they may be so called, as he lay down upon his bed to
+rest, with a window half open in front of him. Precisely at the moment
+when, the night before, he had discovered the incipient conflagration,
+there came to his nostrils the smell of unctuous fire. Pocketing his
+loaded revolver, he stepped out of the window on to the sloping verandah
+roof, off which, in spite of his efforts, he slid heavily to the ground.
+At once he was seized with no gentle hands by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>at least three persons,
+who turned out to be Mr. Hill, the colonel, and Maguffin. "Catch that
+boy," he cried, as soon as they perceived their mistake, referring to a
+juvenile figure that he had seen slipping back towards the meadow.
+Sentry Hislop would probably have caught him, but there was no
+necessity. The idiot boy was in the arms of his wakeful mother, who,
+thinking he was going to Rawdon's quarters, as he probably was,
+intercepted him, saying: "Not back there, Monty, no, no, never again!"
+So deeply had his unnatural father, with brutal threats, impressed the
+lesson of incendiarism upon the lad that, all mechanically, he had
+repeated the attempt of the previous night. Fortunately for Coristine's
+hands, there was a garden rake at hand to draw out from under the
+verandah two kitchen towels, well steeped in coal oil, the fierce flame
+from which had already charred three or four planks of the floor. Two
+pails of water relieved all apprehensions; but the Squire awoke Sylvanus
+and ordered him to take Monty into his room, and, with his companions,
+be responsible for his safe keeping. Then, turning to the lawyer, and
+laying a friendly hand on his shoulder, he said: "If ye canna sleep, ye
+had better come in and tak' the Captain's chair; he's awa til 's bed,
+puir man." So Coristine entered the porch, and, as he did so, heard a
+voice above say: "No, Cecile, it is not your hero; it is mine again."
+"What are thae lassies gabbin' aboot at this time o' nicht?" said the
+Squire, harder of hearing. "Gang awa to the land o' Nod, and dinna spoil
+your beauty sleep, young leddies." The apostrophized damsels laughed
+lightly, whispered a few more confidences, and then relapsed into
+silence. John Carruthers had a high opinion of his niece, and said some
+very nice things about her, but, so far short did they fall of the
+lawyer's standard of appreciation, that he regarded them almost as
+desecrations. Still, it was very pleasant to be on such friendly terms
+with the Squire of the neighbourhood, the master of hospitable
+Bridesdale; and Miss Carmichael's uncle. "A splendid honest fellow," he
+said to himself, "as good every bit as Wilks' foreign aristocracy!" From
+time to time the colonel looked in upon the pair, and remarked that the
+contents of the Squire's decanter pleased him as well as Bourbon or
+Monongahela.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>When daylight came, the weary sentries were dismissed to the kitchen,
+where, under Tryphena's direction, the insane woman took much pleasure
+in providing for their creature comforts. The restraints upon Mr.
+Maguffin's eloquence being removed, it flowed in a grandiloquent stream.
+"Lave the cratur to me, Annerew," whispered Mr. Hill; "lave the nagur to
+me, and if I don't flummix and flabbergast his consayted voccabuelary, I
+was never a taycher." Then, turning to the coloured gentleman, he
+remarked in an incidental sort of way: "Were you ever in the company of
+deipnosophists before, Mr. Magoffin, deipnosophists mind! enjoyin' a
+gastromical repast?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Maguffin's eyes expanded, and his jaw dropped.</p>
+
+<p>"Yoh's got the devantidge ob yoh 'umble sarvant, Mistah Hill."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not possible that a gentleman of your larnin' is ignorant of such
+simple, aisy polysyllables as them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'se afeard yoh's got me this time, sah."</p>
+
+<p>"It stands to raison that there's limits to everybody's voccabuelary,
+onless it's a great scholard like Mr. Wilkinson; but I thought, perhaps,
+it was for a school taycher you would be settin' up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my! no, Mistah Hill, my edurecation was passimoniously insurficient.
+Most all my bettah class language I'se acquied fom clugymen ob de Baktis
+pussuasion."</p>
+
+<p>"And they never tayched ye deipnosophist nor gastromical?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sah, they didn't, I'se humblerated ter confess."</p>
+
+<p>The old schoolmaster looked at Mr. Hislop with a serious expression of
+mingled incredulity and commiseration, saying: "Such ignerance, Annerew,
+such ignerance!"; and somehow Mr. Maguffin did not see his way to
+gathering up the broken threads of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Timotheus was despatched by the Squire to summon a brother J.P., and the
+township constable, in order that immediate action against known
+criminal parties might be taken, as well as to notify the farmers
+adjacent that they were expected to sit in a coroner's jury. Having made
+all necessary legal arrangements, the Squire returned to the colonel,
+who, from a memorandum before him, sketched the plan of campaign. He
+proposed to put the five Richards as marines under the command of the
+Captain <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>to break down the grating between the third and fourth lakes,
+and push on to attack the enemy from that side. He wanted four mounted
+men armed with revolvers, and with stout sticks in lieu of swords,
+fearless horsemen whom he could lead through swamp or over obstacles to
+hold the masked road. The remaining body under the Squire, he thought,
+might follow the track of the fugitives of the night, and constitute the
+main besieging force. As to those who should perform the respective
+duties, apart from the persons named, the Squire suggested waiting till
+the inquests&mdash;which would bring some additions to the local
+population&mdash;were over. He hoped much from his fellow justice of the
+peace, Mr. Walker. Tom Rigby, an old pensioner, and the township
+constable, would probably have his hands full looking after the
+prisoners. Fortunately, the post office store of ammunition was not yet
+exhausted, to say nothing of that contained in various flasks and shot
+belts, and in the shape of cartridges. The colonel, apropos of warlike
+weapons, bemoaned the absence of bayonets, and warmly advocated a
+proposition of the lawyer's, that each combatant should carry, slung
+over the shoulder or in such way as not to interfere with the handling
+of his gun, a strong stick like those proposed by the commander-in-chief
+for his cavalry. Toner and Rufus were immediately roused from their
+slumbers, and sent to cut the requisite bludgeons, and drill them with
+holes to pass a cord through. Shortly after they had departed on their
+errand, the household awoke to life and activity, and, through casually
+opened doors, there came the gratifying odours of breakfast in
+preparation.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Mr. Bangs Accredits Himself&mdash;Silences Squire Walker&mdash;Constable
+Rigby in the Kitchen&mdash;The Inquests&mdash;Arrests, and Mr. Newberry&mdash;The
+Beaver River Contingent&mdash;Mr. Bangs and the Squire Consult&mdash;The Army
+Prepares&mdash;Wilkinson's Heroics&mdash;Mr. Bigglethorpe on Fishing.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>When Timotheus returned, he was not alone; a slightly built man of
+medium stature, and rather flashily attired, rode beside him. The Squire
+strode to the gate, to learn that the younger Pilgrim had accomplished
+his various missions successfully, and to be presented by him, in his
+usual clumsy way, to Mr. Bengs, a friend of Mr. Nash as was. "Yore men
+is right, Squire; my neme is Bengs, Hickey Bengs, end pore Nesh sent for
+me to kem end help ferret out a geng of dem excise slopers, end here I
+find my pore friend merdered. I tell you, Squire, it's too dem bed, O,
+too dem bed!"</p>
+
+<p>The Squire felt he must be cautious these times, but that did not hinder
+him being hospitable. "Come in, Mr. Bengs, and breakfast with us. My man
+will put your horse up. I have Nash's papers in my possession from his
+own hand, and, if I find they confirm your story, we will all be glad to
+take you into our confidence. You, of all men, understand the necessity
+for caution, and will, I hope, not take my precaution amiss."</p>
+
+<p>"O Lud, no, Squire; yo're pretty shore to find letters frem me ameng
+pore Nesh's papers, or some memorenda about me. H.B., you know, Hickey
+Bengs."</p>
+
+<p>Timotheus led the new detective's horse away, and the gentleman himself
+entered the house and office with the Squire. "Coristine," said the
+latter, familiarly addressing the lawyer, "would you mind looking up
+Errol quietly and sending him here?"</p>
+
+<p>Of course he didn't mind, and soon returned with the minister. Both
+noticed that the Squire had two loaded pistols on the table before him,
+the stranger being on the other side. "You can remain, Coristine. I must
+introduce you, and the Reverend Mr. Errol, my fellow trustee <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>in the
+matter of these papers, to Mr. Bengs. Mr. Coristine is in the law, Mr.
+Bengs."</p>
+
+<p>The dapper gentleman with the red tie and large scarf pin bowed amiably
+to the two witnesses of the interview, and Mr. Carruthers, with the
+minister by his side, proceeded to examine the papers. "Here it is," he
+said, after a few minutes of painful silence, "but what in aa the
+warld's the meanin' o't? B.R.&mdash;B.T.&mdash;R.C.P. The date is Saturday night."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I know," interrupted the lawyer. "How will this do: Beaver
+River, Ben Toner, Roman Catholic Priest?"</p>
+
+<p>"The very thing! Well, here's Sabbath. Prom. cum S.W.L.C. sup. eq."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine had written the words down to study them. At last he said:
+"It's a mixture of French, Latin, and English abbreviations; Promenade
+or walk with Schoolmaster Wilkinson, Lawyer Coristine on the horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, man!" ejaculated the pleased Squire; "I'll hae to turn lawyer
+mysel'. Now, here's later doon, the same day&mdash;B.D.&mdash;S.C.&mdash;P.O. scripsi
+H.B. ven. inst. Come, my prophetic friend."</p>
+
+<p>Triumphantly, the lawyer rolled out: "Bride's Dale, Squire Carruthers,
+Post Office. I have written H.B. to come instanter."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you his letter, Mr. Bengs?" the Squire asked, and at once it was
+produced with the Flanders post mark on it, written on the Bridesdale
+paper, and in Nash's peculiar way. Still Mr. Carruthers doubted. How
+could he be sure that the letter had fallen into the right hands, or
+that this smooth-spoken swell was not a cunning agent of Rawdon's?</p>
+
+<p>"John," said the minister, stooping, and lifting something off the
+carpet, "here's a bit of paper you've dropped out of the pocket-book, or
+perhaps out of that bookie you're reading from."</p>
+
+<p>The Squire eyed the paper, and then, stretching his arm over the table,
+shook the detective warmly by the hand. "It was very foolish of me, Mr.
+Bangs, not to have seen that at first. It gives notice of your arrival,
+and describes you perfectly. There's a bit of Latin, Mr. Errol, you
+might ask our friend. It seems to be a sort of watchword with a
+countersign."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>The minister took the paper and read, "quod quaeris?" whereupon the
+detective smiled, and answered promptly, "molares ebrii."</p>
+
+<p>"What in aa the warld's yon, Coristine?" enquired the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Errol asked Mr. Bangs, 'What are you looking for?' and he answered,
+'For full grindstones.'"</p>
+
+<p>"When a man is <i>ebrius</i>, John," continued the minister, "he's no' just
+sober. Weel, weel, the catechis is over, and ye can tak' puir Nash's
+frien' into our plans. Thank Providence, there's the breakfast gong."</p>
+
+<p>The ladies were astonished to see the new arrival enter the dining-room,
+the breakfast-room table being too small, with his three inquisitors. He
+was quite polite, however, though a little stiltedly so, as if not to
+the manner born. Mr. Terry insisted on vacating his seat in Mr. Bangs
+favour. He said: "There's a foine Oirishman from the narth by the name
+av Hill Oi wud be plazed to have some conversation wid, so yeez 'll jist
+koindly ekshcuse me all," and left for the kitchen. There were sixteen
+people at the table, so when Squire Walker turned up, Marjorie, who had
+been brought in to equalize the sides, had to yield her place to him,
+and follow the veteran to the lower sphere, in one apartment of which
+the children, under Tryphosa's rule, had a separate table. To this Mr.
+Terry invited his countryman, the old schoolmaster, who, in spite of his
+recent deipnosophistic repast with Mr. Maguffin, was ready for something
+warm. He confidentially whispered to Mr. Terry that no doubt nagurs had
+sowls and were human, but he wasn't pudden' fond of their society. In
+the dining-room, Mr. Bangs and Squire Walker, in the centre of the
+table, were in exile, for Wilkinson and the Captain flanked the former,
+and Coristine and Mr. Perrowne the latter. Mrs. Du Plessis sat between
+Carruthers and Mr. Thomas; Miss Halbert between the minister and Mr.
+Perrowne; Miss Du Plessis between the dominie and the doctor; and Miss
+Carmichael between Coristine and the colonel. Mrs. Carruthers, who
+occupied one end of the table, had the colonel on her right, and her
+sister-in-law, who took the other end, was supported in the same way by
+the host. Squire Walker, a portly man, but not too heavy for exercise,
+with a baldish head and large red<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>dish whiskers, sporting a velveteen
+shooting coat, high shirt collar, and large blue silk scarf with white
+spots, was a man of much intelligence and a good talker. His
+conversation compelled attention, and, like the glittering eye of the
+ancient mariner, held, now Mr. Perrowne and now the lawyer from much
+pleasanter ones with their respective ladies. He seemed to take a
+fiendish pleasure in capturing Wilkinson from Miss Du Plessis, and the
+Captain from her mother, and even sent his conversational shafts far off
+to the Squire and the doctor, and to the presiding matrons. Mr. Errol
+and the colonel were happily sheltered from him. Perhaps the new
+detective perceived the state of unrest and terrible suspense in which
+many of the company were on account of Squire Walker's vagaries, and
+chivalrously sought to deliver them. Eyeing keenly the autocrat of the
+breakfast table, he remarked, "I'm afraid you heve fergotten me,
+Squire?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think I ever had the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, perdon me, you hed though. Two years ago, a large, stout, heavy
+bearded men kem to yore ohffice, with a yeng Cuban who could herdly
+speak a word of Inglish, asking you to commit him fer smeggling
+cigars&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed Mr. Walker, "and you were the bearded man were
+you, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do please favour us with the whole story, Mr. Bangs," asked the
+hostess.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Bangs," added its victim, "I don't mind, haw! haw!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Squire asked the big revenue detective how he knew the cigars were
+smeggled, and he said that nobody could pay the duty and sell these
+cigars for seven dollars a hendred. The Squire asked to see the cigars,
+and while the pore yeng Cuban with the bleck mousteche stood twirling
+his sombrero and looking guilty, he took one, smilt it, and then smouked
+it. He said to the big detective, 'I won't let you hev a warrent for
+that pore foreigner on any sech evidence, for I ken bey the very same
+cigar at Beamish's for five dollars.' The detective said, 'Are you shore
+the cigar is the same?' when the Squire pulled a drawer open end brought
+out a box of the identical erticles. Then, the big men thenked him,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>hended him a revenue card, end took the pore Cuban away. Next day
+Beamish's was raided, end Nesh and I kem in for quite a rewerd."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the detective was Nash?" asked Mr Walker.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Nesh, with a big men's clowthes on, padded out."</p>
+
+<p>"And what were you in the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I wes the pore yeng Cuban thet could herdly speak Inglish."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think he can yet," whispered Miss Carmichael to Coristine, who
+thought it an immense joke.</p>
+
+<p>"So you made Squire Walker an informer against his will, Mr. Bangs,"
+said Carruthers.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but it was complimentary, too. We knew if there were any good
+cigars in the village, the Squire's wes the best place to look for
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have had me up for having smuggled goods in my possession,"
+said the complimented talker.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Squire; you see you were the next thing to Queen's evidence,
+and they always go scotfree."</p>
+
+<p>"A receiver and Queen's evidence! and the miserable little Cuban! Haw!
+haw! haw!"</p>
+
+<p>That is the story of how Squire Walker was silenced.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast there were prayers, as usual, conducted by the two
+clergymen, and when they were over, the three J.P.'s, Doctor Halbert
+being one, assembled for consultation in the office. Tom Rigby, the
+constable, reported himself to the magistrate's court, and thereafter
+adjourned to the kitchen, there to hold converse with his brother
+veteran, Mr. Terry. Tom was tall, and as straight as if he had swallowed
+a ramrod. He gave the military salute with great precision and
+regularity. He was a widower, and a frequent visitor in the Bridesdale
+servants' quarters, whence it was commonly reported that he had an eye
+on Tryphena. Sylvanus had heard of this, with the effect that he lost no
+opportunity of running down the trade of a soldier, and comparing it
+most unfavourably with the free, rollicking life of the heaving sea. To
+hear Sylvanus speak, one would imagine that the <i>Susan Thomas</i> was
+annually in the habit of circumnavigating the globe. The children's
+breakfast was over, and they were all out in the garden picking certain
+permitted flowers, and presenting them to their favourites among the
+guests; but Mr. Terry had still <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>remained, conversing with Mr. Hill,
+whose book-larnin' was so voluminous that he made slow progress with his
+breakfast, having had his cold tea thrice removed by his eldest daughter
+and replaced with hot. When Rigby entered and saluted, the veteran rose
+and returned the salute. "Good morning, Sergeant Terry! was it company
+colour sergeant or on the staff you were, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lasht noight, Carporal Rigby, Oi was sargint-major for the firsht toime
+in my loife. I wuz promawted loike."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be in the volunteer service, Sergeant-major."</p>
+
+<p>"Yiss; but we had a rale cornel in command that's been through the
+Amerikin war, they till me."</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant-major, there are no American soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>"Shure, an' Oi'm thinkin', corporal," said the veteran, feeling a
+metaphorical thrid on the tail av his coat. "Oi'm thinkin' there's some
+pretty foine foightin's been done in Ameriky; Oi've sane it, carporal,
+wid my own two eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"A dog can fight, Sergeant-major, and cats are tantamount to the same
+thing; but where, I say, is the soldierly bearing, the discipline, the
+spree-doo-cor, as they say in France? Sergeant-major, you know and I
+know that a man cannot be a tailor today and a soldier to-morrow, and an
+agent for pictorial family bibles the day after."</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno, for you see you're a conshtable an' Oi'm a hid missenger in a
+governmint ahffice in the city."</p>
+
+<p>"A soldier, Sergeant-major, can always serve the country, is, even as a
+soldier, a government officer; that is a very different thing,
+Sergeant-major."</p>
+
+<p>"The cornel here was tillin' me there was min in his rigiment that was
+merchints an' lawyers an' clerks, an' shtudints, as good sowldjers as
+iver foired a carrboine or drawed a shabre on the inimy."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a case, Sergeant-major, of mob meeting mob. Did these men ever
+charge as our cavalry charged at Balaclava; did they ever stand,
+Sergeant-major, as we, myself included, stood at Inkerman? Never,
+Sergeant-major, never! They might have made soldiers, if taken young;
+but, as they were, they were no more soldiers than Sylvanus Pilgrim
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"You shet up yer tater-trap, Consterble Rigby, an' don't go fer to abuse
+better men nor you aint," angrily inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>rupted the subject of the
+corporal's unflattering comparison. Then, seeing the veteran, hopeless
+of convincing his opponent, retire to the garden to join the children,
+Sylvanus waxed bold. "A soldier, Trypheeny, a common soldier! Ef I owned
+a dawg, a yaller dawg, I wouldn't go and make the pore beast a soldier.
+Old pipeclay and parade, tattoo and barricks and punishment drill, likes
+ter come around here braggin' up his lazy, slavish life. Why don't he
+git a dawg collar and a chain at wonst and git tied up ter his kennel.
+Ef you want a man, Trypheeny, get one as knows</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>A life on the ocean wave</div>
+<div>And a home on the rollin' deep,</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>none o' your stiff starched, nigger driven, cat o' nine tails, ornery
+common soldiers."</p>
+
+<p>Tryphena snickered a little, but the constable went on with his
+breakfast, not deigning to waste a syllable on such unmilitary trash as
+Sylvanus, with whom it was impossible to reason, and to come to blows
+with whom might imperil his dignity. Some day, perhaps, Pilgrim might be
+his prisoner; then, the majesty of the law would be vindicated.</p>
+
+<p>A messenger came and summoned the constable to accompany the coroner,
+Dr. Halbert, to Richards, and bring the body of the murdered detective
+to the post office. On such an occasion, the pensioner's dignity would
+not allow him to drive the waggon, so Rufus had to be pressed into the
+service. Squire Walker, as the presiding magistrate, in view of
+Carruthers personal connection with the death of the subject of the
+jury's verdict, appointed the detective temporary clerk of the court
+that should sit after the inquests were over. Fearing that few of the
+settlers warned would turn out as jurors, through fear of the Select
+Encampment people, the master of Bridesdale chose a sufficient number of
+men for the purpose from the present sojourners at his house. These,
+some time after the doctor's departure, sauntered leisurely towards the
+most public place in the neighbourhood. Arrived at the post office, they
+found a large unfinished room in an adjoining building prepared for the
+court. This building had been begun as a boarding house, but, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>when
+almost completed, the conviction suddenly came to the post office people
+that there were no boarders to be had, all the transients of any
+financial value being given free quarters in the hospitable mansion of
+the Squire. Hence the house was never finished. The roof, however, was
+on, and the main room floored, so that it had been utilized for church
+and Sunday school purposes, for an Orange Lodge, for temperance and
+magic lantern itinerant lectures, and for local hops. Now, with the dead
+body of Harding laid out upon an improvised table of rough boards on
+trestles, it assumed the most solemn aspect it had ever exhibited. Three
+oldish men were there, whom people called Johnson, Newberry, and
+Pawkins; they were all the summoned jurors who had responded. Soon, from
+the other side, the waggon came in sight, and when it came forward, the
+remains of Nagle, alias Nash, were lifted reverently out and into the
+hall, where they were placed beside those of one of his murderers. The
+elder Richards accompanied the doctor, in order to give his testimony.
+The mad woman and her son were also there, in charge of Sylvanus and Ben
+Toner. Just as the party prepared to constitute the coroner's court, a
+stumpy figure on a high stepping horse came riding along. He was well
+disguised, but several persons recognized him. "Seize him," cried Squire
+Carruthers. "It's Grinstuns," said the lawyer. "Stop him!" shouted
+Bangs. But, Rawdon, having seen what he wanted, wheeled his horse and
+galloped away. There was neither saddled horse to pursue him, nor rifle
+to bring him down. "All the better," remarked Mr. Walker to his brother
+J.P.'s; "had he seen mounted men and fire-arms among us, he'd have smelt
+a rat. As it is, he thinks we are on the defensive and moving slowly."
+It was evident, from what people heard of the presiding magistrate's
+conversation, that the court had decided in favour of measures
+offensive.</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to get twelve good men and true for the first inquest. In
+addition to Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, there were the constable and
+Mr. Terry, Messrs. Hill and Hislop, Sylvanus, Timotheus, and Rufus, with
+Mr. Bangs and Maguffin. The colonel was an alien, and Carruthers did not
+care to sit on the jury. Dr. Halbert presided, flanked by his fellow
+justices, and Wilkinson, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>though a minor witness, was made clerk.
+Several persons identified the slain Nagle or Nash, and gave evidence as
+to his relations with Rawdon's gang. Ben Toner's information and
+Newcome's attested confession were noted. Mr. Errol and Coristine,
+backed by the Captain and Ben, told how the body was found. Wilkinson
+and Perrowne related their share in conveying the corpse to Richards'
+house, and Richards confirmed their story. The coroner himself, having
+examined the body, affirmed that the deceased came to his death by a
+fracture of the skull, inflicted by a heavy blow from some blunt
+instrument from behind, followed by a pistol shot in front through the
+temple. Two persons, evidently, were concerned in the murder. Who were
+they? Matilda Nagle was sworn. She repudiated the name of Rawdon. She
+testified that a man called Harding brought her a note from her long
+lost brother Steven, asking her to meet him at the barred gate in the
+narrows at a certain hour late on Monday morning. She went, but Rawdon
+would not let her go beyond the barred gate, so she called Stevy over.
+He came to the foot of a tree, where Rawdon told her she must stay; and
+then she saw Harding run up behind him and hit him over the head with an
+iron bar, and he fell down and went to sleep. Did Rawdon shoot him? She
+shivered, and didn't know, nor could any cross examination extract this
+evidence from her. Harding knocked him down with the iron bar, and he
+went to sleep, and she couldn't wake him. Then she went to the corpse
+and cried: "Oh, Stevy, Stevy, wake up, do wake up quick, for he'll come
+again." The court and jury were deeply affected. Old Mr. Newberry, the
+foreman of the jury, brought in the verdict to the effect that the
+deceased was murdered by a blow from an iron bar administered by one
+Harding, producing fracture of the skull, and by a pistol shot in the
+left temple by some unknown person. Thus the first inquest came to an
+end. The second inquest would have been a matter of difficulty, on
+account of the large number of people supposed to be implicated in
+Harding's death, had not Ben Toner, who had been called out of court,
+returned with three good men and true, namely Mr. Bigglethorpe, M.
+Lajeunesse, and a certain Barney Sullivan. These three parties, moved by
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>entreaties of Widow Toner, had set out early in the morning to look
+up the missing Ben; and were so delighted with their success, and so
+tired with their walk, that they were willing to sit on anything, even a
+coroner's jury. Accordingly, a new jury was empanelled, consisting of
+Messrs. Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, Bigglethorpe, Lajeunesse and
+Sullivan, Errol, Wilkinson and Richards, with the Captain, Mr. Bangs,
+and Squire Walker. The latter was chosen foreman. The coroner himself
+acted as clerk. Ben Toner had seen the deceased in company with one
+Newcome, and had heard him addressed as Harding. The coroner testified
+to having examined the body, which exhibited no shot wound of any kind,
+but the forehead was badly bruised, evidently by a stone, as gritty
+particles were to be seen adhering to it, and two table knives were
+still resting in the neighbourhood of the heart. The jury examined the
+corpse, and, led by the foreman under guard of the constable, went out
+across the road and over the fence into the field where Mr. Terry and
+Coristine found the dead Harding lying. The place was well marked by the
+beaten down grass, blood stains on a large boulder and on the ground,
+and by the finding of a loaded revolver. Carefully examining the spot,
+the detective pointed out, at last, the very root, not more than three
+quarters of an inch thick, which formed a loop on the surface of the
+ground, in which the unfortunate man's foot had caught, precipitating
+him upon the stone. Every member of the jury having examined it, Mr.
+Bangs took out his knife and cut it away in order to prevent similar
+accidents in future. The coroner did not think the blow sufficient to
+kill the man, though it must have rendered him insensible. The killing
+was done by means of the knives. These were identified by the Squire and
+Timotheus as belonging to the Bridesdale kitchen. There was neither time
+nor necessity for prolonging the examination. Matilda Nagle and her son
+Monty, with much satisfaction, confessed that they had followed the
+Bridesdale force and had seen the man fall, that she had turned him over
+on his back and struck him to the heart with the knife she carried,
+which she left there, because she had no further need for it. Her son
+had followed her example. The jury retired, or rather the court retired
+from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>jury, and, when Squire Walker called the coroner in again, he
+read the second verdict, to the effect that the deceased Harding, while
+in a state of insensibility owing to a fall, had been murdered by one
+Matilda Nagle with a table knife, and that her son, commonly known as
+Monty, was accessory to the deed. The double inquest was over, and the
+bodies were transferred to coarse wooden shells, that of Nagle being
+claimed by his fellow detective, and Harding's being left for a time
+unburied in case some claimant should appear.</p>
+
+<p>The magistrates, and Mr. Bangs as clerk, now sat in close session for a
+little over half an hour, inasmuch as they had already come to certain
+conclusions in the office at Bridesdale. One result of their conference
+was the arrest of the madwoman and her son, much to the regret of the
+Squire, Mr. Errol, and many more. Rigby was ordered to treat them
+kindly, and convey them, with a written order signed by the three
+justices, to the nearest town, there to hand them over to the police
+authorities to be forwarded to their appropriate lunatic asylum. Old Mr.
+Newberry, whom the case had very much affected, volunteered to accompany
+the criminals, as he had to go to town at any rate, and offered to drive
+them and the constable there, and take his wife as company for the
+insane Matilda. Accordingly, he brought round the waggon in which he had
+driven up, and took the constable and his prisoners away towards his own
+house, which was on the road to their destination. The Squire and his
+battalion were much relieved to find that they were not responsible for
+Harding's death, although the fact reflected on their aim as
+sharpshooters. The two wounded men were informed that a magistrates'
+court was sitting, but evinced no anxiety to lodge a complaint against
+any person or persons in connection with their injuries. The coroner
+paid Messrs. Johnson and Pawkins their fee as jurymen, and, with the
+Squire's permission, invited them to dine at Bridesdale; but they
+declined the invitation with thanks, and returned, in company, to the
+bosom of their families. The lawyer, filled with military zeal as a
+recruiting officer, seeing that the new Beaver River contingent was
+armed, asked Carruthers if he had room for them.</p>
+
+<p>"The mair the merrier," answered the Squire, and bade <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>him invite them.
+So Coristine invited the three to dinner, and to help in the support of
+the justices in the afternoon. Barney Sullivan said he wasn't going to
+leave Ben. Mr. Bigglethorpe, as a fisherman, had always wanted to see
+these lakes, and, if it would help the cause of good fishing, he was
+ready to lend a hand to drive out poachers and pot-hunters. Pierre
+doubted how Madame would take his absence; of course there was Bawtiste,
+but, well yes, for the sake of the poor dead M'syae Nash and Meestare
+Veelkeenson, he would stay. Que dommage, Meestare Bulky was not there, a
+man so intelligent, so clever, so subtle of mind! Mr. Bigglethorpe was
+introduced to the drawing-room, but Pierre, though invited, would not
+enter its sacred precincts. He accompanied Barney to the kitchen, and
+was introduced by Ben to the assembled company. His politeness carried
+the servants' quarters by storm, and wreathed the faces of Tryphena and
+Tryphosa in perpetual smiles. Mr. Hill and the Sesayder succumbed to his
+genial influence, and even the disheartened Maguffin, though deploring
+his poor English and lack of standing colour, confessed to Rufus that
+"his ways was kind o' takin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Squire Carruthers," said the detective, as they re-entered the office,
+"there is wen thing you failed to have den at the inquest."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that, Mr. Bangs?"</p>
+
+<p>"To search the bedy of the men, Herding; bet I attended to thet, and
+found pore Nesh's letter to his sister. Pore Nesh mest hev lost his head
+for wence, since he trested thet dem villain. I seppowse there's no such
+thing as a kemera ebout here?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; what did you want a camera for?"</p>
+
+<p>"To phowtogreph this Herding; there's a mystery about him. Nesh trested
+him, and he terned out a dem traitor. Nesh mest hev known him before; he
+would never trest a stranger so. Is there no wey of taking his
+likeness?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a young lady staying here, you saw her at breakfast, Miss Du
+Plessis, who's very clever with brush and pencil, but it's no' a very
+pleasant task for a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but in the interests of jestice it might be well to risk offending
+her. If you will reintroduce me more formally, I will esk the lady
+myself."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>Mr. Bangs was escorted to the garden, where the lady in question was
+actually sketching Marjory and the young Carruthers in a variety of
+attitudes. To the Squire's great astonishment, she professed her
+readiness to comply with the detective's desire in the afternoon, if
+somebody could be left to accompany her to the post office adjunct.</p>
+
+<p>"How long will it take, Miss Du Plessis?" he asked. "A few minutes," she
+answered, "a quarter of an hour at most."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if you will allow me, I shell be heppy to be your escort, and
+indicate the features that should be emphasized for purposes of
+recognition. As I ride, I ken easily overtake the perty." This being
+agreed to, Mr. Bangs asked Carruthers to let him look over Nash's last
+memoranda, as they might be useful, and any recently acquired papers.
+Among the latter, taken from Newcome, was a paper of inestimable value
+in the form of a chart, indicating, undoubtedly, the way to the abode of
+Serlizer and the Select Encampment generally. In the memoranda of Nash's
+note-book the detective found a late entry F. al. H. inf. sub pot. prom,
+monst. via R., and drew the Squire's attention to it. "Look here,
+Squire, et our dog Letin again; F. perheps Foster alias H, Herding,
+informer, under my power (that's through some crime entered in this
+book), premises to show the way to Rawdon's. This premise was made last
+Tuesday, at Derham, a whole week ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Why is Harding called an informer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he belengs to an infamous cless raised up by our iniquitous
+kestoms administration. These informers get no selery, bet are rewerded
+with a share of the spoil they bring to the depertment. Semtimes they
+accuse honest men, and ectually hev been known to get them convicted
+falsely. Semtimes they take bribes from the greatest scoundrels, and
+protect them in their villainy. Nesh thought he hed this fellew safe by
+the law of fear; bet fear and envy and the dread of losing Rawdon's
+bribes, combined in his treacherous heart to make a merderer of him."</p>
+
+<p>"But Nash couldn't have written that letter last week. He knew nothing
+of his sister's whereabouts till yesterday morning."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>"Exectly; see here is the nowte, a sheet out of this very book fowlded
+ep. End it says: 'Meet me at wence, not later than noon, outside the
+barred chennel. You say he followed Rawdon from the powst office; then,
+at sem point behind Rawdon, this Herding must hev terned ep, end, O dem
+the brute if he is dead! hev cheated the cleverest fellow in the
+service."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should he have killed him? Why not leave that to Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rawdon's kenning and deep. When he knew it wes Nesh, he got a fright
+himself end then frightened Herding into doing it. I'll bet you whet you
+like, thet revolver found with his body is the kelibre of the bellet
+wound in pore Nash's head. I'll look when I go ep this efternoon. His
+trick was to lay it all on Herding; I shouldn't wender if he towld thet
+med woman to kill him. It's jest like him, dem the brute!"</p>
+
+<p>In order that due preparations, in the shape of accoutrements, might be
+made, and after dinner delay avoided, the Squire and the colonel
+assembled the forces. Including the absent Richards family, the
+upholders and vindicators of the law numbered twenty-six. The Captain
+had already signified to Richards senior his willingness to take command
+of the scow and its complement of five men, armed with guns, and with
+axes for cutting away the barrier at the narrows. There was much romance
+about this side of the campaign, so that volunteers could have been got
+for marine service to any extent; but the means of transportation were
+limited, and even that able-bodied seaman Sylvanus had to be enrolled
+among the landsmen. Happily Tom Rigby was not there to see him descend
+once more to the level of military life. The colonel, rejoicing in
+Newcome's chart of the marked road, called for cavalry volunteers.
+Squire Walker, Mr. Bangs and Maguffin, having their horses with them,
+naturally responded. It then came to a toss-up between Mr. Perrowne and
+Coristine; the parson won, and the disappointed lawyer was relegated to
+the flat feet. As the doctor had been major in a volunteer regiment, the
+Squire ceded the command of the infantry to him. It was proposed to have
+at least one man behind as a home guard, but nobody was prepared to
+volunteer for this service, Messrs. Errol, Wilkinson, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>and Lajeunesse,
+who were severally proposed, expressing their sense of the honour, their
+high regard for the ladies, and anxiety for their well-being, but
+emphatically declining to be absent from the common post of duty and
+danger. Miss Halbert voiced the opinion of the fair sex that, being
+eight in number, including the maids, they were quite able to defend
+themselves. Nevertheless, the Squire inwardly determined to send old
+Styles, the post office factotum, back with Miss Du Plessis. The main
+attacking force of infantry consisted of Doctor Halbert, in command,
+sergeants Carruthers and Terry and their two squads, the first
+comprising privates Errol, Wilkinson, Coristine, Bigglethorpe,
+Lajeunesse, and Hill; the second, privates Hislop, Toner, Sullivan, Hill
+junior, and the two Pilgrims. Then, arms were inspected, and the twenty
+bludgeons dealt out, five for the cavalry, and fifteen for the infantry.
+Most of these had attachments of stout common string, but those of the
+three commanders, the Squire, the two clergymen, and the two
+pedestrians, were secured with red window cord, a mark of preference
+which rejoiced the hearts of three of them, namely, the younger men.
+With doubtful hands the dominie received his gun, and the minister more
+boldly grasped a similar weapon. At the request of the colonel the
+cavalry were served with a hasty luncheon, and thereafter set forward,
+with the exception of the detective, Miss Du Plessis' escort, to patrol
+the road and open communication with the Richards for the purpose of
+intercepting the enemy's possible scouts. Two waggons were ordered to
+take the infantry to the lake settlement, so that they might be fresh
+for the work before them.</p>
+
+<p>In his martial accoutrements, the dominie's soul was stirred within him.
+He repeated to his bosom friend pieces from K&ouml;rner's Leyer und Schwert,
+but as the lawyer's acquaintance with the Teutonic tongues was limited,
+including <i>sauer kraut, lager bier, nix kum araus, donner-wetter</i>, and
+similar choice expressions, he failed to make an impression. Nobody in
+the house knew German, unless it were Tryphena and Tryphosa, who had
+picked up a little from their mother, and, of course, he could hardly
+lie in wait to get off his warlike quotations on them. Ha! he remembered
+Wordsworth, and rolled forth:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Vanguard of liberty, ye men of Kent!</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>They from their fields can see the countenance</div>
+<div>Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance,</div>
+<div>And hear you shouting forth your brave intent."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Still failing to awake a responsive echo in the heart that once beat in
+poetic unison with his own, he turned to Mrs. Du Plessis, and, alluding
+to the departed colonel, recited in her native tongue:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Honor al Caudillo,</div>
+<div>Honor al primero,</div>
+<div>Que el patriota acero</div>
+<div class='i2'>Oso fulminar.</div>
+<div>La Patria afligida</div>
+<div>Oyo' sus acentos,</div>
+<div>Y vio' sus tormentos,</div>
+<div class='i2'>En gozo tornar."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"That is very pretty, Mr. Wilkinson, and I thank you much for recalling
+the pleasant memories of my early speech. Is there not an English
+translation of these words?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is, Mrs. Du Plessis, by Sir John Bowring, It is:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Hail, hail to the Chieftain,</div>
+<div>All honour to him</div>
+<div>Who first in the gleam</div>
+<div class='i2'>Of that light bared the sword!</div>
+<div>The drooping land heard him,</div>
+<div>Forgetting her fears;</div>
+<div>And smiled through her tears,</div>
+<div class='i2'>As she hung on his word."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The dominie had thought only to give expression to the poetic fervour
+called forth by the circumstances, but accomplished a good deal more,
+the establishment of a common ground between himself and the nearest
+relative of a very charming and cultivated young lady. The said young
+lady came up to join in the conversation, and request Mr. Wilkinson to
+repeat all that he knew of the battle hymn. The lawyer was secretly of
+the opinion that his friend was making an ass of himself, and that, if
+he were to try that poetry quoting business on Miss Carmichael, he would
+soon discover that such was the case. Yet, if the Du Plessis liked that
+sort of thing, he had no right to interfere. He remembered that he had
+once been just such an ass himself, and wondered how he could have so
+far strayed from the path of common sense. It was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>worse than Tryphosa
+and Timotheus sitting down to sing with a hymn-book between them.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing out in the garden all by yourself, Eugene?" asked a
+small voice. He looked down and saw Marjorie fingering the barrel of his
+rifle. "Don't you know," she continued, "that all the people have gone
+in to dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did the gong sound, Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure it did. Tell me, what were you thinking about not to hear
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking about a dear little girl called Marjorie," answered the
+prevaricating lawyer, picking the child up and bestowing a hearty salute
+upon her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very good boy now, Eugene; you get a clean shave every day. Do
+you go to Collingwood for it in the night time, when I am in bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Marjorie; I get the cat to lick my face," the untruthful man
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"What? our pussy Felina that spits at Muggy?"</p>
+
+<p>"The very same."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll ask Tryphosa's father if he would like to have the loan of
+Felina. Don't you think she would do him good."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine laughed, as he thought of Mr. Hill's stubbly countenance, and
+carried "the darlin'" into the house.</p>
+
+<p>At the dinner table he found himself punished for his day-dreaming.
+Bangs was on one side of Miss Carmichael, and Bigglethorpe on the other,
+and he was out in the cold, between the latter gentleman and the
+minister. Mr. Bigglethorpe resumed the subject of fishing, and
+interrogated his right hand neighbour as to his success at the River. He
+laughed over the so-called mullets, and expressed a fisherman's contempt
+for them as devourers of valuable spawn, relating also the fact that, in
+the spring, when they swarm up into shallow parts of the stream, the
+farmers shovel them out with large wooden scoops, and feed them to the
+pigs or fertilize the land with them. Finding he had more than one
+auditor, the fishing store-keeper questioned the Squire about the
+contents of his brook, and, learning that dace, chubs, and crayfish were
+its only occupants, promised to send Mrs. Carruthers a basket of trout
+when the season came round. In order to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>give a classical turn to the
+conversation, the dominie mentioned the name of Isaac Walton and
+referred to his poor opinion of the chub in the river Lea. "I know the
+Lea like a book," said Mr. Bigglethorpe, "and a dirty, muddy ditch it
+has got to be since old Isaac's time. When I was a schoolboy I went
+there fishing one afternoon with some companions, and caught not a
+single fish, hardly got a nibble. We were going home disappointed, when
+we saw a man at the reservoir above the river, near the Lea bridge, with
+some eels in a basket. They were queer looking eels, but we bought them
+for sixpence, and one of our fellows, called Wickens, put them in his
+fishing can; then we maide for home. Before we could get there we had to
+cross a pretty rough part of the Kingsland road. It was pretty dark,
+but, of course, the shops were all lit up and we sawr a lot of boys,
+common cads, coming our wy. Just in front of a public house they called
+out 'Boots, Boots! fish, fish!' and out caime a stout lad of about
+eighteen to lead the gang. Three of us clubbed our rods over them,
+briking the top joints, of course, but Wickens wouldn't fall in with us.
+So Boots ran after him, followed by a crowd. When Wickens sawr he
+couldn't escype, he opened his can, took out an eel and slapped it over
+Boots' fyce. The beggar just yelled, 'O, Lawr, water snykes!' and he
+ran, and Wickens after the crowd like mad, slashing 'em with the water
+snykes. O dear, O dear, I shall never forget those snykes to my dying
+dy."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any water snakes in our rivers in Canada?" enquired Mrs. Du
+Plessis.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, ma'am," answered the fisherman, "I imagine those lykes we are
+going to visit this afternoon are pretty full of snykes. Mr. Bulky,
+whose nyme is known to Mr. Coristine, I'm sure, wears long waterproof
+boots for wyding in the Beaver River&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Bigglethorpe," asked the fair questioner, "how can one ride in
+a river?"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me, ma'am, I did not say riding, I said wyding, walking in the
+water. Mr. Bulky was wyding, one morning, with rod in hand, when, all of
+a sudden, he felt something on his leg. Looking down, he sawr a big
+black water-snyke coiled round his boot, and jabbing awy at his leg. It
+hung on to him like a boa-constrictor, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>squeezed his leg so tight
+that it gyve him a bad attack of gout. He had to get on shore and sawr
+it in two with his knife before the snyke would leave go. Fortunately,
+the brutes are not venomous, but that beggar's teeth scratched Mr.
+Bulky's boots up pretty badly, I must sy."</p>
+
+<p>When they rose from the table, Miss Carmichael went up to the lawyer and
+said: "Please forgive me for punishing myself between Mr. Bangs and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe. I sigh for good English." The lawyer answered, all
+unwittingly, of course, in his worst brogue: "Miss Carrmoikle, it's my
+frind Wilks I'll be aafther gitten' to shtarrt a noight school to tayche
+me to shpake Inglish in aal its purity." To this there could be but one
+response: "Go away, you shameful, shameless, bad man!" It pleased the
+lawyer better than a more elegant and complimentary remark.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Walk to the P.O.&mdash;Harding's Portrait&mdash;The Encampment
+Besieged&mdash;Wilkinson Wounded&mdash;Serlizer and Other Prisoners&mdash;No
+Underground Passage Found&mdash;Bangs and Guard Remain&mdash;The Constable's
+New Prisoners&mdash;Wilkinson a Hero&mdash;The Constable and Maguffin&mdash;Cards.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>There was no room for twenty persons in two waggons, yet twenty proposed
+to go, seventeen to the seat of war, and three to the post-office. As
+those three were the young ladies of the house, all the warriors offered
+to surrender their seats to them. They refused to accept any surrender,
+preferring to walk, whereupon Messrs. Errol, Wilkinson and Coristine
+thought an after-dinner walk the height of luxury. Mr. Bangs saw he was
+not wanted as a fellow pedestrian, and mounted his horse instead of
+having him trot behind a waggon. The vehicles, or at least one of them,
+received instructions to wait at the post-office for the three members
+of squad No. 1. The walk was strictly proper, Mr. Errol taking Miss
+Carmichael, the dominie Miss Halbert, and the lawyer Miss Du Plessis.
+"What a goose you are, Mr. Wilkinson," said his fair companion. "What a
+goose you are to leave Cecile, whose footsteps you fairly worship, and
+to come and walk with a girl for whose society you don't care a penny."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>"I should care more for Miss Halbert's society if she did not say such
+unjustifiable things."</p>
+
+<p>"Cecile," called the young lady, "I want to change escorts with you; I
+like pleasant society."</p>
+
+<p>The dominie felt as if a big school-girl had declined to receive a
+reprimand from the principal, and coloured with vexation, but Miss Du
+Plessis calmly turned and said: "If Mr. Wilkinson is tired of you
+already, Fanny, I suppose I must send Mr. Coristine to comfort you,"
+whereat Mr. Errol and his companion exchanged a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Did the villain shoot Wordsworth at you, Miss Halbert, or was it Hans
+Breitmann in the original, or a Spanish <i>cantinella</i>, or some such
+rubbish? If I was Miss Du Plessis I'd wear a signboard over my ears, 'No
+poetical rubbish shot here;' perhaps that might fix him."</p>
+
+<p>"Cecile is sentimental: she dotes on poetry."</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me for saying I don't believe it. I offered to recite my
+original poem on the Grinstun man to her, and she didn't seem to want to
+hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"How ungrateful and unsympathetic! You will favour me with it, will you
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"With the greatest pleasure in the world. You know it's awful
+balderdash, but here goes."</p>
+
+<p>The original poem was recited with appropriate gestures, intended to
+imitate the walk of the hero of the piece and his various features. The
+people in front turned their heads to look at the performance and take
+in the words. Not to laugh was almost an impossibility, but the dominie
+succeeded in doing the impossible, and frowned heavily. He felt that his
+unworthy friend was bringing disgrace upon the causes of poetry and
+pedestrianism. When her laughter subsided, Miss Halbert said: "There is
+one thing I want to ask you seriously, Mr. Coristine." "Name it," he
+answered, "even to the half of my fortune." "It is to look after papa,
+and see that he does not expose himself too much to danger. I asked Mr.
+Perrowne too, but he is with the horsemen, you know." This last was said
+with a peculiarly arch smile, which convinced the lawyer that Perrowne
+was in deeper than was generally suspected. The first thought that
+followed in Coristine's mind was what awful cheek he had been guilty of
+in following Perrowne's precedent in drop <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>the handkerchief. He managed,
+however, to assure the lady that he would do his best to watch over the
+safety of her father and Squire Carruthers, the latter words being
+spoken loud enough for Miss Carmichael to hear. When the post-office was
+reached Mr. Bangs dismounted, was ready to receive the ladies; and the
+three escorts, shaking hands warmly with each of their fair companions,
+entered the remaining waggon and drove away, the buts of their firearms
+rattling on the floor, and the suspended bludgeons playfully flogging
+their shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>It was ghastly work propping up the dead murderer's shoulders in the
+shell, and placing a rest for his head. The jaw had been tied up, but
+the eyes would not close; yet, staring though the face was, it was not a
+repulsive one. The ordinary observer could not read what Bangs saw
+there, greed and hypocrisy, envy, treachery, murder. While Miss Du
+Plessis went on calmly sketching, the other girls turned their heads
+away. No one cared to break the stillness by a word. The detective went
+out and secured the services of Styles to accompany the ladies home, and
+remain at Bridesdale till the armed band returned. Then he went over to
+the shell in which the body of his brother detective lay, and, nobody
+looking at him, allowed himself the luxury of a few tears, a silent
+tribute to the man he honoured. When the sketch was completed, he warmly
+thanked the artist, and told her that he never would have dreamt of
+proposing such a task, but for his desire to do justice to his dead
+friend, whom an informer named Flower had greatly injured in the
+department. The department had faith in his cleverness all along, but
+suspicions had been cast upon his honesty, which embittered his days,
+along with troubles that were then only known to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Bangs was not a detective, but a man of warm, brotherly heart, as he
+told the tale of the outwardly always cheerful, but inwardly
+sore-hearted, Nash, cut off in the midst of his years and usefulness.
+Then old Styles appeared, and, with a salute, the detective mounted and
+rode away to join the forces in front, while the ladies journeyed
+homeward. Mr. Bangs soliloquized as he rode rapidly on. "Boys read
+detective stories, and think our life an enviable one. They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>dowte on
+the schemes, the plots and counterplots, the risks, the triumphs, and
+look beyond to fame and rewerd, but they know nothing of the miserable
+envies and jealousies, the sespicions, the checks and counterchecks, and
+the demnable policy of the depertment, encouraging these irresponsible
+informers, dem 'em, to break up all legitimate business and merder
+honest men. O Nesh, my pore dead friend, yo're avenged in a wey, bet
+who's going to avenge yore pore sister, and even this devil of a Flower
+or Herding, whose death lies at the door of that greater devil of a
+Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>The expedition was waiting for him at Richards', the colonel in command.
+The scow had departed in charge of the captain, who had orders to do
+nothing to the barrier till he heard a signal shot; then he was to
+respond with the unmistakable blunderbuss, and batter down the
+obstruction. Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and Maguffin had patrolled,
+without meeting even a passing team or wayfarer; but the colonel judged
+it best to get off the road without delay. Accordingly the waggons were
+left in Richards' shed, and the infantry doubled forward after the
+colonel and Bangs. When the rocky ascent was reached, over which the
+fugitives of the night before had clambered, a halt was called, and the
+colonel gave Dr. Halbert instructions. Just where the rock rose out of
+the swamp, Sergeant Terry's squad entered, and easily wheeled round
+large trunks of trees resting on stone pivots, revealing a good
+waggon-track, the masked road. This the cavalry occupied, looking to the
+priming of their pistols, and bringing their clubs into handy positions.
+The Squire's squad scaled the height near the road, and Mr. Terry's took
+ground farther to the right. The doctor led the way in front of and
+between the two sections. The cavalry moved slowly, keeping pace with
+the climbers. Soon the crest was reached, and the main body began to
+descend gradually, when the dominie slipped and his piece went off, the
+trigger having caught in his red window cord, startling the echoes. Then
+came the diffusive boom and crackle of the blunderbuss, and the doctor,
+inwardly anathematizing Wilkinson, hurried his men on. They heard axes
+at work, as if trees were being felled; it was the Captain and the
+Richards at the barrier. No enemy appeared on the rocks, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>but pistol
+shots warned them that there was collision on the road, and the doctor
+called the second squad to wheel towards it. The dominie, on the left of
+the first, saw what was going on below. Revolvers were emptied and clubs
+brought into requisition. He could not load his old muzzle-loading piece
+to save his life, but he knew single stick. Two men were tackling the
+brave old colonel, while a third lay wounded at his horse's feet. The
+dominie sped down to the road like a chamois, and threw himself upon the
+man on the colonel's right, the dissipated farmer. He heard a shot, felt
+a sharp pain in his left arm, but with his right hit the holder of the
+pistol a skull cracker over the head, then fainted and fell to the
+ground. His luckless muzzle-loader was never found. The colonel had
+floored his antagonist on the left, and turned to behold the dominie's
+pale face. Leaving the command to the doctor, he dismounted and put a
+little old Bourbon out of a pocket flask into his lips, and then
+proceeded to bandage the wound. Wilkinson had saved his life; he was a
+hero, a grand, cultivated, sympathetic, chivalrous man, whom the colonel
+loved as his own son. When he came to, were not the very first words he
+uttered enquiries for Colonel Morton's own safety? Maguffin, having
+felled his man, held his master's horse.</p>
+
+<p>Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and Bangs galloped on, the latter eager to
+seize Rawdon. They and the infantry squads came almost simultaneously
+upon the select encampment, which was simply a large stone-mason's yard,
+full of grindstones in every state of preparation, and bordered by
+half-a-dozen frame buildings, one of which, more pretentious than the
+others, was evidently the dwelling-place of the head of the concern. Two
+simple-looking men in mason's aprons stood in the doorway of another,
+having retired thither when they heard the sound of firing. This was
+evidently the boarding-house of the workmen, and an object of interest
+to Ben Toner, who, with his friends Sullivan and Timotheus, pushed past
+the two stonecutters, immediately thereafter arrested by Sergeant Terry,
+and invaded the structure. Soon Ben reappeared upon the scene,
+accompanied by a young woman whose proportions were little, if at all,
+short of his own, and calling aloud to all the company, as if he had
+accomplished the main object <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>of the expedition, "It's all raight, boys,
+I've got Serlizer!" Behind the happy pair came an old woman, gray,
+wrinkled, and with features that bore unmistakable traces of sorrow and
+suffering. "Hev they ben good to you, Serlizer?" asked Mr. Toner, after
+he had in the most public and unblushing manner saluted his long lost
+sweetheart. The large woman raised her bared arms from the elbow
+significantly, and replied, with a trace of her father's gruffness, "I
+didn't arst 'em; 'sides I allers had old Marm Flowers to keep 'em off."
+The expedition was demoralized. The colonel and his servant were with
+the dominie on the road. Ben, with Timotheus and Sullivan, was rejoicing
+in Serlizer; while Mr. Hislop and Rufus were guarding the captured
+stone-cutters. Sylvanus, not to be outdone by his companions of the
+second squad, attached himself, partly as a protector, partly as a
+prisoner's guard, to Mrs. Flower, the keeper of the boarding-house.
+Sergeant Terry, without a command, followed what remained of the first
+squad in its search for Rawdon. The first person he came upon, in his
+way down to the water, was Monsieur Lajeunesse, who could run no
+farther, and, perspiring at every pore, sat upon a log, mopping his face
+with a handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"A such coorse 'ave I not med, Meestare Terray, sinsa zat I vas a too
+ptee garsong." Mr. Terry understood, owing to large experience of
+foreigners, and could not permit the opportunity of making a
+philological remark to pass, "D'ye know, Mishter Lashness, that Frinch
+an' the rale ould Oirish is as loike as two pays? Now, there's garsan is
+as Oirish a worrud for a young bhoy as ye'll find in Connaught. But juty
+is juty, moy dare sorr, so, as they say in the arrmy, 'Fag a bealach,'
+lave the way." The sergeant's next discovery was the doctor, borne in
+the arms of the lawyer and the dismounted parson. He had sprained his
+ancle in the rapid descent to which his zeal had impelled him, and had
+thus been compelled to leave the Squire in command. Mr. Hill had been
+left behind on the left of the encampment with the horses of the three
+dismounted cavaliers, Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and the detective, so
+that Sergeant Carruthers, now acting colonel, had with him a mere
+corporal's guard, consisting of Messrs. Errol and Bigglethorpe.</p>
+
+<p>The junction of the land forces with those operating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>on the water was
+effected in good order, the latter being intact under command of the
+captain, but the former exhibiting, by their terribly reduced numbers,
+the dreadful fatality of war. Squire Walker and Mr. Bangs alone
+represented the cavalry; Carruthers and his corporal's guard, the first
+squad, and the veteran all alone, the second squad of the infantry. Even
+this remnant had its deserter, for, during the conversation between the
+Squire and the Captain, private Bigglethorpe stole away, and when next
+seen was standing far out upon a dead hemlock that had fallen into the
+lake, fishing with great contentment, and a measure of success, for
+bass. The numbers of the force were soon augmented by the appearance of
+the doctor and his bearers. The disabled physician was accommodated with
+a seat on the bottom of the scow, two of the Richards boys being
+displaced in his favour. The Captain reported a prize in the shape of a
+handsome varnished skiff, which he found drawn up on some skids or
+rollers at the foot of a great mass of rock, that seemed as if cut all
+about in regular form, in readiness for quarrying. The finding of the
+boat just opposite it, the worn appearance of the ground, the absence of
+moss or any other growth on the severed edges of the square mass of
+limestone, led the detective to ask if there was any report of a
+subterraneous passage in connection with this mysterious region. The
+doctor, whom his former guide had taken by water, and insisted on
+blindfolding at a certain point, was sure that he had walked some
+distance on rock, and, although the lamp-lit room, in which he had seen
+his patients, was lined with wood, and had blinds on apparent windows,
+he doubted much that it was built in the open air. Then, Coristine
+remembered how the dissipated farmer had coupled Rawdon's geology with
+trap rock, as well as with galena, quartz and beryl. Knives were
+produced and thrust into the seams at the top and on the two sides, as
+far as the blades would go, but along the bottom there was no horizontal
+incision answering to that above; it was perpendicular towards the
+earth, and of no great depth.</p>
+
+<p>It was decided, in the meanwhile, to leave the Captain with Richards
+senior, his youngest son, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, who declined to leave
+his sport, as a guard on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>skiff and the adjoining mysterious stone.
+The rest of the party returned to the encampment, to consult with the
+colonel and learn the reason of his absence. Pierre Lajeunesse was found
+where Mr. Terry had left him, and gladly accepted an arm up the hill.
+Arrived at the stone-yard, the Squire and Coristine learnt with concern
+of the dominie's wound, but were rejoiced to find it was nothing more
+serious, and that his was the only casualty, besides the doctor's.
+Squire Walker and Mr. Bangs accompanied the colonel, whom Coristine
+relieved in attendance upon the dominie, and Maguffin, to look for the
+felled accomplices of Rawdon, but, of the four who certainly were
+knocked insensible by the clubs, not one was to be found, nor was there
+any sign that the pistols of the cavalry had taken effect on the other
+three. The whole seven had escaped. Meanwhile Rawdon's house and all the
+other buildings had been searched by Carruthers, without a single
+incriminating thing, save a half empty keg of peculiar white spirits,
+being brought to light. The stables contained many horses; and strong
+waggons, such as those seen by the pedestrians at the Beaver River, were
+in the sheds. The stone-cutters and the women professed to know nothing,
+and, save in the case of the woman called Flower, Bangs was of opinion
+that they spoke the truth. All the men could tell was that Rawdon paid
+them good wages, so that they were able to live without work all winter;
+that six other men worked for him elsewhere and came to the
+boarding-house for their meals, but did not sleep there; that one of
+them had got hurt in the back, and was away in the hospital, and that
+two teamsters had left shortly before the intruders arrived, along with
+the remaining five. They had also seen Rawdon ride in that morning, but
+did not know where he had gone. Did they know of any underground vaults
+or trap doors, or any buildings apart from those in the encampment? No,
+they had seen none; but, three years ago, before they returned to work
+in the spring, there must have been quarrymen about, for enormous
+quantities of stone were lying ready for them, which they had not taken
+out. Mrs. Flower declined to answer any questions, but did not scruple
+to ask if the Squire and others had seen anything of a man called
+Harding. When she learned the man's fate, as she sat in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>a low chair,
+she rocked it to and fro and groaned, but shed no tear nor uttered an
+articulate syllable.</p>
+
+<p>Bangs would not give up the search, nor would he leave the place. There
+was food enough in the boarding-house, and he would remain, even if he
+had to stay alone. Squire Walker had to be home for an engagement early
+in the morning; the two clergymen had to prepare for Wednesday evening's
+duty, and had pastoral work before them; the colonel could not leave the
+man who had saved his life. The doctor and the dominie were
+incapacitated; Ben Toner was worse than useless over Serlizer; Pierre
+dreaded his beloved Angelique's ire if he remained away over night; and
+Sullivan's folks might be kinder anxious about him. Messrs. Hill and
+Hislop also thought they had better be going. Thus the army melted away.
+Everybody insisted on the Squire going home, and getting a good night's
+rest. When, with difficulty, persuaded to do so, he offered to leave
+Timotheus as his substitute, if that worthy were willing. Timotheus
+consented, whereupon Sylvanus and Rufus volunteered, it being understood
+that Ben Toner and Maguffin would do their work about the kitchen and
+stables, while Serlizer helped the Bridesdale maids. Two other
+volunteers were Mr. Terry and the lawyer; and two of the Richards
+offered to watch with Mr. Bigglethorpe on the lake shore. Thereupon, the
+three members of that gallant family withdrew to the lake, and, while
+one boarded the scow and helped his father and younger brother, under
+the Captain's directions, to paddle home, the others hailed the
+fisherman and asked if he was going to remain. "I'm here for the night,
+boys," replied the man of the rod. "I'll turn up that skiff against the
+wind and dew, light a fire by the water, and, early in the morning, have
+the loveliest bass fishing I've had for many a day. Oh yes, I'm here.
+D'ye see my gun lying about anywhere?" Mr. Bigglethorpe's gun was found,
+and deposited in the skiff. While this was going on below, Ben Toner
+harnessed up a team, hitched them to a waggon, for which he found seats
+by depriving other waggons of their boxes, and prepared to take the
+wounded dominie, his affectionate friend, the colonel, with Serlizer and
+the woman Flower, to Bridesdale. The last named person insisted upon
+going at once to see the dead body of Hard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>ing. The two stone-cutters
+also asked to be allowed to accompany the two props of the encampment
+boarding house. Mr. Hill rode the colonel's horse, and the Squire, that
+of the detective. Along the once masked, but now unmasked, road, the
+procession of waggon, horsemen, and footmen, passed, waving a farewell
+to the allies of Mr. Bangs who held the fort. It should be added that
+Sylvanus accompanied them as far as the Richards' place, to obtain the
+Captain's permission for his volunteering, and to bring the borrowed
+waggon back.</p>
+
+<p>At Richards' the waggons were brought out. One was devoted to the two
+injured men, the dominie and the doctor, with their attendants, the
+colonel and the Captain, and Barney Sullivan as driver. The other was
+driven by Ben, with Serlizer beside him. It also contained the woman
+Flower, Mr. Errol, Mr. Lajeunesse, and Mr. Hislop. The cavalry,
+consisting of Squire Walker in command, Mr. Perrowne, Carruthers, Hill,
+and Maguffin, trotted forward, and the infantry and prisoners,
+comprising Tom Rigby, who turned up at the Lake Settlement, and the two
+masons, followed in the rear. The constable was angry; he had lost his
+prisoners of the morning. Having arrived at Mr. Newberry's hospitable
+house, and being asked to take some refreshments, which, esteeming the
+objects of his care to be simple souls, he had no hesitation in doing,
+he was amazed, on his return to the waggon, to find his captives gone.
+At once he started in pursuit, but, up to the time of his arrival at the
+Lake Settlement, he had seen no trace of the fugitives. Accordingly, the
+corporal made the present life of the two stone cutters a burden. He
+searched them for concealed weapons, and confiscated the innocent pocket
+knives with which they shred their plug tobacco; he forbade them to
+smoke; and, finally, tied the left hand of the one to the right of the
+other to prevent their running away, of which they disclaimed any
+intention. The cavalry came first to the gate of Bridesdale, and
+reported the casualties, Perrowne proudly relating that he and
+Coristine, who was "now end of a good fellow," had carried the doctor to
+the scow, which he called "the bowt." Ben Toner's waggon came next,
+having dropped Mrs. Flower at the post office, where, a little later,
+the constable landed his prisoners. Her companion Serlizer sought the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>kitchen with Ben, while Mr. Errol joined his brother divine; but
+Messrs. Hislop and Lajeunesse, with Mr. Hill, waited only for Sylvanus'
+appearance to take their homeward journey. At last the ambulance waggon
+drove slowly up, and tender hands lifted out the disabled and the
+wounded. Miss Halbert and Miss Carmichael relieved the Captain of his
+patient, who managed to hop cheerfully into the house, with an arm on
+each of their shoulders. The Squire and the colonel helped the dominie
+along, and up to a special single room which was to be his hospital, and
+which Mrs. and Miss Du Plessis and Mrs. Carruthers were prepared to
+enter as nurses, so soon as his bearers had put him to bed. Then the
+doctor came up with his instruments, cut off the colonel's improvised
+bandage and the shirt sleeve, bathed the wound, found and extracted the
+bullet, and tied all up tight. The meek dominie bore it all with
+patience, and apologized to his surgeon for giving him so much trouble
+while he himself was suffering. The three ladies brought the wounded
+hero all manner of good things that sick people are supposed to like or
+to be allowed to eat and drink, and Wilkinson was in a <i>dolce far
+niente</i> elysium. Little Marjorie, having knocked timidly at the door,
+came in with some square gaudily-covered books under her arm, and asked
+if Mr. Wilks would like her to read to him. She offered the victim his
+choice of "Puss in Boots," "Mother Goose," and "Nursery Rhymes"; but
+Miss Du Plessis, who, at the sufferer's request, was looking up in
+Wordsworth that cheerful theme, The Churchyard in "The Excursion,"
+interposed, saying, some other day, when Mr. Wilkinson had grown
+stronger, he might perhaps be able to make a selection from her juvenile
+library. Marjorie told her cousin that she was sure, if it had been her
+Eugene who was sick, he would have liked her to stay and read to him.
+She had told Eugene to marry Cecile, but she would never do so any more;
+she would give him all to cousin Marjorie.</p>
+
+<p>The three squires sat in council, and agreed to dismiss the nominal
+captives on condition of their promising to appear when wanted as
+witnesses. This Serlizer at once agreed to. Mr. Walker rode to the post
+office and exacted the promise from Mrs. Flower and the masons, thus
+depriving the constable of his prey. He was compelled to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>untie their
+hands, and restore the confiscated pocket knives. The masons were
+invited to supper at Bridesdale, as was the woman; but the men proposed
+to go on to the River, as they had money to pay their way; and Mrs.
+Flower, who would not leave Harding's body, was given in charge to the
+post mistress. The supper tables in hall and kitchen were very different
+from those of the previous night. In the latter, Ben Toner, the
+constable, and Maguffin had each a lady to talk to. Their superiors
+missed the company of the lawyer, the detective, and Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+to say nothing of Mr. Terry. The doctor was stretched out upon a sofa in
+the office, where his daughter waited on him, assisted by Perrowne, who
+had to carry the other articles of food while she preceded him with the
+tea. Miss Du Plessis, similarly helped by the colonel, attended to the
+wants of the dominie. Consequently, the steady members of the supper
+circle were the three matrons and Miss Carmichael, with Squires Walker
+and Carruthers, Mr. Errol, and the Captain. All agreed that Wilkinson
+had done a very fine thing, and Mrs. Du Plessis was warm in his praise.
+"The only men that stuck to me," said the Squire, "were Mr. Errol and
+Bigglethorpe, and even Bigglethorpe went off fishing as soon as he came
+to the water, so that I may say Mr. Errol was my only faithful
+adherent." The ladies all looked with much approbation on the blushing
+minister, and Mrs. Carmichael showed her approval by immediately
+refilling his cup. Squire Walker whispered in his ear: "Fine woman, Mr.
+Errol, fine woman, that Mrs. Carmichael! Is she a widow, sir?" Mr. Errol
+did not like this whispering at table, especially on such a subject, but
+he replied affirmatively in as brief a way as possible, and went on with
+his repast. The Captain said that his mill was clean run out of gear
+with all these starboard and port watches and tacks to every point of
+the compass; and, when conversation lagged, Carruthers fairly nodded
+over his plate. Nevertheless, after supper, the occupants of the kitchen
+were called in and prayers were held, in which Mr. Errol offered
+petitions for the bereaved, the suffering, and the criminal, and
+committed the watchers at the post of danger and duty to the care of
+their Heavenly Father, to all of which Mr. Perrowne responded with a
+hearty Amen. Then, the parsons insisted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>on going home to their boarding
+houses, and Squire Walker mounted his horse for home. Anxiously, Mrs.
+Carruthers asked her husband if he anticipated danger where her father
+was, and Miss Carmichael asked the Captain the same question, without
+mentioning anyone, but having Coristine in view. Both endeavoured to
+reassure the minds of the half tearful women, after which they carried
+the doctor upstairs, and all went to bed. Fearing that the idiot boy
+might repeat his double attempt to fire the verandah, Mr. Perrowne had
+told Muggins to lie there and watch it, and there the faithful dog lay
+the whole night through, to the satisfaction of the inmates of
+Bridesdale, although happily nothing happened to test his quality as a
+watch dog.</p>
+
+<p>In the kitchen, Mr. Maguffin considered himself, next to Tryphena and
+Tryphosa, the representative of the family, as the deputy of Timotheus
+and the servant of the colonel. Ben Toner was his ally in war, but had
+no local standing, and the pensioner was simply an intruder. Yet, with
+cool effrontery, the corporal sat in the place of honour beside
+Tryphena, and regaled her with narratives of warfare, to which she had
+listened many times already. Ben and Serlizer were still full of one
+another's society. He had comforted her heart, if it needed any
+comforting, over the condition of her father, whom he and Timotheus had
+treated so cavalierly, and urged her not to go home any more, but to
+come and help the old woman. With a bad example before her at home, and
+very far from improving ones at the Select Encampment, Serlizer was yet,
+though not too cultivated, an honest steady girl, and was pleased to
+learn that Ben had really turned over a new leaf. She gave her
+sweetheart to understand that she had kept her own money, not being such
+a fool as to let the old man get his hands on it, and that it was safe
+in the bundle she had brought from the boarding-house, whereupon Ben
+said she had better put that bundle away in a safe place, for you
+couldn't tell what kind of characters might be about. Mr. Maguffin heard
+these words, and, taking them to himself, waxed indignant.</p>
+
+<p>"Ef yoh'se diloodin' ter this pressum comperny, Mistah Tonah, I wants
+ter say I takes the sponsability ob these young ladies on my shouldahs,
+sah, the shouldahs ob <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin, sah. Foh what remains
+ober ob the mascline paht ob it, I ain't no call foh ter spress mysef.
+It kin speak foh itsef."</p>
+
+<p>The corporal glowered, and smote the table with his fist.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon my indignation, Miss Hill! This creature, with no military or
+other standing that I know of, calls me, a retired non-commissioned
+officer of the British army, it. In India, where I served, I called such
+things <i>chakar</i> and <i>banda</i>, the very dust beneath my feet, Miss
+Tryphena; and it was as much as their life was worth to call me less
+than <i>sahib</i>. And, now that I have retired on a pension, with my medals
+and clasps, and am an officer of the law, a black man, a <i>kali</i>,
+presumes to <i>it</i> me. I have known a <i>kali chakar</i> killed, yes killed,
+for less. 'Corporal,' said the commanding officer to me, 'Corporal
+Rigby,' said he, many a time, 'order one of your men to call up that
+black dog of mine!' I assure you he did, Miss Hill."</p>
+
+<p>"I doan' take no erbuse ner nigger talk in this yere house, where I'm
+takin' Timothis' place, an' where my bawss is mighty high ercount, no,
+not fom consterbles nor no nuther white tresh. I didn't go foh ter call
+Mistah Rigby <i>it</i>, Miss Tryphosy, I swan ter grashus I didn't. I
+spressed the pinion as all the comperny as isn't ladies is it and so it
+is it."</p>
+
+<p>"Ef you go a ittin' of me Maguffin," struck in Ben, "I'm buzz sawed and
+shingled of I don't hit you back fer what you're ma guvin us." Then he
+opened up his mouth and laughed, and Serlizer laughed, and the Hill
+girls. Even Maguffin displayed his ivories, and remarked: "Mistah Tonah,
+foh a gennelman what ain't trabbled none, yoh'se mighty smaht."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Serlizer," said Ben, "we don't go traavellin' much; we ain't like
+the rollin' stones as don't gaythyer no mawss."</p>
+
+<p>"When the cunnel and me was ridin' ter Tronter, laast Sat'day,"
+continued Mr. Maguffin, "the cunnel he began egspashuatin' on the things
+he see. 'That there mawss' says he, 'at Hogg's Holler, minds me ob two
+coloured men was habin' a counterbessy on they bawsses. Says one of the
+gennelmen, "My bawss," (the cunnel says massa, but that's a name I doan'
+take to) "my bawss says he ain't like yoh bawss, trabellin' around all
+the time and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>gatherin' no mawss." "No," said the other coloured
+gennelman, "but my bawss gathers what yoh bawss want mighty bad, and
+that's a heap ob polish."'"</p>
+
+<p>"For polish," remarked Constable Rigby, turning to Tryphena, "for
+polish, Miss Hill, commend me to an English army officer."</p>
+
+<p>"My bawss," said Maguffin, "is an officer and a gennelman, and yoh
+cayn't beat him foh polish nohow."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no officers and no soldiers in America," replied the
+pensioner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mr. Rigby," interrupted Tryphosa, "I remember reading in my history
+that the American soldiers beat the British army many times in the
+Revolutionary War."</p>
+
+<p>"Flim-flam. Miss Tryphosa Hill, garbled reports! The British army never
+has been beaten, never can be beaten. I belonged to the British army,
+Miss Hill, I beg pardon, Miss Tryphosa, and know what I assert from
+experience."</p>
+
+<p>"Le'ss stop this jaw and have a game o' keerds," suggested Serlizer.</p>
+
+<p>Ben seconded his lady love's proposal, and thought a game of euchre
+would pass away the time. The constable said euchre was no game. There
+was only one game at cards, and that was whist. The man or woman who
+could not play whist was uneducated. Sarah Eliza professed a preference
+for High, Low, Jack, and the Game; any saphead could play that. She
+wasn't a saphead herself, but there might be some about. Maguffin
+regretted that in the Baktis pussuasion cards were not allowed; and the
+Hill girls had distinctly promised their mother to play no games of
+chance. As, however, none of the parties owned a pack of cards, nor knew
+where to find one, further controversy on the subject was useless.
+Tryphosa, looking intelligent, left the room, and speedily returned with
+a little cardboard box in her hand, labelled Countries, Cities,
+Mountains, and Rivers, with which Timotheus had once presented her. She
+said it was an improving game, and that all could play it. The shuffling
+and dealing, of course, presented an almost unavoidable chance element,
+but, apart from that, the game was a matter of science, of geographical
+knowledge. Now the Hill girls were educated, as Mr. Rigby said; and he,
+having travelled far as a soldier, was not deficient in geographical
+lore; but what about the other three?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>"Oh!" ejaculated Miss Newcome, "at them there keerds, I guess we jist
+are sapheads. Ain't that so, Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>Ben said "I guaiss"; and Mr. Maguffin added: "joggrify, entermoligy,
+swinetax, and paucity was teached me, but I done clar forgit how they
+run, it's so long sence."</p>
+
+<p>It was, therefore, agreed to play a triangular game, the pair having the
+most books to be winners, and have the right to shuffle and deal for the
+following trial of skill. The contending pairs were the pensioner and
+Serlizer, Ben and Tryphosa, Maguffin and Tryphena, partners were allowed
+to help each other. While the British Islands, Turkey, Russia, and India
+were being played, Rigby and Miss Newcome were triumphant, but when it
+came to any other part of the world, especially to America, with the
+exception of Canada, where Serlizer scored her one victory, that pair
+was helpless. Maguffin acquired a book by his own unaided wisdom, that
+of the Southern United States; otherwise Tryphena inspired him. Ben had
+an unavailing contest with Miss Newcome over Canada, and saw her make up
+the book and slam it on the table with mingled feelings of pride in her,
+and mortification for his own want of success. But, as he said, Tryphosa
+was "a daisy and parlyzed the hull gang." Laurel after laurel she took
+from the brow of the travelled pensioner; she swooped down upon Tryphena
+and Maguffin, and robbed them of books wholesale, till Mr. Toner
+remarked that she had "quayte a libery"; in her hands the strapping
+Serlizer was helpless as a child. Magnanimously, she allowed Ben to
+shuffle and Serlizer to cut, then Ben again to deal.</p>
+
+<p>The second game was more exciting. Mr. Maguffin, naturally quick and
+possessing a memory cultivated by closely following the prelections of
+his coloured Baptist religious instructors, rapidly seized the hitherto
+unknown combinations, and astonished Tryphena with his bold independence
+of action. The constable's mind worked more conservatively, as became
+his rank and profession, and Serlizer was worse than useless to him,
+but, by chance, they had magnificent hands. He piled up India in quick
+marching time, as he hummed "The British Grenadiers," and accompanied it
+with a drum beat of his right foot on the floor. Calcutta, Bombay, and
+Madras, Indus, Ganges, and Godavery, Himalayas, Ghauts, and Vindhyas,
+lay cap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>tured at his right hand. Ben won Ireland from him, but he
+annexed England, Scotland, and Turkey. Once more Serlizer took Canada,
+and, owing to Mr. Toner's imperfect shuffling, laid complete books of
+Egypt, Australia, and Brazil upon the table. The stars fought against
+Tryphena and Tryphosa, and, in spite of Mr. Maguffin's gallant struggle
+against fate, the pensioner took the honours. Then Miss Newcome favoured
+him with a friendly kick under the table, accompanied by the elegant
+expression: "Bully for you, old man!" Next, the victorious damsel
+shuffled, allowed Tryphena to cut, and dealt out the cards for the third
+game. This time the deal was fair, and Mr. Rigby, glancing over his
+partner's capacious hand, beheld there no prospect of continued good
+fortune. Tryphena was on her mettle as a geographer, and Maguffin had
+stowed away in his all-embracing memory the names of half the globe's
+prominent features in city, river, and mountain. He wrested half India
+and all Russia from the pensioner, captured the whole of the United
+States, Canada, Mexico, and various states of South America. Almost the
+entire continent of Europe succumbed to Tryphena. Tryphosa fought
+doggedly, and encouraged Ben to continue the unequal contest, but the
+constable and Serlizer yielded up card after card with the muteness of
+despair. Mr. Maguffin was transported with joy, when his partner counted
+up their united books, amounting to more than those of both the other
+pairs put together.</p>
+
+<p>"I'se larned moah joggrify this heah bressid night nor I'd git in six
+mumfs er schoolin'. Hit makes me feel kind er smaht all ober, but not
+smaht enough foh ter ekal you, Miss Trypheeny, ner yoh pah. Ain't he
+jest a smaht man, foolin' me on Typernosties and Gasternickle, words I
+nevah knowed afoah, yah! yah! yah!"</p>
+
+<p>A new game was in progress, when a tap came to the inside door, and,
+immediately thereafter, a figure in a dressing gown appeared, partly
+thrust into the half-opened entrance. "Do you know Tryphena," said a
+pretty voice, "that it is very late, long past midnight, and you two
+girls have to be up by six o'clock at the latest! Take Sarah with you,
+and go to bed. Toner, you know Timotheus' room, and had better get some
+rest, which I am sure you need." As the four parties addressed somewhat
+sheepishly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>departed, Mrs. Carmichael turned to the remaining card
+players, who were standing, corporal Rigby at military attention, and
+said, with a somewhat tremulous accent: "There's a large fire out in the
+Lake Settlement direction, but I cannot bear to awaken Mr. Carruthers or
+the other two gentlemen, for he is very tired, and they are much older
+and require rest also. Perhaps, Maguffin, you will be kind enough to
+saddle a horse quietly, and find out where it is and see that my father
+and Mr. Coristine are safe."</p>
+
+<p>"I'se ony too pleased ter obey yoh commandemens, marm, wif percision an'
+dispatches," answered the coloured gentleman, hasting stablewards.</p>
+
+<p>"As constable, ma'am, if I may be allowed to speak," said Corporal
+Rigby, saluting for the second time, "as constable, it is my duty to be
+present at all township fires, for the purpose of keeping order and
+directing operations. I shall, therefore, with your permission, ma'am,
+respectfully take my leave."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a long way, constable, and you and I are not so young as we once
+were&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon an old soldier's interruption, ma'am, but you are as young as
+ever you were, the youngest married lady I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, corporal! What I meant to say was that you had better get
+Maguffin to saddle a horse for you, as the distance is great."</p>
+
+<p>"You are very good, ma'am, but I never served in the cavalry. I belonged
+to Her Majesty's Foot Guards, ma'am, and could not possibly insult the
+memory of my old comrades lying in Crimean graves, by putting the legs,
+that a merciful Providence furnished me to march with, across the back
+of a horse. Had I even served in the Artillery or in the Engineers, I
+might have been able to comply with your kind request. Being what I have
+been, I must proceed without delay to the seat of the conflagration. I
+have the honour, ma'am, of saluting you. Good night!"</p>
+
+<p>So Maguffin quietly escaped from the stables, and rode rapidly towards
+the fire, which shed its lurid light far over the clouded sky; and the
+pensioner trudged after him on foot, with his official baton under his
+arm, to make that conflagration acquainted with the law.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Picnic Supper&mdash;Sentries&mdash;Sylvanus' Silence&mdash;Coristine and
+Bigglethorpe Hear Sounds&mdash;Invaders Repelled&mdash;Fire and
+Explosions&mdash;Victims Walled In&mdash;Water Retreat in the Rain&mdash;The
+Constable Secures Mark Davis&mdash;Walk Home in the Rain&mdash;Bangs and
+Matilda&mdash;Into Dry Clothes&mdash;Miss Carmichael's Mistake&mdash;A Reef in Mr.
+Bangs&mdash;Ben has no Clothes&mdash;Three Young Gentlemen in a Bad Way.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Bangs had no fewer than eight men under his command, Bigglethorpe
+and the two Richards at the water, and Coristine and the veteran, the
+two Pilgrims and Rufus, up above. The latter tired themselves out, under
+the detective's direction, looking for an opening in the ground, but
+found none, nor anything that in the least resembled one. Some of the
+searchers wondered why the chimney in Rawdon's house was so
+unnecessarily large and strong, but no examination about its base
+revealed any connection between it and an underground passage. The
+detective, in conference with Mr. Terry and the lawyer, decided on four
+sentries, namely one each at the house and the lake, as already set, one
+at the road looking towards the entrance, and the other half way between
+the lake and the house, to keep up the connection. Some bread and meat
+and a pot of tea, with dishes, were sent down to the three men on the
+shore by the hands of Timotheus, but they rejected the cold meat, having
+already made a fire, and broiled the bass caught by Mr. Bigglethorpe.
+They had a very jolly time, telling fish stories, till about eight
+o'clock, and the fisherman of Beaver River was in wonderful spirits over
+the discovery of a new fishing ground. If those lakes had only contained
+brook trout he would move his store to the Lakes Settlement; as it was,
+he thought of setting up a branch establishment, and getting a partner
+to occupy the two places of business alternately with him. The Richards
+boys were pleased to think that their new acquaintance was likely to be
+a permanent one, and made Mr. Bigglethorpe many sincere offers of
+assistance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>in his fishing, and subordinate commercial, ventures. At
+eight Mr. Bangs came down the hill, and posted one of the Richards as
+sentry, while the fisherman indulged in his evening smoke, preparatory
+to turning in under the skiff with his friend Bill. "I went that fire
+put out, gentlemen," said the detective, "net now, but say efter ten
+o'clock, as it might help the enemy to spy us out," to which Bill
+Richards replied: "All right, cap'n; she'll be dead black afore ten."
+Rufus was placed on the hill side to communicate between the distant
+posts; Timotheus overlooked the encampment; and Sylvanus was given the
+station on the road. Mr. Bangs walked about nervously, and the lawyer
+and Mr. Terry, bringing some clean coverlets out of the boarding-house,
+spread them on the chip-covered ground, and lay down to smoke their
+pipes and talk of many things. "Oi tuk to yeez, sorr," said the veteran
+with warmth, "soon as Oi mit ye in the smokin' carr, and to think what a
+dale av loife we've seen since, an' here's you an' me, savin' yer
+prisince, as thick as thaves."</p>
+
+<p>Nothing of any moment occurred till within a quarter of ten, when
+Sylvanus saw two figures suddenly start up close by him on the right. At
+first, he thought of challenging them, but seeing one was a woman, and
+remembering the going over the Squire gave him about capturing Tryphosa,
+he resolved to await their arrival. Both figures greeted him joyfully by
+his name, for it was his two proteges, the crazy woman and her son, who
+had escaped the constable and lain concealed until darkness veiled their
+movements. "Has Steevy woke up yet?" she asked the sentinel, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not as I know on," responded the elder Pilgrim.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we will slip quietly into the house, and get some supper for
+Monty, and go to bed. It's tiresome walking about all day," she
+continued.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you two go fer to make no noise, 'cos they's sentries out as
+might charlinge yer with their guns," remarked the compassionate guard.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she whispered back; "we will be still as little mice, won't we,
+Monty? Good night, Sylvanus!" The boy added, "Good night, Sylvy!" and
+the sentinel returned the salutation, and muttered to himself: "Pore
+souls, the sight on 'em breaks me all up."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>Sylvanus should have reported these arrivals, when the detective came
+to relieve him, and put Mr. Terry in his place, but he did not. He had
+forgotten all about them, and was wondering if that "kicked-out-of
+service old ramrod, the corpular, was foolin' round about Trypheeny."
+Coristine relieved Timotheus; Bill Richards, Rufus; and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe, Harry Richards. The relieved men went to sleep on the
+quilts and under the skiff. Mr. Bangs came up every quarter of an hour
+to the lawyer, and asked if he had heard a noise about the house, to
+which the sentinel replied in the affirmative every time; whereupon the
+detective would take a lamp and search the building from top to bottom
+without any result. Once, after such a noise, that sounded like some
+heavy article being dragged along, Coristine thought he heard the words:
+"Keep quiet, Tilly," and, "Take it hoff," but he was not sure. The night
+was cloudy and dark, and the mosquitoes' buzzing sometimes had a human
+sound, while the snoring of the Pilgrims, and the restless moving of the
+horses, brought confusion to the ear, which sought to verify suspected
+articulations. Had he known that Matilda Nagle was about the house, he
+would not have let Bangs rest until the mystery was solved. He did not
+know; and, being very tired and sleepy, was inclined to distrust the
+evidence of his senses and lay it to the charge of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>Down by the water's edge Mr. Bigglethorpe sat on a stone in front of the
+carved out block, thinking of the best fly for bass, and of a great
+fishing party to the lakes that should include Mr. Bulky. Standing up to
+stretch his legs and facing the block of limestone, he thought he saw a
+narrow line of light along the left perpendicular incision. Moving over,
+he saw the same perpendicular line on the right. Just then the clouds
+drifted off the moon, and he convinced himself that the light lines were
+reflections from the sheen that glimmered over the lake. He also thought
+he heard a whining noise, such as a sick person or a child might make,
+and then a rough voice saying: "Stow that now!" but Richards, like the
+two Pilgrims above, was snoring, and Harry had a slight cold in his
+head. "What a stoopid, superstitious being I should become," said the
+fisherman to himself, "if I were out here long all alone." But, hark!
+the sound of paddles softly dipping came from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>the left, and at once the
+sentry lay down behind the upturned skiff, and, gun in hand, listened.
+He poked Richards with his foot, and, as he awoke, enjoined silence.
+Richards crawled out, and quietly replaced the boat in its original
+position. There were now two on guard instead of one. The boat entered
+the lake. It was the scow, Richards' scow, and Harry was indignant.
+There were five men in it, and they were talking in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sure them blarsted Squire folks has all gone home, Pete?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sartin, I seen 'em, the hull gang's scattered and skee-daddled, parsons
+an' all."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the blarsted light, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me I kin see long, thin streaks. O Lawr, boys, Rodden must ha'
+been hard put, when he drapped the block into the hole. It's shet up
+tight. Hev ye got the chisel and mallet?"</p>
+
+<p>"They're all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Then less git ashore and drap the block out, though it's an orful pity
+to lose it in the drink."</p>
+
+<p>"Carn't we git the blarsted thing back to its place agin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Onpossible; wild horses couldn't do it."</p>
+
+<p>Harry whispered to Bigglethorpe: "What'll we do?" and the fisherman
+answered: "Our duty is to fire, but we weren't told to kill anybody.
+Don't you fire till I reload."</p>
+
+<p>Then Bigglethorpe called out: "Surrender in the Queen's name," and fired
+above the scow. Two or three pistol shots rattled over the sentries'
+heads, and flattened themselves on the rock behind. "All ready!" said
+the storekeeper, and Harry let fly his duck shot into the middle of the
+crowd, who paddled vigorously from the shore. Bill Richards, having
+alarmed the upper sentries by the discharge of his gun, came running
+down, with the Pilgrims and Rufus, led by the detective, not far behind
+him. "Shove out the skiff," called Bigglethorpe. The Richards shoved it
+off, and Bill rowed, when the two sentries got on board. "Go it, Bill,
+after the old tub," cried Harry; "we'll soon catch up." The Rawdon gang
+worked hard to get to the narrows, but found it hopeless. "Give it to
+them," shouted Bangs from the shore; and in response, the guns rang out
+again, while Bill strained <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>every muscle to the utmost. The punt
+grounded on the shore above the narrows, and four of the men jumped out
+into the water and fled up the bank, firing their pistols as they
+retired. The punt was captured, and brought back to the guarded beach,
+with a wounded man and some tools in the bottom. Only by swimming, or by
+a long detour of very many miles, could the four fugitives find their
+way back to the shore they had sought in vain.</p>
+
+<p>The wounded man was taken out of the punt and laid on the beach. "Is he
+dead?" asked Bigglethorpe. "No," answered the detective, feeling the
+head of the victim, and inspecting him by the aid of matches struck by
+the smoker Sylvanus; "it's a good thing for him thet yore two gens were
+louded with deck shot end thet they sketter sow, else he'd a been a dead
+men. He's got a few pellets in the beck of his head, jest eneugh to sten
+the scoundrel for a few minutes. Ah, he's hed a creck owver the top of
+his head with a cleb, the colonel's werk, very likely."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want him kept?" enquired Mr. Bigglethorpe, as sentry.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me, yes; he's Rawdon's chief men. I wouldn't lose him fer a
+hendred dollars. Rufus, do you mind blowing his brains out if he
+attempts to escaype?"</p>
+
+<p>The good-natured Rufus said he didn't mind watching the prisoner, but he
+imagined clubbing would be kinder than blowing out his brains.</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" answered the detective, "all right, so long as you keep him
+safely."</p>
+
+<p>So Mr. Bangs went back to the house, followed by Sylvanus, Timotheus and
+Bill Richards, the last of whom resumed his post, namely the trunk on
+which Pierre Lajeunesse had rested.</p>
+
+<p>When the encampment was reached, Mr. Bangs asked Coristine if he had
+been smoking on guard or lighting matches, but he had not. He asked Mr.
+Terry the same question, which the old soldier almost took as an insult.
+"An' is it to me ye come, axin' av Oi shmoke on guarrd, an' shpind my
+toime loightin' matches loike a choild? Oi've sane sarvice, sorr, and
+nobody knows betther fwhat his juty is."</p>
+
+<p>"I sincerely beg your pardon, Mr. Terry. Please excuse my enxiety; I
+smell fire."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>"Don't mintion it, sorr, betune us. Faix, an' it's foire I shmill an'
+moighty sthrong, too."</p>
+
+<p>The detective came back to the front of the house, and saw the fire that
+had broken forth in a moment, and was flaming in every room of basement
+and upper storey, a fire too rapidly advanced to be got under, even had
+the means been at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, Sylvanus, Timotheus, get out the horses and any other live
+stock," he cried; but the lawyer had been before him, and the two
+Pilgrims and he were already leading the frightened animals past the
+house and on to the road, where they turned their heads outward and
+drove them along. Forgetting their watch, Mr. Terry and Bangs himself
+helped, until every living creature, as they thought, was safely away on
+the road to the Lake Settlement. Then, two figures, that the guilty
+Sylvanus knew, came out of the door of the boarding house, and the
+flames leaped out after them. The woman came up to Coristine, and said:
+"I know you; you helped to carry poor Steevy, who is not awake yet. He
+said it was cold down there, so Monty and I have made a fire to keep him
+warm." The lawyer thought she meant that her dead brother was cold. As
+to the fire, when he saw Monty, it did not astonish him; but how came
+they both there through the guard?</p>
+
+<p>The frame buildings, their light clapboards dried by the summer sun,
+burned furiously, and the flames roared in the rising wind. The sheds
+and stables caught; the fire ran over the ground, in spite of the dew,
+catching in shrubs and fallen timber, and even climbing up living trees.
+Back the beholders were driven, as far as Bill Richards' post, by the
+terrible glare and heat of the conflagration. Leaving Bigglethorpe on
+sentry, and Rufus over the prisoner, Harry came running up to learn what
+was the matter, and to tell of noises like human voices and hammer blows
+behind the slab of rock. Then, as the fire in the house burned down to
+the ground, there was an explosion that seemed to shake the earth, and a
+column of fire sprang up the standing chimney, side by side with another
+less lofty and more diffused from the right of the building. Report
+after report followed, and the whole party, half terror-stricken,
+descended to the beach. Rufus, with Bigglethorpe's help, had
+considerately transferred his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>prisoner to the punt, and guarded him
+there. The store-keeper, taking chisel and mallet in hand, was striking
+off chip after chip of rock, in answer to muffled cries from within; and
+now the big rock had moved half an inch. Still the brave man worked away
+amid the continued explosions, and in spite of the advancing fire. The
+block continued to slide, and Bigglethorpe cried: "Take the boats out of
+the way, and get back from me, or you will all be crushed in a minute."
+The punt was out of danger, but Bill Richards, with a single movement,
+shoved off the skiff, and, kneeling on her stern, sent her far out into
+the lake. Then he rowed the boat rapidly back into a place of safety.
+The slab was still sliding, and had cleared the rock out of which it had
+been cut by an inch. A human hand was thrust out, a dumpy, beringed
+hand, bleeding with the effort; a most audible voice cried "For God's
+sake, 'urry!" and then there came a perfect Babel of explosions, and the
+gallant deliverer was forcibly drawn out of a fierce river of liquid
+fire that streamed down into the lake, and burned even out on the water.
+The fisherman was badly burnt, hair, beard and eyelashes almost singed
+off; but still he thought of rescue. "Fire at that miserable little chip
+that holds it," he cried; "fire, since you can't hit it otherwise. Oh,
+for an asbestos suit, and I would have styed." They fired pistol and gun
+with no effect, till the lawyer, out in the skiff with Bill, got his
+rifle sighted to the point in the blue flame, where he thought the
+preventing ridge ought to be. He fired at close range, the ball hit the
+rock projection, and at once the great block slid away into the lake,
+with a splash that damped the flames with a column of spray, and
+revealed an awful corridor of fire. No living creature was there, but
+the detective, dipping his feet in the lake, took a boat hook out of the
+returning skiff, and then, standing in the flames, hauled out two
+charred masses, and extinguished them in the shallow water by the shore.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Terry came running down and crying: "Out on the wather wid yeez,
+ivery mother's son av yeez; the foire's spreadin' an' the threes is
+fallin'; fer yer loife, min." Mr. Bangs, still in command, asked:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How many will the skiff howld, Bill?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seven, anyway," replied the Richards of that name.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>"Mr. Coristine and Mr. Terry take commend and choose crew."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Matilda and Monty," said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Sylvanus, Timotheus, Rufus," cried Mr. Terry.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll row," said the Irishman.</p>
+
+<p>"And me, too," added Sylvanus.</p>
+
+<p>"Look after my prisoner, Mr. Bangs," cried Rufus; and the skiff went out
+to sea.</p>
+
+<p>Bill transferred himself to the scow, with his brother Harry and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe. The detective lifted the two charred masses to the
+opposite side of the middle thwart from that against which the prisoner
+lay. Then, Bill and Bigglethorpe having taken the bow, he and Harry took
+the stern, and the scow followed the skiff. For a time the two boats
+stood stock still, fascinated by the awful scene. The explosions were
+over, but the forest was blazing fiercely, and up towards the
+smouldering buildings, but underground, blazed a vault of blue fire that
+reached up to the standing brick chimney of Rawdon's house. Hundreds of
+animals were in the water around them, squirrels and snakes and
+muskrats, even mice, swimming for dear life. Then, pitter, patter, came
+the rain, hissing on the flames. It fell more heavily; and the lawyer,
+having doffed his coat to row, threw it over the woman's shoulders,
+while Mr. Terry put that of Sylvanus about the boy. "Lead on, Mr.
+Coristine," cried the detective; and the skiff shot through the narrows,
+with the punt hard after it. The rain fell in torrents and drenched the
+occupants of both vessels; but those whose faces were towards the stern
+could see the bush-fire still raging. "The rain'll stop it spreadin',"
+Bill called out cheerfully, and the lawyer rejoiced, because the fire
+was on Miss Du Plessis' land. Long was the journey, tired were the
+rowers and paddlers, and draggled was the crew, or rather draggled were
+the crews, that reached the Richards' homestead. The prisoner was awake
+by this time, had been so all along since he was deposited in the punt,
+and a paddle had splashed his face. When walked ashore, he had made a
+dash for liberty, but Mr. Bangs had brought him up short. "Yore in too
+great a herry, Merk Devis," he had said; "we went you, my men, and we'll
+hev you, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>dead or alive." So Mark Davis, since that was the name of
+Wilkinson's dissipated farmer, had to fall into line and march to the
+Richards' place. There the party found Maguffin and the constable.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel's servant had been much closer to the conflagration, but,
+having seen no sign of any person there, nothing but a number of
+startled horses, and the fire having taken possession of the sides of
+the masked road, he had retired to the nearest house. He at once
+enquired after the safety of Mr. Terry and the lawyer, and, finding that
+they and all the rest of the party were safe, rode back at his utmost
+speed to report. The constable, rejoiced at seeing his prisoners again,
+was about to rearrest them, when Coristine and Sylvanus interposed, the
+latter threatening to thrash the pipe-clay out of the pensioner's "old
+putrified jints" if he touched the boy. The Crew meant petrified, but
+the insult was no less offensive to the corporal on account of the
+mistake. As a private individual in the Squire's kitchen, Mr. Rigby was
+disposed to peace and unwilling to engage in a contest with big-boned
+Sylvanus, but, as a constable on duty, he was prepared to face any
+number of law-breakers and to fight them to the death. Drawing his
+baton, he advanced, and only the commands of his legal superior, Mr.
+Bangs, backed by the expostulations of the pseudo sergeant-major Terry,
+induced him to refrain from recapturing his former prisoners, and from
+adding to them the profane Pilgrim who had been guilty of interfering
+with an officer in the discharge of his duty. Finally he was mollified
+by being put in possession of a really great criminal, Mark Davis, whom
+he at once searched and deprived of various articles, including a
+revolver, all the chambers of which were fortunately empty. Then,
+producing his own revolver, the corporal gave it to his prisoner to
+smell, remarking that, if he tried any nonsense, he would have a taste
+of it that he would remember. Mrs. Richards was busy reducing the
+inflammation of Mr. Bigglethorpe's burns. She insisted that he should go
+no farther that night, and the whole Richards family, which had greatly
+taken to the fisherman, combined to hold him an honoured prisoner. Mr.
+Bigglethorpe consented to remain, and the Bridesdale contingent bade him
+and his hosts good night. The constable went first with his pris<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>oner,
+followed by Matilda Nagle, between the lawyer and the detective. Monty
+came next, clinging to Sylvanus and Mr. Terry, while Timotheus and Rufus
+brought up the rear. Mrs. Richards had furnished the woman and her boy
+with two shiny waterproofs, called by the young Richards gum coats, so
+that Coristine and Sylvanus got back their contributions to the wardrobe
+of the insane, but, save for the look of the thing, they would have been
+better without them, since they only added a clammy burden to thoroughly
+water-soaked bodies.</p>
+
+<p>Still the rain fell in torrents. It trickled in many rills off the
+penthouses of the pedestrians' headgear; from the lapels of coats and
+from waistcoats it streamed down, concentrating itself upon soggy knees.
+Broad sheets, like the flow of a water-cart, radiated from coat tails of
+every description; and rivers descending trouser-legs, turned boots and
+shoes into lakes, which sodden stockinged feet pumped out in returning
+fountains. Happily there was no necessity for using gun or pistol, since
+these weapons shared in the general pervading moisture. Yet the corporal
+marched erect, with his left hand on his prisoner's shoulder. Poor
+Matilda was cheerful, though shivering, and, turning round to her boy,
+said; "It is a good thing, Monty, that we lit the fire when we did, for
+it would be very hard to light one now;" to which the lad answered, "I
+hain't a goin' to light no more fires no more." Sylvanus and the veteran
+had been telling him what a bad thing it was to set houses on fire, and
+the hypnotized boy, freed apparently from the mesmeric bond by the death
+of his unnatural father, responded to the counsels of his new friends.
+The influence lasted longer with Matilda, for as, in spite of the
+absorbing rain, her companions were able to make a study of her talk,
+they observed that it was controlled by one or two overmastering ideas,
+which were evidently the imposition of a superior will. In his
+dog-Latin, which he presumed the poor woman could not understand, Mr.
+Bangs said to the lawyer: "<i>Oportet dicere ad Doctorem dehypnotizere
+illem feminem.</i>" To this elegant sentence Mr. Coristine briefly
+answered, "<i>Etiam</i>," but soon afterwards he asked: "Where did you pick
+up your Latin, Mr. Bangs."</p>
+
+<p>"I wes at school, you know where, with pore Nesh; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span><i>mulier nescit
+nomen</i>. We both took to Letin, because we could talk without being
+understood by the common crowd. You find velgar criminals thet know some
+French, German, Spenish or Portegese, bet none thet know Letin. In
+dealing with higher class criminals we used our own gibberish or
+artificial shibboleth."</p>
+
+<p>"A sort of Volapuk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exectly; pore Nesh was ohfelly clever et it."</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to kill Mr. Nash as soon as I can find him," interrupted the
+woman, in an amiable tone of voice, as if she proposed to discharge some
+pleasant duty.</p>
+
+<p>The men shuddered, and Mr. Bangs said: "You know, my dear Matilda, what
+the Bible says, Thou shelt not kill. You surely would not kemmit the sin
+of merder?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not to mind what the Bible says, or what Steevy says, or what
+clergymen or any other people say. I am only to do what he says, and I
+must."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he tell you to light thet fire?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that fire, but the other said it was cold down there."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did he not come up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I covered the trap over with the big stones, and Monty helped
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Surely he didn't tell you to dreg the stones on to the trep?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he did, but not then. It was before, when Flower wanted to get up,
+and crawl away and tell, because he thought he was going to die."</p>
+
+<p>"Was Flower down there with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; that's why Monty and I put the big stones on the trap."</p>
+
+<p>"Flower was hert, wesn't he, shot in the beck, I think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he crawled in all the way on his hands and knees, and I helped his
+wife to tie him up, till the doctor came, the morning that I found
+Steevy."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know thet Stephen wes esleep?"</p>
+
+<p>"He told me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Deminus Coristinus, mulier non est responsibilis pro suis ectionibus.
+Facit et credit omnia qua mendet enimel mertuus.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Eheu domine!</i>" replied the lawyer; "<i>sic est vita dolorosa!</i>"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>Bridesdale was all lit up, and the front door was open to receive the
+soaked wayfarers, but no one could be induced to enter it. Mr. Terry
+asked Honoria to leave his dry suit and a pair of shoes at the kitchen,
+when he would take them to the carriage house, and change there. The
+lawyer and the detective had no dry suit, so Mrs. Carruthers brought
+them some of her husband's clothes, and two umbrellas, under which they
+carried their bundles, wrapped in bath towels, to the place the veteran
+had chosen. While the three drawing-room guests stripped, rubbed
+themselves down with the grateful towels, and put on their dry attire,
+the kitchen filled up with the humid and steaming Pilgrims, Rufus, the
+idiot boy, and his mother. Constable Rigby lodged his prisoner on some
+straw in an empty stall in the stable, and, producing a pair of
+handcuffs, which he had left there, secured him, fastening also a stall
+chain round one of his legs with a padlock. The constable was severe,
+but he had lost two prisoners the previous day, had been abused by
+Sylvanus Pilgrim, and was very wet and tired. To the credit of Sylvanus
+be it said, that he came out with Ben Toner's clothes, and lent them to
+his elderly rival, and actually carried the corporal's wet garments into
+the kitchens, there to hang with a large assortment of others, drying
+before the two stoves, in full blast for the purpose. The gum coats had
+fairly protected the clothes of Matilda and Monty, but their feet needed
+reclothing, and it took some time to dry their heads. Maguffin had taken
+off his wet things, and was asleep in the loft bed, keeping one ear open
+for the safekeeping of the colonel's horses. Tryphena and Tryphosa were
+both up; and into their hands Rufus consigned the dripping habiliments
+of their two admirers as well as his own, his fraternal relation
+allowing him to appear before the ladies of the kitchen in a long white
+garment with frills that had never been constructed for a man. "Guess it
+ain't the last time you'll have to dry them clothes, gals," said the
+sportive Rufus, skipping along in his frilled surplice, when Tryphena
+chased him out of the apartment with a sounding smack between the
+shoulders. Tryphena hesitated to send the mad woman into the room in
+which Serlizer was sleeping, not knowing the nature of their relations
+at the Select Encampment. Matilda, however, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>evidenced no intention of
+retiring, or feeling of drowsiness. She talked, with the brightness and
+cheerfulness of other days, and in a gentle, pleasant voice, but on
+strange wild themes that terrified the two young women. Monty looked at
+the fire and then at Tryphosa, saying: "I hain't a goin' to light no
+more fires no more." "Why?" asked Tryphosa, and the answer came, which
+revealed a genuine working of the intellect: "'Cos Sylvy says hit's
+wicked." His mother turned, and said: "Monty, you must not mind what
+Sylvanus says or anybody else; you must mind what he says."</p>
+
+<p>The boy looked his mother full in the face, and replied in a very
+decided tone, "Hi'm blowed hif I do!"</p>
+
+<p>In the forepart of the house, only the ladies were up. The doctor and
+the colonel, the captain and the Squire, slept the sleep of tired men
+with good consciences, and the wounded dominie was enjoying a beautiful
+succession of rose-coloured dreams, culminating in a service, at which a
+tall soldierly man in appropriate costume gave away into his hand that
+of a very elegant and accomplished lady, saying, as he did so, "Can I do
+less for the heroic saver of her uncle's life?" Mr. Terry's appearance,
+on entering to salute his daughter, exacted no remark. The lawyer looked
+somewhat bucolic, but highly respectable. But poor little Mr. Bangs was
+buried in clothing, and tripped on his overflowing trowser legs, as he
+vainly strove to put his right hand outside of its coatsleeve, for the
+purpose of shaking hands with the company. Mrs. Carmichael took pity on
+him, and turned back his cuffs, and, his hands being thus of use to him,
+he employed them to do the same with the skirts of his trousers. The
+usually polite veteran took Coristine to a corner of the room, and,
+between violent coughs of suppressed laughter, said: "Och, Misther
+Coristine, it's the dumb aguey I'll be havin' iv his clawthes is not
+droied soon. It's Bangs by name he is and bangs by natur'. Shure, this
+bangs Banagher, an' Banagher bangs the world." The young ladies had not
+yet entered the apartment, and the three night-watchers were busy
+relating to the three matrons the terrible events of the night. The
+lawyer was sitting with his back to the door, conversing with Mrs.
+Carruthers, when Miss Carmichael came tripping in, followed by Miss <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>Du
+Plessis and Miss Halbert. The lawyer's hair was brown, and so was her
+uncle's. The coat was the Squire's, and the white collar above it. So
+she slipped softly up to the back of the chair, took the brown head
+between her hands, and administered a salute on the forehead, with the
+words: "Why, Uncle John!&mdash;," then suddenly turned and fled, amid the
+laughter of the veteran and his daughter, and the amused blushes and
+smiles of her mother. The other young ladies came forward and joined in
+the conversation, but Miss Carmichael did not show her face until the
+family was summoned for prayers. The colonel came down in his usual
+urbane smiling way, saying that he had taken the liberty of looking in
+upon his dear friend and prisoner, and was rejoiced to find that he had
+spent a good night. The captain could be heard descending the staircase,
+and telling somebody that he was becalmed again with a spell of foul
+weather. The somebody was the Squire, who insisted that thieves had been
+through his wardrobe, and then eagerly asked for news from the
+encampment. All were shocked beyond measure when they heard of the
+terrible tragedy. "I wished the man no good," said the Squire, with a
+regretful expression on his manly face, "but, if he had been ten times
+the deep dyed villain he was, I couldn't have dreamt of such an awful
+fate for him." The captain remarked that in the midst of life we are in
+death, that the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that where a man
+makes his bed he must lie down, all of which he considered to be good
+Scripture and appropriate to the occasion. "Yoah fohce met with no moah
+casualties, I hope, Captain Bangs? I do not see our fishing friend, Mr.
+Bigglethorpe; is he safe, suh?" These questions led to an account of the
+fisherman's heroic attempt to release the self-imprisoned occupants of
+the underground passage, of his wounds, and of the subsequent exploits
+of the lawyer and the detective. Coristine escaped upstairs to put
+himself in shape for breakfast, and to visit his wounded friend. He
+found that gentleman progressing very favourably, and perfectly
+satisfied with his accommodation.</p>
+
+<p>After morning prayers, conducted by the Squire with unusual solemnity,
+the lawyer asked Miss Carmichael if she alone would not shake hands with
+him, making no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>allusion to any previous encounter. She complied, with a
+blush, and seemed pleased to infer that the Captain, above all, had not
+heard of her mistake. The two had no time for explanations, however, as,
+at the moment, Messrs. Errol and Perrowne, who had been told there was a
+fire out towards the Lake Settlement, came in to learn about it, and
+were compelled to sit down and add something substantial to their early
+cup of coffee. They reported the rain almost over, and the fire, so far
+as they could judge from the distance, the next thing to extinguished.
+Once more the trays were in requisition for the invalids, and again the
+colonel and Mr. Perrowne acted as aids to Miss Du Plessis and Miss
+Halbert. Just as soon as he could draw her attention away from the
+minister, Coristine remarked to Miss Carmichael: "I have the worst luck
+of any man; I never get sick or wounded or any other trouble that needs
+nursing." The young lady said in a peremptory manner, "Show me your
+hands;" and the lawyer had to exhibit two not very presentable paws. She
+turned them palms up, and shuddered at the scorched, blistered and
+scratched appearance of them. "Where are Mr. Errol's gloves I put on
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the pocket of my wet coat in the kitchen."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you dare to take them off when I put them on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I was like the cat in the proverb, not that I was after mice
+you know, but I couldn't fire in gloves."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your firing is done now, and I shall expect you to come to me in
+the workroom, immediately after breakfast, to have these gloves put on
+again. Do you hear me, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And what else? Do you mean to obey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, Miss Carmichael, of course, always, with the greatest joy in
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody asked you, sir, to obey always."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Miss Carmichael, I'm afraid I'm a little confused."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I hope you will not put me to confusion, as you did this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully sorry," said the mendacious lawyer, "but it was the coat
+and collar, you know." Then most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>illogically, he added, "I'd like to
+wear this coat and this collar all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you would not; they are not at all becoming to you. Oh, do look at
+poor Mr. Bangs!"</p>
+
+<p>The detective's sleeves were turned back, thanks to Mrs. Carmichael,
+but, as he sat at breakfast, the voluminous coat sagged over his
+shoulder, and down came the eclipsing sleeve over his coffee cup. When
+he righted matters with his left hand, the coat slewed round to the
+other side, knocked his fork out of his hand, and fell with violence on
+his omelet. The Captain looked at him, and bawled: "I say, mate, you've
+got to have a reef took in your back topsel. You don't mind a bit of
+reef tackle in the back of your coat, do you, John?" The Squire did not
+object; so Miss Carmichael was despatched to the sewing room for two
+large pins, and she and the Captain between them pinched up the back of
+the coat longitudinally to the proper distance, and pinned the detective
+up a little more than was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"Whey," asked he of his nautical ally, "em I consistent es a cherecter
+in bowth phases of my berrowed cowt?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," chuckled the Captain; "'cause then you had too much slack on
+your pins, and now you've got too much pins in your slack, haw! haw!"</p>
+
+<p>"Try egain."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine ventured, "Because then your hands were in your cuffies, but
+now your coffee's in your hand." This was hooted down as perfectly
+inadmissible, Miss Carmichael asking him how he dared to make such an
+exhibition of himself. Mr. Errol was wrestling with something like
+Toulouse and Toulon, but could not conquer it. Then the detective said:
+"If the ledies will be kind eneugh not to listen, I should enswer,
+Before I wes loose in my hebits, end now I em tight."</p>
+
+<p>Of course the Captain applauded, but the lawyer's reprover remarked to
+him that she did not think that last at all a nice word. He agreed with
+her that it was abominable, that no language was strong enough to
+reprobate it, and then they left the table.</p>
+
+<p>There was trouble in the kitchen. Timotheus and Maguffin had each a
+Sunday suit of clothes, which they had donned. Sylvanus and Rufus having
+special claims <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>on Tryphena, she had put their wet garments in a
+favourable place, and, being quite dry, handed them in to her befrilled
+brother, early in the morning, through a half open doorway. The
+constable, attired in the garb presented to him by Sylvanus, having
+fastened his prisoner securely with a second stall chain, entered the
+house, and politely but stiffly wished the cook and housemaid "Good
+morning." Breakfast was ready, and then the trouble began. Ben had no
+clothes, and the boys enjoyed the joke. The company was again a large
+one, for Serlizer and Matilda Nagle were added to the feminine part of
+it, and the constable and the boy brought its male members up to six,
+exclusive of the prostrate Ben. Mr. Terry had temporarily deserted the
+kitchen. Mr. Toner's voice could be heard three doors off calling for
+Sylvanus, Timotheus, Rufus, Mr. Rigby and Mr. Maguffin. These people
+were all smilingly deaf, enjoying their hot breakfast. Then, in despair,
+he called Serlizer.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the racket, Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>"My close is sto-ul, Serlizer."</p>
+
+<p>"They's some duds hangin' up here and in the back kitchen to dry. Praps
+yourn's there."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Serlizer, myuns never got wayt. You don't think I was sech a blame
+fooul as to go out in that there raiun do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't know but what yer might."</p>
+
+<p>"Whey's them close, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know nuthun 'bout yer clothes. Most men as ain't marrd looks
+after they own clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that you Ben?" asked the more refined voice of Tryphena, in a tone
+of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, Trypheeny, that's jest who it is. Saay, ken you tayl me what's
+come o' my close?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are here, Ben, close to the table;" whereupon all the company
+glanced at Mr. Rigby, and choked.</p>
+
+<p>"Cayn't you take 'em off what they're on, and saynd one of the boys in
+with 'em, Trypheeny?"</p>
+
+<p>The cook coloured up, and laughter could no longer be restrained. The
+constable laughed, and the contagion spread to Matilda and her boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Dod rot it?" cried Mr. Toner, indignantly; "what are you fools and
+eejuts a screechin' and yellin' at? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>Gimme my close, or, s'haylp me,
+I'll come right out and bust some low down loafer's thinkin' mill."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, be quiet, Ben," answered Tryphena, "and I will send Rufus in with
+your breakfast. You shall have your clothes when they are ready."</p>
+
+<p>So, Rufus took in a plentiful breakfast to his friend Toner, who sat up
+in the big bed to enjoy it. "I'm powerful sorry for you, Ben," remarked
+the Baby. "You don't think Serlizer could ha' come in and taken your
+clothes out into the rain, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hev they been out in the rain, Rufus?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why yes, didn't you know that much? If it hadn't been for the
+constable, they might ha' been out there yet. I'd say thank ye to him if
+I was you, Ben."</p>
+
+<p>"Consterble Rigby!" shouted Toner.</p>
+
+<p>"At your service, sir," replied the pensioner.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awful obligated to you, consterble, fer bringin' in my wayt close."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not speak of it, sir," replied Mr. Rigby, with a large piece of
+toast apparently in his mouth; "I am proud to do you a service, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Ben was a big man, and somewhat erratic in his ways, so the constable
+retired, and came back in his own garb, which he had carried out with
+him. "I think, Miss Hill," he said, "that Mr. Toner's clothes are now
+dry enough for him to wear them with safety. What do you think, Miss
+Newcome?"</p>
+
+<p>"Guess we kin take them off now," answered Serlizer.</p>
+
+<p>"Serlizer," growled Ben, "you're an old cat, a desprit spiteful
+chessacat, to go skylarkin' on yer own feller as never did yer no harm.
+Gerlong with yer!"</p>
+
+<p>Rufus came in for the breakfast things, and deposited Ben's clothes on
+the bed. "It wasn't Serlizer, Ben, sure; If I was you I'd try the
+nigger. Them darkies are always up to tricks."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toner got into his clothes, resolved to have it out with somebody,
+even if Rufus himself should prove to be the traitor. When, a few
+minutes later, Mr. Terry, smoking his morning pipe, foregathered with
+Ben in the stable yard, and asked him what he was after now, the answer
+he gave was: "Lookin' araound fer somebody to whayul!" to which the
+veteran replied: "Bin, my lad, it's aisy talkin'."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>When the men were out of the kitchen, Mrs. Carruthers and her
+sister-in-law came in to see the mad woman and her boy. The boy they
+knew already, and had always been kind to, giving him toys and other
+little presents, as well as occasional food and shelter. They were much
+taken with the mother's quiet manners, and, having heard that she had
+been a milliner, invited her to join them in the workroom. But, when
+they unitedly arrived at the door of that apartment, they speedily
+retired to the parlour, and there engaged in conversation. Mrs. Du
+Plessis was upstairs, with the colonel to play propriety, sponging the
+dominie's face and hands, and brushing his hair, as if he were her own
+son. Every now and again Colonel Morton came up to the bedside, saying:
+"Be kind to him, my deah Tehesa, and remembeh that he saved the life of
+yoah poah sistah Cecilia's widowah." So the stately Spanish lady shook
+up the wounded man's pillows, while the colonel put his arm around him
+and held him up; and then, as he sank back again, she asked. "Are you
+strong enough to have Cecile come up and read to you?" Wilkinson, sly
+dog, as the Captain called him, said it was too much trouble to put Miss
+Du Plessis to; but his objections were overruled. Soon a beatific vision
+came once more on the scene, and Wordsworth was enthroned as the king of
+poets. Miss Halbert and Mr. Perrowne were in the garden, and the
+clergyman had a rose in his button hole which he had not plucked
+himself. If he had not been in holy orders, he would have thought Miss
+Fanny was awfully jolly. Then he said to himself, that holy orders don't
+hinder a man being a man, and Miss Fanny was, really was, awfully jolly,
+and boarding in the houses of uncultivated farmers was an awful bore.
+But this was nothing to what was going on in the studiously avoided work
+room. The lawyer's hands were being washed, because a voice from an
+arch-looking face said that he was a big baby, and didn't know how to
+wash himself. It was quite a big baby in size and aspect that was soaped
+and glycerined, and had some other stuff rubbed into his hands by other
+pretty hands, one of which wore the victim's ring. Corry felt that he
+could stand it, even to the putting on of the minister's gloves. When
+she had finished her work, the hospital nurse said, "that silly little
+Marjorie, angry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>because Cecile would not allow her to read fairy
+stories to Mr. Wilkinson, surrendered you to me."</p>
+
+<p>"O Marjorie, my darlin', and would you throw your lovely self away on a
+poor, stupid, worthless thing like me?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Miss Carmichael Snubs and Thinks&mdash;The Constable and the
+Prisoner&mdash;Matilda and the Doctor&mdash;The Children Botanize&mdash;Pressing
+Specimens&mdash;Nomenclature&mdash;The Colonel Makes a Discovery&mdash;Miss
+Carmichael Does Not Fancy Wilks&mdash;Mr. Newberry Takes Matilda&mdash;Mr.
+Pawkins Makes Mischief and is Punished&mdash;Rounds on
+Sylvanus&mdash;Preparations for Inquest</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>"Mr. Coristine, I never gave you permission to call me by my Christian
+name, much less to think that I accepted Marjorie's foolish little
+charge. I am sorry if I have led you to believe that I acted so bold, so
+shameless a part."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Carmichael, forgive me. I'm stupid, as I said, but, as the
+Bible has it, I'll try and keep a watch on the door of my lips in
+future. And you such an angel of mercy, too! Please, Miss Carmichael,
+pardon a blundering Irishman."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," she answered. "I have nothing to pardon; only, I did not
+want you to misunderstand me." The gloves were on, and she shook hands
+with him, and laughed a comical little insincere laugh in his face, and
+ran away to her own room to have a foolish little cry. She heard her
+friend Cecile reading poetry to the wounded Wilkinson, and, looking out
+of her window, saw Mr. Perrowne helping her uncle to lift the doctor's
+chair out into the garden, and her mother, freed from conversation with
+the madwoman, plucking a flower for Mr. Errol's coat. There, too, was a
+young man, his hands encased in black kid gloves, sitting down on a
+bench with Mr. Terry, and with difficulty filling a meerschaum pipe. She
+thought he had a quiet, disappointed look, like a man's whose warm,
+generous impulses have been checked, and she felt guilty. It was true
+they had not known one another long, but what was she, a teacher in a
+common school, that was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>what people called them, to put on airs before
+such a man as that? If it had been Mr. Wilkinson, now; but, no; she was
+afraid of Mr. Wilkinson, the distant, the irreproachable, the autocratic
+great Mogul. She looked down again, through the blinds of course.
+Marjorie Thomas was on the lawyer's knee, and Marjorie Carruthers on the
+veteran's. The Captain's daughter was combing Coristine's brown hair
+with her fingers, and pointing the ends of his moustache, much to the
+other Marjorie's amusement and the lawyer's evident satisfaction. Miss
+Carmichael inwardly called her cousin a saucy little minx, resenting her
+familiarities with a man who was, of course, nothing to her, in a way
+that startled herself. Why had he not saved somebody's life and been
+wounded, instead of that poetic fossil of a Wilkinson? But, no; it was
+better not, for, had he saved the colonel's life, Cecile would have been
+with him, and that she could not bear to think of. Then, she remembered
+what Corry had told her of the advertisement to the next of kin. Perhaps
+she would be wealthy yet, and more than his equal socially, and then she
+could condescend, as a great lady, and put a treasure in those poor
+gloved hands. Where would they all have been without these hands, all
+scarred and blistered to save them from death? Everybody was very unkind
+to little Marjorie's Eugene, and failed to recognize his claims upon
+their gratitude. Oh, that saucy little minx, with her grand assumptions
+of proprietorship, as if she owned him, forsooth!</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bangs called the justices to business. There was a prisoner to
+examine, and two charred masses of humanity for the coroner to sit upon.
+So a messenger was sent off to summon the long-suffering Johnson,
+Newberry, and Pawkins, for the coroner's inquest, and the doctor was
+carried back into the office for the examination of the prisoner, Mark
+Davis. The two Squires sat in appropriate chairs behind an official
+table, at one side of which Mr. Bangs took his seat as clerk. Constable
+Rigby produced his prisoner, loaded with fetters. "Has this man had his
+breakfast, Rigby?" asked the Squire. "Certainly not, Squire," replied
+the constable. "Then take him at once to the kitchen, take off these
+chains and handcuffs, and let him have all that he can eat," replied the
+J.P., sternly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>The corporal's sense of rectitude was offended. The idea
+of feeding criminals and releasing them from irons! The next thing would
+be to present them with a medal and a clasp for each new offence against
+society. But, orders were orders, and, however iniquitous, had to be
+obeyed; so Davis was allowed to stretch his limbs, and partake of a
+bountiful, if somewhat late, morning meal. "To trespass upon your
+kindness, Miss Hill, with such as this," said the apologetic constable,
+pointing to his prisoner, "is no act of mine; Squire Carruthers, who, no
+doubt, thinks he knows best, has given orders that it has to be, and my
+duty is to carry out his orders to the letter." Breakfast seemed to
+infuse courage into the dissipated farmer. When it was over, he arose,
+and, without a note of warning, doubled up the stiff guardian of the
+peace, and made for the door, where he fell into the arms of the
+incoming Serlizer. She evidently thought that Mark Davis, smitten with
+her charms, was about to salute her, for, with the words "Scuse me!" and
+a double turn of her powerful wrists, she deposited the assailant upon
+the floor. Sadly, but officially, the constable crawled over and sat
+upon the prostrate form of the would-be fugitive from justice. The
+prisoner squirmed, and even struck the doubled-up corporal, but the
+entrance of Ben Toner put an end to that nonsense, so that, handcuffed
+and chained once more, the desperate villain was hauled into the
+presence of the magistrates. In dignified, but subordinate, language,
+Mr. Rigby related the prisoner's escapade, and, by implication, more
+than by actual statement, gave the J.P.s to understand that they knew
+nothing about the management of offenders against the law. They were,
+therefore, compelled to allow the handcuffs to remain, but summoned
+sufficient courage to insist on the removal of the stable chains.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your name, prisoner?" asked Squire Carruthers.</p>
+
+<p>"Samuel Wilson," answered the man.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! kem now," interposed Mr. Bangs, "thet's a lie, you know; yore name
+is Merk Devis, end yore a brether of Metthew Devis of the Peskiwenchow
+tevern, end you were Rawdon's right hend men. We know you, my led, so
+down't you try any alias games on us."</p>
+
+<p>"Ef you know my name so mighty well, what do you want askin' for't?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>"To see if you can speak the truth," replied Carruthers.</p>
+
+<p>"What other prisoners hev you got asides me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is none of your business," said the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"If I might be ellowed to seggest, Squire," whispered the detective, "I
+think I'd tell him. Whet do you sey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Mr. Bangs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my fine fellow, the Squire ellows me to sey thet the ethers are
+Newcome, the stowne ketters, and the women."</p>
+
+<p>The name of Newcome disconcerted Mark, but he asked, "Whar's Rawdon and
+old Flower?"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you see?" asked Mr. Bangs.</p>
+
+<p>"I seen the fire all right, but they wasn't such blame fools as to stay
+there when there was a way out up atop."</p>
+
+<p>"The epper wey wes clowsed," said the detective.</p>
+
+<p>"Was they burned alive then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they were berned to eshes."</p>
+
+<p>"O Lord!" ejaculated the prisoner, and then, wildly: "What do you want
+along of me anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>The magistrates and Mr. Bangs consulted, after which the doctor
+answered: "We want information from you on three points: first, as to
+the attempt of Rawdon's gang to burn this house; second, as to the
+murder of Detective Nash; and, third, as to the whole secret of Rawdon's
+business at the Select Encampment. You are not bound to incriminate
+yourself, as every word of this preliminary examination may be used
+against you, but, on the other hand, if you make a clean breast of what
+you know on these questions, your confession will go a long way in your
+favour with judge and jury."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose'n I don't confess not a syllabub?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, we shall commit you, all the same, to the County Gaol, to stand
+your trial at the assizes."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right, I'll stand my durned trile. You don't get nawthin
+out'n me, you misable, interferin', ornary, bushwhackin' jedges!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't strike him, Rigby!" commanded Carruthers; for the constable,
+shocked and outraged by such indecorous language in a court of justice,
+was about to club his man. Then he added: "The colonel's servant,
+Maguffin, is going to town on business, and will drive you so far, and
+help <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>to guard your prisoner. You can tie him up as tight as you like,
+without being cruel or doing him an injury. We shall have to do without
+you at the inquest."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, while Mr. Maguffin brought round a suitable vehicle, and
+received his commissions from the colonel, the commitment papers were
+made out, and Constable Rigby securely fastened the worst criminal that
+had ever come into his hands. The said criminal did a little hard
+swearing, which called the long unused baton into active service. Davis
+was quiet and sullen when the buggy, under the pensioner's command,
+wheeled away in search of connections for the County Gaol.</p>
+
+<p>The two bodies were still lying in their shells, with ice about them, in
+the unfinished annex of the post office. It was, therefore, decided to
+hold the new inquest in the Bridesdale coach house, as also more
+convenient for the doctor, whose sprain might have been aggravated by
+driving. While Ben Toner was sent with a waggon to the Richards, to
+bring the ghastly remains snatched from the flames out of the punt, and
+to convey three members of that family to the coroner's jury, Mr. Bangs
+explained to Doctor Halbert his and the lawyer's thought regarding
+Matilda Nagle. The doctor consented, and the detective went to find the
+patient, who was busy and cheerful in the sewing room with Mrs.
+Carruthers. He told her that she was not looking well, and had better
+come with him to see the doctor; but, with all the cunning of insanity,
+she refused to go. He had to go after Coristine in the garden, and take
+him away from Marjorie. With the lawyer she went at once, identifying
+him, as she did not the detective, with her brother Stevy. Mechanically,
+she sat down by the kind doctor's chair, and seemed to recognize him,
+although he did not remember her. After a few enquiries as to her
+health, he took one of her hands in his, and, with the other, made
+passes over her face, until she fell into the mesmeric sleep. "Your
+husband, Mr. Rawdon, is dead," he said; "you remember that he died by
+his own hand, and left you free." The woman gave a start, and seemed to
+listen more intently. "You will kill nobody, hurt nobody, not even a
+fly," he continued. "Do you remember?" Another start of comprehension
+was made, but nothing more; so he went on: "You will read <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>your Bible
+and go to church on Sundays, and take care of your boy, and be just the
+same to everybody as you were in the old days." Then, with a few counter
+passes, he released her hand, and the poor woman told him all that he
+had enjoined upon her, as if they were the resolutions of her own will.
+She was not sane, but she was free from the vile slavery in which her
+inhuman keeper had held her. Moreover, she understood perfectly that
+Rawdon was dead, yet without manifesting either joy or grief in the
+knowledge. The lawyer led her back to the workroom, where she confided
+her new state of mind to Mrs. Carruthers, greatly to that tender-hearted
+lady's delight. The doctor did not think it necessary to practise his
+art upon the lad Monty, in whom the power of Rawdon's will was already
+broken, and upon whom his changed mother would, doubtless, exert a
+salutary influence.</p>
+
+<p>Coristine had nothing to do, and almost dreaded meeting Miss Carmichael,
+which he probably would do if he remained about the house and grounds.
+Therefore he got out the improvised vasculum, and invited Marjorie and
+the older Carruthers children to come with him down to the brook to look
+for wild flowers. This met with the full approval of the young people,
+and they prepared at once for the botanizing party. The Captain saw
+Marjorie putting on her broad-brimmed straw hat, and enquired where she
+was going. She answered that she was going buttonizing with Eugene, and
+he said that he guessed he would button too, whatever that was. A very
+merry little group frisked about the steps of the two seniors, one of
+whom was explaining to the older, nautical party that he was on the hunt
+for wild flowers.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it yarbs you're after?" asked the Captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not exactly, although I want to get a specimen of every kind of
+plant."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't want to make medicine of 'em, Mandrake, Snakeroot, Wild
+Sassyperilly, Ginsing, Bearberry, Gentian, Cohosh and all that sort o'
+stuff, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I want to find out their names, dry and mount them, and classify
+them according to their kinds."</p>
+
+<p>"What good are they agoin' to do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"They will help me to know Nature better and to admire God's works and
+His plan."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>"Keep on there, mate, fair sailin' and a good wind to you. No pay in
+it, though?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a cent in money, but lots of pleasure and health."</p>
+
+<p>"Like collectin' post stamps and old pennies, and butterflies, and
+bugs."</p>
+
+<p>"Something, but you see scenery and get healthy exercise, which you
+don't in stamp and coin collecting, and you inflict no suffering, as you
+do in entomologizing."</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell trees when they're a growin' and timber when its cut, but I
+don't know the name of one flower from another, except it's garden ones
+and common at that. Hullo, little puss, what have you got there?"</p>
+
+<p>Marjorie, who had run on in advance and was not by any means ignorant of
+the flora of the neighbourhood, had secured three specimens, a late
+Valerian, an early spotted Touch-me-not, and a little bunch of
+Blue-eyed-grass. Coristine took them from her with thanks, told her
+their names and stowed them away in his candle box. The zeal to discover
+and add to the collection grew upon all the party, the Captain included.
+Near the water, where the Valerian and the Touch-me-not grew, Marjorie
+Carruthers found the Snake-head, with its large white flowers on a
+spike. Another little Carruthers brought to the botanist the purple
+Monkey flower, but the Captain excelled his youthful nephew by adding to
+the collection the rarer and smaller yellow one. Then the lawyer himself
+discovered another yellow flower, the Gratiola or Hedge Hyssop, at the
+moment when Marjorie rejoiced in the modest little Speedwell. Once more,
+the Captain distinguished himself by finding in the grass the yellow
+Wood-Sorrel, with its Shamrock leaves, which, when Marjorie saw, she
+seemed to recognize in part. Then, crossing the stepping stones of the
+brook, she ran, far up the hill on the other side, to a patch of shady
+bush, from which she soon returned victorious, with a bunch of the
+larger Wood-Sorrel in her hand, to exhibit the identity of its leaves,
+and its delicate white blossoms with their pinky-purple veins. By the
+time the other juveniles brought in the blue Vervain, pink Fireweed and
+tall yellow Mullein, the botanist thought it about time to go home and
+press his specimens.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Carmichael met the scientists at the door, looking, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>of course, for
+the children and Uncle Thomas, who was never called by his Christian
+name, Ezekiel. Learning the nature of the work in hand, she volunteered
+the use of the breakfast-room table. The lawyer brought down his strap
+press, and, carefully placing oiled paper between the dried specimens
+and the semi-porous sheets that were to receive the new ones, proceeded
+to lay them out. The new specimens had all to be examined by the
+addition to the botanical party, their botanical and vulgar names to be
+recited to her, and, then, the arranging began. This was too monotonous
+work for the Captain, who carried the children off for a romp on the
+verandah. Marjorie stayed for a minute or so after they were gone, and
+then remembered that she had not given papa his morning button-hole.
+Coristine was clumsy with the flowers, owing to the gloves he said, so
+Miss Carmichael had to spread them out on the paper under his direction,
+and hold them in their place, while he carefully and gradually pressed
+another sheet over them. Of course his fingers could not help coming
+into contact with hers. "Confound those gloves!" he thought aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Coristine, if you are going to use such language, and to speak so
+ungratefully of Mr. Errol's gloves, which I put on your hands, I shall
+have to leave you to put up your specimens the best way you can."</p>
+
+<p>"O Miss Carmichael, now, please let me off this once, and I'll never do
+it again. You know it's so hard working in gloves. Understand me as
+saying that botanically, in a Pickwickian sense as it were, and not
+really at all."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not say that, either botanically or any other way."</p>
+
+<p>"To hear the faintest whisper of your slightest command is to obey."</p>
+
+<p>It was delicate work arranging these little Speedwells, and Gratiolas,
+the Wood-Sorrels, and the smaller Monkey-flower. Hands had to follow
+very close on one another, and heads to be bent to examine, and
+sometimes there was just a little brush of brown and golden hair that,
+strange to say, sent responsive tingles along the nerves, and warm
+flushes to cheek and brow. What a hopeless idiot he was not to have
+foreseen the possibility of this, and to have brought home twice the
+number of specimens! Alas! <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>they were all in the press. But, a happy
+thought struck him: would Miss Carmichael care to look at the dried
+ones, some of which had kept their colour very well? Yes, she had a few
+minutes to spare. So, he brought chairs up to the table, and they sat
+down, side by side, and he told her all about the flowers and how he got
+them, and the poetry Wilks and he quoted over them. Then the specimens
+had to be critically examined, so as to let Miss Carmichael learn the
+distinctive characteristics of the various orders, and this brought the
+heads close together again, when suddenly their owners were started by
+the unexpected clang of the dinner gong. "Thank you so much, Mr.
+Coristine," said the lady, frankly; "you have given me a very pleasant
+half hour." The lawyer bowed his acknowledgment, but said, beneath his
+moustache: "Half an hour is it? I thought it was a lifetime rolled up in
+two minutes, no, one."</p>
+
+<p>What did those deceitful men, Errol and Perrowne, mean, by saying they
+had to go away to get up their Wednesday evening talk, and to visit
+their parishioners? There they were, in their old places at the table,
+Mr. Errol at Mrs. Carmichael's right, and apparently on the best of
+terms with her, and Mr. Perrowne dancing attendance upon Miss Halbert
+and her invalid father. Mrs. Du Plessis thought she would take up Mr.
+Wilkinson's dinner with the colonel's help, as Cecile had been reading
+to him so long. Accordingly, the Captain talked to that young lady,
+while Mr. Bangs monopolized Mrs. Carruthers. There was a little
+commotion, when Mr. Bigglethorpe walked in, and received the sympathetic
+expressions of the company over his singed face and scorched hands. In
+spite of these, the sufferer had been up early fishing, just after the
+rain. Fortunately, he continued, there was no cleared land about the
+lakes, hence there were very few grasshoppers washed in by the heavy
+downpour. Had there been, he wouldn't have got a fish. But he had got
+fish, a big string of them, in splendid condition. He had left some with
+his kind entertainers, the Richards, but had plenty remaining, which he
+had left in the kitchen in care of the young woman with the
+unpronounceable Scripture name. "Now," said the fisherman, "a nime is a
+very important thing to a man or a woman. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>Why do people give their
+children such awful names? Bigglethorpe is Dinish, they say, but Felix
+Isidore is as Latin as can be. They called me 'fib' at school."</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis the hoighth av impartance to have a good name, say Oi," added Mr.
+Terry. "Moy fayther, glory be to his sowl, put a shaint's name an me,
+an' I put her own mother's name, the Howly Vargin rist her, on Honoria
+here. 'An', savin' all yer prisinces, there's no foiner Scripcher name
+than John; how's that, Squoire?"</p>
+
+<p>"It suits me well enough, grandfather," replied Carruthers. The Captain
+was feeling uneasy. He didn't want Ezekiel to come out, so he asked Miss
+Du Plessis how her young man was. Such a question would have either
+roused Miss Carmichael to indignation or have overwhelmed her with
+confusion, but Miss Du Plessis, calm and unruffled, replied: "I suppose
+you mean Mr. Wilkinson, Captain Thomas. He has been very much shaken by
+his wound, but is doing remarkably well."</p>
+
+<p>"Fwhat's Mishter Wilkison's name, Miss Ceshile, iv it's a fair quishtyon
+to ax at yeez?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is Farquhar, is it not, Mr. Coristine?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Coristine said it was, and that it was his mother's maiden name. She
+was a Scotchwoman, he had heard, and a very lovely character. The
+colonel had just returned from his ministrations. "Did I heah you
+cohhectly, Mr. Cohistine, when I thought you said that ouah deah young
+wounded friend's mothah's name was Fahquhah, suh?"</p>
+
+<p>"You did, Colonel Morton."</p>
+
+<p>"And of Scottish pahentage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know if any of her relatives were engaged in the Civil Wahah,
+our civil wahah?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe her brother Roderic ran the blockade, and fought for the
+South, where he fell, in a cavalry regiment."</p>
+
+<p>"Be pleased, suh, to say that again. Rodehic Fahquhah, do you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"His full name, I have seen it among Wilkinson's papers, was Roderic
+Macdonald Farquhar."</p>
+
+<p>"Tehesa, my deah," said the colonel, his voice and manner full of
+emotion, as he turned towards his sister-in-law, "you have heard me
+mention my bosom friend, Captain Fahquhah?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>"Yes, indeed, many times," replied the lady addressed.</p>
+
+<p>"And ouah deah boy upstairs, the pehsehveh of my pooah life, is his
+nephew, his sistah's son. I was suah there was something drawing me to
+him. I shall make that brave boy my heih, my pooah deah comhade
+Fahquhah's nephew. What a fohtunate discovehy. Kindly excuse me, madam,
+and you my deah ladies, and you Squiah; I must go and tell my deah boy."
+So the colonel bowed to Mrs. Carruthers, and went out, with his
+handkerchief up to his face.</p>
+
+<p>After the colonel left the table, the Captain looked over at his niece,
+saying: "Too late, Marjorie, my lass, too late! Didn't play your cards
+right, so you're cut out. Shifted his sheet anchor to the t'other bow,
+Marjorie."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Carmichael was annoyed with good reason, and, in order to put a
+stop to such uncalled for and vulgar remarks, said, playfully, but with
+a spice of malice: "Take care, Uncle Thomas, or, as that funny
+theological student said to the people who were talking in church, 'I'll
+call out your name before the haill congregation.'" This terrible threat
+caused Ezekiel to subside, and carry on a less personal conversation
+with Miss Du Plessis. Then Mr. Terry came to the fore again.</p>
+
+<p>"My little grandchilders' coushin, Mishter Coristine, do be sayin' yer
+name is Eujane, an' that's Frinch, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the lawyer; "my mother was of Huguenot descent, and her
+name was Du Moulin. Some say that the Irish Mullens were once Du
+Moulins. That I don't know, but I'm not like the man-servant who applied
+for a situation, saying: 'Me name is Murphy, sorr, but me family came
+from France.' Coristine, I think, is good Irish."</p>
+
+<p>The name craze spread over the whole table. Miss Halbert thought Basil a
+lovely name. It was Greek, wasn't it, and meant a king? Mr. Perrowne
+thought that the sweetest name in the world was Frances or Fanny. Mr.
+Errol affected Marjorie, and Mrs. Carmichael knew nothing superior to
+Hugh.</p>
+
+<p>"What made you so savage with the Captain for coupling your name with
+Wilks?" asked the lawyer in an undertone.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>"Because he is the last man in the world I should want my name to be
+coupled with."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but that's hard on Wilks; he's a glorious fellow when you get to
+know his little ways."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to know Mr. Wilkinson's little ways. I am sorry for his
+wound, but otherwise I have not the remotest sympathy with him. He
+strikes me as a selfish, conceited man."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a kinder soul breathing, Miss Carmichael."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, there is."</p>
+
+<p>"Who, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Carmichael, you make me the proudest man in the world, but I'm not
+fit to black Wilks' boots."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will not be so rude as to say I think you are. But, never talk
+that way to me again, if you want me to like you. I will not have you
+demeaning yourself, even in speech, before Cecile's friend. Now,
+remember, not a word!"</p>
+
+<p>The test was a severe one between loyalty to his old friend and devoted
+obedience to the girl he loved. As all the memories of past friendship
+came before him, he was inclined to be obdurate. Then, he looked at the
+golden hair which had brushed his awhile ago, and, as the head
+straightened up, at the pretty petulant lips and the blue eyes, lustrous
+with just a moist suspicion of vexation and feeling, and he wavered. He
+was lost, and was glad to be lost, as he whispered: "May I say it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; speak out, like a man, what you have to say."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bargain, Marjorie; never again!"</p>
+
+<p>Somehow his right hand met her left, and she did not snatch it away too
+quickly. Then he said: "You won't hate poor Wilks, my old friend,
+Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>She answered "No," and turned her face away to ask some trivial question
+of the Squire, who knew a good deal more than he saw any necessity for
+telling.</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen party still kept up its numbers. True, the absence of the
+constable and Maguffin left two serious blanks in the diversified talk
+of the table, but the place of these gentlemen was taken by no fewer
+than six persons, the three Richards and the three jurors, so that the
+dinner party numbered fifteen, of whom four were women. Old <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>whitehaired
+Mr. Newberry, with the large rosy face, smooth, save for two little
+white patches of side-whiskers, took possession of Matilda Nagle, and
+rejoiced in her kindly ways and simple talk. He was a Methodist, and a
+class-leader and local preacher, but a man against whom no tongue of
+scandal wagged, and whose genuine piety and kindness of heart were so
+manifest that nobody dreamt of holding up to ridicule his oft homely
+utterances in the pulpit. If he could do good to the poor demented woman
+and her afflicted boy, he would, and he knew that his little
+quaker-bonneted wife would second him in such an effort. So he tried to
+gain her confidence and the boy's, and, after a while, found that
+Matilda would like to help Mrs. Newberry in her household duties, and
+have Monty learn useful work on the farm. When informed by the fatherly
+juror, in answer to her own questions, that she would not be expected to
+hurt a fly, and would be allowed to go to church, read her Bible and
+take care of her boy, she expressed her readiness to go away with him at
+once. Mr. Newberry felt a few qualms of conscience in connection with
+fly killing, but, having made an express stipulation that mosquitos and
+black flies should not be included in the bond, he became easier in
+mind, and said that, with Mrs. Carruthers and the Squire's permission,
+he would drive her home in the afternoon. Mr. Johnson and the elder
+Richards discussed local politics, and the tragedy calling for the
+inquest; but Mr. Pawkins attached himself to the boys, and consequently
+to the girls. This gentleman had brought his six feet of bone and
+muscle, topped with a humorous face, from which depended a Lincoln
+beard, from the States, and was now, for many years, as he said, "a
+nettrelized citizen of Kennidy." This disappointment at the absence of
+the constable was something pitiful, he did so want "to yank and rile
+the old Britisher." Still, that was not going to deprive him of his
+innocent amusement. He looked around the company and sized it up,
+deciding that he would leave the old folks alone, and mercifully add to
+them the crazy people; this still left him a constituency of nine, with
+large possibilities for fun.</p>
+
+<p>"Rufus," remarked Mr. Pawkins, "I seen your gal, Christy Hislop, along
+o' that spry sot up coon, Barney <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>Sullivan, daown at the mill. He's a
+cuttin' you aout for sutten, yes sirree, you see if he ain't."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the use of your nonsense, Mr Pawkins? Barney went home along o'
+fayther and old man Hislop, and I guess he turned in to say we was all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"If Andrew knowed you'd called him old man Hislop, he'd fire you aout o'
+the back door mighty suddent. When I see a spry, set up, young feller
+and a likely heifer of a gal a saunterin' through the bush, sort o'
+poetical like, daown to the mill, it don't take me two shakes to know
+that suthin's up. You're a poor, rejected, cast off, cut aout strip o'
+factory cotton."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Mr. Pawkins?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean overalls, and it's all over with you, Rufus." Having planted
+this well-meant thorn in the breast of the younger Hill, and excited the
+commiseration of his sisters, the lover of innocent amusement turned to
+Ben, and asked that gentleman, whose attentions to Serlizer were most
+open and above board, "sence when he got another gal?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toner turned angrily, and asked what Mr. Pawkins was "a givin' him."</p>
+
+<p>"I never see Bridget naow but she's a cryin' and rubbin' her eyes most
+aout with her cuffs," said the cheerful Pawkins; "she allaowed to me
+you'd the nighest thing to said the priest was ony waitin' for the word
+to splice; and here you air, you biggermus delooder, settin' along o'
+Newcome's gal as if you'd got a mortgage on her. Arter that, the sight
+ain't to be sawed that'll make me ashamed o' my feller-creeters, no
+sirree, boss, hull team to boot, and a big dog under the waggin!" Mr.
+Pawkins sniffed vehemently, and Ben and his affianced bride blushed and
+drew apart.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so, Ben?" asked Sarah Eliza in a half whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"S'haylp me, Serlizer," replied the injured Toner in a similar voice,
+"that there Pawkins is the cussidest, lyinest old puke of a
+trouble-makin' Yankee as aiver come to Cannidy."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you engaged to Biddy Sullivan, Ben?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I tell you, naiver said a word to Barney's sister I wouldn't say to
+any gal."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>"Then, what did Barney come here lookin' for you for?"</p>
+
+<p>"So did the tavern keeper and the store keeper, 'cause mother axed 'em,
+I suppose; you don't think they want me to marry their wives, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wives an' darters is different things, Ben. Ef I'd thought you had been
+havin' goins on with Biddy, I'd flog the pair of you."</p>
+
+<p>"S'haylp me, Serlizer, it ain't so. Ef it was, you could whayull me till
+I was stripy as a chipmunk."</p>
+
+<p>"Talkin' abaout whalins," remarked the mischief-maker, who kept one ear
+open, "Miss Newcome's paa is jest a waitin' to git up and git araound,
+to give somebody, as ain't fer off'n this table, the blamedest,
+kerfoundedest lammin' as ever he knowed. He wants his gal home right
+straight for to nuss him, so's he kin git araound smart with that
+rawhide that's singein' its ends off in the oven."</p>
+
+<p>"What's dad got agin you, Ben?" enquired Miss Newcome.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh nawthin'; it's only that Pawkins' double-treed, snaffle-bitted,
+collar-bladed jaw." Mr. Pawkins smiled, but Ben and Serlizer were more
+uncomfortable than Rufus and his sisters.</p>
+
+<p>The naturalized Canadian turned his attention else where. "I'm kinder
+amazed," he remarked, eyeing first Sylvanus and then Timotheus, "to see
+you two a settin' here, as cam as if you never done nothin' to be sorry
+for. I s'pose you know, if you don't you had orter, that there's a
+war'nt aout agin the two Pilgrims for stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow
+tavern, or ho-tel, as Davis calls his haouse. I calclate the constable
+'ll be back with that war'nt afore night. I'd make myself skeerce if I
+was in your shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"O Sylvanus!" ejaculated Tryphosa.</p>
+
+<p>"O Timotheus!" added Tryphosa.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lie!" cried Rufus; "it's a mill dam, boom jam, coffer-dam lie,
+and I won't believe a word of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Fact all the same," said Mr. Pawkins, calmly, "they air guilty, the two
+on 'em, of stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow ho-tel."</p>
+
+<p>"What did they steal out?" asked the Richards boys.</p>
+
+<p>"Clothes, I guess, boots, some money, books, I don't know all what, and
+it don't consarn me any; but them <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>boys had best look spry and git aout
+o' this." With these words, the gentleman of American extraction
+finished his last piece of pie.</p>
+
+<p>Sylvanus rose cheerfully. He was so radiant over it that Tryphena
+thought him really handsome. He whispered to Rufus and to Ben; then
+remarked to Timotheus that he had perhaps better remain, in case the
+Squire should send for him. Next, he turned to Mr. Pawkins, and said: "A
+man mought as well be hung fer a sheep as fer a lamb, Mr. Pawkins, and
+sence they's a warn't out to 'raist me and Timotheus, we ain't a goin'
+to put the law to no more trouble 'bout a new one. Ef you'll come
+outside, I'll show you some o' them things we stoled out'n the
+Peskiwanchow tav." So Sylvanus took the accuser of the brethren by one
+arm, and Rufus linked his lovingly in the other, while Ben, with a
+glance of intelligence at Serlizer, and another at his top boots,
+followed. Mr. Pawkins, confident in his smartness and in the ignorance
+of the simple-minded Canucks, went quietly with the courteous criminal
+and his cut-out friend, till, passing the stables, they led him through
+a broad gate into the meadow. Then he hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"The stoled things, leastways some on 'em, 'll be at the foot o' this
+yere slope soon's we will; so hurry, old man!" said Sylvanus. Mr.
+Pawkins demurred. "Look here, boys," he said, "a joke's a joke, ain't
+it? D'ye see, you did, the pair on you, steal aout of the hotel. I
+didn't go to say you took anythin' as didn't belong to you. I reckon
+your brother had clothes, and money, and books thar, and so, you and him
+took 'em aout. Lem me go, boys!"</p>
+
+<p>Sylvanus and Rufus were obdurate. "Boost him, Ben," cried the former:
+"we ain't no time ter spend foolin' with the likes o' him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Toner raised his boot and said, "One fer Serlizer!" which made the
+joker proceed. He had several other ones, before he was run down to the
+creek&mdash;for Timotheus and Tryphena, and Tryphosa, and Christie Hislop,
+and Barney and Biddy Sullivan, and old man Newcome. Ben's boot did
+capital service. With difficulty the executioners found a hole in the
+creek about two and a-half feet deep, in which, at full length and with
+great gravity, they deposited the exile from the States. Then, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>they
+guessed the Squire, or the Captain, or somebody, would be wanting them,
+and skipped lightly back to the house. They knew Mr. Pawkins would
+follow, since he was the last man in the settlement to miss his juror's
+fee of one dollar. After their return, there was a good deal of
+merriment in the kitchen, and the two Richards boys roundly upbraided
+the elder Pilgrim for depriving them of a share in the fun. "He baygged
+an' prayed for massy," said Mr. Toner, with a grim smile, "but we was
+the most onmassifullest craowd you ever see."</p>
+
+<p>Timotheus, still in Sunday garb, took his work-a-day suit, now quite
+dry, and went to meet Mr. Pawkins. Introducing him to the stable, he
+soon had that gentleman relieved of his wet toggery, when voices were
+heard without. It was the colonel, bringing his sister-in-law to see his
+horse, as a sort of relief to the strain on his feelings, consequent
+upon his interview with Wilkinson. Mr. Pawkins had only got Timotheus'
+flannel shirt on, when the stable door opened. "Shin up that ladder into
+the loft, Mr. Pawkins," cried the benevolent Pilgrim, and the spectacle
+of a pair of disappearing shanks greeted the visitors on their entrance.
+Timotheus had escaped into the coach-house, but all the clothes, wet and
+dry, save the shirt, lay over the sides of an empty stall. Immediately
+the colonel perceived the vanishing heels of the Yankee, he interposed
+his person between them and Mrs. Du Plessis. "My deah Tehesa," he said,
+hastily, "I think we had bettah retiah foh the pehsent, and visit the
+stables lateh in the day." Mrs. Du Plessis, however, once no mean judge
+of horseflesh, was scanning the good points of her brother-in-law's
+purchase, and seemed indisposed to withdraw. Soon a head and a pair of
+flannel shirted arms appeared, hanging over the loft trap, and a voice
+hailed the colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, mister, you ain't a goin' to bring no wimmen folks up this here
+ladder, be you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cehtainly not, suh!" answered the colonel, with emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"If it won't hurt you, I wisht you'd sling up them dry paants and things
+daown there."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel looked at the man, and then at the articles, with
+impatience. Then he got a pitchfork, on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>the prongs of which he
+collected the garments, one by one, and so handed them up to Mr.
+Pawkins, who was still minus necktie, socks and boots. Before, however,
+he was ready for these, the visitors had retired, leaving him to
+complete his toilet in private. Hearing steps again, he hurriedly picked
+up his wet clothes and re-ascended the ladder. The colonel had evidently
+asked Sylvanus to take the place of Maguffin about the two horses, for
+he was the newcomer. Now, Mr. Pawkins bore no malice, but, when jokes
+were going, he did not like to be left the chief victim. He had had some
+fun out of the boys; now he would have some more. The Yankee could mew
+to perfection. He began, and Sylvanus called the strange cat. It would
+not come, so he climbed the ladder after it, and had almost reached the
+top, when, with vicious cries, the animal flew at him, seized him by the
+back of the neck, and drew blood that he could feel trickling down his
+back. Tugging ineffectually at the beast, he ran out to the kitchen,
+calling upon everybody to take off that mad cat that was killing him.
+The cat was taken off, amid shrieks of laughter, and proved to be Mr.
+Pawkins' rolled up wet trousers and vest, the water from which was the
+blood imagined by Sylvanus. The owner of the garments entered
+immediately behind his victim, and from his banter the elder Pilgrim
+gladly escaped to resume his stable duties, feeling that he had been
+demeaned in the eyes of the laughing Tryphena.</p>
+
+<p>Timotheus and Ben were busy cleaning out the coach house, putting tables
+and seats into it, and generally preparing for the inquest. Mr. Bangs,
+at the coroner's request, empanelled the jury, consisting of the Squire,
+the captain, and the two clergymen, the three Richards, the three cited
+jurors, with old Styles from the post office, and Ben Toner. The charred
+masses of humanity, pervaded by a sickening smell of spirits, were taken
+from the waggon, and placed in rough board shells, decently covered over
+with white cloths. The woman called Flower was brought from the post
+office, and kept in custody, till she gave her evidence; and Bangs
+himself, with Messrs. Terry, Coristine, and Bigglethorpe, Sylvanus,
+Rufus, and Timotheus were cited as witnesses. Some evidence was also
+expected from Matilda and her son. When the coach house doors <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>were
+thrown open, all hilarity ceased&mdash;even the children seemed to realize
+that something very solemn was going on. A weight of trouble and danger
+was lifted off many hearts by the terrible tragedy, yet in no soul was
+there the least feeling of exultation. The fate of the victims was too
+awful, too sudden for anyone to feel aught but horror at the thought of
+it, and deep sorrow for one at least who had perished in his sins. The
+light-hearted lawyer took one look at the remains of him, whom, within
+the past few days, he had seen so often in the full enjoyment of life
+and health, and resolved that never again, in prose or verse, would he
+speak of the person, whose crimes and cunning had returned so avengingly
+upon his own head, as the Grinstun man. Mr. Pawkins joked no more, for,
+with all his playful untruthfulness, he had a feeling heart. The most
+unconcerned man outwardly was Mr. Bangs, and even he said that he would
+willingly have given a hundred dollars to see his prisoner safely in
+gaol with the chaplain, and afterwards decently hanged. The doctor was
+carefully carried out, and set in the presiding chair as coroner over
+the third inquest within two days.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Inquest and Consequences&mdash;Orther Lom&mdash;Coolness&mdash;Evening
+Service&mdash;Mr. Pawkins and the Constable&mdash;Two Songs&mdash;Marjorie, Mr.
+Biggles and the Crawfish&mdash;Coristine Falls Foul of Mr. Lamb&mdash;Mr.
+Lamb Falls Foul of the Whole Company&mdash;The Captain's Couplet&mdash;Miss
+Carmichael Feels it Her Duty to Comfort Mr. Lamb.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to relate the details of the inquest. By various
+marks, as well as by the testimony of the woman Flower and of Mr. Bangs
+and his party, the remains were identified as those of Rawdon and his
+wounded henchman Flower. Some of the jurymen wished to bring in a
+verdict of "Died from the visitation of God," but this the Squire, who
+was foreman, would not allow. He called it flat blasphemy; so it was
+altered to: "Died by the explosion of illicit spirits, through a fire
+kindled by the wife of the principal victim, Altamont Rawdon." Nobody
+demanded the arrest of Matilda; hence the Squire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>and the doctor did not
+feel called upon to issue a warrant for that purpose. The widowed and
+childless Mrs. Flower, for the so-called Harding was her son, claimed
+his body, and what remained of her husband's; and asked Mr. Perrowne to
+read the burial service over them in the little graveyard behind his
+humble church. Mr. Bangs, his work over, got the use of a waggon and the
+services of Ben Toner, to take his dead comrade's coffin to Collingwood.
+Nobody claimed the remains of Rawdon, till old Mr. Newberry came
+forward, and said he would take the shell in his waggon, with the woman
+and the boy, and give it Christian burial in the plot back of the
+Wesleyan church. "We can't tell," he said, "what passed between him and
+his Maker when he was struggling for life. Gie un the bainifit o' the
+doot." So, Ben and Serlizer rolled away with Bangs, and Nash's coffin;
+and Matilda and her son accompanied Rawdon's remains, in Mr. Newberry's
+waggon. At the same time, with the sad, grey-haired woman as chief
+mourner, and Mrs. Carmichael beside her, a funeral procession passed
+from Bridesdale to the post office, and thence to the English
+churchyard, where old Styles and Sylvanus dug the double grave, around
+which, in deep solemnity, stood the Captain and Mr. Terry, the minister
+and the lawyer, while Mr. Perrowne read the service, and two victims of
+Rawdon's crime and treachery were committed, earth to earth, dust to
+dust, and ashes to ashes. Immediately the grave was covered in, the
+doubly-bereaved woman slipped away, and was never again heard of. There
+appeared no evidence, far or near, that she had done away with herself;
+it was, therefore, concluded that she had a child or children elsewhere,
+and had gone to hide the rest of her wasted life with them. The two
+clergymen went their ways to their lodgings, and the Bridesdale party
+walked silently and sorrowfully home.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bigglethorpe wanted to go back with the Richards, so that he might
+have another morning's fishing; but Mrs. Carruthers thought he had
+better take Mr. Bangs' room, and nurse his eyes and other burned parts
+before going home. Marjorie and her young cousins dragged him off, after
+his green shade was put on, to the creek, and made him rig up rods and
+lines for them in the shape of light-trimmed willow boughs, to which
+pieces of thread <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>were attached with bent pins at the other ends.
+Fishing with these, baited with breadcrumbs, they secured quite a number
+of chub and dace, and made the valley musical with their laughter at
+each success or mishap, by the time the Bridesdale people returned from
+the impromptu funeral. The Squire was busy in his office, looking over
+Nash's legacy, preparatory to sending it to Bangs, who had begged him to
+forward the documents without delay. The only thing of note he found
+was, that Rawdon did not bank his money; he had no bank account
+anywhere. Where did he stow away the fortune he must have made? There
+was a note of the casual conversation of an assumed miser with Rawdon,
+in which Rawdon was represented as saying: "Dry sandy soil, well drained
+with two slopes, under a rain-shed, will keep millions in a cigar box."
+That the Squire noted; then he sealed up the rest of the papers, and
+addressed them to Hickey Bangs, Esq., D.I.R., ready for the post in the
+morning. The colonel, Mrs. and Miss Du Plessis were all in Wilkinson's
+room. The colonel was commenting upon the four poor souls that had gone
+before God's judgment seat, three of them, probably, with murder on
+their hands; and thanked God that his boy had died in the war, brave and
+pure and good, with no stain on his young life. "When my boy was killed,
+my deah Fahquhah, I felt like the Electoh Palatine of the Rhine, when
+young Duke Christopheh, his son, fell at Mookerheyde, accohding to
+Motley: he said ''Twas bettah thus than to have passed his time in
+idleness, which is the devil's pillow.' Suh, I honouh the Electoh
+Palatine foh that. What melancholy ghaves these pooah creatuhes fill."
+Then Mrs. Du Plessis wept, mildly, and Miss Du Plessis, and they all had
+to wipe a few tears out of Wilkinson's eyes. Had Coristine been there,
+he would have been scandalized. The lawyer's lady-love was engaged in
+very prosaic work in the sewing-room, with her aunt, running a
+sewing-machine to make much-needed clothes for the unhappy woman, whom
+the coroner's jury, by a euphemism, called Rawdon's wife. The two had
+seen her off in charge of good old Mr. Newberry, and had promised to
+send her the work, which she herself had begun; and, now, they were
+toiling with all their might to redeem the promise, as early as
+possible, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>spite of the tears that would come also into their foolish
+eyes, blurring their vision and damping their material. Coristine, who
+longed for a sight of fresh young life after the vision of death, did
+not know what kept that young life within, and, like an unreasonable
+man, was inclined to be angry. He was overwrought, poor fellow,
+sleepless and tired, and emotionally excited, and, therefore, ready for
+any folly under the sun.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Carmichael had entered the house, with the Captain and Mr. Terry.
+The lawyer remained alone in the garden, waiting for something to turn
+up. Something did turn up in the shape of the stage on its way to the
+post office, which dropped its only passenger at the Bridesdale gate.
+The passenger was a young fellow of about twenty-five, rather over than
+under middle height, of good figure, and becomingly dressed. His
+features were good enough, but lacked individuality, as did his combined
+moustache and side whiskers, that formed a sort of imperfect W across
+his face. He held his nose well up in the air, spoke what, in his
+ignorance, he fondly imagined to be aristocratic English, and carried,
+with an apologetic and depressed air, a small Gladstone bag. The
+newcomer dusted his trouser legs with a cane utterly useless for walking
+purposes; then, adjusting his eye-glass, he elevated it towards the
+solitary occupant of the garden, as he entered the gate. "Haw, you sir,"
+he called out to him; "is this, haw, Mr. Corrothers' plaice?" Coristine
+was nettled at the style of address, but commanded himself to reply as
+briefly as possible that it was. "Miss Morjorie Cormichael stoying
+here?" continued the stage passenger. "Miss Carmichael is here,"
+responded the lawyer. "Haw, I thort so. Just you run in now, will you,
+ond tell Miss Morjorie thot on old friend wonts to speak to her." The
+lawyer was getting furious, in spite of himself. Taking his pipe out of
+his pocket, and proceeding to fill it with all apparent deliberation and
+calmness, he replied: "So far as I have the honour of Miss Carmichael's
+acquaintance, she is not in the habit of receiving visitors out of
+doors. There are both bell and knocker on the door before you, which
+servants will probably answer; but, if that door doesn't suit you, you
+will probably find others at the back." With this ungracious speech, he
+turned on his heel, lit his pipe, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>and puffed vigorously along the path
+towards the meadow gate. Then, he strolled down the hill and met the
+returning fishers, the two youngest in Mr. Bigglethorpe's arms, and with
+their arms about his neck. Coristine indulged in a kissing bee with the
+rest of them, so as to assure himself that he was the true old friend,
+the genuine Codlin, while the other man was Short. "Marjorie," he said,
+as that fishing young lady clung to him, "there's a duffer of a dude,
+with an eye-glass, up at the house, who says he's an old friend of your
+cousin Marjorie; do you know any old friend of hers?" Marjorie stopped
+to think, and, after a little pause, said: "It can't be Huggins." "Who
+is Huggins, Marjorie?" asked the lawyer. "He's the caretaker of
+Marjorie's school."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, this dude is too young and gorgeous for a caretaker."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, I think I know; its Orther Lom."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Orther Lom?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; only Auntie Marjorie said, she wouldn't be astonished if
+Orther Lom was to come and find cousin Marjorie out, even away up here.
+It must be Orther Lom."</p>
+
+<p>This was all the information the lawyer could obtain; so he and Marjorie
+joined Mr. Bigglethorpe and the other anglers, and talked about making
+domestic sardines and smelts of the chub and dace they had caught.</p>
+
+<p>The summons to tea greeted the wanderers before they had had time to
+cleanse their hands of fishy odours; consequently Mr. Bigglethorpe and
+the lawyer were a minute or two late. They found the man of the
+eye-glass seated on one side of Miss Carmichael, and, as she beckoned
+the fisherman to the other, she introduced her proteg&eacute; to him as Mr.
+Arthur Lamb, a very old friend. Miss Halbert made way for Coristine
+beside her, and he congratulated her on the doctor's reappearance at the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Coristine," said Miss Carmichael, and the lawyer, with a somewhat
+worn society face, looked across.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lamb, who is an old friend of ours, tells me he met you in the
+garden, but you did not introduce yourself. Let me introduce you, Mr.
+Lamb, Mr. Coristine."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine gave the merest nod of recognition, and went on talking to
+Miss Halbert. He thought Perrowne was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>right; there was some
+satisfaction conversing with a girl like that, a girl with no nonsense
+about her. The minister's gloves had got fishy, handling Marjorie's
+catch, so he had taken them off when preparing himself for tea, and had
+left them in his room. Miss Carmichael looked at the burnt hands, and
+felt disposed to scold him, but did not dare. Perhaps, he had taken the
+gloves off intentionally. She wished that ring of his were not on her
+finger. Between Mr. Lamb and Miss Halbert, she felt very uncomfortable,
+and knew that Eugene, no, Mr. Coristine, was behaving abominably. The
+colonel and his belongings had been so much about the wounded dominie
+all afternoon, that Mrs. Carruthers insisted on her right, as a hostess,
+to minister to him, while her sister-in law presided in her stead.
+Coristine at once rose to help the hostess, and regained his spirits,
+while rallying his old friend over the many attentions he was receiving
+at the hands of the fair sex. He could hardly believe his eyes and ears
+when he beheld the meek and helpless creature who had once been the
+redoubtable Wilkinson. How had the mighty fallen! "We'll put you in a
+glass case, Wilks, like the old gray horse that was jined to the
+Methodis, and kicked so high they put him in the museum."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry," interrupted the still correct dominie, "I have no sympathy with
+that rude song; but if you will quote it, please adhere to the original.
+It was 'my old aunt Sal that was joined to the Methodists,' not the old
+gray horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Wilks, thanks, I'll try and remember. Any more toast or jam,
+old boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have a superabundance of good things."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, see you again, sometime when I have a chance. You're pretty well
+guarded you know. Au revoir."</p>
+
+<p>Coristine followed Mrs. Carruthers down stairs; while the dominie
+sighed, and said: "It seems as if nothing will give that boy stability
+of character and staidness of demeanour."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is going to service to-night?" asked the Squire. Mrs. Carruthers
+could not, because of the children; the doctor was unfit to walk; and
+the colonel and Mrs. Du Plessis had so much to say to each other over
+their dear boy that they desired to be excused. Mr. Bigglethorpe <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>said
+he was a church-going man, but hardly cared to air his green shade in
+public; whereupon Mr. Terry volunteered to remain and smoke a pipe with
+him. Mrs. Carmichael and her daughter signified their intention of
+accompanying the Squire, and Mr. Lamb at once asked permission to join
+them. Miss Halbert stated that she would like to go to week service, if
+anybody else was going. Of course, the lawyer offered his escort, and
+Miss Du Plessis and the Captain begged to be included. Thus, four of the
+party set out for Mr. Perrowne's mid-week service, and four to Mr.
+Errol's prayer meeting. Mr. Lamb did not get much out of Miss Carmichael
+on the way, and Miss Halbert thought her escort unusually absent-minded.
+Coming home, Mr. Perrowne deprived Coristine of his fair charge, and Mr.
+Errol relieved the Squire of his sister. Accordingly, the freed
+cavaliers drew together and conversed upon the events of the day. Good
+Mr. Carruthers was startled, when the lawyer expressed his intention of
+leaving in the morning, as he could be of no further use, and felt he
+had already trespassed too long upon his generous hospitality.</p>
+
+<p>"Noo, Coristine," he said, falling into his doric, "what ails ye, man,
+at the lassie?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Squire, I have none but the kindest and most grateful thoughts
+towards all the ladies."</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, weel, it's no for me to be spierin', but ye maun na gang awa
+frae's on accoont o' yon daft haveral o' a Lamb."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is this Mr. Lamb?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ken naething aboot him, foreby that he's a moothin' cratur frae the
+Croon Lans Depairtment, wi' no owre muckle brains."</p>
+
+<p>Dropping the subject, the Squire proceeded to tell what he had found in
+Nash's papers, and proposed an expedition, ostensibly for fishing, in
+which the two of them, providing themselves with tools, should prospect
+for the hidden treasure of the former master of the Select Encampment.
+As it was unlikely that any claimant for Rawdon's property would appear,
+all that they found would belong to Matilda and her boy, unless it were
+judged right to indemnify Miss Du Plessis for any injury done to her
+land. There was no reason for the lawyer's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>departure. He had another
+week of leave, which he did not know how to put in. True, he could not
+remain until Wilkinson was perfectly well, but it would seem heartless
+to desert him so soon after he had received his wound. He had thought of
+writing the Squire about Miss Carmichael's position as her deceased
+father's next of kin, but it would save trouble to talk it over. All
+things considered, Mr. Carruthers did not find it a difficult task to
+make his pleasant new acquaintance reconsider his decision and commit
+himself to an indefinite prolongation of Bridesdale hospitality. Yet, as
+he entered the gate, he almost repented his weakness, on hearing the
+eye-glassed Lamb say: "What ohfully jawlly times we hod, Morjorie, when
+you and I were sweethorts." He wished that he could recall some
+frightfully injurious and profane expression in a foreign tongue, with
+which to anathematize the wretched, familiar, conceited Crown Lands
+Department cad. While the Squire joined the doctor and the Captain in
+the office, he went over to a corner in which the pipes of the veteran
+and Mr. Bigglethorpe were still glowing, and, lighting his own, listened
+to their military and piscatorial yarns.</p>
+
+<p>Rufus had remained at Bridesdale, at the urgent entreaty of his sisters
+and the Pilgrims; but the sight of the people going to prayer meeting
+smote his conscience. He knew his father and mother would be at meetin'
+in their own church, and that there would be a good deal of work to do.
+Besides he hadn't brought home the team from Mr. Hislop's since the bee.
+Nothing would stop him, therefore; he shouldered his gun, and, bidding
+all good bye, started for home. Nobody was left in the kitchen but the
+two maids and the two Pilgrims. Yes, there was one more, namely Mr.
+Pawkins, who was afeard his duds warn't dry. The nettrelized citizen of
+Kennidy was telling stories, that kept the company in peals and roars of
+laughter, about an applicant for a place in a paper mill, who was set to
+chewing a blue blanket into pulp, who was given a bottle of vinegar to
+sharpen his teeth with, and who was ignominiously expelled from the
+premises because he didn't "chaw it dry"; about a bunting billy goat;
+and a powerful team of oxen, that got beyond the control of their
+barn-moving driver, and planted the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>barn on the top of an almost
+inaccessible hill. Mr. Pawkins complimented the young women, and drew
+wonderful depths of knowledge out of Sylvanus and Timotheus. But, when a
+vehicle rolled into the stable yard that brought the constable and
+Maguffin to join the party, the quondam American citizen waxed jubilant,
+and beheld endless possibilities of amusement. "Good evenin',
+consterble," said Mr. Pawkins, blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, sir, at your service," replied the pensioner.</p>
+
+<p>"Pawkins is my naum, consterble, kyind er Scotch, I reckin. They say
+pawky means sorter cute an' cunnin', like in Scotch. Never was thar
+myself, to speak on, but hev seed 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"The Scotch make good soldiers," said Mr Rigby.</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas; I reckin the oatmeal sorter stiffens 'em up."</p>
+
+<p>"There are military authorities who assert that the Scotch are the only
+troops that can reform under fire; but that is a mistake. In that
+respect, sir, the Guards are equal to any other Household Troops."</p>
+
+<p>"Fer haousehold trooeps and reformin' under fire, you had orter ha seen
+aour fellers at Bull Run. When the shooten' begun, all the Bowery plug
+uglies, bred to cussin' and drinkin' and wuss, dropped ther guns and
+fell on ther knees a reformin'; then, when they faound they couldn't
+reform so suddent, they up on ther two feet and started fer the
+haoushold. Eurrup ain't got nuthin' ter ekal aour haousehold trooeps."</p>
+
+<p>"You mistake me, Mr. Pawkins; the Household Troops in infantry are the
+Guards and Highlanders, whose special duty it is to guard the royal
+household."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it big?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is what big, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the household! How many storeys is ther to it besides the attic
+and basement? Hev it got a mansard?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Household, sir, dwells in royal palaces of great dimensions. It is
+the royal family and their attendants over whom the Guards watch."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the Black Guards, ain't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir; you are thinking of the Black Watch, a name of the
+Forty-second Highlanders."</p>
+
+<p>"D'ye hear that, you Sambo? You orter go and git <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>draafted inter that
+corpse, and go araound breakin' the wimmin's hyearts in a cullud flannel
+petticut."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no negroes, sir, in the Black Watch," interposed the
+corporal.</p>
+
+<p>"See heah, yoh Yankee Canajiun," answered Mr. Maguffin with feeling,
+"fo' de law ob this yeah kintry I'se jess es good a man as yoh is. So
+yoh jess keep yoh Samboo in yoh mouf atter this. Specks yoh'se got a
+mighty low down name yohsef if t'was ony knowed by respeckable pussons."</p>
+
+<p>"My name, Mr. Julius Sneezer Disgustus Quackenboss, my name is Pawkins,
+great grandson of Hercules Leonidas Pawkins, as was briggidier ginral
+and aijicamp to George Washington, when he drummed the haousehold
+trooeps, and the hull o' the derned British army, out'n Noo Yohk to the
+toon o' 'Yankee Doodle.'"</p>
+
+<p>The constable turned pale, shivered all over, and swayed about in his
+chair, almost frightening the mendacious Yankee by the sight of the
+mischief his words had wrought. Tryphena, however, quickly filled the
+shocked corporal a hot cup of tea, and mutely pressed him to drink it.
+He took off the tea at a gulp, set down the cup with a steady hand, and,
+looking Mr. Pawkins in the face, said: "I regret, sir, to have to say
+the word; but, sir, you are a liar."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true as death, consterble," remarked Timotheus, who did not
+share the hostile feelings of Sylvanus towards Corporal Rigby; "true as
+death, and the boys, they ducked him in the crick for't, but they's no
+washin' the lies out'n his jaws."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Pawkins looked as fierce as it was possible for a man with a merry
+twinkle in his eyes to look, and roared, "Consterble, did you mean that,
+or did you only say it fer fun like?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr Rigby, glaring defiance, answered, "I meant it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh waall," responded the Yankee Canadian, mildly, "that's all right;
+because I want you to know that I don't allaow folks to joke with me
+that way. If you meant it, that's a different thing."</p>
+
+<p>"What your general character may be, I do not know. As for your remarks
+on the British army, they are lies."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess, consterble, you ain't up in the histry of the United States of
+Ameriky, or you'd know as your Ginral <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>Clinton was drummed aout o' Noo
+Yohk to the toon o' 'Yankee Doodle.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I know, sir, that a mob of Hanoverians and Hessians, whom the Americans
+could not drive out, evacuated New York, in consequence of a treaty of
+peace. If your general, as you call him, Washington, had the bad taste
+to play his ugly tune after them, it was just what might be expected
+from such a quarter."</p>
+
+<p>"My history," said Tryphosa, "says that the American army was driven out
+of Canada by a few regulars and some French-Canadians at the same time."</p>
+
+<p>"Brayvo, Phosy!" cried Timotheus.</p>
+
+<p>"I assert now, as I have asserted before," continued Corporal Rigby,
+"that the British army never has been defeated, and never can be
+defeated. I belong to the British army, and know whereof I speak."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you in the American war, Mr. Pawkins?" asked Tryphena.</p>
+
+<p>"Yaas, I was thar, like the consterble, in the haouse hold trooeps. When
+they come araound a draaftin', I skit aout to Kennidy. I've only got one
+thing agin the war, and that is makin' every common nigger so sassy he
+thinks he's the ekal of a white man. Soon's I think of that, the war
+makes me sick."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the boast of our Empire," remarked the pensioner, grandly, "that
+wherever its flag floats, the slave is free."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a derned pity," said Mr. Pawkins; "that there boy, Julius Sneezer
+Disgustus Quackenboss, ud be wuth heaps more'n he is, if his boss jest
+had the right to lick him straight along."</p>
+
+<p>"Who," shrieked Maguffin; "who'se yar Squackenbawsin' an' gibbin' nigger
+lip ter? My name's Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin, an' what's yourn?
+Pawkins! Oh massy! Pawkins, nex' thing ter punkins. I cud get er punkin,
+an' cut a hole er two in it an' make a bettah face nor yourn, Mistah
+Pawkins, candaberus, lantun jaw, down east, Yankee white tresh. What you
+doin' roun' this house, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>"Arrah, hush now, childher!" said Mr. Terry, entering from the hall.
+"The aivenin's the time to make up aall dishputes, an' quoiet aal yer
+angry faylins afore yeez say yer worruds an' go to shlape, wid the howly
+angels gyardin' yeez. Good aivenin', Corporal."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>"Good evening, Sergeant-Major."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Terry," asked Tryphosa, timidly, "will you play a game at Cities,
+Rivers and Mountains? We were waiting for even numbers to begin." The
+veteran, who knew the game, agreed. Gallantly, the gentlemen asked the
+two ladies to choose sides, whereupon Tryphena selected Mr. Pawkins,
+Maguffin and Sylvanus; Mr. Terry, the constable, and Timotheus fell to
+Tryphosa. Peace once more reigned, save when the great-grandson of the
+brigadier general was detected in looking over his opponent's cards and
+otherwise acting illegally.</p>
+
+<p>Bigglethorpe and the lawyer entered the house, not far from bed time.
+The company was in the drawing-room, and a lady was at the piano
+singing, and playing her own accompaniment, while Mr. Lamb was standing
+beside her, pretending to turn over the music, of which he had as little
+knowledge as the animal whose name he bore. The song was that beautiful
+one of Burns,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>O wert thou in the cauld blast</div>
+<div>On yonder lea, on yonder lea,</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>and, though a gentleman's song, it was rendered with exquisite taste and
+feeling. The singer looked up appealingly at Mr. Lamb twice, solely to
+invoke his aid in turning the music leaf. But, to Coristine's jealous
+soul, it was a glance of tenderness and mutual understanding. Four long
+days he had known her, and she had never sung for him; and now, just as
+soon as the Crown Land idiot comes along, she must favour him with her
+very best. He would not be rude, and talk while the singing was going
+on, but he would let Lamb do all the thanking; he wasn't going shares
+with that affected dude. The music ceased, and he turned to see whom he
+could talk to. Mrs. Carmichael and Miss Halbert were busy with their
+clerical adorers. The colonel and Mrs. Du Plessis had evidently bid
+their dear boy good night, for they were engaged in earnest
+conversation, in which he called her Ter&eacute;sa, and she called him Paul as
+often as colonel. Miss Du Plessis was turning over the leaves of an
+album. He went up to her, and asked if she would not favour the company
+with some music. "Instrumental or vocal, Mr. Coristine?" she asked. "Oh,
+vocal, if you please, Miss Du Plessis; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>do you sing, 'Shall I wasting in
+despair,' or anything of that kind?" Miss Du Plessis did not, but would
+like to hear Mr. Coristine sing it. He objected that he had no music,
+and was a poor accompanyist. Before the unhappy man knew where he was,
+Miss Du Plessis was by Miss Carmichael's side, begging her dear friend
+Marjorie to accompany Mr. Coristine. She agreed, for she knew the song,
+and the music was in the stand. Like a condemned criminal, Coristine was
+conducted to the piano; but the first few bars put vigour into him, and
+he sang the piece through with credit. He was compelled, of course, to
+return thanks for the excellent accompaniment, but this he did in a
+stiff formal way, as if the musician was an entire stranger. Then they
+had prayers, for the gentlemen had come in out of the office, and,
+afterwards, the clergymen went home. As the inmates of Bridesdale
+separated for the night, Miss Carmichael handed the lawyer his ring,
+saying that since his hands were fit to dispense with gloves, they must
+also be strong enough to bear its weight. He accepted the ring with a
+sigh, and silently retired to his chamber. Before turning in for the
+night, he looked in upon Wilkinson, whom he found awake. After enquiries
+as to his arm and general health, he said: "Wilks, my boy, congratulate
+me on being an ass; I've lost the finest woman in all the world by my
+own stupidity." His friend smiled at him, and answered: "Do not be
+down-hearted, Corry; I will speak to Ceci&mdash;Miss Du Plessis I mean, and
+she will arrange matters for you." The lawyer fervently exclaimed: "God
+bless you, Wilks!" and withdrew, not a little comforted. We cannot
+intrude into the apartment of the young ladies, but there was large
+comfort in their conversation for a person whose Christian name was
+Eugene. If he only had known it!</p>
+
+<p>By the constable, Ben Toner, and other messengers, Mr. Bigglethorpe had
+acquainted his somewhat tyrannical spouse that he was staying for a
+while at the Flanders lakes to enjoy the fishing. Mr. Rigby had brought
+from the store his best rods and lines and his fly-book. He was,
+therefore, up early on Thursday morning, lamenting that he was not at
+Richards, whence he could have visited the first lake and secured a mess
+of fish before breakfast. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>He was sorting out his tackle in the office,
+when Marjorie, an early riser, came in to see if Uncle John was there.
+When she found out the occupant, she said: "Come along, Mr. Biggles, and
+let us go fishing, it's so long before breakfast." Fishing children
+could do anything with Bigglethorpe; he would even help them to catch
+cat-fish and suckers. But he had an eye to business. "Marjorie," he
+asked, "do you think you could find me a pickle bottle, an empty one,
+you know?" She thought she could, and at once engaged 'Phosa and 'Phena
+in the search for one. A Crosse and Blackwell wide-mouthed bottle,
+bearing the label "mixed pickles," which really means gherkins, was
+borne triumphantly into the office. Mr. Bigglethorpe handled it
+affectionately, and said: "Put on your hat, Marjorie, and we'll go
+crawfish hunting." Without rod or line, the fisherman, holding the
+pickle bottle in his left hand, and taking Marjorie by the right, walked
+down to the creek. On its bank he sat down, and took off his shoes and
+socks, an example quickly and joyfully followed by his young companion.
+Then he splashed a little water on his head, and she did the same; after
+which they waded in the shallow brook, and turned up flat stones in its
+bed. Sometimes the crawfish lay quite still, when Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+getting his right hand, with extended thumb and forefinger, slily behind
+it, grasped the unsuspecting crustacean at the back of his great
+nippers, and landed him in the bottle filled with sparkling water.
+Sometimes a "craw," as Marjorie called them, darted away backward in a
+great hurry, and had to be looked for under another stone, and these
+were generally young active fellows, which, the fisherman said, made the
+best bait for bass. It was wild, exciting work, with a spice of danger
+in it from the chance of a nip from those terrible claws. Marjorie
+enjoyed it to the full. She laughed and shrieked, and clapped her hands
+over every new addition to the pickle bottle, and Mr. Biggles was every
+bit as enthusiastic as she was. Soon they were aware of a third figure
+on the scene. It was the sleepless lawyer. "Come in, Eugene," cried
+Marjorie; "take off your shoes and stockings, and help us to catch these
+lovely craws." He had to obey, and was soon as excited as the others
+over this novel kind of sport.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>Coristine looked up after securing his twelfth victim, and saw four
+figures sauntering down the hill. Three were young ladies in print
+morning gowns; the fourth was the ineffable dude, Lamb. At once he went
+back, and put himself into socks and boots, turning down his trouser
+legs, as if innocent of the childish amusement. "Haw," brayed Mr. Lamb,
+"is thot you, Cawrstine? Been poddling in the wotter, to remind yoursolf
+of the doys when you used to run round in your bare feet?" Outwardly
+calm, the lawyer advanced to meet the invaders. Bowing somewhat too
+ceremoniously to the three ladies, who looked delightfully fresh and
+cool in their morning toilets, he answered his interlocutor. "I am sure,
+Mr. Lamb, that it would afford Mr. Bigglethorpe and Marjorie additional
+satisfaction, to know that their wading after crawfish brought up
+memories of your barefooted youth. Unfortunately, I have no such
+blissful period to recall." Mr. Lamb blushed, and stammered some
+incoherencies, and Miss Carmichael, running past the lawyer towards
+Marjorie, whispered as she flitted before him, "you rude, unkind man!"
+This did not tend to make him more amiable. He snubbed the Crown Land
+gentleman at every turn, and, more than usually brilliant in talk,
+effectually kept his adversary out of conversation with the remaining
+ladies. "Look, Cecile!" said Miss Halbert; "Marjorie is actually joining
+the waders. "Mr. Lamb stroked his whisker-moustache and remarked: "Haw,
+you know, thot's nothing new for Morjorie; when we were childron
+together, we awften went poddling about in creeks for crowfish and
+minnows." Then he had the impertinence to stroll down to the brook, and
+rally the new addition to the crawfishing party. To Coristine the whole
+thing was gall and wormwood. The only satisfaction he had was, that Mr.
+Lamb could not summon courage enough to divest himself of shoes and
+stockings and take part in the sport personally. But what an
+insufferable ass he, Coristine, had been not to keep on wading, in view
+of such glorious company! What was the use of complaining: had he been
+there she would never have gone in, trust her for that! Wilkinson and he
+were right in their old compact: the female sex is a delusion and a
+snare. Thank heaven! there's the prayer gong, but will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>that staring,
+flat-footed, hawhawing, Civil Service idiot be looking on while she
+reattires herself! He had half a mind to descend and brain him on the
+spot, if he had any brains, so as to render impossible the woeful
+calamity. But the fates were merciful, sending Mr. Lamb up with Marjorie
+and Mr. Bigglethorpe. Now was the angry man's chance, and a rare one,
+but, like an angry man, he did not seize it. The other two ladies
+remarked to each other that it was not very polite of three gentlemen to
+allow a lady, the last of the party, to come up the hill alone. What did
+he care?</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast, Miss Carmichael sat between Messrs. Bigglethorpe and Lamb,
+and the lawyer between Miss Halbert and the veteran. "Who are going
+fishing to the lakes," asked the Squire, to which question the doctor
+replied, regretting his inability; and the colonel declined the
+invitation on account of his dear boy. Mr. Lamb intimated that he had
+business with Miss Du Plessis on Crown Land matters, as the department
+wished to get back into its possession the land owned by her. This was a
+bombshell in the camp. Miss Du Plessis declined to have any conference
+on the subject, referring the civil servant to her uncle, to Squire
+Carruthers, and to her solicitor, Mr. Coristine. The lawyer was disposed
+to be liberal in politics, although his friend Wilkinson was a strong
+Conservative; but the contemptible meanness of a Government department
+attempting to retire property deeded and paid for in order to gain a few
+hundred dollars or a new constituent, aroused his vehement indignation,
+and his determination to fight Lamb and his masters to the bitter end of
+the Privy Council.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lamb," said the colonel, "is yoar business with my niece
+complicated, or is it capable of being stated bhiefly?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can put it in a very few words, Colonel," replied the civil service
+official; "the deportment hos received on awffer for Miss Du Plessis'
+lond which it would be fawlly to refuse."</p>
+
+<p>"But," interposed the Squire, "the department has naething to dae wi'
+Miss Cecile's land: it's her ain, every fit o't."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know the deportment, Squire. It con <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>take bock lond of its
+own deed, especially wild lond, by the awffer of a reasonable equivolent
+or indemnity. It proposes to return the purchase money, with five per
+cent. interest to date, and the amount of municipal toxes attested by
+receipts. Thot is regorded os a fair odjustment, ond on Miss Du Plessis
+surrendering her deed to me, the deportment will settle the claim within
+twelve months, if press of business ollows."</p>
+
+<p>"Such abominable, thieving iniquity, on the pairt o' a Government
+ca'ain' itself leeberal, I never hard o' in aa my life," said the
+indignant Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say, Arthur," asked Mrs. Carmichael, "that your
+department can take away Cecile's property in that cavalier fashion, and
+without any regard to the rise in values?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ofraid so, Mrs. Cormichael."</p>
+
+<p>"What have you to say to that, Mr. Coristine, from a legal standpoint?"
+enquired Mrs. Carruthers.</p>
+
+<p>"A deed of land made by the Government, or by a private individual,
+conveys, when, as in this case, all provisions have been complied with,
+an inalienable title."</p>
+
+<p>"There is such a thing as expropriation," suggested Mr. Lamb, rather
+annoyed to find a lawyer there.</p>
+
+<p>"Expropriation is a municipal affair in cities and towns, or it may be
+national and provincial in the case of chartered railways or national
+parks, in all which cases remuneration is by arbitration, not by the
+will of any expropriating body."</p>
+
+<p>"The deportment may regord this as a provincial offair. Ot any rate, it
+hos octed in this way before with success."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that the department has induced people to surrender their rights
+for the sake of its popularity, but by wheedling, not by law or justice,
+and, generally, there has been some condition of payment, or something
+else, not complied with."</p>
+
+<p>"Thot's simple enough. A few lines in the bookkeeping awffice con
+involidate the deed."</p>
+
+<p>"One or two words, Mr. Lamb, and I have done; the quicker you answer,
+the sooner Miss Du Plessis' decision is reached. Do you represent the
+commissioner, the minister?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>"Well, not exoctly."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you sent by his deputy, the head of the department?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not the head exoctly."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the name of the man, for whom your friend wants to expropriate Miss
+Du Plessis' land, called Rawdon, Altamont Rawdon?"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you know thot? Ore you one of the deportment outriggers?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I have nothing to do with any kind of dirty work. You go back, and
+tell your man, first, that Rawdon is dead, and that in life he was a
+notorious criminal; second, that Miss Du Plessis' land has been
+devastated by the fire in which he perished; and, third, that if he, or
+you, or any other contemptible swindler, moves a finger in this
+direction, either above board or below, I'll have you up for foul
+conspiracy, and make the department only too happy to send you about
+your business to save its reputation before the country."</p>
+
+<p>As Ben Toner and his friends in the kitchen would have said, Mr. Lamb
+was paralyzed. While the lawyer had spoken with animation, there was
+something quite judicial in his manner. Miss Carmichael looked up at him
+from under her long lashes with an admiration it would have done him
+good to see, and a hum of approving remarks went all round the table.
+Then, in an evil moment, the young lady felt it her duty to comfort the
+heart of poor Orther Lom, whom everybody else regarded with something
+akin to contempt. She talked to him of old times, until the man's
+inflated English was forgotten, as well as his by no means reputable
+errand. The young man was quite incapable of any deep-laid scheme of
+wrong-doing, as he was of any high or generous impulse. He was a mere
+machine, educated up to a certain point, able to write a good hand, and
+express himself grammatically, but thinking more of his dress and his
+spurious English than of any learning or accomplishment, and the
+unreasoning tool of his official superiors. He had been checkmated by
+Coristine, and felt terribly disappointed at the failure of his mission;
+but the thought that he had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did
+not trouble him in the least. Yet, had he been offered a large bribe to
+commit robbery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>in the usual ways, he would have rejected the
+proposition with scorn. Miss Carmichael, knowing his character, was
+sorry for him, little thinking that his returning vivacity under her
+genial influence smote Coristine's heart, as the evidence of double
+disloyalty on the lady's part, to her friend, Miss Du Plessis, and to
+him. Tiring of her single-handed work, she turned to Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+saying: "You know Mr. Lamb, do you not!" The fisherman answered: "You
+were kind enough to introduce us last night, Miss Carmichael, but you
+will, I hope, pardon me for saying that I do not approve of Mr. Lamb."
+Then he turned away, and conversed with the Captain. When the company
+rose, the only person who approached the civil servant was the colonel,
+who said: "I pehsume, suh, aftah what my kind friend, Mr. Cohistine, has
+spoken so well, you will not annoy my niece with any moah remahks about
+her propehty. It would please that lady and me, as her guahdian, if you
+will fohget Miss Du Plessis' existence, suh, so fah as you are
+concehned." This was chilling, but chill did not hurt Mr. Lamb. The
+little Carruthers, headed by Marjorie, were in front of the verandah
+when Miss Carmichael and he went out. Marjorie had evidently been
+schooling them, for, at her word of command, they began to sing, to the
+tune of "Little Bo Peep," the original words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Poor Orther Lom,</div>
+<div>He looks so glom.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Carmichael seized her namesake and shook her. "You naughty, wicked
+little girl, how dare you? Who taught you these shameful words?" she
+asked, boiling with indignation. Marjorie cried a little for vexation,
+but would not reveal the name of the author. Some said it was the
+doctor, and others, that it was his daughter Fanny; but Miss Carmichael
+was sure that the lawyer, Marjorie's great friend, Eugene, was the
+guilty party, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that the
+sooner he left Bridesdale the better. Coristine was completely innocent
+of the awful crime, which lay in the skirts of Marjorie's father, the
+Captain, as might have been suspected from the beauty of the couplet.
+The consequence of the poetic surprise was the exclusive attachment of
+Miss Carmichael to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>the Crown Lands man, in a long walk in the garden, a
+confidential talk, and the present of a perfectly beautiful button-hole
+pinned in by her own hands.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Picnic&mdash;Treasure Trove&mdash;A Substantial Ghost
+Captured&mdash;Coristine's Farewell&mdash;Ride to Collingwood&mdash;Bangs Secures
+Rawdon&mdash;Off to Toronto&mdash;Coristine Meets the Captain&mdash;Grief at
+Bridesdale&mdash;Marjorie and Mr. Biggles&mdash;Miss Du Plessis Frightens Mr.
+Lamb&mdash;The Minister's Smoke&mdash;Fishing Picnic.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>After his Parthian shot, the Captain ordered Sylvanus to get out the
+gig, as he was going home. Leaving Marjorie in the hands of her aunt
+Carmichael, he saluted his daughter, his niece, and his two sisters in
+law, and took their messages for Susan. There was grief in the kitchen
+at the departure of Sylvanus, who expected to be on the rolling deep
+before the end of the week. Mr. Pawkins and Constable Rigby had already
+taken leave, travelling homeward in an amicable way. Then, Doctor
+Halbert insisted on his vehicle being brought round, as there must be
+work waiting for him at home; so a box with a cushion was placed for his
+sprained leg, and he and Miss Fanny were just on the eve of starting,
+when Mr. Perrowne came running up in great haste, and begged to be
+allowed to drive the doctor over. With a little squeezing he got in,
+and, amid much waving of handkerchiefs, the doctor's buggy drove away.
+Mr. Lamb exhibited no desire to leave, and Miss Carmichael was compelled
+to devote herself to him, a somewhat monotonous task, in spite of his
+garrulous egotism. Timotheus, by the Squire's orders, harnessed the
+horses to the waggonette, and deposited therein a pickaxe and a spade.
+Mr. Bigglethorpe brought out his fishing tackle, joyous over the
+prospect of a day's fishing, and Mr. Terry lugged along a huge basket,
+prepared by his daughter in the kitchen, with all manner of eatables and
+drinkables for the picnic. The lawyer made the fourth of the party,
+exclusive of Timotheus, who gave instructions to Maguffin how to behave
+in his absence. The colonel was with Wilkinson, but the ladies and Mr.
+Lamb came <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>to see the expedition under way. It was arranged that
+Timotheus should drive the Squire and the lawyer to the masked road and
+leave them there, after which he was to take the others to Richards
+place, put up the horses, and help them to propel the scow through the
+lakes and channels. Accordingly, the treasure seekers got out the pick
+and shovel, and trudged along to the scene of the late fire. As they
+neared the Encampment, their road became a difficult and painful one,
+over fallen trees blackened with fire, and through beds of sodden ashes.
+At the Encampment, the ground, save where the buildings had stood, was
+comparatively bare. The lofty and enormously strong brick chimney was
+still standing in spite of the many explosions, and, here and there, a
+horse appeared, looking wistfully at the ruins of its former home.
+There, the intending diggers stood, gazing mutely for a while on the
+scene of desolation.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sandy soil, draining both ways, and undercover,' is what we want,
+Coristine," said the Squire. The two walked back and forward along the
+ridge, rejecting rock and depression and timbered land. They searched
+the foundations of houses and sheds, found the trap under Rawdon's own
+house that led to the now utterly caved-in tunnel, and tried likely
+spots where once the stables stood, only to find accumulations of
+rubbish. A steel square such as carpenters use, was found among the
+chips in the stone-yard, and of this Coristine made a primitive
+surveyor's implement by which he sought to take the level of the ground.
+"Bring your eye down here, Mr. Carruthers," he said. "I see," answered
+the Squire; "but, man, yon's just a conglomeration o' muckle stanes."
+The lawyer replied, "That's true, Squire, but it's the height of land,
+and that top stone lies almost too squarely to be natural. Let us try
+them at least. It will do no harm, and the day is young yet." They went
+forward to a spot beyond the stone yard, on the opposite side from the
+burnt stables, which they saw had once been railed off, for the
+blackened stumps of the posts were still in the ground. It was a
+picturesque mass of confusion, apparently an outcrop of the limestone,
+not uncommon in that region. But the lawyer probed the ground all about
+it. It was light dry soil, with no trace of a rocky bottom. Without a
+lever, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>their work was hard, but they succeeded in throwing off the
+large flat protecting slab, and in scattering its rocky supports. "Man,
+Coristine, I believe you're richt." ejaculated the perspiring
+Carruthers. Then he took the pick and loosened the ground, while the
+lawyer removed the earth with his spade. "There's no' a root nor a
+muckle stane in the haill o't, Coristine; this groond's been wrocht
+afore, my lad." So they kept on, till at last the pick rebounded with a
+metallic clang. "Let me clear it, Squire," asked the lawyer, and, at
+once, his spade sent the sand flying, and revealed a box of japanned
+tin, the counterpart of that discovered by Muggins, which had only
+contained samples of grindstones. A little more picking, and a little
+more spading, and the box came easily out. It was heavy, wonderfully
+heavy, and it was padlocked. The sharp edge of the spade loosened the
+lid sufficiently to admit the point of the pick, and, while Coristine
+hung on to the box, the Squire wrenched it open. The tin box was full of
+notes and gold.</p>
+
+<p>"There's thoosands an' thoosands here, Coristine, eneuch to keep yon
+puir body o' a Matilda in comfort aa' her days. Man, it's a graun'
+discovery, an' you're the chiel that's fund it," cried the Squire, with
+exultation. The lawyer peered in too, when, suddenly, he heard a shot, a
+bullet whizzed past his ear, and, the next moment, with a sickening
+thud, Carruthers fell to the ground. Coristine rose to his feet like
+lightning, and faced an apparition; the Grinstun man, with pistol in one
+hand and life preserver in the other, was before him. Without a moment's
+hesitation he regained his grasp of his spade, and stretched the ghost
+at his feet, mercifully with the flat of it, and then relieved his
+victim of pistol and loaded skull-cracker. He heard voices hailing, and
+recognized them as those of the veteran and the fisherman. He replied
+with a loud cry of "Hurry, hurry, help!" which roused the prostrate
+spectre. It arose and made a dash for the tin box, but Coristine threw
+himself upon the substantial ghost, and a struggle for life began. They
+clasped, they wrestled, they fell over the poor unconscious Squire, and
+upset the tin box. They clasped each other by the throat, the hair; they
+kicked with their feet, and pounded with their knees. It was Grinstun's
+last ditch, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>and he was game to hold it; but the lawyer was game too.
+Sometimes he was up and had his hand on his opponent's throat, and
+again, he could not tell how, he was turned over, and the heavy squat
+form of Rawdon fell like an awful nightmare on his chest. But he would
+not give in. He saw his antagonist reach for a weapon, pistol,
+skull-cracker, he knew not what it was, but that reach released one hand
+from his throat. With a tremendous effort, he turned, and lay side to
+side with his enemy, when Timotheus dashed in, and, bodily picking up
+the Grinstun man in his arms, hammered his head on the big flat stone,
+till the breathless lawyer begged him to stop. Up came Mr. Bigglethorpe
+and Mr. Terry in great consternation, and gazed with wonder upon the
+lately active ghost. "Make him fast," cried Coristine with difficulty,
+"while I look after the poor Squire." So, Timotheus and the fisher took
+off Rawdon's coat and braces, and bound him hand and foot with his own
+belongings. But the veteran had already looked to his son-in-law, and,
+from the picnic stores, had poured some spirits into his lips. "Rouse
+up, John, avic," he cried piteously, "rouse up, my darlint, or Honoria
+'ull be breakin' her poor heart. It's good min is scarce thim toimes,
+an' the good God'll niver be takin' away the bist son iver an ould man
+had." The Squire came to, although the dark blood oozed out of an ugly
+wound in the back of his head, and the amount of liquor his affectionate
+father-in law had poured into him made him light-headed. "Glory be to
+God!" said the old man, and all the others gratefully answered "Amen."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer explained the circumstances, the excavation, the money, the
+assault, to his deliverers; but the resurrection of the Grinstun man was
+a mystery which he could not explain. Without being told, Timotheus,
+whose arrival had been so opportune, ran all the way to Richards, and
+brought from thence the waggon, along with Harry Richards, who
+volunteered to accompany him, and Mr. Errol, who was visiting in the
+neighbourhood. Young Richards brought an axe with him, and cleared some
+of the obstructions of the once masked road, so that the vehicle was
+able to get up within reasonable distance of the encampment. It was
+desirable to get the Squire home, lest his injuries should be greater
+than they supposed, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>the prisoner ought to be in Mr. Bangs' hands at
+once. Accordingly, Mr. Errol and Harry Richards offered to stay with Mr.
+Bigglethorpe and carry out the original picnic, it being understood that
+Timotheus would either call or send for them about four o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"Gin I'm gaun to be oot on the splore, I maun hae a bit smokie. Wha's
+gotten a bit pipe he's no usin'?" asked the usually sedate minister.
+Coristine handed over to him his smoking materials, penknife included;
+and Mr. Errol, taking off his coat, sat down on a stone to fill the
+pipe, saying, "Nae mair pastoral veesitation for me the day. Gin any
+body spiers whaur I am, just tell them I'm renewin' my youth." Timotheus
+and Harry carried the prisoner to the waggon, while the veteran and the
+lawyer followed, leading the Squire, and carrying the box of treasure.
+The fishermen came to see them off, and, then, they descended to the
+lake shore and began the sport of the day. Timotheus drove, and the
+Squire sat up between him and his affectionate father-in-law. The lawyer
+was in the rear seat with the prisoner, who, for greater security, was
+lashed to the back of it. Rawdon's revolver was in his captor's hand,
+and his skull-cracker in a handy place. Several times, shamming
+insensibility, the prince of tricksters endeavoured to throw his
+solitary warder off his guard, but the party reached Bridesdale without
+his succeeding in loosening a single thong. There was great
+consternation when Timotheus drove up to the gate. The children had been
+at their old game of the handkerchief, and Miss Carmichael was actually
+chasing Orther Lom, to their great glee, and to Coristine's intense
+disgust. Of course, they stopped when they saw the waggon and the
+Squire's pale face. The colonel, who had been smoking his morning cigar
+on the verandah, came forward rapidly, and, with Mr. Terry, helped the
+master of Bridesdale to alight. Then, his wife and sister took the
+wounded man in charge, and led him into the house, for he was thoroughly
+dazed and incapable of attending to any business. "If you will allow me,
+colonel," said the lawyer, "I will take charge of legal matters in this
+case," to which Colonel Morton answered, "Most cehtainly, my deah suh,
+no one moah competent."</p>
+
+<p>Maguffin had come round to see if his services would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>be required, and
+was appointed to mount guard over the prisoner in company with
+Timotheus. To Mr. Terry the lawyer gave the heavy cash box, with orders
+to put it in a safe place in the Squire's office. Then, Coristine went
+up-stairs, washed and brushed away the traces of conflict, and knocked
+at Wilkinson's door. A lady's voice told him to enter, and, on his
+complying with the invitation, he beheld Miss Du Plessis sitting by the
+bedside of his friend, with a book, which was not Wordsworth, in her
+hand. "Please to pardon my intrusion, Miss Du Plessis; the Squire is
+hurt, and we have captured Grinstuns, who was not burnt up after all. I
+must see the prisoner safely caged, and have other business to attend
+to, so that I have come to say good-bye. I am sure that you will take
+every care of my dear friend here." After this little speech, hard to
+utter, the lawyer shook his friend by the well hand, saying: "Good-bye,
+Wilks, old boy, and keep up your heart; any messages for town?" Before
+he had time to receive any such commissions, he shook hands warmly with
+the lady, and vanished. Replacing Maguffin over Rawdon, he told him to
+saddle a horse, and bring it round. His orders to Mr. Terry and
+Timotheus were to secure their prisoner between them in some lighter
+vehicle, and bring him with all speed to Collingwood, whither he would
+precede them on horseback. He found the Squire in an easy chair in the
+sitting room with three lady attendants. Shaking hands with the
+half-unconscious man, he assured him that he would attend to the
+business of the day, and then, with a few words of grateful recognition
+to Mrs. Carruthers, bade all the ladies good-bye. "Hasten back," they
+all said, and the kind hostess added: "We will think long till we see
+you again." Walking back into the kitchen, he bestowed a trifle in his
+most gracious manner, on Tryphena and Tryphosa, and then went forth to
+look for Marjorie. As he kissed her an affectionate farewell in the
+garden, the little girl intuitively guessed his absence to be no common
+one, and begged her Eugene to stay, with tears in her eyes. But he was
+obdurate with her and all the little Carruthers, on whom he showered
+quarters to buy candy at the post office. Maguffin was there with the
+horse, and, near the gate, was Miss Carmichael with that ineffable ass
+Lamb. Looking at the latter as if he would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>dearly love to kick him, he
+raised his hat to his companion, and extended his hand with the simple
+words "Good-bye." Miss Carmichael did not offer hers in return; she
+said: "It is hardly worth while being so formal over an absence of a few
+hours." Coristine turned as if a serpent had bitten him, slipped some
+money into Maguffin's hand, as that worthy held open the gate for him,
+and vaulted on his horse, nor did he turn to look round so long as the
+eyes of Bridesdale were on his retreating figure.</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer rode hard, for he was excited. He went by Talfourd's house
+like a flash, and away through the woods he had traversed on Nash's
+beast that last pleasant Sunday morning. At the Beaver River he watered
+his horse, and exchanged a word with Pierre and Batiste bidding the
+former look out that no attempt at rescuing the prisoner should be made
+in that quarter. Away he went, with madame's eyes watching him from
+afar, up the ascent, and along the road to where the Hills dwelt at the
+foot of the Blue Mountains. He doffed his hat to the old lady as he
+passed, then breasted the mountain side. For a moment, he stood on the
+summit to take in the view once more, then clattered down the other
+side, and away full pelt for the town. Soon he entered Collingwood, and
+sought the police headquarters without delay. Where was Mr. Bangs? He
+was told, to his great delight, that the detective was in town, and
+would report at four o'clock. It was now half-past three. Putting up his
+horse at the hotel, the lawyer partook of a hasty meal at a restaurant,
+and returned in time to meet Bangs on the very threshold. "Whet ere you
+doing here, Lawyer Coristine?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You will never guess, Mr. Bangs."</p>
+
+<p>"Any more trebble et Bridesdele?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I'll tell you; we've caught Rawdon."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, the men's dead, berned to a cinder, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he is not; that was some other man."</p>
+
+<p>"Ere you shore, Mr. Coristine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly. Mr. Terry and Timotheus are bringing him here now."</p>
+
+<p>"Whet, only the two of them, and kemming pest the Beaver too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; there were no more to send. I warned Pierre Lajeunesse to be on
+the lookout."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>"Is your beast fit to trevel eny more?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so; it seems a strong animal."</p>
+
+<p>"Then get on hersebeck quick! Here, kensteble, hend me two betons, and a
+kerbine!"</p>
+
+<p>When the lawyer returned with his hard-ridden steed, he found Mr. Bangs
+mounted, with a baton by his side and a carbine slung behind him. Off
+they went along the shore and up the hill. Descending, they saw the
+buggy approaching slowly in the neighbourhood of the Hills' log shanty,
+attended by four persons who seemed to be armed. Hastening down the
+slope, they came up to it, and found the prisoner safe but awfully
+profane. The foot guards were Ben Toner, Barney Sullivan, and Rufus
+Hill, under the command of Monsieur Lajeunesse. They were relieved of
+their self-imposed duty with many thanks, and Coristine shook hands with
+the honest fellows, as he and the detective replaced them in escort
+duty. Then Timotheus whipped up his horse, and they drove and rode into
+town, an imposing spectacle for the eyes of the youth of Collingwood.</p>
+
+<p>Bangs could hardly believe his eyes, and could not conceal his delight,
+on beholding the murderer of his now buried friend. No pains were spared
+for the safe-keeping of the notorious criminal. In the presence of a
+magistrate, Coristine and Mr. Terry made affidavit as to his crimes and
+capture. The latter and Timotheus also related his attempts to bribe
+them into giving him his liberty, offering large sums and promising to
+leave the country. "Now, Mishter Corstine," says the veteran, "it's
+hoigh toime we was gettin' home. The good payple 'ull be gettin' onaisy
+about yeez, 'an spashly Miss Carrmoichael that was gravin' sore to think
+she niver said good-boye to yeez. Come, now, come away, an' lave the
+baste in the shtable, for it's toired roidin' ye must be."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going back, Mr. Terry. I said good-bye to them all at
+Bridesdale, and must hurry away to business. Perhaps Timotheus will ride
+the horse, while you drive."</p>
+
+<p>"Thet pore enimel isn't fit fer eny more werk to-night, Mr. Coristine.
+I'll tell you, Mr. Terry, whet I'll do. I shell be beck here to-morrow
+evening, end will ride the horse to Bridesdele. I've got a weggon and
+team of the Squire's here, which yeng Hill will drive beck for me. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>Then
+he ken ride pore Nesh's horse, and I ken get my own. Strenge they didn't
+give you one of thowse beasts instead of the colonel's, Mr. Coristine."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the colonel's horse?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should sey it is. You down't think eny ether enimel could hev brought
+you elong so fest, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"God bless the kind old man!" ejaculated the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"Mishter Corstine, dear, it'll be breakin' aall the poor childer's
+hearts an' some that's growed up too if you 'll be afther lavin' us this
+way," continued Mr. Terry; and Timotheus, whom his Peskiwanchow friend
+rewarded, added his appeal: "I wisht you wouldn't go fer to go home
+jess' yet. Mister." But all entreaties were unavailing. He and Mr. Bangs
+saw the buggy off, and then retired to the hotel to get some supper. On
+the way thither, he invested in a briar root pipe and some tobacco to
+replace those he had given to Mr. Errol. They would be home from fishing
+long ago, and perhaps good Bigglethorpe would take Miss Carmichael away
+from that miserable Orther Lom. After supper, the two sat over their
+pipes and a decoction of some kind in the reading-room, talking over the
+sad and wonderful events of the past few days. Mr. Bangs took very
+kindly to the lawyer, and promised to look him up whenever he came to
+town. He advised him to keep silent about the discovery of Rawdon's
+money, as the crown might claim it, and thus deprive poor Matilda Nagle
+of her only chance of independence. He said also that he would instruct
+the Squire in the same direction on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>That night, two gaol guards armed to the teeth arrived in police
+quarters to take charge of Davis, but the bigger criminal was placed in
+their care. Early in the morning there was a stir in the railway
+station, when the handcuffed prisoners were marched down under strong
+escort, and securely boxed up with their guards and Mr. Bangs. Many
+rough characters were there, among whom the lawyer recognized Matt of
+the tavern, and Bangs and he could have sworn to the identity of others,
+whom the former had met in the cavalry charge on the masked road and
+whom Coristine had seen and heard in the Richards' scow the night of the
+catastrophe. They scowled, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>attempted no rescue. Thanks to the
+lawyer's generalship, things had been pushed through too quickly for
+them to combine. For some time, Coristine travelled alone. There were
+other people in the car, but he did not know them, nor did he care to
+make any new acquaintances. All his friends were at Bridesdale, and he
+was a homeless exile going back to Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house. At
+Dromore, however, he caught sight of the wide-mouthed barrel of a
+blunderbuss, and knew the Captain could not be far off. Soon that naval
+gentleman got on board, helping Mrs. Thomas up to the platform, followed
+by Sylvanus with the saluting weapon. They were to be his companions as
+far as Barrie, and much the lawyer enjoyed their society. Marjorie was
+the great subject of conversation, although, of course, the Captain had
+to be enlightened in many points of recent history. He still thought
+Wilkinson a sly dog, but wondered greatly at Coristine's going away.
+Mrs. Thomas explained the relationship of Orther Lom. He had been a poor
+neglected boy, when Marjorie Carmichael was a little girl, whom her
+father, the member, had interested himself in, giving him an education,
+and supporting him in part while at the Normal School in Toronto. Just
+before he died, he exerted his influence to obtain a Government berth
+for him, and that was the whole story. The lawyer saw it all now, and
+learned too late what a foolish fellow he had been. Of course, there
+were old times, and they had much to talk of, and she could not help
+being civil to him, and being angry when he had reminded her father's
+proteg&eacute; of his early poverty. Coristine sighed, and felt that, if Lamb
+had been present, he would have apologized to him. To cheer him up, the
+Captain invited him to join Mrs. Thomas and himself on a cruise in the
+<i>Susan</i>. He would have enjoyed it immensely he said, but, having made so
+many assertions of pressing business in the city, he had to be
+consistent and miserable. At Barrie, he bade his last friends adieu,
+parted affectionately with The Crew, and then gazed longingly at the
+spars of the <i>Susan Thomas</i> in Kempenfeldt Bay. If only the Captain had
+brought the two Marjories for a cruise, he would have shipped with him
+for a month, and have let business go to the dogs. There were no more
+objects of interest till he arrived in Toronto, took a street<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>car, and
+deposited himself, much to that lady's astonishment, in his bachelor's
+quarters at Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house. After a special lunch, he sat
+down to smoke and read a little Browning.</p>
+
+<p>It was very late when Mr. Terry and Timotheus arrived at Bridesdale. All
+the ladies had retired, with the exception of Mrs. Carruthers, who had
+staid up to await her father's arrival. The gentlemen of the party were
+the Squire, quite clear in head and not much the worse of his crack on
+the skull, Mr. Bigglethorpe, and Mr. Errol, who had been induced to
+continue his splore in the office. He was still renewing his youth, when
+the veteran entered all alone, and said he didn't mind if he did help
+Mr. Bigglethorpe with that decanter, for it was tiresome work driving.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Mr. Coristine, grandfather?" asked the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"It's in Collinwud he is an his way to Teranty."</p>
+
+<p>"What! do you mean to say he has left us, gone for good?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's fwhat it is. Oi prished 'em, an' porshwaded 'em, an' towld 'em
+it was desprut anggery an' graved yeez wud aall be. Says he Oi've bud
+'em aall good-boye an' Oi'm goin' home to bishness. It was lucky for
+you, Squoire, that it wasn't lasht noight he wint."</p>
+
+<p>"It is that, grandfather. I'd have been a dead man. He maun hae focht
+yon deevil like a wild cat tae get oot o' the way o's pistols and
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas Timawtheus as kim up furrust an' tuk the thafe av a Rawdon out av
+his arrums, for he grupped 'em good an' toight."</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, Timotheus!" said Mr. Errol. "He's a fine lad, Mr.
+Bigglethorpe, though a bit clumsy in his ways."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't all be handsome, sir," answered that gentleman. "If he's got
+the good principle in him, that's the mine thing, so I always say."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Carruthers put her head into the smoke, coughed a little, and said:
+"Come, father, supper is waiting for you in the breakfast room." The
+veteran followed his daughter, and, over his evening meal, gave her a
+detailed account of the proceedings of the afternoon. "And to go away
+without a bite to eat, and ride all that distance, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>leave his
+knapsack and his flowers and I don't know what else behind him, what is
+the meaning of it, father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Honoria, my dear, I aalways thought women's eyes was cliverer nor
+min's. There's a little gyurl they call Marjorie, an' she's not so
+little as aall that, if she isn't quoite the hoighth av Miss Ceshile.
+That bhoy was jist dishtracted wid the crool paice, that goes aff
+philanderin wid the Shivel Sharvice shape av a Lamb. He didn't say it
+moind in wurruds, but I see it was the killin' av 'em, an' he jist
+coulden' shtand it no langer. Smaal blame to him say Oi!"</p>
+
+<p>So grandfather got his supper, and went back to the office to finish his
+pipe and his tumbler, while Timotheus was entertaining Tryphosa in the
+kitchen. Mrs. Carruthers retired, but, first, she visited the young
+ladies' apartment, and said, in a tone which she meant to be reproachful
+as well as regretful: "Mr. Coristine has left us never to return." The
+kindest-hearted woman in the world, having thrown this drop of
+bitterness into her niece's cup, left her to drink it to the dregs.
+Meanwhile Orther Lom was dreaming that he could not do better than marry
+the Marjorie of his youth and begin housekeeping, in spite of tailors'
+bills.</p>
+
+<p>The sun rose bright on Friday morning, and, peeping in upon Mr.
+Bigglethorpe in his room and upon Marjorie in the nursery bedroom, awoke
+these two early birds. They met on the stairs and came down together.
+The fisherman said he thought he would get his things bundled up,
+meaning his gun and rods, and walk home to breakfast, but Marjorie said
+he just wouldn't, for Eugene was gone, and, if he were to go, she would
+have nobody. Well broken in to respect for feminine authority, save when
+the fishing fit was on, Mr. Bigglethorpe had to succumb, and travel down
+to the creek after crawfish, chub and dace. He told his youthful
+companion fishing stories which amused her; and confided to her that he
+was going to train up his little boy to be a great fisherman. "Have you
+got a little boy, Mr. Biggles?" she asked, and then added: "How funny!"
+as if her friend ought to have been content with other people's
+children, and fish.</p>
+
+<p>"What is his name, Mr. Biggles?" she enquired.</p>
+
+<p>"He hasn't been christened yet, but I think I'll call <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>him Isaac Walton,
+or Charles Cotton, or Piscator. Don't you think these are nice nimes?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't. Woollen and Cotton and what Mr. Perrowne belongs to are
+not pretty. Eugene is pretty."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bigglethorpe laughed, and said: "I didn't say Woollen but Walton,
+and I said Piscator, which is the Latin for fisher, not Episcopalian,
+which Mr. Perrowne is."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you want to call him a fisher? It is like a Sunday School story
+Marjorie read me, a Yankee book, about a little baby boy that was left
+on a doorstep, and the doorstep man's name was Fish, and he had him
+baptized Preserved because he was preserved, and he grew up to be a good
+man and was called Preserved Fish. Wasn't that awful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh very streinge! If my boy had been a little girl, I would have nimed
+her Marjorie."</p>
+
+<p>"See, Mr. Biggles, here she comes again, and Cecile, and, O horrors!
+Orther Lom."</p>
+
+<p>It was too true. The young ladies had come out to enjoy the morning air,
+and, after a turn in the garden, had rushed to the hill meadow to escape
+the Departmental gentleman, whose elegant morocco slippers they had
+heard on the stairs. Spite of the morning dew he had pursued them, well
+pleased with himself, and doubtful whom to conquer with his charms.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mr. Biggles," continued Marjorie, "that horrid man got me a naughty,
+cruel shaking, and he's sent my dear Eugene away never to come back any
+more. I know, because I went into aunty's room when I got up; and she
+told me."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad, Marjorie. Who mide that little song on Mr. Lamb?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll never tell?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"'Pon your honour?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Pon my honour."</p>
+
+<p>"It was papa, you old goosey."</p>
+
+<p>"Not Mr. Coristine?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course not."</p>
+
+<p>"My I sy that it wasn't Mr. Coristine?"</p>
+
+<p>"O yes, don't let them think any bad things about Eugene, poor boy."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>"Good morning, Miss Carmichael," said Mr. Bigglethorpe, or rather he
+bawled it; "will you come here a minute, please?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Carmichael gladly skipped down, leaving her companion a prey to the
+gentleman of the morocco slippers.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to clear our friend, Mr. Coristine, of a suspicion which you may
+not have shired," said the fisherman. "He didn't mike that little piece
+of poetry on Mr. Lamb that Marjorie and the other children sang
+yesterday morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Mr. Bigglethorpe; I am very glad to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Nasty pig!" said Marjorie to herself; "she drove Eugene away all the
+same."</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Mr. Lamb was conversing with Miss Du Plessis.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't seem to mind the doo, Miss Cecile."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I do," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Your shoes are parfectly wat, sowking I should think."</p>
+
+<p>"No, they are not wet through; they are thicker than you imagine."</p>
+
+<p>"By the bye, where is his high mightiness, the lawyer, this mawrning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Coristine has returned to the city."</p>
+
+<p>"Haw, cawlled oway to some pettifogging jawb I suppowse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Such as your Crown Lands case."</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, you down't say, Miss Cecile, thot he's awff ofter thot jawb?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell what Mr. Coristine may have to do in addition to that. He
+did not confide his business to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder whot time the stage goes awff at!"</p>
+
+<p>"It will pass the gate," said Miss Du Plessis, consulting her watch, "in
+ten minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"Haw, ofally onnoying you know, but I'll hov to pock up and leave before
+breakfost. Please remember me to Morjorie, will you Cecile, if I shont
+hov time to see her before I gow."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Lamb took his morocco slippers back to the house, and soon
+reappeared at the gate, Gladstone bag and cane in hand, looking at the
+approaching stage. It was filled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>up with a roughish crowd, all except
+one seat in the back, into which he jumped. The driver flicked his
+horses, and Bridesdale was relieved of the presence of Orther Lom.</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie," said Miss Du Plessis, "I have bad news for you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Cecile?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your young man has called me by my Christian name, without even putting
+Miss before it."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you killed him and dug his grave with those eyes of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I simply told him that Mr. Coristine had returned to Toronto,
+perhaps on Crown Land business."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"It terrified him so, that he packed his valise forthwith and is gone."</p>
+
+<p>"But how?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the stage. Did you not hear the horn just now?</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was too busy with that delightful Mr. Bigglethorpe. But do you
+mean to tell me that Arthur has left without a farewell word to
+anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>"He said, 'Please remember me to Marjorie, will you, Cecile?' What do
+you think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"What odious impertinence! I am glad the silly creature has gone, and,
+were it not for the safety of your land, I wish he had never come."</p>
+
+<p>"It was not he who saved my land, Marjorie."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't I know? Don't talk to me any more! You are hateful, Cecile!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you can forget fifty acts of disinterested kindness, Marjorie, it
+does not follow that I am to do the same." By which it will appear that
+Miss Du Plessis had her orders to rub it in pretty hot to her friend,
+and was rubbing it in accordingly, even though it did smart. Miss
+Carmichael broke away from her, and ran to the house, leaving her once
+dear Cecile to follow with Marjorie and Mr. Bigglethorpe.</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast the Squire appeared quite picturesque, with a silk
+handkerchief tied over his head to conceal and hold on what Marjorie
+called a plaster of vinegar and brown paper, having reference to the
+mishaps of Jack and Jill.</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie," said Mr. Carruthers, "ye ken what Jill got for lauchin' at
+Jock's heed and the plaister."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>"Yes, Uncle John, but mother isn't here to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa said I was to be your mother now, Marjorie," said Mrs. Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p>"You've got a Marjorie of your own, Auntie, that needs to be punished
+worse than me."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel looked round the table anxiously, and then addressed the
+hostess: "I fail to pehceive my deah friend, Mr. Cohistine, Mrs.
+Cahhuthehs; I sincehely trust he is not unwell afteh his gallant fight?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to say, Colonel, that Mr. Coristine has left us, and has
+gone back to Toronto."</p>
+
+<p>"O deah, that is a great loss; he was the life of our happy pahty,
+always so cheehful, so considehate, ready to sacrifice himself and lend
+a hand to anything. I expected him back on my hohse."</p>
+
+<p>"Timotheus tells me that Mr. Bangs is going to bring your horse over
+this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm gey and gled to hear 't, gudewife. I'd like weel tae hae anither
+crack wi' Bangs. But it's an awfu' shame aboot Coristine; had it no'
+been for his magneeficent pluck, fleein' on yon scoundrel like a lion,
+I'd hae been brocht hame as deed as a red herrin'. Isna that true,
+granther?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's thrue, ivery worrud av it. Savin' the company, there's not a
+jantleman I iver tuk to the way I tuk to that foine man, and as
+simple-harrted and condiscindin' as iv he wor a choild."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is that lazy boy Arthur, I wonder?" asked Mrs. Carmichael;
+whereupon Miss Du Plessis told her story, and all joined in a hearty
+laugh at Mr. Lamb's fright and sudden retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Errol, feeling none the worse of the previous day's splore, and
+still renewing his youth over the fish he and Mr. Bigglethorpe had
+caught, suddenly remembered and confessed: "Dear me, Mrs. Carmichael, I
+forgot that I had Mr. Coristine's merschaum, and his tobacco and
+penknife. Puir lad, what'll he dae withoot his pipe?"</p>
+
+<p>"You naughty man, Mr. Errol, is it possible that you smoke?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whiles, mem, whiles."</p>
+
+<p>"How many pipes a day, now, Mr. Errol?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it depends. When I'm in smoking company, I can take a good many, eh
+Mr. Bigglethorpe?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>"Yesterday was a very special occaision, Mr. Errol. You called it
+renewing your youth, you know, and nimed the picnic a splore."</p>
+
+<p>"I felt like a laddie again at the fishing, Mrs. Carmichael, just as
+light-hearted and happy as if I were a callant on the hills."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you generally feel like? Not an old man, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never be a young one again, Mrs. Carmichael."</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect nonsense, Mr. Errol! Don't let me hear you talk like that
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"Hearin's obeyin'," meekly replied the minister, showing that he was
+making some progress in his mature wooing.</p>
+
+<p>After breakfast, the company sat out on the verandah. The colonel had to
+smoke his morning cigar, and courteously offered his cigar case to all
+the gentlemen, who declined with thanks. "If it were not that I might
+trouble the ladies," said the minister, "I might take a draw out of poor
+Coristine's meerschaum." Mrs. Carmichael at once said: "Please do so,
+Mr. Errol; the doctor smoked, so that I am quite used to it. I like to
+see a good man enjoying his pipe."</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite sure, Mrs. Carmichael, that it will not be offensive? I
+would cut off my right hand rather than be a smoking nuisance to any
+lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sure, Mr. Errol; go on and fill your pipe, unless you want me to
+fill it for you. I know how to do it."</p>
+
+<p>So, Mr. Errol continued the splore, and smoked the Turk's head. Mr.
+Terry lit his dudheen, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, his briar. The Squire's
+head was too sore for smoking, but he said he liked the smell o' the
+reek. While thus engaged, a buggy drove up, and Miss Halbert and Mr.
+Perrowne alighted from it, while Maguffin, always watchful, took the
+horse round to the stable yard. The doctor had heard of Rawdon's
+capture, and had sent these two innocents to see that all was right at
+Bridesdale. Miss Halbert sat down by Miss Du Plessis, and the parson
+accepting one of the colonel's cigars, joined the smokers. He also
+regretted the absence of Coristine, a splendid fellow, he said, a
+perfect trump, the girl will be lucky who gets a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>man like that,
+expressions that were not calculated to make Miss Carmichael happy. Mr.
+Perrowne had proposed and had been accepted. He was in wild spirits,
+when Mr. Bigglethorpe startled the company by saying, "I've got an
+idear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Howld on to it, Bigglethorpe, howld on; you may never get another,"
+cried the parson.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, who was shooing the children away
+to Tryphosa.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a united picnic to the likes. Who's got to sty at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have for one," answered the Squire; "yon deevil o' a Rawdon has gien
+me a scunner at picnics."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot go," said his wife, "for I have him and the children to keep
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Paul, you must go, and Cecile also," interposed Mrs. Du Plessis; "I
+will attend to the wants of our patient."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," spoke up the fisherman, "we shall have Mrs. Carmichael and Mr.
+Errol, Miss Halbert and Mr. Perrowne, the colonel and Miss Carruthers,
+Mr. Terry and Miss Du Plessis, and, please Mrs. Carmichael, Marjorie and
+me. Can ten get into one waggon?"</p>
+
+<p>"O aye," replied the Squire, "the waggon'll haud nine, and Marjorie can
+sit on Mr. Bigglethorpe's knees. Hi, Timotheus, get oot the biggest
+waggon wi' three seats, quick, man!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more, the mighty ham was carved into sandwiches, and others were
+made of sardines and marmalade. Chickens were hastily roasted, and pies
+and cakes, meant for dinner and tea, stowed away in baskets, with
+bottles of ale and cider and milk, and materials for tea-making, and a
+huge chunk of ice out of the ice-house, and a black bottle that Mr.
+Terry eyed affectionately. "This is for you old men, grandpapa," said
+Mrs. Carmichael to the veteran; "now, remember, none for these boys,
+Errol and Perrowne." Mr. Terry replied: "To be sure, ma'am," but thought
+in his heart, would it be him that would deprive the boys of a bit of
+innocent recreation at such a time. Such a looking out there was of hats
+and wraps, of guns and fishing tackle. The colonel was to drive in
+person. Mr. Terry was to be chief of the commissariat under Mrs.
+Carmichael. Mr. Bigglethorpe was to direct fishing oper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>ations, and
+bring, with the assistance of Mr. Terry, the scow and Rawdon's boat to
+the Encampment lake. Marjorie was wild with delight, and insisted on
+going with the grandfather and dear Mr Biggles. It was ten o'clock when
+all the preparations were concluded, and Timotheus brought round the
+capacious waggon. All the household assembled to see the picnic party
+off, and the young Carruthers lifted up their voices and wept. The whole
+ten got in, but there was no free rollicking Irish voice to sing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Wait for the waggon.</div>
+<div>And we'll all take a ride.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>At the Encampment&mdash;Botany&mdash;Fishing&mdash;Matilda&mdash;The New
+Lake&mdash;Tillycot&mdash;Luncheon&mdash;After Recreation&mdash;New Visitors to
+Tillycot&mdash;Edifying Talk&mdash;Songs on the Way Home&mdash;Mr. Bigglethorpe's
+Departure&mdash;Uncle and Niece&mdash;Mr. Bangs and Rufus&mdash;Ladies Catch a
+Burglar&mdash;The Constable Secures Him&mdash;Muggins' Death&mdash;Burglars
+Repulsed&mdash;Rebecca Toner&mdash;The Clergy Hilarious&mdash;A Young Lady Finds a
+Poem.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>Mr. Bigglethorpe, Mr. Terry and Marjorie, with part of the picnic
+material, got off the waggon at the Richards' place, and proceeded to
+the lake. They found the punt there, but saw no sign of the skiff.
+Marjorie inherited her father's love of the water, and greatly enjoyed
+even the slow progress made by the paddles of her boatmen in the
+unwieldy craft. Meanwhile, the waggon arrived as near the encampment as
+it was possible to get; the company descended to the blackened ground;
+and Mr. Perrowne found a path for the ladies up to the ruins. The
+horses, sedate, well-behaved animals, were unhitched, and allowed to
+pick about where they pleased, after which the three gentlemen carried
+the wraps and picnic baskets and pails to where the ladies stood,
+inspecting the ravages of the fire. Muggins had come with Mr. Perrowne,
+and sniffed about, rediscovering the treasure hole which had so nearly
+proved fatal to the Squire. It was agreed to go down to the water's
+edge, and encamp upon some green spot, near good fishing, over which the
+bush fire had not run. Such <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>a place was found to the right of the
+caved-in tunnel, a broad patch of fine-leaved native grass, shaded by
+oaks and maples of second growth. There the provisions were deposited,
+and, the rugs being spread over the grass, the ladies sat down to await
+the arrival of the boat party. A good three-quarters of an hour passed
+before they heard the splash of the paddles, and Muggins ran barking to
+meet the intruders upon the sabbath stillness of the scene. While
+waiting, Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Errol took a stroll in the dark woods
+adjoining, and brought back some floral specimens in the shape of
+Prince's Pines, Pyrolas, and Indian Pipes, which were deposited in the
+lap of the finder's daughter, with a suggestiveness that young lady felt
+disposed to resent. However, Marjorie's voice was heard just then, and
+thoughts and conversation were turned into other channels. "Where is the
+skiff?" asked the fisherman, but nobody could enlighten him; they simply
+answered that it was not there. The colonel remarked that its absence
+looked suspicious, and bade them be on their guard. He, accordingly,
+inspected the arms of the expedition, and finding them to consist of two
+fowling pieces, those of Messrs. Perrowne and Bigglethorpe, and two
+pistols borne by Mr. Terry and himself, was comforted. As the fisherman
+had inaugurated the picnic, it was obviously his duty to act as master
+of ceremonies. He proposed making two fishing parties, one off the scow,
+and another off a pier, which he and the gentlemen were about to build
+out from the shore below the picnic ground.</p>
+
+<p>A large pine had been felled many years before, probably by lumbermen,
+and two lengths of it, each about eight feet, had been rejected as
+unsound. These the gentlemen, colonel included, got behind, and rolled
+down into the water. Mr. Perrowne and the fisherman doffed their shoes
+and socks, rolled up their trouser legs, and waded in to get the logs in
+position as sleepers. Three spars of driftwood, bleached white, were
+found along the bank, and were laid over the logs at right angles, and
+kept in their places, as were the logs, by stakes hammered into the lake
+bottom. Mr. Errol and Mr. Terry produced some planks, saved from the
+fire that devoured the stables, and laid them over the erection, making
+a substantial pier, that would have been the better of a few <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>spikes to
+steady the boards. Mr. Bigglethorpe provided rods and lines, and baited
+the hooks for the ladies, with grasshoppers, frogs, crawfish and
+minnows. The last were provided by Marjorie. At the fisherman's
+suggestion, she had got from Tryphena a useless wire dish-cover that had
+lost its handle, a parcel of oatmeal, and a two-quart tin pail. Mr.
+Bigglethorpe had fastened a handle cut out of the bush to the dish
+cover, thus converting it into a scoop-net. Barefooted, Marjorie stood
+in the shallow water, scattering a little oatmeal, when up came a shoal
+of minnows eager for the food thus provided. At one fell swoop, the
+young fisherwoman netted a dozen of the shiny little creatures, and
+transferred them all alive to the tin pail. Mr. Errol had a great mind
+to join her in this exciting sport, but was not sure what Mrs.
+Carmichael would think of it. The possibility that he might have become
+Mr. Coristine's father-in-law also tended to sober the renewer of his
+youth. As Marjorie had practically deserted her friend for the minnows,
+Mr. Bigglethorpe invited her cousin to accompany him, with Miss Halbert
+and Mr. Perrowne, in the scow, which paddled off to try how the fishing
+was at the narrows. The colonel did not care to fish; it was too dirty
+work for him. Neither did the remaining ladies show any appetite for it;
+but Mr. Errol and the veteran manned the lately constructed pier, and
+beguiled some bass that came seeking shelter from the sun beneath it.
+While the gentlemen were thus engaged, the colonel lying on his back
+near Marjorie's fishing ground, indulging in a second cigar, the two
+ladies strolled away, followed by Muggins, to look for more flowers.
+After they had gone about a hundred yards to the right, the dog ran on
+before them, barking furiously. Mrs. Carmichael clutched her companion's
+arm and stood still. "It may be a wild beast, Cecile, or some of those
+terrible men. Let us go back at once." But Miss Du Plessis calmly
+answered, "It may be only a bird or a squirrel; dogs often make a great
+fuss over very little." So they stood and waited.</p>
+
+<p>Muggins' barking ceased. The reason was apparent in the sound of a
+gentle voice they both knew, saying, "Poor Muggins, good doggie, has he
+come back again to his old friends?" It was the voice of Matilda Nagle,
+and she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>seemed to be alone. Taking heart, the two ladies went in its
+direction, and, guided by Muggins, who came back to lead them, they
+descended to a little bay with a sandy beach, where, in the skiff, sat
+the woman they sought. She was neatly dressed, and wore a large straw
+hat. When they greeted her, she showed no astonishment, but invited them
+to enter the skiff and see the pretty place she had back there. Miss Du
+Plessis hardly cared to accept the invitation, but the curiosity of the
+older lady was aroused and she pressed her companion to comply. Bringing
+the bow of the skiff into the shore, Matilda told them to enter the boat
+and walk back to the stern. When they had taken their seats, the stern
+was depressed, and the bow floated clear of the sand. Then, with every
+motion of an accomplished oarswoman, she rowed the skiff along the
+shore, altogether out of sight of the other picnickers in scow and on
+pier. After a few strokes, she told her companions to lower their heads,
+and, ducking her own, shot the boat through what had seemed a solid bank
+of foliage, but which was a naturally concealed channel, out into one of
+the loveliest little lakes eye ever rested upon. No fire had touched its
+shores, which were wooded down to the sandy margin, the bright green
+foliage of the hardwood in the foreground contrasting with the more
+sombre hues of the pines and hemlocks beyond. In little bays there were
+patches of white and yellow water lilies, alternating their orbed
+blossoms with the showy blue spikes of the Pickerel weed, and, beyond
+them, on the bank itself, grew many a crimson banner of the Cardinal
+flower. Another little bay was passed with its last rocky point, and
+then a clearing stood revealed, void of stump or stone or mark of fire,
+covered with grass and clover, save where, in the midst of a little
+neglected garden, stood the model of a Swiss chalet. "Do not be afraid!"
+said the woman, catching sight of Mrs. Carmichael's apprehensive look;
+"there is nobody in it or anywhere near. We are all alone; even Monty
+would not leave his work to come with me." Thus reassured, the party
+landed, gathered a few late roses and early sweet peas, and then
+proceeded to inspect the chalet. The whole building and everything in it
+was in admirable taste, even to the library smoking-room, which was only
+disfigured by ugly spittoons and half-burned cigars. Many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>books were
+there, chiefly on chemistry, geology and mineralogy, and there was a
+large cabinet full of geological specimens, betokening much research and
+abundant labour in their preparation and classification.</p>
+
+<p>The whole thing was so unexpected, so surprising, that the picnic ladies
+had to rub their eyes to be sure that it was not a dream; but their
+astonishment was increased when the woman turned to the younger one and
+said, "I know you are Miss Du Plessis, for I heard you called so at
+Bridesdale." Miss Du Plessis answered that she was right. Then Matilda
+said, "This is all your land, and of course, the land carries the
+buildings with it. I have forgotten a great many things, but I remember
+that, you see. So Tillycot is yours too; besides I do not want to stay
+here any more. Good-bye, I am going home to Monty." At first, the two
+ladies were afraid she was going to take the skiff away and leave them
+in the house, but she did not. In spite of their entreaties, she walked
+quickly up the grassy slope at the back, and disappeared in the forest
+beyond. "Is it not wonderful?" asked Miss Du Plessis. "Come, Cecile,
+hasten back, or those poor people will be starving," answered the more
+practical Mrs. Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p>On their return to the skiff, the presiding matron, while Miss Du
+Plessis rowed, unfolded a long piece of yellow leno she had picked up in
+one of the rooms. The channel was quite visible from, what may now be
+called, the Tillycot end, but when the passengers ducked their heads and
+emerged, they saw there would be difficulty in finding it from the other
+side. Accordingly, Mrs. Carmichael bade her companion keep the boat
+steady, while she stood up, and fastened the strip of gauze to two
+saplings, one on either side of the opening, making a landmark visible
+immediately the point was passed that intercepted the picnic party from
+their view. Rowing round this point, the two travellers appeared, to the
+astonishment of the fishers on punt and pier. The colonel was stretched
+out on the grass asleep, and Marjorie, having deserted her minnows, was
+tickling him about the ears with a long blade, greatly enjoying his
+occasional slaps at the parts affected, and his muttered anathemas on
+the flies.</p>
+
+<p>"Oi'm thinkin', Mishtress Carrmoikle, it's gettin' toime fer the aitin'
+an' drhinkin', wid your lave, mum; but fwhere <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>did yez foind the
+skifft?" Brief explanations followed to the veteran and Mr. Errol, who
+were at once put under orders, the one to light a fire and produce the
+tea-kettle, the other to fill two pails with clean water, and put a
+piece of ice in one of them. Soon the colonel and Marjorie came to help,
+the cloth was laid, the sandwiches, chickens, pies and cakes, placed
+upon it, and everything got in readiness for the home-coming of the
+punt. "O Aunty," said Marjorie, "this would be so lovely, if only poor
+Eugene were here too."</p>
+
+<p>"So it would, dear," answered the sympathetic aunt and mother, "but we
+must try to make the best of it without him."</p>
+
+<p>The kettle boiled under Mr. Terry's superintendence, the tea was infused
+in the little Japanese tea-pot, and the colonel, taking from his
+waistcoat pocket a silver whistle that had done duty for a cavalry
+trumpet in former days, blew a signal for the information of the
+punters. In a minute they arrived, bearing two grand strings of fish,
+only the strings that went through the gills of the bass were hazel
+twigs. Then there was washing of hands without soap, Mr. Bigglethorpe
+showing his companions how to improvise a substitute for Pears' by
+pulling up the pretty little water-lobelia and using the unctuous clay
+about its spreading roots for the purpose. All sat about the
+table-cloth, Mr. Perrowne said, "For what we are about to receive," and
+the <i>al fresco</i> repast began. Mrs. Carmichael dispensed the tea, and was
+displeased with Mr. Errol for declining a cup just then, because he was
+busy with a corkscrew and an ale bottle. Mr. Perrowne joined him with
+another; but the fisherman said ale made him bilious and his name was
+not William. So Mr. Terry produced his special charge, and treated the
+colonel first, then Mr. Bigglethorpe, and finally his honoured self. The
+boys, as the matron had termed the two clergymen, seemed to be happy
+with their beer, somewhat to his sorrow. "It takes moighty little,
+cornel, to shatishfy some payple, but there's aall the more av it for
+the risht av us."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Halbert said that Basil had eaten ten sandwiches, two plates of
+chicken, and an extra drumstick in his hand, a whole pie, and she
+couldn't count the cake. There were also some empty beer bottles at his
+feet. He said he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>perfectly ashamed of Fanny's appetite, and would
+have to petition the Bishop for an allowance from the mission fund, if
+she was going through life at the same rate.</p>
+
+<p>"If we only had ouah deah boy with us, Cecile, what a pleasuhe it would
+be," remarked the colonel in a personal way, that caused even the
+stately Miss Du Plessis to blush.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene would be better than the whole lot," added Marjorie, with an
+injured air, and added: "If some people I know hadn't been pigs, he
+would have been here, too." Mrs. Carmichael called her niece to order,
+and told the gentlemen they might go away to their pipes and cigars,
+while she and the young ladies put away the things. The black bottle
+trio adjourned to a shady nook by the shore, and carried three tumblers
+and a pail of iced water with them. The bottle revealed its neck from
+Mr. Terry's side pocket. The colonel handed his cigar case again to Mr.
+Perrowne, who selected a weed, but could not be prevailed upon to fetch
+a tumbler. Mr. Errol also declined the latter, having the fear of Mrs.
+Carmichael before his eyes, but, withdrawing a short distance in his
+brother clergyman's company, he filled the Turk's head, and said he felt
+twenty years younger. All sorts of banter and pleasant talk went on
+between the smoking gentlemen and the working ladies. Mr. Errol
+distinguished himself above his brethren by bringing up water from the
+lake and by carrying pailfuls of dishes down to it, for which he
+received great commendation. Mr. Perrowne had his ears boxed twice by
+Miss Halbert, it was said, for cheek. Mr. Terry was called upon to
+deliver up his sacred charge, but demurred. When the ladies made a raid
+upon his party to recover it, he fled, but Marjorie caught him by the
+coat-tails, and the spoil was wrested from him, although not before he
+had poured himself out a final three fingers in his tumbler. Filling it
+up with ice-water, he drank to the success of the picnic, and especially
+to absent friends. Mr. Bigglethorpe had been so long fishing in the sun
+that he thought a rest would do him good. Accordingly, he lay down on
+his back with his hat drawn over his eyes, and composed himself to
+sleep. Finally, the clergymen went over to where Mrs. Carmichael was
+sitting with Miss Halbert and Marjorie, while Miss Du Plessis, having
+had a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>chat with Miss Carmichael, invited her uncle and the veteran to
+go for a row in the skiff. At first, these gentlemen were disposed to
+decline, but, when they learned that there was something to be seen,
+they changed their minds, and accompanied her and Miss Carmichael to the
+shore.</p>
+
+<p>The colonel was entranced with the little lake, the clearing, and the
+chalet, as were Miss Carmichael and Mr. Terry. It was decided that a
+guard, in the form of a caretaker, should be put over the place as soon
+as possible, and it was suggested that Timotheus and Tryphena would make
+an ideal pair of guardians. While much of the land round about might be
+cleared to advantage, it was agreed that the wood around Tillycot lake
+should be left intact, save the breadth of a road to the main highway.
+Then they fell to discussing Rawdon, a man plainly of extensive reading,
+of scientific attainments, of taste in architecture and
+house-furnishing, and yet an utterly unprincipled and unscrupulous
+villain. "One would think," said Miss Carmichael, "that the natural
+beauties of a place like this would be a check upon evil passions and
+the baser part of one's nature." But the colonel answered, "In the
+wahah, Miss Cahmichael, I have seen soldiehs, even owah own soldiehs,
+wilfully and maliciously destyoying the most chahming spots of scenehy,
+without the least pohfit to themselves or matehial injuhy to the enemy.
+The love of destyuction is natuhal to ouah fallen human natuhe." Mr.
+Terry corroborated this statement, and added, "Faix, it sames to me
+there's jist two sarts an koinds av payple in the wurruld, thim as
+builds up an' thim as batthers down. For moy paart, I'd lafer build a
+log shanty an' clane a bit land nor pull a palish to paces." Miss Du
+Plessis assented, but drew attention to the fact that Rawdon had
+cleared, built up, and beautified the place, and improved his mind on
+the one hand, while he was warring against society and law, robbing and
+even murdering, on the other. "Mr. Errol said once," rejoined Miss
+Carmichael, "that there are two opposite natures, an old man and a new,
+in all human beings, as well as in those who are converted, and that no
+contradiction of the kind is too absurd for human nature." "Mistah Ehhol
+is quite right, my deah Miss Mahjohie, as all expehience attests. Bret
+Hahte has shewn it from a Califohnian <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>standpoint. I have seen it in
+times of wanah and of peace, bad men, the bent of whose lives was
+destyuction, risking evehything to save some little memohial of a dead
+motheh or of a sweetheaht, and good men, the regular couhse of whose
+cahheah was to do good, guilty of an occasional outbuhst of vandalism."</p>
+
+<p>"Thrue fer yez, cornel, ivery bit. There was a little whipper-snapper av
+a Shunday Shcool shuperintindent out in a lake, about a hundrid moiles
+frum the city, wid some dacent lads; and, afore they knowed where they
+was, the cratur had sit a foine grane oisland a foire for the fun, he
+sid, av sayin' the blaze. Oi'd loike to have had the shuperintindin' av
+him fer foive minutes."</p>
+
+<p>The explorers were making their way back to the skiff when the colonel,
+who had gone back for his handkerchief which he had dropped, said:
+"There is a pehson coming down towahds the house, a woman appahently."
+Miss Du Plessis looked up the hill, and saw who it was. "It is Matilda
+Nagle," she said; "see, she is going back again." At once Miss
+Carmichael ran up the hill after the retreating figure, and, as she was
+a good runner, and the poor wanderer was tired, she soon overtook her.
+Taking both her hands in her own, and kissing the woman, she said: "Come
+with us, Matilda, and we will drive you home." The half-witted creature
+responded to the caress, and allowed herself to be led to the boat. "I
+lost my way," she said. "It is a new road I had never been on before,
+and I got turned round and came back here three times, and I am very
+tired." The colonel and Mr. Terry made her enter the boat before them,
+and then Miss Du Plessis and the veteran rowed the party back to the
+picnic ground, Miss Carmichael, at her friend's suggestion, removing the
+landmark put up by her mother as they passed out of the channel. At once
+Matilda was taken to the shady retreat where Mrs. Carmichael and Miss
+Halbert were, and all the ladies waited upon her with what was left of
+the eatables and drinkables, in spite of Mr. Perrowne's appetite. Then,
+Mr. Terry and Mr. Bigglethorpe went after the horses, and harnessed them
+to the waggon. The fisherman came back to summon the party and help to
+carry the baskets. Mr. Errol and Mr. Perrowne agreed to row the punt
+back to the Richards, and walk the rest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>of the way, as the addition of
+Matilda to the company would make riding uncomfortable if they did
+otherwise. The picnickers were safely seated, the baskets and the
+strings of fish stowed away, and the Colonel again took the reins for
+his party of nine. The two clergymen returned to the scow and paddled
+home, singing songs, one of which Mr. Perrowne gave in genuine cockney
+style to a Primitive Methodist hymn tune</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Oh we was rich and 'appy once,</div>
+<div>And we paid all we was due,</div>
+<div>But we've sold our bed to buhy some bread,</div>
+<div>And we hain't, got nowt to do;</div>
+<div class='i2'>We're all the way from Manchesteher.</div>
+<div class='i2'>And we hain't got nowt to do.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Oh him as hoppresses the pooer man</div>
+<div>Is a livin on humin' lives,</div>
+<div>An I will be sarved in tohother land</div>
+<div>Like Lazarius and Dives,</div>
+<div class='i2'>And will be sarved in tohother land</div>
+<div class='i2'>Like Lazarius and Dives."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mr. Errol applauded the song, but thought it was hardly right to put a
+hymn tune to it. He said he "minded an auld Scotch song aboot the
+barrin' o' the door." So he sang:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"It fell aboot the Martimas time,</div>
+<div>And a gay time it was then O,</div>
+<div>When our gude wife got puddins to mak',</div>
+<div>And she biled them in the pan O.</div>
+<div class='i2'>The barrin' o' oor door weel, weel, weel.</div>
+<div class='i2'>And the barrin' o' oor door, weel."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Thus, lightening the journey, they arrived at the last lake, said
+how-d'ye-do to the Richards, and tramped home. "How are you feeling now,
+Mr. Errol?" asked his comrade. "Man, it's just as I tellt ye, I'm
+renewin' my youth."</p>
+
+<p>It was just about six when the pedestrians arrived at Bridesdale. Mr.
+Newberry had been there, anxious about his charge, and had joyfully
+hailed her appearance in the waggon. Mr. Bigglethorpe insisted on going
+home; so, after a whispered consultation with Miss Halbert, Mr. Perrowne
+offered him the doctor's carriage, if he would call in and tell Dr.
+Halbert that his daughter and all the Bridesdale people were safe, which
+he agreed to do. The colonel and Miss Du Plessis were up with the dear
+boy, whose name and virtues Miss Carmichael could hardly hear <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>mentioned
+with civility. Marjorie fairly wept over the leave-taking of Mr.
+Biggles, but commanded herself sufficiently to beg that he would not
+christen that baby Woollens, Cottons or Piscopalian. He said
+emphatically that he would not, and then departed, taking home a string
+of bass to propitiate Mrs. Bigglethorpe. The tea party, spite of Miss Du
+Plessis' marvellous story of Tillycot, was very slow. The newly engaged
+couple were full of each other. Mrs. Du Plessis, her daughter and the
+colonel had Wilkinson on the brain, Mrs. Carmichael and the minister
+were self-sufficient, and Mr. Terry was discoorsin' to his daughter,
+Honoria. The only free person for Miss Carmichael was the Squire, and
+happily she sat at his left.</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie, lassie," said Uncle John, "you're no lookin' weel."</p>
+
+<p>"That's not very complimentary, uncle; but I am quite well."</p>
+
+<p>"Yon block o' a Lamb has been wearin' ye, I'm thinkin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, uncle; his gifts and graces are not adequate to that."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Coristine tell ye o' that adverteesment in the Barrie paper?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he say he had dune onything aboot it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he said he had written to the Edinburgh lawyer and to other people
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"That was unco gude o' the lad, Marjorie."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was very kind."</p>
+
+<p>"What garred the laddie gang awa before the time, lassie?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wha sud ken were it no you, Marjorie, my pet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not in Mr. Coristine's confidence."</p>
+
+<p>"I'se warrant ye, Marjorie, he's just bitin's nails to the quick at yon
+Mrs. Swamp's that's he no here the nicht."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh nonsense, uncle, why should he be so foolish? If he wanted to stay,
+there was no one to hinder him."</p>
+
+<p>"Weel, weel, lassie, we'll hear frae him sometime aboot yon neist o' kin
+business. Aiblins, ye'll be a braw leddy wi' a gran' fortune yet, and
+turn up your bonnie bit nose at puir lawyer chappies."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>"I don't want to turn up my nose at Mr. Coristine, uncle. I think it
+was very splendid of him to fight for you as he did; but I knew nothing
+about that when he said good-bye, and I wouldn't shake hands with him."</p>
+
+<p>The Squire put up his hand and stroked his niece's hair. "Puir lassie!"
+he said, "it's a gran' peety, but ye're no feelin' half as bad as he is
+the noo, gin I ken the lad, and I think I dae."</p>
+
+<p>It was ten when Mr. Bangs brought home the colonel's horse, and Rufus
+rattled the missing waggon and team into the stable yard. The latter
+joyfully saluted his sisters, shook hands with Timotheus, and
+courteously responded to the greeting of Maguffin. Mr. Bangs, declining
+any solid refreshment, entered the office, where, besides the Squire,
+Mr. Errol and the veteran were established. The picnic ladies were tired
+and had gone to rest, and the colonel was relating the events of the day
+to the wakeful dominie. Mr. Bangs gave his company an account of the
+safe lodgment of Rawdon and Davis, and mentioned incidentally that he
+had seen Mr. Coristine alight from the train at Toronto and go up town.
+He also cautioned the Squire against divulging the secret of the exhumed
+box of money, if he wished to save it for Matilda Nagle.</p>
+
+<p>"Squire," he said, "I don't went to elerm you, bet I'm efreid there's
+gowing to be more trebble to-night; I saw thet tevern-keeper from
+Peskiwenchow, Devis' brether, et the stetion this merning, with sem of
+the fellows we fought et the Enkempment. They're not in Kellingwood now,
+end yeng Hill tells me he saw strenge men kemming this way in the
+efternoon. I towld yeng Hill to bring his gen, and I brought my mounted
+petrol kerbine."</p>
+
+<p>"This is terribly vexatious, Mr. Bangs, just as we thought all our
+troubles were over."</p>
+
+<p>"It is, bet I think it will be their lest ettempt, a final effort to get
+meney and revenge. We must wound es many ef them es we ken, end ellow
+the survivors to kerry off the dead end wounded. Thet will be the end of
+it. I met Toner, end he tells me old Newcome is ep and eway. Toner kent
+come, for Newcome hes threatened to bern down his house."</p>
+
+<p>A gentle rap at the door interrupted the conversation. The Squire went
+to open it, and saw his niece in night <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>attire, with a pale, scared
+face, hardly able to speak. "What is the matter, Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's a man in Mr. Coristine's room, either in the cupboard-wardrobe
+or under the bed," she answered, and slipped quietly upstairs to her own
+apartment.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly the information was imparted, and the detective at once took
+command.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Terry, I know you are a good shot. Tek my kerbine which is loaded,
+and wetch the windows of Mr. Coristine's room outside. Give Mr. Errol a
+pistol, Squire, and kem on. Ah, Mr. Perrowne, we went you, sir; bring
+that lemp end follow us."</p>
+
+<p>All obeyed, and slipped up stairs with as little noise as possible. Mr.
+Bangs opened the door and listened. Intuitively, he knew that Miss
+Carmichael was right; somebody was in that room. Whispering to Mr. Errol
+to guard the door, and to the Squire to stand by the wardrobe, he took
+the lamp from Mr. Perrowne and flashed it under and over the bed. There
+was nobody there. In a moment, however, the wardrobe door burst open,
+the Squire was overturned, the light kicked over and extinguished, and
+Mr. Errol pushed aside, when three feminine voices called: "Help,
+quick!" and, tumbling over one another into the hall, the clever lookers
+for burglars found their man in the grasp of three picturesque figures
+in dressing gowns. They were at once relieved of their capture, and many
+anxious enquiries were made as to whether they had received any injuries
+from the felonious intruder. It appeared that they had not received any
+of importance, and that Miss Carmichael was the first to arrest the
+flight of the robber.</p>
+
+<p>The household was aroused. The colonel came down with his pistols.
+Timotheus, Rufus and Maguffin awaited orders, so he ordered them to arm,
+and posted them as sentries, relieving Mr. Terry from his watch on the
+windows. Then the examination of the prisoner began. He was the youth
+who had driven the buckboard over for the doctor on the eventful Monday
+morning. His name was Rawdon, but he was not the son of Altamont Rawdon.
+His father's name was Reginald, who was Altamont's brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your fether?" asked Mr. Bangs.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>"I dunno," he answered, sulkily.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I ken tell you. He is dead, berned to death by yore precious encle
+Eltemont."</p>
+
+<p>"O my God!" exclaimed the youth; "is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Esk any of these gentlemen, end they will tell you that yore fether end
+old Flower were berned to death, end thet a keroner's jury set on their
+remains, which are buried."</p>
+
+<p>"You say as 'ow my huncle Haltamont did that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do, end, whet's more, you know it."</p>
+
+<p>Having terrorized his victim, and antagonized him to Rawdon, the
+detective drew from him the information that five men, three of Rawdon's
+old employees, the tavern-keeper Matt, and Newcome, were coming at
+midnight to burglarize the house and get possession of the dug-up
+treasure. He confessed that he had slipped into the house while the
+party was away picnicking, and, knowing that Coristine had left without
+his knapsack, had looked round till he found a room with knapsacks in
+it. There he intended to remain till his confederates should require his
+services to open the house to them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who towld you thet awful lie ebout Rawdon's meney being in this house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Matt knew. Uncle Monty guv it 'im by signs, I guess. Oh, he's O.K., he
+is."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, yore a prisoner here, end if things don't turn out es you
+sey, I'll blow yore brains out."</p>
+
+<p>"For goodness sake don't be aisty, mister. I've told you the 'ole truth,
+I swear."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bangs next found out that the robbers were coming in a waggon, which
+would halt some distance to the left of the house, and that their plan
+was to set one man at the end of the hall to hinder communication with
+the servants' quarters, and two on the upper landing to command the
+front and back stairs, while the remaining burglars ransacked the office
+and any other rooms in which plunder might be found. The youth's
+appointed mission was to fire the house, when the search was completed.
+Hardly had this information been received when Maguffin's challenge was
+heard, and a well-known voice in military accents replied "A friend."
+The colonel went out, and brought in Corporal Rigby, panting for want of
+breath.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>"You've been running, Rigby," said the astonished Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Duty required it, sir," replied the constable, saluting; "I have come
+at the double, with trailed arms, all the way from Squire Halbert's.
+This is his rifle I am carrying. The enemy is on the move, sir, in
+waggon transport." "You are jest in time, kenstable," remarked Mr.
+Bangs. "Miss Kermichael and the ether ledies hev jest keptured an
+impertent prisoner. Hev you yore hendkeffs?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have, sir, and everything else the law requires." Mr. Terry handed a
+glass to the breathless constable, who bowed his respects to the company
+generally, smacked his lips as a public token of satisfaction, and
+proceeded to handcuff and search his prisoner. Several blasting
+cartridges with long fuses, and other incendiary material, were the
+results of the last operation.</p>
+
+<p>"If I had my way with him, sergeant-major," the constable remarked,
+while taking his man under the veteran's command, to the stable, "I
+would borrow an old chair from the back kitchen, not the front,
+sergeant-major, tie him to it, and set off all these cattridges under
+him. He would not go to heaven, sergeant-major, but they would help him
+a bit in that direction. The man that would cattridge a house with
+ladies in it should be made a targate out of, sergeant-major."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, deluded crathur!" replied Mr. Terry, "it's but a shlip av a bhoy,
+it is, wid a burnt up father, that's been shet on to mischief by thim as
+knows betther. Kape him toight, Corporal Rigby, but be tindher wid the
+benoighted gossoon." Mr. Bangs ordered all lights out, save one in the
+thoroughly darkened office, and another in the closet back in the hall,
+which had no window. He called in the three sentries, ordered the
+constable to maintain silence in the stable, and slipped out to
+reconnoitre. The colonel, the Squire and Maguffin prepared their pistols
+for the first volley on the housebreakers. The clergymen, with Timotheus
+and Rufus, got their guns in order for the second. It was almost on the
+stroke of midnight when the detective slipped in and closed the door
+after him. "They are here," he whispered; "wait for me to ect! Now, not
+another word." Silent, as if themselves <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>conspirators, the eight men
+crouched in the darkened hall, listening to steps on the soft grass of
+the lawn. There was the low growl of a dog, a short bark, and then a
+muttered oath, a thud, and a groan that was not human. Poor Basil
+Perrowne ground his teeth, for he had heard the last gasp of the
+faithful Muggins. A hand was on the outside knob of the door. Mr. Bangs
+turned the key and drew back the catch of the lock, when two men thrust
+themselves in. "Ware's the lights, you blarsted fool?" one of the
+ruffians asked. The detective drew back, and the others with him, till
+all five had entered. Then Mr. Perrowne threw open the office door, and
+Timotheus that of the linen closet. In the sudden light cast on the
+scene the pistol men fired and the burglars tumbled back, two hanging on
+to three. "Don't shoot," cried Mr. Bangs to the gunners, "but kem on,
+fellow them up." After the fugitives they went, not too quickly,
+although the bereaved parson was longing for a shot at the murderer of
+Muggins. The burglars were on the road, and the waggon, driven by a
+woman, was coming to meet them. "Now then," said the detective, as a
+couple of revolver shots whizzed past him, "give the scoundrels thet
+velley, before there's any denger of hitting the woman." The four guns
+were emptied with terrible effect, for the woman had to descend in order
+to get her load of villainy on. The detective gave but one minute for
+that purpose, and then ordered a pursuit; but the waggon had turned,
+and, spite of screams and oaths that made hideous the night air, the
+woman drove furiously, all unconscious, apparently, that her course
+betrayed itself by a trail of human blood. "Nen ere killed outright,"
+remarked Mr. Bangs, "bet I downt believe a single mether's sen of them
+escaped without a good big merk of recognition."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think we have seen the last of them, Bangs?" asked the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly! This wes a lest desperate effort of a broken-up geng."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder who that woman can have been," said Mr. Errol. "I know most of
+the people about here by sight."</p>
+
+<p>"She's a very clever yeng woman," Mr. Bangs answered, evasively.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>"It'll no be Newcome's daughter?" half asked the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>The detective drew Mr. Carruthers aside, and said: "It wes to hev been
+Serlizer, bet she wouldn't gow, even if Ben hed ellowed her; bet a nice
+gel from wey beck, a cousin of Ben's, whom he had never seen before, end
+who hed just called on Mrs. Towner in the efternoon, offered to take her
+place. Her neme is Rebecca Towner, a very nice young person."</p>
+
+<p>"Losh me, Bangs, you're an awfu' man! What deevilment is this ye've been
+at?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't went you to shoot Rebecca Towner, because, next to pore Nesh,
+she is our best female personater, end her name, when she takes off
+these clowthes, is Cherley Verley."</p>
+
+<p>"So, you brocht thae villains here by deputy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; they hed to kem, you know, bet I didn't know anything ebout thet
+boy end their plans, except in a general way. Rebecca woun't leave the
+pore fellows till they're pretty sick."</p>
+
+<p>Bridesdale was lit up again, for nobody cared to go to bed. The ladies
+came down to see that the belligerents were safe, and Miss Carmichael
+and her brave companions received the meed of praise and thanks their
+splendid services deserved. Sorry for the injuries of the would-be
+robbers, and perhaps murderers, the Squire was nevertheless relieved in
+mind by the success of the night's work. In his satisfaction he entered
+the kitchen, and ordered late supper for his allies in that quarter.
+Then he summoned Constable Rigby from the stable, bidding him bring his
+prisoner with him, and give him something to eat. The constable declined
+to sit in a prisoner's presence in an unofficial capacity, but had no
+objection to feeding him. When, therefore, the young intruder had eaten
+his supper, his gaoler standing by, he was reconducted to the separate
+stable, handcuffed, chained, and locked in, the key being deposited in
+the constable's pocket. Then, and only then, did Mr. Rigby unbend, and,
+after supper, indulge with his five companions, male and female, in the
+improving geographical game of cards. The dining room bell occasionally
+called Tryphosa away, when, as a matter of course, Timotheus played for
+her. The colonel, with a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>cigar in his lips, and a substitute for fine
+old Bourbon in his hand, went up-stairs to enlighten his dear boy as to
+the doings of the night, and, especially as to dear Cecile's magnificent
+courage. The dominie was terribly concerned about that lady's
+single-handed contest with the desperate robber, and would not be
+satisfied until she came in person to let him know she was not hurt in
+the least, that Marjorie deserved all the credit of the capture, and
+that the unhappy youth had seemed so taken aback by the character of his
+hall assailants as to be almost incapable of resistance. The colonel
+smoked, and sipped, and smiled incredulously, as much as to say, You may
+believe this young person if you like, my dear boy, but there is
+somebody who knows better, and can make allowance for a young lady's
+charming self-depreciation. Mrs. Carruthers, grateful for the safety of
+her husband and her father, and Mrs. Carmichael, for that of her brother
+and Mr. Errol, were prepared to be hospitable to a degree. The minister
+had another opportunity of praising the toddy which the latter lady
+brewed, and Mr. Perrowne said: "It isn't half bad, you know, but I
+down't know what Miss Crimmage's Band of Howpe would think of it, if she
+knew the two temperance champions were imbibing at three o'clock in the
+morning." The minister remarked that he didn't care for all the
+Crimmages in the world, nor the Crummages either, whatever he meant by
+that, for there was no such name in the neighbourhood. "Basil," said
+Miss Halbert, "you had better take care. I shall not allow you any
+toddy, remember, but shall subscribe for the Montreal <i>Weekly Witness</i>".
+Mr. Perrowne put a little out of the decanter into his tumbler, with a
+practised air very unlike that of a Band of Hope patron, saying:
+"Drowned the miller, Fanny! Must take time by the forelock, if you are
+going to carry out your threats. But I think I'll drop you, and ask Mrs.
+Carmichael to have compassion on me. She wouldn't deprive a poor man of
+his toddy, would you now, Mrs. Carmichael?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Carmichael," said Mr. Errol, answering for that lady, "would hae
+mair sense," which shut the parson effectually out of conversation in
+that quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Carmichael listened to the conversation, and beheld the minister
+renewing his youth. She heard Mr. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>Bangs entertain her uncle with
+stories about a certain Charley Varley, and Mr. Terry say to Mrs Du
+Plessis, "Whin I was in Sout Ameriky wid the cornel, God save him." She
+saw her friend Fanny exciting the lighter vein in the affianced
+Perrowne, and knew that Cecile was upstairs, the light of the dominie's
+eyes. There was a blank in the company, so she retired to the room in
+which she had found the burglar, and looked at the knapsacks there. She
+knew his; would it be wrong to look inside? She would not touch Mr.
+Wilkinson's for wealth untold. If he had not wanted his knapsack opened,
+he should not have left it behind him. But it was open; not a strap was
+buckled over it. The strap press was there, and a little prayer-book,
+and a pocket volume of Browning, some cartridges and tobacco, and an
+empty flask, and a pair of socks and some collars. What was that? A
+sheet of paper that must have fallen out of Browning. It had fluttered
+to the floor, whence she picked it up, and it was poetry; perhaps the
+much-talked-of poem on the Grinstun man. No, it was another, and this
+was how it ran, as she read it, and hot and cold shivers ran alternately
+down her neck:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>The while my lonely watch I keep,</div>
+<div>Dear heart that wak'st though senses sleep</div>
+<div class='i2'>To thee my heart turns gratefully.</div>
+<div>All it can give to thee is given.</div>
+<div>From all besides, its heartstrings riven.</div>
+<div class='i2'>Could ne'er be reft more fatefully.</div></div>
+
+<div class='stanza'><div>For thou art all in all to me,</div>
+<div>My life, my love, my Marjorie,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Dow'ring each day increasingly</div>
+<div>With wealth of thy dear self. I swear</div>
+<div>I'll love thee false, I'll love thee fair.</div>
+<div class='i2'>World without end, unceasingly.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"O, Eugene, Eugene," she sobbed to herself, "why would you go away, when
+everybody wanted you, and I most of all?" Then she put the things back
+into the knapsack, all but the sheet of paper, which she carried away,
+and thrust into the bosom of her dress, as she saw Miss Du Plessis
+approaching. In common with the other ladies of the house, they retired
+to their rooms and to bed, leaving the gentlemen to tell stories and
+smoke, and otherwise prepare themselves for an unsatisfactory breakfast
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>and a general disinclination for work in the morning. In the back of
+the house, geographical studies continued to flourish, the corporal and
+Maguffin contending with the ladies for educational honours, now being
+lifted up to the seventh heaven of success, and, now, depressed beneath
+the load of many adverse books. All the time, a little bird was singing
+in Miss Carmichael's sleeping ear, or rather in that which really does
+the hearing, certain words like, "My life, my love, my Marjorie," and
+then again "I'll love thee false, I'll love thee fair, world without
+end, unceasingly." When she awoke in the morning, the girls told her she
+had been crying in her sleep, and saying "O Eugene!" which she
+indignantly denied, and forbade them to repeat.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Glory Departed&mdash;The Mail&mdash;Coristine's Letters to Miss
+Carmichael, Mrs. Carruthers and the Dominie&mdash;Sylvanus to
+Tryphena&mdash;Burying Muggins&mdash;A Dull Week&mdash;A Letter From Coristine and
+Four to Him&mdash;Marjorie's Letter and Book&mdash;Telegram&mdash;Mr. Douglas and
+Miss Graves&mdash;Reception Parties&mdash;The Colonel and Marjorie.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>After breakfast on Saturday morning, Mr. Bangs departed, riding his own
+horse, while Rufus bestrode that of his late friend Nash. As the colonel
+had no need for the services of Maguffin, that gentleman drove the
+constable and his prisoner in a cart between these two mounted guards.
+The clergymen went home to look over their sermons for the morrow, and
+to make good resolutions for pastoral duty in the week to come, not that
+either of them was disposed to be negligent in the discharge of such
+duty, but a week of almost unavoidable arrears had to be overtaken. The
+Squire was busy all day looking after his farm hands, and laying out
+work to be commenced on Monday morning; and Mr. Terry went the rounds
+with him. The colonel's time was spent largely in conversation, divided
+between his dear Farquhar and his dearer Teresa. When not engaged in
+helping the hostess and her sister in-law in the press of Saturday's
+household <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>work, the young ladies were in consultation over the new
+engagement, the ring, the day, the bridesmaids, the trousseau, and other
+like matters of great importance. Marjorie took her young cousins
+botanizing in honour of Eugene, and crawfishing in memory of Mr.
+Biggles; then she formed them into a Sunday school class, and instructed
+them feelingly in the vanity of human wishes, and the fleeting nature of
+all sublunary things. Even Timotheus could not be with Tryphosa as much
+as he would have desired, and had to console himself with thoughts of
+the morrow, and visions of two people in a ferny hollow singing hymns
+out of one hymn-book. The glory seemed to have departed from Bridesdale,
+the romance to have gone out of its existence on that humdrum Saturday.
+The morning passed in drudgery, the dinner table in prosaic talk, and
+the hot afternoon was a weariness of the flesh and spirit. Just about
+tea time the mail waggon passed the gate; there was nobody in it for
+Bridesdale. When the quiet tea was over, the veteran lit his pipe, and
+he and Marjorie went to the post office to enquire for letters, and
+invest some of Eugene's parting donations in candy. Half the mail bag
+and more was for the Squire, the post-mistress said, and it made a large
+bundle, so that she had to tie it up in a huge circus poster, which,
+being a very religious woman, she had declined to tack up on the
+post-office wall. "Marjorie," whispered Mr. Terry, so that the
+post-mistress could not hear, "I wudn't buoy any swates now, for I
+belave there's a howll box iv thim in the mail for yeez." Accordingly,
+they left without a purchase, to the loss of the candy account at the
+store.</p>
+
+<p>The circus poster and contents were deposited on the office table, and
+Mr. Carruthers called big Marjorie to sort the mail. So Miss Carmichael
+appeared, and gave him his own letters and papers. There were two from
+India for Mr. Terry, that had been forwarded from Toronto, and one from
+the same quarter for aunt Honoria. Some United States documents were the
+colonel's property, and a hotel envelope, with a Barrie postmark, bore
+the name of Miss Tryphena Hill. The bulk of the mail was in one
+handwriting, which the Bridesdale post-mistress had seen before. Only
+two letters were there, a thick one for aunt Honoria, and one of
+ordinary size for Mr Wilkinson, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>but there were several papers and
+magazines for that invalid, and at least half a dozen illustrated papers
+and as many magazines or paper-bound books for herself, which she knew
+contained material of some kind in which she had expressed an interest.
+Then came three large thick packages, one marked "Misses Marjorie,
+Susan, and Honoria Carruthers," another "Masters John and Michael
+Carruthers," and the third "Miss Marjorie C. Thomas and Co." The young
+lady with the Co. laid violent hands upon her own property; but that of
+the young Carruthers was given to their mother, along with her letters.
+Miss Du Plessis, failing to receive anything of her own, carried the
+dominie's spoil to him, and found that some of the magazines, though
+sent to his name, were really meant for her, at least dear Farquhar said
+so. Mrs. Carruthers opened her Toronto letter and read it over with
+amusement. Then she held up an enclosure between forefinger and thumb,
+saying, "You see, Marjorie, it is unsealed, so I think I must read it,
+or give it to your mother to read first, in case it should not be right
+for you to receive it." But Miss Carmichael made a dash at the document,
+and bore it off triumphantly to her own room, along with her literary
+pabulum. It was dated Friday afternoon, so that he could not have been
+long in the city when he wrote it, and ran thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>My Dear Miss Carmichael</i>,&mdash;I wish to apologize to you very humbly,
+and, through you, but not so humbly, to Mr. Lamb, for any harsh,
+and apparently cruel, things I said to or about him. Your aunt,
+Mrs. Thomas, whom I met, with the Captain and Sylvanus, on their
+way to the schooner, enlightened me regarding Mr. Lamb's history,
+of which I was entirely ignorant while at Bridesdale. I should be
+sorry to think I had been guilty of wilfully wounding the feelings
+of anyone in whom you take the slightest interest, and I trust you
+will pardon me for writing that, apart from my natural gratitude
+for your patience with me and your kindness to me, a mere stranger,
+there is no one in the world I should be more sorry to offend than
+yourself.</p>
+
+<p>Believe me,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i6'>My dear Miss Carmichael,</div>
+<div class='i10'>Ever yours faithfully,</div>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Eugene Coristine</span>.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;I have taken the liberty of addressing to you some trifles I
+thought might interest the kind friends at Bridesdale. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;E.C.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The note was satisfactory so far as it went, but there was not enough of
+it; no word about the gloves, the ring, the half confession, the
+promise, no word about coming <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>back. Still, it was better than nothing.
+Eugene could be dignified too; she would let everybody see that letter.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you had a nice letter, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Carruthers. "You
+would like, perhaps, to read what Mr. Coristine has to say to me." Her
+niece replied that the letter was quite satisfactory, and the ladies
+exchanged documents. That of Mrs. Carruthers read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>Dear Mrs. Carruthers</i>,&mdash;Since I left your hospitable mansion I
+have been like a boy that has lost his mother, not to speak of the
+rest of the family. I look at myself like the poor newsboy, who was
+questioned about his parents and friends, and who, to put an end to
+the enquiries, answered: "Say, mister, when you seen me, you seen
+all there is on us." Please tell Marjorie Thomas, and your own
+little ones, that, perhaps, if I am good and am allowed, I may run
+up before the end of next month, to see if the fall flowers are
+out, and if they have left any crawfish and shiners in the creek.
+Will you kindly give the inclosure to Miss Carmichael, with whom,
+through my foolishness, I had an awkward misunderstanding that
+still troubles me a good deal. If I had known I was offending her,
+I would not have done it for the world. I cannot sufficiently thank
+you for your great kindness to my friend Wilkinson and me, nor
+shall I soon forget the happiest days of my life in your delightful
+home. Please make my sincere apologies to the Squire, and any other
+dear friends whom I may have left abruptly, under the peculiar
+circumstances of my departure. Remember me gratefully to Mrs.
+Carmichael, Mrs. Du Plessis, and the young ladies, and give my love
+to all the children.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i6'>I am, dear Mrs. Carruthers,</div>
+<div class='i10'>Very sincerely and thankfully yours,</div>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Eugene Coristine</span>.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Please forgive me for sending a few bonbons for the children
+by this mail. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;E.C.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"That's a very nice gentlemanly letter, Marjorie," said Mrs. Carruthers,
+returning it.</p>
+
+<p>"I like yours better, Aunty; it is not so stiff."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, you silly girl. I am only 'dear' and you are 'my dear.' He
+thinks of me as a mother, and of you as the chief person in the world. I
+think you are getting vain and greedy, Marjorie. Well, I must put these
+bonbons away, or the children will see them, and will be making
+themselves too ill to go to church. Where is cousin Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she is off with her box. Very likely she is giving some to uncle
+and grandpa. It's a great pity the Captain is not here; he has a sweet
+tooth. Do you know Tryphena has a letter from Sylvanus?"</p>
+
+<p>"That accounts for her delay with the dishes. What other letters did you
+get?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>"None; only a lot of books, magazines, and illustrated papers from Mr.
+Coristine for the family."</p>
+
+<p>"For the family, Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; did you not read the postscript?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure I did; but you know better than to take that
+literally,&mdash;Marjorie, I think you're deep, deep."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he will come here next month?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to command my niece, Marjorie Carmichael, or to ask
+Marjorie's mother, to answer his letter for me, and to insist upon his
+coming back as soon as possible."</p>
+
+<p>The aunt and niece had a kissing match, after which the latter said:
+"Thank you, aunt Honoria," and went out of the room, ready for the
+congratulations of the Bridesdale world.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Miss Du Plessis, having laid the dominie's wealth of postal
+matter before his eyes, at his request read the solitary letter.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>My Dear Wilks</i>,&mdash;I hope that, under your excellent corps of nurses
+and guardian angels, you are gradually recovering from your
+Falstaffian encounter with Ancient Pistol. Don't let Miss Du
+Plessis see this or she'll faint. I had a toughish ride to
+Collingwood, and part of the way back, the latter at the suggestion
+of Hickey Bangs. If I were as plucky for my size as that little
+fellow is, I could face a regiment. He got the prisoner safely
+caged, which is the proper thing to say about gaol birds. I came
+down with him and his select party this morning, meeting Captain
+and Mrs. Thomas and The Crew on the way. They wanted me to go on a
+cruise. The kindness of the whole Carruthers family is like the
+widow's curse; it's inexhaustible. Having been badly sold, however,
+over a Lamb, and cheap, too, I was not eligible for more sail. I
+write this, Wilks, more in sorrow than in anger, but I do hanker
+after those jolly Bridesdale days. Mrs. Marsh received me
+cordially, but not in character; she was the reverse of  martial.&mdash;&mdash;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Really, Farquhar, this is very terrible," said Miss Du Plessis,
+laughing; "I hardly know whether to go on. Who knows what dreadful
+things may be before us?"</p>
+
+<p>"The taste, Cecile, is shocking; otherwise any child might read his
+letters."</p>
+
+<p>"I left off at 'martial.'"</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>I went to the office, very unlike the Squire's, and pulled White
+<i>off his</i> stool before he knew I was there. He told me I had just
+come in the nick of time, for he wants to go to some forsaken
+watering place down the Gulf&mdash;as Madame Lajeunesse said "Law
+baw"&mdash;and that immediately. So, I get my two weeks next month, by
+which time I hope to have got that next of kin matter straightened
+out. Then, if I'm let, I'll go up and have my <i>golf</i> with Mr. Errol
+on his links. How are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>his links matrimonial progressing, and
+Perrowne's, not to mention those of Ben Toner, Timotheus, yourself,
+and other minor personages? Will you commission me to buy the  ring?&mdash;&mdash;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Really, dear, I think I must stop."</p>
+
+<p>"Please do not, dear; there is not much more, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, but it is so personal!"</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>The York Pioneers are having an exhibition of antiques; couldn't
+you get somebody to send down our two knapsacks, it seems such an
+age since we started them? Ask Miss Du Plessis and Miss Carmichael
+what they meant giggling at them at the Brock Street station and on
+the train that Tuesday  morning.&mdash;&mdash;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Farquhar, did he, did you think it was Marjorie and I who did that,
+what he calls giggling?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly never thought you did, and I think it is only his banter."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither Marjorie nor I could have so disgraced ourselves. Did you not
+see the school-girls behind us? I was ashamed of my sex."</p>
+
+<p>"When you write Corry for me, you must give him a talking to for that."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; where was I, oh, yes, 'Tuesday morning.'"</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>I send a few lines by post. If there is anything in the world I can
+do for you, Wilks, let me know. If my presence can help you at all,
+I'll run up at a moment's warning. Love to all at Bridesdale. Sorry
+I made an ass of myself running away. Mail closes and must stop.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Your affectionate friend,</p>
+
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Eugene Coristine</span>.</p>
+
+<p>P.S.&mdash;Tell Errol to keep that pipe as a memorial of a poor deluded
+wretch who had hoped one day to call him by the paternal name.
+Fancy having the good minister for a step father-in-law! No such
+luck, as Toner would say. Adieu &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;E.C.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Is she fond of him, Cecile?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very much so."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not a pity, when they think so much of one another, that a mere
+trifle should keep them apart, perhaps for ever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes it is, but I am not sorry for Marjorie. Kind heart and all, she
+ought to have had more sense and more forbearance than to have openly
+preferred that selfish creature, Mr. Lamb, to your warm-hearted friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Corry is the soul of honour and generosity, Cecile, in spite of his
+hideous taste in language."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>"That is a mere eccentricity, and does not affect his sterling
+qualities. I shall make it my duty to speak to Marjorie again. Good
+night, Farquhar dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Cecile, my darling, my guardian angel, as Corry rightly
+says."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Tryphena Hill was reading Sylvanus' letter in the kitchen, first to
+herself. It ran as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class='right'><i>A Board</i> <span class="smcap">the susan thomas</span><br />Friday noon.</p>
+
+<p><i>My ever of thee I'm fondly dreaming, Tryphena</i>,&mdash;U sed my spelins
+was caple of beterment so I got the tittle out of a song buk in the
+cars and wrot it down in the end lefe of the litel testymint you
+giv me wile the capen and the nusboy was int lukin on. How duz it
+tak yor i. The capen he brung Mrs. T long for a sale. I see Mr.
+Corstoene in the cars lukin poekit lik wat is the mater of him. He
+wooden cum long on the skuner. Giv my luv to Tryphosa and Timotheus
+i can get there names all rite out of the testymint NEW TESTAMENT
+Now my ever of thee Tryphena I am orf wunc more on the oshin waive
+and the hevin depe and If i never more cum bak but the blew waives
+role over yor Silvanus, the TESTAMENT dont spel it with a why, i
+left my wil at farthys in the yaler spelin buk on the sheluff nere
+the side windy levin all my property to my saley Tryphena. I wud of
+kist u of i had dard beefor I leff wen I am more prospuz i wil dar
+of I get slaped for it The capen has fyred the blungeybush and i
+must go ashore with the dingy and get the tavun boy to get ma a
+nenblope out of the orfis</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Yore onley luving afekshunit saler boy</p>
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Sylvanus pilgrim.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Just as Tryphena had finished this touching epistle, a knock came to the
+kitchen door. She opened it, and Mr. Perrowne appeared. "Is Timotheus
+here?" he asked. Timotheus himself answered, "Yaas sir!" when the parson
+said, "Would you mind bringing a spaide to help me to bury my poor
+dawg?" The willing Pilgrim rose, and went in quest of the implement,
+while Mr. Perrowne walked round to the verandah, under which lay the
+inanimate form of his long lost canine friend, over which he mourned
+sincerely. The Squire and Miss Halbert came out to assist at the
+obsequies, and were soon joined by Miss Carmichael and Mr. Terry, all of
+whom regretted the loss of poor Muggins, the children's friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you will ever see your dog again, Basil?" asked the
+doctor's daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I down't know," replied the parson. "He was part of the creation that
+St. Paul says is growning and waiting for the redemption of the body
+from pain and disease and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>death. It used to be said that man ownly is
+naturally and necessarily immortal, but that is rubbish, built up on a
+pantheistic idea of Platow. If God continues the life of man beyond this
+world, I see no reason why He should not continue that of a dawg which
+has shared man's fight here below. There are some such good dawgs, don't
+you know, moral, kind, faithful dawgs!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not the poor Indian who thinks his faithful dog shall bear him
+company in another world?" asked Miss Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is Low; but really, in the great Sanscrit epic of the Bharatan
+war, King Yoodistheer is represented as refusing immortality, unless the
+god Indra will let him take his dawg to heaven along with him."</p>
+
+<p>"And left his wife behind, did he not? He did not even hold her
+something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse."</p>
+
+<p>"Ow, now, I think Draupadee died before him. Still, it is a strange fact
+though that some people do love animals better than human beings."</p>
+
+<p>"D'ye ken why?" asked the Squire, with a glance at his niece. "It's
+because they're no as exacting and fashious as beass."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there's a lesson for you, Fanny. Good-night. I must gow to my
+sermon and the hymns." So Mr. Perrowne departed, and the mourners
+returned to the house.</p>
+
+<p>On Sunday it rained; nevertheless all went to their respective churches,
+except the Carruthers children, whom Tryphena kept in order, and the
+colonel, who sat with Wilkinson. Both clergymen preached impressively
+with reference to the events of the past week, and, at the close of the
+services, they both repaired to Bridesdale for dinner. In the afternoon
+they rode to their respective stations, but the Squire stayed at home to
+teach the children and read to them, while they devoured the contents of
+the lawyer's elaborate boxes. Tryphosa and Timotheus had to do their
+singing in the kitchen, in which they were joined by Tryphena and
+Maguffin. The latter had a very soft rich voice, and made a great
+addition to the musical performance. The colonel smoked an after dinner
+cigar, and Mr. Terry a pipe, on a dry part of the verandah. The young
+ladies overhauled the entire collection of literature <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>sent to Miss
+Carmichael and to Wilkinson, and read a good many things that were not
+for Sunday. As to the three matrons, it is nobody's business what they
+did with their afternoon. Mr. Perrowne came back to his Fanny in the
+evening, and Mr. Errol, to have "a crack" with Mrs. Carmichael. Monday
+was fair enough to permit of a game of golf between the parsons, with
+the colonel and the veteran for spectators. Miss Halbert went home in
+the evening, and so, except for the wounded dominie upstairs and the
+colonel, things went on in the usual jog-trot way, for Miss Du Plessis
+had been at Bridesdale before. Letters and papers came from Coristine to
+the bedridden dominie, and another package for Marjorie, before Saturday
+night, but none for anybody else, for the reason that Miss Du Plessis
+had written him simply at Wilkinson's dictation, and Mrs. Carruthers and
+Miss Carmichael had not written at all. In her round of household duties
+and the care of a young family, the former had forgotten all about her
+letter, and the latter did not know what to say for herself, and did not
+feel disposed to humiliate her sense of self-respect by reminding her
+aunt of her promise. Another Sunday passed without other incident than
+Mr. Errol's visit. Mr. Perrowne spent most of his spare time at the
+Halbert's. But, Monday night's post brought an official envelope,
+type-written, from the offices of Tylor, Woodruff and White for Miss M.
+Carmichael. She opened it, with a feeling of irritation against
+somebody, and read the wretched type-writing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>Dear Madam</i>,&mdash;I have the honour to inform you that I have received
+a cable message from Mr. P.R. Mac Smaill, W.S., of Edinburgh, to
+the effect, that, as very large interests are involved in the case
+which I had the honour to claim on your behalf as next of kin, his
+nephew, Mr. Douglas, sailed to-day (Saturday) for Montreal, vested
+with full powers to act in concert with your solicitors. As my firm
+has no written instructions from you to act in the matter, I am
+prepared to hand over the documents and information in my
+possession to the solicitors whom you and your guardians may be
+pleased to appoint to deal with Mr. Douglas on his arrival.
+Awaiting your instructions, I have the honour to remain,</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i6'>Dear madam,</div>
+<div class='i10'>Your obedient servant,</div>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Eugene Coristine</span>.</div></div>
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Nothing but the signature was in his writing; this was terrible, the
+worst blow of all.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>She took the letter to uncle John in the office and laid it down before
+him. He read it gravely, and then bestowed a kiss of congratulation on
+his niece. "I aye kennt your fayther was weel conneckit, Marjorie, but
+lairge interests in the cen o' writers to the signet like Mac Smaill
+means a graun' fortune, a muckle tocher, lassie. We maun caa' your
+mither doon to talk it owre." So Mrs. Carmichael came to join the party.
+Her daughter wished to appoint some other firm of lawyers in Toronto, or
+else to leave all in the hands of Mac Smaill, but the Squire and Mrs.
+Carruthers would not hear of either alternative. They knew Coristine,
+and could trust him to work in the matter like one of themselves; so the
+young lady's scruples were outwardly silenced, and the Squire was duly
+authorized to conduct the correspondence with the lawyer. This he did in
+twofold fashion. First he wrote:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><span class="smcap">Eugene Coristine, Esq</span>.,</p>
+<p class='center'>Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff and White.</p>
+
+<p><i>Dear Sir</i>, Although my niece, Marjorie Carmichael, is of legal
+age, it is her desire and that of her mother that I, in the
+capacity of guardian, should authorize you or your firm, as I
+hereby do in her name, to prosecute her claim as the heir of the
+late Dr. James Douglas Carmichael, M.P., to the fortune advertised
+by P.R. Mac Smaill, W.S., of Edinburgh as falling her late father,
+and to conduct all necessary negotiations with Mr. Mac Smaill and
+his clients in the case. Kindly notify me at once of your
+acceptance of the trust, and make any necessary demands for funds
+and documents as they may be required.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Yours,</p>
+
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">John Carruthers, J.P.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The other letter was:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>My Dear Coristine</i>, What do you mean, you scamp, by frightening
+the wits out of my poor lassie with that typewritten bit of legal
+formality? I have a great mind to issue a warrant for your arrest,
+and send Rigby down with it, to bring you before me and Halbert and
+Walker. Man, we would put you through better than Osgoode Hall!
+But, seriously, we all want you to stick to this next of kin case.
+Spare no expense travelling about, especially if your travel is in
+this direction. I think you are not judging Marjorie fairly, not
+that I would throw my bonnie niece at the head of a prince of the
+blood, but I have taken a great liking to you, and I know that you
+have more than a great liking for her. So, no more nonsense.
+Honoria and Marjorie (Mrs. Carmichael), and all the rest of
+Bridesdale, send kind love and say "come back soon."</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Yours affectionately,</p>
+
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">John Carruthers.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mrs. Carruthers also wrote a note that will explain itself:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>Dear Mr. Coristine</i>,&mdash;Please to overlook my long delay in replying
+to your kind letter and in thanking you for your goodness to the
+chil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>dren, who miss you very much, I intended to get Marjorie or
+her mother to write for me, but in the bustle of housework,
+preserving, and so on, forgot, which was not kind of me. Father
+desires me to remember him to you, and says he longs for another
+smoke and talk. The others have a delicacy in writing, so I am
+compelled to do it myself, though a very poor correspondent. John
+has told me about Mr. Douglas coming out to see about Marjorie's
+fortune. As I suppose he will want to see her and her mother, will
+you please bring him up yourself, and arrange to give us a long
+visit. Marjorie Thomas says there are many new flowers out, and
+that she and my little ones have hardly touched the creek since you
+left us.</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div class='i6'>With kind regards,</div>
+<div class='i10'>Your very sincere friend,</div>
+<div class='right'><span class="smcap">Honoria Carruthers.</span></div></div>
+</div></blockquote>
+
+<p>Coristine came home jaded on Wednesday evening. The day had been hot,
+and in the absence of all the other principals, the work had been heavy.
+He had interested himself, also, in lady typewriters since his return,
+and had compelled some to take a much-needed holiday. Four unopened
+letters from Bridesdale were in his pocket, which he had saved for after
+dinner. At that meal, the young men of Mrs. Marsh's grown-up family
+rallied him on his lack of appetite and general depression. He had not
+made a pun for four days running, a thing unprecedented. Dinner over, he
+slipped away to his rooms, lit a pipe, and read the letters, the
+contents of two of which, three including the Squire's formal one, are
+already known. Another, in a fine clerkly hand, was from Mr. Errol.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>My Dear Mr. Coristine</i>,&mdash;A thousand thanks for the bonny pipe,
+which I fear you must have missed. I shall take great care of it as
+a memorial of pleasant, though exciting, days. I wish you were here
+to help Perrowne and me at our cricket and golf, and to have a
+little chat now and then on practical theology. My ministerial
+friend is that infatuated with Miss Halbert (they are engaged, you
+know) I can get very little out of him. Mrs. Carmichael sends her
+kind regards. Her daughter Marjorie is looking pale and lifeless, I
+do trust the dear lassie is not going like her poor father. We all
+love to hear her sing, but she has got that Garden of Gethsemane
+poem of his set to music. It is very beautiful but far too sad for
+her young life. I have been visiting your friend Mr. Wilkinson,
+pastorally, and am just delighted with him. He is a man of a very
+fine mind and most devout spirit. Miss Cecile and he will suit one
+another admirably. Colonel Morton is wearying for your society, and
+so is the good old grandfather. If it will not be putting you to
+too much trouble, will you ask your bookseller to get me a cheap
+Leipsic edition of Augustine's "De Civitate Dei," as I wish to
+polish up my patristic Latin, in spite of the trash written in it,
+that still defiles our theological teaching. I have been visiting
+Matilda Nagle, and even that old reprobate, Newcome, who got a
+terrible shaking in his last nefarious adventure. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>Matilda is doing
+remarkably well, and her boy is quite bright and intelligent. Half
+a dozen cases of sickness in my two charges have kept me from
+writing, especially as one was a case of infection. Haste ye back
+to all your warm friends here.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Yours very faithfully,</p>
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Hugh Errol</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The last was a stuffy envelope addressed correctly to Mister Eugene
+Coristine, in the hand of a domestic, Tryphosa probably, and contained
+some half dried flowers, among which a blue Lobelia and a Pentstemon
+were recognizable, along with a scrap of a letter in large irregular
+characters.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>Derest Eugene</i>&mdash;Wat makes you stay sew long a way. This is meter
+as Pol sed to Petre put on the gridel and take of the heter. A lot
+more flours are out in bloome like the ones I send with my love so
+dear fete have been in the creke sints you went a way I think that
+pig is sory she made you go now the chilren granpa sed to me to
+rite you to come back for a smok. Dere mister Bigls has gone too
+and no nice one is left give my love to Tyler and say he must let
+you go for the house is sew quite their is no more fun in it. Feena
+got a funy leter from old Sil with moste orfle speling the pusy is
+well but pore Mug in ded. It was verry good of you to send me
+candes but I like to have you beter</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Your litel love</p>
+
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Marjorie</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The lawyer put this letter reverently away in a special drawer which
+contained his peculiar treasures, but registered a vow to reprove his
+little love for applying the word pig to a young lady. He did not know
+whether to be glad or sorry that Miss Carmichael's case was left in his
+hands. Of course he could not refuse it. If this man Douglas had to go
+up to Bridesdale, he supposed he would have to introduce him, and watch
+him on behalf of his client. A great heiress, perhaps with a title for
+all he knew, would be very unlikely to take more than a passing interest
+in her solicitor. Still, it cut him to the heart that the girl was as
+Mr. Errol represented her. Doubtless she was quite right in not
+acknowledging his business note in person. Then he laid down his pipe,
+put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, exclaiming
+bitterly, "O Marjorie, Marjorie."</p>
+
+<p>Before the end of the week, the Squire received answers to his official
+and non-official letters, accepting the trust confided to him, and
+regretting that Miss Carmichael had given the writer no opportunity of
+more fully explaining himself. The non-official letter also stated <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>that
+the lady's position was so much changed by the prospect of a large
+fortune as to make it little less than dishonourable in him to press his
+suit, at least in the meantime. Mrs. Carruthers also received a promise
+that the lawyer would, if practicable, accompany Mr. Douglas to
+Bridesdale. Mr. Errol reported a nice letter received by him from the
+same quarter, along with the "Civitate Dei" and some reviews. Wilkinson
+was in clover so far as papers and magazines were concerned, and both
+Miss Carmichael and Miss Du Plessis were remembered with appropriate
+literary pabulum of the same nature. More bonbons for the juveniles
+arrived by Saturday night, and a letter for Marjorie.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p><i>My Dear Little Love, Marjorie.</i>&mdash;It was very kind of you to
+remember your poor boy in his exile from home in the big, hot,
+dusty city. I liked your dear little letter very much, all except
+that one word about you know who. I am sure you did not think, or
+you would never have written so of one so good and kind to you and
+me. You will not say that any more I am sure. I have put your
+letter and the flowers you were so kind as to pick and dry for me
+in my best drawer where I keep my treasures. I send you a new
+picture book just out, with many coloured plates of flowers in it.
+When I come up you must tell me if you know their names. Please
+tell your cousins' grandpapa that I would like very much if he were
+here, or I were there, that we might have a nice quiet smoke and
+talk together. I am sorry poor old Muggins is dead. You did not
+tell me what killed him. Tryphena ought to make Sylvanus buy a
+spelling book to study while he is on watch in your papa's ship.
+Your papa and mamma asked me to go for a sail with them, but I had
+to go to town. Now, my little love, be very kind and nice to
+everybody, and above all to your dear cousins, big and little, and
+when I come up and hear how good you have been, we will fish in the
+creek on week days and sing some of those pretty hymns on Sunday.
+Do you ever go to see my poor sick friend Wilks? I think he would
+like to see a little girl some times. Try him with a bonbon and
+with the poetry under the pictures of flowers in your new book.
+Give my love to all the kind friends, and keep a great lot for your
+dear little self.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>From your own</p>
+
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Eugene</span>.</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Where is the book?" asked Marjorie, when the letter was read to her by
+the lady whom she had written so slightingly of. Miss Carmichael looked
+over her own mail matter, and found a large flat volume addressed Miss
+Marjorie Carmichael, while the other packages bore simply Miss
+Carmichael. She opened it up, and found the book demanded. The lawyer
+had been so full of the name that he had written it mechanically,
+instead of Miss Marjorie Thomas. Marjorie was not well pleased that her
+cousin <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>should have usurped her book, but loyalty to Eugene made her
+suppress any expression of indignation. Mr. Terry had to read that
+letter through his spectacles, and Tryphosa; and on Sunday she proposed
+to invade the sanctity of Mr. Wilks' chamber and interest him in both
+letter and book.</p>
+
+<p>The Sunday came and went, and then the slow week dragged along. Whoever
+would have thought that, a short time ago, they had been so cheerful, so
+merry, even with danger threatening and death at their door. The dominie
+was out of his room at last, walking about with his arm in a sling,
+rejoicing in changes of raiment which Coristine had sent from his
+boarding house by express and the mail waggon. The city clothes suited
+him better than his pedestrian suit, and made him the fashionable man of
+the neighbourhood. In conversation over his friend, he remarked that he
+was pleased to find Corry toning down, writing quiet sensible letters,
+without a single odious pun. "Puir laddie!" said the Squire, "if it wad
+mak him blither, I could stan' a haill foolscap sheet o' them. I'm feard
+the city's no' agreein' wi' him." Before noon on Friday there came a
+hard rider to the Bridesdale gate, a special telegraph messenger from
+Collingwood, with a telegram for Mrs. Carruthers. She took it hastily
+from Timotheus, and, breaking the seal, read to the group gathered about
+her: "If agreeable, Douglas and I will be with you by Saturday's stage.
+Please answer by bearer. Eugene Coristine." The Squire, home a little
+sooner than usual, said: "Let me answer that, Honoria," and retired to
+his office. When he came out, it was with a written paper in his hand,
+which he read for approval. "You and Douglas heartily welcome&mdash;will meet
+you at station, so do not disappoint." This was accepted by a unanimous
+vote; after which the messenger partook of a hasty meal, as did his
+horse, and then galloped back to town. "The waggonette will hold six,"
+said the Squire; "that's Coristine, Mr. Douglas and me. Who are the
+other three? Will you no come, Marjorie? The ride'll dae ye guid, lass."</p>
+
+<p>No, Miss Carmichael declined, and the Squire was inwardly wroth. Mrs.
+Carmichael took the place offered to her daughter, and Marjorie Thomas
+and Mr. Terry volunteered to make up the required number. It seemed
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>such a long time till Saturday morning, but Marjorie tried to shorten
+it, by running everywhere and telling everybody that Eugene was coming.
+The whole house caught the infection. Tryphena and Tryphosa were kept
+busy, preparing already for a late six o'clock dinner on the morrow.
+There was a putting of rooms in order for the coming guests, during
+which Miss Carmichael, conscience stricken, returned the lawyer's verses
+to the leaves of Browning. She dreaded meeting the author of them, and
+found comfort in the fact that he was not coming alone. If she had not
+been, in her own estimation, such a coward, she would have gone on a
+visit to Fanny, but she dared not thus offend her uncle and aunt, and
+desert her mother and Cecile. What was he coming for? She had not sent
+for him. Why did she not want him to come? She did not know, and it was
+the right of nobody to question her on the subject. She only knew that
+she was very unhappy, and hoped she would not act stupidly before the
+stranger from Edinburgh.</p>
+
+<p>That night the Squire received a letter from Coristine, written on
+Thursday, saying that Mr. Douglas had arrived, and was a very fine
+fellow; and that, as soon as he had made up his mind to go to
+Bridesdale, a telegram would be sent. He also requested Mr. Carruthers,
+if it was not trespassing too far upon his kindness, to secure the
+rooms, which the postmistress had told him she had to let, for Miss
+Graves, a young lady in his firm's offices, who needed complete rest and
+change of scene, and who would either go up by the stage on Saturday or
+accompany Mr. Douglas and him at a later date. The letter was read at
+the tea table, and Miss Du Plessis said she knew Marion Graves very
+well, and was glad to think she would be so near, as she was a lovely
+girl; but what a strange thing for Mr. Coristine to recommend her to
+come to Flanders! "Oi'm thinkin'," remarked Mr. Terry, "that av the
+young lady in dilikit loike, it 'ud be a marcy to kape her aff that
+rough stage; so, iv yer willin', Squoire, I'll shtay at home an' lave my
+place to put the poor lady in inshtid av me." Mrs. Carruthers would not
+hear of the veteran's losing the drive, and resigned her seat. Honoria
+would probably want her at any rate, so it was very foolish and selfish
+in her to have thought of going. "There maun be some one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>o' the female
+persuasion, as good old Newberry calls it, to invite Miss Graves and to
+keep her company, especially if she's an invalid," said the Squire. "I
+will go, uncle," said Miss Carmichael, quietly. The uncle was amazed at
+this new turn things were taking, and arranged in his mind to have Miss
+Graves and Mr. Douglas with him in the front seat, and Coristine between
+the two Marjories behind. After tea, Timotheus and Maguffin were sent to
+invite Miss Halbert and the two clergymen to the Saturday evening
+dinner, but, by Mrs. Carruthers' directions, the postmistress was not
+notified that her rooms were wanted. If Miss Graves were all that Cecile
+said of her, she had remarked, she would be better at Bridesdale, and
+would also be an acceptable addition to the number of their guests.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday morning was a time of wild excitement for Marjorie. She went to
+the brook by anticipation, to look at the sportive fish, and turned up a
+flat stone or two, to be sure the crawfish, which the ignorant Timotheus
+called crabs, were still there. She was prepared to report favourably on
+the creek. Then she journeyed along the banks, looking for new flowers,
+and over the stepping stones to the opposite shore, and up the hill to
+the strip of brush, returning with a handful of showy wild blossoms.
+Next, she visited the stable yard, and watched Timotheus and Maguffin
+polishing up the waggonette and the harness of the horses. The colonel
+was there, and, in answer to Marjorie's enquiry regarding his interest
+in the scene, said: "You are not going to leave me behind, you little
+puss, although you did not invite me. I have invited myself, and am
+going to accompany you on hohseback."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to take Guff too, colonel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Guff, my deah?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know Guff?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I am not awahe that I do."</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>"Oh Guffee am de niggah</div>
+<div class='i2'>Wif de tah on his heel;</div>
+<div>He done trabble roun' so libely</div>
+<div class='i2'>Dat he's wuff a mighty deal."</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"You do not shuhly mean Maguffin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do; who else could be Guff?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shall not take Maguffin, seeing we come right <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>back. Had we been
+going to put up anywheah, of couhse, he would have been indispensable."</p>
+
+<p>"What a funny name! Do you mean the waggonette?"</p>
+
+<p>"By what, Mahjohie?"</p>
+
+<p>"By this fencepail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Silly child, I did not say that. I said indispensable, which means,
+cannot be done without."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" answered Marjorie; "it's a long word, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no necessity for starting before ten, at which hour Timotheus
+brought round the waggonette, and Maguffin the colonel's horse. The
+Squire assisted the two Marjories to the front seat, and took his place
+beside the younger. The colonel chivalrously bowed to the ladies while
+on foot; then, he mounted his horse with a bound, and the transport and
+escort trotted away. Mr. Terry, alone and neglected, betook himself to
+the Carruthers children, who soon found many uses to which a
+good-natured grandfather could be put, to the advantage and pleasure of
+his grandchildren.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>The Collingwood Arrivals&mdash;Coristine Goes to the Post Office&mdash;Mr.
+Perrowne is Funny&mdash;Bang's Note and the Lawyer's Fall&mdash;Coristine in
+Hospital&mdash;Miss Carmichael Relents&mdash;Bangs on the Hunt&mdash;The
+Barber&mdash;Mr. Rigby on Wounds&mdash;Berry-Picking with the New
+Arrivals&mdash;The Lawyer's Crisis&mdash;Matilda's&mdash;Miss Carmichael in
+Charge.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>The train had just come in when Squire Carruthers' party arrived at the
+station, so nicely had he timed his driving. As there was nobody to hold
+the horses, he kept his seat, while Coristine, looking faultlessly neat
+in his town dress, came forward and assisted Miss Carmichael and
+Marjorie to alight. Having asked the former's permission, the lawyer
+introduced Miss Graves, a young lady not unlike Miss Du Plessis in
+stature and carriage, but with larger, though handsome, features and
+lighter complexion. Then, Mr. Douglas, a fine-looking blonde man of
+masculine Scottish type, was made acquainted with his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>fair client, and
+with her nominal guardian on the box. Finally, the colonel, standing by
+his horse's head, bowed with genial dignity to the new arrivals, and
+warmly pressed the hand of his dear boy's friend. The Squire's little
+scheme was frustrated. His niece, without asking advice or permission
+from anybody, placed Miss Graves beside the driver, and established
+herself on the same seat, leaving Marjorie between the two gentlemen on
+the one behind, after they had bestowed their valises and Miss Graves'
+portmanteau in their rear. Beyond a ceremonious handshake, Miss
+Carmichael gave Coristine no recognition, although she could not have
+failed to perceive his delight at once more meeting her. To Miss Graves,
+however, she was all that could be desired, cheerful, even animated, and
+full of pleasant conversation. Marjorie kept her Eugene and the new
+gentleman busy. She reported on the creek, and presented her faded
+bouquet of wild flowers, which Eugene received with all the semblance of
+lively satisfaction. She made many enquiries regarding the big girl in
+front, and insisted especially on knowing if she was nice. Then she
+turned to Mr. Douglas and asked his name.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Douglas," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know that, even Timotheus himself knows that. I mean what's your
+real name, your very own, the name your mamma calls you?"</p>
+
+<p>"She used to call me James."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh; have you got a brother called John?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; how did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know. Then your papa's name is Zebedee, and your mamma's is
+Salome."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we are not those two James and Johns; they are dead."</p>
+
+<p>"They are the only James and John I know."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. Your uncle, Dr. Carmichael, was called James Douglas,
+like me."</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie's dead papa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; your cousin is a sort of far-away cousin of mine; so you must be
+one of my cousins, too. What do you think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's nice to have a growed-up man cousin. I'll call you Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie!" said a reproving voice from the front <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>seat; "you must not
+talk to Mr. Douglas in that pert way."</p>
+
+<p>"If my cousin lets me call him Jim, it's none of your business, cousin
+Marjorie. You will let me, won't you, cousin Jim?"</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure, if Miss Carmichael will allow me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it's fair to let her boss the whole show."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Douglas laughed loud and long over this expression, so novel to his
+British ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you learn that, Marjorie?" asked Coristine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, from Guff; there's heaps of fun in Guff."</p>
+
+<p>Her companions occasionally took advantage of silent intervals to
+discuss the scenery, and the Canadian lawyer pointed out spots,
+memorable in the great pedestrian tour, to his Scottish compeer. Miss
+Carmichael never turned, nor did she give Miss Graves a chance to do so;
+but the Squire managed to sit sideways, without at all incommoding the
+ladies, and, keeping one eye on his horses, at the same time engaged in
+conversation with Marjorie's captives. The colonel also kept close to
+the vehicle, and furnished Coristine with new information concerning his
+wounded friend. Miss Graves was informed that she was not to be allowed
+to go to the post office, and her protests were imperiously silenced by
+Marjorie's "boss of the whole show." The horses, having come out
+quietly, went home at a rattling pace, and, a good hour before dinner
+time, the party arrived at Bridesdale, there to be greeted by Miss
+Halbert and the parsons, in addition to the occupants of the house.
+Wilkinson and Mr. Terry received Coristine with enthusiasm, but all the
+ladies bore down upon the latest arrival of their sex and carried her
+away, leaving the man, in whom they had expressed so much interest, to
+feel as if there were a plot on foot to ignore him.</p>
+
+<p>"It mast be very pleasant for you, Corry, to find all the ladies so
+attentive to your lady friend," remarked the Dominie.</p>
+
+<p>"Very pleasant for Miss Graves, no doubt; I can't say the same about
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought you would have regarded a compliment to her as
+more gratifying than one to yourself."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>"Haven't reached that heavenly stage of Christian self-abnegation yet,
+Wilks."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am mistaken in supposing you take a great interest in the
+lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Interest, yes; great, more than doubtful. She's the third girl I've had
+to send away for the good of her health. The other two knew where to go,
+and went. She didn't; so I thought of establishing her at the post
+office. I never dreamt the Squire would come for us till I got his
+message. I meant to accompany her in the stage, and land her in the arms
+of Mrs. Tibbs; but here we are, like a bridal party, with Marjorie for
+bridesmaid and Douglas for best man."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Corry; you have relieved me from a great anxiety. Miss Du
+Plessis thinks very highly of your&nbsp; &mdash;&mdash;&nbsp; travelling companion."</p>
+
+<p>"Douglas, do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, the lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother the lady! Wilks, it's a doubly grave situation. If it wasn't
+for Mr. Terry and Marjorie, I'd cut my stick. As it is, I'll run and
+engage that post-office room for myself, and be back in time for dinner
+or whatever else is up. Au revoir." With a bound he was off the
+verandah, valise in hand, and away on to the road.</p>
+
+<p>When Coristine returned, he was just in time for dinner. He had not been
+missed; the entire interest of the feminine part of the community was
+centred in Miss Graves. The Squire took her in, as the latest lady
+arrival, while Mr. Douglas escorted the hostess. To his infinite
+annoyance, Coristine, who had brought in Mrs. Du Plessis, was
+ostentatiously set down by the side of his invalided type-writer, to
+whom he was the next thing to uncivil. Miss Carmichael, between Mr.
+Douglas and Mr. Errol, was more than usually animated and
+conversational, to the worthy minister's great delight. The amusing man
+of the table was Mr. Perrowne. His people were building him a house,
+which Miss Halbert and he had inspected in the morning, with a view to
+the addition of many cupboards, which the lady deemed indispensable to
+proper housekeeping. Mr. Perrowne thought he would call the place
+Cubbyholes; but Miss Du Plessis asked what it would really be, the
+rectory, the vicarage or the parsonage? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>Miss Halbert suggested the
+basilica, to which he replied that, while a good Catholic, he was
+neither Fannytic nor a Franciscan. He derided his intended bride's taste
+in architecture, and maintained that the income of a bishop would be
+insufficient to stock half the storerooms and wardrobes, leaving all the
+rest of the house unfurnished. As it was, he feared that the charming
+Fanny would be in the predicament of old Mother Hubbard, while he,
+unfortunately, would be in that of the dog. "In that case, Basil," said
+Miss Halbert, "you would be like an inclined plane."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" enquired Mr. Perrowne.</p>
+
+<p>"An inclined plane is a slope up, you know," answered the mischievous
+bride elect.</p>
+
+<p>"Talking about dawgs," remarked the victim of the terrible conundrum, "I
+asked a little girl belonging to one of my parishoners what kind her
+dawg was. She said it had been given to her as a spanuel, but she
+thought it was only a currier."</p>
+
+<p>"When I was at the school," said the Edinburgh gentleman, "a boy whom I
+had offended some way, offered to make the like of me with a street cur
+and an old gun. He said he could make 'one dowg less' in the time it
+took to fire the gun."</p>
+
+<p>"What did you do to that boy, Mr. Douglas?" asked Miss Carmichael.</p>
+
+<p>"I left him alone, for he was a good deal bigger than me."</p>
+
+<p>"You were not a Boanerges then?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I was James the Less."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you dreaming about, Mr. Coristine," called the Squire, "to let
+all this wild talk go on without a word?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to say I did not hear it, Squire," replied the moody lawyer,
+whose little conversation had been wholly devoted to Mrs. Du Plessis.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, the lawyer repaired to the Squire's office, and briefly
+informed him, that the fortune in funds and property to which his niece
+had fallen heir was valued at 80,000 pounds sterling, and that,
+fortunately, there was no sign of any contest or opposition in the
+matter. He also explained that, under the circumstances, he felt
+constrained <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>to take a brief lodging at the post office, and begged Mr.
+Carruthers to apologize to his wife for the desertion of Bridesdale.
+Then, he sought out Mr Terry in the garden and smoked a pipe with him,
+while his new friend, Mr. Douglas, was chatting on the verandah between
+Miss Carmichael and Miss Graves. Nobody else seemed to want him or care
+for him; he had even lost his old friend Wilks, who was absorbed in his
+beloved Cecile. The colonel was as bad with Cecile's mother, and Mr.
+Errol with Mrs. Carmichael. The Squire was busy, so the veteran and he
+were left alone. For a time, they smoked and talked, listening all the
+while, as they could not fail, to the merry badinage of the party on the
+verandah. At last he could stand it no longer. He rose, bade his
+companion good-night, and strolled away on to the road. Once out of
+observation from the house, he walked rapidly to his new quarters. "Is
+that you, Styles?" asked Mrs. Tibbs, as he entered. He assured the
+postmistress that he was not Styles, and asked if there was anything he
+could do for her. "There is a letter here for Squire Carruthers, marked
+'immediate,' and they have not been for their mail," she answered. So,
+sorely against the grain, the lawyer had to take the letter and return
+with it to Bridesdale. Mr. Carruthers was still in his office. He opened
+the envelope and read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Collingwood</span>, Saturday, 12 m.</p>
+<p><i>My Dear Squire,&mdash;</i></p>
+
+<p>Rawdon and his nephew have broken gaol and escaped. Be on your
+guard. Will go to you as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p class='center'>Yours truly,</p>
+<p class='right'><span class="smcap">J. Hickey Bangs.</span></p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>"This is bad news, Coristine. It seems as if we're never to hear the
+last o' yon villain."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm at your service, Squire."</p>
+
+<p>"I canna thole to ask the colonel, puir man, to lose his nicht's rest,
+an' I'm no ower sure o' his man. Sae, the granther an' I'll watch till
+it's twal', if you wi' Timotheus 'll relieve us till two i' the mornin'.
+What say ye to thon?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I'll be here at midnight. Could you get me the cartridges
+out of my knapsack upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>The Squire produced the cartridges, and the lawyer went back to his
+post-office quarters.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>Punctually at midnight he returned, and relieved Mr. Carruthers in
+front of the house, while Timotheus took Mr. Terry's place behind. It
+was after one when he saw a figure, which he did not recognize as
+belonging to any one in the house, steal out of the front door with a
+heavy burden. He ran towards the figure, and it stole, as rapidly as
+possible, down the garden to the hill meadow. He knew it now, outlined
+against the heavens, and fired his revolver. He knew that he had hit his
+man, and that Rawdon was wounded in the body or in the upper part of a
+leg. Hurriedly he pursued, entering the strip of woodland towards the
+brook, when something fell upon him, and two keen qualms of pain shot
+through his breast. Then he lay insensible. Meanwhile, a lithe active
+form, leaving a horse tethered at the gate, had sprung to meet a second
+intruder, issuing from the front door of Bridesdale. The opposing forces
+met, and Mr. Bangs had his hands upon the younger gaol breaker. A loud
+shout brought Timotheus on the scene, and the prisoner was secured. The
+household was aroused. The Squire found his office a scene of confusion,
+his safe broken open, the hidden treasure and many of his papers gone.
+Inwardly he muttered maledictions on the sentry of the watch, little
+knowing that the burglars had entered the house while he was himself on
+guard. In his vexation, and the general excitement, with the presence of
+Miss Graves and Messrs. Douglas and Bangs, the unhappy lawyer's absence
+was overlooked. His shot apparently had not been heard. The vicinity of
+the house was scoured for Rawdon, but without effect. He had got away
+with his own money and many incriminating papers, to be a continued
+source of annoyance and danger. Those who gave any thought to Coristine
+imagined him asleep at the post office, and wondered at his
+indifference. Chief among them were the dominie and Miss Carmichael.
+There was little more rest that night in Bridesdale. One villain at
+large was sufficient to keep the whole company in a state of
+uncomfortable disquiet and apprehension. It was still dark, when old
+Styles came to the gate and asked for Mr. Coristine, as he said the
+crazy woman was at the post office, and Mrs. Tibbs wanted to know if she
+could have the use of the spare room for the rest of the night. Then the
+Squire was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>alarmed, and a great revulsion of feeling took place. The
+man almost entirely ignored was now in everybody's mind, his name on all
+lips but those which had been more to him than all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Stable lanterns were got out, and an active search began. Mr. Terry's
+practiced ear caught the sound of voices down the hillside, and he
+descended rapidly towards them. Soon, he came running back, tearing at
+his long iron grey hair, and the tears streaming from his eyes, to the
+place where his son-in law was standing. "Get a shate or a quilt or
+something, John, till we take it out av that Och, sorra, sorra, the
+foine, brave boy!" At once, Mr. Douglas and Timotheus accompanied the
+Squire to the little wood, and beheld the owners of the voices, Mr.
+Newcome and his intending son-in-law, Ben Toner.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw niver tetched un, Ben. Aw wor jest goan troo t' bush, when aw
+stoombled laike over's carkidge and fall, and got t' blood on ma claws,"
+said the former to his captor.</p>
+
+<p>"S'haylp me," replied Ben, "ef I thunk it was you as killed the doctor,
+I'd put the barl o' this here gun to your hayd and blow out your
+braiuns."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let that man go," said the Squire to Toner.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't that what I come all this way fer?" answered the lover of
+Serlizer.</p>
+
+<p>The Squire and the veteran, with terrible mental upbraidings, raised the
+body from its bed of leaves and wood-mould and placed it reverently upon
+the sheet, which it stained with blood at once. Then, while the colonel
+held one lantern and Wilkinson the other, Mr. Douglas and Timotheus took
+the other corners of the simple ambulance, and bore their burden to the
+house. In his own room they laid Rawdon's victim, removed the clothing
+from his wounds, washed away the clotted blood, only to despair over the
+flow that still continued, and rejoiced in the fact that life was not
+altogether extinct, when they handed him over to the care of the three
+matrons. While the colonel was sending Maguffin in search of the doctor,
+the voice of Squire Halbert was heard in the hall, saying he thought it
+must have been Miss Carmichael who had summoned him, at any rate it was
+a young lady from Bridesdale. He stanched the bleeding, administered
+stimulants, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>ordered constant watching. "The body has suffered
+terribly," he said, "and has hardly any hold upon the soul, which may
+slip away from us at any moment." The good doctor professed his
+willingness to stay until the immediate crisis from loss of blood was
+overpast. To all enquiries he answered that he had very little hope, but
+he sent the kind ladies away from the death-like chamber, and
+established himself there with Wilkinson, who would not leave his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>The light of a beautiful Sunday morning found Miss Du Plessis, Miss
+Halbert, and Miss Graves in bitter sorrow, and little Marjorie beside
+herself with grief. The very kitchen was full of lamentation; but one
+young woman went about, silent and serious indeed, yet tearless. This
+was Miss Carmichael. The doctor had come down to breakfast, leaving the
+dominie alone with the patient, when she took a tray from Tryphena, and
+carried up the morning repast of the watcher. Then, for the first time,
+she got a sight of the wounded man, whose eyes the doctor had closed,
+and whose jaw by gentle pressure he had brought back, till the lips were
+only half parted. She could hardly speak, as she laid a timid hand on
+her late principal's shoulder, directing his attention to the breakfast
+tray. "Look away, please, for Cecile's sake if not for mine," she
+managed to stammer, and, as he turned his head aside, she flung herself
+upon her knees beside the bed, and took the apparently dead man's hand
+in her own, covered it with tears and kisses, and transferred the ring
+she had once worn back to her own hand, replacing it with one of her own
+that would hardly slip down over the bloodless emaciated finger. Quietly
+she arose, and noiselessly left the room, when the dominie returned to
+his watching and administration of stimulants. When she came down
+stairs, outwardly calm but looking as if she had seen a ghost,
+everybody, who was in the secret of past days, knew, and respected her
+silence. Even Mr. Douglas, who had thought to improve his distant
+cousinship, read there the vanity of all his hopes, and bestowed a
+double share of attention upon Miss Graves, charming in her genuine
+sorrow over her considerate employer. Nobody cared to go to church, but
+the good Squire pointed out that few could be of any service at home,
+and that, if ever they had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>need of the comforts of religion, it was at
+such a time. So Mr. Perrowne and Mr. Errol each received a quota of
+grief-stricken worshippers from Bridesdale, and, at the close of their
+respective services, mingled heartfelt expressions of sorrow with
+theirs. The clergymen declined to intrude upon the saddened household,
+until they could be of some service, so the worshippers returned as they
+went.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bangs and the doctor were the lights of the dinner table, their
+professional acquaintance with all sorts of trouble hindering them from
+being overcome by anything of the kind. The former had sent for Mr.
+Rigby, and had placed the two prisoners in his charge, thus releasing
+Timotheus and Ben Toner. The latter reported that his patient was
+restored to animation, but this restoration was accompanied with fear
+and delirium, the effects of which on a rapidly enfeebled body he
+greatly dreaded. If he could keep down the cerebral excitement, all
+might be well, and for this he depended much on the presence with the
+sufferer of his friend, Mr. Wilkinson. Just as he said this, the
+dominie's voice was heard calling for assistance, and the doctor and the
+Squire sprang upstairs. The patient had broken his bandages, and was
+sitting up fighting with his attendant, whom in his delirium he
+identified with Rawdon. It was almost ludicrous to hear him cry, as he
+clutched at Wilkinson's throat: "Ah, Grinstuns, you double-dyed villain,
+I've got you now. No more free circus for you, Grinstuns!" With
+difficulty the three men got him down, and bandaged him again; but his
+struggles were so violent that they feared for his life. He recognized
+none of them. Little Marjorie heard his loud shouts, and ran to save her
+friend from his murderers, as she thought them to be. The Squire would
+have repelled her intrusion angrily, but Doctor Halbert said: "Come,
+little girl, and tell your poor friend he must be quiet, if he wants to
+live for you and the rest of us." It is hard to say what prompted her,
+but she took out a little tear-soaked handkerchief and laid it on
+Coristine's shoulder, calling, "Eugene, you silly boy". The silly boy
+closed his staring eyes, and then opened them again upon the child. "Is
+that you, pet Marjorie?" he asked feebly; and she sobbed out: "Yes,
+Eugene dear, it's me; I've come to help you to get well."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>"Thank you, Marjorie; have I been sick long?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, just a little while; but the doctor says you must be very very
+still, and do just what you're told. Will you, Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; where's your cousin, Marjorie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you turn your head? If you can, put it down, and I'll whisper
+something in your very own ear. Now listen! don't say a word till I come
+back. I'm going to bring cousin Marjorie to you." Then she slipped away
+out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," said the Squire in a shaky voice, "we had aa better gang awa
+oot o' the room till the meetin's owre." So the three men withdrew to
+the hall as the two Marjories entered.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene," whispered little Marjorie, "have you been good while I was
+away, and not spoken?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word, Marjorie," breathed rather than spoke the enfeebled lawyer.</p>
+
+<p>"I have brought cousin Marjorie to you. You must be very good, and do
+all she says. Give me your hand." She took the limp hand, with the ring
+on the little finger, and placed it in her cousin's; then, with a
+touching little sigh, departed, leaving the two alone. Their hands lay
+clasped in one another, but they could not speak. His eyes were upon
+her, all the fierce light of delirium out of them, in spite of the fever
+that was burning in every limb, resting upon her face in a silly wistful
+way, as if he feared the vision was deceptive, or his prize might vanish
+at any moment. At last she asked: "Do you know me, Mr. Coristine?" and
+he murmured: "How could I help knowing you?" But, in a minute, he
+commanded himself, and said: "It is very kind of you to leave your
+friends and come to a stupid sick man. It is too much trouble, it is not
+right, please go away."</p>
+
+<p>"Look me straight in the face, Eugene," said Miss Carmichael, with an
+effort. "Now, tell me, yes or no, nothing more, mind! Am I to go away?"
+As she asked the question, her face bent towards that of the sufferer,
+over which there passed a feeble flush, poor insufficient index of the
+great joy within, and then, as they met, his half-breathed answer was
+"No." She commanded silence, shook up his pillows, bathed his forehead,
+and in many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>ways displayed the stolen ring. He saw it, and, for the
+first time, perceived the change on his own hand. Then, she ordered him
+to go to sleep, as if he were a child, smoothing his hair and chanting
+in a low tone a baby's lullaby, until tired nature, with a heart at
+peace, became unconscious of the outer world and slumbered sweetly. On
+tiptoe, she stole to the door, and found many waiting in the hall for
+news. Proudly, she called the doctor in and showed him his patient, in
+his right mind and resting. "Thank God!" said the good man, "he is
+saved. We must come and relieve you now, Miss Carmichael." But she
+answered: "No, my place is here. If I want assistance I will call my
+uncle or Mr. Wilkinson." Doctor Halbert told the joyful news to the
+Squire and the assembled company. The clergymen would not arrive till
+tea time, so Mr. Carruthers, as the priest of the family, gathered the
+household together, and, in simple language but full of heart, thanked
+God for the young life preserved. The doctor went away home, but without
+Miss Fanny, and, as he drove off, remarked to the Squire, significantly:
+"There is no medicine in the world like love," a sentiment with which
+the Squire thoroughly agreed.</p>
+
+<p>The evening was a very pleasant one. Messrs. Errol and Perrowne rejoiced
+to hear the good news from the sick room, and Mrs. Carmichael gave the
+former to understand, in a vague, yet to his intelligence perfectly
+comprehensible, way, that the assurance of her daughter's future
+happiness would remove a large obstacle in the way of her becoming the
+mistress of the manse. Mr. Perrowne appreciated Dr. Halbert's
+consideration in leaving his daughter at Bridesdale. The Du Plessis
+quartette were even farther advanced than the Carmichael four; and
+consequently Miss Graves was left to the entertainment of Mr. Douglas.
+The patient upstairs awoke, feeling very stiff and sore, but quite
+rational, and almost too happy to speak, which was a good thing, as his
+strength was that of a baby. He had to be lifted and turned, and propped
+up and let down, which the Squire generally did for him, under the head
+nurse's instructions, received from the doctor. Then he had to be fed,
+and begged to have his moustache curtailed, so as to facilitate the
+task. Two little hands, a comb, and a pair of scissors went to work,
+and, without annihilating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>the hirsute adornment, so trimmed it as to
+reveal a well-curved upper lip, hitherto almost invisible. It is
+astonishing what a sense of proprietorship this "barberous operation,"
+as she termed it, developed in the heiress, who thought more of it than
+of her prospective thousands. It was past ten o'clock before she
+consented to yield her post to the devoted Wilkinson, who already began
+to look upon her as a sister, and to whom she gave directions, with all
+the gravity and superior dignity of an experienced nurse. The colonel
+would willingly have taken his turn in the sick room, but Mr. Terry, Mr.
+Douglas, and the Squire insisted on relieving him. Mr. Bangs was away
+with Ben Toner and two guns hunting for the Grinstun man. The watchers
+got along very well through the night, with the exception of the
+veteran, who was a little too liberal in the application of stimulants,
+which led to a reappearance of fever, and necessitated his calling in
+the aid of the ever-willing and kindly Honoria. Both the clergymen had
+volunteered to sit up with him, whom they were proud to call their
+friend, but it was not considered fair to impose upon them after the
+labours of their hardest day.</p>
+
+<p>The morning saw Miss Carmichael in the sick room again, putting things
+to rights, purifying and beautifying it, as only a woman can, with the
+romantic and tearful, Shakespeare loving Tryphosa in her train. Poor
+little neglected Marjorie, who had performed for her young self an art
+of heroic sacrifice in handing over her own Eugene to her unworthy
+cousin, was allowed, a great and hitherto unheard of reward, to bring
+the patient an armful of flowers from the garden, gathering any blossoms
+she chose, to fill vases and slender button-hole glasses in every
+corner. She was even permitted to kiss Eugene, although she protested
+against the removal of that lovely moustache. She offered to bring
+Felina to lick off the stubble on her friend's chin, but that friend, in
+a wheezy whistling voice, begged that Maguffin might be substituted for
+the cat, in case pussy might scratch him. Maguffin came with the
+colonel's razors, and Marjorie looked on, while he gave the author of
+his present fortunes a clean shave, and made ironical remarks about
+moustache trimming. "Guess the man what trimmed yoh mustash fought he
+was a bahbah, sah?" The patient smiled seraphically, and whistled in
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>his throat. "Never want to have a better, Maguffin."</p>
+
+<p>"It's awful, Guff, isn't it?" asked Miss Thomas, and continued, "it
+quite gives me the horrows!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dey's bahbahs and dey's bahbahs," replied the coloured gentlemen, "and
+I doan want ter blame a gennelum as cayn't help hisself."</p>
+
+<p>The barbering completed, Marjorie junior was dismissed with her ally
+Guff, and the senior lady of that name reigned supreme. The eyes of the
+feeble invalid, whose heart had been hungering and thirsting for love
+during a month that had seemed a lifetime, followed her all over the
+room, and almost stopped beating when she went near the door. But she
+came back, and held that hot fevered hand on which her modest ring
+glistened, and cooled his brow, and made him take his sloppy food, and
+answered back in soft but cheery tones his deprecating whispers. She had
+him now safe, and would tyrannize over him, she said; till, spite of the
+weakness and the sharp pains, his eye began to twinkle with something of
+the old happy light that seemed to be of so long ago, and, smilingly, he
+murmured: "We are not ready for our graves yet." Miss Carmichael looked
+severe, and held up a warning finger. "Repeat that, Eugene, and I will
+send her to take care of you at once," she said; "that is, if she will
+leave her dear Mr. Douglas for a poor bed-ridden creature like you." As
+an affectionate salute followed these words, it may be presumed they
+were not so harsh as they sounded. The doctor came in time for
+breakfast, but, before partaking of that meal, he visited his patient,
+eased his bandages, looked to the wounds, and praised the nurse. "He
+could not be doing better," he said, as he cheerfully descended to the
+breakfast table.</p>
+
+<p>The constable had respected the sanctity of the Sabbath, and was still
+in the kitchen, while his prisoners languished in the stables. Tryphena
+presided over the morning meal, at which Timotheus and Ben sat; and
+Tryphosa, who had just descended from her labours in the sick room, was
+giving them so touching and poetical an account of the invalid and his
+nurses that Timotheus began seriously to consider the propriety of
+having some frightful injury inflicted upon his own person. Mr. Toner
+related for the tenth time how the spurious doctor had cured him, and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>then proceeded to tell of Serlizer's wonderful skill in pulling through
+her shot-riddled old reprobate of a father, till "he was eenamost as
+good as new and a mighty sight heavier 'n he was, along o' the leaud in
+his old carkidge." Constable Rigby laughed at the wounds of the day, and
+characterized them as mere scratches, unworthy of mention in casualty
+despatches. "There was a man of ours, an acting corporal, called
+Brattles, in the melee at Inkerman, who broke the tip of his bagginet
+off in one Rooshian, and the butt of it in another. Then he had nothing
+to do but to club with what the French call the crosse. He forgot that
+he had not emptied his gun of the last charge so, just as he had floored
+his fourth Rooshian, the piece went off into his left breast, and the
+bullet ran clear down him and came out of his boot under the hollow of
+the left foot. Captain Clarkson thought he was done for; but Brattles
+asked him for two champagne corks, plugged up the incoming and the
+outgoing wounds with them, and stuck to it till the Rooshian bugles
+sounded the retreat. That I call a wound to speak of." Tryphena, who had
+listened to this story of her elderly admirer with becoming gravity,
+ventured to ask: "Do officers carry champagne corks about with them on
+the battle-field, Corporal Rigby?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not all officers, Miss Hill. I never heard that Lord Raglan or Sir
+Colin did. But the young fellows, of course. How else could they blacken
+each other's faces?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do they do that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regular. There was a subaltern they called Baby Appleby, he was so
+white-skinned and light-haired. Well, one night we had to turn out for
+an alarm in the dark, and charged two miles up to the rifle pits of the
+first line. When we came back, the colonel halted us for inspection
+before dismiss. When he came to Mr. Appleby, he turns to his captain and
+says: 'Where did you get this nigger in uniform, Ford?' The captain
+looked at him and roared, for poor Mr. Appleby was as black as Maguffin.
+The gentlemen had amused themselves corking him when he was asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Yoh finds it mighty easy, consterble, ter say disrespeckshus remahks on
+cullud folks," said the temporary barber, entering at that moment. "Ef
+the Lawd made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>as dahk complected, I specks the Lawd knowed what He was
+a doin', and didn't go foh ter set white folks a-sneezin' at 'em. I'se
+flissertaten myself ebery day yoh cayn't cohk me inter a white folks."</p>
+
+<p>"They's whitewaush, Maguffin," interpolated Ben. "A good heavy coaut o'
+whitewaush 'ud make a gashly Corkashun of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yah! yah! yah! I'se got a brudder as perfesses whitewashin' an'
+colourin'. When he's done got a job, he looks moh like the consterble's
+brudder nor myuns, yah! yah! yah!"</p>
+
+<p>The corporal frowned, and went on with his breakfast, while Mr. Maguffin
+gave an account of his shaving adventure, and of the sight of that poor
+man whose moustache had been trimmed by a non-professional.</p>
+
+<p>Ben was soon after called by the detective to re-engage in the hunt for
+Rawdon, who was now known to be wounded, and, therefore, to be lurking
+somewhere in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Carmichael accompanied Mr. Errol on
+a visit to Matilda Nagle at the post office. The absence of the minister
+made the morning game of golf impossible, so that Mr. Perrowne had to
+surrender himself to the care of Miss Halbert, which he did with a fine
+grace of cheerful resignation. Mr. Douglas expressed a desire to take a
+walk in the surrounding country, and the dominie echoed it, with the
+condition that the ladies should share in the excursion. The Squire and
+Mrs. Carruthers were busy; the doctor had his patient to look after, and
+expected to be summoned to the other at the post office; and Mr. Terry
+occupied himself with the children. But Mrs. Du Plessis and her
+daughter, Miss Graves, Miss Halbert, and, of course the colonel and Mr.
+Perrowne, were willing to be pedestrians, if the proposers of the tramp
+promised not to walk too fast. There was a pretty hillside, beyond
+Talfourds on the road towards the Beaver River, from which the timber
+had once been removed, and which was now covered, but not too thickly,
+with young second growth; and thither the party determined to wend their
+way. Marjorie had intended to stay at home, in the hope of being allowed
+to see Eugene again, but the doctor had begged her to leave him alone
+for a day or two, and now the prospect of blackberry and thimbleberry
+picking on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>the hillside was too much for her to resist. Gaining
+permission from her aunt, she loaded Jim with baskets and little tin
+pails, and led him away to the road between herself and Miss Graves. The
+other gentlemen relieved the burdened Edinburghian of portions of his
+load, and fell into natural pairs with the ladies, Miss Du Plessis and
+Wilkinson bringing up the rear. There was a pleasant lake breeze to
+temper the heat of the fine August morning, which gave the dominie
+license to quote his favourite poet:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>And now I call the pathway by thy name,</div>
+<div>And love the fir-grove with a perfect love.</div>
+<div>Thither do I withdraw when cloudless suns</div>
+<div>Shine hot, or wind blows troublesome and strong.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Anticipating the thimbleberries, he recited:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Thy luscious fruit the boy well knows,</div>
+<div>Wild bramble of the brake.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Miss Du Plessis liked that sort of thing. It was a blessed relief from
+type-written legal business letters. So she responded in the lines of
+Lamartine:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Mon c&oelig;ur &agrave; ce r&eacute;veil du jour que Dieu renvoie,</div>
+<div>Vers un ciel qui sourit s'&eacute;leve sar sa joie,</div>
+<div>Et de ces dons nouveaux rendant grace au Seigneur,</div>
+<div>Murmure en s'&eacute;veillant son hymne int&eacute;rieur,</div>
+<div>Demande un jour de paix, de bonheur, d'innocence,</div>
+<div>Un jour qui p&egrave;se entier dans la sainte balance,</div>
+<div>Quand la main qui les p&egrave;se &agrave; ses poids infinis</div>
+<div>Retranchera du temps ceux qu'il n'a pas b&eacute;nis!</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>By this it will appear that the two were admirably suited to each other,
+finding in their companion peculiar excellences they might have vainly
+sought among a thousand on Canadian soil. "This is a morning of
+unalloyed happiness, Farquhar," remarked Miss Du Plessis in prose, and,
+in the same humble style of composition, he answered: "Thank God,
+Cecile! Think what it might have been had the worst happened to poor
+Corry!"</p>
+
+<p>"As it is," replied that lady, archly, "the worst has turned out for the
+best."</p>
+
+<p>"As it was with me," the dominie humbly responded, and relapsed into
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Marjorie trotted on ahead, and, her eyes, made observant by
+former botanical expeditions on a small scale, found the purplish blue
+five-flowered Gentian <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>by the open roadside, the tall orange Asclepias
+or Butterfly Weed, and the purple and yellow oak leaved Gerardias or
+False Foxgloves in grassy stretches among the second growth. These she
+bestowed on Jim, who begged to be allowed to present the most perfect
+specimens to Miss Graves. The walkers were now on the top of the hill,
+and strayed off into the overgrown clearing. A shout from Marjorie
+declared that the berries had been reached, and within five minutes the
+whole party was engaged in gathering, what Mr. Douglas hailed with
+delight as "brammles." Marjorie accused the colonel of picking for his
+own mouth, but this was a libel. He picked for Mrs. Du Plessis, whom he
+established under the shade of a straggling striped maple of tender
+growth. That lady received the tribute of brother Paul very gracefully,
+and darkened her lips with the ripe berries, much to the colonel's
+amusement and their mutual gratification. Miss Halbert stood over Basil,
+and so punished him with a sunshade, whenever he abstracted fruit for
+personal consumption, that the man became infatuated and persisted in
+his career of wrong doing, till he was deprived of his basket, which he
+only received back after an abject apology delivered on his knees, and a
+solemn promise to have regard to the general weal. Miss Du Plessis and
+the dominie would have done well, had not the worship of nature and
+human nature, in prose and in verse, withheld their hands from labour,
+and fortunately, as Mr. Perrowne remarked, from picking and stealing.
+Mr. Douglas was absorbed in admiration for Miss Graves, who, thinking
+nothing of the handsome picture she made, attended strictly to business,
+and roused him to emulation in basket filling. Marjorie, with her
+oft-replenished tin can, aided them time about impartially, as the only
+honest workers worthy of recognition. Steadily, they toiled away, until
+the rising sun and shortening shadows, to say nothing of stooped backs
+and flushed faces, warned them to cease their labours, and prepare to
+take their treasures home. Then they compared baskets, to the exultation
+of some and the confusion of others. Miss Graves and Mr. Douglas were
+bracketed first with a good six quarts a piece. Miss Halbert came next,
+with Mr. Perrowne a little behind. Miss Du Plessis and Mr. Wilkinson had
+not six <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>quarts between them; and, when Marjorie saw the colonel's
+little pail only half full, she exclaimed: "O horrows!" and said it was
+a lasting disgrace. But Mrs. Du Plessis smiled sweetly with her
+empurpled lips, and the colonel did not mind the disgrace a particle.
+They all went home very merry and full of innocent jocularity.</p>
+
+<p>"Cecile," said the dominie, "I trust you will excuse the adjective, but
+I should dearly love to hear Corry's jolly laugh just now. Poor fellow,
+I think I could almost bear a pun."</p>
+
+<p>The audacious Mr. Perrowne overheard the last words, and, with great
+exuberance of feeling, propounded a conundrum.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wilkinson, why is a pun of our friend Coristine's like your sling?
+D'ye give it up? Because there's now arm in it now. Ha! ha!"</p>
+
+<p>They had only been a few hours away, but, when they returned to
+Bridesdale, it did not require clever eyes to see that a great change
+had taken place. The people were in the house, even the children, but
+they were all very quiet. Neither the doctor nor the Squire was visible,
+and instinctively the berry-pickers feared the worst. Mrs. Carruthers
+told them that excitement had been too much for the enfeebled patient.
+Happily, he was not strong enough to be delirious, but he seemed
+sinking, and had fallen into unconsciousness, only muttering little
+incoherences in his attenuated voice. Doctor Halbert hoped much from a
+strong constitution, but work and worry had reduced its vitality before
+the dreadful drain came on the life blood. Soon, he came down stairs
+with the Squire, both looking very solemn. "Let me go to my friend,
+Doctor," pleaded Wilkinson, and many other offers of service were made,
+but the doctor shook his head. "Miss Marjorie is there and will not
+leave him," he answered; "and, if she cannot pull him through, nobody
+else can. When she wants help, she will summon you." Then, turning to
+Mr. Errol, he said: "I will go with you now, and see to that poor woman
+at the post office." The minister took the good doctor's arm, and they
+went away dinnerless to attend to the wants of Matilda Nagle, suddenly
+smitten down with fever while on the way to obey the imperious infelt
+summons of the unseen Rawdon. Mr. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>Newberry was with her, having been
+driven over by that strange mixture of humanity, Yankee Pawkins, and
+Mrs. Tibbs was acting as the soul of kindness. The woman's case was a
+remarkable combination of natural and mesmeric causes, but presented no
+reason for serious apprehension. The doctor prescribed, and Pawkins
+drove off at breakneck speed to get the prescription filled by the
+medical student at his dispensary. Then, he and the minister returned to
+the sobered and melancholy company at Bridesdale. "Resting, but hardly
+breathing," was the bulletin that greeted them, when they enquired after
+the solitary battler for life in the upper chamber. Yet he was not
+alone; one sad stricken woman's heart was bound to that poor shadow of
+former vital wealth forever.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<blockquote><p>Matilda Free&mdash;The Constable Captured&mdash;The Thunderstorm&mdash;Rawdon
+Found&mdash;The Lawyer Revives&mdash;Inquest&mdash;Mr. Pawkins
+Again&mdash;Expeditions&mdash;Greek&mdash;Committee of the Whole&mdash;Miss Graves and
+Mr. Douglas&mdash;Weddings&mdash;The Colonel, Wilkinson and Perrowne
+Off&mdash;Arrival of Saul&mdash;Errol, Douglas and Coristine
+Wedded&mdash;Festivities in Hall and Kitchen&mdash;Europe&mdash;Home&mdash;Two
+Knapsacks&mdash;Envoi.</p></blockquote>
+
+
+<p>That was a dreary Monday afternoon inside Bridesdale, in spite of the
+beautiful weather without, for the shadow of death fell heavy and black
+on every heart. Those who had shared in the morning's merriment felt as
+if they had been guilty of sacrilege. Even Mr. Rigby exhibited his share
+in the general concern by being more than usually harsh towards his
+prisoners. About four o'clock there was an incident that made a little
+break in the monotony of waiting for the death warrant. Old Styles
+arrived, to say that the crazy woman was no longer crazy. Half an hour
+before she sat up in bed and cried "Free at last!" and since then,
+though the fever was still on her, her mind was quite clear. Doctor
+Halbert took a note of the time, and wondered what the sudden and
+beneficial change meant. Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Errol sympathized with
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>him, rejoicing for the poor woman's sake. The detective and Ben Toner
+came home, very tired and disgusted with their want of success. When
+night came, the dominie again offered to stay with his friend, and, in
+his anxiety, even forced himself into the sick room. Miss Carmichael was
+very pale, but very quiet and resolute. "He is your dear friend, I
+know," she said, calmly, "but he belongs to me as he does not to anybody
+else in the world. I may not have him long, so please don't grudge me
+the comfort of watching." Wilkinson had to go away, more pained at heart
+for the sad eyed watcher awaiting the impending blow than for the
+unconscious friend on whom it was to fall more mercifully. Mr. Bangs
+took charge of the outside guard that night, in which the clergymen had
+volunteered to serve. Mr. Rigby took a grey blanket out to the stables,
+and lay down near his prisoners, with baton and pistol close at hand.
+About eleven o'clock Ben Toner, on guard before the house, saw a female
+figure approaching, and challenged. "Squit yer sojer foolins, Ben, and
+leave me pass," came from the well known voice of Serlizer. "Is the gals
+up in the kitchen?"</p>
+
+<p>"They is," replied Mr. Toner, humbly and laconically; and his ladylove
+proceeded thitherward. Miss Newcome looked in upon Tryphena, Tryphosa,
+and Timotheus, Mr. Maguffin being asleep, and, after a little
+conversation, guessed she'd go and see Ben. She had found out that the
+constable had two prisoners in charge, quite incidentally, and listened
+to the news as something that did not concern her. Instead of going to
+see Ben, however, she visited the stables. The corporal was evidently
+tired of lying in front of his captives, and probably proposed to
+himself an improving game of geography over a mug of cider in the
+kitchen, for he had risen and unlocked the door. Serlizer stood by it
+with a stout handkerchief in her hand, in the middle of which was
+knotted a somewhat soft and unsavoury potato. As Mr. Rigby slipped out,
+after a glance at his shackled charges, that potato went across his
+month, and was fastened in its place by the handkerchief, firmly, though
+quickly, knotted at the back of his neck. The terror of Russians and
+Sepoys struggled for liberty, but he was a child in the arms of the
+encampment cook. Halters, ropes, and chains of many kinds were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>hanging
+up, and with some of these the Amazon secured her prisoner in a stall.
+Then she searched him, retaliating upon the constable the indignities he
+had practised on his former victims. Handcuff and padlock keys were
+found in his pockets, and with these she silently freed her venerable
+father, who, in his turn, delivered young Rawdon from his bonds. "Now,
+you two," said the rescuer, quietly, "go round the end of the stables,
+cross the road into the bush beyont, and leg out fast as ye can. I'm
+a-goin' ter foller, and, ef I see ye take a step 'campment way, I'll
+have ye both hung, sure pop." Mr. Newcome gave the prostrate constable
+two parting kicks in the ribs, and obeyed orders, while his affectionate
+daughter followed, until she saw the fugitives safely on the homeward
+road. Then she strayed back to the kitchen, and guessed, seeing Ben was
+all safe, she'd go home, as the night was fine. She put in half an
+hour's irrelevant talk with Mr. Toner after this, and, thereafter, left
+him, suggesting, as she departed, that, when his watch was over, he
+might look into the stables, where the horses seemed to be restless.</p>
+
+<p>Simple-hearted Ben informed Mr. Bangs that he had heard noises in the
+stables, which was not true. Proceeding thither with a lantern he found
+only one prisoner, who, on examination, proved to be the constable. He
+had attacked the unsavoury potato with his teeth as far as the tightness
+of his gag allowed, and was now able to make an audible groan, which
+sounded slushy through the moist vegetable medium. When released, he was
+speechless with indignation, disappointment, and shame. Ben flashed the
+lantern on the handkerchief, and recognized it as the property of a
+young woman of his acquaintance, whereupon he registered an inward vow
+to throw off a Newcome and take on a Sullivan. Bridget was better
+looking than Serlizer anyway, and wasn't so powerful headstrong like.
+Mr. Bangs came to see the disconsolate corporal, and Mr. Terry sought in
+vain to comfort him. The detective was not sorry, save for the
+possibility of the fugitives effecting a junction with Rawdon, who would
+thus be at the head of a gang again. Otherwise, Newcome was not at all
+likely to leave the country, and could be had any time, if wanted. As
+for the unhappy lad, he had suffered enough, and if there were any
+chance of his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>amending his company, Mr. Bangs was not the man to put
+stumbling blocks in his way. But the demented constable, having
+recovered his baton, began searching. He explored the stables, the
+lofts, the coach-house, the sheds, examined every manger, and thrust a
+pitchfork into every truss of hay and heap of straw. He came outside and
+scrutinized the angle of every fence, poked every bush, peered under
+verandahs, and, according to the untruthful and unsympathetic Timotheus,
+rammed twigs down woodchucks' holes for fear the jail breakers had taken
+refuge in the bowels of the earth. Ben and Maguffin brought him in by
+force, lest in his despair he should do himself an injury, and sat him
+down in an easy chair with the wished-for cider mug before him. He had
+sense enough left to attach himself to the mug, and draw comfort from
+its depths. Then he murmured: "Thomas Rigby, eighteen years in service,
+promoted corporal for valour before the enemy, Crimean and Indian medals
+and clasps, captured by a female young woman, bound and imprisoned by
+the same, Attention! no, as you were!" Addressing Mr. Terry he
+continued: "Sergeant Major, that woman, unless I find her, will bring my
+grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, now, corporal dear! shure it isn't the firsht toime a foine
+lukin' owld sowljer has been captivated boy the ladies. Honoria's
+blissed mother, rist her sowl in heaven, tuk me prishner wid a luk av
+her broight black eyes, an', iv she wor livin', she cud do it agin."</p>
+
+<p>With the morning came a thunderstorm, altogether unexpected, for
+Monday's north-western breeze had promised fine and cooler weather. But
+the south wind had conquered for a time, and now the two blasts were
+contending in the clouds above and on the waters of the distant great
+lake below. The rain fell in torrents, like hail upon the shingled roof;
+the blue-forked lightning flashed viciously, followed instantaneously by
+peals of thunder that rattled every casement, and made the dishes dance
+on the breakfast table. The doctor had been with his patient; and as the
+clergymen were about to conduct family worship, he whispered to them
+that the soul might slip away during the terrors of the storm, as he had
+often seen before. It was a very solemn and awful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>time. In vain Mrs.
+Carmichael, aided by the other ladies, sought to make her daughter rest
+or even partake of food. How could she? The storm outside was nothing to
+that which raged in her own breast, calm as was her outward demeanour.
+Marjorie crouched on the mat outside the bed-room door, and quietly
+sobbed herself to sleep amid the crash of the elements. But, when
+another sad dinner was over, the colonel and Mr. Terry bethought them of
+asking the detective if he knew of the inner lake on the shore of which
+Tillycot stood. He did not, but saw the importance of searching there.
+As the last of the rain had ceased, he proposed to explore it, but told
+the Squire, with whom he communicated, that the skiff his informants had
+mentioned was not at the place where first found, or anywhere on that
+lake. Therefore Mr. Perrowne and Mr. Douglas proposed to go with Ben
+Toner to get the Richards' scow, and meet Mr. Bangs with the colonel and
+Mr. Terry at the encampment. The two parties armed and drove away. One
+of the Richards boys, namely Bill, joined the three watermen, and
+together they propelled the punt to the extent of a punt's travelling
+capacity; but it was between four and five when the explorers of
+Tillycot, leaving Ben, Timotheus and Richards on the shore, entered with
+difficulty through the veiled channel, into the beautiful hidden lake.
+They saw the skiff on the shore near the house, and soon perceived the
+numerous blood stains in it. They ran up the bank, entered the chalet,
+and, at last, in the library, beheld him whom they sought, extended upon
+the floor. He had died by his own hand, his fingers being still upon the
+pistol whose bullet had pierced his brain. Mr. Bangs seized a scrap of
+writing lying on the table, which ran thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Curse you, Tilly, for leaving me to die like a rat in a hole. I have
+stood the pains of hell for thirty-eight hours, and can't stand them any
+longer. They shan't take me alive. Box and that hound Carruthers' papers
+are covered with brush and leaves under the last birch in the bush,
+where I finished that meddlesome fool of a lawyer. You know why you
+ought to give a lot to Regy's boy. It's all over. Curse the lot of you.
+Here goes, but mind you kill that damnable Squire, or I'll come when I'm
+dead and torture the life out of you."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>No compassion could follow the reading of this document. There was
+nothing of legal importance in the chalet, so Mr. Bangs, aided by Mr.
+Terry and Mr. Douglas, carried the dead man to the punt, and the party
+in it and in the skiff returned to the Encampment lake. Richards, Ben
+Toner, and Timotheus carried the body up the hill to the waggon on the
+masked road. Then they returned to the scow, while Mr. Bangs drove to
+the post office annex, with the colonel and Mr. Terry, Mr. Perrowne and
+Mr. Douglas. Ben Toner and Timotheus arrived in the other waggon, soon
+after the ghastly burden had been deposited in the unfinished hall, and
+were left in charge, while the others went home to inform the Squire and
+the doctor. Having done this, the detective took the former to the
+little wood, and, after a little searching, found the concealed box,
+which held the incriminating papers as well as the original treasure.
+But for Coristine's fatal shot, these would have been carried away. On
+their return, Doctor Halbert said, after consulting Mr. Bang's paper:
+"He took his life the very hour Matilda exclaimed 'Free at last.' The
+neighbourhood and the whole country may breathe more freely now that he
+is gone. Your poor friend upstairs, John, has not died in vain."</p>
+
+<p>"But he's not dead, Halbert!" almost sobbed the Squire.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," replied the doctor, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Coristine had survived the thunderstorm and the finding of Rawdon's
+remains; and, now that all sympathy in the latter was forfeited, many a
+one would gladly have gone to the sinking man who fired the shot to tell
+him, in his own vernacular, that Grinstuns had ceased from troubling.
+But few dared intrude upon the stillness of his chamber, from the door
+of which Marjorie had to be carried bodily away. The villain dead, the
+treasure and papers recovered, Matilda Nagle in her right mind,
+confidence was restored in Bridesdale, and only one absorbing thought
+filled all minds. Yet, while the colonel shared his cigar case with Mr.
+Douglas, and Mr. Terry smoked his dudeen, Mr. Bangs wrote to Toronto an
+account of the escaped prisoner's death, Miss Du Plessis resigned her
+type writership to Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff, and White, Mr. Wilkinson
+sent in to the Board of School Trustees his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>resignation of the
+Sacheverell Street School, and the Squire, on behalf of his niece,
+signified that her position in the same was vacant, and informed the
+legal firm of the serious illness of their junior partner. The clergymen
+returned to their lodgings and their duties, and the constable, having
+no living criminal to watch over, relieved Timotheus and Ben Toner of
+their care of the dead. Maguffin had summoned Messrs. Newberry, Pawkins,
+and Johnson for the coroner's jury in the morning, and no excitement was
+left at Bridesdale. When night came, all retired to rest, except the one
+watcher by the bedside of despair. Early in the morning, when the sun
+began to shine upon the night dews and peep through the casements, a tap
+came to the dominie's door. He was awake, he had not even undressed,
+and, therefore, answered it at once. He knew the pale figure in the
+dressing gown. "Put on your pedestrian suit," she said with eagerness,
+"and bring your knapsack with you as quickly as possible." He put it on,
+although the arms of coat and shirt were ripped up for former surgical
+reasons, and he objected to the blood marks on the sleeves. Then he took
+up his knapsack, and went hastily to the sick room. His friend was lying
+on his side, and looking very deathly, but he was speaking, and a wan
+smile flitted over his lips. "Two knapsacks," he murmured, and, "Dear
+old Wilks," and, "rum start." Miss Carmichael said: "Put yours here on
+the table above his, where he can see them," and he obeyed. "Now, stand
+beside them, and say 'Corry,' gently." The dominie could hardly do it
+for a queer choking in his throat, but at last he succeeded in
+pronouncing the abbreviation in an interrogative tone. "Wilks," wheezed
+the sick man, "O Wilks, she called them pads!" and his eyes rested on
+the knapsacks. "Stay with him," the nurse whispered, "while I call
+Fanny." Soon Miss Halbert came, and, walking boldly but quietly up to
+the bedside, asked: "Who are you calling she, you naughty boy that want
+to leave us all?" With an effort, he answered: "I beg your pardon, Miss
+Halbert, but you know you did call them pads." "Well, so they are, you
+poor dear," she replied, bending over and kissing the white forehead,
+for which it is to be hoped Mr. Perrowne absolved her; "but you must
+stay here, for see, I have brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>Marjorie to nurse you till you are
+fit to carry a knapsack again." Then Miss Carmichael came forward, and
+the patient became ceremoniously polite in a wheezing way, and was
+ashamed of himself to be ill and give so much trouble; but he allowed
+himself to be shaken up and receive his strengthening mixtures, and
+behaved like a very feeble rational man with a little, but real, hold on
+life. That was the turning point in the lawyer's career; and, when the
+doctor descended from seeing him later in the morning, he announced that
+the crisis was past, and that, with proper care, the Squire's
+prospective nephew would live. Joy reigned once more in Bridesdale, from
+Mr. Terry to Marjorie, and from the stately Mrs. Du Plessis to Maguffin
+in the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>The only thing to mar the pleasure of that day was the inquest, and even
+that brought an agreeable surprise. When Matilda Nagle was called, she
+refused to acknowledge the name, insisting that she was Matilda Rawdon,
+and producing from her pocket a much crumpled marriage certificate,
+bearing the signature of a well-known clergyman who had exercised his
+sacred office in a town within thirty miles of Toronto. This she had
+taken from the library on the occasion of her last visit to Tillycot.
+Old Mr. Newberry's face beamed with delight, and that of Mr. Bangs was a
+curious study, revealing a mind which had joyfully come to a decision it
+had been struggling after in the face of serious difficulties. When the
+verdict of suicide was given, the jury dismissed, and he prepared, along
+with the constable, to deliver over the body of the escaped prisoner
+into the gaoler's hands, he bade Mrs. Rawdon an almost affectionate
+goodbye, and made touching enquiries after the welfare of her son Monty.
+As an honourable woman, she was received, in spite of her late husband's
+character, and her own unconscious crimes, into the Bridesdale circle,
+which, however, she soon left in the company of her benevolent host. The
+Squire informed her that he had a large sum of money in keeping for her
+and her son, and that Miss Du Plessis would either send her all the
+furniture of Tillycot, when she was prepared to receive it, or take it
+from her at an equitable valuation, to either alternative of which she
+strongly objectd. Before Mr. Rigby finished his midday meal, without
+which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>it was impossible that he, at his age, could travel, Mr. Pawkins
+twisted the British lion's tail several times, to which the corporal
+replied sadly: "Had I still been in the British army, sir, I should have
+been degraded for losing prisoners committed to my guard, but any man
+who allows himself to speak as you do, sir, of what you are too ignorant
+to judge of, is degraded already." The cautious Yankee was equally
+unsuccessful with Ben, who met him with: "Don't give me no more lip
+about Serlizer and old man Newcome, but jist you tell 'em I've waushed
+the bilin' of 'em clear off'n my hands fer a gayul as Serlizer ain't a
+patch on." Then Mr. Pawkins amused himself asking Tryphosa if it was
+Maguffin or Timotheus was her young man, giving as his private opinion
+that the nigger was the smarter man of the two. When Tryphena playfully
+ordered him out of the house, he expressed intense sorrow for Sylvanus'
+future, but was glad to hear he was getting a present rest, paddling his
+mud barge round the Simcoe pond. Mr. Pawkins was offensively personal,
+but kept the table lively, and parted with them, regretting that, having
+left his catechism at home, he was unable to favour his dear children
+with a little much-needed religious instruction. The door was slammed
+behind him, and Mr. Rigby remarked with animation: "Very properly done,
+Miss Hill, a very timely rebuke of unpardonable American insolence!"</p>
+
+<p>When evening came, the Squire and Mrs. Carmichael mastered courage, and
+took Coristine's pale-faced nurse away from him with gentle force, the
+mother taking the daughter's place for a time. After this, Miss
+Carmichael was allowed no night duty, Wilkinson and the Squire, the
+clergymen, Mr. Terry, and Mr. Douglas attending to it in turns, while
+all the ladies, in the same way, relieved her during part of each day.
+Very slowly, but silently and patiently, the invalid regained his lost
+strength. He was grateful, sometimes with a few words of thanks, but
+oftener mutely, with a deprecating look, to all who ministered to his
+comfort. One day Marjorie was allowed in, and, among other wise remarks,
+informed her Eugene that "cousin Marjorie wasn't you know what any
+more." "My little love," he answered, "she's an angel, and always was";
+Marjorie was not at all sure of this, but did not like to cross a sick
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>man. During his progress towards health, there were walks and drives,
+picnics to Tillycot and the Beaver River, expeditions to town, fishing
+expeditions with Mr. Bigglethorpe, for whom the lawyer had brought a
+bundle of new flies, which in his anxious state of mind he had forgotten
+to deliver, and a four days' trip on the <i>Susan Thomas</i>, which pleased
+Miss Graves and Mr. Douglas immensely. Only two days were actually spent
+on the water, but, as Tryphena was there in the capacity of cook, and a
+coloured lady of Maguffin's acquaintance was temporarily engaged for
+Mrs. Du Plessis, the crew and the manservant were in the seventh heaven
+of delight. Marjorie, of course, was present, and shared the command of
+the schooner with her father. She also attached herself a good deal to
+Jim, and, although resenting the attentions he bestowed upon the big
+girl, carefully abstained from porcine epithets, a result of Eugene's
+epistolary instructions. The great Mr. Tylor came up to Bridesdale in
+person to see his junior, and was duly informed of the engagement
+between him and the heiress, Miss Carmichael, "Ah, Coristine, my dear
+fellow, we shall be losing you for the law, now, and, the first thing we
+know, you will be in Parliament. If not, I may say White is going out of
+the firm, and Woodruff and I had resolved on Tylor, Woodruff and
+Coristine for the new style. Your servant, Miss Carmichael! I
+congratulate my friend and partner on a friend and prospective partner,
+in life as well as law, so infinitely superior, and I trust you will
+allow an oldish man to congratulate you on being won by as fine a young
+fellow as ever lived." When the good Q.C. left the room, the patient
+remarked: "Everybody shows me so much kindness, now, Marjorie, when I
+have all I want in yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it kindness, Eugene, only kindness?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, it is love, Marjorie, isn't it, undying love? Would you think
+me very foolish if I were to go back for once to Wilks' and my habit of
+reciting all sorts of poetry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I could not stand all sorts, Eugene. There are some that Marjorie
+quotes which are simply awful. She says she gets them from Guff."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, this isn't that kind. It is Greek, Modern Greek:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>&#8040; &#7964;&#961;&#969;&#964;&#8125; &#7936;&#957;&#952;&#951;&#961;&#8057;&#964;&#945;&#964;&#949;</div>
+<div>&#915;&#955;&#965;&#954;&#8050; &#954;&#945;&#8054; &#7985;&#955;&#945;&#961;&#8061;&#964;&#945;&#964;&#949;,</div>
+<div class='i2'>&#932;&#959;&#8166; &#954;&#8057;&#963;&#956;&#959;&#965; &#954;&#965;&#946;&#949;&#961;&#957;&#8053;&#964;&#951;.</div>
+<div>&#7960;&#963;&#949;&#957; &#8001; &#957;&#959;&#8166;&#962;, &#964;&#8056; &#963;&#8182;&#956;&#8049; &#956;&#959;&#965;,</div>
+<div>&#932;&#8056; &#963;&#964;&#8134;&#952;&#959;&#962;, &#954;&#945;&#8054; &#964;&#8056; &#963;&#964;&#8057;&#956;&#945; &#956;&#959;&#965;,</div>
+<div class='i2'>&#923;&#945;&#964;&#961;&#949;&#8059;&#949;&#953; &#954;&#945;&#8054; &#954;&#951;&#961;&#8059;&#964;&#964;&#949;&#953;.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>Ô Erôt' anthêrotate,</div>
+<div>Glyke kai hilarôtate,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Tou kosmou kybernêtê.</div>
+<div>Esen ho nous, to sôma mou,</div>
+<div>To stêthos, kai to stoma mou,</div>
+<div class='i2'>Latreuei kai kêryttei.</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"That is very pretty, Eugene, for love in a general kind of way&mdash;love in
+the aibstrac', as the metaphysical Scotch girl said."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Marjorie, you know Greek!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; my father taught me to read the Greek Testament, and I have read
+some of it with Mr. Errol."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you are a treasure! But I mean your love, and my mind and body,
+heart and voice."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do, you silly boy. Now lie down, and do not excite yourself
+any more." But she said in her heart that she did not believe Mr.
+Wilkinson could quote Greek, and, if he did, Cecile, she was sure, could
+not understand him.</p>
+
+<p>One evening, by general agreement, a committee of the whole sat in the
+office, the Squire in the chair. The chairman jocularly asked the
+colonel, as the senior of the meeting, his intentions. "My intentions,
+Misteh Chaihman, or ratheh ouah intentions, those of my deah Tehesa and
+me, are to be mahhied heah, if you will pehmit, by Misteh Pehhowne, whom
+we also wish to unite in holy matymony ouah daughteh Cecile to ouah deah
+boy Fahquhah. Also, with yoah pehmission, we will place Timotheus and
+Tryphosa, when mahhied, in chahge of Tillycot and Cecile's fahm heah;
+and will then jouhney westwahd to the Mississippi, and so southwahd, to
+show ouah deah childyen theih futuhe inhehitance, and save Misteh
+Wilkinson's ahm the rigouhs of yoah Canadian winteh. That is all, Misteh
+Chaihman, three weddings, a meeah tyifle, suh." The colonel laughed,
+took a little imaginary Bourbon, and whiffed his cigar, while Mrs. Du
+Plessis, her daughter, and the dominie blushed, but also smiled, to
+think that explanations had been frankly made and the coast was clear.
+"I suppose," said the Squire, "it will be my turn next to explain for
+self and freens. The doctor says my nephew that's to be maun tak' a sea
+voyage for the guid o's health, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>and Marjorie, wha sud be here by richts
+to speak for hersel', is gaun tae kill twa birds wi' ane stane, tak care
+o' her husband, and spier aifter her graun' fortune. But the meenister's
+wantin' tae take her mither wi' him; sae the gudewife and me, we're
+thinkin' o' sendin' aa the weans tae Susan at Dromore, and makin' a
+pairty o't. We canna leave Bridesdale unproteckit, that means Sylvanus
+and Tryphena 'll be pit in chairge till we're back, and they gang to
+Sylvanus' ain fairm. Ony mair intentions?" Mr. Perrowne sought the
+chairman's eye, and addressed him. "Mr. Chairman, unaccustomed as I am
+to public speaking (derisive cheers), and unwilling as we are to obtrude
+our private affairs upon what Virgil calls the <i>ignobile vulgus</i> (hisses
+from Messrs. Errol and Bangs and the doctor), nevertheless, on this
+festive occasion, we owvercome our natural modesty and spirit of
+self-effacement (more derision) sow far as to remark that Cubbyholes (a
+dig from Miss Halbert) will be ready for our occupation in the second
+week of September, about which time the Bishop will make a visitation,
+including the office of howly matrimony. Meanwhile the bride elect will
+look forward with pleasant expectation to those precious tyings of the
+nuptial knot, which will enrich her housekeeping account with liberal
+marriage fees." Here the parson was compelled to stop, since one of the
+indignant Miss Fanny's hands was over his mouth, and the other actively
+engaged in boxing his mercenary ears. "Ony mair intentions?" cried the
+Squire again, warming to his work. "Pahdon me, Misteh Chaihman, foh
+rising a second time, but I am given to undehstand by Madame Du Plessis
+that Maguffin, who accompanies us, has matyimonial intentions towahds
+her new maid, Sophronia Ann Trelawny Tolliveh; that is all, suh." "I see
+Maister Bangs has a word for the chair," said the Squire, when the
+colonel ended. The detective, for the first time in his life, looked
+uneasy. "I ownly wented to sey, Mr. Chairman, thet, within a year, when
+you are all beck frem yore visit, Mrs. Metilda Rawdon hes premised to
+bekem Mrs. Bengs. I may also edd thet, frem kenversation with Ben
+Towner, I hev learned thet the priest is soon to selemnize his union
+with Miss Bridget Sellivan." The company was aghast, and cried out as
+one man, "What is to become of Serlizer?" Mr. Bangs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>responded: "The
+yeng weman, Sarah Eliza Newcome, wes the person who rebbed kenstable
+Rigby of his prisoners. When he kem to know the fect, he conceived sow
+high a degree of respect fer her kerrage end skill, thet he et wence
+propowsed to her, end hes been eccepted. Mr. Perrowne hes been esked, I
+believe, to merry them; is it net sow, Mr. Perrowne?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the corporal bespowke me, as he said; but that wretched Maguffin
+insists on being married by the Baktis. I'm ashamed of you, colonel,
+allowing so unhallowed a marriage tie in your household."</p>
+
+<p>"I leave religion, Misteh Pehhowne, to evehy man's conscience." The
+meeting then adjourned.</p>
+
+<p>Two young people had been sitting on the verandah while the matrimonial
+congress was going on, and were much amused by what they occasionally
+heard of the proceedings. Next morning, Marjorie carried off one of this
+pair by the name of Jim to look for crawfish and shiners in the creek.
+Under her able tuition, Mr. Douglas was making rapid progress in
+Canadian slang, and treasured in his memory many choice extracts from
+the words of supposed coloured poets, contributed originally by Guff.
+The scraps of doleful ballads, taken from the stores of the Pilgrim
+brothers, Marjorie objected that he did not seem to take stock in. While
+up to the bared elbows in the crawfishery, the twain heard voices, those
+of Miss Graves and Mr. Terry, but they kept on turning over stones and
+shouting all the same. Marjorie had never had the veteran really
+interested in that creek, so she ran to secure him, while her friend
+pulled down his sleeves and went to meet the lady. It was a pretty
+place, the bank of that creek, an ideal spot for a morning stroll, and
+they were soon out of earshot of the fishers. Mr. Douglas remarked, in
+allusion to the previous night's committee of the whole, that Bridesdale
+was going to be Bridesdale indeed, and would soon be no place for single
+people, like himself and his companion. "But I suppose we will both be
+gone before then," she answered. "I should have been back a week ago,
+had not Mr. Tylor kindly lengthened my holiday. It is hard to have to
+leave this place."</p>
+
+<p>"Very," replied Mr. Douglas, "and harder to leave <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>the people. I haven't
+known you very long Miss Graves."</p>
+
+<p>"No, only a few weeks, but very pleasant weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"They have been so to me, and the more I see of you, the more I dislike
+going away."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the people gathered here are delightful, almost a unique party."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not mean the people in general. I meant Miss Graves. I hope that
+blunt speech doesn't offend you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. It is blunt, as you say, but complimentary."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to make compliments, Miss Graves, until I have the right.
+I want you to come home with me to Edinburgh as my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"This is very sudden and very kind, Mr. Douglas. What do you know of me,
+a poor girl working for my living?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know more than you think, and honour you for your work and
+independent spirit. I am not going to say I want to take you away from
+drudgery, and put you in a better position, because I want you to take
+me for myself, if I am worth taking, as a man."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Graves looked upon his manly honest face with eyes as honest, yet
+with the merest shade of coquetry in them, and said: "You are worth
+taking as a man."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, take me, Marion, and all I have."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not a bit like my picture of a Scotch wooer. You give a poor
+girl no chance to hold you back."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to be held back. Shall we report ourselves to the
+matrimonial congress?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, not yet, Mr. Douglas; you take wonderful liberties with a new
+acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>Some distance off, Mr. Terry was trying to still the voice of Marjorie.
+"I saw him, granpa, I saw Jim with my very own eyes. Oh, these men will
+break my heart!"</p>
+
+<p>The first parties to perpetrate matrimony were Ben Toner and Biddy
+Sullivan. Mr. Toner, to use his own expressive language, was afraid
+Serlizer might round on him if he delayed. Therefore, Father McNaughton
+was called in, and, with the aid of Rufus Hill and Barney Sullivan,
+groomsmen, Norah Sullivan and Christie Hislop, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>bridesmaids, and the
+Bigglethorpes and Lajeunesses, spectators, the knot was tied. A
+honeymoon trip of two days to Toronto, where, in their new clothes and
+white cotton gloves, they were the admired of all beholders, rounded off
+the affair, and delivered Ben from all fear of the redoubtable Serlizer.
+Next Sunday morning there was a great commotion in the Church of St.
+Cuthbert's in the Fields. Miss Newcome, gorgeous of attire, supported by
+Tryphena in her very best, first marched proudly up the aisle, and then
+came the corporal, in full uniform, even to his stock, and adorned with
+medals and clasps which told of his warlike achievements, backed by Mr.
+Terry in an unostentatious suit of black broadcloth. Shortly before the
+close of the service, Mr. Perrowne, in his most ecclesiastical manner,
+called the parties up, and put them through their catechism. The
+corporal answered with military precision and dignity, and Serlizer,
+glancing at his martial magnificence, was so proud of the bridegroom
+that she felt equal to answering a bench of bishops. Mrs. Newcome, who
+had given her daughter away, remarked, as all the bridal party retired
+from the vestry to receive their friends' congratulations, that the
+constable, for a widower, was a very proper man, and Serlizer might have
+done much worse. To his best man, Mr. Terry, the corporal said:
+"Sergeant-major, I have got my guard. A prisoner may slip from me,
+Sergeant-major, but when that strapping woman puts her arms round him,
+he'll be as helpless as a child. I shall apply to the Council for an
+increase of pay." Soon afterwards, Maguffin got a holiday, went to
+Dromore, where Miss Tolliver was sojourning with Mrs. Thomas, took that
+lady to Collingwood, the coloured Baptist preacher of which united them,
+and came home triumphantly in the stage with his bride. They received a
+great ovation in the kitchen, and, Mr. Terry having joined the party,
+played the geographical game till midnight, as a sober, improving, and
+semi-religious way of celebrating the event. Mr. Maguffin remarked that
+the Baktis preacher had promised, out of the two-dollar fee, to insert a
+notice of the marriage in a leading paper, adding the words, "No Cards,"
+but, said Tobias, "he warn't nebber moah leff in all hees life, 'kase
+here's the keerds and heaps on 'em. Yah! yah! yah!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>The colonel was getting anxious to start for the Mississippi, and
+begged his deceased wife's sister to confer with her daughter, and name
+the day. The dominie was also consulted, and, seeing it was vain to hope
+for his friend's restoration to the extent of performing groomsman's
+duty, he acquiesced in whatever decision should be reached. Mr. Douglas
+took Coristine's place, and Miss Graves that of Miss Carmichael, and,
+for both of them, the Edinburgh lawyer ordered from the city handsome
+wedding presents to bestow upon the two couples, a little proof of
+generosity gratifying to the lady whom he now regularly called Marion.
+The said Marion had definitely resigned her situation with Messrs.
+Tylor, Woodruff, and White. On Thursday morning, St. Cuthbert's in the
+Fields was a scene of wonder to the assembled rustics, with flowers and
+favours and lighted candles. Miss Du Plessis, stately and lace bedight,
+was led in by her uncle, and followed by Miss Graves and Marjorie, while
+Wilkinson, in elegant morning dress, preceded Mr. Douglas and Mr. Bangs.
+The colonel, with much emotion, gave his niece away, and Mr. Perrowne
+made them one. Then came Mrs. Du Plessis, arm in arm with her former
+husband's faithful servant, Mr. Terry, and behind her followed Miss
+Halbert, training for her own approaching celebration. Mr. Errol was the
+colonel's right hand man. The second couple was united, and, amid the
+strains of the wedding march on the parlour organ, there went on
+salutes, congratulations, and hysterical little weepings, until the
+serious business of affixing signatures in the vestry called the
+contracting and witnessing parties to order. Then they retired to
+Bridesdale, where there was a wedding breakfast, at which Mr. Perrowne,
+elated with liberal fees, was the soul of jocularity, and Mr. Douglas
+let the cat out of the bag as to his relations with Miss Graves. Mr.
+Bangs sang "He's a jolly good fellow" to every toast indiscriminately.
+The Squire was felicitous in his presidential remarks; but Mr. Terry
+broke down at the thought of parting with Madame and with Miss Ceshile
+that was. Mr. Errol made a good common-sense speech, and alluded
+roguishly to the colonel's setting a good example that even ministers
+were not too good to follow. Marjorie, in the dignity of a bridesmaid,
+slipped away to bring Cousin Marjorie down, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>and was accompanied by the
+new brides, who hugged Miss Carmichael, and implanted motherly and
+sisterly kisses on the cheek of the only man who was left out of the
+festivities. Lastly, Wilkinson appeared on the scene with the colonel,
+and took a most affectionate leave of his friend. "You will not forget
+me, Corry?" said the late dominie. "Never, Wilks, never, nor you me I
+hope. I'll tell you, let us each carry away our knapsacks, and, when we
+look at them, think of each other, and the happy chance that brought us
+here together." The Squire's voice rung out: "Come, come, good people,
+pack up quick, for the carriage is at the door." The valises were got
+down by Timotheus, who received large tips. The two ladies and Wilkinson
+got in with the Squire, and the new Mrs. Maguffin occupied the hind
+seat, while the colonel and his servant rode away amid much throwing of
+old shoes and rice, and waving of handkerchiefs, to make steamboat
+connections at Collingwood. The departure of so large a company left
+quite a blank at Bridesdale.</p>
+
+<p>The Bishop, a gentlemanly cleric in orthodox hat and gaiters, arrived on
+Saturday with his examining chaplain. Mr. Perrowne conducted them to Dr.
+Halbert's, where the Squire, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Errol, with the ladies,
+were invited to meet them. The Bishop turned out to be much more liberal
+and evangelical in his views than the clergyman under visitation. On
+Sunday, there was a confirmation service, and, on the following Monday,
+St. Cuthbert's put on its festal robes once more. Mr. Douglas and Mr.
+Errol stood by Mr. Perrowne, and Miss Graves and Miss Carmichael by Miss
+Fanny, whom the doctor gave away in person. The Bishop did his duty
+well, and afterwards honoured the wedding breakfast with his presence.
+The sight of his diocesan kept Mr. Perrowne in order, and devolved the
+jocularity on the Squire and the doctor. Mr. Terry was at home with
+Coristine, describing the ceremony; and somebody at the Halbert's
+hospitable table was longing for a chance to replace him. This, however,
+she could not effect without its being noticed. The examining chaplain
+fell foul of Mr. Errol by remarking that, when Scotch Presbyterians came
+into the church, they generally did well, both in England and in Canada,
+several of them having risen to the episcopate. "That minds me,"
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>answered the minister, intentionally putting on his broad Scotch, "that
+minds me o' Jockey Strachan, that was Bishop o' Toronto. He met a Kirk
+man aince, frae Markham, I'm thinkin', that had a threadbare coat.
+'Man,' said he till's auld freend, 'yon's a shockin' worn-out coat. Can
+yer freens i' the Kirk no dae better than that by ye?' 'Toot, toot,
+Jockey,' said the Kirk man, 'what ails ye at the coat? It's no turned
+yet.'" The sensible Bishop saw that the chaplain, who was preparing to
+reply, would probably put his foot farther in, and turned the
+conversation into other channels. Then the wedding presents were
+re-examined, the bride donned her travelling costume, and, amid
+affectionate leave takings, the doctor drove off his daughter and
+son-in-law, with the clerics, toward the distant railway station, en
+route for Ottawa, Montreal and Lake George. The Bridesdale party went
+home, and, while Mrs. Carmichael and Miss Graves were attended by their
+respective cavaliers, Miss Carmichael flew to the bedside where Mr.
+Terry kept cheerful guard.</p>
+
+<p>Everything hinged now upon the sick man's health. "He must be got away,
+John, before the winter comes," the doctor had said to the Squire, and
+all wrought with this end in view. Some time before Maguffin left, he
+had determined, with his Marjorie's permission, to give up being shaved
+and let his beard grow, and now the beard was there, long, brown and
+silky, a very respectable beard. But the face above it was very pale
+yet, and the cruel knife wounds were still sore, and the whole man
+enfeebled in limb by long bed-keeping. One pleasant day, far on in
+September, the doctor allowed him to rise, and, between the Squire and
+Mr. Terry, he was raised up and dressed. Then they carried the wasted
+form out into the autumn sun, and laid him on a couch on the verandah.
+Marjorie and all the little Carruthers came to see him, with bouquets of
+garden flowers. Timotheus ventured to pay his respects, and even
+Tryphena came round to congratulate him on his recovery. "Shall I read
+Wordsworth to you, dear?" asked Miss Carmichael, ironically.</p>
+
+<p>"Marjorie," answered a beard-muffled voice, "your single word's worth
+more than all in that old duffer's poems," which the lady took as an
+indication that her patient was improving.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>"They are all depending on us to fix the day, Eugene; when will you be
+strong enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Any time, Marjorie; what's to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Saturday, you foolish man, don't you smell the preparations for
+Sunday?"</p>
+
+<p>"And the New York steamer sails on Saturday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if we are all married next Wednesday, we shall have time to get
+to New York easily on Saturday morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I will get uncle to arrange with papa Errol, and to summon the
+Captain and auntie and Sylvanus."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, and Bigglethorpe and Bangs, and old Mrs. Hill. I would like to
+have Ben here, too, if you wouldn't mind, Marjorie."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have everybody, and leave here on Thursday morning, to get you
+well on the sea."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Terry came to ask if Mr. Coristine didn't think the least draw of a
+pipe would do him good. The invalid thought it would, and, while the
+veteran went upstairs to fetch the lawyer's long-unused briar, Miss
+Carmichael left him, ostensibly offended that he preferred a pipe to her
+society, yet inwardly glad that he was strong enough to relish tobacco
+again. Mr. Douglas joined the smokers, and they had a very jolly time.
+"What will you do, Mr. Terry, when we are all gone!" asked the Edinburgh
+lawyer. "It 'ull be gone too Oi will mysilf by that toime," replied the
+veteran.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, when we are on the Atlantic."</p>
+
+<p>"Plaze God, Oi'll be an the Atlantic mysilf."</p>
+
+<p>"What, are you coming with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Av coorse! D'ye think the departmint cud ha done so long wit'out me iv
+Oi hadn't shint in my risignaation?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you are really going across for a holiday?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oi'm goin' to lit Honoria git a shmill av the Oirish cloimate, an' a
+peep at the ould shod, fwhere her anshisters is slapin' it's many a long
+year."</p>
+
+<p>"What a glorious time we're going to have!"</p>
+
+<p>"Troth for you, sor, an' we'll sit this bhoy on his pins agin."</p>
+
+<p>Many letters were despatched that afternoon, and Timotheus was kept
+busy, inviting parties whom the post <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>was slow in reaching. On Sunday,
+there being no service at St. Cuthbert's in the Fields, the Kirk was
+crowded, and Mr. Errol announced a service of special interest on
+Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock, when his co-presbyter, the Rev. Dr.
+MacPhun, would officiate. His own text was "It is not good that the man
+should be alone," and towards the close of the service he stated that
+the Presbytery had given him leave of absence for three months, which he
+intended to spend in Britain, during which time his people would have an
+opportunity of hearing many profitable preachers, under Dr. MacPhun's
+moderatorship <i>pro tem</i>. Monday was a day of trunk packing and other
+preparations, connected with all sorts of boxes and parcels brought by
+the stage during the previous week. The next day the guests arrived. Dr.
+Halbert came first, excusing his early appearance by saying he felt
+lonely, and wanted to see young faces again. Then the Captain drove up
+in grand style, having on board Mrs. Thomas, her domestic, Malvina
+McGlashan, Sylvanus, and his strict parent, Saul. Malvina was received
+by the maids with great effusion, while the paternal Pilgrim eyed
+Timotheus, who had come forward to shake hands with his father. "What is
+the chief end of man, Timotheus?" The son answered correctly. "What is
+sin?" was appropriately solved, and "What is the reason annexed to the
+fifth commandment?" Then came, "What is repentance unto life," and on
+the answer to this Mr. Pilgrim preached a brief homily. "With grief and
+hatred of his sin, turns from it, with full purpose of, and endeavour
+after, new obedience. Is that you, Timotheus?" "Yes, fayther."</p>
+
+<p>"Young women," said Saul, addressing the maids, "has the walk and
+conversation of Timotheus been according to his lights, or according to
+his whilom lammentable and ungodly profession?"</p>
+
+<p>Tryphena could not reply, for the audacious Sylvanus, unaffected by the
+propinquity of his venerable relative, had whispered in her ear, "he's a
+livyer' 'cordin' to his lights, he is;" but Tryphosa spoke up and said
+that nobody, not even a minister, could have behaved better than
+Timotheus. Then Saul shook hands with his repentant son, solemnly, and
+producing a well-worn catechism from his tail pocket, placed it with
+reverence in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span>shaken hand. Looking upon Tryphosa, he remarked:
+"Remember, Timotheus, the words of wisdom, 'Favour is deceitful and
+beauty is vain, but whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.' Go thou
+and do likewise, Amen." Further improvement of the occasion was checked
+by the arrival of a well-laden waggon, driven by Rufus, and containing
+his parents, Christie Hislop, Mr. Bigglethorpe and Ben. Mr. Bigglethorpe
+was hailed with delight by Marjorie, who immediately carried off "dear
+Mr. Biggles" to see the creek, and tell her about his little boy, who
+was not yet christened, because, in the face of Marjorie's opposition,
+he could not call him Walton, Cotton or Piscator, and he could not think
+of any other name. She had objected to Felix as too catty like, and
+Isadore she had said was as bad as Is-a-window. However, he enjoyed the
+creek for a few minutes before dinner. Mrs. Hill was installed as the
+mother of the kitchen. With her great conversational powers and large
+knowledge of scripture, she rather overawed father Pilgrim, and her own
+and her husband's abundant cheerfulness revived a company, ready to
+droop under the austerities of Saul's genuine but unpleasant religion.
+Ben, as a sedate married man, gave himself largely to Mr. Hill's
+society, until Mr. Terry came in to see his friend from the north, and
+unfold his plans of an Irish tour. Later in the day Mr. Bangs rode over,
+and made excuses for Matilda, who thought it wrong to go into society so
+soon after her husband's death. Finally, the constable appeared in full
+regimentals, with the stalwart Mrs. Rigby on his arm. That lady bestowed
+on the faithless Ben a glance of withering contempt, but the constable
+shook hands with him, as if he had been his greatest earthly benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>It would take chapters to recite the goings on of that evening in either
+end of the house, the jokes of father Hill, and the homilies of father
+Pilgrim. Sylvanus dared and was slapped; and Timotheus followed his
+example, but was more gently dealt with. Christie and Malvina, as
+bridesmaids, had to inspect the trousseaus with Mrs. Hill. In spite of
+Saul's protest against worldly amusements, the geographical cards were
+produced, and the lady of the third-class county certificate swept the
+board, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>although the constable maintained his right to Russia and India,
+and Pilgrim pater easily secured all Palestine and Syria, owing to his
+extensive study of Josephus, which he recommended to Mr. Hill as a
+valuable commentar on the Old Testament Scriptures. Nor were the
+occupants of the drawing-room less jolly. The Squire and the doctor, Mr.
+Bangs and Mr. Bigglethorpe, kept the conversation lively, and would have
+hurt the feelings of Orther Lom, who arrived by the stage, if he had had
+any to hurt. The contracting parties were grave and self-contained, as
+became their position; and, to look at Mr. Errol, no one could have
+dreamt of his ever having gone on the splore. Dr. MacPhun came late, in
+his own buggy, accompanied by his daughter Maggie, a pretty girl of
+seventeen, who was just what the feminine community wanted. The reverend
+doctor warmly congratulated his co-presbyter, and jocularly quoted words
+to the effect that hope's blest dominion never ends, and the greatest
+sinner may return, which Mrs. Carmichael regarded as an unworthy
+reflection upon her intended's antiquity. Wednesday came at last, and
+the Kirk was decked at morning tide, but, unlike St. Cuthbert's, the
+tapers did not glimmer fair. The concourse was great, and the organ and
+choir were at their best. Mrs. Carmichael was attended by Miss Graves
+and Miss MacPhun, and Mr. Errol by Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lamb. When Dr.
+MacPhun had united them, and spoken a few felicitous words, he retired
+to the vestry, and yielded the gown and bands to the new bridegroom,
+before whose bar appeared Miss Graves, supported by the two Marjories,
+and Mr. Douglas with Mr. Bangs and Mr. Lamb. When little Marjorie saw
+herself paired off with Orther Lom, she thought of the Captain's
+couplet, and burst into a fit of laughter, which drew down upon the
+culprit her cousin's reproof. The Squire had given away his sister, and
+Miss Graves was handed over to Mr. Douglas by the doctor, for the reason
+that her late lamented father had been a distinguished medical man. When
+the wedded pairs passed out of the church, there was great cheering, in
+which Mr. Terry and Mr. Bigglethorpe seemed to be rival fuglemen. At
+Bridesdale, a pale young man with a long brown beard was reclining on a
+couch, and looking eagerly out of a window. His dark blue frock coat,
+light grey trousers, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>and white silk necktie, meant business, too. It
+would never do for little Marjorie to be three times a bridesmaid, for
+that was unlucky; so Miss MacPhun stood by Marjorie the greater, and
+Bangs helped Coristine to his feet. The two divines mercifully made the
+service brief, and two well mated souls obtained each its chief desire.
+Mr. Errol and the Squire were very patronizing towards their new made
+son and nephew. The Captain was satisfied. "I thought all along it was
+that sly dog Will-kiss-em was after the old man's niece, the sly dog;
+but he's off, and a good riddance to poor stuck-up rubbish, say I." The
+table speeches were marvellous. Dr. MacPhun exhausted Dean Ramsay's
+anecdotes, Mr. Bigglethorpe allegorized marriage as fishing in all its
+branches, Doctor Halbert said the great trouble with female nurses
+always was that they would go and marry their patients, and Mr. Bangs
+remarked that, if he could run down somebody who was wanted as quickly
+as Mr. Douglas had done, he would make his fortune. Mr. Lamb lavished
+himself on Maggie MacPhun, and, as she was young, semi-rural, and unused
+to the masculine production of cities, his attentions were agreeable,
+much to his satisfaction; his peace of mind with himself nothing could
+disturb.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, Mr. Errol put on his gown once more, and Dr. MacPhun
+stood by his side, while in front of them there was a small table on
+which lay a Bible, and, a short distance off, a larger one with a
+marriage register, pen and ink, and duly filled certificates. At a given
+signal, Mr. Hill appeared, leading his daughter Tryphena, followed by
+Christie Hislop and Malvina McGlashan. Next came Sylvanus in the grasp
+of Saul Pilgrim, attended by Rufus, and the ubiquitous Mr. Bangs.
+Without being asked, Mr. Pilgrim senior ostentatiously stated, after Mr.
+Hill had bestowed his oldest daughter, that he gave his son to be that
+woman's husband, and trusted they would bring up their family, as he had
+done his, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This bombshell
+excited some merriment in the rear of the procession, where Mrs. Rigby
+was pushing the corporal forward to exhibit his uniform and medals. When
+the ceremony was over, the bride and bridegroom remained, but the
+fathers and the assistants returned to the kitchen. Tryphosa now hung
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>upon her father's arm, and Timotheus was hauled in by Saul, receiving
+admonitions on the way. The groomsmen and bridesmaids were as before.
+Mrs. Hill, who stood by Mrs. Carruthers, wept copiously, when her
+favourite daughter's turn came, and Hill senior gave her away with a
+qualm, especially as the parent of Timotheus presented him as the
+prodigy's son come back from the swine husks. So the last ceremony was
+over. "Siccan a thing as five waddins in ae day was never heard o' in
+Flanders before," said the Squire, with a sigh of relief. Of course, the
+people ought all to have gone away somewhere, according to all the rules
+that govern civilized marriage. Mr. Errol went to his lodgings to pack
+up, and took Mr. Douglas with him. As for the rest of the married
+people, they simply went on with their ordinary tasks and amusements as
+if nothing personal had happened. Before these two gentlemen retired,
+however, they had to take part in a dance in the coach-house, at which
+old Styles played the fiddle, and the constable called out the figures,
+while Mr. Pilgrim groaned in the ears of Mrs. Hill over the worldly
+spirit that was sapping the foundations of spiritual life. When the
+drawing-room people left the festive coach-house, the ladies divested
+themselves of the day's finery, and the gentlemen retired to the office,
+where Mr. Errol smoked three pipes and renewed his youth. Dr. MacPhun
+told more stories, as did Messrs. Bigglethorpe and Bangs, and at last
+they all became so happy, that a deputation of the Squire and the
+minister was sent to produce their new relative Coristine, and make him
+drink a bumper of champagne to his bride's health. As the relatives
+crossed arms, and, on this improvised chair, carried the bridegroom
+round the table in triumph, the Captain roared: "Pour it down his
+scuppers, boys, for he's the A1 clipper; and that sly dog thought he'd
+have the old man's niece, with no more fun in his calf's hide than a
+basswood figure head!"</p>
+
+<p>Next morning early, Messrs. Errol and Douglas appeared to claim their
+brides at the Dale, and found them packed, and ready to start after
+breakfast. Mrs. Thomas was left mistress of the house, with directions
+to hand it over to Sylvanus and Mrs. S. Pilgrim when she wished to
+return home. Timotheus and Mrs. T. Pilgrim were told to go and take
+possession of Tillycot, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>and put in a winter of judicious clearing. Good
+bye was said all round. Coristine was lifted into the second seat,
+between Mrs. Carruthers and his new made wife, who looked her loveliest.
+Mrs. and Mr. Errol sat by the Squire, and Mr. Bigglethorpe intruded
+himself as far as the bridge on Mr. and Mrs. Douglas. Ben Toner, tired
+of being haughtily glared at by Mrs. Rigby, offered to drive the trunks
+in a separate vehicle, but, to the great delight of the junior Pilgrims,
+the Captain ordered Saul to perform that duty. Nevertheless, Ben
+accompanied Saul part of the way, and got off with Mr. Bigglethorpe. The
+patient was tired when Collingwood was reached, but recovered in the
+parlour car and arrived in Toronto in good condition, and able to
+introduce his bride to Mrs. Marsh. Mr. Douglas and he got together their
+portable effects, and Mrs. Douglas increased her travelling impedimenta.
+The party then left in time to see the glorious fall scenery of the
+Hudson in the morning, and reached New York in abundance of leisure.
+Coristine's imperious wife insisted that he should begin at once to
+spend her fortune, saying that was the only reason for her marrying him;
+but the invalid, otherwise so biddable, was very firm on this point, and
+represented that his bank account was far from exhausted. They were
+hardly on the steamer, when Mrs. Carruthers ran forward and fell into an
+old man's arms. It was Mr. Terry, who had bidden them an affectionate
+farewell at Bridesdale, and had then taken the stage in their wake to
+give them all a grand surprise. The weather was fine, the equinoctials
+all past, and the sea gently flowing. Rugs and pillows were laid on the
+deck, between camp chairs and stools, and, while the bearded lawyer lay
+propped on the former, with the most beautiful woman on board kneeling
+beside him, the rest of the company occupied the higher seats. The
+ladies worked away at airy nothings, and the gentlemen, Squire included,
+smoked cigars and pipes, all talking of the stirring events of the past,
+and forecasting the pleasures of the near future. Somehow they all
+seemed to miss little Marjorie, and wondered what sort of time she and
+the rest of them were having at Bridesdale.</p>
+
+<p>Three months soon passed away. Mrs. Coristine's fortune was secured, and
+transformed into Canadian <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>securities by her legal husband, half being
+made over to Mrs. Errol. The minister took his bride to Perth, and
+introduced her to his friends, who received her as graciously as the
+Edinburgh people did Mr. Douglas' queenly wife from Canada. On Princess
+Street many a pedestrian stopped to look at the well-matched pair. Mr.
+Carruthers looked up his Scotch relations, and then crossed the Irish
+Sea to inspect the "owld shod," under Mr. Terry's proud guidance. But
+the great doctors said Mrs. Coristine must take her husband away to the
+south of France, to the Riviera, perhaps even to Algeria, for the
+winter. Mr. Douglas, who was like a brother, saw them safely established
+at Mentone, and returned to England in time to see the Flanders' five on
+board their steamer at Liverpool, laden with presents for the children
+and the servants, the Thomases and the Perrownes, not forgetting Mr.
+Bigglethorpe and Mr. Bangs. Three more months of winter passed at
+Bridesdale, then the brief spring, and at length summer came round in
+all its glory. Timotheus and his men had cleared the encampment of its
+scorched trees, had put many acres into crop, and had built the farm
+house on the site of the burnt buildings, into which he and his blooming
+wife had moved, because the Wilkinsons and the Mortons were coming to
+the chalet in July. The Bridesdale people heard that the former dominie
+had not been idle, but, by means of his geological knowledge, had
+discovered iron and lead mines, which were already yielding him a
+revenue. Mrs. Errol brought them a letter from Marjorie, saying that
+Eugene was quite restored, and that they would be home early in July,
+bringing that dear old lady, Eugene's mother, with them. Correspondence
+had also been going on between the Wilkinsons and the Coristines on both
+sides of the houses, and Mr. Terry seemed to be included in the circle.
+One fine July morning he asked for the loan of the waggonette and set
+off to town, whence he returned in the afternoon, with three ladies and
+a coloured ladies' maid, attended by a gentleman and his servant on
+horseback. Strange to say, the Errols, the Perrownes, the newly-married
+Bangs, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, were at Bridesdale. Marjorie's terrier, a
+new Muggins given her by Mr. Perrowne, but which she called Guff, ran
+barking to meet the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>approaching party, and the animal's mistress,
+following it, was soon in the arms of long absent friends. "Where is
+Eugene?" she cried, in a tone of disappointment. "Where is Mr.
+Wilkinson?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, in concern. "We have lost them for a
+little while," replied the ladies, cheerfully. So they changed their
+things, unpacked their trunks, dispensed many gifts, brought through all
+sorts of custom houses, and assembled in the drawing-room to await the
+stated six o'clock tea. The clock was on the stroke, when they all heard
+singing, on the road, of two male voices:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class='stanza'><div>For, be it early morning,</div>
+<div>Or be it late at night,</div>
+<div>Cheerily ring our footsteps,</div>
+<div class='i6'>Right, left, right!</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then two jovial pedestrians came swinging through the gate, with the old
+knapsacks on their backs, and newly cut staves in their hands. They
+responded heartily to the varied salutations of the company, and, as
+each bowed himself over the woman he loved best, they said: "God has
+been very good to us, and has sent us more than a marshal's baton
+through these two knapsacks."</p>
+
+<p class='tbrk'>Pleasant were the two summer months at Bridesdale and Tillycot, with
+visits to the Manse and Cubbyholes, to Bangslea and the Beaver River.
+Two little Pilgrim girls and a Toner boy appeared before the visitors
+went home; and, soon after their arrival at their homes, they learned
+that Basil primus was marching Basil secondus in his arms, clad in a
+nocturnal surplice. Mr. Bigglethorpe had had his baby christened Felix
+Marjoram, regarding the latter botanical word as a masculine equivalent
+of Marjorie. When, next year, the welcome visitors came to Flanders from
+Toronto and the far south, they brought each a maid and a warm little
+bundle. The bundle of Mrs. Coristine was called James Farquhar, and that
+of Mrs. Wilkinson was Marjorie Carruthers. When they cried, Mr.
+Coristine, M.P., and Dr. Wilkinson, if they were about, carried them
+round, singing outlandish songs; when they were good, the parents laid
+two knapsacks over a rag on the lawn, put pillows on top, and the babies
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>against the pillows, betting quarters as to which would kick the
+highest.</p>
+
+<p>The culprits were all set free or left unmolested. The two Davis
+brothers disappeared, evidently across the lines. Old man Newcome is
+said to have been converted by Father Newberry and to be living a life
+in keeping with the exalted station of his daughter Serlizer. Reginald
+Rawdon's son was looked up by Mr. Bangs, and started in business in a
+new town, as a country store-keeper, on part of his uncle's ill-gotten
+money. Monty, growing a big lad, has charge of the farm at Bangslea,
+and, to see him and his grey-haired, but otherwise young-looking,
+mother, none would think they had ever been deprived of their reason.
+The character of Nagle, alias Nash, has been amply cleared by his
+friend, who has erected a suitable memorial to him at Collingwood
+cemetery. Peskiwanchow is hardly recognizable in its reformed condition,
+and the Beaver River, like the Flanders' lakes, is safer to visit,
+though otherwise as delightful as ever, than when the Maple Inn was
+invaded by two knapsacks. Mr. Bulky is still its hero, and Wilkinson,
+who does not smoke, has had him up to Tillycot with Mr. Bigglethorpe and
+without his fishing coat.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
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+++ b/17532.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Two Knapsacks, by John Campbell
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Two Knapsacks
+       A Novel of Canadian Summer Life
+
+
+Author: John Campbell
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2006  [eBook #17532]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO KNAPSACKS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/) from
+page images generously made available by Early Canadiana Online
+(http://www.canadiana.org/eco/index.html)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Early Canadiana Online. See
+      http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/00387?id=5453f8c59767d369
+
+
+
+
+
+TWO KNAPSACKS:
+
+A Novel of Canadian Summer Life.
+
+by
+
+J. CAWDOR BELL.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Toronto
+The Williamson Book Co., Ltd.
+Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in
+the year eighteen hundred and ninety-two, by the Williamson Book
+Company, Limited, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture.
+
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' NOTE.
+
+
+The Publishers have extreme pleasure in placing this novel, by a new and
+promising native author, before the reading public of Canada. They will
+be greatly disappointed if it does not at once take its place among the
+best products of Canadian writers. While the work has peculiar interest
+for Torontonians and dwellers in the districts so graphically described,
+its admirable character drawings of many "sorts and conditions" of our
+people--its extremely clever dialect, representing Irish, Scotch,
+English, Canadian, French, Southern and Negro speech, and the working
+out of its story, which is done in such a way as would credit an
+experienced romancer--should insure the book a welcome in very many
+homes. The literary flavour is all that can be desired; the author
+evidencing a quite remarkable acquaintance with English Literature,
+especially with Wordsworth, the Poet of the Lake Country.
+
+
+
+
+TWO KNAPSACKS:
+
+A Novel of Canadian Summer Life.
+
+by
+
+J. CAWDOR BELL.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+     The Friends--The Knapsacks--The Queen's Wharf--The Northern
+     Railway--Belle Ewart--The _Susan Thomas_, Captain and Crew--Musical
+     Performance--The Sly Dog--Misunderstanding--Kempenfeldt Bay.
+
+
+Eugene Coristine and Farquhar Wilkinson were youngish bachelors and
+fellow members of the Victoria and Albert Literary Society. Thither, on
+Wednesday evenings, when respectable church-members were wending their
+way to weekly service, they hastened regularly, to meet with a band of
+like-minded young men, and spend a literary hour or two. In various
+degrees of fluency they debated the questions of the day; they read
+essays with a wide range of style and topic; they gave readings from
+popular authors, and contributed airy creations in prose and in verse to
+the Society's manuscript magazine. Wilkinson, the older and more sedate
+of the two, who wore a tightly-buttoned blue frock coat and an eyeglass,
+was a schoolmaster, pretty well up in the Toronto Public Schools.
+Coristine was a lawyer in full practice, but his name did not appear on
+the card of the firm which profited by his services. He was taller than
+his friend, more jauntily dressed, and was of a more mercurial
+temperament than the schoolmaster, for whom, however, he entertained a
+profound respect. Different as they were, they were linked together by
+an ardent love of literature, especially poetry, by scientific pursuits,
+Coristine as a botanist, and Wilkinson as a dabbler in geology, and by
+a firm determination to resist, or rather to shun, the allurements of
+female society. Many lady teachers wielded the pointer in rooms not far
+removed from those in which Mr. Wilkinson held sway, but he did not
+condescend to be on terms even of bowing acquaintance with any one of
+them. There were several young lady typewriters of respectable city
+connections in the offices of Messrs. Tyler, Woodruff and White, but the
+young Irish lawyer passed them by without a glance. These bachelors were
+of the opinion that women were bringing the dignity of law and education
+to the dogs.
+
+It was a Wednesday evening in the beginning of July, and the heat was
+still great in the city. Few people ventured out to the evening
+services, and fewer still found their way to the Victoria and Albert
+hall; in fact, there was not a quorum, and, as the constitution stated
+that, in such a case, the meeting should be adjourned, it was adjourned
+accordingly. Coristine lit a cigar in the porch, and Wilkinson, who did
+not smoke, but said he liked the odour of good tobacco, took his arm for
+a walk along the well-lit streets. They agreed that it was time to be
+out of town. Coristine said: "Let us go together; I'll see one of the
+old duffers and get a fortnight's leave." Wilkinson had his holidays, so
+he eagerly answered: "Done! but where shall we go? Oh, not to any female
+fashion resort." At this Coristine put on the best misanthropic air he
+could call up, with a cigar between his lips, and then, as if struck by
+a happy thought, dug his elbow into his companion's side and ejaculated:
+"Some quiet country place where there's good fishing." Wilkinson
+demurred, for he was no fisherman. The sound of a military band stopped
+the conversation. It came into sight, the bandsmen with torches in their
+headgear, and, after it, surrounded and accompanied by all the small
+boys and shop-girls in the town, came the Royals, in heavy marching
+order. The friends stood in a shop doorway until the crowd passed by,
+and then, just as soon as a voice could be distinctly heard, the
+schoolmaster clapped his companion on the shoulder and cried, "Eureka!"
+Coristine thought the music had been too much for his usually staid and
+deliberate friend. "Well, old Archimedes, and what is it you've found?
+Not any new geometrical problems, I hope." "Listen to me," said the
+dominie, in a tone of accustomed authority, and the lawyer listened.
+
+"You've heard Napoleon or somebody else say that every soldier of France
+carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack?"
+
+"Never heard the gentleman in my life, and don't believe it, either."
+
+"Well, well, never mind about that; but I got my idea out of a
+knapsack."
+
+"Now, what's the use of your saying that, when its myself knows that you
+haven't got such a thing to bless yourself with?"
+
+"I got it out of a soldier's--a volunteer's knapsack, man."
+
+"O, you thief of the world! And where have you got it hid away?"
+
+"In my head."
+
+"O rubbish and nonsense--a knapsack in your head!"
+
+"No, but the idea."
+
+"And where's the knapsack?"
+
+"On the grenadier's back."
+
+"Then the grenadier has the knapsack, and you the idea: I thought you
+said the idea was in the knapsack."
+
+"So it was; but I took it out, don't you see? My idea is the idea of a
+knapsack on a man's back--on two men's backs--on your back and on mine."
+
+"With a marshal's baton inside?"
+
+"No; with an extra flannel shirt inside--and some socks, and a flask,
+and some little book to read by the way; that's what I want."
+
+"It'll be mortal heavy and hot this boiling weather."
+
+"Not a bit. You can make one out of cardboard and patent cloth, just as
+light as a feather, and costing you next to nothing."
+
+"And where will you be going with your knapsack? Will it be parading
+through the streets with the volunteers you would be after?"
+
+"Go? We will go on a pedestrian tour through the finest scenery
+available." This was said correctly and with great dignity. It had the
+effect of sobering the incredulous Coristine, who said: "I tell ye,
+Farquhar, my boy, that's a fine idea of yours, barring the heat; but I
+suppose we can rest where we like and go when we like, and, if the
+knapsacks get to be a nuisance, express 'em through, C.O.D. Well, I'll
+sleep over it, and let you know to-morrow when I can get away." So the
+pair separated, to retire for the night and dream a knapsack nightmare.
+
+Coristine's leave did not come till the following Tuesday, so that
+Friday, Saturday and Monday--or parts of them, at least--could be
+devoted to the work of preparation. Good, strong, but not too heavy,
+tweed walking suits were ordered, and a couple of elegant flannel shirts
+that would not show the dirt were laid in; a pair of stout, easy boots
+was picked out, and a comfortable felt hat, with brim enough to keep off
+the sun. Then the lawyer bought his cardboard and his patent cloth and
+straps, and spent Saturday evening with his friend and a sharp penknife,
+bringing the knapsacks into shape. The scientists made a mistake in
+producing black and shiny articles, well calculated to attract the heat.
+White canvas would have been far better. But Wilkinson had taken his
+model from the military, hence it had to be black. The folded ends of
+the patent cloth, which looked like leather, were next to the wearer's
+back, so that what was visible to the general public was a very
+respectable looking flat surface, fastened round the shoulders with
+becoming straps, equally dark in hue. "Sure, Farquhar, it's pack-men the
+ignorant hayseeds will be taking us for," said Coristine, when the
+prospective pedestrians had strapped on their shiny baggage holders. "I
+do not agree with you there," replied the schoolmaster; "Oxford and
+Cambridgemen, and the best _litterateurs_ of England, do Wales and
+Cornwall, the Lakes and the Trossachs, to say nothing of Europe, dressed
+just as we are." "All right, old man, but I'm thinking I'll add a
+bandanna handkerchief and a blackthorn. They'll come in handy to carry
+the fossils over your shoulder. There now, I've forgot the printers'
+paper and the strap flower press for my specimens. True, there's Monday
+for that; but I'm afraid I'll have to shave the boards of the flower
+press down, or it'll be a sorry burden for a poor, tired botanist. Good
+night to you, my bouchal boy, and it's a pack you might throw into a
+corner of your sack." "Cards!" replied Wilkinson; "no sir, but my
+pocket chess box will be at your service." "Chess be hanged," said the
+lawyer; "but, see here, are they checkers when you turn them upside
+down? If they are, it's I'm your man."
+
+On Tuesday morning, about eight o'clock, there appeared at the Brock
+Street Station of the Northern Railway, two well-dressed men with shiny
+knapsacks on their shoulders. They had no blackthorns, for Wilkinson had
+said it would be much more romantic to cut their own sticks in the bush,
+to which Coristine had replied that, if the bush was as full of
+mosquitos as one he had known, he would cut his stick fast enough. They
+were the astonishment, rather than the admiration, of all beholders, who
+regarded them as agents, and characterized the way in which they carried
+their samples as the latest thing from the States. For a commencement,
+this was humiliating, so that the jaunty lawyer twisted his moustache
+fiercely, and felt inclined to quarrel with the self-possessed,
+clean-shaven space between Wilkinson's elaborate side-whiskers. But the
+pedagogue, in his suavest manner, remarked that Cicero, in his _De
+Natura Deorum_, makes Cotta call the common herd both fools and
+lunatics, whose opinion is of no moment whatever. "Why, then," he asked,
+"should we trouble our minds with what it pleases them to think? It is
+for us to educate public opinion--to enlighten the darkness of the
+masses. Besides, if you look about, you will see that those who are
+doing the giggling are girls, sir, positively girls."
+
+"Your hand on that, Farquhar, my boy; if it keeps the hussies off, I'll
+wear a knapsack every day of my life."
+
+Coristine did not know where he was going, being subject to the superior
+wisdom and topographical knowledge of his companion, who appeared in the
+row that besieged the window of the ticket office. "Two for Belle
+Ewart," he demanded, when his turn came.
+
+"Trains don't run to Belle Ewart now; you had better take Lefroy, the
+nearest point."
+
+"All right; two for Lefroy."
+
+The ticket agent looked at the attire of the speaker, and was about to
+produce the cardboard slips, then hesitated as he glanced at the straps
+and the top of the black erection on Wilkinson's shoulders, and
+enquired, "Second class, eh?" The dominie was angry, his face
+crimsoned, his hand shook with indignation. Being a moral man, he would
+not use bad language, but he roared in his most stentorian academic
+tone, a tone which appalled the young agent with rapid visions of
+unfortunate school days, "Second Tom-cats! Does the company put you
+there to insult gentlemen?" It was the agent's turn to redden, and then
+to apologize, as he mildly laid the tickets down, without the usual
+slap, and fumbled over their money. The feminine giggling redoubled, and
+Coristine, who had regained his equilibrium, met his friend with a
+hearty laugh, and the loud greeting, "O Lord, Wilks, didn't I tell you
+the fools would be taking us for bagmen?" But Wilkinson's irritation was
+deep, and he marched to the incoming train, ejaculating, "Fool, idiot,
+puppy; I shall report him for incivility, according to the printed
+invitation of the company. Second! ach! I was never so insulted in my
+life."
+
+There was room enough inside the car to give the travellers a double
+seat, half for themselves and the other for their knapsacks. These
+impedimenta being removed the occupants of the carriage became aware
+that they were in the company of two good-looking men, of refined
+features, and in plain but gentlemanly attire. The lady passengers
+glanced at them, from time to time, with approbation not unmingled with
+amusement, but no responsive glance came from the bachelors. Wilkinson
+had opened his knapsack, and had taken out his pocket Wordsworth, the
+true poet, he said, for an excursion. Coristine had a volume of Browning
+in his kit, but left it there, and went into the smoking-car for an
+after breakfast whiff. The car had been swept out that morning by the
+joint efforts of a brakesman and the newsagent, so that it was less
+hideously repulsive than at a later stage in the day, when tobacco
+juice, orange peel, and scraps of newspapers made it unfit for a decent
+pig. The lawyer took out his plug, more easily carried than cut tobacco,
+and whittled it down with his knife to fill his handsome Turk's head
+meerschaum. When all was ready, he discovered, to his infinite disgust,
+that he had no matches nor pipe-lights of any description. The news
+agent, Frank, a well-known character on the road, supplied him with a
+box of Eddy's manufacture, for which he declined to receive payment.
+However, he pressed his wares upon the grateful Coristine, recommending
+warmly the Samantha books and Frank Stockton's stories. "Are there any
+women in them?" asked the smoker. "Full of them," replied Frank; "Why,
+Samantha is a woman." "Take them away, and bring me something
+different." The news agent returned with a volume made up of cartoons
+and other illustrations from _Puck_, and soon the Irishman was shaking
+his sides over the adventures of Brudder Sunrise Waterbury and similar
+fictitious characters. So absorbed was he in this trivial literature
+that he failed to notice the entrance of an old man, respectably dressed
+who took a seat on the opposite side of the aisle, and was preparing to
+smoke his three inches of clay. He was aroused by the salutation and
+request:--
+
+"Good marnin', Sor, an' moight Oi be afther thrubblin' yeez for a loight
+to my poipe?"
+
+"Certainly, with pleasure; glad to be of any use to a fellow
+countryman," replied Coristine, looking up, and perceiving that his new
+acquaintance, though old and stooped, had a soldierly air. "You have
+been in service?" he continued.
+
+"Troth I have, puff, puff, now she's goin' aisy. Oi was in the Furren
+Laygion in South Ameriky, an' my cornel was the foinest man you iver
+see. It was Frinch he was by his anshesters, an' his name it was
+Jewplesshy. Wan toime we was foightin' wid the Spanyerds an' the poor
+deluded haythen Injuns, when a shpint bullet rickyshayed an' jumped into
+my mouth, knockin' out the toot' ye'll percaive is missin' here. Will,
+now, the cornel he was lookin' at me, an', fwhen Oi shput out the bullet
+and the broken toot' on the ground, he roides up to me, and says, says
+he, 'It's a brave bhoy, yeez are, Moikle Terry, an' here's a' suverin to
+get a new toot' put in whin the war is over, says he. Oh, that suverin
+wint to kape company wid a lot more that Oi'd be proud to see the face
+av in my owld age. But, sorra a toot' did the dintist put in for me, for
+fwhere wud the nate hole for the poipe have been thin, till me that,
+now?"
+
+Mr. Coristine failed to answer this conundrum, but continued the
+conversation with the old soldier. He learnt that Michael had
+accompanied his colonel to Canada, and, after serving him faithfully for
+many years, had wept over his grave. One of the old man's sons was a
+sergeant in the Royal Artillery, and his daughter was married to a
+Scotch farmer named Carruthers, up in the County of Grey.
+
+"She was a good gyurl, as nate an' swate as a picter, whin she lift the
+cornel's lady's sarvice, an' wint an' tuk up wid Carruthers, a foine man
+an' a sponsible, not a bit loike the common Scotch. Carruthers and her,
+they axed me wud Oi go an' pay thim a visit, an' say to the comfort av
+her young lady on the way."
+
+"What young lady?" asked Coristine, and immediately repented the
+question.
+
+"Miss Jewplesshy, to be sure, the cornel's darter, and an illigant wan
+she is, av she has to make her livin' by the wroitin'."
+
+At this juncture, the lawyer, with lively satisfaction, hailed the
+arrival of Frank, who came straight towards him.
+
+"Are you Mr. Coristine, the lawyer?" he half whispered. "Yes; that's my
+name," his victim replied, thinking that Wilkinson had sent him a
+message.
+
+"Well, there's a lady in the rear car wanted to know, and I said I'd
+find out."
+
+"Fwhat's that you'll be sayin' av a lady in the rare car, my lad?"
+questioned the old soldier, who had overheard part of the conversation.
+
+"It's the tall girl in the travelling duster and the blue ribbons that
+wants to know if Mr. Coristine is here."
+
+"Fwhat? my own dare young mishtress, Miss Ceshile Jewplesshy; shure it's
+her that do have the blue ribbins, an' the dushter. Do yeez know that
+swate young crathur, Sor?"
+
+"I do not," replied Coristine abruptly, and added, _sotto voce_, "thank
+goodness!" Then he relit his pipe, and buried his head in the Puck book,
+from the contemplation of which the Irish veteran was too polite to seek
+to withdraw his attention. In a few minutes, the door opened and closed
+with a slam, and Wilkinson, pale and trembling, stood before him.
+
+"Eugene, my dear friend," he stammered, "I'll never forgive myself for
+leading you and me into a trap, a confounded, diabolical, deep-laid
+trap, sir, a gin, a snare, a woman's wile. Let us get off anywhere, at
+Aurora, Newmarket, Holland Landing, Scanlans, anywhere to escape these
+harpies."
+
+"What's the matter, old man?" enquired Coristine, with a poor attempt at
+calmness.
+
+"Matter!" replied Wilkinson, "it's this matter, that they have found us
+out, and the girl with the cream coloured ribbons and crimson wrapper
+has asked that villainous news-agent if my name is not Wilkinson, and if
+I don't teach in the Sacheverell Street School. The rascal says her name
+is Miss Marjorie Carmichael, the daughter of old Dr. Carmichael, that
+was member for Vaughan, and that her friend, the long girl with the blue
+ribbons, knows you. O, my dear friend, this is awful. Better be back in
+Toronto than shut up in a railway car with two unblushing women."
+
+"Stay here," said Coristine, making way for his friend, "they'll never
+dare come into this car after us." Yet his eye followed the retreating
+form of the South American warrior with apprehension. What if he should
+bring his 'dare young misthress' and her friend into the atmosphere of
+stale tobacco after their lawful game? Wilkinson sat down despairingly
+and coughed. "I feel very like the least little nip," he said faintly,
+"but it's in my knapsack, and I will not enter that car of foul
+conspiracy again for all the knapsacks and flasks in the world."
+
+Now, Coristine had smoked two big pipes, and felt that it was dry work,
+but loyalty to his friend made him braver than any personal necessity
+would have done. "It's sick you're looking, Farquhar, my dear," he said,
+"and it's no friend of your's I'd be, and leave you without comfort in
+such a time of trouble. Here's for the knapsack, and woe betide the man
+or woman that stops me." So up he rose, and strode out of the car,
+glowering fiercely at the second-class passengers and all the rest, till
+he reached the vacated seats, from which he silently, and in deep inward
+wrath, gathered up the creations of cardboard and patent cloth, and
+retreated, grinding his teeth as he heard the veteran call out behind
+him, "Would yeez moind comin' this way a bit, Mishter?" He paid no
+attention to that officious old man, but hurried back to the
+smoking-car, where he extracted Wilkinson's flask from its flannel
+surroundings, removed the metal cup, poured out a stiff horn, and
+diluted it at the filter. "Take this, old man," he said sternly,
+pressing it to the lips of the sufferer, "it'll set you up like a new
+pin." So the schoolmaster drank and was comforted, and Coristine took a
+nip also, and they felt better, and laughed and joked, and said
+simultaneously, "It's really too absurd about these girls, ha, ha!"
+
+Apprehension made the time seem long to the travellers, who gazed out of
+the windows upon a fine agricultural country, with rolling fields of
+grain, well-kept orchards and substantial houses and barns. They admired
+the church on the hill at Holland Landing, and the schoolmaster told his
+friend of a big anchor that had got stuck fast there on its way to the
+Georgian Bay in 1812. "I bet you the sailors wouldn't have left it
+behind if it had been an anchor of Hollands," said Coristine, whereupon
+Wilkinson remarked that his puns were intolerable. At Bradford the track
+crossed the Holland River, hardly flowing between its flat, marshy banks
+towards Lake Simcoe. "This," said the schoolmaster, "is early
+Tennysonian scenery, a Canadian edition of the fens of Lincolnshire,"
+but he regretted uttering the words when the lawyer agreed with him that
+it was an of-fens-ive looking scene. But Lake Simcoe began to show up in
+the distance to the right, and soon the gentlemanly conductor took their
+tickets. "Leefroy," shouted the brakesman. They gathered up their
+knapsacks, dropped off the smoker, and sped inside the station, out of
+the windows of which they peered cautiously to see that no attempt at a
+pursuit was made by the ladies and their military protector. The train
+sped on its way northward, and feeling that, for a time, they were safe,
+the pedestrians faced each other with a deep-drawn sigh of relief. The
+station-master told them to walk back along the track till they met the
+old side-line that used to go to Belle Ewart. So they helped each other
+to strap on their knapsacks, and virtually began their pedestrian tour.
+The station-master would have liked to detain them for explanations, but
+they were unwilling to expose themselves to further misunderstanding.
+Walking on a railway track is never very pleasant exercise, but this
+old Belle Ewart track was an abomination of sand and broken rails and
+irregular sleepers. Coristine tried to step in time over the rotting
+cedar and hemlock ties, but, at the seventh step, stumbled and slid down
+the gravel bank of the road-bed. "Where did the seven sleepers do their
+sleeping, Wilks?" he enquired. "At Ephesus," was the curt reply. "Well,
+if they didn't efface us both, they nearly did for one of us."
+"Coristine, if you are going to talk in that childlish way, we had
+better take opposite ends of the track; there are limits, sir."
+
+"That's just what's troubling me; there are far too many limits. If this
+is what you call pedestrianizing, I say, give me a good sidewalk or the
+loan of an uneven pair of legs. It's dislocation of the hip or
+inflammatory rheumatism of the knee-joint I'll be getting with this hop
+and carry one navigation." Wilkinson plodded on in dignified silence,
+till the sawmills of the deserted village came in sight, and, beyond it,
+the blue green waters of Lake Simcoe. "Now," he said, "we shall take to
+the water." "What?" enquired Coristine, "on our knapsacks?" to which his
+companion answered, "No, on the excellent steamer _Emily May_."
+
+There was no excellent steamer _Emily May_; there had not been for a
+long time; it was a memory of the past. The railway had ruined
+navigation. What was to be done? It would never do to retrace their
+steps over the railroad ties, and the roads about Belle Ewart led
+nowhere, while to track it along the hot lake shore was not to be
+thought of. Wilkinson's plans had broken down; so Coristine left him at
+the village hostelry, and sallied forth on exploration bent. In the
+course of his wanderings he came to a lumber wharf, alongside which lay
+an ancient schooner.
+
+"Schooner ahoy!" he shouted, when a shock-headed man of uncertain middle
+age poked his head up through a hatchway, and answered: "Ahoy yourself,
+and see how you like it." This was discouraging, but not to a limb of
+the law. Coristine half removed his wide awake, and said: "I have the
+pleasure of addressing the captain of the ship _Susan Thomas_," the name
+he had seen painted in gold letters on the stern.
+
+"Not adzackly," replied the shock headed mariner, much mollified; "he's
+my mate, and he'll be along as soon as he's made up his bundle. I'm
+waitin' for him to sail this yere schooner."
+
+"Where is the _Susan Thomas_ bound for?"
+
+"For Kempenfeldt Bay, leastways Barrie."
+
+"Could you take a couple of passengers, willing to pay properly for
+their passage?"
+
+"Dassent; it's agin the law; not but what I'd like to have yer, fer its
+lonesome, times. Here comes the old man hisself; try him."
+
+A stout grizzled man of between fifty and sixty came walking along the
+wharf, with his bundle over his shoulder, and Coristine tried him. The
+Captain was a man of few words, so, when the situation was explained, he
+remarked: "Law don't allow freight boats to take money off passengers,
+but law don't say how many hands I have to have, nor what I'm to pay 'em
+or not to pay 'em. If you and your friend want to ship for the trip to
+Barrie, you'd better hurry up, for we're going to start right away."
+
+Coristine was filled with the wildest enthusiasm. He dashed back to the
+hotel, the bar of which was covered with maps and old guide-books,
+partly the property of Wilkinson, partly of mine host, who was lazily
+helping him to lay out a route. "Hurry, hurry!" cried the excited
+lawyer, as he swept the maps into his friend's open knapsack. Then he
+yelled "hurroo!" and sang:--
+
+     For the ship, it is ready, and the wind is fair,
+     And I am bound for the sea, Mary Ann.
+
+Like a whirlwind he swept Wilkinson and the two knapsacks out of the
+hotel door, along the sawdust paths and on to the wharf just in time to
+see the first sail set. "What in the name of common sense is the meaning
+of this conduct?" asked the amazed schoolmaster as soon as he got his
+breath.
+
+"Meaning! why, we're indentured, you and I, as apprentice mariners on
+board the good ship _Susan Thomas_, bound for Kempenfeldt Bay.
+
+     Brave Kempenfeldt is gone,
+     His victories are o'er;
+     And he and his eight hundred
+     Shall plough the waves no more.
+
+But we'll plough them, Wilks, my boy. We'll splice the spanker boom,
+and port the helm to starboard, and ship the taffrail on to the lee
+scuppers of the after hatch, and dance hornpipes on the mizzen peak.
+Hulloa, captain, here's my mate, up to all sorts of sea larks; he can
+box the compass and do logarithm sums, and work navigation by single or
+double entry." The schoolmaster blushed for his companion, at whose
+exuberant spirits the sedate captain smiled, while the shock-headed man,
+whom Coristine named The Crew, displayed a large set of fairly preserved
+yellowish teeth, and guffawed loud and long.
+
+"Do I understand, Captain, that you are willing to take us to Barrie in
+your--ah--vessel?" asked Wilkinson, politely.
+
+"Aye, aye, my man," answered the ancient mariner, "get your leg aboard,
+for we're going to sail right away. Hi, you, Sylvanus there, give
+another haul on them halliards afore you're too mighty ready to belay,
+with your stupid cackle."
+
+So the indentured apprentices and their knapsacks got on board, while
+Sylvanus, _alias_ The Crew, stopped laughing, and put a pound or two
+extra on to the halliards. "Wilks," said Coristine, "it'll puzzle the
+women to find us out on our ocean home."
+
+Wilkinson saw the captain hauling at the halliards of the after-mainsail
+and went to his assistance, while Coristine, doffing his coat, lent a
+hand to The Crew, when, by their combined efforts, the sails were all
+hoisted and the schooner floated away from the pier. The lawyer walked
+over the deck with a nautical air, picking up all loose ends of rope and
+coiling them neatly over his left arm. The coils he deposited carefully
+about the feet of the masts, to the astonishment of Wilkinson, who
+regarded his friend as a born seaman, and to the admiration of the
+captain and The Crew. The schoolmaster felt that Wordsworth was not the
+thing for the water; he should have brought Falconer or Byron. So he
+stuck to the captain, who was a very intelligent man of his class, and
+discussed with him the perils and advantages of lake navigation. They
+neither of them smoked, nor, said the captain, did he often drink; when
+he did, he liked to have it good. Thereupon Wilkinson produced what
+remained in his flask, which his commanding officer took down neat at a
+gulp, signifying, as he ruefully gazed upon the depleted vessel, that a
+man might go long before he'd get such stuff as that. Then the
+conversation turned on the prohibitory Scott Act, which opened the vials
+of the old man's wrath, for making "the biggest lot of hypocrites and
+law-breakers and unlicensed shebeens and drunkards the country had ever
+seen." The schoolmaster, as in duty bound, tried to defend the Act, but
+all in vain, so he was glad to change the subject and discuss the crops,
+politics, and education. This conversation took place at what the
+captain called "the hellum", against the tiller of which he occasionally
+allowed his apprentice to lean his back while he attended to other work.
+Wilkinson was proud. This was genuine navigation, this steering a large
+vessel with your back; any mere landsman, he now saw, could coil up
+ropes like Coristine. The subject of this reflection was quite happy in
+the bow, chumming with The Crew. Smoking their pipes together, Sylvanus
+confided to his apprentice that a sailor's life was the lonesomest life
+out of jail, when the cap'n was that quiet and stand off like as one he
+knowed that wasn't far away, nuther. Coristine sympathized with him.
+"The bossest time that ever was on this yere old _Susan Thomas_," he
+continued, "was last summer wonst when the cap'n's niece, she come along
+fer a trip. There was another gal along with her, a regular stunner, she
+was. Wot her name was I raley can't tell, 'cos that old owl of a cap'n,
+whenever he'd speak to her, allers said Miss Do Please. I reckon that's
+what she used to say to him, coaxin' like, and he kep' it up on her.
+Well, we was becalmed three days right out on the lake, and I had to row
+the blessed dingy in the bilin' sun over to Snake Island to get bread
+and meat from the Snakes."
+
+"From the snakes!" ejaculated Coristine, "why this beats Elijah's ravens
+all to nothing."
+
+"Oh, the Snakes is Injuns, and Miss Carmichael, that's the cap'n's gal,
+says their rale name is Kinapick."
+
+"Look here, Sylvanus, what did you say the captain's name is?"
+
+"Oh, the old pill's name is Thomas, like the schooner, but, you see, he
+married one of the pretty Carruthers gals, and a good match it was; for,
+I tell ye, them Carruthers gals hold their heads mighty high. Why, the
+ansomest of them married Dr. Carmichael that was member, and, of they
+did say he married below him, there wasn't a prouder nor a handsomer
+woman in all the country. There's a brother of the Carruthers gals lives
+on a farm out in Grey, and he took up with a good lookin' Irish gal that
+was lady's maid or some such truck. That's marryin' below yourself ef
+you like, but, bless you, Miss Carmichael don't bear him no spite for
+it. She goes and stays with him times in the holidays, just like she
+does along o' the old man here. My! what a three days o' singin' and fun
+it was when them two gals was aboard; never see nothing like it afore
+nor sence."
+
+"By George!" groaned the lawyer.
+
+"What's up, Mister? turned sick, eh? smell o' the tar too much fer your
+narves? It do make some city folks a bit squarmish. Wish I'd a drop o'
+stuff for you, but we don't carry none; wouldn't do, you know."
+Coristine was touched by the good fellow's kindness, and opened his
+flask for their joint benefit, after which he felt better, and The Crew
+said it made him like a four-year-old.
+
+"Hi, Sylvanus, come aft here to your dog watch," cried the captain, and
+The Crew retired, while his superior officer and Wilkinson came forward.
+The former went down into the hold, leaving the dominie free for
+conversation with his friend. "It's all up again, Wilks," said Coristine
+sadly; "those two girls were on board this very schooner, no later than
+last summer, and the one that spotted you is the captain's niece."
+
+"I know," groaned Wilkinson; "did he not tell me that he had a niece, a
+wonderfully fine girl, if he did say it, in the public schools, and made
+me promise to look her up when I go back to town! This kind of thing
+will be the death of me, Corry. Tell me, is your friend at the helm
+another uncle?"
+
+"Oh, no," laughed Coristine, "he's a simple-hearted, humble sort of
+creature, who worships the boards these girls trod upon. He has a
+tremendous respect for the Carmichaels. What a lucky thing it is they
+didn't come on board at Belle Ewart! Do you think they'll be on hand at
+Barrie?"
+
+"I shouldn't wonder."
+
+"Then, Wilks, I tell you what it is, we must slope. When it gets dark,
+I'll slip over the stern into the dingy and bring her round to the side
+for you; then we'll sail away for parts unknown."
+
+"Corry, I am ashamed of you for imagining that I would lend myself to
+base treachery, and robbery, or piracy rather, on the high seas, laying
+us open, as you, a lawyer, must know, to penalties that would blast our
+reputations and ruin our lives. No, sir, we must face our misfortune
+like men. In the meanwhile, I will find out, from the captain, where his
+niece and her friend are likely to be."
+
+Coristine walked aft to The Crew, and served his apprenticeship to
+sitting on the tiller and propelling the rudder thereby in the desired
+direction. When he went wrong, while The Crew was lighting his pipe, the
+flapping of the sails warned him to back the tiller to its proper place.
+When hauling at the halliards, he had sung to his admiring companion in
+toil the "Sailor's Shanty":--
+
+     My Polly said she'd marry me when I came home,
+       Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together;
+     But when I came I found she'd been and took my messmate Tom,
+       Yo hee, yo ho, haul all together.
+
+Now, therefore, The Crew was urgent for a song to cheer up the
+lonesomeness a bit, and the lawyer, nothing loath, sang with genuine
+pathos:--
+
+                A baby was sleeping;
+                Its mother was weeping.
+     For her husband was far on the wide rolling sea.
+
+When he came to the sea-ee-ee-ee-ee at the end of the third line, The
+Crew, who had been keeping time with one foot on the deck and with one
+hand on the tiller, aided him in rolling it forth, and, when the singing
+was over, he characterized it as "pooty and suitin' like," by which he
+meant that the references to the howling tempest and the raging billow
+were appropriate to the present nautical circumstances. After much
+persuasion The Crew was induced to add to the harmony of the evening.
+His voice was strong, but, like many strong things, under imperfect
+control; his tune was nowhere, and his intended pathetic unction was
+simply maudlin. Coristine could recall but little of the long ballad to
+which he listened, the story of a niggardly and irate father, who
+followed and fought with the young knight that had carried off his
+daughter. Two verses, however, could not escape his memory, on account
+of the disinterested and filial light in which they made the young lady
+appear:--
+
+     "O stay your hand," the old man cried,
+     A-lying on the ground,
+     "And you shall have my daughter,
+     And twenty thousand pound."
+
+     "Don't let him up, dear sweetheart,
+     The portion is too small."
+     "O stay your hand," the old man said,
+       "And you shall have it all."
+
+The lawyer was loud in his admiration of this classical piece, and what
+he afterwards found was The Crew's original and only tune. "That was the
+kind of wife for a poor man," remarked Sylvanus, meditatively; "but she
+was mighty hard on her old dad."
+
+"They're a poor lot, the whole pack of them," said the lawyer, savagely,
+thinking of the quandary in which he and his friend were placed.
+
+"Who is?" asked The Crew.
+
+"Why, the women, to be sure."
+
+"Look here, Mister, my name may be Sylvanus, but I know I'm pretty
+rough, for all that. But, rough as I am, I don't sit quiet and let any
+man, no, not as good friends as you and me has been, say a word agin the
+wimmen. When I think o' these yere gals as was in this blessed schooner
+last summer, I feel it my juty, bein' I'm one o' them as helped to sail
+her then, to stand up fer all wimmen kind, and, no offence meant. I
+guess your own mother's one o' the good sort, now wasn't she?"
+
+"I should say she is," replied Coristine; "there are splendid women in
+the world, but they're all married."
+
+"That don't stand to reason, nohow," said The Crew, with gravity, "'cos
+there was a time wonst when they wasn't married, and if they was good
+arter they was good afore. And, moreover, what was, is, and ever shall
+be, Amen!"
+
+"All right, Sylvanus, we won't quarrel over them, and to show I bear no
+malice, I'll sing a song about the sex," whereupon he trolled out:
+"Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen." Wilkinson came running aft
+when he heard the strain, and cried: "Good heavens! Coristine, whatever
+has got into you, are you mad or intoxicated?"
+
+"I'll bet you your boots and your bottom dollar that he ain't that,
+Mister," interposed The Crew, "fer you couldn't scare up liquor enough
+on this yere _Susan Thomas_ to turn the head of a canary."
+
+"We are exchanging musical treats," said Coristine in defence. "Sylvanus
+here favoured me with an old ballad, not in the Percy collection, and I
+have been giving him one of the songs from the dramatists."
+
+"But about women!" protested the dominie.
+
+"There ain't no songs that ain't got somethin' about women in 'em that's
+wuth a cent," indignantly replied The Crew, and Wilkinson sullenly
+retired to the bow.
+
+When the captain emerged from the hold he was hardly recognizable.
+Instead of his common sleeved waist coat and overalls, he was attired in
+a dark blue suit of broadcloth, the vest and frock coat of which were
+resplendent with gilt buttons. These clothes, with a befitting peaked
+cap and a pair of polished boots, had evidently come out of the large
+bundle he had brought from Belle Ewart, where the garments had probably
+done Sunday duty, for a smaller bundle, which he now threw upon the
+deck, contained his discarded working dress. Wilkinson was confirmed, by
+the spectacle presented, in his dire suspicion that the captain's niece
+would appear at Barrie, and, then and there, begin an acquaintance with
+him that might have the most disastrous consequences. But hope springs
+eternal in the human breast, as the poet says, so the schoolmaster
+tackled the commander, congratulated him on his fine appearance, and
+began to pump him as to the whereabouts of Miss Carmichael. The old
+gentleman, for such he looked now, was somewhat vain in an off-hand sort
+of way, and felt that he was quite the dominie's equal. He was cheerful,
+even jovial, in spite of the contrary assertions of The Crew, as he
+replied to Wilkinson's interrogations.
+
+"Ah, you sly young dog," he said, "I see what you're at now. You'd like
+to hear that the pair of them are waiting for us at Barrie; but they're
+not. They've gone to stay with my brother-in-law, Carruthers, in the
+County of Grey, where I'll go and see their pretty faces myself in a few
+days."
+
+Wilkinson swallowed the "sly young dog" for the sake of the
+consolation, and, hurriedly making his way aft, communicated the joyful
+news to Coristine. That gentleman much amused The Crew by throwing an
+arm round the schoolmaster's waist and waltzing his unwilling partner
+over the deck. All went merry as a marriage bell till the waltzers
+struck a rope coil, when, owing to the dominie's struggles, they went
+down together. Recovering themselves, they sat on deck glaring at each
+other.
+
+"You're a perfect idiot, Coristine."
+
+"You're a regular old muff, Wilkinson."
+
+The Crew, thinking this was a special pantomime got up impromptu for his
+benefit, roared with laughter, and applauded on the tiller. He was about
+to execute a hoedown within tiller limits to testify his sympathy with
+the fun, when the captain appeared in all his Sunday finery.
+
+"Let her away, you laughing hyena," he yelled to the unlucky Sylvanus,
+who regained his mental balance and laid his back to the tiller the
+other way.
+
+"Sorry I've no chairs for you gentlemen," he remarked to the seated
+travellers; "but I guess the deck's as soft as the wooden kind."
+
+"Don't mention it, my dear captain," said Coristine, as he sprang to his
+feet; "we were only taking the latitude and longitude, but it's hard
+work on the bones."
+
+"You allow yourself too much latitude, sir, both in your actions and in
+your unjustifiable remarks," muttered the pedagogue, more slowly
+assuming the perpendicular.
+
+"Now, captain," cried the lawyer, "I leave it you, sir, as a judge of
+language, good and bad. What is the worst thing to call a man, a muff or
+an idiot!"
+
+The captain toyed with the lanyard of his tortoise shell rimmed glasses,
+then put them deliberately across his nose, coughed judiciously, and
+gave his opinion:--
+
+"An ijit is a man that's born without sense and can't keep himself, d'ye
+see? But a muff is that stupid, like Sylvanus here, that he can't use
+the sense he's got. That being the case, a muff is worse than an ijit."
+
+"Mr. Wilkinson, I bow, as in duty bound, to the verdict of the court,
+and humbly apologize for having called you something worse than an
+idiot. In my poor opinion, sir, you are not worse than the unfortunate
+creature thus described."
+
+Wilkinson was about to retort, when The Crew called out that the
+schooner was in the Bay, and that the lights of Barrie could be seen in
+the distance.
+
+"Keep to your helm, Sylvanus," growled the captain; "there's three pair
+of eyes here as good as yourn, and I hope with more sense abaft 'em."
+
+Sylvanus relapsed into silence of a modified kind, merely whistling in a
+soft way his original copyright tune. As the travellers had never seen
+Kempenfeldt Bay before, they admired it very much, and forgot their
+little misunderstanding, while arm in arm they leaned over the bulwarks,
+and quoted little snatches of poetry in one another's ears. The
+twinkling lights of the town upon the cliffs suggested many a pleasing
+passage, so that Wilkinson told his dear Corry he was more than repaid
+for the trouble incident on their expedition by the sweet satisfaction
+of gazing on such a scene in company with a kindred spirit of poesy. To
+this his comrade replied, "Wilks, my dear boy, next to my mother you're
+the best friend I ever hope to have."
+
+"Let us cherish these sentiments for one another, kind friend, and the
+cloud on the horizon of our tour will never rise to darken its happy
+future," after which the learned dominie recited the words of Ducis:--
+
+"_Noble et tendre amitie, je te chante en mes vers_."
+
+"Murder!" cried Coristine, "Do you know that that Miss Jewplesshy, or Do
+Please, or whatever her name is, is French?"
+
+"O, Corry, Corry, how could you break in upon a scene of purest
+friendship and nature worship like this with your wretched misses? O,
+Corry, be a man!"
+
+"The anchor's agoin' out," remarked The Crew, as he passed by; so the
+travellers rushed to the capstan and got hold of the spikes. Out went
+the cable, as Coristine sang:--
+
+     Do! my Johnny Boker,
+     I'm a poo-er sailor,
+     Do! my Johnny Boker,
+                     Do!!!
+
+The ship made fast, the captain said, "Sylvanus will take you gentlemen
+ashore in the dingy. It only holds three, so I'll wait till he comes
+back." The pedestrians protested, but in vain. Sylvanus should take them
+ashore first. So they bade the captain good-bye with many thanks and
+good wishes, and tumbled down into the dingy, which The Crew brought
+round. The captain shouted from the bulwarks in an insinuating way,
+"I'll keep my eye on you, Mr Wilkinson, trying to steal an old man's
+niece away from him," at which the victim shuddered. Away went the dingy
+some fifty yards or more, when Coristine called out, "Have you got the
+knapsacks, Farquhar, my dear?"
+
+"Why, bless me, no," he answered. "I thought you had them." "Row back
+for your life, Sylvanus, to get the blessed knapsacks;" and Sylvanus,
+patient creature, did as he was told. The captain threw them over the
+side with another farewell speech, and then the dingy made for the bank,
+while Coristine sang in a rich voice:--
+
+     Pull for the shore, sailor,
+       Pull for the shore.
+
+They landed, and, much against The Crew's will, he was compelled to
+receive a dollar from each of his passengers.
+
+"I'll see you again," he said, as he rowed back for the captain. "I'll
+see you again up in Grey, along of the old man and the gals, mark my
+word if I don't."
+
+"Glad to see you, Sylvy, old fresh (he was going to say 'old salt,' but
+corrected himself in time), glad to see you anywhere," bawled the
+lawyer, "but we've made a vow to dispense with female society in our
+travels. Ta, ta!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+     Barrie--Next of Kin--Nightmare--On the Road--Strawberries and
+     Botany--Poetry and Sentiment--The Virago--Luncheon and
+     Wordsworth--Waterplants, Leeches and Verse--Cutting Sticks--Rain,
+     Muggins and Rawdon.
+
+
+The travellers carried their knapsacks in their hands by the straps, to
+the nearest hotel, where, after brief delay, a special supper was set
+for them. Having discussed the frugal meal, they repaired to the
+combined reading and smoking room, separate from the roughish crowd at
+the bar. Wilkinson glanced over a Toronto paper, while his companion,
+professing an interest in local news, picked up an organ of the town and
+read it through, advertisements and all, in which painstaking effort he
+was helped by his pipe. Suddenly he grasped the paper, and, holding it
+away from his face, exclaimed, "Is it possible that they are the same?"
+
+"Who, who?" ejaculated Wilkinson; "do not tell me that the captain was
+mistaken, that they are really here."
+
+"Do you know old Carmichael's initials, the doctor's, that was member
+for Vaughan?" his friend asked, paying no attention to the
+schoolmaster's question.
+
+"James D.," replied that authority; "I remember, because I once made the
+boys get up the members' names along with their constituencies, so as to
+give the latter a living interest."
+
+"Now, listen to this: 'Next of kin; information wanted concerning the
+whereabouts of James Douglas Carmichael, or his heirs at law. He left
+the University of Edinburgh, where he was in attendance on the Faculty
+of Medicine, in the spring of 1848, being at the time twenty-one years
+of age. The only trace of his farther life is a fragment of a letter
+written by him to a friend two years later, when he was serving as a
+soldier in the military station of Barrief, Upper Canada. Reward offered
+for the same by P.R. MacSmaill, W.S., 19 Clavers Row, Edinburgh.' If
+James Douglas Carmichael, ex-medical student, wasn't the member and the
+father of that girl of yours, I'm a Dutchman."
+
+"Mr. Coristine, I insist, sir, before another word passes between us,
+that you withdraw and apologize for the deeply offensive expression,
+which must surely have escaped your lips unperceived, 'that girl of
+yours.'"
+
+"Oh, there, now, I'm always putting my foot in it. I meant the girl you
+are interested in--no, it isn't that other--the girl that's interested
+in you--oh, wirra wisha! it's not that at all--it's the girl the captain
+was joking you about."
+
+"A joke from a comparatively illiterate man like the captain of the
+schooner, to whom we were under travelling obligations, and a joke from
+my equal, a scholar and a gentleman, are two distinct things. I wish the
+expression, 'that girl of yours,' absolutely and forever withdrawn."
+
+"Well, well, I consent to withdraw it absolutely and apologize for
+saying it, but that 'forever' clause goes against my legal judgment. If
+the late Dr. Carmichael's heiress comes in for a fortune, we might
+repent that 'forever.'"
+
+"What has that to do with me, sir, fortune or no fortune? Your
+insinuations are even more insulting than your open charges of
+infidelity to our solemn compact."
+
+It was Coristine's turn to be angry. He rose from the table at which he
+had been sitting, with the paper still in his hand, and said: "You make
+mountains out of molehills, Wilkinson. I've made you a fair and full
+apology, and shall do no more, if you sulk your head off." So saying, he
+stalked out of the room, and Wilkinson was too much angered to try to
+stop him.
+
+The lawyer asked the landlord if he would spare him the newspaper for an
+hour and supply him with pen and ink and a few sheets of paper. Then he
+took his lamp and retired to his room. "Poor old Farquhar," he
+soliloquized, as he arranged his writing materials; "he'll feel mighty
+bad at being left all alone, but it's good for his health, and business
+is business. Let me see, now. Barrie was never a military station,
+besides the letter had Barrief on it, a name that doesn't exist. But the
+letter was torn there, or the corner worn away in a man's pocket. By the
+powers, it's Barriefield at Kingston, and there's the military station
+for you. I'll write our correspondent there, and I'll set one of the
+juniors to work up Dr. Carmichael's record in Vaughan County, and I'll
+notify MacSmaill, W.S., that I am on the track, and--shall I write the
+girl, there's the rub?" The three letters were written with great care
+and circumspection, but not the fourth. When carefully sealed, directed
+and stamped, he carried them to the post-office and personally deposited
+them in the slit for drop-letters. Returning to the hotel, he restored
+the newspaper to the table of the reading-room, minus the clipped
+advertisement to the next of kin, which he stowed away in his
+pocketbook. This late work filled the lawyer with a satisfaction that
+crowned the pleasures of the day, and he longed to communicate some of
+it to his friend, but that gentleman, the landlord said, had retired for
+the night, looking a bit put out--he hoped supper had been to his
+liking. Coristine said the supper was good. "What was the number of Mr.
+Wilkinson's room?"
+
+Mine host replied that it was No. 32, the next to his own. Before
+retiring, Coristine looked at the fanlight over the door of No. 32; it
+was dark. Nevertheless he knocked, but failed to evoke a response.
+"Farquhar, my dear," he whispered in an audible tone, but still there
+was no answer. So he heaved a sigh, and, returning to his apartment,
+read a few words out of his pocket prayer-book, and went to bed. There
+he had an awful dream, of the old captain leading Wilkinson by the
+collar and tail of his coat up to the altar, where Miss Carmichael
+stood, resplendent in pearls and diamonds, betokening untold wealth; of
+an attempt at rescue by himself and The Crew, which was nipped in the
+bud by the advent of the veteran, his daughter and Miss Jewplesshy. The
+daughter laid violent hands upon The Crew and waltzed him out of the
+church door, while the veteran took Coristine's palsied arm and placed
+that of his young mistress upon it, ordering them, with military words
+of command, to accompany the victims, as bridesmaid and groomsman. When
+the dreamer recovered sufficiently to look the officiating clergyman
+full in the face, he saw that this personage was no other than Frank,
+the news-agent, whereupon he laughed immediately and awoke.
+
+"Corry, Corry, my dear fellow, are you able to get up, or shall I break
+the door in?" were the words that greeted his ear on awaking.
+
+"The omadhaun!" he said to himself under the bedclothes; "it would be a
+good thing to serve him with the sauce of silence, as he did me last
+night." But better counsels prevailed in his warm Irish heart, and he
+arose to unlock the door, when suddenly it flew open, and Wilkinson,
+with nothing but a pair of trousers added to his night attire, fell
+backwards into his arms. It was broad daylight as each looked into the
+other's face for explanations.
+
+"But you're strong, Wilks!" said the lawyer with admiration.
+
+"Corry, when I heard you groan that way, I was sure you were in a fit."
+
+"Oh, it was nothing," replied his friend, who found it hard to keep from
+laughing, "only a bad nightmare."
+
+"What were you dreaming about to bring it on?"
+
+Now, this was just what Coristine dared not tell, for the truth would
+bring up all last night's misunderstanding. So he made up a story of
+Wilkinson's teaching The Crew navigation and the use of the globes, when
+the captain interfered and threatened to kick master and pupil
+overboard. Then he, Coristine, interposed, and the captain fell upon
+him. "And you know, Wilks, he's a heavy man."
+
+"Well, I am heartily glad it is no worse. Get a wash and get your
+clothes on, and come down to breakfast, like a good boy, for I hear the
+bell ringing."
+
+Over their coffee and toast, eggs and sausages, the two were as kind and
+attentive to one another's wants, as if no dispute had ever marred their
+friendship. The dominie got out his sketch map of a route and opened it
+between them. "We shall start straight for the bush road into the north,
+if that suits you," he said, "and travel by easy stages towards
+Collingwood, where we shall again behold one of our inland seas. But, as
+it may be sometime before we reach a house of entertainment, it may be
+as well to fill the odd corners of our knapsacks with provisions for the
+way."
+
+"I say amen to that idea," replied the lawyer, and the travellers arose,
+paid their bill, including the price of the door-lock, seized their
+knapsacks by the straps and sallied forth. They laid in a small stock of
+captain's biscuits, a piece of good cheese, and some gingersnaps for
+Wilkinson's sweet tooth; they also had their flask refilled, and
+Coristine invested in some pipe-lights. Then they sallied forth, not
+into the north as Wilkinson had said, it being a phrase he was fond of,
+but, at first, in a westerly, and, on the whole, in a north-westerly
+direction.
+
+When the last house on the outskirts was left behind them, they helped
+each other on with their knapsacks, and felt like real pedestrians. The
+bush enclosed them on either side of the sandy road, so that they had
+shade whenever they wanted it. Occasionally a wayfarer would pass them
+with a curt "good morning," or a team would rattle by, its driver
+bestowing a similar salutation. The surface of the country was flat, but
+this did not hinder Wilkinson reciting:--
+
+     Mount slowly, sun! and may our journey lie
+     Awhile within the shadow of this hill,
+     This friendly hill, a shelter from thy beams!
+
+"That reminds me," said Coristine, "of a fellow we had in the office
+once, whose name was Hill. He was a black-faced, solemn-looking genius,
+and the look of him would sink the spirits of a skylark down to zero.
+'What's come over you?' said Woodruff to me one fine afternoon, when I
+was feeling a bit bilious. 'Oh,' said I, 'I've been within the shadow of
+this Hill,' and he laughed till he was black in the face."
+
+"Corry, if I were not ashamed of making a pun, or, as we say in academic
+circles, being guilty of antanaclasis, I would say that you are
+in-corri-gible."
+
+Coristine laughed, and then remarked seriously, "Here am I, with a
+strap-press full of printing paper in my knapsack, and paying no
+attention to science at all. We must begin to take life in airnest now,
+Wilks, my boy, and keep our eyes skinned for specimens. Sorry I am I
+didn't call and pay my respects to my botanical friend at the Barrie
+High School. He could have given us a pointer or two about the flowers
+that grow round here."
+
+"Flowers are scarce in July," said the schoolmaster, "they seem to take
+a rest in the hot weather. The spring is their best time. Of course you
+know that song about the flowers in spring?"
+
+"Never heard it in my life; sing it to us, Farquhar, like a darlin'."
+
+Now, the dominie was not given to singing, but thus adjured, and the
+road being clear, he sang in a very fair voice:--
+
+     We are the flowers,
+     The fair young flowers
+     That come with the voice of Spring,
+             Tra la la, la la la, la la,
+                            Tra la, tra la a a a.
+
+Coristine revelled in the chorus, which, at the "a a a," went up to the
+extreme higher compass of the human voice and beyond it. He made his
+friend repeat the performance, called him a daisy, and tra la la'd to
+his heart's content. Then he sat down on a grassy bank by the wayside
+and laughed loud and long. "Oh, it's a nice pair of fair young flowers
+we are, coming with the voice of spring; but we're not hayseeds,
+anyway." When the lawyer turned himself round to rise, Wilkinson asked
+seriously, "Did you hurt yourself then, Corry?"
+
+"Never a bit, except that I'm weak with the laughing; and for why?"
+
+"Because there is some red on your trousers, and I thought it might be
+blood--that you had sat down on some sharp thing."
+
+"It'll be strawberry blite, I'll wager, _Blitum capitatum_, and a fine
+thing it is. Mrs. Marsh, that keeps our boarding house, has a garden
+where it grows wild in among the peas. She wanted some colouring for the
+icing of a cake, and hadn't a bit of cochineal or anything of the kind
+in the house. She was telling me her trouble, for it was a holiday and
+the shops were shut, and she's always that friendly with me; when, says
+I, 'There is no trouble about that.' So I went to the garden and got two
+lovely stalks of _Blitum capitatum_. 'Is it poison?' said she. 'Poison!'
+said I; 'and it belonging to the _Chenopodiaceae_, the order that owns
+beets and spinach, and all the rest of them. Trust a botanist, ma'am,' I
+said. It made the sweetest pink icing you ever saw, and Mrs. Marsh is
+for ever deeply grateful, and rears that _Blitum_ with fond and anxious
+care."
+
+"I would like to see that plant," said Wilkinson. So they retraced
+their steps to the bank, over which Coristine leaned tenderly, picking
+something which he put into his mouth. "Come on, Wilks," he cried; "it
+isn't blite, but something better. It's wild strawberries themselves,
+and lashings of them. Sure any fool might have known them by the leaves,
+even if he was a herald, the worst fool of all, and only knew them from
+a duke's coronet."
+
+For a time there was silence, for the berries were numerous, and,
+although small, sweet and of delicate flavour.
+
+"Corry, they are luscious; this is Arcadia and Elysium."
+
+"Foine, Wilks, foine," mumbled the lawyer, with his mouth full of
+berries.
+
+"This folly of mine, sitting down on the blessings of
+Providence--turning my back upon them, so to speak," he remarked, after
+the first hunger was over, "reminds me of a man who took the gold medal
+in natural science. He had got his botany off by rote, so, when he was
+travelling between Toronto and Hamilton, a friend that was sitting
+beside him said, 'Johnson, what's in that field out there?' Johnson
+looked a bit put out, but said boldly, 'It's turnips.' There was an old
+farmer in the seat behind him, and he spoke up and said, 'Turmuts!' said
+he, 'them's hoats--ha, ha, ha!'"
+
+As they tramped along, the botanist found some specimens: two lilies,
+the orange and the Turk's cap; the willow herb, the showy ladies'
+slipper, and three kinds of milkweed. He opened his knapsack, took out
+the strap press, and carefully bestowed his floral treasures between
+sheets of unglazed printers' paper. Wilkinson took a friendly interest
+in these proceedings, and insisted on being furnished with the botanical
+names of all the specimens.
+
+"That willow-herb, now, _Epilobium angustifolium_, is called fire-weed,"
+said the botanist, "and is an awful nuisance on burnt ground. There was
+a Scotchman out here once, about this time of the year, and he thought
+it was such a pretty pink flower that he would take some home with him.
+So, when the downy-winged seeds came, he gathered a lot, and, when he
+got back to Scotland, planted them. Lord! the whole country about Perth
+got full of the stuff, till the farmers cursed him for introducing the
+American Saugh."
+
+"The American what?" demanded Wilkinson.
+
+"Saugh; it's an old Scotch word for willow, and comes from the French
+_saule_, I suppose."
+
+"I am not sorry for them," said Wilkinson; "they say that pest, the
+Canada thistle, came from the Old Country."
+
+"Yes, that's true; and so did Pusley, which Warner compares with
+original sin; and a host of other plants. Why, on part of the Hamilton
+mountain you won't find a single native plant. It is perfectly covered,
+from top to bottom, with dusty, unwholesome-looking weeds from Europe
+and the Southern States. But we paid them back."
+
+"How was that?"
+
+"You know, a good many years ago, sailing vessels began to go from the
+Toronto harbour across the Atlantic to British ports. There's a little
+water-plant that grows in Ashbridge's Bay, called the Anacharis, and
+this little weed got on to the bottom of the ocean vessels. Salt water
+didn't kill it, but it lived till the ships got to the Severn, and there
+it fell off and took root, and blocked up the canals with a solid mass
+of subaqueous vegetation that made the English canal men dredge night
+and day to get rid of it. I tell you we've got some pretty hardy things
+out here in Canada."
+
+"Do you not think," asked Wilkinson, "that our talk is getting too like
+that of Charles and his learned father in Gosse's 'Canadian
+Naturalist'?"
+
+"All right, my boy, I'll oppress you no longer with a tender father's
+scientific lore, but, with your favourite poet, say:--
+
+     "To me the meanest flower that blows can give
+     Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
+
+"That is because of their associations, a merely relative reason," said
+the dominie.
+
+"It isn't though, at least not altogether. Listen, now, to what Tennyson
+says, or to something like what he says:--
+
+     Little flower in the crannied wall,
+     Peeping out of the crannies,
+     I hold you, root and all, in my hand;
+     Little flower, if I could understand
+     What you are, root and all, and all in all,
+     I should know what God and man is.
+
+There's no association nor relation in that; the flower brings you at
+once face to face with infinite life. Do you know what these
+strawberries brought to me?"
+
+"A pleasant feast I should say."
+
+"No, they made me think how much better it would have been if I had had
+somebody to gather them for; I don't say a woman, because that's tabooed
+between us, but say a child, a little boy or girl. There's no
+association or relation there at all; the strawberries called up love,
+which is better than a pleasant feast."
+
+"According to Wordsworth, the flower in the crannied wall and the
+strawberry teach the same lesson, for does he not say:--
+
+     That life is love and immortality.
+
+          *     *     *     *     *
+
+     Life, I repeat, is energy of love,
+     Divine or human, exercised in pain,
+     In strife and tribulation, and ordained,
+     If so approved and sanctified, to pass
+     Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy?
+
+At any rate, that is what he puts into his Parson's lips.
+
+"Farquhar, my boy, I think we'd better stop, for I'm weakening fast.
+It's sentimental the flowers and the fruit are making me. I mind, when I
+was a little fellow in the old sod, my mother gathering wild flowers
+from the hedges and putting them all round the ribbon of my straw hat. I
+can't pay her the debt of that mark of love the same way, but I feel I
+should pay it to somebody. You never told me about your mother."
+
+"No, because she is dead and gone long ago, and my father married again,
+and brought a vixen, with two trollops of girls, to take the place of an
+angel. These three women turned my stomach at all the sex. Look, there's
+a pretty woman for you!"
+
+They had reached a clearing in the bush, consisting of a corn patch and
+a potato field, in which a woman, with a man's hat on her head and a
+pair of top-boots upon her nether extremities, looking a veritable guy,
+was sprinkling the potato plants with well-diluted Paris green. The
+shanty pertaining to the clearing was some little distance from the
+road, and, hoping to get a drink of water there, Coristine prepared to
+jump the rail fence and make his way towards it. The woman, seeing what
+he was about, called: 'Hi, Jack, Jack!' and immediately a big mongrel
+bull-dog came tearing towards the travellers, barking as he ran.
+
+"Come back, Corry, for heaven's sake, or he'll bite you!" cried
+Wilkinson.
+
+"Never a fear," answered the lately sentimental botanist; "barking dogs
+don't bite as a rule." So he jumped the fence in earnest, and said
+soothingly, as if he were an old friend: "Hullo, Jack, good dog!"
+whereupon the perfidious Jack grovelled at his feet and then jumped up
+for a caress. But the woman came striding along, picking up a grubbing
+hoe by the way to take the place of the treacherous defender of the
+house.
+
+"Hi, git out o' that, quick as yer legs'll take yer; git out now! we
+don't want no seeds, ner fruit trees, ner sewin' machines, ner fambly
+Bibles. My man's jist down in the next patch, an' if yer don't git, I'll
+set him on yer."
+
+"Madam," said Coristine, lifting his hat, "permit me to explain--"
+
+"Go 'long, I tell yer; that's the way they all begin, with yer madam an'
+explainin'; I'll explain this hoe on yer if yer take another step."
+
+"We are not agents, nor tramps, nor tract distributors, nor collectors
+for missions," cried Coristine, as soon as he had a chance to speak. "My
+friend, here, is a gentleman engaged in education, and I am a lawyer,
+and all we want is a glass of water."
+
+"A liyer, eh?" said the Amazon, in a very much reduced tone; "Why didn't
+yer say so at wonst, an' not have me settin' that good for nuthin' brute
+on yer? I never see liyers with a pack on their backs afore. Ef yer
+wants a drink, why don't yer both come on to the house?"
+
+Wilkinson, at this not too cordial invitation, vaulted over the fence
+beside his companion, and they walked housewards, the woman striding on
+ahead, and the dog sniffing at Wilkinson's heels in the rear. A rather
+pretty red-haired girl of about fifteen was washing dishes, evidently
+in preparation for the mid-day meal. Her the woman addressed as Anna
+Maria, and ordered her to go and get a pail of fresh water for the
+gentlemen. But Wilkinson, who felt he must do something to restore his
+credit, offered to get the water if Anna Maria would show him the well
+or pump that contained it. The girl gave him a tin pail, and he
+accompanied her to the back of the house, where the well and a bucket
+with a rope were. In vain he tried to sink that bucket; it would not
+sink. At last the girl took it out of his hands, turned the bucket
+upside down, and, letting it fall with a vicious splash, brought it up
+full of deliciously cool water, which she transferred to the pail.
+
+"You are very clever to do that the first time," remarked the
+schoolmaster, wishing to be polite to the girl, who looked quite
+pleasant and comely, in spite of her bare feet and arms.
+
+"There ain't no cleverness about it," she replied, with a harsh nasal
+accent; "any fool most could do as much." Wilkinson carried the tin pail
+to the shanty disillusioned, took his drink out of a cup that seemed
+clean enough, joined his friend in thanking mother and daughter for
+their hospitality, and retired to the road.
+
+"Do you find your respect for the fair sex rising?" he asked Coristine,
+cynically.
+
+"The mother's an awful old harridan--"
+
+"Yes, and when the daughter is her age she will be a harridan, too, the
+gentle rustic beauties have gone out of date, like the old poets. The
+schoolmaster is much needed here to teach young women not to compare
+gentlemen even if they are pedestrianizing, to 'any fool most.'"
+
+"Oh, Wilks, is that where you're hit? I thought you and she were long
+enough over that water business for a case of Jacob and Rachel at the
+well, ha, ha!"
+
+"Come, cease this folly, Coristine, and let us get along."
+
+Sentiment had received a rude shock. It met with a second when Coristine
+remarked "I'm hungry." Still, he kept on for another mile or so, when
+the travellers sighted a little brook of clear water rippling over
+stones. A short distance to the left of the road it was shaded by trees
+and tall bushes, not too close together, but presenting, here and
+there, little patches of grass and the leaves of woodland flowers.
+Selecting one of these patches, they unstrapped their knapsacks, and
+extracted from them a sufficiency of biscuits and cheese for luncheon.
+Then one of the packs, as they had irreverently been called, was turned
+over to make a table. The biscuits and cheese were moistened with small
+portions from the contents of the flasks, diluted with the cool water of
+the brook. The meal ended, Wilkinson took to nibbling ginger snaps and
+reading Wordsworth. The day was hot, so that a passing cloud which came
+over the face of the sun was grateful, but it was grateful to beast as
+well as to man, for immediately a swarm of mosquitoes and other flies
+came forth to do battle with the reposing pedestrians. Coristine's pipe
+kept them from attacking him in force, but Wilkinson got all the more in
+consequence. He struck savagely at them with Wordsworth, anathematized
+them in choice but not profane language, and, at last, rose to his feet,
+switching his pocket handkerchief fiercely about his head. Coristine
+picked up the deserted Wordsworth, and laughed till the smoke of his
+pipe choked him and the tears came into his eyes.
+
+"I see no cause for levity in the sufferings of a fellow creature," said
+the schoolmaster, curtly.
+
+"Wilks, my darling boy, it's not you I'm laughing at; it's that old
+omadhaun of a Wordsworth. Hark to this, now:--
+
+     He said, ''Tis now the hour of deepest noon.
+     At this still season of repose and peace,
+     This hour, when all things which are not at rest
+     Are cheerful; while this multitude of flies
+     Is filling all the air with melody;
+     Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?'
+
+O Wilks, but this beats cock-fighting; 'Why should a tear be in an old
+man's eye?' Sorra a bit do I know, barring it's the multitude of flies.
+O Wordy, Wordy, bard of Rydal Mount, it's sick with laughing you'll be
+making me. All things not at rest are cheerful. Dad, if he means the
+flies, they're cheerful enough, but if it's my dear friend, Farquhar
+Wilkinson, it's a mistake the old gentleman is making. See, this is more
+like it, at the very beginning of 'The Excursion':--
+
+              Nor could my weak arm disperse
+     The host of insects gathering round my face,
+     And ever with me as I paced along.
+
+That's you, Wilks, you to a dot. What a grand thing poetic instinct is,
+that looks away seventy years into the future and across the Atlantic
+Ocean, to find a humble admirer in the wilds of Canada, and tell how he
+looked among the flies. 'Why should a tear be in an old man's eye?' O,
+holy Moses, that's the finest line I've sighted in a dog's age. Cheer
+up, old man, and wipe that tear away, for I see the clouds have rolled
+by, Jenny."
+
+"Man, clod, profaner of the shrine of poesy, cease your ignorant
+cackle," cried the irate dominie. Silently they bathed faces and hands
+in the brook, donned their knapsacks, and took to the road once more.
+
+The clouds had not all passed by as the pedestrians found to their cost,
+for, where there are clouds over the bush in July, there also are
+mosquitoes. Physically as well as psychically, Wilkinson was
+thin-skinned, and afforded a ready and appetizing feast to the
+blood-suckers. His companion still smoked his pipe in defence, but for a
+long time in silence. "The multitude of flies" made him gurgle
+occasionally, as he gazed upon the schoolmaster, whose blue and yellow
+silk handkerchief was spread over the back of his head and tied under
+his chin. To quote Wordsworth then would have been like putting a match
+to a powder magazine. The flies were worst on the margin of a pond
+formed by the extension of a sluggish black stream. "Go on, Wilks, my
+boy, out of the pests, while I add some water plants to my collection;"
+but this, Wilkinson's chivalrous notions of friendship would not allow
+him to do. He broke off a leafy branch from a young maple, and slashed
+it about him, while the botanist ran along the edge of the pond looking
+for flowers within reach. As usual, they were just out of reach and no
+more. So he had to take off shoes and socks, turn up the legs of his
+trousers, and wade in after them. "Look at that now!" he said with pride
+as he returned with his booty, "Nymphaea odorata, Nuphar advena, and
+Brasenia peltata; aren't they beauties?"
+
+"What is that black object on your leg?" the dominie managed to gasp.
+
+"I'm thankful to you for saying that, my kind friend, for it's a
+murdering leech."
+
+"Salt is the only thing to take them off with," remarked Wilkinson
+really interested; "and that is just what we are deficient in."
+
+"I say, Wilks, try a drop of the crater on him; don't waste the
+blessings of Providence, but just let the least particle fall on his
+nose, while I scrape him off."
+
+The surgical operation succeeded, and the schoolmaster half forgot his
+own troubles in doing good to his friend. While the latter was
+reclothing his feet, and pressing his specimens, the maple branch ceased
+working, and its owner finely apostrophized the field of white and
+yellow blossoms.
+
+     There sits the water lily like a sovereign,
+     Her little empire is a fairy world,
+     The purple dragon-fly above it hovering,
+     As when her fragile ivory uncurled,
+         A thousand years ago.
+
+"Bravo, Wilks, if you are poaching on my preserves; but I wish that same
+purple dragon-fly would hover round here in thousands for a minute. It's
+a pleasure to see them sail along and gobble up the mosquitoes."
+
+The dominie continued:--
+
+     To-day I saw the dragon-fly
+     Come from the wells where he did lie.
+
+     An inner impulse rent the veil
+     Of his old husk; from head to tail
+     Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
+
+     He dried his wings: like gauze they grew,
+     Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
+     A living flash of light he flew.
+
+"Hurroo!" cried Coristine, as with knapsack readjusted, he took his
+companion by the arm and resumed the journey; "Hurroo again, I say, it's
+into the very heart of nature we're getting now. Bless the mosquito and
+the leech for opening the well of English undefiled."
+
+Wilkinson was wound up to go, and repeated with fine conversational
+effect:--
+
+     But now, perplexed by what th' old man had said,
+     My question eagerly did I renew
+     How is it that you live, and what is it you do?
+
+     He, with a smile, did then his words repeat;
+     And said, that, gathering leeches far and wide,
+     He travell'd; stirring thus about his feet
+     The waters of the ponds where they abide.
+     "Once I could meet with them on every side;
+     But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
+     Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."
+
+"Dad, if the old man had been here, he might have made his fortune by
+this time. 'Stirring thus about his feet the waters of the ponds where
+they abide' may be fine employment, but the law's good enough for me,
+seeing they're bound to dwindle long by slow decay. You don't happen to
+have a scrap on a botanist, do you?"
+
+"Yes," replied the schoolmaster, "and on a blind one, too:--
+
+     And he knows all shapes of flowers: the heath, the fox-glove with
+         its bells,
+     The palmy fern's green elegance, fanned in soft woodland smells;
+     The milkwort on the mossy turf his nice touch fingers trace,
+     And the eye-bright, though he sees it not, he finds it in its place."
+
+"A blind botanist, and in the Old Country, too; well that's strange!
+True, a blind man could know the lovely wallflowers and hyacinths and
+violets and all these sweet-scented things by their smell. But to know
+the little blue milkwort and the Euphrasia by touch, bangs me. If it was
+our fine, big pitcher plant, or the ladies' slipper, or the
+giant-fringed orchis, or the May apple, I could understand it; but
+perhaps he knew the flowers before he got to be blind. I think I could
+find my way blindfolded to some spots about Toronto where special plants
+grow. I believe, Wilks, that a man couldn't name a subject you wouldn't
+have a quotation for; you're wonderful!"
+
+Wilkinson was delighted. This flattery was meat and drink to him.
+Holding the arm of his admiring friend, he poured out his soul in verse,
+allowing his companion, from time to time, the opportunity of
+contributing a little to the poetic feast. The two virtually forgot to
+notice the level, sandy road and tame scenery, the clouded sun, the
+troublesome flies. For the time being, they were everything, the one to
+the other. By their own spirits were they deified, or thought they were,
+at the moment.
+
+Though the schoolmaster was revelling in the appreciation of his friend,
+he could not fail to perceive that he limped a little. "You have hurt
+your foot, Corry, my dear fellow, and never told me."
+
+"Oh, it's nothing," replied the light-hearted lawyer; "I trod on a stick
+in that pond where I got the Brasenia and things, and my big toe's a bit
+sore, that's all."
+
+"Corry, we have forgotten the blackthorns. Now, in this calm hour,
+sacred to friendship, let us present each other with nature's staff, a
+walking-stick cut from the bush, humble tokens of our mutual esteem."
+
+Coristine agreed, and the result was a separation and careful scrutiny
+of the underbrush on both sides of the road, which ended in the finding
+of a dogwood by the lawyer, and of a striped maple by the dominie--both
+straight above and curled at the root. These, having removed from the
+bush, they brought into shape with their pocket-knives. Then Coristine
+carved "F.W." on the handle of his, while Wilkinson engraved "E.C." on
+the one he carried. This being done, each presented his fellow with
+"this utterly inadequate expression of sincere friendship," which was
+accepted "not for its intrinsic worth, but because of the generous
+spirit which prompted the gift." "Whenever my eye rests on these letters
+by friendship traced," said the dominie, "my pleasant companion of this
+happy day will be held in remembrance."
+
+"And when my fingers feel 'E.C.' on the handle," retorted the lawyer,
+"I'll be wishing that my dear friend's lot, that gave it me, may be easy
+too. Faith but that's a hard pun on an Irishman."
+
+"Seriously, now, Corry, does it give you any satisfaction to be guilty
+of these--ah--rhetorical figures?"
+
+"All the delight in the world, Wilks, my boy."
+
+"But it lowers the tone of your conversation; it puts you on a level
+with common men; it grieves me."
+
+"If that last is the case, Farquhar, I'll do my best to fight against my
+besetting sin. You'll admit I've been very tender of your feelings with
+them."
+
+"How's your foot now?"
+
+"Oh, splendid! This stick of yours is a powerful help to it.
+
+     Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,
+       And merrily hent the stile-a:
+     A merry heart goes all the day,
+       Your sad tires in a mile-a.
+
+Shakespeare's songs remind me of young Witherspoon. There was a party at
+old Tylor's, and a lady was singing 'Tell me where is fancy bred?' when
+young Witherspoon comes up to the piano in a hurry, and says: 'Why,
+don't you know?--at Nasmith's and Webb's.'
+
+"Lord! how savage old Tylor was! I thought he would have kicked the
+young ass out."
+
+"That is just what we lovers of literature have to endure from the
+Philistines. But, Corry, my dear fellow, here is the rain!"
+
+The rain fell, at first drop by drop, but afterwards more smartly,
+forcing the pedestrians to take refuge under some leafy pines. There
+they sat quietly for a time, till their interest was excited by a deep
+growl, which seemed to come round a jog in the road just ahead.
+
+"Is that a bear or a wolf, Corry?" the dominie asked in a whisper.
+
+"More like a wild cat or a lynx," cheerfully responded his friend.
+
+The growl was repeated, and then a human like voice was heard which
+quieted the ferocious animal.
+
+"Whatever it is, it's got a keeper," whispered Coristine, "so we needn't
+be afraid."
+
+Then the sun shone forth brightly and a rainbow spanned the sky.
+
+"The rainbow comes and goes," said the lawyer, which gave the
+schoolmaster occasion to recite:--
+
+     My heart leaps up when I behold
+       A rainbow in the sky.
+     So was it when my life began;
+     So is it now I am a man;
+       So be it when I shall grow old
+       Or let me die!
+     The child is father of the man;
+     And I could wish my days to be
+     Bound each to each by natural piety.
+
+"Brayvo, well done, ancore!" cried a cheery and cheeky voice coming
+round the jog; "oo'd a thought of meetin' a play hactor 'ere in the
+bush! Down, Muggins, down," the latter to a largish and wiry-looking
+terrier, the author of the ominous growls.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Wilkinson with dignity, "I have nothing
+to do with the stage, beyond admiring the ancient ornaments of the
+English drama."
+
+"Hall right, no hoffence meant and none taken, I 'ope. But you did it
+well, sir, devilish well, I tell you. My name is Rawdon, and I'm a
+workin' geologist and minerologist hon the tramp."
+
+The stranger, who had thus introduced himself, was short, about five
+feet five, fairly stout, with a large head covered with curly reddish
+hair, his whiskers and goatee of the same hue, his eyes pale grayish,
+his nose retrousse, and his mouth like a half-moon lying on its back. He
+was dressed in a tweed suit of a very broad check; his head was crowned
+with a pith hat, almost too large even for it; and he wore gaiters. But,
+what endeared him to the pedestrians was his knapsack made of some kind
+of ribbed brown waterproof cloth.
+
+"Either of you gents take any hinterest in science?" he asked affably,
+whereupon the schoolmaster took it upon himself to reply.
+
+"I, as an educationist, dabble a little in geology, mineralogy, and
+palaeontology. My friend is a botanist. You are Mr. Rawdon. Allow me, Mr.
+Rawdon, to introduce my friend Mr. Eugene Coristine, of Osgood Hall,
+Barrister, and my humble self, Farquhar Wilkinson, of the Toronto
+Schools."
+
+Mr. Rawdon bowed and shook hands, then threw himself into a stage
+attitude, and said: "His it possible that I am face to face with
+Farquhar Wilkinson, the describer of a hentirely new species of
+Favosites? Sir, this is a perroud day for a workin' geologist. Your
+servant, Dr. Coristine!"
+
+"I'm no doctor, Mr. Rawdon," replied the lawyer, a bit angrily; "I
+passed all my examinations in the regular way."
+
+"Hif it's a fair question, gents, ware are you a goin'"? asked the
+working geologist.
+
+"We intend, if nothing intervenes, to spend the night at the village of
+Peskiwanchow," answered Wilkinson, whose heart warmed to the knapsack
+man that knew his great discovery.
+
+"Beastly 'ole!" remarked Mr. Rawdon; "but, as I'm a long way hoff
+Barrie, I'll go there with you, if Mr. Currystone is hagreeable. I don't
+want to miss the hopportunity of making your better hacquaintance, Dr.
+Wilkinson."
+
+"I am sure that my friend and I will be charmed with your excellent
+society, as a man, a fellow pedestrian and a lover of science," the
+dominie effusively replied.
+
+"Well, Muggins, we're a-goin' back, hold dog, along o' two gents as
+haint above keepin' company wi' you and me," whereat Muggins barked and
+sought to make friends with his new companions. Coristine liked Muggins,
+but he did not love Muggins' master. Sotto voce, he said: "A cheeky
+little cad!"
+
+Mr. Rawdon and Wilkinson forged on ahead. Coristine and Muggins brought
+up the rear.
+
+"What are you working at now, Mr. Rawdon?" asked the schoolmaster.
+
+"I'm workin' hup the Trenton and Utica, the Udson River and Medina
+formations. They hall crop hup between 'ere and Collin'wood. It's the
+limestone I'm hafter, you know," he said, sinking his voice to a
+whisper, "the limestone grits, dolomites, and all that sort of thing.
+Wen I can get a good grinstun quarry, I'll be a made man."
+
+"Grinstun?" queried Wilkinson, helplessly.
+
+"Yes, you know, g, r, i, n, d, s, t, o, n, e, grinstun, for sharpenin'
+tools on; turn 'em with a handle and pour water on top. Now, sir, hevery
+farm 'ouse 'as got to 'ave a grinstun, and there's 'ow many farm 'ouses
+in Canidy? wy, 'undreds of thousands. You see, there's money in it. Let
+me find a grinstun quarry and I'm a made man. And wot's more, I've found
+the grinstun quarry."
+
+"You have? Where?" asked the dominie.
+
+The working geologist drew off, and playfully planted the forefinger of
+his right hand on the side of his upturned nose, saying "Walker!" Then
+he relented, and, reapproaching his companion, said: "Honour bright,
+now, you're no workin' geologist, lookin' out for the blunt? You're a
+collector of Favosites Wilkinsoma, Stenopora fibrosa, Asaphus
+Canadensis, Ambonychia radiata, Heliopora fragilis, and all that rot,
+ain't you now?"
+
+"I certainly seek to make no money out of science, and am a lover of the
+fossil records of ancient life in our planet, but, above all, I assure
+you that I would no more think of betraying your confidence than of
+picking your pocket. If you have any doubts, do not make me your
+confidant."
+
+"Hall right, hold cock, I mean, my dear sir. You're safe has a church.
+There's a 'undred hacre lot hup in the township of Flanders, has full
+of grinstuns as a hegg's full of meat. It belongs to a Miss Do
+Please-us, but who the dooce she is, I dunno. That's just wot I'm
+a-goin' to find hout. If she hain't paid her taxes, bein' hon the
+non-resident roll, I maybe hable to pick hup the land for less than ten
+dollars, and it'll bring me hin tens of thousands. Then I'll skip back
+to hold Hingland and cut it fat."
+
+Coristine was not so taken up with Muggins that he failed to overhear
+the conversation. He did not catch it all, but he learned that a lady, a
+maiden lady, whose name mediated between Jewplesshy and Do Please, owned
+valuable mineral lands, of which the working geologist intended to
+deprive her by unfair means. Miss Do-Please-us was nothing to him, but
+justice was something, and the man Rawdon was an unutterable cad. How
+Wilkinson could take any pleasure in his society he could not
+understand. He had a good mind to chuck the dominie's stick into the
+next creek and let it float to Jericho. He did throw it away along the
+road, but Muggins brought it back. Deserted by his bosom friend for a
+common, low down cad like that; Oh, by Jove! He strode along in silence,
+while Muggins, his only friend, came and rubbed himself against his leg.
+No, he would not give in to fate in the shape of a Rawdon. He had
+important secrets regarding the welfare of two women, that Providence
+seemed to have thrown in his way, in his possession. If Wilks turned
+traitor, he could break the pact, and make one of these women happy.
+Pity he wasn't a Turk to take care of the pair of them. Night had
+fallen, but the moon shone out and the stars, and it was very pleasant
+walking, if only Wilkinson would give the least hint that he was
+conscious of his friend's existence. But the schoolmaster was happy with
+the mining adventurer, who knew his man well enough to mix a few fossils
+with the grinstuns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+     Peskiwanchow Tavern--Bad Water--A Scrimmage and Timotheus--The
+     Wigglers--Pure Water and Philosophy--Archaeology and Muggins--Mrs.
+     Thomas and Marjorie--Dromore--Rawdon's Insolence and Checks--On the
+     Road and Tramp's Song--Maguffin and the Pole-cart.
+
+
+"Ere's this beastly 'ole of a Peskiwanchow," said Mr. Rawdon as the
+pedestrians came to a rather larger clearing than usual, prominent in
+which was the traditional country tavern.
+
+"Is it clean?" asked Wilkinson.
+
+"Well, there hain't hany pestilence that walketh hin darkness there, not
+to my knowledge; though they say hif you keep your lamp lit hall night,
+they won't come near you; but then, the blessed lamp brings the
+mosquitoes, don't you see?"
+
+Mr. Wilkinson did see, but was glad of the information, as the look of
+the hotel was not reassuring.
+
+"Ullo, Matt!" cried his new friend to the coatless landlord. "I'm back,
+you see, hand 'ave brought you a couple of guests. Look sharp with
+supper, for we're hall 'ungry as 'awks."
+
+The ham which they partook of, with accompanying eggs and lukewarm
+potatoes, was very salt, so that in spite of his three cups of tea
+Wilkinson was thirsty. He went to the bar, situated in the only common
+room, except the dining-room, in the house, and asked for a glass of
+water. A thick, greenish fluid was handed to him, at which, as he held
+it to the light, he looked aghast. Adjusting his eye-glass, he looked
+again, and saw not only vegetable and minute animal organisms, but also
+unmistakable hairs.
+
+"Where do you get this water?" he asked in a very serious tone.
+
+"Out of the well," was the answer.
+
+"Are you aware that it is one mass of animal and vegetable impurities,
+and that you are liable to typhoid and every other kind of disease as
+the natural effect of drinking such filth?"
+
+The landlord stared, and then stammered that he would have the well
+cleaned out in the morning, not knowing what sort of a health officer
+was before him. But the crowd at the bar said it was good enough for
+them, as long as the critters were well killed off with a good drop of
+rye or malt. Wilkinson asked for a glass of beer, which came out sour
+and flat. "See me put a head on that," said the landlord, dropping a
+pinch of soda into the glass and stirring it in with a spoon. The
+schoolmaster tried to drink the mixture, but in vain; it did not quench
+the thirst, but produced a sickening effect. He felt like a man in a
+strange land, like a wanderer in the desert, a shipwrecked mariner. Oh,
+to be on the _Susan Thomas_, with miles of pure water all round! Or even
+at home, where the turning of a tap brought all Lake Ontario to one's
+necessities.
+
+"Is there no other water than this about?" he asked in despair.
+
+"Wy, yees," answered Matt; "thay's the crick a ways down the track, but
+it's that black and masshy I guess you wouldn't like it no better."
+
+"Well, get us some from there, like a good man, to wash with if we
+cannot drink it, and have it taken up to our room," for it had appeared
+that the two pedestrians were to inhabit a double-bedded apartment.
+
+"'Ere, you Timotheus, look spry and go down to the crick and fetch a
+pail of water for No. 6."
+
+A shambling man, almost a hobbledehoy, of about twenty five, ran out to
+obey the command, and, when he returned from No. 6, informed Wilkinson
+civilly that the water was in his room. Something in his homely but
+pleasant face, in his shock head and in his voice, seemed familiar to
+the dominie, yet he could not place his man; when Coristine came along
+and said, "You've got a brother on the _Susan Thomas_, haven't you, and
+his name is Sylvanus?" The young man shuffled with his feet, opened a
+mouth the very counterpart of "The Crew's," and answered: "Yes, mister,
+he's my oldest brother, is Sylvanus; do you happen to know Sylvanus?"
+
+"Know him?" said the unblushing lawyer, "like a brother; sailed all over
+Lake Simcoe with him."
+
+The lad was proud, and went to his menial tasks with a new sense of the
+dignity of his family. He was called for on all sides, and appeared to
+be the only member of the household in perpetual request; but, though
+many liberties were taken with him personally, none were taken with his
+name, which was always given in full, "Ti-mo-the-us!" Wilkinson was too
+tired, thirsty and generally disgusted to do anything but sit, as he
+never would have sat elsewhere, on a chair tilted against the wall.
+Coristine would fain have had a talk with "The Crew's" brother, but that
+worthy was ever flitting about from bar-room to kitchen, and from well
+to stable; always busy and always cheerful.
+
+The Grinstun man came swaggering up after treating all hands at the bar
+to whisky, in which treat the pedestrians were included by invitation,
+declined with thanks, and suggested a game of cards--any game they
+liked--stakes to be drinks; or, if the gents preferred it, cigars.
+Coristine somewhat haughtily refused, and Wilkinson, true to his
+principles, but in a more conciliatory tone, said that he did not play
+them. He was obliged, therefore, to get the landlord, Matt, and a couple
+of bar-room loafers to take hands with him.
+
+"Wilks, my dear boy, get out your draft-board and I'll play you a game,"
+said Coristine.
+
+The board was produced, the flat, cardboard chessmen turned upside down,
+and the corner of a table, on which a few well-thumbed newspapers lay,
+utilized for the game. The players were so interested in making moves
+and getting kings that, at first, they did not notice the talk of the
+card players which was directed against them; for Matt, being called
+away to his bar, was replaced by a third loafer. Gradually there came to
+their ears the words, "conceited, offish, up-settin', pedlars, tramps,
+pious scum," with condemnatory and other adjectives prefixed, and then
+they knew that their characters and occupations were undergoing
+unfavourable review. Mr. Rawdon was too "hail fellow well met" with the
+loafers to offer any protest. He joined in the laugh that greeted each
+new sally of vulgar abuse, and occasionally helped his neighbours on by
+such remarks as, "We musn't be too 'ard on 'em, they hain't used to such
+company as hus," which was followed by a loud guffaw. Wilkinson was
+playing badly, for he felt uncomfortable. Coristine chewed his
+moustache and became red in the face. The landlord looked calmly on. At
+last the card players, having had their third drink since the game
+began, came over to the little table. One of the roughest and
+worst-tongued of the three picked up a pile of dirty newspapers, looked
+at one of them for a moment, pshawed as if there was nothing in them,
+and threw the pile down with a twist of his hand fair on to the
+draft-board, sweeping it half off the table and all the cardboard men to
+the floor. In a moment Coristine was up, and laid hold of the fellow by
+the shoulder. Pale but resolute, the schoolmaster, who had done physical
+duty by unruly boys, stood beside him. The working geologist and the
+landlord, Matt, looked on to see the fun of a fight between two city men
+and three country bullies.
+
+"Get down there," said Coristine to his man, trembling with indignation,
+"get down there, and pick up all these chessmen, or I'll wring your neck
+for you." The fellow made a blow at him with his free hand, a blow that
+Coristine parried, and then the Irishman, letting go of his antagonist's
+arm, gave him a sounding whack with all the might of his right fist,
+that sent him sprawling to the ground.
+
+"Pile in on 'im, boys!" cried the prostrate ruffian, who had lost a
+tooth and bled freely at the nose. The other two prepared to pile, when
+the schoolmaster faced one of them, and kept him off. It is hard to say
+how matters would have gone, had not a tornado entered the bar room in
+the shape of Timotheus. How he did it, no one could tell, but, in less
+than two minutes, the two standing bullies and the prostrate one were
+all outside the tavern door, which was locked behind them. Peace once
+more reigned in the hotel, and it was in order for Matt and the Grinstun
+man to congratulate Coristine on his knock down blow. He showed no
+desire for their commendation, but, with his friend, whom Timotheus
+helped to pick up the chessmen, retired to his room. The Crew's brother
+had disappeared before he had had a chance to thank him.
+
+Before retiring for the night, the lawyer was determined to be upsides
+with Mr. Rawdon. He asked his roomfellow if he had any writing
+materials, and was at once provided with paper, envelopes, and a
+fountain pen.
+
+"I hope I'm not depriving you of these, Wilks, my dear," he said, when
+the party thus addressed almost threw himself upon his neck, saying,
+"Corry, my splendid, brave fellow, everything I have is at your absolute
+disposal, 'supreme of heroes--bravest, noblest, best!'" for he could not
+forget his Wordsworth. Coristine wrote to the clerk of the municipality
+of Flanders, to know where Miss Jewplesshy or Do Please-us had a lot,
+and whether the taxes on it had been paid. He directed him to answer to
+his office in Toronto, and also wrote to his junior, instructing him how
+to act upon this reply. These letters being written and prepared for the
+post, he and the dominie read together out of the little prayer book,
+left the window open and the lamp burning, and went to bed. Before they
+fell asleep, they heard the barking of a dog. "It's that poor brute,
+Muggins," said Coristine; "I'll go, and let him in, if that brute of a
+master of his won't." So, in spite of Wilkinson's remonstrances, he
+arose and descended the stairs to the bar-room. Nobody was there but
+Timotheus sleeping in a back tilted chair. He slipped quietly along in
+his bare feet, but Timotheus, though sleeping, was on guard. The Crew's
+brother awoke, soon as he tried the door, and in a moment, was on his
+back. "It's I, my good Timotheus," said the lawyer, and at once the grip
+relaxed. "I want to let that poor dog, Muggins, in." Then Timotheus
+unlocked the door, and Coristine whistled, and called "Hi Muggins,
+Muggins, Muggy, Mug, Mug, Mug, Mug!" when the mongrel came bounding in,
+with every expression of delight. Coristine warmly thanked The Crew's
+brother, pressed a dollar on his acceptance, and then retired to No. 6.
+Muggins followed him, and lay down upon the rag carpet outside that
+apartment, to keep watch and ward for the rest of the night, entirely
+ignoring his owner, the Grinstun man.
+
+There was a pail of swamp water in the middle of the room, at the bottom
+of which lay some little black things. As this water became warm, these
+little fellows began to rise and become frolicksome. Like minute
+porpoises or dolphins, they joined in the mazy dance, and rose higher
+and higher. All night long, by the light of the kerosene lamp, they
+indulged in silent but unceasing hilarity. The snores of the sleepers,
+the watchful dream-yaps of Muggins, did not affect them. They were bound
+to have a good time, and they were having it. Morning came, and the sun
+stole in through the window. Then, the wiggler grew tired, and came,
+like many tired beings, to the top. For a time he was quiescent, but
+soon the sun's rays gave force to the inner impulse which "rent the veil
+of his old husk," and transformed it into a canoe or raft, containing a
+draggle-tailed-looking creature with a big head and six staggery legs.
+Poising itself upon the raft, the outcome of the wiggler sunned its
+crumplety wings, till "like gauze they grew," and then all of it, a
+whole pailful of it, made for the sleepers, to help its more mature
+relations, which had come in through the open window to the light, to
+practice amateur phlebotomy upon them. The pedestrians awoke to feel
+uncomfortable, and rub and scratch their faces, heads, necks, and hands.
+"It's clean devoured I am, Wilks," cried Coristine. "The plagues of
+Egypt have visited us," replied the dominie. So, they arose and dressed
+themselves, and descended to the noisome bar-room. There they found
+Timotheus, awake and busy, while, at their heels, frisking about and
+looking for recognition, was their night guard Muggins. Timotheus
+informed them that he had already been out probing the well with a pike
+pole, and had brought up the long defunct bodies of a cat and a hen,
+with an old shoe and part of a cabbage, to say nothing of other things
+as savoury. They decided to take no more meals cooked with such water in
+that house, paid their bill to Timotheus, buckled on their knapsacks,
+and, with staff in hand, sallied forth into the pure outside air of the
+morning. Coristine ran over to the store in which the post office was
+kept, and posted his two letters. There was no sign of Matt, the
+landlord, of Mr. Rawdon, or of their assailants of the night before.
+Muggins, however, followed them, and no entreaties, threats, or stones
+availed to drive the faithful creature back to his master and the hotel
+where he slept.
+
+The pedestrians passed the black, sluggish creek, out of which the
+wigglers had come, and struck into a country, flat but more interesting
+than that they had left behind them. After they had gone a couple of
+miles they came to a clear running stream, in which they had a splendid
+wash, that tended to allay the irritation of the mosquito bites. Then
+they brought forth the remains of their biscuits and cheese, and partook
+of a clean meal, which Coristine called a good foundation for a smoke,
+Muggins sitting upon his hind legs and catching fragments of captain's
+biscuits and whole gingersnaps in his mouth, as if he had never done
+anything else. It was very pleasant to sit by the brook on that bright
+July morning, after the horrors of the Peskiwanchow tavern, to have
+clean food and abundance of pure water. As the dominie revelled in it,
+he expressed the opinion that Pindar was right when he said "ariston men
+hudor," which, said the lawyer, means that water is the best of all the
+elements, but how would Mr. Pindar have got along without earth to walk
+on, air to breathe, and fire to cook his dinner?
+
+"I'm no philosopher, Wilks, like you, but it seems to me that perfection
+is found in no one thing. If it was, the interdependence of the universe
+would be destroyed; harmony would be gone, and love, which is just the
+highest harmony, be lost. That's just why I couldn't be a unitarian of
+any kind. As Tennyson says, 'one good custom would corrupt the world.'"
+
+"Pardon me, Corry, he does not say that, but makes Arthur say:--
+
+             God fulfils himself in many ways,
+     Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
+
+"Better and better! but that's what the churches don't see, nor the
+politicians, nor the socialists, nor the prohibitionists, nor the
+scientists, nor anybody else hardly, it seems to me. When a man's got
+two eyes to see with, why should he shut one and keep out half the view?
+This 'ariston men hudor' idea--I'm not arguing against temperance, for
+it's temperate enough we are both--but this one thing is best notion
+would bring the beautiful harmonious world into dull, dead uniformity.
+There's a friend of mine that studies his Bible without any reference to
+the old systems of theology, and finds these old systems have made some
+big mistakes in interpreting its sayings, when a newspaper blockhead
+comes along and says if he won't conform let him go out of the church.
+There's a one-eyed man for you, an ecclesiastical Polyphemus! Our
+politicians are just the same, without a broad, liberal idea to clothe
+their naked, thieving policies with. And the scientists! some of them
+stargazing, like Thales, so that they fall into the ditch of disrepute
+by failing to observe what's nearer home, and others, like Bunyan's man
+in Interpreter's house, so busy with the muckrake that they are ignorant
+of the crown held over their heads. Now, you and I are liberal and
+broad, we can love nature and love God too, we can admire poetry and put
+our hands to any kind of honest work; you can teach boys with your
+wonderful patience, and, with your pluck, knock a door in, and stand up,
+like a man, to fight for your friend. But, Wilks, my boy, I'm afraid
+it's narrow we are, too, about the women."
+
+"Come, come, Corry, that subject, you know--"
+
+"All right, not another word," interposed the lawyer, laughing and
+springing to his feet; "let us jog along
+
+     A village schoolmaster was he,
+       With hair of glittering grey;
+     As blithe a man as you could see
+       On a spring holiday.
+
+     And on that morning, through the grass,
+       And by the streaming rills,
+     We travelled merrily, to pass
+       A day among the hills."
+
+"When did you take to Wordsworth, Corry?"
+
+"Oh, many a time, but I refreshed my memory with that yesterday, when I
+came across the tear in the old man's eye."
+
+"It is most appropriate, for there, on the right, are actual hills."
+
+As the travellers approached the rising ground, which the dominie had
+perceived, the lawyer remarked that the hillocks had an artificial look.
+
+"And they are undoubtedly artificial," replied Wilkinson.
+
+"This is the township of Nottawasaga, once inhabited by the Tobacco
+tribe of the Hurons, who had many villages, and grew tobacco and corn,
+besides making beads, pipes, and other articles, for sale or barter.
+They made their pipes out of the Trenton sandstone. A great many village
+sites and ossuaries have been found in the township, the latter
+containing thousands of skeletons. They have all been opened up by the
+settlers for the sake of the copper kettles and other objects buried in
+them. These long, narrow hillocks are earthworks, the foundation of a
+rude fortification or palisade round a village. The Archaeological
+Reports of the Canadian Institute contain very full and interesting
+accounts of the explorations made in this very region. We are on
+historic ground, Corry."
+
+"Poor old Lo!" ejaculated the lawyer, "whatever is that dog after? Hi,
+Muggins, Muggins!"
+
+But Muggins would not leave the earthwork into which he was digging with
+rapidly moving forepaws. As Coristine remarked, it was a regular
+Forepaugh's circus. When the pedestrians came up to him, he had a large
+hole made in apparently fresh dug earth, and had uncovered a tin box,
+japanned above. This the pair disinterred with their walking-sticks,
+amid great demonstrations from the terrier. The lawyer opened it
+judicially, and found it to contain a lot of fragments of hard
+limestone, individually labelled. Looking over these, his eye rested on
+one marked P.B. Miss Du Plessis, lot 3, concession 2, township of
+Flanders. Others were labelled T. Mulcahy, S. Storch, R. McIver, O.
+Fish, with their lots, concessions and townships, and the initials F.M.
+and P.
+
+"What is the import of this?" asked the schoolmaster.
+
+"Import or export, it's the Grinstun man, the owner of this sagacious
+dog, that buried this box till he had time to bring a waggon for it.
+These are samples of grindstone rock, and, if I am not a Dutchman, F
+means fair, M, middling, P, poor, and P.B., prime boss, and that is Miss
+Du Plessis. Gad! we've got her now, Jewplesshy, Do Please, Do Please-us,
+are just Du Plessis. It's a pleasant sort of name, Wilks, my boy?"
+
+"What are you going to do with this treasure trove, might I ask?"
+inquired the dominie.
+
+"Bury it," replied the lawyer.
+
+"I trust you will make no unfair use of the information it contains,
+part of which was confided to me privately, and under seal of secrecy,
+by Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"Now, Wilks, howld your tongue about that. I ask you no questions, you
+tell me no lies nor anything else. If you think I'm going to see a girl
+cheated, just because she is a girl, you don't know your friend. But
+you do, you honest old Wilks, don't you now?"
+
+"Very well, only remember I breathed no hint of this in your ear."
+
+"All right, old man," answered Miss Du Plessis' self-constituted
+advocate, as he shovelled the earth in over the tin box. "Muggins, you
+rascal, if you dig that up again, I'll starve you to death."
+
+The pedestrians deserted the archaeological find, and trudged away into
+the north west.
+
+"Wilks, my dear, I feel like the black crow," said Coristine, as they
+journeyed along the pleasant highway.
+
+"Like what?" asked the dominie, adjusting his eye-glass.
+
+"Like the crow, don't you know?
+
+     Said one black crow unto his mate,
+     What shall we do for grub to ate?
+
+Faith, it'll be an awful thing if we're going to die of starvation in
+the wilderness."
+
+"I thought you were a botanist, Corry?"
+
+"So I am, in a small way."
+
+"Then, what bushes are those in that beaver meadow?"
+
+In another minute, the lawyer, closely followed by Muggins, was in the
+meadow, exclaiming "Vaccinium Canadense! Come on, Wilks, and have a
+feast." Muggins was eating the berries with great satisfaction, and
+Coristine kept him company. The dominie also partook of them, remarking:
+"This is the whortleberry, or berry of the hart, vulgarly called the
+huckleberry, although huckle means a hump, which is most inappropriate."
+
+"That reminds me of a man with a hump, though there wasn't much heart to
+him," said Coristine, his mouth full of fruit. "He undertook to write on
+Canada after spending a month here. He said the Canadians have no fruit
+but a very inferior raspberry, and that they actually sell bilberries in
+the shops. As a further proof of their destitution, he was told that
+haws and acorns are exposed for sale in the Montreal markets. Such a
+country, he said, is no place for a refined Englishman. I don't wonder
+my countrymen rise up against the English."
+
+"You forget, Corry, that I am English, and proud of my descent from the
+Saxon Count Witikind."
+
+"Beg your pardon, Wilks, but you're a good Englishman, and I never
+dreamt your progenitor was that awful heathen:--
+
+     Save us, St. Mary, from flood and from fire,
+     From famine and pest, and Count Witikind's ire.
+
+As the Englishmen said, there is no need to hask 'ow the hell got into
+your name."
+
+"Corry, this is most unseemly. I wonder you are not ashamed to speak
+thus, with that innocent dog beside you."
+
+"O, dad, he's heard worse things than that; haven't you now, Muggins?
+Trust him to live with a cad of a Grinstun man, and not to pick up bad
+language."
+
+"Ullo, there, you dog-stealers!" fell upon the ears of the berry-pickers
+like a thunder clap. They looked up, and saw a neat waggonette, drawn by
+a team of well-kept bay horses, in which, on a back seat, sat Mr. Rawdon
+and a little girl with long fair hair. On the front seat were two
+well-dressed women, one of whom was driving; the other wore a widow's
+cap, and had a gentle, attractive face. The waggon stopped for them to
+come on to the road, which, leaving their berries, they did, taking off
+their hats to the ladies as they approached.
+
+"We did all we could, Mr. Rawdon, to make your dog go back to the hotel,
+but he insisted on following us," said Wilkinson, apologetically.
+
+"All very fine, my beauty, you 'ooked 'im and got 'im to shew you ware
+this 'ere box was. I'm hup to your larks, and you such a hinnocent too!"
+
+Wilkinson was indignant, and denied having anything to do with the box.
+
+"Be careful what you say, Mr. Rawdon," said Coristine, "I'm a lawyer,
+and may make a case, if you are not judicious in your language."
+
+"Oh come hoff, I don't mean no 'arm; it's just my fun. 'Ave you any
+hobjection to give these 'ere gents a lift, Mrs. Thomas?"
+
+"None, whatever," replied the lady who was driving.
+
+"Then, if you don't mind, I'll get hin halongside hof your sister hin
+front, hand leave them to keep company with little Marjorie 'ere," said
+the working geologist; and climbed over into the front seat outside of
+the attractive widow. Still, the pedestrians hesitated, till Mrs.
+Thomas, a by no means uncomely woman, said: "Get in, gentlemen, we shall
+be pleased to have your company." This decided them. They sprang into
+the waggon, one on each side of the little girl called Marjorie. The
+horses trotted along, and Muggins hovered about them, with an occasional
+ecstatic bark.
+
+"I like you and your little dog," said Marjorie to Coristine, who
+replied: "God bless you for a little darling." After this interchange of
+confidence, they became great friends. Wilkinson found himself somewhat
+left out, but the Grinstun man threw him an odd bone, now and then, in
+the shape of a geological remark, keeping clear, however, of
+grindstones.
+
+"What's your name, Marjorie?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"My name is Marjorie," she replied.
+
+"Yes, but what's your other name?"
+
+"Marjorie Carmichael."
+
+"Is that your father's name?"
+
+"No, my papa's name is Captain Thomas."
+
+"And has he got a ship on Lake Simcoe?"
+
+"Yes, how did you know? He's got a ship, and a lumber yard, and a saw
+mill, and a farm, and a lot of things. Saul is on the farm, and Mr.
+Pratt works the mill, and Gudgeon looks after the yard, and Sylvanus is
+on the boat."
+
+"Who is Saul?"
+
+"He's the father of Sylvanus and Timotheus. Only Timotheus doesn't work
+for us. He wouldn't say his catechism on Sundays, so Saul said he had to
+go. I don't wonder he wouldn't say his catechism, do you? It speaks
+about God's getting awful angry and cursing. God doesn't get angry with
+little boys and girls and curse them, does he, Mr. What's your name?"
+
+"My name is Coristine, but the name my little sister would have called
+me, if I had had a little sister like you, would be Eugene. No, I never
+read that God cursed any little girls and boys, nor anybody, not even
+the devil."
+
+"And he's very very bad, isn't he? My cousin Marjorie Carruthers, that
+I'm called after, says Timotheus should have learned his catechism; but
+she doesn't think God curses children. Then I said he oughtn't to learn
+what isn't true."
+
+"O my darlint, but it's right you are. I wish I had you up on the dais
+at the Synod, to teach the bishops and all the clergy. Is she a nice
+little girl, your cousin Marjorie?"
+
+"She's nice, but she isn't little, not a single bit. She lives away away
+in Toronto, and teaches school. Now, put your head down and I'll whisper
+something in your ear."
+
+Coristine put his head down beside the long, fair curls, and Marjorie
+whispered, pointing a finger at the same time towards the widow: "That's
+my Aunt Marjorie, and she's Marjorie's mother."
+
+"Where is cousin Marjorie now!"
+
+"She's up at Uncle Carruthers', along with Miss Du Plessis. Do you know
+Miss Du Plessis? Oh, she's lovely, and, do you know?--put down your head
+again--that ugly little man sitting by Auntie says he's going to marry
+her. Isn't it too bad?"
+
+"Infernal little beast! O, my dear Marjorie, I beg your pardon. I was
+thinking of that rascal of a mosquito on your hand--there, he's dead!
+Yes, it would be too bad, but she'll never marry such a man as that."
+
+"Perhaps she'll have to, because she's very poor, and he says he's going
+to make heaps and heaps of money. People shouldn't marry for money,
+should they?"
+
+"No, dear, they should marry for love, if they marry at all. Will you
+marry me when you grow to be a young lady?"
+
+"No, you'll be too old then. Put your head down. You go and take away
+Miss Du Plessis from that naughty, bad little man, and I'll love you, O,
+ever so much.'
+
+"But perhaps she won't have me."
+
+"Oh, yes she will, because you would look very nice if you would take
+that black stuff that scratched me off your face."
+
+"I will, I'll get a clean shave at Collingwood this very night."
+
+"Then I'll get Auntie to write to Marjorie and tell her that my own
+Prince Charming, with a clean shave, is coming to take Cecile away from
+the ugly little rich man that says: 'An' 'ow is my young friend?' Won't
+that be nice?"
+
+"Oh, please don't tell your aunt to write that."
+
+"But I will, so there!"
+
+The waggonette was now in the midst of a rather pretty village situated
+on a branch of the Nottawasaga River, and came to a stand still opposite
+the post office.
+
+"If you gentlemen have business in the village, you can get out here,"
+said Mrs. Thomas, "but, if not, we shall be pleased to have you dine
+with us."
+
+The pedestrians thought of their last tavern experience, and felt
+disposed to accept the hospitable invitation, but Marjorie clinched
+their resolution by saying: "Eugene is coming to dinner with me, and his
+friend may come too," at which everybody laughed. The waggon moved on
+for another half mile, and then stopped in front of a pretty and
+commodious frame house, painted white, with red-brown doors and window
+frames and green shutters. Porch and verandah were covered with Virginia
+creeper, climbing roses and trumpet honeysuckle. Mr. Rawdon looked after
+himself, but Wilkinson and Coristine helped the ladies and the little
+girl to dismount, while an old man with a shock head, evidently Saul,
+took the horses round. Muggins greeted the whole party with a series of
+wiggles and barks, whereupon the Grinstun man gave him a savage kick
+that sent the dog away yelping.
+
+"I said you were a naughty, bad, cruel man to my own self and to people
+I like," said Marjorie with indignation, "but now I say it right out to
+you, and for everybody to hear that wants to--a nasty, ugly, cruel
+little man!"
+
+The working geologist was very angry and got very red in the face. Had
+he dared, he would probably have kicked the girl too. Policy compelled
+him to keep his temper outwardly, so he turned it off with a laugh, and
+said: "You don't know that little beast has I do, Marjorie, or you
+wouldn't go hand take 'is part. Of all the hungrateful, treacherous,
+sneakin', bad-'earted curs that ever gnawed a bone, 'e's the
+top-sawyer."
+
+"I don't believe it," answered Marjorie stoutly, and with all the
+license allowed to a late and only child.
+
+When the ladies took off their bonnets and rejoined their guests in the
+parlour, the pedestrians were much struck with their appearance and
+demeanour, especially in the case of Mrs. Carmichael, than whom no lady
+could have been more gentle mannered and gracious. She had evidently had
+enough of Mr. Rawdon, for she turned in the most natural way to
+Wilkinson and engaged him in conversation on a variety of topics. The
+schoolmaster found her a charming talker and an interested listener.
+Marjorie and Coristine sat on a sofa with Muggins between them, while
+the working geologist banged about some photographs on a centre table.
+At dinner, to which Mrs. Thomas soon summoned them, Coristine had the
+post of honour with Marjorie to his right. Mrs. Carmichael sat at the
+foot of the table with Wilkinson by her side, and Rawdon was at Mrs.
+Thomas' left. While doing justice to an excellent repast, the lawyer
+informed his hostess that he was not an entire stranger to her family,
+and gave an account of his passage in the _Susan Thomas_ from Belle
+Ewart to Barrie. He also referred to Sylvanus and Timotheus, and dwelt
+upon the excellent service rendered by the latter. The Grinstun man
+disliked the turn things were taking, as he felt himself out in the
+cold, for the widow absorbed the dominie, and Marjorie would not look at
+him.
+
+When dessert came on the table, he turned to the schoolmaster and rudely
+interrupted his conversation, saying: "Look 'ere, Mr. Favosites
+Wilkinsonia, I don't see as you've hany call to keep hall the widder's
+talk to yourself. I move we change places," and he rose to effect the
+change.
+
+"Really," said Wilkinson, with offended dignity, "I am not accustomed to
+anything of that description at a dinner party where there are ladies;
+but, if it's Mrs. Carmichael's desire that we should interchange seats,
+I am ready to comply."
+
+Mrs. Carmichael evidently did not relish being called "the widder," nor
+the society of Mr. Rawdon, for she answered, "Certainly not, Mr.
+Wilkinson," and resumed her conversation with him. The baffled geologist
+turned to the hostess, while Marjorie engaged Coristine's attention, and
+in a petulant way stated his case. "You know the kind of man I ham, Mrs.
+Thomas, I'm a man of haction. I strike wen the hiron's 'ot. By good
+luck, I went back to Peskiwanchow last night, though it is a beastly
+'ole, and got letters hat the post hoffice this mornin'. My hagent, at
+Toronto says, Mrs. Do Please-us is pretty badly hout for want of chink,
+hand that the girl's ready to jump hat hany reasonable hoffer. Now, hall
+I say his, give a man a chance. If she's the stunner they say she his,
+I'll marry her hinside of a week and make a lady of 'er, and hallow the
+hold 'ooman a pound a week, yes, I'll go has 'igh has thirty shillin',
+that's seven dollars and a 'arf. You get me a hinvite or give me a
+hintroduction to your brother's 'ouse in Flanders, and get the widder to
+back it hup with a good word to 'er daughter that's Miss Do Please-us's
+bosom friend, and I'll give the capting the contrack to carry hall the
+grinstuns shipped to Lake Simcoe ports." Then, sinking his voice to a
+whisper, he continued, "I'll do one better; I'll show you ware there's
+has fine a quarry of buildin' stun hon your farm 'ere has can be got
+hanyware in Canidy. Then, wot's to 'inder your 'avin the best 'ouse
+twixt 'ere and Collinwood?" This last stroke of policy carried his
+point, and secured him the promise of an introduction, but Mrs. Thomas
+could not promise for her sister. All the time, Coristine, who could not
+help overhearing, twisted his moustache fiercely, and, under his breath,
+called the geologist a contemptible and unspeakable little cad.
+
+Shortly afterwards, much to Marjorie's grief, the pedestrians put on
+their knapsacks and grasped their sticks for the road. They warmly
+thanked their hostess and her accomplished sister for their kind
+hospitality, and for the exceedingly pleasant hours they had spent in
+their company. They were cordially invited to call any time when they
+were near the village, and especially when the captain was at home, as
+he would never forgive himself for missing this treat. Marjorie kissed
+her Eugene, telling him to be a good boy, and remember what he had
+promised her about "you know who." "Ullo young 'ooman," said the
+Grinstun man, "you had ort to save one of them for yours
+haffectionately," at which the small lady was so indignant that she
+threatened to box his ugly big ears. "O Marjorie, how rude! whatever
+will these gentlemen from Toronto think!" Coristine could not bear to
+leave his little friend in disgrace, without a word of comfort, so he
+said: "Pardon me, Mrs. Thomas, for saying that the rudeness did not
+originate with Marjorie," for which the child gave him a grateful
+glance. "You had better keep your dog in, Mr. Rawdon," called out
+Wilkinson, "or he will be after us again." The little man ran down the
+garden walk to get a farewell kick at his property, but Muggins,
+foreseeing danger, ran out of the gate, which old Saul held open for
+him. "You can keep the beastly cur, I don't want 'im, hungrateful,
+treacherous, long legged, 'airy brute," the last two adjectives being
+put in for Coristine's benefit, as allusions to his height and his
+moustache.
+
+"Come back, Mr. Wilkinson," called Mrs. Carmichael. The dominie
+returned, and had a large fragrant rose pinned by fair hands to his
+button hole, blushing violently all the time. "You come back too,
+Eugene, but don't let Muggy in or he'll be kicked," cried Marjorie, who,
+on her favourite's return, gave him another parting salute and pinned
+two roses on his coat. Muggins waited for them till they closed the gate
+finally behind them, lifted their hats three times, and began their
+afternoon's journey.
+
+"That Mrs. Carmichael," remarked Wilkinson, "is one of the most
+intelligent and lady-like women I ever met, and she is wonderfully well
+read in the poets, Corry."
+
+"I thought that subject was tabooed between us, Wilks?"
+
+"Oh no, my dear fellow, I have no objection to the sex in a Platonic
+way."
+
+"Dad, but it wasn't very platonic you looked when the pretty widow was
+fastening that button hole for you. Was she talking about her daughter
+at the schools?"
+
+"Not a word; she did not even hint that she had a daughter. She must
+have been very young when the doctor married her."
+
+"Well, that's one thing we have to thank that howling cad of a Grinstun
+man for. I'm real sorry I missed having a chat with Saul about the
+catechism."
+
+"What is that!" So the lawyer related his conversation with Marjorie,
+and Wilkinson said, "Really, Corrie, as an educationist, I must say you
+do wrong to encourage such pertness in so young a child."
+
+"Pertness is it? It's nature's own cleverness in the sweet little lass.
+Wilks, I'd give a good deal to have that little sunbeam or one like her
+with me all the time."
+
+"Adopt one," suggested the schoolmaster.
+
+"Adopt one," replied the lawyer with a bitter laugh, "adopt one for
+Mrs. Marsh to look after? No, when I've a house of my own and a good
+housekeeper, and more time to spend on a child, I'll think over the
+hint."
+
+The pair tramped steadily on, though the sun was hot, for there was a
+pleasant breeze, and the scenery became bolder and more picturesque.
+They came to rising ground, at the foot of which lay a fertile valley,
+and beyond it the Blue Mountains. Gazing across at them, the dominie
+exclaimed:--
+
+                       Yon azure ridge,
+     Is it a perishable cloud--or there
+     Do we behold the frame of Erin's coast?
+
+"No, Wilks, no! Erin's away on the confines of Wellington and Peel, and
+we are on those of Simcoe and Grey."
+
+"Slight man, did you not perceive that I quoted poetry, and that the
+allusion is to your native isle?"
+
+"Faith. I wish the real Erin was over there; it's the old lady would be
+in my arms as fast as I could run across. But this place deserves a
+song, so here goes:--
+
+     Though down in yonder valley
+     The mist is like a sea,
+     Though the sun be scarcely risen,
+     There's light enough for me.
+     For, be it early morning,
+     Or be it late at night,
+     Cheerily ring our footsteps,
+         Right, left, right.
+
+     We wander by the woodland
+     That hangs upon the hill;
+     Hark! the cock is tuning
+     His morning clarion shrill;
+     And hurriedly awaking
+     From his nest amid the spray,
+     Cheerily now, the blackbird,
+     Whistling, greets the day.
+         For be it early morning, etc.
+
+     We gaze upon the streamlet,
+     As o'er the bridge we lean;
+     We watch its hurried ripples
+     We mark its golden green.
+     Oh, the men of the north are stalwart,
+     And the norland lasses fair;
+     And cheerily breathes around us
+     The bracing norland air.
+         We smoke our black old meerschaums,
+         We smoke from morn till night,
+         While cheerily ring our footsteps,
+             Right, left, right."
+
+"Well done, Corry! I thought at first it was your own composition, but
+I see it is an English song."
+
+"Yes, it came out long ago as 'The Tramp's Song' in _Sharpe's Magazine_,
+where I found it, and changed moor and moorland to north and norland, as
+better suited to our purpose. It's a good song."
+
+"What kind of vehicle is that just in front of us?"
+
+"It's a pole on four wheels drawn by a team of oxen, and I'm going to
+make a triumphant entry into Collingwood on it. The driver is a negro,
+as black as my boots--were." Coristine soon overtook the remarkable
+vehicle, and accosted the driver, telling him that he had ridden on
+horses, donkeys, mules, and once each on a cow, a camel and an elephant;
+in all sorts of carriages, carts and waggons, even to a gun carriage,
+but never on a pole behind an ox team. Had he any objections to letting
+him and his friend get aboard? The coloured gentleman showed a fine set
+of ivory, and said he had no dejections in the leas', and guessed the
+oxen didn't hab none. "The po-ul," he remarked, "is thar, not foh ridin'
+on, but ter keep the axles apaht, so's ter load on bodes and squab
+timbah. If yoh's that way inclined, the po-ul aint a gwine ter break
+frew, not with yoh dismenshuns. Guess the oxen doan hab ter stop fer yoh
+bof ter git aboahd?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Coristine, as he jumped on the pole behind the driver.
+"Come on, Wilks, it's a cross between the tight rope and the tiller of
+the _Susan Thomas_." But the dominie refused to be charmed or inveigled
+into a position of peril or ridicule.
+
+"Yoh best take this yeah feed-bag ter save yoh pants and fezz'etate the
+keepin' of yoh ekilibroom," said the courteous darkey, as he handed the
+lawyer one of the bags that formed his own cushion.
+
+"Wilks, with a feed-bag under you, riding on a rail is just heavenly."
+
+"If it was a rai-ul, you'd know it mighty soon, boss, fer rai-uls is
+angulish and shahp and hahd on the pants, but a po-ul is rounded and
+smoove. How are yoh comin' along?"
+
+"In great shape, Mr. ----"
+
+"Maguffin, sah, is my applenashun. Tobias Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin.
+The low down folks around, they teenames me Tobe and Toby, that's the
+shanty men and mill hans. But when I goes whar they's a meetin' of the
+bruddren, it's Mistah Maguffin, ebery time."
+
+The pole cart, as Coristine called it, was going down hill, now, and the
+oxen began to run.
+
+"Hole on tight, Mistah, them cattle's too lazy to stop runnin' befoh
+they gits to the determination ob this dercliverty," called the driver;
+and the lawyer held on in spite of frantic cries from his companion.
+"Come off, Coristine, come off, and do not make an object of yourself
+before the whole town." Coristine held on till the bottom of the hill
+was reached. Then he shook hands with his coloured brother, returned him
+the feed bag, and waited for Wilkinson. In friendly converse they
+entered the town of Collingwood, and put up at a clean and comfortable,
+almost fashionable, hotel. There, for the night, they may be left in
+safety, with this remark, that Coristine fulfilled his promise to the
+little girl, and got a clean shave before retiring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+     Collingwood--Colonel Morton--Maguffin Engaged--Stepping
+     Westward--Wild Thyme and a Bath--The Shale-works--Muggins and the
+     Clergymen--Durham Mustard, and Marjorie--The Squire--The Grinstun
+     Man--Lunch, Wordsworth and Original Poetry--Two Old People on the
+     Blue Mountains.
+
+
+At supper they had, for their vis-a-vis, a tall, aristocratic-looking
+man, attired airily in a mixture of jean and silk. His nose was
+aquiline, his eyes grey and piercing withal, his hair grey, but
+abundant, and his clean shaved mouth and chin mingled delicacy with
+strength of character.
+
+"The weathah has been wahm, gentlemen," he remarked; to which statement
+they assented.
+
+"I obsehved you entah the ho-tel, and pehceived that you are travelling
+for pleasuhe by yo-ah knapsacks. I also am travelling, partly foh
+pleasuhe, partly foh mattahs of family business. My ideahs, gentlemen,
+are old fashioned, too much so foh railyoads. The Mississippi is ouah
+natuhal highway from the South, but, unfohtunately, the to me unpleasant
+railyoad had to connect its head watahs with Lake Michigan, by which
+route I find myself heah, on my way to a city called To-hon-to. You know
+it, I pehsume?"
+
+Wilkinson's geographical lore was now unfolded. He discussed the
+Mississippi, although he had not been on that river, exhibited an
+intimate acquaintance with cities and routes which had never seen him in
+the flesh, and, by his quiet, gentlemanly, and, to the much older man,
+deferential tone, was admitted to the confidence of Colonel Morton, of
+Louisiana, South American trader, ship-owner and the possessor of a fine
+estate, which, although it had suffered greatly during the war, in which
+the colonel commanded a cavalry regiment, was yet productive and
+remunerative.
+
+"I am a widowah, suh, and a childless old man," continued the colonel;
+"my only boy fell in the wah ah, and it broke his mother's heaht. Pahdon
+me," he said, as his voice shook a little, and the least glimmer of a
+tear stood in his eye, "I rahely talk of these mattahs of a puhely
+pehsonal kind, but, as you are kind enough to be intehested in my
+affaiahs, I say this much by way of explanation."
+
+"I am sure, Colonel Morton, we deeply sympathize with you in so great a
+double bereavement," interposed the dominie.
+
+"Indeed we do, sir, most sincerely," added the lawyer.
+
+"I thank you, gentlemen," answered the courteous Southerner. "I was
+going to remahk that the only pehson in whom I feel a family intehest is
+my lamented wife's sistah, a Madame Du Plessis, who has resided foh many
+yeahs in yoah city of To-hon-to. May I enquiah, gentlemen, if you have,
+either of you, heahd the name befoah?"
+
+Coristine replied that, incidentally, he had heard the names of both
+Madame Du Plessis and her daughter.
+
+"I am awaah, suh, that my wife's sister has a daughtah. Can you tell me
+of my sister-in-law's suhcumstances, and what her daughtah, my niece, is
+like in appeahance?"
+
+"Only from hearsay, Colonel. Madame Du Plessis is said to be in
+straightened circumstances, and I learn, from several quarters, that
+Miss Du Plessis is an attractive and amiable young lady; 'illigant' is
+what a countryman of mine, who served under her father, termed his young
+mistress."
+
+"And her baptismal name, suh?"
+
+"Is Cecile, I think."
+
+"Ah, to be suah, my deah wife's name, Cecilia, gallicized. She and
+Madame Du Plessis were Castilians of Lima. Du Plessis was theah in the
+ahmy, I in commehcial puhsuits, and we mahhied the sistahs, the belles
+of the Rimac.
+
+     Que' es la vida? Un frenesi
+     Que' es la vida? Una ilusion,
+     Una sombra, una ficcion.
+
+You read Spanish, Mr. Wilkinson?"
+
+"A little, sir; I think I recognize Calderon in these lines."
+
+"Right, Mr. Wilkinson; I thank you, suh, foh yoah pleasing
+companionship. Good evening, gentlemen!" With a courtly bow, the colonel
+retired from the table.
+
+At the coloured barber's the pedestrians met Mr. Maguffin, who greeted
+Coristine, saying:--
+
+"Hopes yoh doan feel none the wuhse ob yoh ride on the po-ul," adding:
+"Mistah Poley, what runs this yeah stablishment, he's my nuncle's oldes'
+boy, and he abstracks a cohnah ob the same ter my disposhul foh ohfice
+pupposes, supposin' I'm wahnted by folks as cahn't find me."
+
+"That's very convenient," replied the lawyer, as he settled down in the
+barber's chair.
+
+"It am, sah. I doan' tote ox teams no moah, po-ul nor no po-ul, when I
+kin drive and ride the fasses and sassies hawses that is made; no, sah,
+not much!"
+
+"You are tired of teaming, then?"
+
+"I am wohn out, sah, wif bein' called Toby and a po-ul-cat. I doan find
+no Scripcher reffunce foh Tobias, and yoh know what a po-ul-cat is; it's
+nuffin moah no less nor a skink."
+
+The victims of the barber and his assistant kept the soap out of their
+mouths with difficulty. As his tormentor deserted him for a moment, the
+schoolmaster remarked that the Iroquois about the Lake of the Two
+Mountains called the Trappist monks there by the same savoury name, on
+account of some fancied resemblance between their dress and the coat of
+the _Mephitis Americana_.
+
+Mr. Maguffin was listening intently, thinking the conversation was meant
+for his edification, and politely interposed:--
+
+"No, sah, I ain't no Mefferdis. I was bawn and raised a Baktis. Poley,
+now, he's a Mefferdis, and I ain't a gwine ter speak no harm of no
+Crishtchun bruddern what's tryin' ter do right accordin' ter they
+lights. But ter be called Toby and Poul-cat by low down white tresh,
+that trial ob the flesh and speerut is a fohgone conclusion, sah."
+
+The shaving operation completed, the travellers returned to the hotel,
+and found Colonel Morton on what he called the piazza, smoking a good
+Havana cigar. He opened his case for his companions of the supper table,
+and Coristine accepted, while Wilkinson courteously declined.
+
+"I tell you what I want to do, Mr. Cohistine. I want to puhchase two
+saddle hawses, a good one foh myself, and not a bad one foh my sehvant.
+Unfohtunately, my boy took sick on the way, and I had to send him home
+on the Mississippi steamah. That means, I must get me a new sehvant,
+able to ride well and handle hawses. I pehsume it will be hahd to find a
+cullahed boy, a niggro, in these pahts, so I must take whateveh can be
+got that will suit."
+
+"Not at all, Colonel," replied Coristine, with effusion. "I think I can
+get you a negro who is out of place, is a good rider, and, I imagine, a
+good judge of horses. If you like, I'll go after him at once and tell
+him to report to you to-morrow morning."
+
+"My deah suh, you are altogethah too kind."
+
+"Not a bit of it; when will I tell him to call upon you?"
+
+"Would seven o'clock be too eahly? Plantation and ahmy life have made me
+a light sleepah, so that I am up befoh the genehality of hotel guests."
+
+"The very time. Excuse me for running away, I want to bag my man."
+
+So Coristine left the colonel to parade the piazza with Wilkinson, and
+resought the barber shop.
+
+The shop was closed, but a light still burned within. Coristine knocked,
+and Tobias opened the door. "You're the very man I want," cried the
+lawyer.
+
+"Anything done gwine wrong, boss?" asked Mr. Maguffin.
+
+The lawyer explained the circumstances to him at length, eulogized
+Colonel Morton, and told the negro to make his best appearance at the
+hotel, sharp at seven next morning.
+
+"Do yoh say the gemman'll gib me thirty dollars a munf and cloves ter
+boot, and me ridin' behine him all ober the roads on hawseback!" asked
+Tobias.
+
+"Yes, I think I can promise those terms," replied the legal go-between.
+
+"Then, yoh say foh me, if he's please foh ter hab me Maguffin, not
+Tobias, but Maguffin is his man, and I kin pick him out two lubby
+hawses, cheap as a po-ul-caht, and I cahn't say no cheapah. My respecs
+and humble expreshun ob gracious apprecherashun ter yoh, Mistah
+Kerosene."
+
+The lawyer rushed back to the veranda, and found the colonel and Wilks
+still in conversation, and, wonder of wonder, Wilkinson was actually
+smoking a cigar, which he occasionally inserted between his lips, and
+then held away at arm's length, while he puffed out the smoke in a thin
+blue cloud. Wisely, he did not express astonishment at this unheard of
+feat of his friend, but informed the colonel that he had seen the
+coloured man, whose name was Tobias, but preferred to be called
+Maguffin, that he was willing to engage for thirty dollars a month and
+his clothes, and that he could put his new master in the way of getting
+two suitable horses. "I think, Colonel, you can reckon on his being here
+punctually at seven to-morrow."
+
+"I shall nevah cease, Mr. Cohistine, to be sensible of yoah great
+kindness to an entiah styangah, suh. Oblige me by smoking anothah cigah,
+if they are to yoah liking."
+
+So Corry lit a fresh cigar, and the three paraded the verandah till it
+was very late, engaging in all manner of pleasant conversation. When the
+stumps were thrown away, the colonel invited the comrades to visit his
+rooms for a moment before retiring. Entering his private sitting-room,
+he produced a quaintly-shaped but large glass bottle, which he flanked
+with three tumblers and a carafe of water. "Help yohselves, gentlemen,"
+he said, courteously; "this old Bourbon is good foh countehacting the
+effects of the night aiah. Some prefer Monongahela, but good old Bourbon
+in modehation cahn't be suhpahssed." The pedestrians filled up, and
+bowed to their host as they drank, and the colonel, doing the same,
+said, "My thanks to yoh, gentlemen, foh yoah kindness to a styangah--to
+yoah good health and ouah futhah pleasant acquaintance!" Then they
+severally retired, and the hotel closed for the night.
+
+The next morning Coristine, whose room was just over the main entrance,
+was awakened by a loud discussion in the hall of the hotel. "Clare out
+now," cried the porter, "the bar's not opind yit, an' we don't want
+naygurs round whin the guests do be comin' down the stairs; clare, now,
+I tell yeez."
+
+"I'se heah, Mike, on bisness wif Cunnel Morting," said a well-known
+voice; and continued, "yoh go and tell the cunnel that Mistah Maguffin
+is waitin' foh to pay his respecs."
+
+"Go along wid yeez, Oi say, ye black scum av the airth, wid yer Cornel
+Mortins, the loikes av you! Faix, Oi'll tache yeez who's yer betthers
+wid this broom-handle."
+
+"Gently, my good man, gently!" said the colonel, soothingly, as he laid
+his hand on Mike's shoulder. "This boy has business with me. Come in
+heah, Maguffin."
+
+Tobias went in, with a triumphant glance at Mike, and, arrangements
+being completed, was soon at work, blacking his master's boots. Then he
+had a second breakfast at the servant's table, after which the colonel
+sallied forth with him, to provide him with a befitting suit of clothes,
+and to inspect the horses he had deemed suitable for the use of his new
+employer and himself. While they were gone, Wilkinson and his friend
+descended to a late breakfast, during which the hotel clerk handed the
+lawyer a telegram, signed Tylor, Woodruff, and White, and containing the
+words, "Look up Colonel Morton, Madame Du Plessis, 315 Bluebird Avenue,
+Parkdale." So the colonel had been corresponding with his firm, and he
+must either wait till that worthy returned, or leave a note for him.
+"Bawderashin, anyway, when a man's out for a holiday, can't he be left
+alone a bit!" Then, turning to his friend, he asked, "And, are they
+troubling you with letters and telegrams, too, Wilks, my darling?" The
+dominie replied, "I have only one letter about a poor lady teacher, who
+is in consumption, I fear. They want an extension of holidays for her,
+which is rather hard to get."
+
+"But you'll get it for her, Wilks, my dear?"
+
+"Of course I will, if I have to do her work as well as my own."
+
+"I knew it, Wilks, I knew it. You're as soft hearted as a girl, for all
+your adamant exterior. God bless you, my dear boy!"
+
+"Corry, Corry, what allowances must be made for your exaggerated Irish
+language! What is there like adamant about me, I should like to know?"
+
+"Good mawnin, gentlemen," said the soft voice of the colonel, "I am
+delighted to see you looking so well. I envy you Canadian gentlemen yoah
+fine fyesh complexions and yoah musical voices. We have sawft voices in
+the south, but it is a soht of niggro sawftness, gained by contact I
+pehsume. My sehvant and I byeakfasted some time ago."
+
+"I trust he is to your liking, Colonel?" enquired Coristine.
+
+"Suh, you have found me a jewel in Maguffin, and he has found me two
+splendid roadsters that are now being fitted with saddles. We staht for
+To-hon-to in an houah, gentlemen."
+
+"By the bye, Colonel, I have a telegram from my firm that concerns you.
+It says 'Look up Colonel Morton, Madame Du Plessis, 315 Bluebird Avenue,
+Parkdale."
+
+"But wheah is Pahkdale?"
+
+"It is a suburb of Toronto. You had better keep the telegram."
+
+"So, Mr. Cohistine, you are a lawyeh?"
+
+"Yes; of the firm of Tylor, Woodruff, and White, but I'm not that now,
+I'm a gentleman out on a grand stravague."
+
+"You may be a lawyeh, suh, but you are a gentleman as well, and I hope
+to meet you befoah many days are past. Good mawnin, my kind friends!"
+
+The knapsacks were put on boldly, in the very parlour of the hotel, and
+their bearers strode along the lake road into the west, as coolly as if
+they were doing Snowden or Windermere. It was a glorious morning, and
+they exulted in it, rejoicing in the joy of living. The dominie had
+written his letter to the vulgar school-trustees, and felt good, with
+the approbation of a generous conscience. He recited with feeling:--
+
+     "_What, you are stepping westward?_" "_Yea_"--
+     'Twould be a wildish destiny,
+     If we, who thus together roam
+     In a strange land, and far from home,
+     Were in this place the guests of chance;
+     Yet who would stop, or fear t' advance,
+     Though home or shelter he had none,
+     With such a sky to lead him on.
+
+     The dewy ground was dark and cold;
+
+"Faith, 'tis nothing of the kind, Wilks," interrupted Coristine; but the
+dominie went on unheeding.
+
+     Behind, all gloomy to behold,
+     And stepping westward seemed to be
+     A kind of heavenly destiny:
+     I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound
+     Of something without place or bound
+     And seemed to give me spiritual right
+     To travel through that region bright.
+
+     The voice was soft, and she who spake
+     Was walking by her native lake;
+     The salutation had to me
+     The very sound of courtesy;
+     Its power was felt; and while my eye
+     Was fix'd upon the glorious sky,
+     The echo of the voice enwrought
+     A human sweetness with the thought
+     Of travelling through the world that lay
+     Before me in my endless way.
+
+"O Wilks, but you're the daisy. So you're going to travel through the
+world with the human sweetness of the soft voice of courtesy? You're a
+fraud, Wilks, you're as soft-hearted as a fozy turnip."
+
+"Corry, a little while ago you called me adamant. You are
+inconsequential, sir."
+
+"All right, Wilks, my darling. But isn't it a joy to have the colonel
+taking the bad taste of the Grinstun man out of your mouth?"
+
+"The colonel, no doubt, is infinitely preferable. He is a gentleman,
+Corry, and that is saying a good deal."
+
+"Hurroo for a specimen! look at that bank on your left, beyond that wet
+patch, it's thyme, it is. _Thymus serpyllum_, and Gray says it's not
+native, but adventitious from Europe. Maccoun says the same; I wonder
+what my dear friend, Spotton, says? But here it is, and no trace of a
+house or clearing near. It's thyme, my boy, and smells sweet as honey:--
+
+     Old father Time, as Ovid sings,
+     Is a great eater up of things,
+       And, without salt or mustard,
+     Will gulp you down a castle wall,
+     As easily as, at Guildhall,
+       An alderman eats custard."
+
+"Drop your stupid Percy anecdote poems, Corry, and listen to this,"
+cried the dominie, as he sang:--
+
+     I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,
+     I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,
+     Where oxlips and the nodding violets blow,
+     Where oxlips linger, nodding violets blow,
+     I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grow-ow-ow-ow-ows!!!
+
+The lawyer joined in the chorus, encored the song, and trolled "ow ow ow
+ow ows" until the blood vessels over his brain pan demanded a rest.
+"Wilks," he said, "you're a thing of beauty and a joy forever."
+
+Soon the road trended within a short distance of the lake shore. The
+blue waves were tumbling in gloriously, and swished up upon the shelving
+limestone rocks. "What is the time, Corry?" asked Wilkinson. "It's
+eleven by my repeater," he answered. "Then it is quite safe to bathe;
+what do you say to a dip?" The lawyer unstrapped his knapsack, and
+hastened off the road towards the beach. "Come on, Wilks," he cried,
+"we'll make believe that it's grampusses we are."
+
+"What is a grampus?" enquired the dominie.
+
+"Dad, if I know," replied his friend.
+
+"A grampus, sir, etymologically is 'un grand poisson,' but,
+biologically, it is no fish at all, being a mammal, mid-way between a
+dolphin and a porpoise."
+
+"So you got off that conundrum a porpoise to make a fool of me, Wilks?"
+
+"O, Corry, you make me shudder with your villainous puns."
+
+"That's nothing to what I heard once. There were some fellows camping,
+and they had two tents and some dogs for deerhunting. As it was raining,
+they let the hounds sleep in one of the tents, when one of the fellows
+goes round and says: 'Shut down your curtains.' 'Were you telling them
+that to keep the rain out?' asked one, when the rascal answered: 'To all
+in tents and purp houses.' Wasn't that awful, now?"
+
+The water was cold but pleasant on a hot day, and the swimmers enjoyed
+striking out some distance from shore and then being washed in by the
+homeward-bound waves. They sat, with their palms pressed down beside
+them, on smooth ledges of rock, and let the breakers lap over them. The
+lawyer was thinking it time to get out, when he saw Wilkinson back into
+the waves with a scared face. "Are you going for another swim, Wilks, my
+boy?" he asked. "Look behind you," whispered the schoolmaster. Coristine
+looked, and was aware of three girls, truly rural, sitting on the bank
+and apparently absorbed in contemplating the swimmers. "This is awful!"
+he ejaculated, as he slid down into deep water; "Wilks, it's scare the
+life out of them I must, or we'll never get back to our clothes. Now,
+listen to me." Dipping his head once more under water till it dripped,
+he let out a fearful sound, like "Gurrahow skrrr spat, you young
+gurruls, an' if yeez don't travel home as fast as yer futs'll taake
+yeez, it's I'll be afther yeez straight, och, garrahow skrr spat
+whishtubbleubbleubble!" The rural maidens took to their heels and ran,
+as Coristine swam into shore. In a minute the swimmers were into their
+clothes and packs, and resumed their march, much refreshed by the cool
+waters of the Georgian Bay.
+
+"And where is it we're bound for now, Wilks?"
+
+"For the abandoned shale-works at the foot of the Blue Mountains."
+
+"Fwhat's that, as Jimmie Butler said about the owl?"
+
+"The Utica formation, which crops out here, consists largely of
+bituminous shales, that yield mineral oil to the extent of twenty
+gallons to the ton. But, since the oil springs of the West have been in
+operation, the usefulness of these shales is gone. The Indians seem to
+have made large use of the shale, for a friend of mine found a hoe of
+that material on an island in the Muskoka lakes. Being easily split and
+worked, it was doubtless very acceptable to the metal wanting
+aborigines."
+
+"But, if the works are closed up, what will we see?"
+
+"We shall meet with fossils in the shale, with trilobites, such as the
+_Asaphus Canadensis_, a crustacean, closely allied to the wood-louse,
+and occasionally found rolled up, like it, into a defensive ball,
+together with other specimens of ancient life."
+
+"Wilks, my son, who's doing Gosse's Canadian Naturalist, now, I'd like
+to know? Pity we hadn't the working geologist along for a lesson."
+
+"I am sorry if I have bored you with my talk, but I thought you were
+interested in science. Does this suit you better?
+
+                        Many a little hand
+     Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks,
+     Many a light foot shone like a jewel set
+     In the dark crag; and then we turn'd, we wound
+     About the cliffs, the copses, out and in,
+     Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names
+     Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff,
+     Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun
+     Grew broader towards his death and fell, and all
+     The rosy heights came out above the lawns."
+
+"That's better, avic. Tennyson's got the shale there, I see. But rag and
+trap and tuff is the word, and tough the whole business is. Just look at
+that living blue bell, there, it's worth all the stony names of rock and
+fossil.
+
+     Let the proud Indian boast of his jessamine bowers,
+     His garlands of roses and moss-covered dells,
+     While humbly I sing of those sweet little flowers,
+     The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells.
+       We'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,
+       The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells."
+
+"You are a nice botanist, Mr. Coristine, to confound that campanula with
+the Scottish blue-bell, which is a scilla, or wild hyacinth."
+
+"Poetic license, my dear friend, poetic license! Hear this now:--
+
+     Let the Blue Mountains boast of their shale that's bituminous,
+     Full of trilobites, graptolites and all the rest,
+     It may not be so learned, or ancient, or luminous,
+     But the little campanula's what I love best.
+       So we'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,
+       The little campanula's worth all the rest.
+
+Whew! What do you think of that for an impromptu song, Wilks?"
+
+"I think that you are turning your back upon your own principle that
+there is no best, or no one best, and that everything is best in its
+place."
+
+"Barring old Nick and the mosquitoes, Wilks, come now?"
+
+"Well, an exception may be made in their favour, but what says the
+poet:--
+
+     O yet we trust that somehow good
+     Will be the final goal of ill.
+
+Come, along, though, for we have much to see before sunset."
+
+"You don't think that good is going to come out of the devil and
+mosquitoes?"
+
+"Yes I do; not to themselves, perhaps, but to humanity."
+
+"I saw a book once with the title "Why Doesn't God Kill the Devil?" and
+sympathized with it. Why doesn't He?"
+
+"Because man wants the devil. As soon as the world ceases to want him,
+so soon is his occupation gone."
+
+"Wilks, my dear, that's an awful responsibility lying on us men, and I
+fear what you say is too true. So here's for the shale works."
+
+The pedestrians ceased their theological discussion and went towards the
+deserted buildings, where, in former days, a bad smelling oil had been
+distilled from the slaty-looking black stones, which lay about in large
+numbers. Wilkinson picked up fossils enough, species of trilobites
+chiefly, with a few graptolites, lingulas and strophomenas, to start a
+museum. These, as Coristine had suggested in Toronto, he actually tied
+up in his silk handkerchief, which he slung on the crook of his stick
+and carried over his shoulder. The lawyer also gathered a few, and
+bestowed them in the side pocket of his coat not devoted to smoking
+materials. The pair were leaving the works for the ascent of the
+mountain, when barks were heard, then a pattering of feet, and soon the
+breathless Muggins jumped upon them with joyous demonstrations.
+
+"Where has he been? How came we not to miss him?" asked the dominie, and
+Coristine answered rather obliquely:--
+
+"I don't remember seeing him since we entered Collingwood. Surely he
+didn't go back to the Grinstun man."
+
+"It is hard to be poetical on a dog called Muggins," remarked Wilkinson;
+"Tray seems to be the favourite name. Cowper's dogs are different, and
+Wordsworth has Dart and Swallow, Prince and Music, something like
+Actaeon's dogs in 'Ovid.' Nevertheless, I like Muggins."
+
+"Oh, Tray is good, Wilks:--
+
+     To my dear loving Shelah, so far, far away,
+     I can never return with my old dog Tray;
+         He's lazy and he's blind,
+         You'll never, never find
+              A bigger thief than old dog Tray."
+
+"Corry, this is bathos of the worst description. You are like a
+caterpillar; you desecrate the living leaf you touch."
+
+"Wilks, that's hard on the six feet of me, for your caterpillar has a
+great many more. But that dog's gone back again."
+
+As they looked after his departing figure, the reason was obvious. Two
+lightly, yet clerically, attired figures were coming up the road, and on
+the taller and thinner of the twain the dog was leaping with every sign
+of genuine affection.
+
+"I'm afraid, Wilks, that Muggins is a beastly cur, a treacherous 'ound,
+a hungrateful pup; look at his antics with that cadaverous curate,
+keeping company with his sleek, respectable vicar. O Muggy, Mug, Mug!"
+
+The pedestrians waited for the clergy, who soon came up to them, and
+exchanged salutations.
+
+"My dawg appears to know you," said the tall cassocked cleric in a
+somewhat lofty, professional tone.
+
+"He ought to," replied Wilkinson, "seeing that he was given to me by a
+Mr. Rawdon, a working geologist, as he calls himself."
+
+"Ow, really now, it seems to me rather an immoral transaction for your
+ah friend, Mr. Rawdon, to give away another man's property."
+
+"Mr. Rawdon is no friend of mine, but his dog took a fancy to us, and
+followed us from Dromore to Collingwood."
+
+"Allow me to assure you that Muggins is not this ah Mr. Rawdon's dawg at
+all. I trained him from a puppy at Tossorontio. The Bishop ordered me
+from there to Flanders, and, in the hurry of moving, the dawg was lost;
+but now, I should rather say stowlen. My friend, the Reverend Mr. Errol
+and myself, my name is Basil Perrowne, Clerk, had business in
+Collingwood last night, when Muggins, most opportunely, met us, and went
+howme with me."
+
+"Well, Mr. Perrowne, I am very glad you have recovered your dog, which I
+was only too glad to rescue from a somewhat inhuman master. My name is
+Wilkinson, of the Toronto schools, my friend is Mr. Coristine, of
+Osgoode Hall, barrister."
+
+The gentlemen exchanged formal salutations, and proceeded on their way,
+Wilkinson with Perrowne, and Coristine with Erroll. Muggins was in the
+seventh heaven of delight.
+
+"You belong to Tossorontio, Mr. Perrowne?" asked Wilkinson, by way of
+starting the conversation.
+
+"Ow, now! I said I had trained Muggins from a pup there, but that ownly
+extends owver a few years. Durham is my university, which you may have
+heard of."
+
+"I am familiar by name with the university and the cathedral, although
+the juvenile geography books say that Durham is famous for its mustard."
+
+"Ow, now, really, they down't, do they? Ow dear, mustard! We Durham men
+can serve it out pretty hot, you know. You belong to the Church, of
+course, Mr. Wilkinson?"
+
+"I was brought up in the Church of England, and educated in what are
+called Church principles; I am fond of the Prayer Book and the Service,
+but, to my way of thinking, the Church is far more extensive than our
+mere Anglican communion."
+
+"Ow, yes, there are Christian people, who, I howpe, will get to heaven
+some way through the uncovenanted mercies, in spite of their horrid
+schism from the True Body. There is Errol, now, whom, out of mere
+courtesy, I call reverend, but he is no more reverend than Muggins. His
+orders are ridiculous, not worth a farthing candle."
+
+"Come, come, Mr. Perrowne, his orders are as good as those of St.
+Timothy, which were laid on him by the hands of the Presbytery."
+
+"That is precisely what the cheeky dissenter says himself. We have
+dropped that line of controversy now, for one ever so much more
+practical."
+
+"I hope you don't take off your coats and fight it out? You have the
+advantage in height and youth, but Mr. Errol seems a strong and active
+man."
+
+"Now, we down't fight. I have set a cricket club a-gowing, and he has
+turned a neglected field into a golf links. My club makes Churchmen, and
+his makes Scotch dissenters."
+
+"I thought the Presbyterian Church was established in Scotland?"
+
+"Ow, down't you see, we are not in Scotland."
+
+"Then, in Canada, there is no established church, unless it be the Roman
+Catholic in the Province of Quebec."
+
+"Ow, well, drop that, you know; we are the Church, and all the outside
+people are dissenters. I down't antagonize him. He helped me to make my
+crease, and joined my club, and I play golf with him every fine Monday
+morning. But the young fellows have now true English spirit here. Errol
+has twenty golfers to my six cricketers. When he and I are added, that
+makes eight, not near enough, you know. As a mission agency, my club has
+not succeeded yet, but every time I make a cricketer, I make a
+Churchman."
+
+"I have known some very good cricketers that were not Anglicans."
+
+"Now you haven't, my dear sir; you thought you have, but you haven't;
+that's the trouble with those who reject Church authority. The Methodist
+plays rounder, what you call base-ball; the Independents and Baptists
+played croquet and lawn tennis after other people stopped playing them;
+the Presbyterian plays golf; and the Churchman plays cricket."
+
+"To argue with one who sweeps all experience aside with a wave of his
+hand," said the schoolmaster, indignantly, "is not to argue at all. It
+is a case of _Roma locuta_."
+
+"Ow, yes, just sow, you know, we down't argue, we simply assert the
+truth."
+
+"How d'ye like the Durham mustard, Wilks, my boy?" put in Coristine from
+the rear, where he and Mr. Errol were laughing amusedly; "it's hot,
+isn't it, not much solid food, but lots of flavour? It reminds me of The
+Crew, when he said what was, is, and ever shall be, Amen. Mr. Perrowne
+is the owner of a splendid dog, and he is a splendid dogmatist. What he
+doesn't know isn't worth knowing."
+
+"Ow, thanks awfully, Mr. Coristine, you are really too flattering!"
+gravely and gratefully replied the parson. Wilkinson was afraid that his
+friend's banter might become too apparent, as the simple egotism of the
+graduate of Durham led him on, so, he changed the subject, and soon had
+the cleric quoting Virgil and Mrs. Hemans.
+
+Meanwhile Coristine and Mr. Errol were taking one another's measure. The
+lawyer recited to his companion the conversation between Marjorie and
+himself relative to Timotheus. He found that Errol knew Marjorie, who
+had often been in his church and Sunday school in Flanders. "She's a
+comical little piece," he said; "her Sunday school teacher asked her who
+killed Goliath? and what do you think was her reply!"
+
+"Give it up."
+
+"It was 'Jack,' no less than Jack the Giant-Killer."
+
+"The darlin'!" cried the lawyer, with admiration, and straightway won
+the minister's heart.
+
+"Marjorie has a cousin stopping at the house of Mr. Carruthers, one of
+my elders, since last Tuesday night, as blithe and bonnie a young leddy
+as man could wish to see. While she's here, she's just the light of the
+whole country side."
+
+Mr. Coristine did not care for this turn in the conversation.
+
+"Tell me some more about little Marjorie," he said.
+
+"Ah," replied the minister, "then you know that her cousin is called
+Marjorie, too! Little Marjorie went to church once with Miss Du Plessis,
+whom Perrowne had got to sing in the choir, that was last summer, if I
+mind right, and, when the two rideeclus candles on the altar were
+lighted, and the priest, as he calls himself, came in with his surplice
+on, she put her face down in Miss Cecile's lap. 'What's the trouble,
+Marjorie?' asked Miss Du Plessis, bending over her. 'He's going to kiss
+us all good-night,' sobbed the wee thing. 'No he is not, Marjorie; he's
+on his knees, praying,' replied the young leddy, soothingly. 'That's
+what papa always does, when he's dressed like that, before he kisses me
+good-night, but he takes off his boots and things first,' and she sobbed
+again, for fear Perrowne was coming to kiss them all, put out the
+candles, and go to bed. If Miss Du Plessis had not been a sober-minded
+lass, she would have laughed out in the middle of the choir. As it was,
+she had to hand Marjorie over to a neighbour in a back seat, before the
+bit lassie would be comforted."
+
+"Ah! did you ever now? the little innocent!"
+
+"It's not that improbable that there'll be a marriage in the church
+before long. Perrowne's just clean daft and infatuated with his
+occasional soprano. He's sent her the 'Mirror of Devotion' and the
+'Soul's Questioner,' and a lot of nicely bound trash, and walks home
+with her whenever he has the chance, to the scandal and rage of all his
+farmers' daughters. It's very injudeecious o' Perrowne, and has dreeven
+two of his best families to the Kirk. Not that she's no a braw looking
+lass, stately and deegnified, but she has na the winsomeness of Miss
+Marjorie."
+
+"Is that your quarter, Mr. Errol?"
+
+"Hech, sirs, I'm an old bachelor that'll never see five and forty again;
+but, as we say in Scotch or the vernacular Doric, 'an auld carle micht
+dae waur.' There's not a more sensible, modest, blithesome, bonnie
+lassie in all the land. It's a thousand peeties some young, handsome,
+well to do steady, God-fearing man has na asked at her to be 'the light
+o' his ain fireside.' Gin I were as young as you, Mr. Coristine, I would
+na think twice about it."
+
+"Avaunt, tempter!" cried the lawyer, "such a subject as matrimony is
+strictly tabooed between me and my friend."
+
+"I'll be your friend, I hope, but I cannot afford to taboo marriages.
+Not to speak of the fees, they're the life of a well-ordered, healthy
+congregation."
+
+A neat turn-out, similar to that of Mrs. Thomas, came rattling along the
+road. "That's John Carruthers' team," remarked the minister, and such it
+turned out to be.
+
+"Maister Errol," said its only occupant, a strong and honest-faced man
+with a full brown beard, "yon's a fine hanky panky trick to play wi'
+your ain elder an' session clerk."
+
+"Deed John," returned the minister, relapsing into the vernacular; "I
+didna ken ye were i' the toon ava, but 'oor bit dander has gien us the
+opportunity o' becomin' acquent wi' twa rale dacent lads." Then, turning
+to the lawyer, "excuse our familiar talk, Mr. Coristine, and let me
+introduce Squire Carruthers, of Flanders." The two men exchanged
+salutations, and Perrowne, having turned back with Wilkinson, the same
+ceremony was gone through with the latter. They were then all
+courteously invited to get into the waggon. Errol and Perrowne sprang
+in with an air of old proprietorship, but the two pedestrians
+respectfully declined, as they were especially anxious to explore the
+mountain beauties of this part of the country on foot and at their
+leisure.
+
+"Aweel, gentlemen," cried the squire, "gin ye'll no come the noo, we'll
+just expect to see ye before the Sawbath. The Church and the Kirk'll be
+looking for the wayfarers, and my house, thank Providence, is big eneuch
+to gie ye a kindly welcome."
+
+The parsons ably seconded Mr. Carruthers' peculiar mixture of English
+and Lowland Scotch, on the latter of which he prided himself, but only
+when in the company of someone who could appreciate it. Wilkinson looked
+at Coristine, and the lawyer looked at the dominie, for here they were
+invited to go straight into the jaws of the lion. Just then, they
+descried, climbing painfully up the hill, but some distance behind them,
+the Grinstun man; there was no mistaking him. "Hurry, and drive away,"
+cried Coristine, in an under tone; "that cad there, the same that stole
+Muggins, is going to your house, Squire. For any sake, don't facilitate
+his journey."
+
+"I'll no stir a hoof till ye promise to come to us, Mr. Coristine, and
+you, Mr. Wilkins, tae."
+
+"All right, many thanks, we promise," they cried together, and the
+waggon rattled away.
+
+"Now, Wilks, over this ditch, sharp, and into the brush, till this thief
+of the world goes by. We've deprived him of a ride, and that's one good
+thing done."
+
+Together they jumped the ditch, and squatted among the bushes, waiting
+for the Grinstun man. They heard him puffing up the rising ground, saw
+his red, perspiring face in full view, and heard him, as he mopped
+himself with a bandanna, exclaim: "Blowed if I haint bin and lost the
+chance of a lift. Teetotally blawst that hold hass of a driver, and them
+two soft-'eaded Tomfools of hamateur scientists ridin' beside 'im. I
+knew it was Muggins, the cur I stole, and guv a present of to that there
+guy of a Favosites Wilkinsonia. I don't trust 'im, the scaly beggar, for
+hall 'is fine 'eroic speeches. 'E'll be goin' and splittin' on me to
+that gal, sure as heggs. And that Currystone, six feet of 'ipocrisy and
+hinsolence, drat the long-legged, 'airy brute. O crikey, but it's 'ot;
+'owever, I must 'urry on, for grinstuns is grinstuns, and a gal, with a
+rich hold huncle, ridin' a fine 'orse, with a nigger behind 'im carryin'
+his portmantle, haint to be sneezed hat. Stre'ch your pegs, Mr. Rawdon,
+workin' geologist hand minerologist!"
+
+"By Jove!" cried Coristine, when the Grinstun man was out of sight;
+"that cad has met the colonel, and has been talking to him."
+
+"A fine nephew-in-law he will get in him!" growled Wilkinson; "I have
+half a mind--excuse me Corry."
+
+"I thought you were very much taken with the old Southerner."
+
+"Yes, that is it," and the dominie relapsed into silence.
+
+"It's about lunch time, Wilks, and, as there's sure to be no water on
+the top of the hill, I'll fill my rubber bag at the spring down there,
+and carry it up, so that we can enjoy the view while taking our
+prandial."
+
+Wilkinson vouchsafed no reply. He was in deep and earnest thought about
+something. Taking silence for consent, Coristine tripped down the hill a
+few yards, with a square india rubber article in his hand. It had a
+brass mouthpiece that partly screwed off, when it was desirable to
+inflate it with air, as a cushion, pillow, or life-preserver, or to fill
+it with hot water to take the place of a warming-pan. Now, at the spring
+by the roadside, he rinsed it well out, and then filled it with clear
+cold water, which he brought back to the place where the schoolmaster
+was leaning on his stick and pondering. Replacing the knapsack, out of
+which the india rubber bag had come, the lawyer prepared to continue the
+ascent. In order to rouse his reflective friend, he said, "Wilks, my
+boy, you've dropped your fossils."
+
+"I fear, Corry, that I have lost all interest in fossils."
+
+"Sure, that Grinstun man's enough to give a man a scunner at fossils for
+the rest of his life."
+
+"It is not exactly that, Corry," replied the truthful dominie; "but I
+need my staff and my handkerchief, and I think I will leave the
+specimens on the road, all except these two Asaphoi, the perplexing,
+bewildering relics of antiquity. This world is full of perplexities
+still, Corry." So saying, the dominie sighed, emptied his bandanna of
+all but the two fossils, which he transferred to his pocket, and, with
+staff in hand, recommenced the upward journey. In ten minutes they were
+on the summit, and beheld the far-off figure of the working geologist on
+the further slope. In both directions the view was magnificent. They sat
+by the roadside on a leafy bank overshaded with cool branches, and,
+producing the reduplication of the Barrie stores procured the night
+before at Collingwood, proceeded to lunch _al fresco_. The contents of
+the india rubber bag, qualified with the spirit in their flasks, cheered
+the hearts of the pedestrians and made them more inclined to look on the
+bright side of life. Justice having been done to the biscuits and
+cheese, Coristine lit his pipe, while the dominie took a turn at
+Wordsworth.
+
+With musical intonation, Wilkinson read aloud:--
+
+     Some thought he was a lover, and did woo:
+     Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong:
+     But verse was what he had been wedded to;
+     And his own mind did like a tempest strong
+     Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.
+
+     With him there often walked in friendly guise,
+     Or lay upon the moss by brook or tree,
+     A noticeable man with large grey eyes,
+     And a pale face that seemed undoubtedly
+     As if a blooming face it ought to be;
+     Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,
+     Depress'd by weight of musing phantasy;
+     Profound his forehead was, though not severe;
+     Yet some did think that he had little business here.
+
+     He would entice that other man to hear
+     His music, and to view his imagery.
+     And, sooth, these two did love each other dear,
+     As far as love in such a place could be;
+     There did they dwell--from earthly labour free,
+     As happy spirits as were ever seen:
+     If but a bird, to keep them company,
+     Or butterfly sate down, they were, I ween,
+     As pleased as if the same had been a maiden queen.
+
+"That's the true stuff, Wilks, and has the right ring in it, for we love
+each other dear, and are as happy spirits as were ever seen, but not a
+large grey eye, pale face, or low-hung lip between us. Just hear my
+music now, and view my imagery with your mind's eye:--
+
+     Far down the ridge, I see the Grinstun man,
+     Full short in stature and rotund is he,
+     Pale grey his watery orbs, that dare not scan
+     His interlocutor, and his goatee,
+     With hair and whiskers like a furnace be:
+     Concave the mouth from which his nose-tip flies
+     In vain attempt to shun vulgarity.
+     O haste, ye gods, to snatch from him the prize,
+     And send him hence to weep--and to geologize!"
+
+"The rhythm is all right, Corry, and the rhyme, but I hope you do not
+call that poetry?"
+
+"If that isn't superior to a good many of Wordsworth's verses, Wilks,
+I'll eat my hat, and that would be a pity this hot weather. Confess now,
+you haythen, you," cried the lawyer, making a lunge at his companion
+with his stick, which the latter warded off with his book.
+
+"There are some pretty poor ones," the schoolmaster granted grudgingly,
+"but the work of a great poet should not be judged by fragments."
+
+"Wilks, apply the rule; I have only given you one stanza of the
+unfinished epic, which unborn generations will peruse with admiration
+and awe, 'The Grinstun Quarry Restored':--
+
+     I have striven hard for my high reward
+     Through many a changing year
+     Now, the goal I reach; it is mine to teach.
+     Stand still, O man, and hear!
+
+     I shall wreathe my name, with the brightness of fame,
+     To shine upon history's pages;
+     It shall be a gem in the diadem
+     Of the past to future ages!
+
+Oh, Wilks for immortality!" cried the light-hearted lawyer, rising with
+a laugh.
+
+Looking back towards the ascent, he perceived two bowed figures
+struggling up the hill under largish, and, apparently, not very light
+burdens.
+
+"Wilks, my dear, we're young and vigorous, and down there are two poor
+old grannies laden like pack mules in this broiling sun. Let us leave
+our knapsacks here, and give them a hoist."
+
+The schoolmaster willingly assented, and followed his friend, who flew
+down the hill at breakneck speed, in a rapid but more sober manner. The
+old couple looked up with some astonishment at a well-dressed city man
+tearing down the hill towards them like a schoolboy, but their
+astonishment turned to warmest gratitude, that found vent in many
+thankful expressions, as the lawyer shouldered the old lady's big
+bundle, and, as, a minute later, the dominie relieved her partner of
+his. They naturally fell into pairs, the husband and Wilkinson leading,
+Coristine and the wife following after. In different ways the elderly
+pair told their twin burden-bearers the same story of their farm some
+distance below the western slope of the mountain, of their son at home
+and their two daughters out at service, and mentioned the fact that they
+had both been schoolteachers, but, as they said with apologetic
+humility, only on third-class county certificates. Old Mr. Hill insisted
+on getting his load back when the top of the mountain was reached, and
+the pedestrians resumed their knapsacks and staves, but the lawyer
+utterly refused to surrender his bundle to the old lady's entreaties.
+The sometime schoolteachers were intelligent, very well read in Cowper,
+Pollock, and Sir Walter Scott, as well as in the Bible, and withal
+possessed of a fair sense of humour. The old lady and Coristine were a
+perpetual feast to one another. "Sure!" said he, "it's bagmen the
+ignorant creatures have taken us for more than once, and it's a genuine
+one I am now, Mrs. Hill," at which the good woman laughed, and recited
+the Scotch ballad of the "Wee Wifukie coming frae the fair," who fell
+asleep, when "by came a packman wi' a little pack," and relieved her of
+her purse and placks, and "clippit a' her gowden locks sae bonnie and
+sae lang." This she did in excellent taste, leaving out any
+objectionable expressions in the original. When she repeated the words
+of the Wifukie at the end of each verse, "This is nae me," consequent on
+her discovery that curls and money were gone, the lawyer laughed
+heartily, causing the pair in front, who were discussing educational
+matters, to look round for the cause of the merriment. "I'm the man,"
+shouted Coristine to them, "the packman wi' a little pack." Then Mr.
+Hill knew what it was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+     Conversation with the Hills--Tobacco--Rural Hospitality--The
+     Deipnosophist and Gastronomic Dilemma--Mr. Hill's
+     Courtship--William Rufus rouses the Dominie's Ire--Sleep--The Real
+     Rufus--Acts as Guide--Rawdon Discussed--The Sluggard Farmer--The
+     Teamsters--The Wasps--A Difference of Opinion.
+
+
+It was very pleasant for all four, the walk down the mountain road; and
+the pedestrians enjoyed the scenery all the more with intelligent guides
+to point out places of interest. The old schoolteacher, having
+questioned Wilkinson as to his avocation, looked upon him as a superior
+being, and gratified the little corner of good-natured vanity that lies
+in most teachers' hearts. Coristine told the wife that he trusted her
+daughters had good places, where they would receive the respect due to
+young women of such upbringing; and she replied:--
+
+"O yes, sir, they are both in one family, the family of Squire
+Carruthers in Flanders. Tryphena is the eldest; she's twenty-five, and
+is cook and milker and helps with the washing. Tryphosa is only twenty,
+and attends to the other duties of the house. Mrs. Carruthers is not
+above helping in all the work herself, so that she knows how to treat
+her maids properly. Still, I am anxious about them."
+
+"Nothing wrong with their health, I hope?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"No, sir; in a bodily way they enjoy excellent health."
+
+"Pardon me, Mrs. Hill," interrupted Coristine, "for saying that your
+perfectly correct expression calls up that of a friend of mine. Meeting
+an old college professor, very stiff and precise in manner and language,
+he had occasion to tell him that, as a student, he had enjoyed very poor
+health. 'I do not know about the enjoying of it, sir,' he answered, 'but
+I know your health was very poor.' Ha, ha! but I interrupted you."
+
+"I was going to say, sir, that I have never been ambitious, save to keep
+a good name and live a humbly useful life, with food convenient for me,
+as Agur, the son of Jakeh, says in the Book of Proverbs, in which, I
+suppose, he included clothing and shelter, but I did hope my girls would
+look higher than the Pilgrims."
+
+"You don't mean John Bunyan's Christian and Christiana, and Great Heart,
+and the rest of them?"
+
+"Oh, no!" replied the old lady, laughing, "mine are living characters,
+quite unknown to the readers of books, Sylvanus and Timotheus, the sons
+of old Saul Pilgrim."
+
+"Oh, that's their name, is it? The Crew never told me his surname, nor
+did Captain Thomas."
+
+"You know Sylvanus' captain, then? But, has he many sailors besides
+Pilgrim?"
+
+"No; that's why I call him The Crew. It's like a Scotch song, 'The Kitty
+of Loch Goil,' that goes:--
+
+     For a' oor haill ship's companie,
+     Was twa laddy and a poy, prave poys
+
+Sylvanus is The Crew, who goes on a cruise, like Crusoe. O, do forgive
+me, Mrs. Hill, for so forgetting myself; we have been so long away from
+ladies' society," which, considering the circumstances of the preceding
+day, was hardly an ingenuous statement.
+
+"I am not so troubled about the elder Pilgrim and Tryphena," continued
+the old lady, "because Tryphena is getting up a little in years for the
+country; I believe they marry later in the city, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"O yes, always, very much, I'm sure," answered the lawyer, confusedly.
+
+"Tryphena is getting up, and--well, she takes after her father in looks,
+but will make any man a good wife. Then the elder Pilgrim has good
+morals, and is affectionate, soft I should be disposed to call him; and
+he has regular employment all the year round, though often away from
+home. He has money saved and in the bank, and has a hundred-acre farm in
+the back country somewhere. He says, if Tryphena refuses him, he will
+continue to risk his life among the perils of the deep, by which the
+silly fellow means Lake Simcoe." Here the quondam schoolmistress broke
+into a pleasant laugh that had once been musical.
+
+"And Miss Tryphosa, did I understand you to say you apprehend anything
+in her quarter from the Pilgrims?" enquired Coristine.
+
+"Please say Tryphosa, sir; I do not think that young girls in service
+should be miss'd."
+
+"But they are very much missed when they go away and get married; don't
+grudge me my little joke, Mrs. Hill."
+
+"I would not grudge you anything so poor," she replied, shaking a
+forefinger at the blushing lawyer. "You are right in supposing I
+apprehend danger to Tryphosa from the younger Pilgrim. She is--well,
+something like what I was when I was young, and she is only a child yet,
+though well grown. Then, this younger Pilgrim has neither money nor
+farm; besides, I am told, that he has imbibed infidel notions, and has
+lately become the inmate of a disreputable country tavern. If you had a
+daughter, sir, would you not tremble to think of her linking her lot
+with so worthless a character?" Before the lawyer could reply, the old
+man called back: "Mother, I think you had better give the gentleman a
+rest; he must be tired of hearing your tongue go like a cow-bell in fly
+time." Coristine protested, but his companion declined to continue the
+conversation.
+
+"The mistress is as proud of wagging that old tongue of hers," remarked
+the dominie's companion, "as if she had half the larnin' of the country,
+and she no more nor a third class county certificut."
+
+"Many excellent teachers have begun on them," remarked Wilkinson.
+
+"But she begun and ended there; the next certificut she got was a
+marriage one, and, in a few years, she had a class in her own house to
+tache and slipper."
+
+"Your wife seems to be a very superior woman, Mr. Hill."
+
+"That's where the shoe pinches me. Shuparior! it's that she thinks
+herself, and looks down on my book larnin' that's as good as her own.
+But, I'll tell ye, sir, I've read Shakespeare and she hasn't, not a
+word."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Her folks were a sort of Lutherian Dutch they call Brethren. They're
+powerful strict, and think it a mortal sin to touch a card or read a
+play. My own folks were what they called black-mouthed Prosbytarians,
+from the north of Ireland, but aijewcation made me liberal-minded. It
+never had that effect on the mistress, although her own taycher was an
+old Scotch wife that spent her time tayching the childer Scott, and
+Pollok's 'Course of Time,' and old Scotch ballads like that Packman one
+she was reciting to your friend. Now, I larnt my boys and gyurls, when I
+was school tayching, some pieces of Shakespeare, and got them to declaim
+at the school exhibitions before the holidays. I minded some of them
+after I was married, and, one day when it was raining hard, I declaimed
+a lovely piece before Persis, that's the mistress' name, when the woman
+began to cry, and fell on her knees by the old settle, and prayed like a
+born praycher. She thought I had gone out of my mind; so, after that, I
+had to keep Shakespeare to myself. Sometimes I've seen Tryphosa take up
+the book and read a bit, but Rufus, that's the baby, is just like his
+mother--he'll neither play a card, nor read a play, nor smoke, nor tell
+lies. I dunno what to do with the boy at all, at all."
+
+"But it is rather a good thing, or a series of good things, not to play
+cards, nor smoke, nor tell lies," remarked Wilkinson. "Perhaps the baby
+is too young to smoke or read Shakespeare."
+
+"He's eighteen and a strapping big fellow at that, our baby Rufus. He
+can do two men's work in a day all the week through, and go to meetin'
+and Sunday school on Sundays; but he's far behind in general larnin' and
+in spirit, not a bit like his father. Do I understand you object to
+smoking, sir?"
+
+"Not a bit," replied his companion, "but my friend Coristine smokes a
+pipe, and, as smokers love congenial company, I had better get him to
+join you, and relieve him of his load." So saying, Wilkinson retired to
+the silent pair in the rear, took the old lady's bundle from the lawyer
+and sent him forward to smoke with the ancient schoolmaster. The latter
+waxed eloquent on the subject of tobackka, after the pipes were filled
+and fairly set agoing.
+
+"There was a fanatic of a praycher came to our meetin' one Sunday
+morning last winter, and discoorsed on that which goeth out of a man. He
+threeped down our throats that it was tobackka, and that it was the root
+of bitterness, and the tares among the wheat, which was not rightly
+translated in our English Bible. He said using tobackka was the
+foundation of all sin, and that, if you counted up the letters in the
+Greek tobakko, because Greek has no _c_, the number would be 483, and,
+if you add 183 to that, it would make 666, the mark of the Beast; and,
+says he, any man that uses tobackka is a beast! It was a powerful
+sarmon, and everybody was looking at everybody else. When the meetin'
+was over, I met Andrew Hislop, a Sesayder, and I said to him, 'Annerew!'
+says I, 'what do you think of that blast? Must we give up the pipe or be
+Christians no more?' Says Andrew, 'Come along wi' me,' and I went to his
+house and he took down a book off a shelf in his settin' room. 'Look at
+this, Mr. Hill,' says he, 'you that have the book larnin', 'tis written
+by these godly Sesayders, Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, and is poetry.' I
+took the book and read the piece, and what do you think it was?"
+
+"Charles Lamb's farewell to tobacco," said Coristine wildly:--
+
+     Brother of Bacchus, later born,
+     The Old World were sure forlorn,
+                            Wanting thee.
+
+'No, sir; it was a 'Gospel Sonnet on Tobackka and Pipes'; pipes, mind
+you, as well--all about this Indian weed, and the pipe which is so lily
+white. Oh, sir, it was most improvin'. And that fanatic of a praycher,
+not fit to blacken the Erskines' shoes, even if they were Sesayders! I
+went home and I says, 'Rufus, my son,' and he says, 'Yes, fayther!' Says
+I, 'Rufus, am I a Christian man, though frail and human, am I a
+Christian man or am I not?' Rufus says, 'You are a Christian, fayther.'
+Then says I, 'What is the praycher, Rufus, my boy?' and Rufus, that uses
+tobackka in no shape nor form, says, 'He's a consayted, ignerant,
+bigitted bladderskite of a Pharisee!' Sir, I was proud of that boy!'
+
+"That was very fine of your son to stand up for his father like that.
+You can't say that your foes were those of your own household. In such
+cases, young people must do one of two things, despise their parents or
+despise the preacher; and, when the parents go to church, the children,
+unless they are young hypocrites, uniformly despise such preachers."
+
+"Yes, and to think I had never told Rufus a word about the 'Gospel
+Sonnets of the Sesayders!' It's a great pleasure, sir, to an old man
+like me to smoke a pipe with a gentleman like yourself."
+
+Coristine replied that it afforded him equal satisfaction, and they
+puffed away with occasional remarks on the surrounding scenery.
+
+Meanwhile, Wilkinson was striving to draw out the somewhat offended
+mistress.
+
+"Your husband tells me, Mrs. Hill, that you are of German parentage," he
+remarked blandly.
+
+"Yes," she replied; "my people were what they call Pennsylvania Dutch.
+Do you know German, sir?"
+
+"I have a book acquaintance with it," remarked the dominie.
+
+"Do you recognize this?
+
+     Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye,
+     Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye,
+     Meen fayter rue mee, Ee moos gay
+              Tsoo lowwen in der ayvig-eye."
+
+"No; I distinctly do not, although it has a Swabian sound."
+
+"That is the Pennsylvania Dutch for 'I have a Father in the Promised
+Land,' a Sunday School hymn."
+
+"Were you brought up on hymns like that?"
+
+"Oh, no; I can still remember some good German ones sung at our
+assemblies, like:--
+
+     Christi Blut und Gerechtigkeit,
+     das ist mein Schmuck und Ehrenkleid,
+     damit will ich vor Gott besteh'n,
+     wenn ich in Himmel werd 'eingeh'n.
+
+Do you know that?" asked the old lady, proud of her correct recitation.
+
+"Yes; that is Count Zinzendorff's hymn, which Wesley translated:--
+
+     Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
+     My beauty are, my glorious dress;
+     Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
+     With joy shall I lift up my head.
+
+The translation is wonderfully free, and takes unpardonable liberties
+with the original."
+
+"Graf Zinzendorff revived our Brethren when persecution had almost
+destroyed them. He was in America, too, and had his life saved by a
+rattlesnake. The Indians were going to kill him, when they saw him
+sleeping with the snake by his side, and thought it was his Manitou."
+
+"I hope that is not a snake-story, Mrs. Hill. I had a boy once in my
+school who came from Illinois, and who said that his mother had seen a
+snake, which had stiffened itself into a hoop, and taken its thorny tail
+in its mouth, trundling along over the prairie after a man. The man got
+behind a tree just in the nick of time, for the hoop unbent, and sent
+the thorny tail into the tree instead of into the man. Then the man came
+out and killed it. That was a snake story."
+
+"I give the story as I heard it from our people; you know, I suppose,
+that there is a Moravian Indian Mission on the borders of the counties
+of Kent and Middlesex. I once thought of going there as a missionary,
+before I fell in with Mr. Hill."
+
+"I knew a lady who married a clergyman, with the express understanding
+that he was to become a foreign missionary. His church missionary
+societies refused to accept him, because of some physical defect, so he
+had to settle down to a home charge. But his wife never went to hear him
+conduct service. She said she could not listen to a fraud who had
+married her under false pretences."
+
+"It is a great pity he married such a woman. If a wife has not the
+missionary spirit in her own house, how can she expect to acquire it by
+going abroad? Besides, there is so much mission work to be done in a new
+country like this. A few years ago, this place was almost as bad as
+Peskiwanchow, but now it has greatly improved."
+
+"There was a young man we met there, Mrs. Hill, in whom my friend and I
+were much interested," said the dominie, and proceeded to give an
+account of the exploit of Timotheus. He also narrated what Coristine had
+told him of his hero's attitude towards the catechism, as accounting for
+his present position. The old lady relented in her judgment of the
+younger Pilgrim, thought that Saul, perhaps, was too severe, and that
+the catechism could stand revision. Wilkinson agreed, and, the ice being
+completely broken between them, they also proceeded to view the scenery
+in a poetic light, or rather in two, the dame's a Cowperish, and the
+dominie's a Wordsworthian reflection. Suddenly, the latter saw the
+father of Tryphena and Tryphosa open a gate, and turn into a side road,
+along which the lawyer seemed not quite disposed to accompany him. The
+elder smoker, therefore, came back to the gate, and waited for Wilkinson
+and the old lady to come forward.
+
+"Mother!" said the old man, as the pair came up to the halting place,
+"you've got a soft blarneying Lutherian tongue in your head--"
+
+"Henry Cooke," she replied sharply, "how often must I tell you that
+Lutherian is wrong, and that I am not a Lutheran, and have ceased even
+to be a United Brother since I cast in my lot with you; moreover, it is
+not pleasant for an old woman like me to be accused of blarneying, as if
+I were a rough Irishman with a grin on his broad face."
+
+"Well, well, mother, I don't care a snuff if you were a Sesayder or even
+a Tommykite--"
+
+"A Tommykite?" cried Coristine, anxious to extend his knowledge and
+increase his vocabulary.
+
+"It's a man called Thomas," answered the interrupted husband, "that made
+a new sect out our way, and they call his following Tommykites; I dunno
+if he's a relation of the captain or not. Give a dog a bad name, they
+say, and you might as well hang him; but the Tommykites are living, in
+spite of their name."
+
+"Henry Cooke, your remarks are very unnecessary and irrevelant," said
+his wife, falling into bad English over a long adjective.
+
+"I was just going to say, mother, that I wanted you to try and keep
+these gentlemen from going beyond our house to-night, because you can
+put it so much better than I can."
+
+The old lady, thereupon, so judiciously blended coaxing with the apology
+of disparagement, that the only alternative left the pedestrians was
+that of remaining; for to go on would have been to treat the
+disparagement as real, and a sufficient cause for their seeking other
+shelter. The house they entered was small but neat. It consisted almost
+altogether of one room, called a living room, which answered all the
+purposes of eating, sleeping and sitting. Outside were a summer kitchen
+and a dairy or milk-house, and, a short distance off, were the barn and
+the stable, the sole occupant of the latter at the time being a cow
+that spent most of its leisure out of doors. Supper did not take long
+preparing, and the travellers did ample justice to a very enjoyable
+meal. The dominie engaged the hostess in conversation about German
+cookery, Sauer Kraut, Nudeln and various kinds of Eierkuchen, which she
+described with evident satisfaction.
+
+"Mrs. Hill and Wilkinson are regular Deipnosophists," remarked Coristine
+to the host.
+
+"That's too deep for me," he whispered back. "But tell it to the
+mistress now; she's that fond of jawbreakers she'll never forget it."
+
+"We were remarking, Mrs. Hill, that you and Wilkinson are a pair of
+Deipnosophists."
+
+The old man looked quizically at his wife, and she glanced in a
+questioning way at the dominie.
+
+"My friend is trying to show off his learning at our expense," the
+latter remarked. "One Athenaeus, who lived in the second century, wrote a
+book with that name, containing conversations, like those in 'Wilson's
+Noctes Ambrosianae,' but upon gastronomy."
+
+"I was not aware," said the hostess, "that they had gas so far back as
+that."
+
+Wilkinson bit his lip, but dared not explain, and the lawyer looked
+sheepish at the turn affairs were taking.
+
+"It's aisy remembered, mother," put in the quondam schoolmaster.
+
+"Think of astronomy, and that'll give you gastronomy; and a gastronomer
+is a deipnosophist. That's two new words in one day and both meaning the
+same thing."
+
+The hostess turned to the dominie, with a little shrug of impatience at
+her husband, and remarked: "The life of a deipnosophist in gastromical
+works must be a very trying one, from the impure air and the soft coal
+dust; do you not think so, Mr. Wilkinson?"
+
+That gentleman thought it must, and the lawyer first chewed his
+moustache, and then blew his nose severely and long. Fortunately, the
+meal was over, the host returned thanks, and the party left the table.
+The old man took a pail and went to water the stock, which seemed to
+consist of the cow, while the wife put away the supper things, and
+prepared for the evening's milking.
+
+The pedestrians, being told there was nothing they could do, strolled
+out into the neighbouring pasture, and pretended to look among the weeds
+and stones, at the end of the fence farthest away from the stock-waterer
+for botanical and geological specimens; but, in reality, they were
+having a battle royal.
+
+"Corry, you ass, whatever put it into your stupid head to make a fool of
+that kind little woman?"
+
+"Sauer Kraut and Speck Noodle, what did you begin with your abominable
+Dutch dishes for?"
+
+"I had a perfect right to talk German and of German things with Mrs.
+Hill. I did not insult her, like an ungrateful cur, I know."
+
+"I never insulted her, you blackguard, wouldn't do such a thing for my
+life. I had a perfect right, too, to talk Greek to the old man, and it
+was you put your ugly foot in it with your diabolical gastronomy. I
+wonder you don't pray the ground to open up and swallow you."
+
+"I consider, sir, an apology from you to our host and hostess absolutely
+necessary, and to be made without any delay."
+
+"I'll apologize, Wilks, for the deipnosophist part of it, but I'll be
+jiggered if I'll be responsible for your nasty gastronomy."
+
+"That means that you are going to put all the onus of this hideous and
+cruel misunderstanding on my shoulders, when I explained your expression
+in charity to all parties, and to help you out."
+
+"Help me out, is it? I think it was helping me into the ditch and
+yourself, too."
+
+"Will you or will you not accept the responsibility of this whole
+unfortunate business? Here is my ultimatum: Decline to accept it, and I
+return to Collingwood this very night."
+
+"Wilks, my boy, that would never do. It's dead tired you'd be, and I'd
+hear of you laid up with fever and chills from the night air, or perhaps
+murdered by tramps for the sake of your watch and purse."
+
+"It matters nothing. Right must be done. _Fiat justitia, ruat coelum._
+Every law of gratitude for hospitality cries aloud: 'Make restitution
+ere the sun goes down.' I understand, sir, that you refuse." So saying,
+the offended dominie moved rapidly towards the house to resume his
+knapsack and staff.
+
+"Wilks, if you don't stop I'll stone you to death with fossils," cried
+the repentant lawyer, throwing a series of trilobites from his
+tobacco-less pocket at his retreating friend. The friend stopped and
+said curtly: "What is it to be?"
+
+"Wilks, you remind me of an old darkey woman that had a mistress who was
+troubled with sneezing fits. The mistress said: 'Chloe, whenever I
+sneeze in public, you, as a faithful servant, should take out your
+handkerchief, and pretend that it was you; you should take it upon
+yourself, Chloe.' So, one day in church, the old lady made a big
+tis-haw, when Chloe jumped up and cried out: 'I'll take dat sneeze my
+ole missus snoze on mysef,' waving her handkerchief all around."
+
+"I did not delay my journey to listen to negro stories, Mr. Coristine."
+
+"It has a moral," answered the lawyer; "it means that I am going to take
+all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger ass of yours.
+I'll apologize to the pair of them for me and you."
+
+"That being the case, in spite of the objectionable words, 'bigger ass,'
+which you will live to repent, I shall stay."
+
+Mrs. Hill was proceeding to milk the cow, and her husband was busy at
+the wood-pile. Coristine sauntered up to the old lady, and carried the
+milking pail and stool for her, the latter being of the Swiss
+description, with one leg sharp enough to stick into the ground. The
+lawyer adroitly remarked:--
+
+"Turning to the subject of language, Mrs. Hill, one who has had your
+experience in education must have observed fashion in words as in other
+things, how liable speech is to change at different times and in
+different places."
+
+Yes; Mrs. Hill had noticed that.
+
+"You will, I trust, not think me guilty of too great a liberty, if I
+say, in reference to my friend's remark at the supper table, that
+gastronomy, instead of meaning the art of extracting gas from coal, has
+now come to denote the science of cookery or good living, and that the
+old meaning is now quite out of date. I thought you would like to know
+of the change, which, I imagine, has hardly found its way into the
+country yet."
+
+"Certainly, sir, I am much obliged to you for setting me right so
+kindly. Doubtless the change has come about through the use of gas
+stoves for cooking, which I have seen advertised in our Toronto
+religious paper."
+
+"I never thought of that," said the perfidious lawyer. "The very
+uncommon word deipnosophist, hardly an English word at all, when
+employed at the present day, always means a supper philosopher, one who
+talks learnedly at supper, either about cookery or about other things."
+
+"I see it very clearly now. In town, of course, supper is taken by gas
+light, so that the talker at supper is a talker by gas-light?"
+
+"Yes, but the word gas, even the idea of it, has gone out of fashion,
+through its figurative use to designate empty, vapouring talk;
+therefore, when deipnosophist and gastronomer are spoken, the former is
+employed to denote learned talkers at supper, such as we were half an
+hour ago, and the latter, to signify one who enjoys the culinary
+pleasures of the table."
+
+"I am sure I am very much indebted to you, sir, for taking the trouble
+to correct an old woman far behind the age, and to save her the
+mortification of making mistakes in conversation with those who might
+know better."
+
+"Do not mention it, I beg. Should I, do you think, say anything of this
+to Mr. Hill?"
+
+"Oh, no," replied the old lady, laughingly; "he has forgotten all about
+these new words already; and, even if he had not, he would never dare to
+make use of them, unless they were in Shakespeare or the Bible or the
+School Readers."
+
+By this time the milking was over, and the lawyer, relieved in part, yet
+with not unclouded conscience, carried pail and stool to the milkhouse.
+
+The old man and Coristine sat down on a bench outside the house and
+smoked their pipes. Mrs. Hill occupied a rocking-chair just inside the
+doorway, and the dominie sat on the doorsill at her feet.
+
+"Mother," called Mr. Hill to his spouse, "whatever has become of Rufus?"
+
+"You know very well, Henry Cooke, that Rufus is helping Andrew Hislop
+with his bee, and will not be back before morning. The young people are
+to have a dance after the bee, and then a late supper, at which the
+deipnosophists will do justice to Abigail's gastronomy." This was said
+with an approving side glance at the lawyer. When Wilkinson looked up,
+his friend perceived at once that his offence was forgiven. The husband,
+without removing the pipe from between his teeth, mumbled, "Just so, to
+be sure."
+
+"Is your son's name William Rufus, Mrs. Hill?" enquired the dominie.
+
+"No; it is simply Rufus. William, you know, is not a Scripture name. We
+thought of baptizing him Narcissus, which comes just before Tryphena,
+but my husband said, as he was the youngest, he should come lower down
+in the chapter, and after Persis, which is my name."
+
+"I was tayching school, and a bachelor," put in the said husband, "when
+there was a county meeting--they call them conventions now--that Persis
+was at. They called her Miss Persis Prophayt, but it was spelled like
+the English Prophet. She was that pretty and nice-spoken then I couldn't
+kape my eyes off her. She's gone off her nice looks and ways a dale
+since that time. Then I went back to the childer and the Scripture
+readins, with a big dictionary at my elbow for the long names. 'The
+beloved Persis' was forever coming up, till the gyurls would giggle and
+make my face as red as a turkey cock. So I had this farrum and some
+money saved, and I sent to ask the beloved Persis to put me out of my
+misery and confusion of countenance."
+
+"Indeed he did," said the old lady, with a merry laugh, "and what do you
+think was his way of popping the question?"
+
+"Oh, let us hear, Mrs. Hill," cried Coristine.
+
+"Mother, if you do," interposed the old man, "I'll put my foot down on
+your convention of retired taychers at Owen Sound." But mother paid no
+attention to the threat.
+
+"He asked if I knew the story of Mahomet and the mountain, and how
+Mahomet said, if the mountain will not come to the prophet, the prophet
+must go to the mountain. So, said he, you are the prophet and must come
+to my house under the mountain, and be a Hill yourself. It was so funny
+and clever that I came; besides I was glad to change the name Prophet.
+People were never tired making the most ridiculous plays upon it. The
+old Scotch schoolmistress, who taught me partly, was named Miss Lawson,
+so they called us Profit and Loss; and they pronounced my Christian name
+as if it was Purses, and nicknamed me Property, and took terrible
+liberties with my nomenclature." At this the whole company laughed
+heartily, after which the dominie said: "I see your pipe is out, Corry;
+you might favour our kind friends with a song." The lawyer did not know
+what to sing, but took his inspiration, finally, from Wilkinson's last
+question, and sang the ballad of William Rufus, as far as:--
+
+     Men called him William Rufus because of his red beard,
+     A proud and naughty king he was, and greatly to be feared;
+     But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, hit him in the middell,
+     And, instead of a royal stag that day, a king of England fell.
+
+Then the correct ear and literary sense of the dominie were offended,
+and he opened out on his friend.
+
+"I think, Corry, that you might at least have saved our generous hosts
+the infliction of your wretched travesties. The third line, Mrs Hill, is
+really:--
+
+     But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, the fiercest pride can quell.
+
+There is nothing so vulgar as hitting in the verse, and your ear for
+poetry must tell you that _middle_ cannot rhyme with _fell_, even if it
+were not a piece of the most Gothic barbarity. Thus a fine English song,
+such as I love to hear, is murdered."
+
+"My opinion," said the host, "my opinion is that you could'nt quell a
+man's pride better than by hitting him fair in the middle. It might be
+against the laws of war, but it would double him up, and take all the
+consayt out of him sudden. I mind when Rufus was out seeing his sisters,
+there was a parson got him to play cricket, and aggravated the boy by
+bowling him out, and catching his ball, and sneering at him for a good
+misser and a butter-fingers; so, when he went to the bat again, he
+looked carefully at the ball and got it on the tip of his bat, and, the
+next thing he knowed, the parson was doubled up like a jack knife. He
+had been hit fair in the middle, where the bad boy meant to do it. There
+was no sarvice next Sunday, no, nor for two weeks."
+
+"That was very wrong of Rufus," said the old lady with a sigh, "however,
+he did offer to remunerate Mr. Perrowne for his medical expenses, but
+the gentleman refused to accept any equivalent, and said it was the
+fortune of war, which made Rufus feel humiliated and sorry."
+
+Night had fallen, and the coal oil lamp was lit. The old lady deposited
+a large Bible on the table, to which her husband drew in a chair, after
+asking each of his guests unsuccessfully to conduct family worship. He
+read with emphasis and feeling the 91st Psalm, and thereafter, falling
+on his knees, offered a short but comprehensive prayer, in which the
+absent children were included, and the two wayfarers were not forgotten.
+While the good wife went out to the dairy to see that the milk was
+covered up from an invisible cat, the men undressed, and the pedestrians
+turned into a double bed, the property of the missing Rufus. The head of
+the household also turned in upon his couch, and coughed, the latter
+being a signal to his wife. She came in, blew out the lamp, and retired
+in the darkness. Then four voices said "good-night"; and rest succeeded
+the labours of the day. "No nightmares or fits to-night, Corry, an' you
+love me," whispered the dominie; but the lawyer was asleep soon after
+his head touched the pillow. They knew nothing till morning, when they
+were awakened by the old man's suppressed laughter. When they opened
+their eyes, the wife was already up and away to her outdoor tasks; and a
+well-built, good-looking young fellow of the farmer type was staring in
+astonishment at the two strangers in his bed. The more he stared, the
+more the father laughed. "There's not a home nor a place for you, Rufus,
+with you kapin' such onsaysonable hours. It's a sesayder you'll be
+becoming yourself, running after Annerew Hislop's pretty daughter, and
+dancing the toes out of your stockings till broad daylight. So, if
+you're going to sesayde, your mother and me, we're going to take in
+lodgers."
+
+"What are they selling?" asked the Baby.
+
+"Whisht! Rufus, whisht! come here now; it's not that they are at all,
+but gentlemen from the city on a pedestrian tower," the father replied
+in an audible whisper.
+
+"What do they want testering the beds for! Is that some new crank got
+into the guvment?"
+
+"Rufus, Rufus, you'll be the death of your poor old father yet with your
+ignorance. Who said anything about testing the beds? It's a pedestrian
+tower, a holiday walking journey for the good of their healths, the
+gentlemen are taking. Whisht, now, they're waking up. Good morning to
+you, sirs; did I wake you up laughing at the Baby?"
+
+The roused sleepers returned the salutation, and greeted the new comer,
+apologizing for depriving him of his comfortable bed. Rufus replied
+civilly, with a frank, open manner that won their respect, and, when
+they had hastily dressed, led them to the pump, where he placed a tin
+basin, soap and towels, at their disposal. After ablutions, they
+questioned him as to the events of last evening, and were soon in
+nominal acquaintance with all the country side. He was indignant at the
+free and easy conduct of a self-invited guest called Rodden, who wanted
+to dance with all the prettiest girls and to play cards. "But when he
+said cards, Annerew, that's a sesayder, told him to clare, although it
+was only four in the morning, and he had to clare, and is on his way to
+Flanders now."
+
+"I suppose you did not hear him make any enquiries regarding us?" asked
+the dominie.
+
+"But I did, and it was only when he hard that you hadn't been past the
+meetin'-house, that he stopped and said 'ee'd 'ave a lark. Do you know
+him?"
+
+"Yes," said Coristine, "he is the Grinstun man," whereat they all
+laughed; and the old lady, coming in with her milking, expressed her
+pleasure at seeing them such good friends.
+
+After prayers and breakfast, the pedestrians prepared to leave, much to
+the regret of the household.
+
+"Where are you bound for now?" asked Mr. Hill, to which Wilkinson
+replied, with the air of a guide-book, "for the Beaver River." The Baby,
+nothing the worse of last night's wakefulness, volunteered to show them
+the way by a shorter and pleasanter route than the main road, and they
+gladly availed themselves of his services. As the party walked on, the
+guide said to Coristine, "I hard fayther say that you were a lawyer, is
+that true?" Coristine answered that he was.
+
+"Then, sir, you ought to know something about that man Rodden; he's a
+bad lot."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"He knows all the doubtfullest and shadiest settlers about, and has long
+whispers with them, and gets a lot of money from them. His pocketbook is
+just bulging out with bank bills."
+
+"Perhaps it is the payment of his grindstones, Rufus."
+
+"You don't tell me that a lawyer, a clever man like you, believe in his
+grindstones?"
+
+"Why not? Doesn't he make and sell them?"
+
+"Yes; he makes them and sells them in bundles of half-a-dozen, but the
+buyer of a bundle only has two to show, and they're no good, haven't
+grit enough to sharpen a wooden spoon."
+
+"How do you know all this?"
+
+"Mostly out of big Ben Toner. He used to be a good sort of fellow, but
+is going all to ruination with the drink. I saw his grindstones and what
+came between 'em. It's more like a barl than anything else, but Ben kept
+me off looking at it close."
+
+"Where does Toner live?"
+
+"Down at the river where you're going. There's a nice, quiet tavern
+there, where you'll likely put up, and he'll be round it, likely, and
+pretty well on by noon. He don't drink there, though, nor the
+tavern-keeper don't buy no grindstones like he does. Well, here you are
+on the track, and I must get back to help dad. Keep right on till you
+come to the first clearing, and then ask your way. Good-bye, wishing you
+a good time, and don't forget that man Rodden." They shook the Baby
+warmly by the hand, and reciprocated his good wishes, Coristine
+promising to keep his eyes and ears open for news of the Grinstun man.
+
+"Did you overhear our talk, Wilks, my boy?" he asked his friend.
+
+"No; I thought it was private, and kept in the background. I do not
+consider it honourable to listen to a conversation to which one is not
+invited, and doubtless it was of no interest to me."
+
+"But it is, Wilks; listen to this now," and volubly the lawyer poured
+forth the information and his suspicions concerning Mr. Rawdon. That
+gentleman's ears would have tingled could he have heard the pleasant and
+complimentary things that Coristine said about him.
+
+The first clearing the pedestrians reached, after an hour's walk since
+parting with Rufus, was a desolate looking spot. Some fallow fields were
+covered with thistles, docks, fire-weed and stately mulleins, with, here
+and there, an evening primrose, one or two of which the lawyer inserted
+in his flower-press. There was hardly any ground under cultivation, and
+the orchard bore signs of neglect. They saw a man in a barn painfully
+rolling along a heavy cylindrical bundle which had just come off a
+waggon. As they advanced to ask him the way, he left his work and came
+to meet them, a being as unkempt as his farm, and with an unpleasant
+light in his bloodshot eye.
+
+"What are you two spyin' around fer at this time o' day, stead o'
+tendin' to your work like the rest o' folks? Ef you want anything, speak
+out, 'cause I've no time to be foolin' round."
+
+"We were directed to ask you, sir, the way to the Beaver River," said
+the dominie, politely. The man sulkily led them away out of view of the
+barn, and then pointed out a footpath through his farm, which he said
+would lead them to the highroad. As they were separating, Wilkinson
+thanked the man, and Coristine asked him casually:--
+
+"Do you happen to know if a Mr. Rawdon, who makes and sells grindstones,
+has passed this way lately?"
+
+"No," cried the sluggard farmer; "who says he has?" Then, in a quieter
+tone, he continued: "I heern tell as he passed along the meetin'-house
+way yesday. What do you want of Rawdon?"
+
+"My friend, here, is a geologist, and so is that gentleman."
+
+"Rawdon a geologist!" he cried again, with a coarse laugh. "Of course he
+is; allers arter trap rock, galeny, quartz and beryl. O yes, he's a
+geologist! Go right along that track there. Good day." Then he rapidly
+retraced his steps towards the barn, as if fearful lest some new visitor
+should interrupt him before his task was completed.
+
+"It may be smuggling," said the lawyer, "but it's liquid of some kind,
+for that dilapidated granger has given his friend away. What do
+hayseeds know about galena, quartz and beryl? These are Grinstun's
+little mineralogical jokes for gallon, quart and barrel, and trap rock
+is another little mystery of his. What do you think of the farmer that
+doesn't follow the plough, Wilks?"
+
+"I think he drinks," sententiously responded the schoolmaster.
+
+"Then he and Ben Toner are in the same box, and both are friends or
+customers of the workin' geologist. I believe it's whiskey goes between
+the grindstones, and that it's smuggled in from the States, somewhere up
+on the Georgian Bay between Collingwood and Owen Sound. The plot is
+thickening."
+
+When the pedestrians emerged from the path on a very pretty country road
+the first objects that met their view were three stout waggons, drawn by
+strong horses and driven by bleary eyed men, noisy and profane of
+speech. Their waggon loads were covered with buffalo robes and
+tarpaulins, which, however, did not effectually conceal the grindstones
+beneath. The drivers eyed the pedestrians with suspicion, and consigned
+them to the lower regions and eternal perdition.
+
+"Wilks, my dear," said the lawyer, in a sort of cool fever heat,
+"there's a revolver and a box of cartridges in my pack that I'd like to
+have in my right hand pocket for that kind of cattle."
+
+"I have one, too," said the dominie, quietly, "but we had better pass on
+and not heed them. See, they are armed as well."
+
+Just as he spoke there was a report; a pistol in the hand of the first
+teamster smoked, and a poor little squirrel, that had been whirring on
+the limb of a basswood, dropped to the ground dead.
+
+"I'd as lief as not put a hole into the back of them d----d packs," said
+the second teamster, whereupon the others swore at him to shut up and
+save his cartridges.
+
+"Wilks, I could once hit a silver dollar at twenty yards. Dad, I'll get
+the thing out anyway." The lawyer sat down, undid his knapsack and
+primed his revolver, which he then placed with the box of cartridges in
+the pocket out of which he had thrown the fossils. The dominie did the
+same, all the time saying: "No violence! my dear friend; in this world
+we must pretend not to see a great many things that we cannot help
+seeing." The teamsters went by, and no further use for the revolver
+appeared. Wilkinson would not allow his companion to shoot at birds or
+chipmunks, and, on being expostulated with, the kindly lawyer confessed
+that it would have been a shame to take their innocent young lives. At
+last they saw a gray paper-like structure of large size on the limb of
+an oak pretty high up. "I'll bet you can't hit that, Wilks," said the
+lawyer. "I shall try," replied the dominie. They fired simultaneously
+and both struck the grey mass, and then the warriors ran, ran as they
+had hardly done since they were boys, for a hundred wasps were after
+them, eager to take vengeance on the piercers of their communal home.
+After two hundred yards had been done in quick time, they stopped and
+faced each other.
+
+"I've killed three that got down my back, but the beggar that stung me
+on the lip escaped," said Coristine.
+
+"I have one sting on the left hand and another on the right temple,"
+replied Wilkinson.
+
+"Is it safe to stop yet, Wilks?"
+
+"Yes; they have given up the pursuit."
+
+"Then, my poor boy, let us go into hospital." So he produced his flask
+and bathed the dominie's temple and hand with the cooling spirit, after
+which Wilkinson loosened his friend's flannel shirt and applied the same
+remedy to his afflicted back, down which the three dead wasps slid to
+the ground. The lawyer healed his own lip by allowing a little of the
+cratur, as he termed it, to trickle over into his mouth.
+
+"It seems to me, Wilks, that, when a man is looking for war, he's bound
+to get it."
+
+"Yes; I suppose that that is what is meant by 'they that take the sword
+shall perish with the sword.'"
+
+"Bad luck to these wasps; they revolved on us."
+
+As the travellers continued their journey, Coristine turned to his
+friend and asked him for counsel.
+
+"You've studied casuistry, Wilks, and I want you, as a judge of what a
+loyal citizen should do, to say what is our duty in regard to the
+Grinstun man."
+
+"What are you, Corry, a lawyer in general practice or a revenue
+detective?"
+
+"A lawyer, of course, but a citizen too."
+
+"Have you, as lawyer or as citizen, a case against Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"As a contributor to the revenue of the country, I think I have."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Well, he is making money by cheating the Government."
+
+"Where is your proof?"
+
+"Look at what Rufus said, at the doings of that bogus farmer, at these
+three teams on the road."
+
+"Mere inferences based on circumstantial evidence."
+
+"They're things that should be looked into, though."
+
+"Perhaps so, but is it your business to do so? Are you a whiskey
+informer?"
+
+"Come now, Wilks, that's a pretty bad name to call a man."
+
+"That may be, but it seems to denote the role you have set before
+yourself."
+
+"I'd like to run that brute into the ground."
+
+"Worse and worse; you are going to prosecute, not from principle, but
+from malice."
+
+"I'm going to show up a scoundrel."
+
+"If that is your work you will never lack employment. But, seriously,
+Corry, _cui bono?_"
+
+"To keep him off Miss Du Plessis' land, to prevent him marrying her, to
+hinder him corrupting the farmers and causing their farms to go to waste
+with smuggled liquor."
+
+"As you like, but Wordsworth says:--
+
+     Whatever be the cause, 'tis sure that they who pry and pore
+     Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before."
+
+"A fig for Wordsworth, and his tear in the old man's eye! I'll not be
+happy till I bring that murdering thief of the world to justice."
+
+Further conversation was checked by the view of the river from the top
+of the hill, challenging the admiration of the two lovers of scenery,
+and they began their descent towards the hamlet that lay on either side
+of the bridge which crossed the swiftly-flowing stream. Then the lawyer
+commenced the recitation of a poem in one of the old Irish readers:--
+
+     River, river, rapid river,
+
+in which the dominie sharply interrupted him, recommending his tall,
+mustachioed friend to put a stick of candy in his mouth and go back to
+petticoats and pinafores.
+
+"Wilks, you remind me of a picture I saw once, in _Punch_ or somewhere
+else, of a nigger sandwich man advertising baths, and a sweep looking at
+him, and saying: 'It's enough to tempt one, he looks so jolly clean
+hisself.' That's the way with you, always firing out Wordsworth's silly
+twaddle, and objecting to a piece of genuine poetry because it's in a
+reader. The pig-headed impudence of you birchers beats all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+     The Maple Inn--Mr. Bigglethorpe's Store--Dinner--Worms--Ben
+     Toner--The Dugout--Fishing in the Beaver River--The Upset
+     Suckers--The Indignant Dominie Propitiated and Clothed--Anecdotes
+     of Mr. Bulky--A Doctor Wanted.
+
+
+A very clean and attractive hostelry received the travellers, and
+compelled the dominie to remark cheerfully, "Now shall I take mine ease
+in mine inn," which led to his lately indignant friend's response:--
+
+     Who'er has travell'd life's dull round,
+     Where'er his stages may have been,
+     May sigh to think he still has found
+     The warmest welcome at an inn.
+
+P. Lajeunesse was the name on the sign, which displayed a vegetable
+wonder of the painter's art meant for a maple tree, for Madame
+Lajeunesse kept the Maple Inn. That lady, a portly brunette, with a
+pleasant smile and a merry twinkle in her eye, received the
+distinguished guests in person. Wilkinson replied to her bow and curtsey
+with a dignified salutation, but the lawyer shook hands with her,
+saying: "I hope you're very well, Madame; it's a lovely place you have
+here." Madame replied that it was lofely when the moustique was not, and
+summoned Pierre to help the dominie off with his knapsack, saying
+"permettit me," as she unfastened the straps of Coristine's, and removed
+that burden, which she deposited upon a table in the sitting-room
+adjoining the hall. Pierre, a bald-headed French-Canadian, hiding his
+lack of hair under a red tuque, and sporting a white moustache of large
+dimensions, arrived too late to help the schoolmaster, but he elevated
+his eyebrows, grimaced, rubbed his hands, and slid his feet apart, in
+pleased welcome.
+
+"Ze chentlemans ave come to feesh lika many in ze springa monses?
+Feeshing not so coot as zen, bot in ze cool place vare is oles onder ze
+trees feesh lorrik. Is zat spoken correct, zat vord lorrik? I ave learn
+it from Meestare Bulky. O, a ver great feesherman."
+
+Wilkinson replied that lurk was an excellent word, and very expressive
+of the conduct of fish in warm weather, explaining that he was no
+fisherman himself, but that his friend was attached to that kind of
+sport.
+
+"Dinnare, Messieu, in one hour," remarked Madame, as she returned to her
+duties.
+
+"Where can I get fishing tackle, landlord?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"At ze store, zare is onelly one. You vill not lose yourself long in
+zisa city," replied mine host with an attempt at wit.
+
+Wilkinson remained in the cool parlour, inspecting the plates on the
+walls and a few books on a side table. The latter were chiefly poor
+novels in English, left by former guests as not worth taking home, but
+among them was a thoroughly French paper-bound copy of Alphonse Karr's
+Voyage autour de mon Jardin. Falling into an easy chair, the
+schoolmaster surrendered himself to the charming style and subtle humour
+of this new found treasure.
+
+The lawyer went straight to Mr. Bigglethorpe's store, and found himself,
+at the time, its sole customer. The proprietor was an Englishman of some
+five and thirty years, tall and thin, wearing a long full beard and
+overhanging moustache. He sold fishing tackle and was himself a
+fisherman, the latter being the reason why he had come to the Beaver
+River and set up store. It occupied him when fishing was poor, and
+helped to check the consumption of his capital. Before he married, he
+locked the door, when the fishing was good, and put the key in his
+pocket, but now Mrs. Bigglethorpe minded the shop in his absence. Having
+supplied Coristine with hooks and lines, and recommended him what kind
+of a rod to cut out of the bush for ordinary still fishing, he offered
+to lend him one of his own fly rods, and opened his fly book for his
+inspection. Soon the pair were deep in all kinds of artificial flies and
+their manufacture, Black and Red and White Hackles, Peacock Fly,
+Mackerel, Green Grasshopper, Black Ant, Governor, Partridge, and a host
+more. The lawyer declined the rod, as the storekeeper informed him that,
+so late in the season and in the day, it was utterly useless to look for
+trout. He had better get old Batiste at the Inn to dig him up some
+earthworms, and go fishing with them like the boys. He would find a
+canoe moored near the bridge which he could use. Who it belonged to Mr.
+Bigglethorpe didn't know, but it was of no consequence, for everybody
+took it that wanted it for a morning or afternoon. If Mr. Coristine
+heard of any new kind of fly, perhaps he'd be good enough to remember
+him and let him know, something killing for autumn use, or, as people
+say here, for fall fishing. Mr. Coristine promised to remember him, and
+departed with his purchases, just as a voice, feminine but decided,
+called to Mr. Bigglethorpe by name to come and hold the baby, while its
+owner dished the dinner. "Talk about Hackles," said the lawyer to
+himself on the way Inn-wards, "I imagine he has somebody in there that
+can hackle him, long beard and all."
+
+The dinner bell at the Maple was ringing vigorously. Monsieur Lajeunesse
+had taken off his coat to ring it, and stood in the doorway in a flaming
+red waistcoat, the companion of his tuque, over a spotlessly white
+shirt, to let all who dwelt on the Beaver River know that the hour of
+noon had arrived. The dinner, over which Madame presided, was excellent.
+With the soup and the fish there was white wine, and good sound beer
+with the entrees and solids. The schoolmaster spoke French to the
+hostess, chiefly about the book he had been reading, and the lawyer
+discussed fishing with Pierre, who constantly referred to his great
+authority, Meestare Bulky. Madame, charmed that her guest could converse
+with her in her mother tongue, generously filled his glasses, and
+provided his plates with the most seductive morsels. Monsieur
+Veelkeenson was the white-haired boy at that table, and he felt it,
+yielded to the full satisfaction of it. He had dined royally, and was
+fit for anything. When his friend asked him if he would go fishing, he
+replied jauntily, and in a way quite unlike himself: "Why, suttenly,
+which would you rather do or go fishin'?"
+
+"O Wilks," cried the lawyer, "you're a patent pressed brick! I feel like
+old Isaac Walton's Coridon, that said, d'ye mind, 'Come, hostess, give
+us more ale, and let's drink to him,' which is natural, seeing I'm
+called Corry."
+
+The companions had a glass of ale after dinner, which was quite
+indefensible, for they had had a sufficiency at that bounteous repast.
+Evidently, the dominie was in for a good time. A wizened old fellow,
+named Batiste, with a permanent crick in his back, dug the worms, and
+presented them to the lawyer in an empty lobster tin, the outside of
+which was covered with texts of Scripture. "It seems almost profane,"
+remarked the recipient, "to carry worms inside so much Bible language."
+But the merry schoolmaster remarked that it was turn about, for he had
+heard a Scotch preacher, who seemed to know the whole Bible by heart,
+say in prayer, on behalf of himself and his people, "we are all poor
+wurrums of the airth." "Probably, however," he continued, "he would have
+objected to be treated as a worm."
+
+"They say even a worm will turn, which, if your parson was a large man,
+might be serious enough," replied the lawyer. "I remember, when I was a
+small boy, thinking that the Kings of Israel kept large men for crushing
+their enemies, because they used to say, 'Go and fall upon him, and he
+fell upon him and he died.' That might be the way with the human wurrum.
+It's not always safe to trust these humble men."
+
+"Corry, you're a profane man; your treatment of sacred things is
+scandalously irreverent," said the dominie.
+
+"Who began it?" retorted the victim.
+
+"You did, sir, with your textual lobster can," replied the reprover.
+
+"The ancient Hebrews, in the height of their pride and glory, knew not
+the luxury of lobster salad," Coristine remarked, gravely, as if
+reciting a piece.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because, if I offer a prize of a Trip to the Dark Continent to the
+first person buying a copy of our published travels, who finds the word
+lobster in the Bible, I shall never have occasion to purchase the
+ticket."
+
+As they moved in the direction of the river, Pierre came after them and
+asked:--
+
+"You make your feeshing off ze bord or in ze vatars!"
+
+"I prefer the board," replied Coristine, "if it's as good of its kind as
+that you gave us at dinner."
+
+"Keep quiet, you do not understand him," interposed the schoolmaster;
+"he means the shore, the bank of the river by the bord. N'est ce pas,
+Monsieur?"
+
+"Oui, oui, M'syae, le bord, le rivauge de la riviere."
+
+"Non, Monsieur Pierre, nous allons prendre le bateau," answered
+Wilkinson, with a dignity that his companion envied.
+
+The red-nightcapped host called Baptiste.
+
+"Vau t-en donc, Bawtiste, depeche twa, trouve deux petits bouts de
+plaunche pour le canot."
+
+Batiste soon returned with two boards.
+
+"Canot 'ave no seat, you placea zem over two ends for seet down," said
+Pierre, relapsing into English.
+
+Wilkinson assumed the responsibility of the boards and the fishermen
+proceeded to the river bank near the bridge to find the canoe. It was
+long, and, for a dug-out, fairly wide, but ancient and black, and moist
+at the bottom, owing to an insufficiently caulked crack. Its paddles had
+seen much service, and presented but little breadth of blade.
+
+"I should like to place these boards," said Wilkinson, as he surveyed
+first them and then the dug-out; "I should like to place these boards,
+one across the bow and the other across the stern, but I really cannot
+decide which is the bow and which is the stern."
+
+"She's a sort of a fore and after, Wilks, like the slip-ferry
+steamboats. I think, if you could find a bit of chalk or charcoal, and
+write bow on one plank and stern on the other, it would make her
+ship-shape and settle the business."
+
+"I have no sympathy, Corry, with makeshifts and factitious devices. I
+wish to arrive at the true inwardness of this boat. At what end of a
+boat is the anchor let down?"
+
+"In the _Susan Thomas_ it was pretty near the bow, and I think I've seen
+yachts riding at anchor that way in Toronto harbour."
+
+"In the time of St. Paul, however, there were four anchors, if I
+remember aright, cast out of the stern."
+
+"I don't see how the anchor is going to help us. This long Tom Coffin
+has nothing of the kind."
+
+"You are sadly deficient in observation, Corry, or you would have
+observed a rope, very much abraded indeed, but still a rope, by which
+the vessel may be said, even though figuratively, to be anchored to this
+stake."
+
+"It's you're the clever man, Wilks; education has done wonders for you.
+Now, I remember that rope is the painter; that's what The Crew called it
+on the dingy, and of course it was fastened to the bow."
+
+"But to the stern of the larger vessel."
+
+"Yes, but here there is no larger vessel. If you want one, for argument
+sake, you'll have to imagine the post to be it. The coffin is bow on to
+the shore."
+
+"Corry, I insist, if I am to trust myself to this craft, that you call
+it by some other name."
+
+"Were you ever in anything of the kind before, Wilks?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Nor I." These simple words had in them a depth of meaning.
+
+A young man came on to the bridge and leaned over the rail, looking at
+the fishermen. He was respectably clad in a farmer's holiday suit, was
+tall, strongly built, and with good features that bore unmistakable
+marks of dissipation. "I'll bet you that's Ben Toner," whispered the
+lawyer, who was examining the new-found bow prior to depositing his
+boards.
+
+"Goin' fishin'?" asked the new comer, in a not unpleasant voice.
+
+"Yes," replied Coristine; "we're going in this--what do you call it?"
+
+"Dug-out, and mighty poor at that. Fishin's no good here now. River was
+a pardise for Trontah folks wunst, but it's clean fished out. I seen
+fellers go to a ho-ul up thayer," said the supposed Ben, pointing in the
+opposite direction, "and take out a hull barl-ful afore sundown. 'Taint
+to be did, not now, wuss luck! Wait to I come down, and I'll haylp you
+off with that kinew."
+
+The speaker descended, untied the frayed painter, and hauled the
+dug-out to a point where, the bank being higher, embarkation was more
+easy. He dissuaded the navigators from sitting on the boards placed over
+the gunwales, as likely to be, what he called, parlous, and recommended
+that the boards be placed on the floor of the craft to keep the water
+off their "paants." The fishermen consented, and sat down safely at each
+end facing one another, with his assistance to hold the dug-out steady,
+the dominie in the bow and the lawyer in the stern. They thanked their
+ally, bade him good afternoon, and proceeded to paddle. Ben Toner
+laughed, and cried to Coristine: "I'll lay two to one on you, Mister,
+for you've got the curnt to haylp you." The dugout, in spite of the
+schoolmaster's fierce paddling, was moving corkscrew-like in the
+opposite direction, owing largely to the current, but partly to the
+superior height of the lawyer, which gave his paddle a longer sweep.
+Still, he found progress slow, till a happy thought struck him.
+
+"Wilks, my boy, it's paddling our own canoe we are, but too much that
+way. We're a house divided against itself, Wilks. Either you must turn
+round or I must, and, if I do, then you'll be the stern and I the bow."
+
+"I thought there was something wrong, Corry, but the excitement incident
+on a new sensation absorbed my attention. Of course, I shall move, as it
+would be very confusing, not to say ridiculous, to invert the relative
+positions of the boat."
+
+"Then, Wilks dear, wait till I paddle her near the bank, for fear of
+accidents."
+
+When the bank was reached, the dominie landed, picked up his board and
+placed it farther back, then sat down gingerly, with his legs spread out
+before him, and began paddling on the same side as his companion, which
+zigzagged the frail craft more than ever, and finally brought it to the
+shore. Ben Toner, who had been laughing at the city innocents, ran down
+to a point opposite the dug-out, and told them to paddle on opposite
+sides, giving directions how to steer with one of the emaciated
+propellers. After that, the course of the vessel was a source of
+continual self-commendatory remark by the voyageurs.
+
+After a while, they came to a wooden bridge, built upon piles resting in
+the stream. "This," said the schoolmaster, "is the _Pons sublicius_,
+like that which Ancus Martius built over the Tiber. Shall we shoot it,
+Corry, or shall we call a halt and proceed to fish?"
+
+The dug-out bumped on the piles, and the navigators trembled, but
+Wilkinson, bravely gathering his legs under him and rising to his knees
+on the board, threw his arms round a pile, when, in spite of Coristine's
+efforts, the craft slewed round and the stern got under the bridge ahead
+of the bow.
+
+"Hold on, Wilks," the lawyer cried; "another bump like that and the old
+thing'll split in two. Now, then, we'll drop the paddles and slip her
+along the bridge to the bank. There's a hole under that birch tree
+there, and some fine young birches that will do for rods back of it.
+Doesn't the birch make you feel like England, home and duty, Wilks?"
+
+"The quotation, sir, is incorrect, as usual; it is England, home and
+beauty."
+
+"Well, that's a beauty of a birch, anyway."
+
+They got ashore, and fastened the painter to a sapling on the bank,
+because it was not long enough to go round a pile. Then they produced
+their knives, and, proceeding to the place where the young birches grew,
+cut down two famous rods, to which they attached lines with white and
+green floats and small hooks with gut attachments. The lobster can was
+produced, and wriggling worms fixed on the hooks. "A worm at one end and
+a fool at the other," said the lawyer. "Speak for yourself, sir,"
+replied the dominie. The next thing was to get into the canoe, which was
+safely effected. Then, the question arose, how was she to be moored in
+the current? Wilkinson suggested a stake driven into the bottom for the
+deep-sea mooring, and an attachment to the exposed root of the lovely
+overhanging birch for that to landward. So Coristine sprang ashore, cut
+a heavier birch, and trimmed one end to a point. Bringing this on board,
+he handed it to his companion, and, paddling up stream, brought him
+opposite the overarching tree. The dominie drove the stake deep into the
+river mud and pressed it down. The stake was all that could be desired
+for a deep-sea mooring, and to it the painter was attached.
+
+"What are you going to do about your end of the vessel, Corry?" he
+asked.
+
+"That's all right," replied the lawyer, who, forthwith, took off coat
+and waistcoat.
+
+"You are not going to undress, I hope," remarked his friend; "there is a
+bare possibility that people, even ladies, might be walking this way,
+sir, and I do not wish to be disgraced."
+
+"Never fear, Wilks, my boy, it's my braces I am after." With this,
+Coristine took off these articles, and, fastening a button hole over a
+rusty nail in the stern, tied the other end about a root of the birch.
+The dug-out was securely fastened, so that the current only rocked it a
+little, causing the lawyer to sing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep."
+Then they sat down on their boards and began fishing.
+
+They had a very pleasant hour hooking shiners and chub, and an
+occasional perch that looked at a distance like a trout. The dominie,
+_apropos_ of his friend's braces, told Alphonse Karr's story of the
+_bretellier_ in the Jardin des Plantes, and the credulous sceptic who
+did not believe that a suspender tree existed. He knew that cotton grew
+on a shrub, and that caoutchouc exuded from a tree, and admitted the
+possibility of their natural combination, but thought his deceivers had
+reference to braces with metal attachments.
+
+"That reminds me," said the lawyer, "of a man from Lanark that came into
+our office asking where he'd find a mining geologist. He had some
+grey-looking cork and leather wrapped up in a newspaper, and said he had
+dug them out of the ground where there was lots more of both of them. I
+told him he had likely come on the remains of an old picnic, and that
+the leather was the skin of the ham they had taken out to make
+sandwiches of; but the impudent creature laughed in my face, as if any
+child doesn't know that leather is the skin of beasts, and cork, of a
+tree!"
+
+"Nevertheless, Corry, he was no doubt right, and you were wrong in your
+scepticism. What are called mountain cork and mountain leather are forms
+of asbestos. They are of no use, unless it be for the lining of safes.
+The fibrous asbestos can be made into fire-proof clothes."
+
+"So, old Leather Corks had the laugh on me there! Dad, I'll apologize
+for sending him to the marines next time he comes in. What a thing it
+is to have the larnin' like you, Wilks!"
+
+"A mere mineralogical trifle, my dear Corry, nothing more."
+
+"Wilks, do you mind the 'Fisher's Song,' composed by the late Mr.
+William Bass, that's in the 'Complete Angler'? I don't suppose it would
+scare the fish much. It goes to the tune of 'The Pope, he leads a happy
+life,' like this:--
+
+     Of recreation there is none
+     So free as fishing is alone;
+     All other pastimes do no less
+     Than mind and body both possess;
+       My hand alone my work can do,
+       So I can fish and study too.
+
+     I care not, I, to fish in seas--
+     Fresh rivers best my mind do please,
+     Whose sweet calm course I contemplate,
+     And seek in life to imitate:
+       In civil bounds I fain would keep,
+       And for my past offences weep.
+
+     And when the timorous trout I wait
+     To take, and he devours my bait.
+     How poor a thing, sometimes I find,
+     Will captivate a greedy mind;
+       And when none bite, I praise the wise,
+       Whom vain allurements ne'er surprise.
+
+     But yet, though while I fish I fast,
+     I make good fortune my repast;
+     And thereunto my friend invite,
+     In whom I more than that delight:
+       Who is more welcome to my dish
+       Than to my angle was my fish."
+
+"Well done, Corry--a very good song and very well sung,
+
+     Jolly companions every one.
+
+Why will these wretched rhymsters couple such words as sung and one? It
+is like near and tears in the American war-song, 'The Old Camp-Ground.'
+Some people are like these fish; they have no ear at all. A practical
+joker, like you, Corry, once corrected a young lady who was singing:--
+
+     Golden years ago,
+     In a mill beside the sea,
+     There dwelt a little maiden,
+     Who plighted her troth to me.
+
+He suggested Floss for sea, because of George Eliot's Mill on the
+Floss, and, you would hardly believe it, did I not vouch for its truth,
+she actually rhymed Floss and me. It was excruciating."
+
+"I can beat that, Wilks. I was out in the country on business, and
+stopped at our client's house, a farmer he was. The man that led the
+music in his church, an old Yank, who drawled out his words in singing,
+like sweeowtest for sweetest, was teaching the farmer's daughter to play
+the organ. He offered to sing for my benefit, in an informal way, one of
+my national melodies; and he did. It was 'The harp that once through
+Tara's halls,' and--O Wilks--he sang it to a tune called Ortonville, an
+awful whining, jog-trot, Methodistical thing with a repeat. My client
+asked me privately what I thought of it, and I told him that, if Mr.
+Sprague had said he was going to sing it in an infernal way, he would
+have been nearer the truth."
+
+"Your language is strong, my friend. The late Mr. William Basse, as you
+designate him, would not have condescended to the use of such terms."
+
+"Faith, the language isn't made that's too bad for Ortonville. You've
+got a big one this time, Wilks, my boy--play him!"
+
+The dominie succeeded in bringing in his fish, a big fellow, between a
+pound and a-half and two pounds in weight, on which he gazed with
+delight, as the lawyer unhooked it, and deposited it, with a smart rap
+on the head, at the bottom of the canoe.
+
+"Is that a trout, Corry?" the Dominie asked with eager pride.
+
+"No; it's not a brook or speckled trout, for it has no speckles, and
+it's not a relative of the late William Basse, for it isn't deep enough
+in the body, nor a perch, for it's too big and has no stripes. It's
+either a salmon trout or a pickerel, Wilks."
+
+"Is there not some fable about the latter fish?"
+
+"Yes; old Isaac says that it's produced from the pickerel weed, the
+Pontederia, that should be coming into flower about now. I haven't seen
+any yet. There's another, for me this time--ugh, it's only a perch."
+
+The schoolmaster, emboldened by success, declared that he was too
+cramped, and, gathering his legs together, while he held on to the
+sides of the dug-out, succeeded in grasping the top of the deep-sea
+mooring. Then, with the other hand, he raised the board, and transferred
+it to the gunwale. Sitting upon the improvised seat with his back to the
+bow, he expressed satisfaction at facing his companion, for one thing,
+and at being out of the way of the fish in the canoe, for another.
+Coristine followed suit, and, when his plank was in position, said he
+felt something like old Woodruff in a small way.
+
+"How is that?" asked the inquisitive dominie.
+
+"He's a director in ever so many institutions, and is always out,
+sitting on boards. I have only one so far; as Shakespeare says, it's a
+poor one, but mine own."
+
+"Tut, tut," replied his disgusted friend; "more desecration."
+
+Nevertheless he smiled, as a thought came into his mind, and he remarked
+that the vessel was rather a small concern to have two boards of
+direction; to which the lawyer answered that it was no worse off in that
+respect than the Province of Quebec, or the Church, or the universities,
+which could not trust one governing body to do their work.
+
+"I have another, a large fish," shouted the schoolmaster, wildly excited
+and rising to his feet. The fish pulled hard up stream till the whole
+extent of line and rod combined was out at arm's length. Eager to secure
+the prey, and thinking nothing of the precarious foundation on which he
+stood, he placed a foot upon the gunwale in order to reach still farther
+out.
+
+"Look out, Wilks!" cried Coristine, as he also rose and grasped an
+overhanging branch of the birch; but it was too late. The dug-out
+tipped, the boards slid into the water, and with them went the dominie,
+rod, fish, and all. When the canoe recovered its equilibrium, Wilkinson,
+minus his wide awake, which was floating down the stream, was seen
+apparently climbing the deep-sea mooring post, like a bear on a pole,
+his clothes dripping where they were out of the water, his hair
+plastered over his eyes, and his face flushed with anger. The lawyer
+could not restrain his mirth, although he knew the vengeance it would
+excite in the dominie's breast.
+
+"O Wilks, Wilks, my poor drowned rat of a friend, ha! ha! ha! O Moses!
+but it's too comical you are; the nuns couldn't help it, Wilks, no, nor
+the undertaker's drum-major, nor a hired butler, even. Howld on, just
+one second more, till I'm fit to steady this divil of a dug-out for you
+to get in. If I only had a kodak, Wilks, you would be immortal, and the
+expenses of our trip would be paid. Oh, garrahow, ha! ha!"
+
+The dominie climbed on to the bow of the dug-out, while Coristine
+balanced it, and made his silent way to the shore end, from which he
+gained the bank. There he shook himself like a Newfoundland dog, and
+brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. He muttered a great deal, but said
+nothing loud enough to be intelligible; his tone, however, was far from
+reassuring to his companion. The lawyer unmoored the dug-out at both
+ends, and set forth to recover the missing articles. He found the hat
+and the two boards on the shore, a short way down the river, and, in the
+middle of the stream, recaptured the fishing-rod. To his great delight,
+the fish was still on the hook, and he imparted the joyful news to his
+shivering friend, but got no single word in reply. It was another salmon
+trout, or pickerel, or some such fish, and he deposited it gleefully in
+the bottom of the canoe with the others, which had not escaped in the
+tip-over. Returning, he handed Wilkinson his hat, and hoped he was none
+the worse of his ducking. The schoolmaster took the wide-awake, but gave
+no answer. Then the lawyer invited him to take his place in the boat,
+when the storm burst.
+
+"Am I a fool, Mr. Coristine, an abject, unthinking, infatuated fool, to
+entrust my comfort, my safety, my life, to a man without the soul of a
+man, to a childish, feeble-minded, giggling and guffawing player of
+senseless, practical jokes, to a creature utterly wanting in heart,
+selfish and brutal to a degree?"
+
+"Oh, Wilks, my dear boy, this is too bad. I had nothing in the mortal
+world to do with your tumbling out of the old dug-out, 'pon my honour I
+hadn't."
+
+"Kindly keep your silence, sir, and do not outrage my sufficiently
+harrowed feelings by adding worse to bad. I shall go to the inn on
+_terra firma_, and leave you in charge of what you seem so able to
+manage in your own clownish, pantomimic way. Be good enough to bring my
+fish, and do not distinguish yourself by upsetting them into their
+native element." With these words, and in great apparent scorn, the
+draggled dominie took his course along the bank and soon disappeared
+from view. The lawyer followed in the canoe, but more slowly, as the
+current was against him, and often turned the boat round. By dint of
+strenuous efforts he gained the bridge, and found the supposed Ben
+leaning over it.
+
+"I see you've drownded your man," he remarked with a laugh.
+
+"Yes," replied Coristine; "we had a spill."
+
+"Had any luck?"
+
+"Pretty fair," the lawyer answered, exhibiting his treasures.
+
+"Perch, and chub, and shiners, and them good-for-nawthun tag ends of all
+creation, suckers."
+
+"Is that what they are?" asked the disappointed fisherman, holding up
+the spoil of Wilkinson's rod.
+
+"That's jest what they are, flabby, bony, white-livered, or'nary
+suckers. Niggers and Injuns won't touch 'em, ony in the spring; they'd
+liefer eat mudcats."
+
+The lawyer tied his dug-out to the stake, while Ben, who informed him
+that his name was Toner, got a willow twig with a crotch at the thick
+end, and strung his fish on it through the gills.
+
+"I guess you'd better fire them suckers into the drink," he said, but
+Coristine interposed to save them from such a fate.
+
+"They are my friend's catch," he said, "and I'll let him do what he
+likes with them."
+
+Then, attended by Mr. Toner, carrying the string of fish, suckers
+included, he bent his steps towards the Maple Inn.
+
+When they arrived, they found Madame standing in the doorway. She
+admired the fish, and complimented Coristine on his success. He,
+however, disclaimed most of them in favour of his friend, for whose
+health and whereabouts he enquired with much earnestness.
+
+"Ze pauvre Meestare Veelkeensen retires himselfa in ze chomber to
+shongje his vet habillement vit datta o' Pierre. I 'opes he catcha no
+cold."
+
+"Better mix him a hot drink, Madame," said Mr. Toner.
+
+"I 'ave fear, Ben, you lofe too moch hot dreenks," replied Madame.
+
+"That's jest where you're out, Missus; I take my little tods cold."
+
+"Hot or cold, you take nossing in our salon."
+
+"Naw, not so long as I can get better stuff, real white wheat that ain't
+seen the water barl."
+
+The lawyer noticed this unguarded saying of Toner's, but this did not
+hinder his asking if Madame had hot water, and could mix some real Irish
+punch for his afflicted friend. Madame had no Irish, but she had some
+good Scotcha veesky, which Coristine said would do, only, instead of
+Irish punch, the mixture would be Scotch toddy. The toddy procured, he
+sprang up-stairs, two steps at a time, meeting Monsieur Lajeunesse,
+descending with an armful of wet clothes. Bursting into the room to
+which the dominie had been led, he found him on a chair drying himself
+by detachments. Already his upper man had been rubbed by Pierre, and
+clothed with a shirt, vest and velveteen coat from his wardrobe. Now he
+was polishing his nether extremities with a towel, preparatory to adding
+a pair of gaudy striped trousers to his borrowed gear. Striding up to
+him with a ferocious air, the lawyer presented the smoking glass,
+exclaiming: "Drink this down, Wilks, or I'll kill you where you sit."
+
+"What is it?" feebly asked the schoolmaster, feeling the weakness of his
+kilted position.
+
+"It's toddy, whiskey toddy, Scotch whiskey toddy, the only thing that'll
+save your life," cried Coristine, with firmness amounting to
+intimidation. The dominie sipped the glass, stirred it with the spoon,
+and gradually finished the mixture. Then, laying the tumbler on the
+table beside his watch and pocketbook, he finished his rubbing-down, and
+encased his legs in Pierre's Sunday trousers. As he turned up the
+latter, and pulled on a pair of his own socks, he remarked to his friend
+that he felt better already, and was much obliged to him for the toddy.
+
+"Don't mention it, my boy, I'm so glad it's done you good."
+
+"I fear, Corry, that I was hasty and unjust to you when I came out of
+the water."
+
+"Oh well, Wilks darlin', let us say no more about it, or, like the late
+Mr. William Basse, I'll for my past offences weep. I don't know what it
+is exactly you're like now. If you had the faytures, you would do for
+one of the Peoplesh. You and the grinstun man could hunt in couples.
+With a billy cock-hat on the side of your head, you'd make a sporting
+gent. Are you feeling pretty well, Wilks, as far as the clothes will let
+you?"
+
+"Yes; I am all right again, I think."
+
+"Then I must damp the ardour of ingenuous youth,
+
+     And dash the cup of joy to earth
+     Ere it be running o'er.
+
+Wilks, prepare yourself for a blow."
+
+"Quick, Corry, make no delay--has the colonel fallen from his horse? Has
+his niece accepted Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"No; my dear friend, but those big fish, one of which you risked your
+precious life after, are--suckers. Ben Toner wanted to fire them into
+the drink, but I restrained his sucker-cidal hand. You seem to bear the
+news with resignation."
+
+The lawyer accompanied his resuscitated friend down stairs. The
+velveteen waistcoat exhibited an ample shirt-front, and had pockets with
+flaps like the coat. The dominie's own blue and yellow silk handkerchief
+was tied in a sailor's knot round a rakish collar, that compromised
+between a turn-down and a stand-up; and his nether garments began with
+the dark and light blue broad-striped trousers and ended in a large pair
+of felt slippers, admirable footgear, no doubt, for seasons of extreme
+cold. Thus attired, Wilkinson occupied the sitting-room, and returned to
+the study of Alphonse Karr. Mr. Toner had left the string of fish by the
+door, where it was quite safe. There seemed to be no boys, no dogs, no
+cats, about the quiet Beaver River. Once in a long while, a solitary
+figure might be perceived going to or returning from the store. The only
+possible thief of the fish would have been a stray mink or otter
+prospecting for a new home, unless, indeed, Madame's fowls had escaped
+from the poultry yard. Coristine brought the string to his disguised
+companion, just as the hostess arrived to enquire after his health and
+renew the French conversation. Having replied politely to her questions,
+the schoolmaster expressed his regret that the fish were so poor and
+especially that he had been deceived in the "suceurs." Madame did not
+comprehend, and said "Plait il?" whereupon he called his friend near and
+pointed out the offending fish. "Aw oui, M'syae, ce sont des mulets de
+l'eau douce, un petit peu trop tawrd dons la saison, autrement un
+morceau friaund." Then she proceeded to say that the smaller fish could
+be cooked for supper, "comme les eperlans de law baw," pointing with her
+finger eastward, to designate, by the latter words, the Gulf of St.
+Lawrence. She would boil the mullets, if Monsieur did not object, and
+give them to the fowls; did Monsieur take an interest in fowls?
+Generously the dominie handed over all the fish, through Coristine, for
+Madame to do what she liked with, and expressed an interest in various
+descriptions of poultry, the names of which he was entirely ignorant of.
+The interview over, he returned to his book, and the lawyer went to look
+for his civil acquaintance, Mr. Toner. Him he found on the bridge, and
+in a somewhat sulky humour, apparently by no means pleased at being
+sought out. Not wishing to intrude, Coristine made an excuse for his
+appearance in the bits of board, which he professed to have forgotten to
+take out of the dug-out. "That sort of lumber don't count for much in
+these parts," remarked Ben, suspiciously, and his intending companion
+retired, feeling that, though a limb of the law, he was a miserable
+sham.
+
+While in the chamber which witnessed the dominie's transformation, the
+lawyer had perceived that its window commanded the bridge and the
+adjoining parts of the river. Leaving his friend in the enjoyment of his
+book, he ascended to the room, and watched like a detective. Soon he saw
+a waggon roll up to the bridge, and, almost simultaneously, a large punt
+in which was Ben Toner, come from nowhere. Three bundles of apparent
+grindstones were laboriously conveyed from the waggon to the punt, after
+which the waggon went back and the punt went forward, both becoming lost
+to sight in the foliage of road and river. Once more the bell of the
+Maple Inn sounded loudly, to inform the general public that the hour of
+six had arrived, and to summon guests to the early supper. Descending to
+the sitting-room, the amateur detective found his friend there, and
+escorted him, with much unnecessary formality, to the tea table. The
+fish were there, betrayed, even afar off, by their not unpleasant odour,
+and there also was an attractive looking ham, flanked by plates of hot
+cakes and other evidences of culinary skill on Madame's part. She poured
+out a good cup of tea for the table quartette, while Pierre aided in
+distributing the solids. The conversation turned on fish, and, as
+before, the dominie spoke French to the hostess, while M. Lajeunesse
+made the lawyer acquainted with some piscatorial exploits of Mr. Bulky.
+Mr. Bulky had once been upset from the canoe, but, unlike Mr. Wilkinson,
+he could not swim. The case might have been a very serious one,
+destructive to the reputation of L'Erable ("zatta ees maybole in ze
+Fraynsh langwitch," the host explained) and of city visits to the Beaver
+River.
+
+"How was he saved?" enquired the lawyer.
+
+"He vas save by potting 'is foot to ze bottom," replied the host.
+
+"I've heard of a man putting a stone on his head and walking through a
+river under water, but haven't believed it yet," continued Coristine.
+
+"He had not necessity of a stone; 'is head was op; ze rivare vas not so
+'igh zan ze jouldares of Meestare Bulky," answered Pierre quite
+seriously.
+
+"Then he saved himself?"
+
+"No, sare, 'is foot save 'im; Meestare Bulky 'ave a veray 'eavy foot.
+Eef 'is foot hadda been also leetle as ze foot of M'syae, Meestare Bulky
+vould 'ave drown."
+
+Madame's sharp ears overheard this conversation while carrying on that
+with Wilkinson, and broke in upon her erring spouse:--
+
+"Teh twa, Pierre! c'n'est paw trop poli d'se moquer des pieds d'un bon
+pawtron."
+
+"Mez, Angelique, mwa, me moquer, mwa? et de M'syae Bulky? Aw, ma bonne
+Angelique, fi donc!" and M. Lajeunesse withdrew from the table,
+overwhelmed with the mere suspicion of such foul treachery and base
+ingratitude.
+
+Batiste had put out three wooden arm chairs, and a rocker for Madame, on
+the verandah, whither the party of the tea table retired. Coristine
+asked her permission to smoke, when it appeared that Pierre had been
+waiting for a sign that either of his guests indulged in the weed. As
+he also filled his pipe, he remarked to his fellow smoker that "Meestare
+Bulky vare good shentleman, and rest 'ere longatimes, bot ze perfume of
+ze 'bonne pipe,' same of ze cigawr makea 'im seek."
+
+"Does that interfere with your liberty to smoke?" Wilkinson asked.
+
+"Aw, preciselly; zen most I go to ze stebble and tekka ze younga guestes
+zat smoke not in chombres _bouchees_, vat you call zat?"
+
+"Literally, it means corked," replied the dominie; "but I presume you
+mean, with door and window closed, as it were, hermetically sealed."
+
+"Preciselly; ve 'ave ze vord in ze Fraynsh langwitch, _eremitique_, zat
+ees as a religious oo leeves all alone, vis person zere bot 'imselluf. I
+tekka ze guestes zat lofe not ze eremitique life to ze stebble, vare ve
+smale ze stingy tawbawc of Bawtiste. M'syae parle Francea, meh peutehtre
+ne conneh le tawbawc puant, en Anglah _stingy_, de Bawtiste. C'n'est
+paws awgreable, M'syae. Aw, non, paw de tout, je vous asshere!"
+
+"That is very considerate of you," remarked the schoolmaster,
+approvingly. "I wish all users of the narcotic were as mindful of the
+comfort and health of their neighbours. Regard for the feelings of
+others is perhaps the chief distinguishing mark of a gentleman."
+
+"Meestare Bulky ees a shentleman, bot he 'ave no sharitay for smokinga
+men," replied Pierre, ruefully.
+
+"That's where the shoe pinches, not your feet, Wilks," said the lawyer,
+with a laugh. "You could touch bottom, like Mr. Bulky, with these
+gunboats, but on all your privileged classes. Why should Bulky bulk so
+large in any place of entertainment as to send everybody else to a
+stable? Catch me smoking with that old garlic-perfumed Batiste! How
+about the garlic, and peppermint, and musk, and sauer-kraut, and all the
+other smells. Any smells about Mr. Bulky, Pierre?"
+
+"Aw yehs; 'ees feeshing goat smale, aw, eet smale an' smale of som stoff
+he call ass-afeetiter, ze feesh liike ze smale, bot I am not a feesh."
+
+"See that now, Wilks. This selfish pig of a Bulky, as Monsieur says, has
+no charity. He drives clean, wholesome smoke out of the hotel, and
+stinks the place up with as nasty a chemical mixture as disgusting
+science ever invented. He reminds me of a Toronto professor of anatomy
+who wouldn't allow the poor squeamish medicals to smoke in the
+dissecting room, because, he said, one bad smell was better than two. If
+I had my way with Bulky I'd smoke him blue in the face, if for nothing
+but to drown his abominable assafoetida, the pig!"
+
+"Aw, non, M'syae," interrupted Pierre, to protect the idol of the Maple
+Inn; "Meestare Bulky ees not a peeg, but assafeetiter is vorse zan a
+peeg-stye. N'est ce paw, Angelique?"
+
+"I 'ave no vord to say of M'syae Bulky," replied Madame, taking up her
+mending and entering the house. She was at once recalled to the verandah
+by a juvenile voice that called "Mrs. Latchness!" The speaker soon
+appeared in the person of a small boy, about twelve years old, who,
+hatless, coatless, and shoeless, ran up from the river bank. "Vat you
+vant vis me, Tommee?" asked Madame. "I come from Widder Toner's--Ben's
+dyin', she says, and can't move a stir. She wants to know if they's
+anybody here as knows anything about doctorin', and, she says, hurry
+awful quick!" cried the breathless youngster.
+
+"I 'ear you spick of medical, M'syae Coristine; do you know it? Can you
+'elp ze pauvre vidow?" asked Madam.
+
+"It's mighty little I know, Madame, but I'll go. Wait till I get my
+flask," said the lawyer, going after his knapsack in the sitting room.
+Returning, he handed it to the hostess with the request that she would
+fill it with the best, and add any remedy she had in the house. Soon she
+came out of the railed-off bar with a filled flask and a bottle of St.
+Jacob's Oil. Pocketing them both, the lawyer said, "Come on, Tommy,"
+and, with his guide, set out for Widow Toner's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+     Ben's Sudden Sickness--The Spurious Priest--Coristine as
+     Doctor--Saved by the Detective--Anxiety at the Maple--A Pleasant
+     Evening--Sunday Morning and Ben--The Lawyer Rides--Nash and the
+     Dominie Talk Theology on the Road--At the Talfourds--Miss Du
+     Plessis the Real--The False Meets Mr. Rawdon--Mr. Terry and
+     Wilkinson at the Kirk.
+
+
+"What is the matter with Ben?" asked Coristine, as they single-filed
+along the narrow path by the river.
+
+"He's tumbled down over some grindstones, and hurt himself, and fainted
+right away," replied the youthful Tommy, pulling up handfuls of tall
+grass and breaking an occasional twig from a bush as he stumbled along.
+
+"What are you to the Toners?"
+
+"I ain't nuthun' to the Toners."
+
+"How did you come to be their messenger, then?"
+
+"I was runnin' to the farm to tell the widder that the priest was
+comin', when she come out cryin' and sent me off. Guess the priest's
+there by now."
+
+"What priest is it you saw?"
+
+"I didn't see no priest. Old Mum Sullivan, she saw him, and sent and
+told mother to tell widder Toner, 'cos she's a Roman, too. She said it
+was a new priest, not Father McNaughton, the old one, and she guessed he
+was all right, but she didn't like his looks as well as t'other's."
+
+"Then you are not a Roman."
+
+"Naw, what are you givin' us? I play a fife on the Twelfth."
+
+"Oh, you are an Orangeman?"
+
+"Yum, Young Briton, same thing."
+
+"So, you Orangemen run to help the Roman Catholics when they are sick or
+want to know if the priest is coming, and then, on the Twelfth, you feel
+like cutting each other's throats."
+
+"I don't want to cut nobody's throat, but we've got to sass 'em on the
+Twelfth to keep up the glorious, pious and immortal memory, and to
+whistle 'em down 'The Protestant Boys.' We've got three fifes and three
+drums in our lodge."
+
+After more of this edifying conversation, the pair arrived at a clearing
+on the river, containing a house and some out buildings, not far from
+its bank. These communicated by a private road with the public one,
+which crossed the stream about an eighth of a mile farther on. Turning
+the corner of the barn, Coristine saw a gray-haired woman, and a clean
+shaven man in clerical garb, leaning over the prostrate figure of Ben.
+
+"Are you a doctor, sir?" asked the tearful woman, rising and coming
+towards him.
+
+"Not exactly, Ma'am," replied the lawyer; "but perhaps I may be of use."
+
+He then leaned over the sick man, and saw that he not only breathed, but
+had his eyes open upon the world in quite a sensible way. "What is the
+matter?" he asked the reverend gentleman, who was also contemplating the
+recumbent Toner.
+
+"He says his back is sore, paralyzed, and that he can't move a limb,"
+replied the priest in an unprofessional tone.
+
+"How did it happen, Mr. Toner?" enquired the lawyer; and Ben, in a
+feebly and husky voice, replied:--
+
+"I was rollin' quite a loaud on the slaant, when I got ketched with a
+back sprain, and the loaud slipped and knocked me down, and rolled over
+my stummick. That's all."
+
+"Quite enough for one time," said Coristine; "is there such a thing as a
+loose door, or some boards we can make into a stretcher, anywhere
+about?" Ben called to his mother to show the doctor where the door was
+that he was going to put on the hen-yard. This was soon found, and, a
+blanket or two being laid upon it, the clergyman and the improvised
+doctor transferred the groaning patient to it, and so carried him into
+the house, where they undressed him and put him to bed on his face.
+"Say, doctor, I'll choke like this," came from the bed in the sick man's
+muffled voice, to the lawyer, who was ordering the widow to get some hot
+water and provide herself with towels or cotton cloths. "No you won't,
+Toner; turn your head to one side," he called. "That's better," remarked
+the patient, as he took advantage of the permission, and then
+continued: "I'd like ef you'd call me Ben, doctor, not Toner; seems as
+ef I'd git better sooner that way." Coristine answered, "All right,
+Ben," and withdrew to a corner with the priest for consultation. "What's
+the matter?" asked the priest, in a businesslike, unsympathetic tone.
+
+"So, you give me back my question. Well, as the water will be some time
+getting ready, and it will do our man no harm to feel serious for a few
+minutes more, I'll go into it with your reverence homeopathically. The
+root of his trouble is a whiskey back. That accidentally led to a
+muscular strain, involving something a little more paralyzing than
+lumbago. He has no bones broken in that strong frame of his, but the
+grindstones have bruised him abdominally. I hope my treatment for the
+root of the disease will be more successful than that of the oriental
+physician, who prescribed for a man that had a pain in his stomach,
+caused by eating burnt bread. The physician anointed him with eye salve,
+because he said the root of the disease lay in his eyes; had they been
+all right, he would not have eaten the burnt bread, and consequently
+would not have had the pains."
+
+The priest chuckled beneath his breath over the story; then, with
+earnestness, asked, or rather whispered: "Will he get well soon?"
+
+"Well enough, I think, to sit up in half-an-hour," replied the doctor of
+the moment.
+
+"My dear sir, may I ask you to delay your treatment until I perform a
+religious office with your patient? This is a favourable time for making
+an impression," said the hitherto callous priest.
+
+"Certainly, Father, only be short, for he is suffering physically, and
+worse from apprehension."
+
+"I shall require all persons, but the one to whom I give the comforts of
+religion, to leave the room," called the priest aloud.
+
+"It isn't the unction, Father?" cried Ben, piteously.
+
+"Oh, doctor, the boy's not going to die?" besought the mother, at the
+boiler on the stove.
+
+"I can answer for his reverence and myself," replied the lawyer; "he
+will not administer the last rites of the Church to the living, nor will
+I let my patient die."
+
+Then he and the widow retired, as the priest took out a book, knelt by
+the bedside, and opened it. The reverend gentleman, however, was in too
+great a hurry to begin, and too little sensible how far his penetrating
+voice would carry, for, at the first words of the prayer, Coristine made
+an indignant start and frowned terribly. The words he heard were,
+"Oratio pro sickibus, in articulo mortis, repentant shouldere omnes
+transgressores et confessionem makere----"
+
+He felt inclined to rush in and turn the impudent impostor and profaner
+of the sacred office out of the house neck and crop, especially as the
+poor mother took him by the arm, and, with broken voice through her
+tears, said: "O, doctor, doctor, it's the last words he's taking!" But
+his legal training acted as a check on his impetuosity, and, standing
+where he was, he answered the grief-stricken woman: "Never fear, Mrs.
+Toner, you and I will pull him through," which greatly comforted the
+widow's heart.
+
+Five minutes passed by Coristine's watch, and then he determined to
+stand the nonsense no longer. He coughed, stamped his feet, and finally
+walked in at the door, followed by the widow. The pseudo priest was
+sitting on a chair now, listening to the penitent's confidences. "Time
+is up," said the lawyer fiercely, and the impostor arose, resumed his
+three-cornered black wideawake, pocketed his book, which really was a
+large pocket book full of notes in pencil, and expressed his regret at
+leaving, as he had another family, a very sad case, to visit that night.
+As he passed Coristine, the latter refused his proffered hand and hissed
+in his ear: "You are the most damnable scoundrel I ever met, and I'll
+serve you out for this with the penitentiary." The masquerader grinned
+unclerically, his back being to the other occupants of the house, and
+whispered back, "Not much you won't, no nor the halfpenny tentiary
+either; bye-bye!"
+
+"How are you feeling, Ben?" the lawyer asked the sick man, as he
+approached his bedside.
+
+"Powerful weak and so-er," replied the patient.
+
+Coristine called the mother, poured some St. Jacob's Oil into the palm
+of her hand, and bade her rub down her son's back at the small. "Rub
+hard!" he said; and she rubbed it in. Three or four more doses followed,
+till the back was a fine healthy colour.
+
+"How does that work, Ben?"
+
+"It smarts some, but I can wriggle my back a bit."
+
+Then the doctor poured some whiskey out of his flask in the same way and
+it was applied.
+
+"Do you think you can turn round now?" he asked; and, at once, the
+patient revolved, lying in a more convenient and seemly position.
+
+"Bring the hot clothes, Mrs. Toner, and lay them on the bruised part, as
+hot as he can stand it. The patient growled a little when the clothes
+were abdominally applied, one after the other, but they warmed him up,
+and even, as he said, 'haylped his back.'"
+
+"Now, Ben, when did you take whiskey last?"
+
+"I ain't had nary a drop the hull of this blessed day."
+
+"Is that true?"
+
+"Gawspel truth, doctor, so haylp me."
+
+"If you don't promise me to quit drinking, I can do nothing for you."
+
+"But he will promise, doctor; won't you now, Benny dear?" eagerly asked
+the mother.
+
+"Yaas!" groaned the sufferer, with a new hot cloth on him; "yaas; I
+guess I'll have to."
+
+Then, the perfidious doctor emptied his flask into a glass, and poured
+in enough oil to disguise its taste. Adding a little water, he gave the
+dose as medicine to the unconscious victim, who took it off manfully,
+and naturally felt almost himself again.
+
+"Have you plenty coal-oil in the house, Mrs. Toner?" enquired the family
+physician; and the widow replied that she had. "Rub the afflicted parts
+with it, till they will absorb no more; then let him sleep till morning,
+when he can get up and go about light work. But, mind, there's to be no
+lifting of heavy weights for three days, and no whiskey at all."
+
+With these words, Coristine received the woman's warm expressions of
+gratitude, and departed.
+
+Tommy had gone, so the lawyer had to go back to the Inn alone, and in
+the dark. He turned the barn, before which one bundle of grindstones
+still lay, the one, apparently, that had floored Ben. Then he made his
+way along a path bordered with dewy grass, that did not seem quite
+familiar, so that he rejoiced when he arrived at the road and the
+bridge. But, both road and bridge were new to him, and there was no
+Maple Inn. He now saw that he had taken the wrong turning at the barn,
+and was preparing to retrace his steps, when a sound of approaching
+wheels and loud voices arrested him. On came the waggons, three in
+number, the horses urged to their utmost by drunken drivers, in whom he
+recognized the men that he and Wilkinson had met before they took the
+road to the Inn. Coristine was standing on the road close by the bridge
+as they drove up, but, as the man with the first team aimed a blow at
+him with his whip, he drew back towards the fence. "Shoot the d----d
+spy, boys," the ruffian cried to the fellows behind him, and, as they
+slacked their speed, the lawyer jumped the fence to put some solid
+obstacle between himself and their revolvers, which, he knew, they were
+only too ready to use. At that moment a horseman rode towards the party
+from the other side of the bridge, and, while aiming a blow with a stout
+stick at the first scoundrel, a blow that was effectual, called to the
+others, in a voice of authority, to put up their pistols "O Lord, boys,
+it's Nash; drive on," called one, and they whipped up their patient
+animals and rattled away in a desperate hurry. "You can come out now,
+Mr. Coristine," said the horseman; "the coast is clear."
+
+"You have the advantage of me, sir," remarked the lawyer, as he vaulted
+back again into the road.
+
+"No I have not," replied the other; "you called me a damnable scoundrel,
+and threatened me with the penitentiary, a little while ago. How's
+Toner?"
+
+"I am obliged for your interference just now on my behalf, but must
+decline any intercourse with one who has been guilty of what I regard as
+most dishonourable conduct, profaning the sacred name of religion in
+order to compass some imfamous private end."
+
+"My ends, Mr. Coristine, are public, not private, nor are they infamous,
+but for the good of the community and the individuals composing it. I
+know your firm, Tylor, Woodruff and White, and your firm knows me,
+Internal Revenue Detective Nash."
+
+"What! are you the celebrated Mr. Nash of the Penetang Bush Raid?" asked
+the lawyer, curiosity, and admiration of the man's skill and courage,
+overcoming his aversion to the latest detective trick.
+
+"The same at your service, and, as the best thing I can do for you is
+to take you to your Inn, a dry way out of the dew, you can get on my
+beast, and I'll walk for a rest," replied the detective, alighting.
+
+Coristine was tired, so, after a little pressing, he accepted the mount,
+and, of course, found it impossible to refuse his confidence to the man
+whose horse he was riding.
+
+"What did you do with your clerical garb?" he asked.
+
+"Have it on," replied Nash; "it's a great make up. This coat of black
+cord has a lot of turned up and turned down tag ends, the same with the
+vest, and the soft hat can be knocked into any shape with a dift of the
+fist. With these, and three collars, and moustache, beard, and whiskers,
+that I carry in my pocket, I can assume half-a-dozen characters and
+more."
+
+"How do you justify your assumption of the priestly character?"
+
+"I want information, and assume any character to get it, in every case
+being guilty of deception. You think my last role unjustifiable because
+of the confessional. Had I simulated a Methodist parson, or a
+Presbyterian minister, or a Church of England divine, you would have
+thought much less of it; and yet, if there is any bad in the thing, the
+one is as bad as the other. Personally, I regard the confessional as a
+piece of superstitious ecclesiastical machinery, and am ready to utilize
+it, like any other superstition, for the purpose of obtaining
+information. Talk about personating the clergy; I have even been bold
+enough to appear as a lawyer, a quaker, a college professor, a sailor,
+and an actress."
+
+"You have certainly led me to modify my opinion of your last
+performance."
+
+"Which nearly gave me away. So you won't send me to the penitentiary;
+thanks! And now, as I said at first, how's Toner?"
+
+"Oh, Toner's all right, with the fieriest skin on him that ever lay
+between two sheets. He has promised to give up drinking."
+
+"It's very likely he'll have to."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"They don't allow refreshments so strong in gaol."
+
+"Be as easy as you can with the poor fellow, Mr. Nash."
+
+"All depends on his future behaviour, and, in some other capacity, I
+shall let him know his danger."
+
+As the two figures came down the road toward the Inn, a voice hailed
+them, the voice of the dominie. "Is Mr. Coristine there?" it shouted.
+
+"Yes; here am I," came from the back of the horse.
+
+"What bones are broken or wounds received?" was the pitiful but correct
+question.
+
+"Not a bone nor a wound. Mr. Nash has treated me to a ride."
+
+"Aw ca!" ejaculated Pierre, "M'syae Nasha homme treh subtil, treh ruse,
+conneh tout le monde, fait pear aux mauveh sujah."
+
+"What is he?" asked the schoolmaster, speaking English, in his
+eagerness; and the landlord replied in the same.
+
+"Ee is vat you call detecteur, police offisare vis no close on 'im.
+Anysing vas to go in ze custom house and goes not, he find it out. O, a
+veray clevaire mann!"
+
+Coristine dismounted for the purpose of introducing his companion.
+Personally, he would as readily have performed this office on horseback,
+but he knew that the schoolmaster was a stickler for ceremony. While the
+introduction was going on, Pierre took Mr. Nash's horse by the bridle,
+and led the procession home. There, Madame stood in the porch eagerly
+waiting for news of "ce jeune homme si courageux, si benveillont," and
+was delighted to hear that he was safe, and that Mr. Nash, an old
+acquaintance, was with him. When the party entered the house, Wilkinson
+looked at the detective, and then, with a start, said: "Why, you are
+Dowling, the Dowling who came to the Sacheverell Street School, with a
+peremptory letter from the trustees, to take the lower division boys,
+and disappeared in ten days."
+
+"The same, Mr. Wilkinson; I knew you as soon as I heard your voice."
+
+"You disarranged our work pretty well for us, Mr. Dow--Nash. What were
+you after there, if it is a fair question?"
+
+"I was after the confidence of some innocent youngsters, who could give
+me pointers on grindstones and their relation to the family income. As I
+know you both, and our friends of the hotel are not listening, I may say
+that I am so interested in this problem as to have made up my mind to go
+into grindstones myself."
+
+These remarks led to an animated triangular conversation over the
+Grinstun man, in which the two pedestrians gave the detective all the
+information they possessed regarding that personage. They urged that an
+immediate effort should be made to hinder his acquiring the hand and
+property of Miss Du Plessis, and, thereafter, that united action should
+be taken to break up his injurious commerce. Mr. Nash prepared to
+accompany them on their walk to church in Flanders, and asked the lawyer
+if he had any objection to ride his horse part of the way, with a bundle
+behind him, if he, the detective, would carry his knapsack. Coristine
+consented, on condition that his new friend would also lend him his
+riding gaiters. Madame produced the wherewithal to spend a social
+half-hour before retiring, and, in answer to the detective, said: "Ze
+sack ees in ze commode in ze chombre of M'syae." Mr. Nash laughed, and
+over his glass and clay pipe, confided to his fellow-conspirators that
+he had a few little properties in that bag, and was much afraid that
+some of them would compel him to desecrate the Sabbath. "You are used to
+my religious performances, Mr Coristine; I hope your friend, and my old
+principal, Mr. Wilkinson, will not be as hard on me as you were."
+
+Then the dominie was informed of the events of the evening, and the
+parties separated for the night.
+
+Sunday morning dawned clear and cloudless, giving promise of a glorious
+day. Everybody in the inn was up before six o'clock; for at seven it was
+the intention of the three guests to take the road for a place of
+worship in Flanders. Ben Toner was waiting on the verandah for the
+appearance of Coristine; and, when that gentleman came out to taste the
+morning air, greeted him with clumsy effusion, endeavouring, at the same
+time, to press a two-dollar bill upon his acceptance. The lawyer
+declined the money, saying that he had no license to practise, and
+would, consequently, be liable to a heavy fine should he receive
+remuneration for his services. He enquired after Ben's health, and was
+pleased to learn that, while his heroic remedies had left the patient
+"as rayd as a biled lobister," externally, he was otherwise all right,
+except for a little stiffness. Mr. Nash came down-stairs, dressed in a
+well-fitting suit of tweed, and sporting a moustache and full beard that
+had grown up as rapidly as Jonah's gourd. Going up to the man whom he
+had confessed the night before, he asked him: "Do you know me again,
+Toner?" to which Ben replied: "You bet your life I do; you're the curous
+coon as come smellin' round my place with a sayrch warnt two weeks ago
+Friday." Satisfied that his identity in Ben's eye was safe, the
+detective led him away on to the bridge, and engaged in earnest
+conversation with him, which made Mr. Toner start, and wriggle, and back
+down, and impart information confirmatory of that extorted the night
+before, and give large promises for the future. The two returned to the
+verandah, and, before the lawyer went in to breakfast, his patient bade
+him an affectionate farewell, adding, "s'haylp me, Mr. Corstine, ef I
+don't be true to my word to you and the old woman about that blamed
+liquor. What I had I turned out o' doors this mornin', fust thing, and I
+shaant take in no more. That there bailiff's done me a good turn, and I
+won't ferget him, nor you nuther, Doctor, ef so be it's in my power to
+haylp you any." Coristine took his leave of the simple-hearted fellow,
+and went to join the company at the breakfast table. Mr. Nash was there,
+but, for convenience of eating and not to astonish the host and hostess,
+he had placed his beard and moustache in his pocket. It was handy,
+however, and could be replaced at a moment's warning.
+
+Batiste brought round the detective's horse, and the lawyer, in borrowed
+riding gaiters, bestrode him, hooking on to the back of the saddle a
+bundle somewhat larger than a cavalry man's rolled-up cloak. The bundle
+contained Mr. Nash's selected properties. That gentleman allowed Madame
+to fasten the straps of Coristine's knapsack on his shoulders, while
+Pierre did the same for Wilkinson. The dominie had paid the bill the
+night before, as he objected to commercial transactions on Sunday, so
+there was nothing to do but to say good bye, bestow a trifle on Batiste
+and take to the road. The detective, after they had done half a mile's
+pleasant walking, took command of the expedition, and ordered The
+Cavalry, as Coristine called himself, to trot forward and make a
+reconnoisance. His instructions were to get to the Carruthers' house in
+advance of the pedestrians, to find out exactly who were there, and to
+return with speed and report at headquarters, which would be somewhere
+on the road. Saluting his friend and his superior officer, the lawyer
+trotted off, his steed as well pleased as himself to travel more
+speedily through the balmy atmosphere of the morning. The dominie and
+his quondam assistant were thus left to pursue their journey in company.
+
+"Do you enjoy Wordsworth, Mr. Nash?" asked Wilkinson.
+
+"Oh yes," replied the detective, "the poet, you mean, We are seven, and
+the primrose by the river's brim. Queer old file in the stamp business
+he must have been. Wish I could make $2,500 a year like him, doing next
+to nothing."
+
+"There is a passage that seems to my mind appropriate. It is:--
+
+     Us humbler ceremonies now await;
+     But in the bosom with devout respect,
+     The banner of our joy we will erect,
+     And strength of love our souls shall elevate;
+     For, to a few collected in His name.
+     The heavenly Father will incline His ear.
+     Hallowing Himself the service which they frame.
+     Awake! the majesty of God revere!
+       Go--and with foreheads meekly bow'd,
+       Present your prayer: go--and rejoice aloud--
+     The Holy One will hear!"
+
+"You should have been a parson, Mr. Wilkinson; you do that well. I'd
+like to take lessons from you; it would help me tremendously in my
+profession. But I find it mighty hard to do the solemn. That time in
+your school was almost too much for me, and your friend twigged my
+make-up last night."
+
+"I find it hard," said the schoolmaster, "not to be solemn in such
+scenery as this on such a morning. All nature seems to worship, giving
+forth in scent and song its tribute of adoration to the Creator, to
+whose habitation made with hands we are on our way as worshippers."
+
+"'Fraid I shan't do much worshipping, church or no church. You see, Mr.
+Wilkinson, my business is a very absorbing one. I'll be looking for
+notes, and spotting my men, and working up my clues all the time the
+parson's bumming away."
+
+"Ah, you have read Tennyson's 'Northern Farmer'?"
+
+"Never heard tell of it; but I've got my eyes on some northern farmers,
+and they'll have my attention soon."
+
+"Your expression, 'bumming away,' occurs in it, so I thought you had
+found it there. It is rather a severe way in which to characterize the
+modern preacher, who, take him on the whole, deserves credit for what I
+regard as a difficult task, the presentation of some fresh subject of
+religious thought every Sunday all the year round."
+
+"My mind works too fast for most of them. I can see where the conclusion
+is before they have half got started. There's no fun in that, you know."
+
+"Do you not sometimes meet with clergymen that interest you?"
+
+"Now and then. The learned bloke who cuts his text into three, and
+expounds them in detail, I can't stand; nor the wooden logical machine
+that makes a proposition and proceeds to prove it; nor the unctuous
+fellow that rambles about, and says, 'dear friends,' and makes you wish
+he had studied his sermon. But, now and then, I fall in with a man who
+won't let me do any private thinking till he's done. You hear his text
+and his introduction, and wonder, how the dickens he is going to
+reconcile the two. He carries you on and on and on, till he does it in a
+grand whirl at the end, that lifts you up and away with it, like the
+culminating arguments of the counsel for the prosecution, or the
+peeler's joyful run in of a long-sought gaol-bird. I like that sort of a
+parson; the rest are jackdaws."
+
+"Perhaps they suit the average mind?"
+
+"If they did, we ought to have graded churches as well as graded
+schools. But they don't, except, in this way, that people have got
+accustomed to the bumming. The preachers I like would keep up the
+interest of a child. There was one I heard on the text, 'I form the
+light and create darkness.' His introduction was, 'God is light and in
+Him is no darkness at all.' He jerked us up into the light and banged
+us down into the darkness, almost laughing one minute and crying the
+next. Then he went to hunt up his man, and found him in the devil and
+the devil's own, all fallen creations of God. Any schoolboy could follow
+that sermon and take its lessons home with him. There was a logical
+bloke, at least he thought himself logical, who took for his text
+Joseph's coat of many colours, a sort of plaid kilt I should think; and
+said, 'I shall now proceed to prove that this was a sacerdotal or
+priestly garment. First, it occupies a prominent position in the
+narrative; second, it excited the enmity of Joseph's brethren; and
+third, they dipped it in blood when they sold their younger brother.' I
+could have proved it as logically to be Stuart tartan, and, at the same
+time, the original of the song 'Not for Joe,' because he lost it before
+he became steward to Pharaoh. Bah! that's what makes people sick of
+going to church. I've pretty nigh quit it."
+
+The pedestrians trudged on for a time silently, the detective,
+doubtless, revolving schemes in his brain, the dominie inwardly sighing
+over his companion's captious criticism, to which he could not well
+reply, and over the absence of his legal friend, whose warm Irish heart
+would have responded sympathetically to the inspiration of the Sabbath
+morning walk. At last, Mr. Nash resumed the conversation, saying:--
+
+"I'm afraid, Mr. Wilkinson, that you think me a pretty hard-hearted,
+worldly man, and, perhaps, that my calling makes me so."
+
+"I have no right to judge you, Mr. Nash," answered the schoolmaster;
+"but I should think that the work of hunting down law-breakers would
+have the effect of deadening one's sensibilities."
+
+"It shouldn't, any more than the work of a clergyman, a doctor, a
+teacher, or a lawyer. We all, if we are honest, want to benefit society
+by correcting evils. I see a lot of the dark side of human nature, but a
+little of the bright too, for, thank Heaven, there is no man so bad as
+not to have some little good in him. There's that Toner, once a fine
+young fellow; I hate to see him going to the dogs, wasting his property,
+breaking his old mother's heart. I'd rather save that man any day than
+gaol him."
+
+"Give me your hand, sir," said the dominie, heartily, transferring his
+staff to his left, and offering the right; "I honour you for the saying,
+and wish there were more officers of the law like you."
+
+"Oh, as for that matter," replied the detective, "I and my colleagues
+have tried to save many a young fellow, but then--"
+
+"What is the obstacle?"
+
+"The obstacle is that there are men who simply won't be saved."
+
+"Oh, I suppose that is true theologically as well as legally."
+
+"Of course; if the law don't want to have a lot of criminals to hunt out
+and shut up and punish, it stands to reason that the Source of all law
+doesn't. But, for the good of society and the world, these criminals
+have to be separated from them, and their bad work stopped. To say that
+the law hates them, and takes vengeance on them like a Corsican, is
+utterly to misunderstand the nature of law. Yet, that is what
+nine-tenths of the parsons teach."
+
+"That is very unfortunate."
+
+"Unfortunate? it's diabolical. If I were to go into a good man's house,
+and present his children with a hideous caricature of their father, so
+as to terrify some and drive others clean away from him, wouldn't I
+deserve to be kicked out? I should think so! Now, I say every good thing
+in man must be found a million times better in man's Maker. If the
+foundation principle of human law is benevolence to society, the
+foundation principle of divine law must be something higher and better,
+not revenge. But you know these things better than I do."
+
+"Not at all; I could not express myself better. What you have found out
+is stated by Dr. Whewell, the famous Master of Trinity, in the Platonic
+form, that every good thing in man and in the world has its archetype in
+the Divine Mind. Every bad thing, such as revenge and anger, has no such
+archetype, but is a falling away, a deflection, from the good."
+
+"How do you explain the imputation of bad things to God, such as hate,
+revenge, terrorism, disease, death, beasts of prey, and all the rest?"
+
+"In two ways; first, as a heathen survival in Christianity, borrowed
+partly from pagan national religions, partly from the misunderstood
+phraseology of the Old Testament; and, second, as the necessary result
+of a well-meant attempt to escape from Persian and Manichaean dualism."
+
+"But there is a dualism in law, in morals, in nature, and in human
+nature, everywhere in this world; there's no getting over it."
+
+"Of course there is, but the difference between the dualism of fact and
+that of the Persian system is, that the evil is not equal, but inferior
+and subordinate, to the good."
+
+"It gets the upper hand pretty often, as far as this world is
+concerned."
+
+"And why? Just for the same reason that bad governments and corrupt
+parties often get the upper hand, namely, by the vote of the majority,
+through which the minority has to suffer. Talk about vicarious
+suffering! Every good man suffers vicariously."
+
+"These are deep things, Mr. Wilkinson, too deep for the average parson,
+who doesn't trouble himself much with facts unless he find them
+confirmed by his antiquated articles."
+
+"Yet my attention has been drawn to them by thoughtful clergymen of
+different denominations."
+
+"Well, I don't think I'll trouble the clergymen to-day, thoughtful or
+not thoughtful. I've had my sermon in the open air, a sort of walking
+camp meeting. What did they call these fellows who studied on the move?"
+
+"Peripatetics."
+
+"That's it; we're a peripatetic church."
+
+"But, without praise or prayer or scripture lessons, which are more
+important than the sermon."
+
+"Oh, you can do the praise and prayer part in a quiet way, as a piece of
+poetry says that I learnt when I was a boy. It ends something like
+this:--
+
+     So we lift our trusting eyes
+     To the hills our fathers trod,
+     To the quiet of the skies,
+     And the Sabbath of our God.
+
+That's pretty, now! Hallo! here's the doctor!"
+
+Coristine came up at the gallop, and reported that all the people he
+expected to find at the Carruthers' were there, Grinstun man, Mrs.
+Carmichael, and Marjorie, included, all except Miss Du Plessis, who was
+staying at a house three miles this side of the farm, helping to nurse a
+sick neighbour.
+
+"Has Rawdon seen her?" asked the detective. The lawyer did not know, but
+suggested that they could find out by calling at the house of Mrs.
+Talfourd, the sick woman, on the way.
+
+"How far are we from it?" enquired Mr. Nash.
+
+"About a mile or a mile and a-half," replied Coristine.
+
+"Then, Mr. Wilkinson, let us stir our stumps a bit. Can you sing or
+whistle? There's nothing like a good tune to help a quick march."
+
+"Yes; sing up, Wilks," cried The Cavalry; and the dominie started
+"Onward, Christian Soldiers," in which the others joined, the detective
+in a soft falsetto, indistinguishable from a half-cultivated woman's
+voice. He was combining business with pleasure, dissimulation with
+outward praise.
+
+"Pretty good that for a blooming young lady of five foot ten," remarked
+Mr. Nash, at the end of the hymn.
+
+"Blooming young ladies with a tonsure," replied Coristine, gazing on the
+detective's momentarily uncovered head, "are open to suspicion."
+
+"Wait till you see my hair." chuckled the ex-priest.
+
+The mile and a-half was soon covered, and the trio stood before a roomy
+farm-house. A boy, not unlike Tommy, but better dressed, was swinging on
+the gate, and him the detective asked if he could see Miss Du Plessis on
+important business. The boy ran into the house to enquire, and came back
+to the gate, accompanied by the lady in question. She changed colour as
+her eye took in The Cavalry, immovable as a life guardsman on sentry.
+The detective handed her his professional card, and explained that he
+and his two friends had been entrusted with the duty of protecting her
+property and herself. "You need have no doubts, Miss Du Plessis, for the
+Squire, as a J.P., knows me perfectly," he continued.
+
+"I have no fear, Mr. Nash," answered the lady, in a pleasant voice, with
+just a suspicion of a foreign accent; "your name is known to me, and you
+are in good company."
+
+Wilkinson, standing by his friend's stirrup, heard this last statement,
+and blushed, while The Cavalry thought he had heard a voice like that
+before.
+
+"Has Mr. Rawdon seen you, or have you seen him?" asked the detective.
+
+"Neither; but the two Marjories have been here, and have told me about
+him. They do not seem to admire Mr. Rawdon."
+
+"The darlins!" ejaculated the lawyer; whereupon Wilkinson pinched his
+leg, and made him cry "Owch!"
+
+The rest of the conversation between the plotters at the gate was
+inaudible. At its conclusion, the lady's face was beaming with
+amusement.
+
+"Give me that bundle for Miss Du Plessis," said Nash to Coristine, who
+lifted his hat to her, and handed the parcel over.
+
+"Now, for instructions," continued the commander-in-chief. "The Cavalry
+will go to Bridesdale, that's Squire Carruthers' place, and keep Mr.
+Rawdon from going to church, or bring him back if he has started, which
+isn't likely. This branch of the Service will also make sure that all
+children are out of the way somewhere, and inform older people, who may
+be about, that Miss Du Plessis is coming to the house during church
+time, and is very much altered by night-watching and sick-nursing, so
+that they need not express astonishment before Mr. Rawdon. Fasten these
+knapsacks about you somehow, Horse-Doctor; put the beast up where he'll
+get a drink and a feed; and go to church like a good Christian. The
+Infantry will halt for the present, and afterwards act as Miss Du
+Plessis' escort. Infantry, attention! Cavalry, form threes, trot!"
+
+Coristine took the knapsacks, made another bow, and trotted away, while
+the dominie walked up to the gate, and was introduced to the fair
+conspirator.
+
+After showing the detective and his bundle into an unoccupied apartment,
+Miss Du Plessis returned to the sitting-room where she left the dominie.
+In the few minutes at their disposal, he informed his new acquaintance
+of his chance-meeting with her uncle, of whose arrival in Canada she was
+in complete ignorance. The imparting and receiving this news established
+such a bond between the two as the schoolmaster had hitherto thought
+impossible should exist between himself and one of the weaker sex. Yet,
+in her brief absence, he had taken pains to dust himself, and shake up
+his hair and whiskers. His companion was preparing to tell how she had
+heard of him from Miss Carmichael, when another young lady, almost her
+counterpart in general appearance, entered the room.
+
+"Now," said the newcomer, in a deep but feminine voice, "now the false
+Miss Du Plessis will go on with her nursing, while the real one takes
+Mr. Wilkinson's arm and keeps her appointment at the Squire's."
+
+Miss Du Plessis clapped her hands together and laughed heartily.
+Wilkinson, thinking, all the time, what a pretty, musical laugh it was,
+could not help joining in the amusement, for Nash was complete from his
+wig down to his boots. The colonel's niece threw a light, woolly shawl
+over the detective's shoulders, and accompanied the pair to the gate,
+where, before dismissing them, she warned her double not to compromise
+her to Mr. Rawdon.
+
+"I hope soon to have the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Wilkinson, under
+more favourable circumstances," she called after that gentleman, as they
+moved off, and then ran into the house to hide her laughter.
+
+The dominie felt his face getting red, with a pretty young lady hoping
+to meet him again, on the one hand, and a not by any means ill-looking
+personation of one hanging on to his arm, on the other. After a minute,
+the detective withdrew his hand from his companion's arm, but continued
+to practise his assumed voice upon him, in every imaginable enquiry as
+to what he knew of Miss Du Plessis, of her friend Miss Carmichael, and
+of the working geologist's intentions. He was thus pretty well primed,
+and all promised well, till, within a quarter of a mile of the house, a
+vision appeared that filled him and the disguised Nash, to whom he
+communicated his fears, with grave apprehensions as to the success of
+the plot. It was no less a person than the veteran, Mr. Michael Terry,
+out for a Sunday walk with the Grinston man. Their dread increased as
+the old man came running forward, crying: "An' it's comin' back yez are,
+my darlin' Mish Ceshile. It's a throifle pale yer lookin', an' no
+wonder." Saying this, Michael shook hands with Nash, and whispered:
+"Niver fare, sorr, Mishter Coristine towld me all about it."
+
+The made-up lady introduced her father's old servant to Wilkinson,
+whose apprehensions were dispelled in a similar way, so that all were
+prepared to give Mr. Rawdon the reception intended.
+
+"Ullo, hold Favosites Wilkinsonia," cried the working geologist,
+swaggering up with a cigar in his mouth, "'ow's yer bloomin' 'ealth?
+That hold bloke of a Hirish haint in a 'urry to do the hamiable between
+'is hold guvner's gal an' yours truly. My name, Miss, is Rawdon,
+Haltamont Rawdon, workin' geologist and minerologist, and, between you
+and me and the bedpost, a pretty warm man."
+
+"Yes; Mr. Rawdon," replied the pseudo Miss Du Plessis, "you look--well,
+not pretty--but warm."
+
+"O, dash it hall, that haint wot I meant, Miss Do Please-us; I mean hi'm
+a man that's got the dibs, the rhino, the blunt, you know, wot makes the
+mare go. I don't go geologizin' round for nothin'."
+
+"You pick up stones, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; grinstuns, limestun grit, that's the stuff to make you jolly."
+
+"I have heard of drawing blood out of a stone, Mr. Rawdon, but never of
+extracting merriment or exhilaration from a grindstone."
+
+"Then you don't know my grinstuns, Miss; they're full o' fun."
+
+"Are they indeed? How amusing! In what way does the fun display itself?"
+
+"A bundle of my grinstuns, distributed at a loggin' bee, a raisin' bee,
+or a campaign caucus, ware there's a lot of haxes to grind, can make
+more fun than the Scott Act'll spile in a month. But silence is silence
+'twixt partners, which I opes you and me is to be."
+
+The fictitious Miss Du Plessis, with much simpering and affectation,
+quite unworthy of the original, drew the working geologist out, and
+inspired him with hopes of securing her hand and property. Mr. Rawdon
+spoke very freely of the wealth he had in the hand and in the bush, of
+his readiness to make allowance for Madame Du Plessis, if that "haffable
+hold gent," her brother in law, was not prepared to provide for her.
+When they reached the house, they found that no one was at home but
+Tryphena, who was confined to the kitchen by culinary duties. They,
+therefore, occupied the parlour, the Grinstun man seeing no impropriety
+in being there alone with a young lady whom he had met for the first
+time. Indeed, he was much gratified to find that the lady was not at all
+stiff and offish, as he had feared, but as "haffable as her huncle and
+more." The lady laughed, and blushed at loud compliments, as loud as the
+check of Mr. Rawdon's clothes, and asked flattering questions, which he
+answered with a jolliky and recklessness that almost astonished himself.
+Was there no romance, no spice of daring in his occupation? she had
+asked, and he, remembering that he was talking to a soldier's daughter,
+who would, doubtless, appreciate courage, replied enigmatically that the
+grinstun business was about the riskiest business on earth, and required
+'eroism of no hordinary kind.
+
+While this conversation was going on, the dominie and the veteran were
+walking churchward, for, as the former had signified his intention of
+going to a place of worship, the old man insisted on accompanying him.
+
+"Oi was born a Catholic, sorr, and a Catholic Oi'll doie, though my
+darter is a Pratestant, and what's more, a Prosbytarian. She rades her
+Boible an' Oi rade moine, an' there's sorra a bit av differance betwane
+thim. If the church is good enough for her, it's good enough for the
+loikes av me."
+
+"That is what I call being a Catholic in the truest sense of the term.
+We will not deprive people of the kingdom of Heaven because they refuse
+to go our way."
+
+"Till me now, sorr, what's that that's pertindin' to be my dear young
+misthress, Miss Ceshile?"
+
+"An old soldier knows how to keep a secret, I am sure. It is the famous
+detective, Mr. Nash."
+
+"Sure I hope, by my sowl, that he'll make the crathur gnash his tayth.
+It was all I could do to kape my hands aff him, as we were walkin' along
+to mate yez. Him to make up to the cornel's darter, the misherable,
+insignifikint, bad shpokin, thavin' scrap av impidence!"
+
+The church bell had ceased ringing, the horses and waggons were in the
+driving shed without any attendant, and, as the pair approached, they
+could hear the sound of hearty singing coming through the open windows.
+They entered together, the old man crossing himself as he did so, and
+sat down in a pew near the door. The schoolmaster saw that the church
+was that of Mr. Errol, who occupied the pulpit. He looked round, but
+could not see his friend Coristine; nor was little Marjorie anywhere
+visible. They must have strolled on farther to Mr. Perrowne's
+consecrated edifice for the sake of the walk. Then, with reverent mind,
+the dominie joined in the simple worship of the Kirk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+     The Services--Nash Routs Rawdon--The Dinner Talk--The Pedestrians
+     with the Ladies--Singing out of One Hymn-book--Grinstuns Again--The
+     Female Vagrant and the Idiot Boy--Little Marjorie--Nash's
+     Thoughts--The Captain and the Plot--Arrival of Rufus and Ben--To
+     Arms!
+
+
+Mr. Errol's sermon was on the text, "Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an
+hard man." He elaborated the unfaithful servant's harsh opinion of God,
+and, before he sat down, completely exonerated the Father in Heaven from
+the blasphemous judgment of those who call themselves His children.
+There is a thief in the world who comes to steal and kill and destroy;
+he is not God, but the enemy of God's children. The dominie's heart
+warmed to the man who, though of a different communion, fulfilled St.
+Paul's ideal of a clergyman, in that he arrogated no dominion over the
+people's faith, but was a helper of their joy. The sermon lifted the
+schoolmaster up, and brought God very near; and the hearty hymns and
+reverent prayers helped him greatly. When the service was over, he
+waited, and soon Carruthers presented his comely, matronly wife, while
+Mrs. Carmichael recalled herself to his remembrance; and, finally, the
+minister, having divested himself of gown and bands in the vestry, came
+down the aisle with cheery step and voice to bid him welcome to
+Flanders. Wilkinson was happy--happier than he had been for many a long
+year. He seemed to have so many friends, and they were all so cordial,
+so glad to see him--not a hard man or woman among them; and, therefore,
+God could not be hard. He walked with the minister, who was going to
+dine at Bridesdale and then ride five miles to preach at another
+station. He thanked him for his sermon, and talked over it with him,
+and, of course, quoted "The Excursion":--
+
+                              If the heart
+     Could be inspected to its inmost folds,
+     By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,
+     Who shall be named--in the resplendent line
+     Of sages, martyrs, confessors--the man
+     Whom the best might of conscience, truth and hope,
+     For one day's little compass, has preserved
+     From painful and discreditable shocks
+     Of contradiction from some vague desire
+     Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse
+     To some unsanctioned fear.
+
+"That's just all the trouble, Mr. Wilkinson," said the delighted
+minister. "People think to honour and glorify God by being afraid of
+Him, forgetting that perfect love casts out the fear that hath torment,
+and he that feareth is not made perfect in love."
+
+With such conversation they beguiled the way till they stood at the gate
+of Bridesdale, and entered the hospitable mansion, there to be received
+by the odious Grinstun man.
+
+"What in aa' the warld, Marjorie, did Susan mean, sending us yon
+godless, low-lived chairact o' a Rawdon?" asked the Squire of his
+sister, Mrs. Carmichael.
+
+"I cannot understand it, John," she answered; "for her own Marjorie
+fairly detests the little man. Perhaps it is some business affair with
+the Captain."
+
+"Aweel, aweel, we maun keep the peace, sin' I'm a judge o't; but I do
+not like thee, Dr. Fell."
+
+Then they all entered the house together. Wilkinson found the spurious
+Miss Du Plessis gone.
+
+The dominie saw that the working geologist was boring Mrs. Carmichael,
+after her return to the drawing-room from laying aside her walking
+attire, and valorously interposed to save her. He enquired for her
+niece, Marjorie, and learned that that young lady had annexed Coristine
+as her lawful prey, and, introducing him to her grown-up cousin, had
+arranged the triangular journey to Mr. Perrowne's church. The service
+there was longer than in the kirk, so that half an hour would probably
+elapse before the two Anglican perverts appeared with their captive, the
+lawyer. Before the absentees made their appearance, a man--dressed in
+Mr. Nash's clothes, but with the beard and moustache recognized by Ben
+Toner as those of the bailiff--was ushered in and greeted by the Squire
+as Mr. Chisholm. The rest of the company seemed to know the transformed
+detective, including the Grinstun man, whom he rallied on his attentions
+to a young lady.
+
+"You're a nice man, Rawdon, when every decent person has gone to church,
+gallivanting with young ladies. I saw you at the Talfourds."
+
+"Don't care a 'ang if you did," replied Rawdon, "if Miss Do Pleas us
+takes a shine to a warm man, and gives you 'and-to-mouth beggars the
+go-by, that honly shows 'er common sense."
+
+"What has Miss Du Plessis got to do with it?"
+
+"She's got this to do with it, that she's promised to be my missus
+before the week's hout."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Wy, this mornin'; 'ere in this blessed room."
+
+"Oh, come, Rawdon, you are joking. Miss Du Plessis hasn't been out of
+Mrs. Talfourd's to-day."
+
+"Don't you try none of your larks hon me, Mr. Chisholm. You can't take a
+rise hout of this kid, hinnercent has he looks."
+
+"But, I tell you she has not. Who do you think that girl was you brought
+home Talfourd's place?"
+
+"Wy, Miss Do Please us, of course; 'oo else could it be?"
+
+Mr. Chisholm laughed loud and long, and at last ejaculated: "Miss Du
+Plessis! Oh, but you're a green hand, Rawdon, to take Martha Baggs for
+her; the daughter of old Baggs, in the revenue service. Hope you didn't
+give your friends away, Rawdon?"
+
+"You think you're pretty clever, Mr. Chisholm, comin' hover me with your
+Marther Baggses. Hold Hirish knows Miss Do Please-us, I should say, and
+wouldn't go takin' no Marther Baggs for 'er."
+
+"Mr. Rawdon," interposed the Squire, "I'll thank you to speak more
+respectfully of my father-in-law; as good a man, I judge, as yourself."
+
+"No hoffence, Squire; but I wish you'd hask the hold gent to come 'ere
+and shut up this 'ere bailiff's mouth with 'is Marther Baggs."
+
+Mr. Terry, who preferred the society of the kitchen to that of the
+parlour, was produced, and, on being asked if the lady with Mr. Rawdon
+was Miss Du Plessis, answered that his "sight was gettin' bad, an' the
+sinse av hairin' too, an' if it wor Miss Jewplesshy, she had changed her
+vice intoirely, an' got to be cruel rough an' common in her ways. Av
+coorse, it moight have been the young misthress; but Talfer's was nigh
+to han', an' it was aisy axin'."
+
+A horrible suspicion came over the Grinstun man, and paled his rubicund
+visage. He darted up to his room, and speedily re-appeared with knapsack
+on back and staff in hand, ready for the road. Mr. Carruthers pressed
+him to stay at least for dinner, but he was resolved to solve the
+mystery by a visit to the Talfourds, and said that, if Mr. Chisholm was
+right, he would not be back for a while. His retreating figure was
+watched with positive pleasure by most of the company, and with still
+greater satisfaction by the small party returning from the Anglican
+service.
+
+"What garred ye fricht Rawdon awa, Mr. Chisholm?" asked the Squire.
+
+"I wanted to eat my dinner comfortably," replied the detective, putting
+beard and moustache in his pocket, when all the company, except the
+dominie who knew, cried out, "it's Mr. Nash."
+
+"To think of you deceiving me," exclaimed Mr. Carruthers, "and me a
+justice of the peace. I've a thocht to bring you up for conspiracy."
+
+"There can be no conspiracy without at least two persons," answered the
+detective.
+
+"But, man, you are two persons, that I've known off and on as Chisholm
+and Nash."
+
+"When he was one of my masters," put in the dominie, "his name was
+Dowling."
+
+"And this morning," remarked the man of aliases, with a smile, "I was
+Miss Du Plessis or Martha Baggs, so Rawdon will have hard work to find
+the lady of his affections."
+
+At this juncture Coristine and his fair companions entered, and, while
+the young Marjorie renewed her acquaintance, Wilkinson was gravely
+introduced to one of his own teachers, to the no little amusement of the
+lady herself, of the lawyer, and of the company generally who were in
+the secret. Miss Carmichael explained that Mr. Perrowne had declined to
+come to dinner, but would look in later in the day when Cecile came
+home; whereat many smiled, and the dominie frowned heavily. Mrs.
+Carruthers now announced dinner, when the Squire took in his sister,
+Wilkinson, her daughter, Coristine, Marjorie, and Mr. Errol, the
+hostess. All the pairs agreed in congratulating themselves on the
+absence of the Grinstun man, and looked with approbation on Mr. Nash,
+who, all alone but cheerful, brought up the rear. There was no room at
+the table for the five youthful Carruthers, who rejoiced in the fact and
+held high carnival in the kitchen with Tryphena and Tryphosa and their
+maternal grandfather. Mr. Errol had said grace, and dinner was in
+progress, when the hall door was heard to open, and, immediately, on
+went the detective's facial disguise. But the lightness of the step that
+followed it reassured him, so that his smooth features once more
+appeared. Shortly afterwards Miss Du Plessis entered, apologizing for
+her lateness, and taking the vacant chair between the host and the
+dominie.
+
+"I was really frightened," she said to the former, "by a dreadful little
+man, with an Indian hat and a knapsack, who stopped and asked me if I
+was Miss Do Please-us. When I told him that my name was Du Plessis, he
+became much agitated, and cried 'Then I'm done, sold again and the money
+paid,' after which he used such very bad language that I actually ran
+away from him. I looked round, however, and saw him hurrying away
+towards the Talfourds'." Wilkinson looked very fierce and warlike, and
+attacked his food as if it were the obnoxious Rawdon.
+
+"Cecile," said Miss Carmichael across the indignant dominie, "I told a
+fib about you this morning, but quite innocently. I said you would not
+be home to dinner."
+
+"Neither I would, were it not that Mrs. Talfourd's sister came in after
+church, and offered to stay with her the rest of the day. Whom did you
+tell?"
+
+"Your devoted friend, Mr. Perrowne."
+
+Miss Du Plessis blushed a little, and the schoolmaster cut the clergyman
+up several times and stuck his fork into him savagely. Then he commenced
+a conversation with the Squire, into which the lady between them was
+almost necessarily drawn. Mr. Nash edified Mrs. Carmichael; her
+daughter conversed with the minister, to the latter's delight; while
+Coristine divided his attentions between the hostess and Marjorie.
+
+"What was Mr. Perrowne preaching on, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Carruthers.
+
+"Pillows on the ground," replied that young person.
+
+Her cousin laughed, and came to the rescue, saying: "It was the Church,
+the pillar and ground of the truth; Marjorie seems to associate all
+English Church services with bedtime."
+
+"There wasn't much bedtime about the service this morning," interposed
+the lawyer; "the parson rattled along in grand style, and gave Miss
+Carmichael, and all other broken reeds of dissenters, some piping hot
+Durham mustard. Did it sting, Miss Carmichael?"
+
+"Is that the effect mustard has on broken reeds, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"It is rather a mixing of metaphors, but you must make allowance for an
+Irishman."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers at once conversed with her countryman, or rather her
+father's countryman, on Ireland, its woes and prospects, during which
+Marjorie informed Mr. Errol that she had not known what made her
+cousin's cheeks so red when looking on Eugene's prayer-book. Now she
+knew; it was Durham mustard that stings. There must have been some in
+the book. The victim of these remarks looked severely at the culprit,
+but all in vain; she was not to be suppressed with a frown. She remarked
+that Saul had a hymn-book that made you sneeze, and she asked him why,
+and he said it was the snuff.
+
+"What did Eugene put mustard in his prayer-book for?"
+
+"Mr. Coristine didna say he put mustard in his bookie, Marjorie," said
+the minister; "he said that Mr. Perrowne put mustard in his sermon,
+because it was so fiery."
+
+"I don't like mustard sermons; I like stories."
+
+"Aye, we all like them, when they're good stories and well told, but
+it's no easy work getting good stories. That was the way our Saviour
+taught the people, and you couldna get a higher example."
+
+"Why have we hardly any of that kind of teaching now?" asked Miss
+Carmichael.
+
+"Because the preachers are afraid for one thing, and lazy, for another.
+They're afraid of the most ignorant folk in their congregation, who will
+be sure to charge them with childishness and a contempt for the
+intellect of their people. Then, it takes very wide and varied reading
+to discover suitable stories that will point a Scripture moral."
+
+"You seem to be on gude solid releegious groond doon there, meenister,"
+interrupted the master of the house; "but Miss Du Plessis and Mrs.
+Carmichael here are just corruptin' the minds o' Maister Wilkinson and
+Maister Nash wi' the maist un-Sawbath like havers I ever hard at an
+elder's table. We had better rise, gudewife!"
+
+Shortly after the company returned to the parlour, Mr. Errol signified
+that he must take his departure for the Lake Settlement, where his
+second congregation was. At this Mr. Nash pricked up his ears, and said
+he would saddle his horse and ride over with him. "Na, na!" cried the
+Squire, "he'll no ride the day; I'll just get the waggon oot, and drive
+ye baith there and back." Orders were given through Tryphosa, a comely,
+red-cheeked damsel, who appeared in a few minutes to say that Timotheus
+was at the gate. All went out to see the trio off, and there, sure
+enough, was Timotheus of Peskiwanchow holding the restive horses. It
+transpired that Carruthers, having lost his house servant through the
+latter's misconduct, had commissioned his sister to find him a
+substitute, and Marjorie's interest in Timotheus had resulted in his
+being chosen to fill the vacant situation. He grinned his pleased
+recognition of the two pedestrians, who bravely withstood all the
+temptations to get into the waggon and visit the Lake Settlement. When
+the waggon departed, Mrs. Carruthers went to her children, taking
+Marjorie with her, and Mrs. Carmichael went upstairs for a read of a
+religious paper and a nap. The young ladies and the tourists were the
+sole occupants of the sitting-room. The lawyer went over to Miss Du
+Plessis, and left his friend perforce to talk to Miss Carmichael.
+
+"I hear, Miss Du Plessis, that you own a farm and valuable mineral
+land," said Coristine.
+
+"Did Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff and White give you that information?" she
+asked in return.
+
+"No, indeed; do you know my firm?"
+
+"Very well, seeing I have been two years in Mr. Tylor's office."
+
+"Two years in Tylor's office, and me not know it?"
+
+"You do not seem to take much interest in feminine stenographers and
+typewriters."
+
+"No, I don't, that's a fact; but if I had known that it was you who were
+one, it would have been a different thing."
+
+"Now, Mr. Coristine, please make no compliments of doubtful sincerity."
+
+"I never was more sincere in my life. But you haven't answered me about
+the land."
+
+"Well, I will answer you; I have no farm or valuable minerals, but my
+father left me two hundred acres of water and wild land near what's
+called the Lake Settlement, which he bought when Honoria married Mr.
+Carruthers and took up her residence here."
+
+"Do you know if the taxes are paid on your land?"
+
+"No, I was not aware that wild land and water could be taxed."
+
+"Taxed is it? You don't know these municipalities. If you had a little
+island in your name, no bigger than this room, they'd tax you for it,
+and make you pay school rate, and do statute labour beside, though there
+wasn't a school or a road within ten miles of it. For downright jewing
+and most unjustifiable extortion on non-residents, commend me to a
+township council. You'll be sold out by the sheriff of the county, sure
+as eggs, and the Grinstun man'll buy your property for the arrears of
+taxes."
+
+"Whatever shall I do, Mr. Coristine?" asked the alarmed young lady; "I
+do not wish to lose my father's gift through negligence."
+
+"You should have taken advice from the junior member of Tylor, Woodruff
+and White," replied the lawyer, with a peculiar smile; "but the Grinstun
+man has bagged your estate."
+
+"Oh, do not say that, Mr Coristine. Tell me, what shall I do? And who is
+the man you mean?"
+
+"The man I mean is the one that met you when you came here to dinner. He
+is going to quarry in your farm for grindstones, and make his fortune.
+But, as he wants yourself into the bargain, I imagine he can't get the
+land without you, so that somebody must have paid the taxes."
+
+"Then it is the little wretch Marjorie told me of, the cruel creature
+who kicked a poor dog?"
+
+"The very same; he is the Grinstun man. I've got a poem on him I'll read
+you some day."
+
+"That will be delightful; I am very fond of good poetry."
+
+"Wilks says it isn't good poetry; but any man that grovels over
+Wordsworth, with a tear in the old man's eye, is a poor judge."
+
+"I admire Wordsworth, Mr. Coristine, and am afraid that you are not in
+earnest about poetry. To me it is like life, a very serious thing. But,
+tell me, do you think the land is safe?"
+
+"Oh yes; I wrote to one of the salaried juniors, giving him instructions
+to look after it, just as soon as I heard what Grinstuns had his eye
+on."
+
+"Mr. Coristine! How shall I ever thank you for your kindness, you, of
+all men, who profess to treat us workers for our living as positive
+nonentities?"
+
+"By forgetting the past, Miss Du Plessis, and allowing me the honour of
+your acquaintance in future. By the-bye, as you admire Wordsworth, and
+good poetry, and airnest, serious men, I'll just go and send Wilks to
+you. I have a word for Miss Carmichael. Is she constructed on the same
+poetic principles as yourself?"
+
+"Go away then, _farceur_! No; Marjorie is inclined to frivolity."
+
+With a wave of her fan, she dismissed the lawyer, who began to think
+lady stenographers and typewriters a class worthy of platonic attention.
+"Short hand!" he muttered to himself; "hers is rather a long one and
+pretty, and she is a favourable type of her kind, but I'm afraid a pun
+would make her faint, when Wilks would certainly call me out and shoot
+me dead with his revolver."
+
+"Wilks, my boy," said Coristine aloud, when he reached the stiff chair
+in which the dominie sat erect, facing Miss Carmichael on a lounge at
+safe distance; "Miss Du Plessis would like to hear you discuss
+Wordsworth and other Sunday poets. She doesn't seem to care about
+hearing my composition on the Grinstun man."
+
+The dominie eagerly but properly arose, answering: "Miss Du Plessis does
+too much honour to my humble poetic judgment, and, in regard to your
+doggrel, shows her rare good sense." He then walked across the room to
+the object of his laudation, and, taking Coristine's vacated chair,
+remarked that few poets preach a sermon so simply and beautifully as the
+author of "The Excursion." Would Miss Du Plessis allow him to bring down
+his pocket volume of the Rydal bard? Miss Du Plessis would be charmed;
+so the schoolmaster withdrew, and soon reappeared with the book all
+unconsciously open at "She was a phantom of delight." With guilty eyes,
+he closed it, and, turning over the pages, stopped at the fifth book of
+"The Excursion," announcing its subject, "The Pastor." It was now the
+lady's turn to be uncomfortable, with the suggestion of Mr. Perrowne.
+The lawyer, whose back had been turned to the poetic pair, looked
+unutterable things at Miss Carmichael, who, not knowing to what extreme
+of the ludicrous her companion might lead her, suggested a visit to the
+garden, if Mr. Coristine did not think it too warm. "It's the very thing
+for me," answered the lawyer, as they arose together and proceeded to
+the French windows opening upon the verandah; "it's like 'Come into the
+garden, Maud.'" They were outside by this time, and Miss Carmichael,
+lifting a warning finger, said: "Mr. Coristine, I am a school teacher,
+and am going to take you in hand as a naughty boy; you know that is not
+for Sunday, don't you now?"
+
+"If it was only another name that begins with the same letter," replied
+the incorrigible Irishman, "I'd say the line would be good for any day
+of the week in fine weather; but I'm more than willing to go to school
+again."
+
+"Sometimes," said the schoolteacher quietly, "sometimes the word
+'garden' makes me sad. Papa had a great deal of trouble. He lost all his
+children but me, and almost all his property, and he had quarrelled with
+his relations in Scotland, or they had quarrelled with him; so that he
+was, in spite of his public life, a lonely, afflicted man. When he was
+dying, he repeated part of a hymn, and the refrain was 'The Garden of
+Gethsemane.'"
+
+"Ah, Miss Carmichael, dear, forgive me, the stupid, blundering idiot
+that I am, to go and vex your tender heart with my silly nonsense. I'm
+ashamed, and could cry to think of it."
+
+"I will forgive you, Mr. Coristine," she replied, recovering from her
+serious fit, and looking at the victim in a way that blended amusement
+with imperiousness: "I will forgive you this once, if you promise future
+good behaviour."
+
+An impulse came over the lawyer to shake Miss Carmichael's hand, but she
+made him no shadow of an excuse for so doing. It was plain that the
+mutual confidences of the girls, which embraced, using the word in a
+mere logical sense, their year long distant acquaintance with the
+transformed pedestrians had given maturity to the closer and more
+pleasant acquaintance of the day. Little Marjorie's appropriation of the
+lawyer as her Eugene added another ripening element to its growth; so
+that the two garden explorers felt none of the stiffness and uncertainty
+of a first introduction. What Miss Carmichael's thoughts were she only
+could tell, but she knew that the impetuous and affectionate Coristine
+required the merest trifle of encouragement to change the steady
+decorous tide of advancing knowledge and respect into an abruptly
+awkward cataract, threatening the rupture of pleasant relations or the
+loss of self-respect. She would have preferred talking with Wilkinson,
+as a check upon the fervour of his friend, but, although she laughed at
+the dominie's culpable ignorance of her city existence, in her secret
+soul it piqued her not a little. No; she would rather take refuge with
+the clergy, Mr. Errol or Mr. Perrowne.
+
+Many roses were still in bloom, but, spite of many hints, Coristine's
+button hole remained empty. He admired the pinks, the carnations, the
+large-eyed pansies, "like Shakespeare's winking Mary-buds," he said, but
+all in vain, save a civil answer. The Day-lilies and the sweet-scented
+pure white and Japan lilies, the early Phloxes, the Honeysuckles against
+the arbours, and many other floral beauties he stopped to inspect, and
+wondered if Mrs. Carruthers would mind his gathering a few, although the
+house was full of flowers. His companion did not satisfy his wonder,
+only answering that she thought flowers looked so much better growing.
+Then he pulled himself together, and answered naturally, joking on the
+tall Scarlet Lychnis, now almost a garden flower of the past, which boys
+call scarlet likeness and scarlet lightning, and ran on into accounts
+of botanical rambles, descriptions of curious plants, with here a little
+bit of reverent natural theology, and there an appropriate scrap from
+some flower loving poet, or a query as to where the worshippers of
+Wordsworth had got, if they had left "The Excursion" for the smaller
+pieces on the Daisy, and the Celandine, the Broom, the Thorn and the
+Yew. In thus talking he gained his end without knowing it, for, instead
+of a mere routine lawyer and impulsive Irishman, Miss Carmichael found
+in her companion an intelligent, thoughtful, and cultured acquaintance,
+whose society she thoroughly enjoyed. Occasionally an unconscious and
+half-timid lifting of her long eye-lashes towards his animated, handsome
+face thrilled the botanist with a new, if fleeting, sensation of
+delight. As they passed through a gate into a hillside meadow, at the
+foot of which ran a silvery brook, they were made aware of voices in
+song. The voices were two, one a sweet but somewhat drawly female
+soprano, the other, a raucous, loud, overmastering shout, that almost
+drowned the utterance of its companion. The masculine one furnished the
+words to the promenaders, and these were:--
+
+     Shayll we gaythurr at thee rivverr
+     Whayerr bright angel feet have traw-odd?
+
+"Do you know who these are?" asked Miss Carmichael.
+
+"If I thought he knew as much tune," replied Coristine, "I should say he
+was The Crew."
+
+"Oh, tell me, please, who is The Crew?" Thereupon the lawyer launched
+out into a description of his travels, so comical a one that his fair
+companion laughed until the tears stood in her eyes, and she accused him
+of making her break the Sabbath. "No," she said at last; "that is not
+Sylvanus, but it is his brother Timotheus with Tryphosa. They are
+sitting in a ferny hollow under these birches down the hill, with a
+hymn-book between them, and as grave as if they were in church. Do you
+not think, Mr. Coristine, that that is a very nice and proper way for
+young people to improve their acquaintance?"
+
+"Very much so, Miss Carmichael. May I go in and get a hymn book? I can
+run like a deer, and won't take a minute over it. One will be enough,
+won't it?"
+
+The lady laughed a little pleasant laugh, and replied: "I think not,
+sir. We are not servants, at least in the same sense, and the piano and
+organ are at our disposal when we wish to exercise our musical powers."
+
+"Snubbed again," muttered Coristine to himself; then aloud: "I wish I
+were Timotheus."
+
+"If you prefer Tryphosa's company to mine, sir, you are at liberty to
+go; but I think your champion of Peskiwanchow would object to such
+rivalry."
+
+"Oh, I didn't mean with Tryphosa."
+
+"You do not know what you mean, nor anybody else. Let us return to the
+house."
+
+As they sauntered back, the lawyer suddenly cried out: "What a forgetful
+blockhead I am. I have had ever so many business questions to put to
+you, and have forgotten all about them."
+
+"Had you not better leave business till to-morrow, Mr. Coristine?" asked
+the lady, gravely, almost severely.
+
+"Your father's name was James Douglas Carmichael, was it not?" asked
+Coristine, ignoring this quietus.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"He came to Canada in 1848, and was, for a time, in military service at
+Kingston, before he completed his medical studies. Am I right?"
+
+"How do you happen to know these things? My father was singularly
+reticent about his past life; but you are right."
+
+The lawyer opened his pocket-book and took out a newspaper cutting,
+which he handed to his companion. "I found that at Barrie," he said,
+"and trust I have not taken too great a liberty in constituting myself
+your solicitor, and opening correspondence with Mr. MacSmaill, W.S.,
+regarding your interests."
+
+"It was very kind of you," she answered; "do you think it will bring us
+any money, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"Yes; it must bring some, as it is directed to heirs. How much, depends
+upon the wealth of your father's family."
+
+"They were very wealthy. Papa told mamma to write home to them, but she
+would not. She is too independent for that."
+
+"Will you sanction my action, and allow me to work this case up? Your
+mother cannot be an heir, you know, save in a roundabout way; so that
+you, being of age, are sole authority in the matter."
+
+"How do you know I am of age?"
+
+"I don't; but thought that, perhaps, you might be, seeing you are so
+mature and circumspect in your ways."
+
+"Thank you for the doubtful compliment. I am of age, however."
+
+"Then will you authorize me to proceed?"
+
+"With all my heart."
+
+"Do you know it makes me very sorry to become your solicitor?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because henceforth ours are mere business relations, and I, a
+struggling junior partner, must be circumspect too, and stand in proper
+awe and distant respect for a prospective heiress."
+
+"Do not allow your reverence to carry you too far to an opposite
+extreme. You have been very good during most of our walk, and I have
+enjoyed it very much."
+
+As she tripped in at the French window, Coristine could not reply. It is
+probable that he ejaculated inwardly, "the darlin'!" but, outwardly, he
+took out his pipe and sought consolation in the bowl of the Turk's head.
+While patrolling the long path down towards the meadow, he heard a low
+whistle, and, proceeding to the point in the fence whence it came, found
+Mr. Rawdon, as pale as he well could be, and much agitated. "Look 'ere,
+Mr. Currystone," he said, "I've bin down to Talfourds and a good bit
+further, and I find a fellow called Nash 'as bin about, plottin' to 'urt
+my business along of that brute of a Chisholm. They can't 'urt it much,
+but I can 'urt them, and, wot's more, I will. 'Ow I found out wot
+they're about is my haffair. I hain't got no time to lose, so you tell
+the genniwin Simon Pure Miss Do Please-us as I'll hoffer 'er a thousan'
+dollars cash for that there farm of 'ers till to-morrow mornin'. 'Er
+hacceptance must be hat the Post-hoffice hup the road hany time before
+ten o'clock, and the deed can be drawn hup between you and me and the
+Squire just has soon therehafter as she pleases. Ha, ha! pretty good,
+eh? Miss Do Please-us, she pleases! Bye, bye! Mr. Currystone, don't you
+forget, for it's business."
+
+The Grinstun man stole along the meadow fence and travelled over the
+fields, back way, towards the Lake Settlement. Emptying his pipe, the
+lawyer found Miss Du Plessis and at once announced Mr. Rawdon's
+proposal, which he urged her not to accept. She said the land was
+certainly not worth any more, if it were worth that amount, and that a
+thousand dollars would be of much immediate use to her mother. But
+Coristine reminded her that Colonel Morton was, in all probability, with
+her mother now, and begged her at least to wait until their joint
+opinion could be procured. To this she agreed, and further conversation
+was checked by the arrival of Marjorie, the five young Carruthers and
+Mr. Michael Terry.
+
+The whole party sallied out of the windows on to the verandah, the lawn,
+and thence out of the front gate, where they found the dominie in a
+state of radiant abstraction, strutting up and down the road, and
+quoting pages of his favourite poet. He had just completed the lines:--
+
+     And yet a spirit still, and bright
+     With something of an angel light.
+
+The lawyer went up to him before he came near and hissed at his friend,
+"What about our compact?" to which the dominie, with a fierce
+cheerfulness, replied, "It is broken, sir; shivered to atoms; buried in
+oblivion. When a so-called honourable man takes a young lady walking in
+garden and meadow alone, and breathes soft trifles in her ear, the
+letter, the spirit, the whole periphery of the compact is gone. Your
+conduct, sir, leaves me free to act as I please towards the world's
+chief soul and radiancy. I shall do as I please, sir; I shall read
+Louisa and Ruth and Laodamia and the Female Vagrant, none daring to make
+me afraid. A single tress of ebon hair, a single beam of a dove-like
+eye, shall be enough to fortify my heart against all your legal lore,
+your scorn, your innuendos, your coward threats."
+
+"Wilks, you're intoxicated."
+
+"Such intoxication as mine is that of the soul--a thing to glory in."
+
+"Well, go and glory, and read what you please; only add the Idiot Boy to
+the Female Vagrant and you'll be a lovely pair. I'm going to do as I
+please, too, so we're both happy at last."
+
+Thus saying, the lawyer returned to Marjorie, while the dominie stood
+stock still in the road, like a man thunderstruck, repeating: "The Idiot
+Boy, the Female Vagrant, a pair?--and he was once my friend! A pair, a
+pair--the Female Vagrant, the Idiot Boy!--and that slimy, crawling,
+sickening caterpillar of a garden slug was once known to me! Truly, a
+strange awaking!"
+
+It was now six o'clock, the time under ordinary circumstances for tea;
+but the circumstances were extraordinary, as the Squire, Mr. Nash and
+the minister had to be waited for. The party was in the road waiting for
+them. "Look, Eugene!" cried Marjorie; "there's Muggins. Here Muggy,
+Muggy, good doggie!" Muggins came on at full speed, and, striding at a
+very respectable pace, his master followed.
+
+"Ow, Mr. Coristine, sow glad to see you again, I'm shore. I was
+delighted to see you bringing two straye sheep into the true fowld this
+morning. I howpe Miss Marjorie will turn out a good churchwoman; woun't
+you now, Marjorie?"
+
+"I'm not a woman, and I won't be one. A woman wears dirty clothes and a
+check apron and a sun-bonnet. We've had a charwoman like that in our
+house, and a washerwoman; and in Collingwood there's a fish-woman and an
+apple-woman. I've seen them with my very own eyes. I don't think it a
+bit nice of you, Mr. Brown, to call me a charwoman."
+
+"I said churchwoman, my dear, not charwoman."
+
+"It's the same thing; they scrub out churches. I've seen them do it. And
+they're as old and ugly--worse than Tryphena!"
+
+"Hush, hush, Marjorie!" interposed Miss Du Plessis; "you must not speak
+like that of good Tryphena. Besides, Mr. Perrowne means by a churchwoman
+one who is like me, and goes to the Church of England."
+
+"If it's to be like you, and you will marry Eugene and go to the Church
+of England, I will be a churchwoman and go with you."
+
+Mr. Perrowne glowered at the lawyer, whom, a moment before, he had
+greeted in so friendly a way. Coristine laughed, as he could afford to,
+and said: "I'm sorry, Marjorie, that it cannot be as you wish. I am not
+serious enough for Miss Du Plessis, nor a sufficient judge of good
+poetry. Your friend wouldn't have me at any price; would you now, Miss
+Du Plessis?"
+
+"Certainly not with that mode of asking. How unpleasantly personal
+children make things."
+
+Muggins and the young Carruthers were having lots of fun. He sat up and
+begged for bread, he ran after sticks and stones thrown by feeble hands,
+he shook paws with the children, had his ears stroked and his tail
+pulled with the greatest good-nature. Right under the eyes of the still
+dumbfoundered dominie, his owner accompanied Miss Du Plessis into the
+house, while Coristine prevailed on Marjorie to sing a hymn with a
+pretty plaintive tune, commencing:--
+
+     Once in royal David's city
+     Stood a lowly cattle shed,
+     Where a mother laid her infant
+     In a manger for his bed;
+     Mary was that mother mild,
+     Jesus Christ her little child.
+
+The old soldier left his grandchildren with Muggins and came to hear the
+hymn. "The Howly Vargin bliss the little pet," he ejaculated, and then
+crooned a few notes at the end of each verse.
+
+"Fwat is it the Howly Scripchers says, sorr, about little childher an'
+the good place?" he asked Coristine.
+
+The lawyer took off his hat, and reverently replied: "Of such is the
+Kingdom of Heaven."
+
+The veteran crossed himself, and said: "There niver was a thruer word
+shpoke or in wroitin', an' fwat does the childher, the innicents, know
+about Pratishtants an' Cathlics, till me that now?"
+
+As Coristine could not, the pair refilled their pipes and smoked in
+company, an ideal Evangelical Alliance.
+
+Soon the waggonette came rattling along the road, and Marjorie ran to
+meet her Uncle John and the minister, with both of whom she was a great
+favourite. Mr. Nash also had a word to say to her: "You remember
+scolding me for not going to church when I was Mr. Chisholm? Well, I've
+been there this afternoon, and Mr. Errol told us we are all getting
+ready here for what we are to do in Heaven. Now, you're a wise little
+girl, and I want you to tell me what I will be able to do when I get
+there. It can't be to hunt up bad people, because there are no bad
+people in Heaven. What do you think about it?"
+
+"I know," answered Marjorie, gravely; "play chess with dead uncles and
+ministers, and teach tricks to the little children that never growed
+up."
+
+"Out of the mouths of babes!" ejaculated Mr. Errol, who overheard the
+conversation; then continued: "Could anything be truer? The training in
+observation and rapid mental combinations, which has made you successful
+in your profession, is the foundation of your prowess on the chess
+board. Your skill in every sort of make-up enables you to manipulate
+handkerchiefs and oranges for children's amusement. The same training
+and skill our Father can turn to good account in the upper sanctuary."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Errol, thank you, Marjorie, my dear. Perhaps the good
+God will be kinder than we think, and find some use for a poor, lonely,
+careless detective." Mr. Nash was unusually thoughtful, yet still had an
+eye to business. He made diligent enquiries about Rawdon, and, at last,
+getting on the scent through Miss Du Plessis, found out all that
+Coristine and Timotheus had to tell of him. The latter had watched the
+working geologist slinking off in the Lake Settlement direction across
+the fields and by bush tracks. Mr. Terry and the children, having
+partaken of tea, remained out in the front with Muggins, and sang some
+more hymns, Marjorie leading their choir. The rest of the household,
+reinforced by Mr. Perrowne, who, much to Wilkinson's disgust,
+monopolized Miss Du Plessis, sat round the ample tea-table. In a
+shamefaced way, as if engaged in an illegal ecclesiastical transaction,
+the English clergyman mumbled: "For what we are about to receive," and
+the evening meal proceeded. The Squire had ceded his end of the table to
+his sister, and had taken his post at her left, where he talked to the
+dominie, his next neighbour, and across the table to Mr. Errol. Perrowne
+flanked the hostess on the right, and Nash on the left. Miss Du Plessis
+sat between Perrowne and Wilkinson, a stately and elegant bone of
+contention; while the lawyer had the detective on one side and Miss
+Carmichael on the other. As that young lady had something to do with the
+arrangement of the table by Tryphosa, in the matter of napkin rings, it
+was, if Coristine only knew it, a mark of her confidence in him that
+she permitted his presence on her right. Nevertheless he profited little
+by it, as she gave all her conversation to the minister, save when the
+attention of that elderly admirer was taken up by her uncle. As Perrowne
+was compelled to be civil to Mrs. Carruthers, while Mr. Nash entertained
+the lawyer, an opportunity was afforded the schoolmaster of improving
+his acquaintance with Miss Du Plessis, of which he took joyful
+advantage, feeling that in so doing with all brilliancy he was planting
+thorns in the breasts of two innocent beings, whom he inwardly
+characterized as a clerical puppy and an ungrateful, perfidious,
+slanderous worm. Neither the puppy nor the worm were happy, as he
+joyfully perceived.
+
+The meal was over, and they were preparing to have early evening prayers
+for the sake of the children, when a vehicle drove up, and a burly form,
+clad in navy blue broadcloth with a plentiful trimming of gilt buttons,
+descending from it, came along the path towards the house, accompanied
+by Marjorie.
+
+"It's papa!" she cried to Carruthers and his wife, who had gone to the
+door to see who their visitor was, and call the children in. It was the
+Captain, and in the buggy, holding the reins, sat The Crew. "Don't sit
+grinning there, you blockhead!" shouted the ancient mariner to Sylvanus;
+"hev ye been so long aboard ship ye can't tell a stable when you see it?
+Drive on, you slabsided swab!" The Captain's combination of lumbering
+with nautical pursuits gave a peculiar and not always congruous flavour
+to his pet phrases; but Sylvanus did not mind; he drove round the lane
+and met Timotheus.
+
+"We have just finished tea, Captain," said Mrs. Carruthers with her
+pretty touch of a cultivated Irish accent; "but Marjorie will tell
+Tryphosa to set yours on the table at once."
+
+"All right, Honoria!" growled Mr. Thomas; "I'm in port here for the
+night, and I'm a goin' to make fast; so be I hev to belay on to the lee
+side of a stack of shingle bolts. Now, Marjorie, my pet, give daddy
+another kiss, and run away for a bit. John, I want you right away."
+
+With the latter words, the Captain took the Squire off to the far end of
+the verandah, and sat down with his legs dangling over among the
+flowers, causing his brother-in-law to do the same. "John," said he,
+taking off his naval cap, and mopping his forehead, "you're all goin' to
+be murdered to-night in your bunks, else I wouldn't ha' quit dock o'
+Sunday."
+
+"Whatever do you mean, Thomas?"
+
+"I mean what I say, and well to you and yourn. Sylvanus was down at
+Peskiwanchow, gettin' some things his brother left there, when he
+shipped for you. There's a bad crew in that whiskey mill, and, fool as
+he is, he was sharp enough to hear them unbeknown. Says one of 'em,
+'Better get out the fire-engines from town,' and he laughed. Says
+another, 'Guess the boys'll hev a nice bonefire waitin' for us, time we
+get to Flanders.' Then the low-down slab-pilers got their mutinous heads
+together, and says, 'The J.P. and the bailiff's got to be roasted
+anyway, wisht we could heave Nash in atop.' I've left the cursing and
+swearin' out, because it's useless ballast, and don't count in the deal
+any more'n sawdust. Now, John, what do you think of that?"
+
+"It looks serious, Thomas, if your man is to be depended on."
+
+"My man depended on? Sylvanus Pilgrim to be depended on? There's no more
+dependable able-bodied seaman and master mill-hand afloat nor ashore.
+He's true as the needle to the pole and the gang-saw to the plank. Don't
+you go saying wrong of Sylvanus."
+
+"I must take Nash into confidence with us, and call up your informant,"
+said the Squire, leading the Captain into the house and setting him
+carefully down at the tea table, where Mrs. Carruthers waited upon him.
+Then he looked up Sylvanus in the kitchen, and told him to report as
+soon as he had taken his supper. "We have no time to lose, Pilgrim," he
+added, "so let Tryphena alone till our talk is over. She'll keep."
+
+"I ain't agoin' ter persume ter tech Trypheeny, Square, an' I'll be
+along in a half tack," replied The Crew.
+
+Next, Nash was found smoking a cigar, and talking very earnestly with
+Mr. Errol about presentiments, and sudden remembrances of childhood's
+days. He dropped the conversation at once when business was mentioned,
+and, in a few minutes, the Squire's official room contained five men,
+with very serious faces, seeking to come to a full understanding of what
+seemed a diabolical plot on the part of some spiteful malefactors. Four
+of these have already been indicated; the fifth was the lawyer, who
+proved a useful addition for pumping Sylvanus dry and taking careful
+notes.
+
+While the consultation was in progress, a gentle tap came to the door,
+and, following it, a voice that thrilled the lawyer, saying, "May I come
+in, uncle; I have some news for you?" Carruthers opened the door, when
+Miss Carmichael told him that young Hill, the girls' brother, had
+arrived with another man, and wanted to see him immediately on special
+business that would not wait, and that they seemed to have been out
+shooting. The Squire went out and returned with Rufus and Ben Toner. The
+former related how Ben had gone to afternoon meetin' to tell what he
+knew of the conspiracy to clean out all the scabs in Flanders, and have
+trade run smooth. Coristine examined his old patient, who readily
+responded, and Nash, who was now Chisholm in beard and moustache, helped
+the interrogation. Toner's information, like that of Sylvanus, came from
+accidentally overhearing the talk of four men in a waggon, driving
+Flanders way during church time, while he was fishing in the river.
+
+"I heerd 'em say as they'd be a big blayuz afore mornin', and as Squier
+Cruthers, and the bailiff, and Nash, and a raivenue gaal, had got to go
+to kingdom come. One on 'em says he seen Mr. Nash and got a hit off his
+stick. He's a goin' to lay for him straight and for them two walkin'
+spies likeways."
+
+"What made you look up Rufus?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"I thort the raivenue gaal might a been one of his sisters that's here.
+Besides, he's got a gun, and so have I, and I'm a goin' to be true to my
+word, Doctor, to you and the bailiff too, ef I have to shoot aivery
+mother's son of them vilyins."
+
+The Captain and Sylvanus, with Rufus and Ben, all testified to the
+moving of several teams, with rough-looking characters on board, along
+the roads that led towards Flanders, and the Lake Settlement in
+particular. The Squire and Mr. Nash had noticed the same.
+
+"Ben," said the latter, taking off his disguise, "I think I can trust
+you. I am the detective Nash."
+
+Toner started, but quickly recovered himself, and, rising, gave his hand
+to the man of aliases, saying, "You kin, Mr. Nash, s'haylp me. Old man
+Newcome swears he's a goin' to hev your life, but he won't ef I'm any
+good."
+
+The detective shook hands warmly, and, taking Ben aside, found that he
+had no personal knowledge of Rawdon, the Newcome of whom he spoke being
+apparently the go between. The intimacy between them, which was near
+ruining the young man, had come about through Toner's attention to
+Newcome's daughter, Sarah Eliza. "But," continued the unhappy lover,
+"the old man's been and had Serlizer off for more'n a year, and puts me
+off and off and better off, till I just up and wouldn't stand it no
+more. I ain't a goin' to sell his stuff, nor drink his stuff, nor hev
+nawthun more to do along of his gang, but I'd like to know where
+Serlizer's put to, and I'm here and my gun, with a lot of powder and
+shot and slugs, for the stummik of any gallihoot as lays a finger on
+you, Mr. Nash, or the doctor or the gals."
+
+Returning to the group, the detective urged immediate defensive action,
+leaving the offensive till the morrow. The Squire at once looked up his
+armoury, consisting of a rifle, a fowling piece (double-barrelled) and a
+pair of heavy horse-pistols, with abundant ammunition. The Captain
+reported that Sylvanus had a shotgun (single-barrelled), and that he had
+brought the blunderbuss with which he fired salutes off the _Susan
+Thomas_. Coristine answered for the revolvers carried by himself and the
+dominie. The clergy were called in and the situation explained, when
+both volunteered for service. Mr. Perrowne had a very good gun at his
+lodgings; and his landlady, whose father had been in the army, possessed
+a relic of him in the shape of an ancient carbine, which he was sure she
+would lend to Mr. Errol, with bayonet complete. He went for them, under
+escort of Rufus and Ben. When Mr. Terry was told, he begged for his son
+in law's "swate-lukin' roifle," and was as cheerful as if a wedding was
+in progress. Finally, Timotheus got the fowling piece and the Squire
+looked to the priming of his pistols. Mr. Nash, of course, had both
+revolver and dirk knife concealed somewhere about his person. Then Mr.
+Errol conducted family prayers, the children were sent to bed, the
+ladies briefly informed of the situation, and the garrison bidden a more
+than usually affectionate good-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+     The Squire Posts Sentries--Sylvanus Arrests Tryphosa--Change of
+     Watchword--Nash Leads an Advance--The Cheek of Grinstuns--The
+     Hound--Guard-room Conversation--Incipient Fires Extinguished--The
+     Idiot Boy--Grinstun's Awful Cheek--The Lawyer and the Parson
+     Theologize--Coristine's Hands--Doctor and Miss Halbert.
+
+
+The full strength of the garrison was twelve able-bodied men, of whom
+five carried fowling pieces, one a blunderbuss, another a carbine,
+another a rifle, and four were armed with pistols. The Squire was in
+supreme command, and Mr. Nash was adjutant. They decided that the
+garrison as a whole should go on guard for the night, that is, from ten
+o'clock till six in the morning, a period of eight hours, making, as the
+Captain put it, four watches of two hours each. Thus the remaining ten
+were divided into two guards of five, and, as the morning guard, from
+four to six, would probably not be required, it was determined to put
+those who had most need of rest on the companion one from twelve to two.
+These were Captain Thomas, the veteran Terry, the two parsons, with
+Wilkinson, who was thrown in simply as a pistol man, the only other of
+the kind being the lawyer. With ammunition in their pockets, or slung
+round their shoulders, the first guard sallied forth under the Squire's
+guidance. Coristine was left to watch the front of the house behind the
+shrubbery bordering the fence, and keep up communication with Nash, who
+patrolled the road on horseback. Ben Toner's station was the path
+running parallel with the palings on the left of the garden, beyond
+which was an open field, not altogether destitute of stumps. Silvanus
+was posted on the edge of the meadow, at the back of the garden and
+out-houses; and Timotheus, on the right of the stables and connected
+buildings. Just where the beats of the brothers met, there was a little
+clump of timber, the only point affording cover to an advancing enemy,
+and to that post of honour and danger Rufus was appointed. Having
+placed his men, the Squire returned to the guard-room, his office, and
+ordered Tryphosa to bring refreshments for the guard, to which he added
+a box of cigars. The guard discussed the cold ham, the cheese and
+biscuits, and, in addition, Mr. Errol indulged in some diluted sherry,
+Perrowne and Wilkinson in a glass of beer, and the Captain and the
+veteran in a drop of whiskey and water. The Squire took a cigar with
+those who smoked, but maintained his wakefulness on cold tea. Every half
+hour he was out inspecting the sentries. Coristine had suggested that
+the friendly answer to a challenge should be Bridesdale, but, lest the
+enemy should hear this and take advantage of it, all suspicious persons
+should be required also to give the countersign, Grinstuns. The dominie
+sneered at him for the latter; but, when he saw his friend sally forth
+with loaded pistol to the post of danger, his enmity died, and, rising,
+he silently shook hands with him at the door. Returning to the
+guard-room, he breathed a silent prayer for his friend's safety, and
+then fortified his inner man with the fare provided. Conversation
+accompanied the impromptu supper, and the subsequent cigar or pipe, at
+first led by the divines, but afterwards taken clean out of their mouths
+by the Captain and the veteran, who furnished exciting accounts of their
+experience in critical situations.
+
+The Squire had gone out for the second time to inspect the sentries. It
+was eleven o'clock. Coristine, who was first visited, reported a sound
+of voices at the back of the house, and Toner confirmed the report. The
+commander-in-chief hastened to the gate leading into the hill meadow,
+and perceived a figure struggling in the strong grasp of Sylvanus. The
+sentinel's left arm was round the prisoner, and the gun was in his right
+hand. As they came towards the gate, the Squire heard piteous entreaties
+in a feminine voice to be let go, and the answer: "'Tain't no kind o'
+use, Tryphosy, even ef ye was arter Timotheus an' not me; that ain't it,
+at all. It's this: yer didn't say Bridesdale when I charlinged yer, nor
+yer couldn't bar-sign Grinstuns. All suspicious carriters has got to be
+took up, and, ef that ain't bein' a suspicious carriter, this mate on
+the starn watch don't know what is. I'm rale sorry for yer, and I'm
+sorry for Timotheus, but juty is juty and orders is strict. Come on,
+now, and let us hope the Square'll be marciful."
+
+"What is the meaning of this nonsense, Pilgrim?" asked the commander,
+angrily.
+
+"It's a suspicious carriter as can't give no account of itself, Square.
+She might ha' been shot as like as not, ef I hadn't gone and took her
+pris'ner."
+
+"Let the girl alone, and don't make a laughing stock of yourself. You've
+already said the passwords loud enough for any lurker to hear, so that
+we'll hae to change them aa because o' your stupeedity. Be serious and
+keep your eyes and gun for strange folk, men or women."
+
+Tryphosa fled into the house, whither Tryphena--who, falling into the
+same error, had crossed the beat of Timotheus--had already betaken
+herself, being driven off the field by the more sensible and merciful
+younger Pilgrim. When the Squire had completed his rounds, he returned
+to the guard-room, and, telling the story of Sylvanus' folly, which
+roused the Captain's ire, showed the necessity for new watchwords and
+better instruction of sentries.
+
+"It maun be something the lads and all the rest o' us ken weel, Squire.
+What think ye o' Cricket and Golf?" asked Mr. Errol.
+
+"I am afraid that Ben Toner might not know these words," put in the
+dominie.
+
+"What?" cried Mr. Perrowne, "do you really mean to say that
+this--ah--Towner needs to be towld what cricket is?"
+
+"I fear so," Wilkinson answered; with the effect that no heathen could
+have fallen lower in the parson's estimation than did Ben.
+
+"I say good, ship-shape words are Starbud and Port," growled the
+Captain.
+
+"In Sout Ameriky it was Constituthion and Libertad," suggested Mr.
+Terry.
+
+"Pork and Beans 'll no' do; nor Burdock and Blood Bitters; nor Powder
+and Shot," said the Squire, ruminating; "for the one ca's up the tither
+ower nayteral like. What say ye, Maister Wilkinson?"
+
+Wilkinson was taken aback by the suddenness of the question, and blurted
+out what had been only too much in his thoughts; "Idiot and Boy."
+
+"Capital!" "Well said!" "The very thing!" "Jest suits Sylvanus!" the
+various voices responded; and the Squire went out to the sentries to
+make the desired change. The lawyer chuckled when he received the new
+words, and all the other sentinels repeated to themselves the poetic
+terms "Eejut and Boy."
+
+It was just on the stroke of midnight, time to relieve the guards, when
+the distant sound of pistol shots in rapid succession fell
+simultaneously on the ears of Coristine, Ben and Sylvanus. The lawyer,
+stepping hastily to the house, called out the armed inmates, and in
+another minute or so Nash came galloping up. "Stay where you are,
+Squire, with your sentries; and, you other men, look to your loading and
+come on with me. I've been fired at by a waggon load of them." The five
+unposted men hastened out into the road and away after the detective to
+the left. After going a short distance, the adjutant called a halt, and
+told the veteran to advance in military order. "Now, min," said Mr.
+Terry quietly, "extind about tin paces from aich another to the lift,
+an' Oi'll be the lifthand man. Thin kape wan eye on me an' the other
+before yeez, and advance whin Oi advance undher cover av the stumps and
+finces and things. Riddy now--extind!" The movement was well executed,
+and, as the veteran was eager for the fray, he led them more rapidly
+than it could be thought the old man had the power to run, until they
+reached the spot where the waggon had halted. It was gone, without a
+sign; so the gallant skirmishers re-formed in the road and marched back
+to quarters. When they arrived at the gate, Coristine could not resist
+the temptation of a challenge, unnecessary as it was. The dominie was
+leading, and him he hailed: "Who goes there?" With momentary hesitation,
+Wilkinson answered in the same undertone:--
+
+"Friends."
+
+"The word, friends?"
+
+"Idiot."
+
+"The countersign, Idiot?"
+
+"Boy."
+
+"Pass, Idiot Boy, and all's well!"
+
+The schoolmaster could have boxed that sentry's ears, have slapped his
+face, have caned him within an inch of his life; for there was a light
+in an upper window, and he knew that bright eyes were looking down
+through the slats of the closed green shutters, and that sharp ears had
+caught the sound of the obnoxious words. He could detect the accents of
+a voice, which he knew so well, pleading the cause of silence with
+another that trembled with suppressed laughter as it made ineffectual
+promises to be quiet. The two clergymen also heard the friendly
+altercation at the window, so still was everything else, and chuckled as
+they filed past the legal sentry, now on the broad grin. The Captain and
+Mr. Terry were above taking notice of such trifles, for they were
+eagerly persuading each other to take just the least drop before going
+out into the heavy night dews. No sooner had the five entered the
+guard-room than the Squire re-formed them and marched them off to
+relieve the old sentries. The lawyer's place was taken by the dominie,
+Toner's by the Captain, that of Sylvanus by Perrowne, that of Timotheus
+by Errol, and Rufus' post of honour by the veteran, who would accept no
+other. There was a sixth guard in the person of Muggins, who kept his
+master company and behaved with the greatest propriety and silence.
+Sylvanus and Timotheus, Rufus and Ben had a separate guard-house of
+their own in the kitchen, where Mrs. Carmichael, who could not sleep
+because of her apprehensions of evil to some unknown defender, furnished
+them with bread and cheese and innocuous hot elderberry wine and cold
+cider. After partaking plentifully of the refreshments, Sylvanus and Ben
+lit their pipes, and the latter communicated to the company the story of
+his woes in the case of Serlizer. Sylvanus related his adventure in
+capturing Tryphosa, which caused Timotheus to move into a corner with
+Rufus and declare solemnly and in a low tone, that "Ef Sylvanus warn't
+my brother and older'n me, and the next thing t' engaged to Trypheeny,
+I'd be shaved an' shampooed ef I wouldn't bust his old cocoanut open."
+Rufus, however, replied that girls had no business to be about in war
+times, unless it was to nurse the sick and wounded, which was only done
+in hospitals, thus justifying Sylvanus' action as a pure matter of
+military duty, and reconciling Timotheus to the slight put upon his lady
+love.
+
+The Squire and Coristine were alone in the guard-room, save when Mrs.
+Carmichael put her head in to ask after the welfare of the party,
+especially of the older members.
+
+"Grandfather knows campaigning and can take care of himself," the Squire
+answered; "and the Captain's used to out-door life; but there's the
+minister now, puir man! Weel, weel, Marjorie, when I gang the roonds,
+I'll see if he needs onything."
+
+Then the pair chatted away, chiefly about the Grinstun man, whom
+Carruthers came to regard in the light of a spy. Though surrounded on
+every side by suspicious circumstances, there was nothing definite
+against him, the nearest evidence to a conviction being the geological
+or mineralogical expressions which the unguarded dilapidated farmer on
+the way to the Beaver River had coupled with his name, and his own
+admissions to the spurious Miss Du Plessis.
+
+"Maister Coristine," said the Squire, "gin I thocht yon deevil, seein'
+it's Monday mornin' the noo, was at the foondation o' this ploy, I'd
+think naething o' spendin' five thoosand to pit an end til's tricks."
+
+"All right, Squire; I think I'll go into criminal law, and work it up
+for you."
+
+"What's yon? I maun gang out, for I hear Mr. Wilkinson calling me."
+
+The lawyer accompanied him to the door. Nash was at the gate to report
+that he had seen small parties and single individuals, some distance off
+the road on both sides of the house, whose actions were more than
+suspicious. Had they carried firearms larger than pistols he would have
+been sure to detect the gleam of steel. He was sorry now he had drawn
+the fire of the waggon on himself, and thus given the miscreants to
+understand that their plot was known. Still, they were at it, and meant
+mischief. As he could do no further good patrolling the road, he would
+put up his horse, and help the Squire to guard the house and
+outbuildings. Hardly was his horse in the stable, and himself in the
+guard-room, than Mr. Errol's voice, and then the dominie's, were heard
+challenging loudly. The Squire flew to the minister, and Nash to
+Wilkinson. A stout but elastic figure, so far as the step went, was
+coming along the road from the right, whistling "The Girl I left behind
+Me." As it came near, the whistling stopped, and Rawdon, with knapsack
+on back and staff in hand, appeared before the astonished eyes of the
+sentinels. He started at the sight of the minister's carbine. "Wy, Mr.
+Herl," he said, "wot the dooce are you a doin' of at this time o' night?
+Are you lookin' for night 'awks or howls hafter the chickins, or did you
+think I was a wistlin' bear. And you too, Squire! I thought the Hinjins
+was all killed bout. Blowed if there haint hold Favosites Wilkinsonia,
+and a man as looks like Chisholm! Are you campin' out, 'avin' summer
+midnight manoovers for the fun o' the thing?"
+
+Nash went back to the house. "If it's a fair question, Mr. Rawdon," said
+the Squire, "where are you going at this time of night?"
+
+"Fair enough, Squire; I'm bound for Collinwood to ketch the mornin'
+train. Bye, bye! no time to lose." Off trudged the Grinstun man, once
+more whistling, but this time his tune was "It's no use a knockin' at
+the door."
+
+The Squire, the detective, and the lawyer held a council of war.
+
+"Pity we hadn't arrested that chap," remarked Mr. Nash.
+
+"Couldn't do it," said Coristine; "there is no warrant for his arrest,
+no definite charge against him. A justice of the peace can't issue one
+on mere suspicion, nor can he institute martial law, which would of
+course cover the case."
+
+"If what Maister Nash has seen be as he thinks," added the Squire, "it's
+as weel we laid nae han' on him, for it would just hae preceepitated
+metters, and hae brocht the haill o' thae Lake Settlement deevils doon
+upon us. D'ye think Rawdon's gaun to Collingwood, Nash?"
+
+"Not a bit of it. I believe he came past here, openly and dressed as he
+was, for three reasons. First, he wants to prove an alibi for himself,
+whatever happens. Second, he wanted to see how we are guarded, and by
+that loud whistling has informed his confederates not far off that it is
+useless to try the house from the front. Thirdly, he has circled round
+to take command of the villains that fired on me out of the waggon we
+couldn't find."
+
+"What's to be done then?" asked the Squire and the lawyer in a breath.
+
+"We must watch the means of access from the left to the right. You see,
+there are bushes, young willows and alders, all along the bank of the
+creek, behind which they can steal towards that ferny hollow under the
+birches, and, from thence, either make for the bit of bush Mr. Terry is
+guarding, or creep behind the scattered boulders towards the fence. Your
+shrubberies about the house and live hedges and little meadow copses are
+very pretty and picturesque, Squire, but a bare house on the top of a
+treeless hill would be infinitely better to stand a siege."
+
+"Aye, aye, Nash; but I'm no gaun tae cut doon my bonnie trees an' busses
+for a wheen murderin' vagabones."
+
+"Well, I'll get a gun from one of the men in the kitchen, and explore
+the hillside below the Captain."
+
+Having secured Ben Toner's gun, the best of the lot, the detective
+walked down the garden to the gate, where he found Perrowne vainly
+endeavouring to comfort Muggins. The poor dog did not even whine, but
+shivered as he stood, otherwise paralyzed with abject terror.
+
+"Crouch down by the fence," whispered the detective in the parson's ear,
+and at once crouched down beside him.
+
+"Do you see that moving object coming up the hill from the birches? By
+Jove! there's another crawling behind it. What is it?"
+
+"It's an animal of some sawrt," answered Perrowne.
+
+"That accounts for your dog's fear. It isn't a bear, is it? There may be
+some about after early berries."
+
+"Now, it's not a bear, though I've been towld dawgs are very much afraid
+of bears."
+
+Just then the animal keeled over, and immediately there followed the
+report of a rifle. The crawler behind the beast slid back into the
+hollow and disappeared. Then, from the left of the house came a volley
+that woke the echoes all round; it was the explosion of the Captain's
+blunderbuss. The detective ran along the fence to Mr. Terry's beat, and
+found the veteran reloading his rifle from the muzzle. "Keep your post,
+Mr. Terry," he cried, "while I run and see what it is you have bagged. I
+imagine your son-in-law will look after the Captain." Mr. Nash ran down
+the hill, closely followed by the lawyer, who had come out to see the
+fun. All the bedroom windows were lit up, and eager eyes strained to
+learn the cause of the firing, while the remaining sentinels prepared
+for action. The animal shot was a large bloodhound, in life a dangerous
+brute with horrid, cruel-looking fangs, but now in the agonies of death.
+The detective drew his long dagger-like knife, and drove it into the
+creature's heart. Then, while Coristine lifted it by the two hind legs,
+he took a grasp of its collar, and they carried the trophy of the
+veteran's rifle on to the lawn in front of the house. There they learned
+that the Captain, being half asleep with no chance of an enemy in sight,
+dreamt his ship had been saluted coming into port on a holiday, and, as
+in duty bound, returned the salute. The blunderbuss had not exploded; it
+always made that grand, booming, rattling, diffusive sort of a report.
+The dead hound's collar was examined, and was discovered to bear the
+initials A.R. "Who is A.R.?" asked the Squire; and Mr. Nash replied: "He
+is no doubt my affianced bridegroom, Haltamont Rawdon."
+
+It was two o'clock in the morning; so the guard was relieved, and the
+former sentries returned to their posts; but the Squire noticed, with a
+frown, that, just as the relief arrived at Mr. Errol's beat, a female
+form clothed in black darted round the stables towards the kitchen door.
+Also, he saw that the minister had a most unmilitary muffler, in the
+shape of a lady's cloud, round his neck, which he certainly had not when
+he went on duty. His high respect for the reverend gentleman hindered
+any outward expression of his combined amusement and annoyance. Muggins
+came back with Mr. Perrowne, but obstinately refused to go near the dead
+hound.
+
+"Do you think he has ever seen it before?" asked the detective.
+
+"I shouldn't be at all surprised," replied the clergyman.
+
+"I lawst Muggins, you know, at Tossorontio, and there was a man there at
+the time, a short man in a pea-jacket or cowt, down't you know, who had
+a big dawg. When Muggins disappeared, I thought the big dawg might have
+killed him. But now I think the man with the pea-cowt saved him from the
+big dawg, and that's how Muggins came to gow after him. What do you
+imagine that beast was after, coming up the hill towards Muggins?"
+
+"I think he was coming to overpower you, Mr. Perrowne, and bring all
+our forces to your aid, while the fellow behind him slipped in and fired
+the house or did some similar mischief."
+
+"I tell you, Mr. Nash, he'd have had my two barrels first, and I'm a
+pretty fair shot, down't you know? But, look here, it's dry work
+mounting guard, sow I'll have another pull at the tankard."
+
+The Squire came in from guard mounting, somewhat fatigued. He had been
+on the stretch mentally and physically ever since the Captain's arrival.
+"You had better go to bed, grandfather, and take Thomas with you," he
+said to the veteran.
+
+"Not a wink this blissid noight, Squoire," replied Mr. Terry, "the smill
+av the powther has put new loife into my owld carcash. The Captin can go
+iv he plazes."
+
+"Avast, there! I say, messmate," growled Captain Thomas, "I don't run
+this mill, but my youngster's here under hatches, and I'm a goin' to
+keep watch on, watch off along of any other man. I don't think that o'
+yours is half up to the mark, Mr. Terry."
+
+"Oi was thinkin' I was a bit wake mysilf," replied the old soldier,
+filling up his glass, and handing the decanter to his neighbour, who
+likewise improved the occasion.
+
+"Oi'm suppawsin now, sorr," continued the veteran, addressing the
+dominie, "that this is yer first apparance on shintry."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Terry, in your supposition."
+
+"An', sorr, it's a cridit to yeez to be shtandin' an' facin' the inimy
+wid divel a thing in yer hand but a pishtil. Oi moind a big sthrappin'
+liftinant av ours was called Breasel, an' sid he was discinded from the
+great Breasel Breck av Oirish hishtry. Wan noight he was slapin', whin
+four nagurs av Injuns kim into his tint, an' picked the sword an'
+pishtils and the unifarm aff the bid he was on. Thin he woke up, an' him
+havin' sorra a thing to difind himself wid but a good Oirish tongue in
+his hid. But it's Tipperary the liftinant foired at the haythens, an' it
+moight ha' been grape an' canister, for they dhropped the plundher and
+run for loife, all but wan that got howlt av an anhevis drawin' plashter
+the liftinant had for a bile an the back av his neck, an' wasn't usin'
+at the toime. Someways the plashter got on to his nakid chist an'
+gripped him, an' he was that wake wid froight, the other nagurs had to
+carry him away. Afther that the Injuns called Breasel by the name of
+Shupay, a worrud that in their spache manes the divil--savin' yer
+prisence, Mishter Wilkinson."
+
+"One time the _Susan Thomas_ was at Belle Ewart loadin' on lumber,"
+growled the Captain. "Sylvanus heerd as how the Mushrats, that's the
+folks acrost on t'other side of the bay, was a comin' over to fasten him
+and me down in the hold and paint the schooner. They was a goin' to
+paint her The Spotted Dog, than which there's no meaner kind o' fish.
+So, I bid Sylvanus pile a great heap of useless, green, heavy, barky
+slabs on top o' the good lumber; then we took the occasion of a little
+wind, and stood her out to anchor a little ways from the dock. Sure
+enough, when night come, the Mushrats came a hollerin' aand yellin'.
+Unfortnitly I'd left the salutin' blunderbuss here at home, and hadn't
+but one pike-pole aboard. 'How many boat loads of 'em is there,
+Sylvanus?' I says. 'Two,' says he. 'All right,' says I, 'that's one
+apiece. Take off your coat, and roll up your shirt sleeves, Sylvanus,'
+says I, 'for you're a goin' to have heavy work slab heavin'!' On they
+come to board us, one on each side. 'Fire out them or'nary useless
+slabs, Sylvanus,' says I. 'But there's a boat with a lot of men in it,'
+says he, a-chucklin' like an ijut. Hope I haven't given the pass word
+away, John? Well, I said: 'Fire out the slabs, and let the men get out
+o' the way.' And he began firing, and I kept my side a-goin', and the
+slabs fell flat and heavy and fast, knockin' six at a shot, till they
+cussed and swore, and hollered and yelled murder, and that was the last
+we two saw of the Mushrats and the paintin' of the _Susan Thomas_."
+
+Subdued but hearty laughter followed these stories, and, when the
+Captain ended, the veteran pushed the decanter towards him, remarking:
+"A good shtory is a foine thing, Captin, dear, but it makes ye just a
+throifle dhroy." The Captain responded, and told Mr. Terry that he was
+neglecting himself, an omission which that gentleman proceeded to
+rectify. Mr. Errol, with his muffling cloud still round his neck, was
+asleep in an easy chair. In his sleep he dreamt, the dream ending in an
+audible smack of his lips, and the exclamation "Very many thanks, ma'am;
+the toddy's warm and comforting." When his own voice aroused him, he was
+astonished to witness the extreme mirth of all parties, and was hardly
+convinced when it was attributed to the stories of the veteran and the
+Captain. The Squire, though amused, was resolved to have a word with his
+widowed sister.
+
+The lawyer paced up and down in the cool night, trying to combine two
+things which do not necessarily go together, warmth and wakefulness.
+Everything was so quiet, that he seemed to hear Timotheus and Sylvanus
+pacing about rapidly like himself, when suddenly a little spark of fire
+appeared at the far end of the verandah towards the stables. Cautiously,
+under cover of bushes he approached the spot, but saw nothing, although
+he smelt fire. Then he knelt down and peered under the flower laden
+structure. The light was there, growing. In a moment it became a flame,
+and, as he rushed to the spot, a lad fell into his arms. Clutching his
+collar with his left hand in spite of kicks and scratches, he hauled his
+prisoner back to the verandah, and, thrusting in his right arm beneath
+the floor, drew out the blazing rags and threw them on the gravel walk
+or on the grass until he was sure that not one remained. Some watcher at
+the front window had alarmed the guard-room, for out tumbled its
+occupants, and the lad was secured by Nash, and handed over to the
+Captain and Mr. Errol. Calling to Toner to keep an eye on the whole
+front, the detective, taking in the situation, hastened to the stables
+along with the lawyer, while the Squire and Mr. Perrowne went round the
+back way on the same errand. No guard was visible, and there was fire in
+two places, both happily outside sheds, one abutting on the garden
+fence, the other farther to the right. The Squire went for water-pails,
+while Nash and the veteran followed the course of the incendiaries
+towards the bush guarded by Rufus. But the lawyer and the parson,
+seizing stout poles, which were apparently Tryphena's clothes props,
+knocked the blazing sheds to pieces with them, and scattered the burning
+boards over the ground. Before the water came, the report of a rifle, a
+fowling piece, and of several pistol shots, rang through the air. No
+more signs of fire were discovered, so the water was poured upon the
+still burning boards, and the firemen waited for the report of the
+pursuers. While thus waiting, they heard a groan, and, going to the
+place whence it proceeded, discovered Timotheus, with a gag plaster on
+his mouth and an ugly wound on the back of his head, lying close to the
+garden fence below the fired shed. Some water on his face revived him,
+and at the same time moistened the plaster, but as it would not come
+off, Coristine cut it open with his penknife between the lips of the
+sufferer. Even then he could hardly articulate, yet managed to ask if
+all was safe and to thank his deliverers. He was helped into the house,
+and delivered over to the awakened and dressed Tryphena and Tryphosa,
+the latter behaving very badly and laughing in a most unfeeling way at
+the comical appearance cut by her humble swain. When Tryphena removed
+the plaster, and Tryphosa, returning to duty with an effort, bathed his
+head, the wounded sentry felt almost himself again, and guaised he must
+ha' looked a purty queer pictur. Soon after, Rufus staggered into the
+kitchen in a similar condition, and his affectionate sisters had to turn
+their attention to the Baby. These were all the casualties on the part
+of the garrison, and, overpowered though the two sentries had been,
+their arms had not been taken by the enemy.
+
+The Squire went forward to see after the welfare of his father-in-law,
+and found Mr. Terry carrying his own rifle and the gun of Sylvanus,
+while the said Pilgrim helped the detective to carry a groaning mass of
+humanity towards the kitchen hospital.
+
+"Oi tuk my man this toime, Squire," said Mr. Terry, gleefully; "Oi wuz
+marciful wid the crathur and aimed for the legs av' im. It's a foine
+nate little howl this swate roifle has dhrilled in his shkin, an' niver
+a bone shplit nor a big blood vissel tapped, glory be, say Oi!"
+
+It appeared, on examination of the parties, that Ben Toner and Sylvanus
+had indulged in a prolonged talk at the point where their beats met,
+during which a party of six, including the two prisoners, creeping up
+silently through the bush, prostrated Rufus with the blow of a bludgeon
+on the back of the head. Then, they advanced and repeated the operation
+on Timotheus, after which three of them, with cotton cloths soaked in
+oil, fired the sheds and the verandah. But for the lawyer's discovery of
+the spark under the latter, the fire might have been beyond control in a
+few minutes, and the end of the murderous gang accomplished. The whole
+household was roused; indeed, save in the case of the children, it can
+hardly be said to have been asleep. Mrs. Carruthers descended, and,
+sending Tryphosa to look after her young family, helped her father to
+bind up the wound of the grizzled incendiary, who refused to give any
+account of himself. "I know him," said the detective to the Squire; "his
+name is Newcome and he's a bad lot." Soon the Captain and Mr. Errol
+brought their prisoner in. The hospital and guard-room was the winter
+kitchen of the house, a spacious apartment almost unused during the
+summer months. When the lad was brought into it, he seemed to recognize
+the place with his dull big grey eyes, and spoke the first words he had
+uttered since his capture. "Bread and meat for Monty." "Why," said
+Tryphena, "it's the ijut boy." "So it is," ejaculated Mrs. Carruthers,
+"What is your name, Monty?" With an idiotic smile on his face, but no
+light in those poor eyes, he answered: "Monty Rawn, and mother's in the
+water place." Mrs. Carruthers explained that the lad had been often in
+the kitchen in winter, and that she had told Tryphena to feed him well
+and be kind to him, so that it is no wonder he recognized the scene of
+his former enjoyment. "Puir laddie," said the Squire, "he's no'
+responsible, but the born deevil that set him on should be hanged,
+drawn, and quartered."
+
+"Squire," answered Mr. Errol, "I'm aye on the side o' maircy, but to yon
+I say Amen."
+
+"Come, come!" Carruthers cried hastily, regaining his natural speech;
+"we must take off these haverals, Sylvanus and Toner, and bring them in
+to guard the prisoners. They are not fit for sentry duty." Leaving the
+Captain and the veteran as temporary guards, he sallied forth, followed
+by the lawyer and the two parsons.
+
+To the Squire's great delight, he found the dominie walking up and down
+the front of the house, humming "A charge to keep I have." "Mr.
+Wilkinson," he said, "you're a pairfec' treasure," and that so loud
+that the schoolmaster was sure it was heard by the occupants of the
+window over the porch. He marched along with redoubled pride and
+devotion. Mr. Perrowne took Toner's place, and the lawyer that of
+Sylvanus. Carruthers marched the two haverals to the kitchen, and placed
+the prisoners in their charge, after roundly abusing them for talking on
+guard. This set free the Captain and Mr. Terry, who were posted together
+by the outbuildings, although the veteran was very anxious to go down to
+the bush for the purpose of potting the Lake Settlement haythens. There
+being no post for the minister, he was appointed hospital chaplain and
+commander of the prisoners' guard. Mr. Nash, carrying Ben's gun, was
+investigating the strip of bush and the clump of birches down the hill
+for traces of the enemy. While so doing, two pistol bullets flew past
+his head and compelled him to seek the cover of a tree trunk. Finding he
+could do nothing in the imperfect light, he retired gradually towards
+the sentries, and aided them in their weary watch. At length, as
+daylight was coming in, and affording a pretext for the fair occupants
+of the front room, whose windows hailed the beams of the rising sun, to
+leave their seclusion and mingle with the wakeful ones below, the sound
+of wheels was heard coming along the road to the left. Hurriedly, the
+detective became Mr. Chisholm, and joined the dominie at the gate. There
+were three men in the waggon, and one of them was the Grinstun man, as
+cheerful as ever. What was in the waggon could not be seen, as it was
+covered over with buffalo robes and tarpaulin, but the detective could
+have sworn he saw it move, and give forth a sound not unlike a groan.
+Mr. Rawdon jumped down, telling a certain Jones of truculent countenance
+to drive on, as he guessed he'd walk the rest of the way this fine
+morning. The waggon drove off accordingly and at a rapid rate, while the
+working geologist accosted the sentinels.
+
+"Wy, wot's hup 'ere, gents? 'Ere you hare on guard yet, and Jones there
+terls me 'ee 'eard shots fired has 'ee was comin' along slowly. I 'ope
+there hain't no gang o' city burglars bin tryin' hany o' their larks on
+the Squire. We don't want none o' that sort hout in rural parts."
+
+The dominie and the detective declined to satisfy him, but the former
+said:--
+
+"I thought you had pressing business at Collingwood, Mr. Rawdon?"
+
+"So I 'ad, and stand to lose two or three 'undred dollars by missin' the
+mornin' train. But, wen I got quite a step on the road, all of a sudding
+I remembers my hoffer to Miss Do Please-us, and 'er hanswer as was to be
+hat the Post Hoffice before ten. So I turned back, hand, lucky for me,
+fell in with Jones and 'is man takin' 'ome some things from town. But,
+come! tell a man can't you? 'As there bin any burglary or hanythink, any
+haccident, anybody 'urt? I've got an hour and more to spare, if I can be
+of any 'elp."
+
+"I don't think we need trouble you, Rawdon," said the false Chisholm.
+"Your suspicions are correct so far, that an attempt has been made to
+fire the Squire's house, but by whom is a mystery, for there is no man
+more respected in the neighbourhood."
+
+"Respected! I should say 'ee is. Fire 'is 'ouse! O Lor'! wot a bloomin'
+shame! Really, I must go him, if it's honly for a hinstant to hexpress
+my feelins of hindignation to the Carrutherses."
+
+The Grinstun man entered the gate, which was just what the detective did
+not want. However, he held it open for him, saying: "You'll find the
+Squire in his office talking to Nash, but I don't suppose he'll mind
+being interrupted for a minute. Mrs. Carruthers is in the kitchen, and
+you'll likely meet an old acquaintance of yours there, Mr. Perrowne of
+Tossorontio."
+
+Rawdon drew back. Nash he knew: Mr. Perrowne, of Tossorontio, he did
+not; but the unknown to men of his stamp is often more dreaded than the
+known. He wouldn't intrude upon his friends just now, while everything
+must be upset. Playfully, he asked Favosites Wilkinsonia to remind Miss
+Do Please-us of that hoffer and the hanswer before ten, and straightway
+resumed his journey in the direction of the Lake Settlement.
+
+"Of all the impudent blackguards that I have met in the course of my
+experience, that fellow takes the cake," said the detective, removing
+his disguise.
+
+"What about Jones and the waggon?" asked the dominie.
+
+"The waggon is the one I saw when patrolling. Jones and his man are two
+of the ruffians who were in it. Old Newcome, here, is a third. The
+boy--by-the-bye, what a wonderful inspiration that was of yours to give
+us Idiot and Boy for passwords--well, the boy must have come from some
+other quarter. But there's either one or two wounded men under these
+buffaloes and bits of canvas, for I hit one in the waggon and sent the
+contents of Ben's gun after another down the hill. They both squealed.
+Men of that kind almost always squeal when they're hit. The impudence of
+that fellow Rawdon! Pon't forget Miss Du Plessis' letter; that's our
+card now. Never in all my life have I met with such colossal cheek!"
+
+The Squire came out and dismissed the guard. The parson and the lawyer
+strolled in together after Wilkinson and Nash. Coristine remarked "The
+sunshine is a glorious birth, as my friend Wilkinson would say."
+
+"Yes," answered Perrowne; "it brings to memory one verse of Holy Writ:
+'Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to
+behold the sun.' The words are very simple, but beautiful in their
+simplicity. People are apt to say there's no dogma in them, and that's
+why they are so acceptable to all. But that's a mistake. They contain a
+double dogma; for they make a dogmatic statement about light, and
+another about the relation of the sun to the human eye. In the Church we
+down't get much training in dogma, outside of the dogma of the Church,
+and a little in the Articles and the Catechism. Sow Mr. Enrol often
+flores me with his texts. But I down't bear him any malice, you know,
+nor any malice to dogma, so long as it's the dogma of the Holy
+Scriptures; because that is just like the verse I quoted, it says what
+is true of a thing in itself, or in its relation to man. To reject that
+sort of dogma is to reject the truth."
+
+"Still," replied the lawyer, "a man in a burning desert, or who had been
+sunstruck, might curse the sun."
+
+"Very true; but you know how wrong is the motto _ex uno disce omnes_.
+Believe that, and we are all scoundrels, because your Grinstun man was
+once under this roof."
+
+"There are, however, many ecclesiastical dogmas professedly taken from
+the Bible, against which good men, and earnest seekers after truth,
+rebel."
+
+"Of course! Mr. Errol says--I do wish he were a Churchman, he is such a
+thoughtful, clever fellow--he says prejudice, imperfect induction, a
+wrong application of deductive logic, and one-sided interpretation,
+down't you know, literal, figurative, and all that sort of thing, are
+causes of false dogmatic assertions."
+
+"My friend Wilkinson, who is a long way past me in these matters, thinks
+the dogmatists forget that Revelation was a gradual thing, that the ages
+it came to were like classes in a graded school, and each class got only
+as much as it could understand, both mentally and morally; and as, of
+course, it was able to express."
+
+"Yes; Errol says the same, but with exceptions; because the prophets
+said a whowle lot of things they didn't understand. But, my dear fellow,
+whatever is the matter with your hands and face? You're burnt, you pore
+sowl, and never said a word about it. Come on here, I saye; come on!"
+
+Mr. Perrowne laid hold on the lawyer's arm, and dragged him into the
+hall. "Miss Marjorie!" he called; "hi! Miss Carmichael, come along here,
+quick, I beg of you, please." The lady invoked came running out of the
+breakfast room, looking very pretty in her fright. "Look here, Miss
+Marjorie, at our pore friend's hands and face, all got by saving you
+ladies from being burnt alive."
+
+Miss Carmichael exhibited great concern, and took the patient, who
+insisted his wounds were nothing to make a fuss over, into the work
+room, setting him down, with the pressure of her two hands on his broad
+shoulders, in a comfortable chair between a sewing machine and a small
+table. Then she brought warm water, and sponged the hands, anointed the
+wounds with some home-made preparation, and clothed them in a pair of
+her uncle's kid gloves, which were so large and baggy that she had to
+sit down and laugh at her victim, who felt very happy and very foolish.
+Finally she found that Mr. Errol, whose hands were more shapely, had an
+old pair of gloves in his pocket. So the Squire's were taken off, and
+the discovery made that the hands needed more washing, soaping, and
+anointing. Coristine said his ring, a very handsome one, hurt him;
+would Miss Carmichael please take it off and keep it for him? Miss
+Carmichael removed the obnoxious ring, and did not know where to put it,
+but, in the meantime, to prevent its being lost, slipped it on to one of
+her own fingers, which almost paralyzed the lawyer with joy. He could
+have sat there forever; but the gong sounded for prayers, and he
+accompanied his nurse into the dining-room. There the whole household
+was assembled, even to the idiot Monty, with the exception of Tryphena,
+engaged in culinary duties, and Sylvanus, who mounted guard over the
+wounded Newcome. Ben Toner also was absent, having ridden off to summon
+Dr. Halbert. Mr. Perrowne, at the Squire's request, read the chapter for
+the day, and the minister offered a prayer, brief but fervent, returning
+thanks for the deliverance of the past night, and imploring help in
+every time of need, after which the entire company, Mr. Terry included,
+joined in the Lord's Prayer. Adjourning to the breakfast room, the
+events of the night were discussed over the porridge, the hot rolls and
+coffee and the other good things provided. Mr. Terry had been induced to
+desert the kitchen for once, and he and Coristine were the heroes of the
+hour. The lawyer put in a good word for the parson, and the Squire for
+Wilkinson, so that Miss Du Plessis and the other ladies were compelled
+to smile on both gentlemen. While the dominie blushed, the Captain
+settled his eye on him. "I told him when he was aboard the _Susan
+Thomas_ that, with all his innercent sort of looks, he was a sly dog,
+with his questions about an old man's pretty niece. I knowed I'd see him
+in Flanders makin' up to the gals, the sly dog! Got set down right beam
+on to their weather ports every time, even when he wasn't told to go on
+watch at all, the sly dog. Wilkison is his name; it'll be Will-kiss-em
+some day, ha! ha! ha! the sly dog!"
+
+The schoolmaster was dreadfully uncomfortable, and his lady teacher
+hardly less so. It was a blessed relief when a buggy drove up to the
+gate, and Mrs. Carruthers, having left her sister-in-law in charge while
+she went out to meet its occupants, returned shortly with the doctor and
+his blooming daughter, who, as a friend of the family, insisted on
+accompanying him to offer her services if she could be of help.
+
+"Come, Doctor!" said the Squire, rising with the rest of the party to
+greet him and his companion; "the patients are in no immediate danger,
+so you and Miss Fanny must sit down and help us with breakfast."
+
+Miss Fanny was nothing loath to do so, after an invigorating drive, and
+in the company of such a number of eligible bachelors as was rarely seen
+in Flanders. She had a word for Mr. Errol, for the detective, for the
+lawyer and the dominie, but to Wilkinson's great relief she finally
+pitched upon Mr. Perrowne and held him captive. Then Wilkinson improved
+the time with Miss Du Plessis, using as his excuse the letter or note
+she was to send to Rawdon declining his offer for the present, which the
+schoolmaster expressed his desire personally to take to the office.
+Breakfast over, the doctor inspected his patients, Newcome, Rufus, and
+Timotheus. The two latter he dismissed as all the better of a little
+blood letting, recommending lots of cold water applied externally. The
+case of the incendiary was more serious, but not likely to be fatal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+     Doctor Summoned to the Select Encampment--Newcome
+     Interviewed--Nash's Discovery--His Venture--Drop the
+     Handkerchief--The Dominie's Indignation--The Pedestrians
+     Detained--The Doctor Stays--A Trip to the Lakes--Conversation on
+     the Way--The Richards--Fishing--Songs--The Barrier in the
+     Channel--Nash's Dead Body Found--His Crazed Sister Comes to
+     Bridesdale.
+
+
+It was only eight o'clock when the elders finished their breakfast, and
+the children prepared to succeed them. All the party, except Mrs.
+Carruthers and Mrs. Carmichael, who had domestic duties before them, and
+Miss Du Plessis, who had her note to write, strolled out into the garden
+in groups. Shortly, a buckboard drove up to the gate, and its occupant,
+a washed out looking youth, enquired if the doctor was there, Dr.
+Halbert. The subject of the enquiry went forward, and found that he was
+wanted at the Select Encampment, for a man who had shot himself.
+
+"I tell you frankly, my man," said the doctor, "I don't care to go to
+your Select Encampment; there is too much mystery about it."
+
+"I guess the pay's all O.K.," answered the youth.
+
+"Why do you not get Dr. Smallpiece to look after your man?"
+
+"'Cos we don't know nuthun about him, and he's too small a piece for our
+boss. You best hurry up yer cakes and come on, doctor."
+
+Re-entering the house for his instruments, the doctor confided to
+Carruthers his distaste for the work before him, on account of the
+mystery surrounding it, but said he supposed it was his duty to relieve
+human suffering.
+
+"Where is it?" asked the Squire.
+
+"All I can tell you is that it is out on the lakes beyond the Lake
+Settlement."
+
+"I thocht as muckle," remarked the Squire to the detective, after the
+doctor was carried away on the buckboard.
+
+"Let as go and see Newcome," said the detective; and the pair went round
+to the kitchen, where the wounded man lay on an improvised couch, and
+was waited upon by big Ben Toner, anxious for news of Serlizer. Mr. Nash
+began:--
+
+"The doctor says that talking won't hurt you, Newcome."
+
+"Dawn't spause 'twull," answered the surly fellow.
+
+"Setting fire to buildings with intent to take life is a hanging matter,
+Newcome."
+
+"Oo said t'warnt?"
+
+"You seem prepared for your fate."
+
+"Ma vate was aw raight to I got t'bahl i'my laig."
+
+"I mean, you don't seem to care if you are going to be hanged."
+
+"Oo's a gaun to hahng us an' vor wat?"
+
+"You'll be hanged for arson with intent to kill. There are witnesses to
+prove you threatened to kill me at least."
+
+Newcome started, and so did Ben.
+
+"Yaw cahn't prove nowt."
+
+"Yes I can. I've got your pocket book and the odd papers out of your
+coat pocket."
+
+"Aw'll hae yaw oop vor stalun as well as shootun, zee iv I dawn't, yaw
+bloody thafe!"
+
+"Keep a civil tongue in your head, man, or I'll send you to the lockup
+at once," interposed the Squire.
+
+"Leave him to me Squire; I'll manage him," whispered Nash.
+
+Then, turning to the injurious Newcome, he continued:
+
+"Your daughter, Sarah Eliza, is at Rawdon's Select Encampment, where the
+stuff you sell is turned out. She can give some fine evidence. The
+Peskiwanchow crowd, the man that pretends to be called Jones, and the
+rest of them, were picked up by you in a waggon, I know, last night. The
+coal oil and fire marks are on your hands still, and this pretty rag
+came out of your side pocket. What is more, I don't need to ask the
+Squire here to commit you. I've got a warrant already, on the evidence
+of Henry and Stokes and Steadman. I'll serve that warrant on you now,
+and have you off to the county gaol, where Dr. Stapfer is bound to cut
+off your leg, if you don't own up quick, for I have no time to lose."
+
+"Daw yaw thenk as Stapper ull ambitate ma laig?"
+
+"I'm sure of it. He always does; he has a perfect mania for amputation.
+You know Driver?"
+
+"Yaas."
+
+"Who cut off his leg for a little bruise?"
+
+"T'wer Stapper."
+
+"And who cut of Sear's arm at the shoulder for a trifle of a rusty
+nail?"
+
+"Stapper taw. O, aw zay, Mezder Nahsh, dawn't zend us ta naw Stappers."
+
+"But I will, I must, if you don't confess immediately all that the
+Squire and I want to know. Turn Queen's evidence, and make a clean
+breast of it. You can't save Rawdon and his gang; we have them tight.
+But confess, and I'll get you out on bail, and send you home to your
+wife to be nursed; and, when the trials come, I'll get you off your
+liquor charge with a fine. Refuse to, and you go straight to Stapfer's
+to lose your leg, and then to the gallows."
+
+"Aw dawn't moind chancin' t'gallas, but ma laig! Wat daw yaw wahn't ta
+knaw?"
+
+At once all the people, Ben included, were ordered out of the hospital,
+and Coristine, much to his disgust, sent for. His hands were useless
+for writing, but, as he had a good memory, he could help in the
+examination. So Mr. Errol was called in to act as clerk, Mr. Perrowne
+refusing to do so, on the ground that all confessions made in the
+presence of a clergyman are sacred. Little by little the hardened old
+sinner revealed Rawdon's business, its centre and methods, his
+accomplices and victims. Then the whole story of the plot which
+culminated in the night attack was drawn from him, appearing blacker and
+more diabolical at every new revelation of villainy. It appeared that
+the Grinstun man had with him in the attack, which he conducted
+personally, his own six men from the so called Encampment, together with
+the idiot boy, and two lots of teamsters or distributors, the five from
+Peskiwanchow brought by Newcombe, and four from another quarter. He had
+thus sixteen ruffians in his force, besides himself and the boy.
+
+"Whose boy is that?" asked the detective, eagerly. He had been looking
+closely at the lad more than once and listening to his voice.
+
+"Ah beeslong ta Rowdon."
+
+"Who is his mother?" asked Nash, with a strange light in his eye.
+
+"Her's cawd Tilder."
+
+"Is she Rawdon's wife? Speak, man!"
+
+"Naw, nawt az aw niver heerd."
+
+"What was her name before he--brought her there?"
+
+"Aw donno, but t'lahd's cawd Mawnta Nehgull."
+
+"O my God!" cried the detective, as he fell back in his chair, and
+seemed to lose all power of speech.
+
+"Come away, Nash," said the Squire, taking one arm of the stricken man,
+while Mr. Errol, handing his notes to the lawyer, took the other. They
+led him tenderly to the office, where Carruthers forced a glass of wine
+upon him. Nash revived, and begged that the door might be closed and
+locked.
+
+"I may never have a chance to tell this again, so I want to tell it to
+you two, and to you alone. My real name is Nagle, not Nash. I was born
+in Hamilton, where my father was a wheelwright. I got a good schooling,
+and went into a lawyer's office, for father wanted me to become a
+lawyer. But I got reading detective books, and did a few sharp things
+for the firm that got me into notice and brought me private detective
+business. So I got on till I rose to be what I am, such as it is. When
+my parents died they left my sister Matilda in my care. I was only
+twenty then, and she, eighteen, a bright, pretty girl. She kept my rooms
+for me, but I was away most of the time, so she became tired of it, as
+we had no relations and hardly any friends we cared to associate with.
+She insisted on leaving me and learning the millinery in Toronto; so I
+had to let her go. I saw her often, and frequently sent her money. She
+got good wages at last and dressed well, and seemed to have respectable
+people about her. Suddenly her letters stopped. I went to her place of
+business, and heard that she had left to be married to a rich man in the
+country; but nobody, not even her closest acquaintances among the girls,
+knew where, or who the man was. I advertised, neglected business to hunt
+up every clue, travelled all over the country looking for my lost
+sister, promised my dead parents never to marry till I found her. And at
+last, at last, O God! I have found Matilda, and you know where, a woman
+without name or character, the victim of the greatest scoundrel unhung,
+the associate of brutal criminals, the unlawful mother of an idiot boy!
+No! no more wine, Squire, not a drop. I want a steady head and a strong
+hand this morning more than any day of my life. Open the door and the
+windows now, please; and give me a little air."
+
+Nash, for so he may still be called, sent Coristine away to Talfourd's
+for his bundle, and Miss Du Plessis, having handed the note for Rawdon
+to the dominie, accompanied the hero of the gloves in the Squire's
+buggy, so as to lose no time. Wilkinson was warned not to post the
+letter before his comrade's return. While waiting in the office, Mr.
+Errol, whose heart was deeply touched, locked the door again, saying:
+"John, let us kneel down and pray our Heavenly Father to comfort our
+friend in his great sorrow, and bless him in his present work." The
+Squire knelt with the minister, and the detective fell on his knees
+beside him, their hearts joining in the quiet but earnest supplications
+of the good man of religion. When they rose from their knees, Nash,
+almost tearfully, pressed their hands and bade God bless them.
+
+Coristine enjoyed the society of Miss Du Plessis; nevertheless he drove
+fast, for the business demanded haste. The buggy returned in little over
+half an hour, and the bundle was handed to the detective, who took it up
+stairs, and, soon after, descended as a countryman, in flannel shirt,
+light soiled coat, and overalls. The rim of his wideawake was drawn down
+all round, half hiding his face disguised with a ragged beard. It could
+not conceal his refined, almost aristocratic, features, but such a
+country type is not uncommon in many parts of Canada, even accompanied
+with perfect boorishness. His boots were small, which also was quite
+Canadian, but he had rubbed the blacking off, and trusted to the dust
+still further to disguise them. Smiling and courteous, he bade everybody
+whom he could trust good-bye, and slipped a large pocket-book full of
+money and memoranda into the hands of the Squire. "You can keep it till
+I come back," he said; "if I don't, get Mr. Errol and this lawyer chap,
+who seems a good fellow, to help you to make it out." Then, the dominie
+expressed his readiness to take the note to the post office, and Miss Du
+Plessis, a little piqued at Coristine's apparent want of attention to
+her, said that, if Mr. Wilkinson had no objections, she should, above
+all things, like a short walk after a cramping drive. The schoolmaster
+was only too delighted, in spite of Mr. Perrowne's glance of jealousy,
+which Miss Halbert saw and noted with a tap of her dainty foot on the
+verandah. So, Wilkinson and his inamorata tripped along the road, and,
+some distance behind them, shambled Simon Larkin, the hawbuck from away
+back, alias Mr. Nash. The children came out to play, led by Marjorie.
+Perrowne was still talking to Miss Halbert, Mr. Errol was closeted with
+the Squire, and the Captain and the veteran, on a garden bench, were
+telling yarns. "Cousin Marjorie," said her juvenile namesake, "we are
+going to play drop the handkerchief, because we've got such a lot of
+nice people to play it" Miss Carmichael answered: "Oh no, Marjorie, try
+some other game." But Marjorie insisted. So, a ring was formed, with
+Marjorie as handkerchief holder, outside. The ring consisted of the
+Captain and little Susan Carruthers, Mr. Perrowne and Marjorie of the
+same family, Coristine and Miss Halbert, Mr. Terry, pipe and all, and
+Honoria junior, John Carruthers junior and Miss Carmichael, and baby
+Michael, but with whom? Marjorie suggested the two aunties and Tryphosa,
+but finally concluded that there had to be an odd one any way, so baby
+Michael took the Captain's hand and Miss Carmichael's, and the game
+began. Of course Marjorie dropped the handkerchief on her Eugene, and
+Eugene caught her and kissed her with great gusto. Then he had to drop
+it, and Honoria saluted him with effusion. Mr. Perrowne was her choice,
+and the parson, tell it not in Gath, the perfidious parson gave himself
+away on Miss Halbert, who captured him, blushed, and submitted. The
+Captain and Mr. Terry were becoming indignant and shocked. Miss Halbert
+had mercy on John Carruthers junior, who went wild with delight, and
+brought out Miss Carmichael. She, pitying the Captain, gave him the
+handkerchief and a long chase, but Mr. Thomas finally triumphed, and
+chose Susan Carruthers as his victim. Susan took grandpa, who pocketed
+his pipe, and, after a sounding smack, passed the handkerchief on to his
+grandchild Marjorie. She, true to her name, chose the lawyer, and that
+gentleman, emboldened by the parson's precedent, dropped the terrible
+symbol on the shoulder of the girl who was all the world to him. She
+pursued him, and he ran as he well could do, but at last he got weak and
+tired, and she overtook him against her will and his, and Coristine was
+in the seventh heaven of delight. They could take him and trample on
+him, and flaunt his recreancy before Wilkinson even; he didn't want to
+kiss any more, even the fresh young lips of the children. He wanted that
+one impression to stay forever.
+
+Miss Du Plessis and the dominie were not in a hurry to get back to
+Bridesdale. She had received a letter from her mother, saying that Uncle
+Morton was coming to see her, and that she would try to induce him to
+accompany her to the country, as she did not wish to shorten her
+daughter's brief holiday by calling her home. Imparting the news to
+Wilkinson, a long and interesting conversation began which branched off
+into a variety of topics, treated seriously, at times poetically, by the
+kindred minds. Miss Da Plessis was quite unreserved, yet dignified, and
+without a trace of coquetry; nevertheless, the dominie assured himself
+that Mr. Perrowne had not a ghost of a chance in that quarter. She was
+pleased with the generous way in which he referred to his companion
+pedestrian, in spite of the provocation which she knew the lawyer had
+given his friend. The adventures of the past night, the fresh air of the
+morning, the rural scenery and his delightful companionship, made the
+schoolmaster eloquent; yet his sense of propriety and natural politeness
+kept him from monopolizing the conversation, so that his silent
+attention was even more flattering than his appeals to the lady's
+intelligence and culture. Outside of the English classics and current
+literature, her reading lay chiefly among French and Spanish authors,
+most of which were not unknown to the studious dominie. A few ripples of
+well-bred amusement were raised by his recital of his experience at the
+Beaver River, where he found the Voyage autour de mon Jardin, especially
+by his specimens of Lajeunesse French and the story of the dug-out. Of
+course, he did not offend a lady's ear with a word so vulgar; it was
+always the canoe. Too soon the pleasant morning walk was over, and they
+stood before the garden gate at Bridesdale, just at the moment when
+Coristine accidentally stumbled and was captured by the fair possessor
+of the handkerchief. "How good of your friend to please the children by
+taking part in their games," remarked Miss Du Plessis in all sincerity.
+"I cannot express the depth of my humiliation," replied the dominie; "it
+is scandalous--a violation of the rights of hospitality."
+
+"But, see! Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Perrowne is there; and Fanny also."
+
+"I have nothing to do, Miss Du Plessis, judging them that are without;
+Mr. Coristine pertains to my inner circle, and shall know my opinion of
+his shameful conduct before the sun rises much higher in the heavens."
+
+"Hi! there, shipmate," bawled the Captain, "come on and add a link to
+this here endless chain. I told you your real name, you sly dog! Ha, ha!
+Will-kiss-em, eh Marjorie? Not you, you little puss; but your cousin
+there, colourin' up like a piney rose."
+
+"I relinquished such sports with my pinafores," answered the dominie,
+grandly.
+
+It was very unjustifiable of Mr. Perrowne, but two things annoyed him;
+one being the fact that he was equally guilty with the lawyer, the
+other that Miss Du Plessis had deserted him for this prig of a
+schoolmaster. Loud enough to be heard by all, he remarked:--
+
+"A very learned and distinguished man was once playing with some
+children, when he suddenly cried, 'Children, we must stop, for I see a
+fool coming.' What do you think of that, Captain!"
+
+"Never said a truer word in your life," growled Mr. Thomas, and
+continued, "anything as calls itself a man and can't romp with the
+youngsters, nor give a joke and take it, had ought to be set in a high
+chair with a bib, let alone petticuts."
+
+"He said pinnies, papa," Marjorie corrected.
+
+"Pinnies or petticuts, it's all the same thing. Me and Terry here, old
+enough to be his fathers!"
+
+"An' it 'ud be a grate 'anner for me, anyway, to be father to a foine,
+praper, illigant gintleman loike Mishter Wilkerson," put in the veteran,
+anxious to keep the peace. The embers, however, were smoking on both
+sides when little Marjorie ran up to the dominie and, taking his hand,
+said beseechingly: "Please don't scold the poor boys and girls, Wilks,
+because it was my fault--all my fault. I made them play. Now, put down
+your head and kiss me, and say, 'I forgive you this once, but don't you
+go to do it again'; just like papa says."
+
+There was no help for it, though everybody laughed to hear the terror of
+the Sacheverell Street school called Wilks, and the grown-up people,
+girls and boys. The dominie had to repeat the formula and seal it with a
+kiss, when the perfidious child turned upon him very gravely, saying:
+"Now, sir, you can't speak, for you've done it your very own self." Thus
+it was that a storm was averted, and "drop the handkerchief" broke up in
+good nature.
+
+"Corry," said his friend, "I'm going upstairs for my knapsack. You had
+better get yours, and prepare to follow our route. Colonel Morton and
+Miss Du Plessis are coming here, so that we, as entire strangers, ought
+no longer to intrude upon the hospitality of Mrs. Carruthers."
+
+"All right, Wilks, my boy!" replied the tender-hearted lawyer, who felt
+as if his heart was breaking. In a few minutes the pedestrians descended
+ready for the road, when the Squire opened his office door and threw up
+his arms in amazement.
+
+"What in aa conscience is the meanin' o' this?"
+
+Wilkinson explained, and expressed a desire to find Mrs. Carruthers,
+that he might thank her for her kind hospitality.
+
+"Here, gudewife, and as ye four Marjories, and Miss Cecile," cried
+Carruthers, lustily, "come ye as here, and garr thae twa wanderin' Jews
+bide."
+
+Then there was a commotion, as the ladies flocked with the children into
+the hall, with many exclamations of astonishment and reproach,
+surrounding the recreant young men. Mr. Errol, the Captain, the veteran,
+and even Mr. Perrowne, came to learn what was the matter. When they
+heard the intentions of the pair, Mr. Thomas and the parson were
+prepared to make the most abject apologies to the dominie, who insisted
+that there was no necessity; on the contrary, he alone was to blame, but
+all that was past. Mrs. Carruthers would not hear of their going just as
+they were becoming so pleasantly acquainted, assured them that
+Bridesdale had ample accommodation, and commanded the veteran to form a
+company of his grandchildren and arrest the would-be deserters. Marjorie
+clung to her Eugene's right leg. Mr. Errol accused him of stealing away
+with his gloves, and finally the lawyer confided to Mrs. and Miss
+Carmichael that he didn't want to go a bit, was never happier in his
+life. Miss Du Plessis put a hand on the dominie's arm, a hand that
+tingled away in to his very heart, and said her uncle would be so
+disappointed when he arrived to find that his friends of Collingwood had
+not deemed him worth waiting for. Finally, the Squire took them both
+aside, and, speaking seriously, said he had no right selfishly to detain
+them, but the time was critical, poor Nash was away on a dangerous
+errand, and their services, already great and highly appreciated, might
+yet be of the greatest importance. Besides, after the fatigue and
+excitement of the past night, they were not fit to travel. The dominie
+confessed that, with all the excitement and possible danger, he had
+enjoyed himself amazingly, that his only motive for leaving was the fear
+of trespassing upon the kindness of Mrs. Carruthers, and that, if his
+humble services were of any value, he trusted the Squire would draw
+upon them to the utmost. The lawyer, hearing his companion's decision,
+wanted to give a wild Irish hurroo, but, checking himself, ground the
+Squire's right hand with his own kid-gloved afflicted member, as if he
+had been a long lost brother. When they next reached the hall, Miss
+Halbert was there taking in the situation with the other young ladies.
+She had already seen enough to know that neither of her fair companions
+was capable of properly addressing the culprits, so she made up for
+their deficiency, saying: "Go upstairs at once, you naughty boys, and
+take off these pads." The naughty boys ascended, with a strangely
+combined feeling of joy and smallness, and, when the knapsacks were
+removed, Coristine sank into a chair laughing. "O Lord, Wilks," he said,
+"she called them pads!"
+
+The doctor arrived in time for dinner, and reported three wounded men
+instead of one. Two had pistol wounds that had evidently been attended
+to from the first, the other had a gunshot in the back, and must have
+dragged himself a long way after it, for he was almost gone with loss of
+blood. "That'll be the chiel' puir Nash fired at wi' Ben's gun," said
+Carruthers.
+
+"Can your wife put me and Fanny up for the night, John?" asked the
+doctor, looking serious.
+
+"Just delighted to do so," replied the Squire; "we have more space than
+we know how to fill."
+
+"I must tell you why. These rough fellows at the Encampment are furious,
+and one of them, in his gratitude, warned me, on no account, to be in or
+near your house to-night."
+
+"Doctor, that's another thing. I have no right to let you risk yourself
+and Miss Fanny in time of danger in my house."
+
+"But we will, John. Come here, Fanny!" Telling his daughter the
+circumstances, the doctor asked her decision, and she at once answered:
+"Of course, Mr. Carruthers, we shall stay. Papa has two pistols in his
+gig, and, if necessary, will lend me one. I am a good shot, am I not,
+papa?"
+
+"Yes, John, she has a fine eye and nerve for a mark."
+
+At the dinner table Doctor Halbert conversed with the pedestrians about
+the scenery they had passed through, and recommended them, by all
+means, not to fail in visiting the Flanders' lakes. He informed them
+that they constitued a long and perplexing chain, being more like a long
+continuous sheet of water, narrowing every here and there into straits,
+affording little more than room enough for two boats to pass through,
+than an actual succession of lakes. To penetrate far in would be
+dangerous, but his guide had informed him that no visitors to the first
+three ran any risk of interference.
+
+"By the bye, Miss Cecile," interrupted the Squire, "some of these lakes
+are your property, are they not?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Carruthers," the lady replied; "but they would be so no longer
+if a very kind friend had not paid the taxes for them."
+
+"Hoot toot, lassie, what's the taxes on a bittock o' wild land and
+useless water?"
+
+"I should like above all things to see these lakes," remarked the
+dominie.
+
+"Do you know," said Mr. Perrowne, "for sow long a time as I have been in
+Flanders, I have never seen the lakes. One down't like to gow alowne,
+you know."
+
+"I say we go this afternoon," proposed the lawyer.
+
+"I'm with you, sir," responded the minister. "We'll drop cricket and
+golf, the day, Perrowne." Then in a whisper to Carruthers, "I'm anxious
+about poor Nash."
+
+"Then, meenister, see that ye aa tak' your revolvers and cartridges. I
+can supply you and Perrowne."
+
+Coristine proposed to botanize, but did not care to detain the
+expedition by continually opening his knapsack, nor to incommode himself
+with the burden of the strap press. He regretted that he had not brought
+his vasculum, when Miss Carmichael spoke up, and said that she would
+furnish him with one when the party was ready to start. After dinner the
+company lounged for half an hour on the verandah and in the garden.
+There the Captain made up his mind to go with the exploring party, and
+take charge of Richards' scow on the first lake, that being the only
+craft available. Ben Toner came round from the kitchen and asked the
+Squire if he had anything for him to do, as Sylvanus wanted to stay with
+old man Newcome and read the Bible to him.
+
+"Do you know the lakes, Toner?" asked Mr. Carruthers.
+
+"If you don't mind Squier, I'd sooner you'd call me Ben."
+
+"Well, Ben, then?"
+
+"Yaas, leastways I've ben at the laiuk as is nighes to han.'"
+
+"Do you mind taking your gun, and looking out for sport with these
+gentlemen?"
+
+"They isn't nawthin I'd laike bettr'en that."
+
+So, Ben got his gun and ammunition, and the Captain was furnished with a
+stout walking-cane loaded in the head. The two parsons, the dominie, and
+the lawyer had pistols in their pockets. When ready to start, Miss
+Carmichael came up to Coristine carrying some mysterious object behind
+her back. Rapidly bringing it forward, she threw a thick green cord over
+the lawyer's shoulders, from which depended a browny black japanned tin
+candle-box. Of course, it was an accident that the cord was short, and
+that Coristine bent his head just as the fair damsel stood on tiptoe to
+adjust the improvised vasculum.
+
+"I hope I didn't hurt you with my awkwardness, Miss Carmichael," pleaded
+the penitent knight of the order of the candle-box.
+
+"Not at all, Mr. Coristine, it was my fault. I am afraid your nose
+suffered."
+
+"Ha! ha!" chuckled the Captain, "young fellows can stand a lot o' that
+sort o' punishment. Reefs o' that kind don't do human vessels no harm."
+
+Wilkinson was getting sick of the Captain and his aggressive vulgarity.
+Coristine didn't mind him; anybody belonging to Miss Carmichael was, for
+the present, delightful. Nevertheless, for marching purposes, he fell in
+with Toner, while the Captain accompanied Mr. Errol, and Wilkinson, Mr.
+Perrowne. They had six miles to tramp, which took them a good hour and
+a-half. The Captain discussed navigation in Scripture times with the
+minister, and decided that the Jews might have been good at punting
+round, but were a poor seafaring lot. The dominie and the parson were
+deep in the philosophy of the affections, in the course of which
+excursus the former quoted the words:--
+
+     Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
+     Love gives itself, it is not bought
+     Nor voice nor sound betrays
+     Its deep, impassionated gaze.
+
+     It comes, the beautiful, the free,
+     The crown of all humanity,
+     In silence and alone.
+     To seek the elected one.
+
+Mr. Perrowne was struck with these verses, and, taking out his note
+book, begged that his companion would repeat them, as he recorded their
+sublime sentiment for future use. They then proceeded to eulogize Miss
+Du Plessis, of whom the parson formed a very high estimate, which he
+qualified by the statement that, were he not in holy orders, he would
+say Miss Fanny Halbert was more fun and ever so much jollier. Mr.
+Wilkinson really could not say, speaking conscientiously and without
+reserve, that he regarded jollity as an essential element in true
+womanhood. In his estimation it sank the peculiar grace and sacred
+dignity of the sex too nearly to a level with ordinary prosaic humanity.
+Mr. Perrowne concurred in a measure, but thought it was awfully nice for
+men of serious occupations, like the dominie and himself, to have
+somebody to liven them up a little; not too much, down't you know, but
+just enough to dispel the blues. The lawyer interrogated Toner. "Well,
+Ben, have you got any news of your young lady?"
+
+"Yaas, Doctor."
+
+"Never mind calling me doctor, Ben, because I'm not one yet. My name is
+Coristine."
+
+"Then, Mr. Corsten, I heern from old man Newcome as Serlizer's out in
+that there Slec Camp in the laiuks. She's cookin' for twainty dollars a
+month, and that's tarble good wages for gals, ef so be she gets her
+money all right."
+
+"Not a very nice place for a good girl to be, Ben."
+
+"No, it ain't; log roll and timber slide the hull consarn."
+
+"These are queer expressions you've got."
+
+"Yaas, Mr. Corsten, I waynt and promised that there priest as looked
+like Mr. Nash, guaiss it must ha' bin his brother, as I wouldn't sweaur
+no moer. And now, it keeps my mind workin' mornin' and night, so'st to
+know what to spit out when I'm raiul mad and hoppen."
+
+"It must be quite an anxiety to you, Ben."
+
+"Anxiety? It's wearin' my life away. I've got a bit of a rest jest now
+on loggin' and lumberin', but them words 'll soon be used up."
+
+"What's to hinder you repeating them, or leaving them out altogether? I
+hardly ever feel the need of them."
+
+"It's the way you're broughten up, like your food. What 'ud do you for
+dinner, wouldn't be nigh enough for me. Same ways in speakin', they must
+be something to fill your talk out."
+
+"Swearing is a poor business, Ben. Our Saviour, when He was on earth,
+said, Swear not at all."
+
+"Is that in the Bible, Mr. Corsten?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Wall, it may be in some, but t'aint in the one Sylvanus was readin' to
+old man Newcome, fer that says in black and white as Jesus cussed the
+barrn fig tree, and I'd laike to know what's odds between cussin' and
+swearin'. It stands to reason and natur that He wouldn't go and tell
+folks not to do things He did Himself; don't it?"
+
+"If you had read the chapters, there are two of them, that tell the
+story of the fig tree, you would have found that the disciples called it
+cursing when it was only a quiet saying: 'Let no fruit grow on thee
+henceforth.' You wouldn't call that cursing, would you?"
+
+"O my, no, that ain't wuth callin' a cuss; they ain't no cuss about it.
+Now, fer whole souled, brimstun heeled cuss words, they's----"
+
+"Never mind telling me any. They wouldn't do me any good, and the
+clergyman forward there might hear them."
+
+"Do these clergy belong to the Church?"
+
+"They both think they do in different ways, but, strange to say, neither
+of them belongs to your Church."
+
+"Wall, I ain't got no quarrl at 'em. I guaiss all the good folks 'll get
+to Heaven somehow."
+
+"Amen!" answered the lawyer, and the conversation ended.
+
+There was no visible cart track to the lakes. If Rawdon's whiskey mill,
+as Ben called it, was really somewhere among them, there must of
+necessity have been a road tapping their shores at some point, for an
+extensive business employing so many men could hardly exist without a
+means of easy transportation. To the neighbourhood of the Lakes
+Settlement, however, this road was a mystery. The party halted at a log
+house by the side of the road proper, and Mr. Perrowne, who claimed
+Richards as a parishioner, asked his wife if he and his friends could
+have the use of her boat. Mrs. Richards gave the required permission
+very graciously, and the excursionists struck into the bush path which
+led to Lake No. 1, or Richards' Lake. The bush had once been
+underbrushed, perhaps a long time back by the Indians who generally made
+for water; but the underbrush was now replaced by a dense growth of
+Canadian yew, commonly called Ground Hemlock, the crimson berry of which
+is one of the prettiest objects in the vegetable world. It, and other
+shrubs and small saplings, encroached on the narrow path, and, in
+places, almost obliterated it. The land rose into a ridge a short
+distance from the water, so that it was invisible until the crest was
+reached. Then, a dark circular lake, seemingly altogether shut in by the
+elsewhere dense forest, made its appearance. There were remains of a log
+shelter near the shore on the left, and, between it and the somewhat
+muddy beach, Toner lit a fire of drift wood to drive away the flies
+which followed the party out of the bush. The punt was soon discovered
+moored to a stake, a punt with three seats flush with the gunwales, one
+each fore and aft, and one in the centre.
+
+"O, I saye," cried Mr. Perrowne, "look at that lovely little island out
+there! See, you can hardly see it because of the black shadows. What a
+place to fish! and here we are without a single rod."
+
+"Ain't no need to trouble about rods," remarked Ben; "I kin cut you
+half-a-dozen in two shakes of a dead lamb's taiul."
+
+"And I've got three hooked lines," added the lawyer, producing part of
+his Beaver River purchase from his breast pocket. The dominie did not
+wish to trust himself in a doubtful craft with Coristine again, and he
+distrusted the Captain, save on the _Susan Thomas_. His former success
+in fishing, and his present pleasant relations with Perrowne, prompted
+him to join that gentleman in practising the gentle art. But what about
+bait? The question having been put to Toner, who returned with three
+springy saplings, and worms having been suggested, that veteran
+fisherman told Mr. Perrowne that he might as well look for a gold mine
+as for worms in new land. When, however, some envelopes were produced
+from various pockets, he proceeded to fill them with grasshoppers and
+locusts. He also excavated a little pond near the shore, and gathered a
+collection of caddice worms from the shallow border of the lake, after
+which he found an old bait tin in the log shelter, that he filled with
+water, into which he transferred the pond's inhabitants for
+transportation. "Ef them baiuts don't suit, they's a heap o' little
+frawgs in the grass of that there island," he finally remarked, before
+unmooring the scow. Then the dominie and Mr. Perrowne got on board with
+their rods, lines, and bait, and were poled and paddled by Ben over to
+their isle of beauty. Their lines were in the water, and a bass was on
+each hook, before the scow returned to the shore.
+
+Now the Captain took command of the craft, occupying the entire stern
+thwart; while Ben, with his gun resting on the floor and pointing its
+muzzles out over the bow, held that end of the vessel. The commander
+would not allow the passengers who sat amidships to do any work, but
+said they might talk or sing if they had a mind to. Then the lawyer
+sang:--
+
+     The floatin' scow ob ole Virginny
+     I've toiled for many a day,
+     Workin' among de oyster beds,
+     To me it was but play.
+
+When he ended, Mr. Errol gave the company "Flow gently, Sweet Afton,
+amang thy green braes," and Coristine wondered much if "My Mary" that
+occurs in the song had any reference to a Marjorie, one who, as he said
+inwardly,
+
+               Shall never be thine,
+     But mine, but mine, so I fondly swear,
+     For ever and ever mine!
+
+After Mr. Errol's effort, which won applause from the Captain, the
+lawyer waved his handkerchief as a farewell sign to the busy fishermen,
+for, just at that moment, the apparently land-locked shore opened, and a
+narrow channel between cliffs came into view. The second lake, into
+which they soon glided, was more beautiful than the first. A few jays
+and woodpeckers were flying about, and Toner was anxious to have a shot
+at a golden woodpecker, which he called a Highholder, and which sat
+unconcernedly on a limb within splendid range. Mr. Errol dissuaded him,
+saying he had heard that the report of a gun was carried through all the
+channels to the very end by the echoes, and reverberated there like the
+noise of thunder; after last night, they had better be as quiet as
+possible. To take his mind off the disappointment, Coristine asked Ben
+if he could sing and paddle too. He guessed he could, as paddling wasn't
+taking his breath away any. So Ben was pressed to sing, and at once
+assumed a lugubrious air, that reminded the lawyer of The Crew. The song
+was about a dying youth, who is asked what he will give in legacy to his
+mother, his sister, and various other relatives. He is liberal to all,
+till his lady-love's name is mentioned, and, for some unknown reason,
+excites his indignation. The tune was not the same as The Crew's
+copyright.
+
+     "What will you give your sweetheart, my comfort and my joy?
+     What will you give your sweetheart, my darling boy?"
+                         "Oh! a gallows to hang on!
+                         Mother, make my bed soft;
+                         I've a pain in my chest;
+                         I want to lay down."
+
+The last line was sung in a very solemn and affecting monotone.
+Coristine had to pretend to be deeply moved, to turn round facing the
+Captain, and chew first his moustache and then half of his pocket
+handkerchief. "Eh, Ben," said the graver minister, "I'm afraid that was
+no' a very Christian spirit to die in."
+
+"No, your raiverence," replied the singer, "but ef I hadn't a knowed it
+was old man Newcome as took Serlizer away, I'd be cant-hooked and
+pike-poled ef I wouldn't ha' sung jest them words, that's ef I had a
+paiun in my chaist and wanted to lay down." When they reached the third
+lake, through a channel similar to the last, the Captain said sternly:
+"I'm in command of this vessel, and expect orders to be obeyed. No more
+singin' nor laughin' out nor loud talkin'. Doctor says it's as much as
+life's worth to go beyond it. You've heerd orders; now mind 'em."
+Everything was silent, save the soft dip of the paddles in the water;
+the quiet was painfully oppressive. Ugly thoughts of bad men mingled
+with a sense of the natural beauty of the scene. Toner in the bow
+silently pointed to a square artificial-looking white object at the
+entrance to the next channel, which was the limit of the voyage. At
+last the punt came up to it, and its occupants found the channel barred
+by a heavy grating, that passed down into the water. Above it was a
+notice in the usual form, indicating the prosecution of trespassers, and
+signed by order of the proprietor, Miss Du Plessis, with the name of
+John Carruthers, J.P. "The villain!" ejaculated Mr. Errol. "John has
+neither been here nor sent here. It's a forgery, an impudent forgery."
+
+"Let us take it down and carry it back with us," said the lawyer.
+
+"Na, na, my lad; we maun just wait till we come in force."
+
+"Time to 'bout ship," growled the Captain.
+
+"Hush!" whispered the minister, "I hear a voice, a woman's voice."
+
+"Come on!" said the lawyer, jumping ashore; "will you come, Ben?"
+
+"Don't ask me that, Doctor, I dassent," replied Toner, shivering with
+superstitious fear.
+
+"Let me go with him," said the minister to the Captain; "we'll not be a
+minute away."
+
+"Look sharp, then!" growled Mr. Thomas. "Are you loaded?"
+
+The two explorers looked to their revolvers, and then climbed the bank,
+which was no easy task, as it was a mass of felled timber and dead
+brush; but the notes of a woman's voice led them on, and, at last, they
+found themselves on the shore of the fourth lake. They saw nothing, so
+they crouched down listening for the voice.
+
+"Steve, Stevy dear, wake up and let us go away. Oh, why are you sleeping
+when every moment is precious? He will come, Stevy, I know he will, and
+kill you, dear!" The voice was very near. Simultaneously the intruders
+looked up the bank, and, at the foot of a standing hemlock, saw a woman,
+with gray hair hanging loose over her shoulders, who knelt by a
+recumbent figure. "Steve, dear brother," she continued, "do wake up! You
+used to be so good and sensible." Coristine crept nearer behind some
+bushes till he was within a very short distance of the pair. With a
+white, sad face, trembling in every limb, he came back as silently to
+the minister, and whispered: "It's poor Nash, and she calls him brother;
+Mr. Errol, he's murdered, he's dead." The warm-hearted Errol, who had
+come out to look after the detective's safety, at once became a hero.
+
+"Bide you there, Coristine," he said, "bide there till I call you." Then
+he arose and went to the spot, but the woman, though he was in full
+view, took no notice of him. He stooped and touched her. For a moment
+she shrank, then looked up and saw it was not the person she dreaded.
+"Matilda Nagle," whispered the minister, "we must get poor Steevie away
+from here." Then he saw that her intellect was gone; no wonder that she
+was the mother of an idiot boy. "Oh, I am so glad you have come, Mr.
+Inglis," she cried, softly; "won't you try and wake Stevy, perhaps he
+will mind you better than me." The minister brushed the tears from his
+eyes, and strove to keep the sobs out of his voice. "I have a friend
+here and will call him," he said, "and we will carry Steevie away to the
+boat, and all go home together." So he called Coristine, and they picked
+the dead man up, the dead man from whose smooth, girl-like face the
+disguise had been torn away, and bore him painfully but tenderly over
+the rough fallen timber safely to the other side, the woman following.
+Ben shivered, as he saw the strange procession come down the hill, but,
+like the Captain, he uttered neither word nor cry. The bearers propped
+the dead man up against the middle thwart with the face towards the bow,
+and then set the woman down beside the Captain, who said: "Come along,
+my dear, and we'll see you both safely home." The old man's honest face
+won the poor sister's confidence, as she took her seat beside him and
+left her Stevy to the care of the minister and Coristine. With all their
+might and main paddled the Captain and Ben. Joyfully, all the company
+saw stretch after stretch of the lake behind them, until, at last, they
+passed the fishermen and landed on the shore. The minister and the
+lawyer laid their coats upon the boards of the log shelter, and placed
+their burden upon them. "Let him sleep a bit," said Mr. Errol to the mad
+woman; "let him sleep, and you help my friend to get a few flowers to
+take home with him." So Coristine took his candle-box from the floor of
+the punt, and, with his strange companion, gathered the skullcaps and
+loose-strifes and sundews that grew by the shore. She knew the flowers
+and where to find them, and filled the lawyer's improvised vasculum
+almost to overflowing with many a new specimen. He only took them to
+humour her, for what cared he for all the flowers that bloom when death,
+and such a death, was but a few yards away.
+
+Ben Toner brought the fishers back with two good strings of fish; but,
+when they heard the story, they threw them into the lake. Ben was a
+handy man. He cut down two stout poles, and with leather wood bark
+constructed a litter, light but strong. On this the sleeping detective
+was laid, and while Mr. Errol and the Captain stumbled through the
+ground hemlock on either side of the now cheerful mad woman, the other
+four carried their ghastly load, with scalding tears streaming from
+every eye. "S'haylp me," said Ben to the lawyer, "ef I don't hunt the
+man as killed him till he dies or me." After a painful journey they
+reached the Richards' house, and Richards was at home. Mr. Perrowne told
+him all about it, and the brave fellow answered:--
+
+"Bring it in here, passon; we've a place to put it in where it'll be
+safe till they send for it. I ain't scared, not I. You know my four boys
+in your club; they've all got guns and can use 'em, and I've got mine to
+boot." So, they left the body there, and persuaded the sister to come
+with them on their six mile walk home. It was seven o'clock before they
+had accomplished half the journey, and had been met by the
+representatives of an anxious household, the Squire and his
+father-in-law, the latter with rifle in hand, prepared for action. The
+first joy at beholding them safe and sound was damped by the news they
+brought. As soon as Carruthers could recover himself he spoke to the
+weird woman and invited her to come and rest at Bridesdale. Then he
+hastened on ahead to warn his wife and sister, and make arrangements for
+the reception of the strange visitor. When the party arrived at the
+house they found a large company, young and old, assembled to meet them,
+for, in addition to the doctor and his daughter, there was Mrs. Du
+Plessis with her daughter on one side, and, in all its soldierly
+dignity, the tall form of Colonel Morton on the other. The lawyer also
+noticed the ebon countenance of Mr. Maguffin peering over the palings in
+the direction of the stables. Matilda Nagle was hurried away to the
+back of the house by Mrs. Carruthers and her sister-in-law, there to
+find her idiot boy, to partake of necessary food provided by the
+compassionate Tryphena, and, for a time, altogether to forget the sad
+tragedy of the day. Tryphosa prepared tea for the truants in the
+breakfast room, and, after the formalities of introduction and
+reacquaintance had been gone through, Miss Carmichael poured out tea for
+the five, while Tryphosa did the same for Ben in the kitchen. The
+Captain told how Mr. Errol and the lawyer braved the terrors of the
+barred-in lakes, which appalled the stout heart of big Ben Toner. The
+two heroes hastened to put all the credit on one another's shoulders, in
+which, so far as one person's estimation was concerned, the minister
+triumphed, for, through the tears that shimmered in her eyes, Coristine
+could see that the presiding goddess was proud of him, and, with all his
+simple-heartedness, he knew that such pride has its origin in
+possession.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+     Old Man Newcome's Escape, Arrest and Conveyance Home--The Colonel's
+     Plan of Campaign--He Takes Command--Maguffin's Capture by Messrs.
+     Hill and Hislop--The Richards' Aid Enlisted--Squire as Colonel, and
+     Mr. Terry, Sergeant-Major--The Skirmish--Harding
+     Murdered--Wilkinson and Errol Improving the Time--The Young
+     Incendiary--Mr. Hill Crushes Maguffin.
+
+
+Everybody grieved for the offtaking of the detective. In the front of
+the house, the Squire and the minister, who knew his history, were most
+affected; in the back, Ben Toner was the corypheus of grief. An old man
+on a couch in an adjoining room heard the news, and, little thinking
+that his deposition and confession were safe in the Squire's possession
+along with many other documents, rejoiced thereat, and conceived a
+heroic project. At first, he thought of enlisting the idiot boy, but had
+to give up the idea; for the boy was happy with those whom he knew, and
+obstinately refused to go near the old reprobate. Sylvanus no longer
+watched him; he was basking in the smiles of Tryphena, and, at the same
+time, amusing Monty. There was a passage from the room he was in to the
+back of the main hallway, which led into the open air, independently of
+the summer kitchen. His coat was gone and his hat, both his boots were
+removed, and his wounded leg was bandaged, but he was a tough old
+criminal, and a bare back rider from a boy. He slipped off the couch,
+and helped himself along by the wall, thankful that his boots were off
+and he could move quietly. Still, simple Sylvanus, taken in by the good
+old man who loved to have the Bible read to him, neglected his duty.
+Newcome gained the hall, the porch, the open air, and, at last, could
+hardly believe his good luck to find himself in the stable unperceived.
+What a lot of horses were there with nobody to look after them! He saw
+one that suited him, a handsome beast he had seen in Collingwood, the
+travelling powers of which he knew. To that stall he went, and braced
+himself against the partition for a spring, after he had loosed the
+halter, and slipped on a bit and bridle. He backed his steed out, turned
+in the passage way and made for the door. Another moment and he would be
+free. No horse in the stable, even if saddled and bridled, would be able
+to overtake him, once he was on the road. But, at the door he met an
+obstacle in the shape of a mountain of straw, that caused the horse to
+back. The desperate man dug his knees into the flanks of the beast, and
+urged it on. Down went the straw mountain, and the luckless Timotheus
+beneath it, and Newcome rained a few exultant curses on him, as he
+forced his steed; when a well-dressed negro sprang up from nowhere, and,
+seizing the rein nearest him, spoke to the intelligent animal, and
+backed it to one side. In a moment Timotheus wriggled himself unhurt out
+of the litter, and, by main force, pulled the escaped prisoner down;
+while Mr. Maguffin remarked that "hoss thieves ain't pumculiah ter no
+paht of the habitatable yeth."
+
+Newcome squirmed and fought as well as he was able, but to no avail.
+Timotheus was simple and he was clumsy, but he was no weakling. Maguffin
+led the horse back into the stable, spread his litter, and replaced the
+bridle on the wall. Then he came out quite unruffled, and asked
+Timotheus if he would like him to use his new boots on the prisoner, to
+which that worthy replied with a grin: "I guess I've pooty nigh parlyzed
+his laigs to stop his wrastlin' tricks aready." Sylvanus, in a lucid
+moment, remembered his charge, and found the bird had flown. He came
+out to look for his Bible-loving friend, dreading the Captain's wrath,
+and great was his relief when he found him a victim in the strong arms
+of his brother. "Here, Sylvanus, you hold him, so's the Square'll think
+t'was you as cotched him," said the unselfish Timotheus. So Sylvanus,
+nothing loath, seized the hypocrite, and Timotheus went for the Squire,
+while Maguffin looked calmly on, occasionally glancing at his
+heavy-soled new boots, as if regretting that there was no immediate call
+for their services. The Squire was angry, for he had been kind to the
+old sinner; but he saw that the prisoner was an element of weakness in
+the house. What was to hinder him escaping again, committing murder,
+setting the place on fire? He called up Toner. "Ben," he said, "how long
+would it take you to convey Newcome to his home in a farm waggon with a
+good team?" "Ef the teeum's smart, I guaiss an houer 'ud do," answered
+the prospective son-in-law of the victim. Accordingly a springless
+waggon was produced, some straw thrown in, and Newcome securely bound
+with ropes, lying flat on his back, with his own coat and a sack or two
+put under his head for a pillow. "Timotheus," continued Mr Carruthers,
+"you had better go with Ben. Take your guns, both of you, and bring them
+back as quick as you can." Off started the ambulance, at first gently
+and humanely. When out of sight of the house, Toner grinned at
+Timotheus, and Timotheus grinned back at Ben. "It can't be haylped,
+Timotheus," remarked the latter in a low tone, "we're bound to git back
+airly, ef they's moer guyard mountin' to be did. So here goes, Serlizer
+or no Serlizer." The horses were pretty fresh, and they tore along,
+enjoying the fun, and answering with their heels to every playful flick
+of the whip. The road was rough and hilly; the jolting almost threw the
+occupants of the box seat off the waggon that had no springs. Old man
+Newcome groaned, and implored Ben, for the sake of Serlizer, to go easy
+or leave him on the roadside to die. "Ef you don't laike my teamin',"
+said Toner, in a simulated huff, "I'll quit. Here, Timotheus, you had
+ought to know them hosses better'n me." Timotheus took the reins, and
+cried: "Gerlang, we ain't no time ter lose; rattle the brimstun an'
+merlasses old malufacture over the stones, he's ony a firebug as nobody
+owns." The delight of The Crew's brother in getting off this new and
+improved version of an ancient couplet made him reckless. He and Ben
+jumped into the air like shuttlecocks, and seemed to like it. "I heern
+say," remarked Toner, while moving momentarily skywards, "I heern tayll
+as this here joltin' beats all the piulls and pads as ever was made for
+the livyer."
+
+"Yaas," cheerfully responded Timotheus, coming down with a sounding
+bump; "myuns is like what the doctor out our way said to fayther wunst.
+Says he, 'Saul, your livyer's tawpidd.' So's myun, Ben; it's most tarble
+tawpidd. Gerlang, yer lazy, good fer nawthun brutes; poor old man
+Newcome won't get home this blessed night, the way yer a-goin'."
+
+The waggon reached the Newcome shanty. The old man was unbound and
+lifted out into his own bed. Strong as he was, he had fainted, which his
+charioteers were not sorry to see. "He's had an accident, Miss Newcome,"
+said Ben to the man's wife; "but he'll soon be all right." Fortunately,
+the doctor had done his duty well, and the shaking had failed to loosen
+the bandages over the wound. The drivers got into the waggon again and
+drove home more gently, exchanging a few words with each other; one
+being: "Guaiss old man Newcome's out o' mischief fer one night."
+
+While Bridesdale was being delivered from the presence of one unwelcome
+guest, the welcome ones of the front were discussing with the Squire the
+programme for the night. He had made out a warrant for the arrest of
+Rawdon, should he again have the hardihood to turn up, and otherwise
+proposed to repeat the guards of the night before. While the
+excursionists were at tea, the colonel and Mr. Terry had been walking
+about with an object in view; and the latter gentleman informed his
+son-in-law that "the cornel has a shplindid oiday in his moind." Colonel
+Morton was requested to favour the company with it, and proceeded to do
+so. "From what infohmation I have had fuhnished me by my fellow-soldieh,
+Mr. Tehhy, I pehsume you have pehmitted the attacking fohce to select
+its own basis of opehations, and have yohselves stood almost entihely on
+the defensive. With a small fohce, this is vehy often the only couhse
+to puhsue. But, as I now undehstand from reeliable infohmation brought
+in, the enemy's fohce of seventeen is reduced by four, while that of the
+gahhison is augmented by three--the doctor, myself and my sehvant. Ah,
+no; I fohgot you have had one sad casualty, as my niece infohms me, in
+the fall of Mr. Nash; which leaves the strength of the gahhison fohteen,
+as against thihteen of the assailants. My friend, Mr. Wilkinson, infohms
+me that a small detachment of five men, well ahmed, holds a foht some
+six miles in the dihection of the enemy. Now, gentlemen of the council
+of wah, can we not obtain that this friendly outpost make a divehsion in
+conceht with the offensive paht of our ahmy? Send a scout with
+instyuctions foh them to occupy the wood neah their foht, and, eitheh
+with blank or ball cahtyidge--as you, Genehal Cahhathers, may
+dihect--meet the enemy as ouah troops dyive them back, and thus pehvent
+them seeking the coveh of the trees against us. This being done, send a
+scout, mounted if possible, to guahd against attack from the left; post
+pistol sentinels round the buildings, and fohm the rest of the available
+fohce into an attacking pahty occupying the strategic point examined by
+Mr. Tehhy and me: I allude to the plantation to the reah of the right
+wing. Just as soon as the enemy comes up to occupy that position, chahge
+them like bulldogs and drive them as fah as possible towahds the road,
+and at last bring them undeh the guns of our friendly foht. That, I
+think, is bettah than losing heaht by watching all night long and
+endangehing the safety of the ladies. Such, gentlemen, is my humble
+counsel."
+
+"Hark till him, now, jantlemen; pay attintion till him, all av yeez,"
+exclaimed Mr. Terry; "fer 'tis the wurrud av a sowldjer and an
+offisher."
+
+"Assume command, Colonel, if you please. We are all ready to obey
+orders," said the Squire. "Is that not the case, friends?"
+
+To this the whole company answered "Yes," and Colonel Morton at once
+gave his commands.
+
+The garrison was paraded on the lawn, its armament strengthened by two
+rifles borrowed in the neighbourhood, of which the Squire carried one
+and the lawyer the other. The post office had been cleared out of its
+complete stock of powder and shot by Carruthers, early in the morning,
+to the no little disgust of the Grinstun man when he went for his mail.
+"Volunteehs foh the foht, foh mounted patyol, foh plantation
+picket--three!" called out the colonel. Perrowne volunteered for the
+first, as likely to have most influence with the Richards. "Blank
+cartridge," said the Squire, as he rode away amid much waving of
+handkerchiefs. "Oi'm yer picket, cornel," said Mr. Terry, stepping out
+of the ranks with his rifle at the shoulder in true military fashion.
+"Ef it's a gennelman wot knows riden, sah, and kin fiah a pistol or
+revolvah, I respectuously dedercates my feeble servishes," volunteered
+Mr. Maguffin, who mounted and patrolled poor Nash's beat, with a
+revolver handy; while the veteran ran at a regular double to the far end
+of the strip of bush. "The Squiah had bettah take the field, as he knows
+the ground and I do not," said the colonel; "I will command the
+gahhison. I shall want the captain, the doctah, Mr. Wilkinson and Mr.
+Ehhol--four. My deah sistah-in-law can shoot; and so, I believe, can
+Miss Halbeht, so we are seven."
+
+"There's Wordsworth for you, Wilks, my boy," Coristine remarked, nudging
+his right hand man.
+
+"Corry, my dear fellow, whatever induced you to take that gun?" answered
+the dominie, apprehensive for his friend's safety in the field.
+
+"It's no gun, Wilks; it's a rifle. If I only get a sight at Grinstuns,
+I'll commit justifiable homicide. Then I wish the Squire would punish me
+by sending me down here for thirty days."
+
+"The gahhison will take three paces to the fyont; quick, mahch!"
+commanded the colonel.
+
+The four came out in pretty straggling order, and the two ladies named
+fell in beside them.
+
+"Now, Squiah, I leave yoah command of five men, which Mr. Pehhowne will
+soon augment to six, and Mr. Tehhy to seven, in yoah hands. If I have no
+fuhtheh need of a mounted patyol, my sehvant will join the gahhison."
+
+The colonel then left to post his sentries, which he did so judiciously
+that three were enough, namely, the doctor, the minister and the
+dominie. The ladies kept watch by turns on the front of the house. Soon
+a voice was heard at the gate calling for Colonel Morton. The colonel
+answered the summons in person. It was Maguffin dismounted, and behind
+him came two men, honest farmers apparently, one of whom led the
+coloured man's horse, while the other held his fowling piece at the
+port, ready for action in Maguffin's rear.
+
+"Maguffin," said the colonel, sternly, "consideh youhself undeh ahhest,
+suh."
+
+"I doan need ter hab ter, sah; that's jess wot I is this bressid minit."
+
+"Good evening!" said the two farmers, amiably, and the colonel returned
+the salutation. "Good evening, gentlemen! but I feah you have made a
+mistake in ahhesting my sehvant."
+
+"When a naygur on a fine beast gallops down on two quiet folk, and
+orders them to go back, disperse, and surrinder, and them coming to see
+after the safety of their children and friends, the only one thing to
+do, if you have your guns along, is to arrest the naygur."
+
+"Do I undehstand, Maguffin, that you ordehed these wohthy people to go
+back, dispehse, and suhhendah without any wahhant?"
+
+"And presinted his pistil, too," continued the tall man, who had already
+spoken, and who was the coloured man's guard.
+
+"Have you no answah, Maguffin?"
+
+"I fought, Cunnell, I was ter patterole this heah road and repawt all
+the folkses I see on or off'n it."
+
+"Yes, repoht to me, as youh officeh, suh."
+
+"Oh, I fought yoh meant to repawt em wif a revolvah, sah."
+
+"I suppose, gentlemen, you will let my sehvant go, when I say I deplohe
+his foolish mistake, and apologize foh his insolence?
+
+"To be shure, sir," replied the guard; "give the man his horse,
+Annerew."
+
+Maguffin remounted, and, receiving more minute instructions from his
+master, returned to his patrol duty.
+
+"We're just coming in to help the Squire, and me to look after my
+childer, Tryphena and Tryphosa and Baby Rufus. When the Baby didn't come
+back this mornin', I said to his mother, 'Persis' says I, 'I must go and
+see the boy.' So here I am. My name is Hill, sir, Henry Cooke Hill, and
+this is my neighbour, and some day, perhaps, Rufus's father-in law,
+Annerew Hislop"--then in an undertone--"a very dacent man, sir, though a
+Sesayder."
+
+"Is that the case?" asked the colonel with eagerness, advancing towards
+Andrew. "Were you on ouah side, suh, in the wahah?"
+
+"Naw, naw, surr, I'm no sodjer, but a humble maimber o' the pure gospel
+Secession kirk. As the fufty-fufth parryphrase says:--
+
+     With heevenly wappons I have focht
+     The baittles o' the Lord."
+
+"Ah yes, pahdon me my mistake. Come in, gentlemen; the Squiah will be
+happy to see you."
+
+Maguffin's captors entered, were warmly greeted by their friends in hall
+and kitchen, partook of a hasty supper, and were ready for the
+engagement of the night.
+
+Perrowne, who was a good rider, soon made his appearance, reporting that
+the Richards were only too glad to make the desired repulse of the evil
+crew from their neighbourhood, and, as members formerly of a volunteer
+company, understood something of military tactics. The parson also
+reported that he had nearly fallen in with the advancing attacking force
+of, he should say, twenty men; but, sighting them ahead, he advanced
+slowly until he saw them move solidly to his left into the fields, with
+the evident intention of coming at the house through the strip of bush.
+The villains could not be far off. "Now, Squiah," said the colonel,
+"hasten, suh, to join Mr. Tehhy; a few minutes make all the diffehence
+in case of an attack."
+
+The Squire had now nine men under his command, including his
+father-in-law, for Ben and Timotheus were safely back, having passed the
+formidable Maguffin. The other six were Sylvanus and Rufus, Messrs.
+Hill, Hislop, Perrowne, and Coristine. All were armed with loaded guns
+and rifles; the carbine and the blunderbuss remained to guard the house.
+Rapidly they reached the bush which hid them from view, and rejoiced the
+veteran's heart with their array.
+
+"Now, grandfather," said Carruthers, "you must get us all into shape."
+
+"Well now, we'll make belave this is a bittillion, an' you're cornel,
+an' Oi'm sargint-major. It's ten shtrong we are, an' there's three
+roifles an' two double barrels anyhow. You git in the rare, Cornel an'
+Mishter Coristine an' Mishter Parrowne an' Ben Toner; the rist av yeez
+shtay where yeez are, till I say 'Extind!' thin, tin paces apart for the
+front rank, an' tin for the rare rank; but the rare alternatin' wid the
+front. Whin Oi say, 'Front rank!' that rank'll diliver it's foire, an'
+go on wid its loadin' behind a three, moind! an' so on wid the rare. By
+the powers, here the varmints come. Shtiddy min, lishten till me an' be
+quoiet--Extind!"
+
+There were some loudly beating hearts at that moment, for the enemy was
+in force, and partly armed with guns of some sort. Instead of advancing
+across the fields, as the defenders had hoped, they descended to the
+creek, in order to find cover from the bushes on its bank, until they
+reached the piece of wood. The veteran, telling his command to preserve
+its formation, wheeled it to the right, and ordered perfect silence.
+Leaving his rifle at his post, he slipped from tree to tree like a cat,
+having thrown off his shoes for the purpose. When he returned, the
+enemy, moving almost as silently, had entered the bush, but,
+anticipating no sentry at that point, had sought no cover. "Shtiddy, now
+min," whispered the sarjint-major; "take good aim, Front Rank, Riddy!"
+Five guns rolled out a challenge to the invaders, and, before they had
+time to seek cover, came, "Rare Rank, Riddy," and his own rifle led the
+other four weapons of the second line. "Are yeez loaded, front an'
+rare?" asked the ancient warrior; and, satisfied that all were, he put
+himself in the front and ordered a charge to outflank the enemy and
+hinder them getting away among the bushes. All perceived his intentions,
+except, perhaps, the two Pilgrims and Toner, who, however, were borne
+along by the rest. Dashing through the creek, part of the force volleyed
+the miscreants from there, and drove them into the open, while the
+remaining part kept them from seeking refuge in the bush. The Squire's
+men had the shelter of the brook alders and willows, now, and, led by
+Mr. Terry, in single file, at a rate almost as rapid as that of Rawdon's
+retreat, faced now and again to the left to fire, and loaded as they
+ran. At last the shelter ceased, and all were in the open, both pursued
+and pursuers. "Kape it up," cried the indomitable veteran; "don't give
+the murtherin' blagyards a minit's resht!" Up, up the hill, they chased
+the said blackguards, until they reached the road. Within the skirting
+rail fences the Squire kept his men, faint but pursuing, and firing an
+occasional shot to lend the speed of terror to the miscreants' heels. In
+an hour from the beginning of the pursuit, the hunted Rawdonites were at
+the wild lands on the lakes, and prepared to enter the forest and make a
+stand or hide; when Carruthers cried: "Down flat on your faces every
+man," and five reports from in front rang through the air. The Richards
+were on guard, but either Perrowne had forgotten to tell them about
+blank cartridge, or they did not think proper to obey the order. "Come
+on a bit farther, lads, till we find where these villains turn in,"
+cried the Squire. In another minute the victors combined with the
+Richards' party, and chased the thoroughly demoralized Rawdonites, whose
+guns and pouches strewed the ground, to a desolate rocky spot beside a
+swamp, where felled trees lay in indescribable confusion, over which the
+fugitives scrambled in desperate haste for home. The lawyer caught sight
+of a figure that he knew, far up the rocky slope, preparing to leap down
+from a prostrate trunk resting on three or four others, and aimed his
+rifle at it. The Squire threw up the weapon just in the nick of time.
+"It's ower gude a death for the likes o' him, Coristine. Gie him time to
+repent, an' let the law tak' its coarse. The cunning scoundrel! Even at
+the risk o' 's life he wadna let us ken whaur his waggon road is, but
+I've a thocht, man, that it's yonner whaur the rock rises oot o' the
+swamp." Then the good Squire took off his hat, and thanked God for the
+defeat of the evil doers.
+
+Light though the night was, to continue the pursuit would have been the
+height of folly. The force was mustered and inspected by the so-called
+Colonel Carruthers, and the Sergeant-Major Terry. Including themselves,
+it was found to consist of no fewer than seventeen persons, one of whom
+was a woman, and the other a lad of about fifteen years of age, Matilda
+Nagle and her boy Monty. "I will show you where the road is," she said
+to the Squire; "it is hard to find, but I know it. When Stevy tried to
+find it, Harding and he put him to sleep, so that I couldn't wake him
+up. Harding is asleep now too; I put him, and Monty helped, didn't you,
+Monty?"
+
+Carruthers looked, and saw that the woman's right hand and that of the
+idiot boy were alike stained with blood. All his own men were safe and
+sound, not a scratch on any one of them. The veteran's rapid tactics had
+given the enemy hardly an opportunity to return the fire, and had
+destroyed their aim from the very beginning. All honour to the
+sergeant-major! All had behaved well. Father Hill and his friend Hislop
+felt like boys; and while the Sesayder took a fatherly interest in
+Rufus, the parent of Tryphena and Tryphosa was pleased with the bearing
+of the Pilgrims. Ben Toner's conscience was a little troubled about his
+treatment of old man Newcome, but he also had a feeling that he was
+getting nearer to Serlizer. The veteran and Mr. Perrowne were filled
+with mutual admiration; and Coristine felt that that night's work had
+brought to his suit, as an ordinary year's acquaintance could not have
+done, the vote and influence of the Squire. The victors gathered up the
+spoils of the vanquished, and, by a unanimous vote, handed them over to
+the grateful Richards, whom Carruthers and Perrowne warmly thanked for
+their timely aid. "It's about time, Squire, we crushed them fellows
+out," said father Richards, to which the Squire replied: "If you and
+your sons are ready, we'll do it to-morrow as soon as the inquest is
+over."
+
+"Boys," asked Richards, "are you fit for a man hunt to-morrer?"
+
+"Fitter'n a fiddle," answered the boys; "then we can go fishin' where we
+durn please."
+
+They bade their allies good bye, carrying their spoil with them, and
+twelve persons set out for a six-mile tramp home.
+
+"Yeez can march at aise, march aisy, boys," ordered the veteran; and the
+party broke up into groups. The woman clung to the Squire, and the boy
+to Sylvanus, who had made whittled trifles to amuse him. Mr. Hill
+cultivated Timotheus, and formed a high opinion of him. Rufus, of
+course, addicted himself to his future father-in-law, the Sesayder. Mr.
+Terry thought it his duty to hold out high hopes to Ben in regard to the
+rescue of Serlizer; and Perrowne and the lawyer journeyed along like
+brothers. There was a light in the post office, and the post-mistress at
+the door asked if the doctor had gone home yet, for two wounded men had
+sought shelter with her, and told her that one named Harding was lying
+down the hill near by. The Squire promised to bring the doctor to the
+wounded, and asked his father-in-law and Coristine, as if they were his
+nearest friends, to go down and see if they could find the wounded
+Harding. They went down and found him, but he was dead, with two of the
+Bridesdale kitchen-knives planted in his heart. In part, at least, the
+murder of Nash was avenged. They picked the slain assassin up and
+carried him to the road, where the post office stood, and deposited the
+body in an outbuilding to await the verdict of the morning.
+
+Meanwhile, the dominie was happy; his rival, the parson, his tormentor,
+the lawyer, were away, and even that well-meaning Goth, the tired
+Captain, was asleep in the guard-room, opposite a half-empty glass of
+the beverage in which he indulged so rarely, but which he must have
+good. The doctor's lively daughter had left Mrs. Du Plessis to guard the
+front of the house, and was talking to her father on his beat, and he
+had a suspicion that Mrs. Carmichael was wrapping that cloud again round
+the minister's neck. When the battle commenced below, the colonel was
+everywhere, directing Maguffin, inspecting the posts, guarding on all
+sides against the possibility of the enemy's attack being a mere feint.
+All unknown to the rest of the company, Miss Carmichael was up in the
+glass-enclosed observatory at the top of the house, without a light,
+watching the movements of the hostile ranks beyond the bush, and
+inwardly praying for the success of the righteous cause and for the
+safety of those she loved. Of course her uncle John was among them, and
+the simple-hearted old grandfather of her young cousins, and even, in a
+way, Mr. Perrowne, who had behaved bravely, but there was a tall,
+unclerical form, which Mr. Terry and the Squire had difficulty in
+keeping up with, that her eye followed more closely. Every report of the
+lawyer's rifle seemed to press a warm spot on her maiden cheek, and then
+make the quick blood suffuse her face, as she thought of the morning and
+Mr. Wilkinson. That gentleman was happy on guard at the top of the hill
+meadow, for a tall female figure, muffled up slightly as a preventive to
+chill from the night dews, came down the path towards his post, eager
+for news from the seat of war.
+
+"Be careful, Miss Du Plessis, I beg of you!" implored the dominie;
+"heavy firing is going on not far off, and a stray bullet might easily
+find its way hither. Permit me to conduct you to a place of safety." So
+he led her with grave courtesy within the gate, and placed her on a
+garden seat in front of two trees large of bole, and interceptive of
+possible missiles. Of course, his own safety was a matter of no moment;
+he went out of the gate and to the utmost limit of his watch to gain, by
+eye and ear, tidings of the progress of the skirmish, which he returned
+every minute or two to report to the anxious young lady. Thus it was
+that, when the colonel came to inspect the posts, he found two sentinels
+at each, pertaining to different sexes. Returning to his sister-in-law
+on the verandah, he explained to that lady the peculiar difficulty of
+his position.
+
+"You see, my deah sistah, that this is altogetheh contyahy to militahy
+discipline, and I ought to ordeh all undeh ahhest, but, were I to do so,
+madam, where would my sentinels come from?" Miss Du Plessis perceived
+the difficulty, as she handled the colonel's silver-mounted revolver,
+with an air of old practice; and proceeded to ask what her
+brother-in-law knew of the young gentleman who was furnishing Cecile
+with information of the fight. Thereupon the colonel launched out into a
+panegyric of the dominie's noble qualities, imputing to him all that
+Coristine had done on his behalf, and a chivalrous Southern exaggeration
+of the school-master's learning and expressions of sympathy. "Marjorie
+appears to think more highly of the other pedestrian," remarked Mrs. Du
+Plessis, to which Colonel Morton replied that Mr. Coristine was indeed a
+handsome and excellent young man, but lacked the correct bearing and
+dignified courtesy of his friend, and, he should judge, was much his
+inferior in point of education. When the tide of battle rolled away to
+the right, altogether out of sight and almost out of hearing, the double
+sentries were still at their posts, no doubt conversing with all
+propriety, but of what, they only individually knew. Even Miss Halbert
+did not confide to others the substance of a favourable criticism on Mr.
+Perrowne to which she treated her worthy father.
+
+It was between one and two in the morning when the victorious army
+returned, and was received with open arms, literally in the case of the
+Squire and the veteran, and of Mr. Hill and Rufus in the kitchen,
+metaphorically in that of the remaining combatants. Mr. Carruthers
+released the doctor, and took him to visit the wounded at the post
+office. The minister and the dominie were also relieved, and Mr. Hill
+and the Sesayder, at their own request, put in their vacant places;
+while Maguffin dismounted, and, being armed with a gun and set in the
+doctor's post, constituted a guardian trio with his late captors. Of
+course, the warriors and past sentries had to eat and drink in guard
+room and kitchen, the latter apartment being more hilarious than it
+would have been had the seniors on duty formed part of its company.
+There was no old Bourbon for the colonel, but he managed to find a fair
+substitute for it, and informed Coristine, in answer to that gentleman's
+enquiry, how he happened to arrive so speedily at Bridesdale.
+
+"It was Satuhday, suh, when my sehvant and I ahhived in Tohonto, and I
+met my deah sisteh in-law. At once, I sent Maguffin back by rail with
+the hohses to Collingwood, giving them Sunday to recoveh from the
+effects of the jouhney, tyavel by rail being vehy hahd on hohses. This
+mohning, or, ratheh I should say yestehday mohning, Madame Du Plessis
+and I went to Collingwood by rail, where my sehvant had secuhed her two
+places in the mail caht, and I had the honouh of escohting her to this
+pleasant place, and of beholding my chahming niece for the fihst time. I
+was indeed vehy fohtunate in ahhiving when I did, to be able to
+contribute a little to the secuhity of Bridesdale."
+
+"You are doubtless aware, Colonel, that our enemies of to-night are in
+unlawful possession of Miss Du Plessis' property?"
+
+"Suh, you astonish me. As her natuhal guahdian, I cannot, though in a
+foheign land, allow that foh a day, suh."
+
+"We think, at least Squire Carruthers thinks, of attacking them in
+force, after the double inquest to-morrow."
+
+"Then, Mr. Cohistine, I shall claim the privilege of joining yoah fohce
+as a volunteeh. I wish the ground were fit foh cavalhy manoeuvehs, suh."
+
+"We may need a few mounted men, as we hope to discover a masked road."
+
+"That is vehy intehesting, suh. Will you kindly explain to me the
+chahacteh of the ground?"
+
+The lawyer told all that he knew of the region, from hearsay and from
+personal experience. The supposed masked road, the actual rocky ascent
+covered with felled timber, an abatis, as the colonel called it, the
+access by water, and the portcullis at the narrows, were objects of
+great interest to the old soldier. He enquired as to the extent of the
+means of transportation, the probable numbers of the available force,
+and other particulars; and, when the weary Squire returned and bade all
+good people go to rest, if they could not sleep, in view of past
+wakefulness and the morrow's work, he begged, as a perfectly fresh man,
+to be excused and left in command of the guard, adding: "I shall study
+out a thyeefold convehging attack on the enemy's position, by wateh and
+by land, with cavalhy, infantry and mahines." The guard-room company
+joined in a laugh at the military joke, after which they dispersed, with
+the exception of the Captain, whom it was a pity to disturb, and
+Carruthers, who lay down upon a sofa, while the colonel went out to
+inspect his posts.
+
+The pedestrians occupied a large, double-bedded room at the right corner
+of the house, above the verandah. The dominie was sleeping peacefully,
+but the lawyer had not even removed his clothes, with the exception of
+his boots, if they may be so called, as he lay down upon his bed to
+rest, with a window half open in front of him. Precisely at the moment
+when, the night before, he had discovered the incipient conflagration,
+there came to his nostrils the smell of unctuous fire. Pocketing his
+loaded revolver, he stepped out of the window on to the sloping verandah
+roof, off which, in spite of his efforts, he slid heavily to the ground.
+At once he was seized with no gentle hands by at least three persons,
+who turned out to be Mr. Hill, the colonel, and Maguffin. "Catch that
+boy," he cried, as soon as they perceived their mistake, referring to a
+juvenile figure that he had seen slipping back towards the meadow.
+Sentry Hislop would probably have caught him, but there was no
+necessity. The idiot boy was in the arms of his wakeful mother, who,
+thinking he was going to Rawdon's quarters, as he probably was,
+intercepted him, saying: "Not back there, Monty, no, no, never again!"
+So deeply had his unnatural father, with brutal threats, impressed the
+lesson of incendiarism upon the lad that, all mechanically, he had
+repeated the attempt of the previous night. Fortunately for Coristine's
+hands, there was a garden rake at hand to draw out from under the
+verandah two kitchen towels, well steeped in coal oil, the fierce flame
+from which had already charred three or four planks of the floor. Two
+pails of water relieved all apprehensions; but the Squire awoke Sylvanus
+and ordered him to take Monty into his room, and, with his companions,
+be responsible for his safe keeping. Then, turning to the lawyer, and
+laying a friendly hand on his shoulder, he said: "If ye canna sleep, ye
+had better come in and tak' the Captain's chair; he's awa til 's bed,
+puir man." So Coristine entered the porch, and, as he did so, heard a
+voice above say: "No, Cecile, it is not your hero; it is mine again."
+"What are thae lassies gabbin' aboot at this time o' nicht?" said the
+Squire, harder of hearing. "Gang awa to the land o' Nod, and dinna spoil
+your beauty sleep, young leddies." The apostrophized damsels laughed
+lightly, whispered a few more confidences, and then relapsed into
+silence. John Carruthers had a high opinion of his niece, and said some
+very nice things about her, but, so far short did they fall of the
+lawyer's standard of appreciation, that he regarded them almost as
+desecrations. Still, it was very pleasant to be on such friendly terms
+with the Squire of the neighbourhood, the master of hospitable
+Bridesdale; and Miss Carmichael's uncle. "A splendid honest fellow," he
+said to himself, "as good every bit as Wilks' foreign aristocracy!" From
+time to time the colonel looked in upon the pair, and remarked that the
+contents of the Squire's decanter pleased him as well as Bourbon or
+Monongahela.
+
+When daylight came, the weary sentries were dismissed to the kitchen,
+where, under Tryphena's direction, the insane woman took much pleasure
+in providing for their creature comforts. The restraints upon Mr.
+Maguffin's eloquence being removed, it flowed in a grandiloquent stream.
+"Lave the cratur to me, Annerew," whispered Mr. Hill; "lave the nagur to
+me, and if I don't flummix and flabbergast his consayted voccabuelary, I
+was never a taycher." Then, turning to the coloured gentleman, he
+remarked in an incidental sort of way: "Were you ever in the company of
+deipnosophists before, Mr. Magoffin, deipnosophists mind! enjoyin' a
+gastromical repast?"
+
+Mr. Maguffin's eyes expanded, and his jaw dropped.
+
+"Yoh's got the devantidge ob yoh 'umble sarvant, Mistah Hill."
+
+"It's not possible that a gentleman of your larnin' is ignorant of such
+simple, aisy polysyllables as them?"
+
+"I'se afeard yoh's got me this time, sah."
+
+"It stands to raison that there's limits to everybody's voccabuelary,
+onless it's a great scholard like Mr. Wilkinson; but I thought, perhaps,
+it was for a school taycher you would be settin' up?"
+
+"Oh my! no, Mistah Hill, my edurecation was passimoniously insurficient.
+Most all my bettah class language I'se acquied fom clugymen ob de Baktis
+pussuasion."
+
+"And they never tayched ye deipnosophist nor gastromical?"
+
+"No, sah, they didn't, I'se humblerated ter confess."
+
+The old schoolmaster looked at Mr. Hislop with a serious expression of
+mingled incredulity and commiseration, saying: "Such ignerance, Annerew,
+such ignerance!"; and somehow Mr. Maguffin did not see his way to
+gathering up the broken threads of conversation.
+
+Timotheus was despatched by the Squire to summon a brother J.P., and the
+township constable, in order that immediate action against known
+criminal parties might be taken, as well as to notify the farmers
+adjacent that they were expected to sit in a coroner's jury. Having made
+all necessary legal arrangements, the Squire returned to the colonel,
+who, from a memorandum before him, sketched the plan of campaign. He
+proposed to put the five Richards as marines under the command of the
+Captain to break down the grating between the third and fourth lakes,
+and push on to attack the enemy from that side. He wanted four mounted
+men armed with revolvers, and with stout sticks in lieu of swords,
+fearless horsemen whom he could lead through swamp or over obstacles to
+hold the masked road. The remaining body under the Squire, he thought,
+might follow the track of the fugitives of the night, and constitute the
+main besieging force. As to those who should perform the respective
+duties, apart from the persons named, the Squire suggested waiting till
+the inquests--which would bring some additions to the local
+population--were over. He hoped much from his fellow justice of the
+peace, Mr. Walker. Tom Rigby, an old pensioner, and the township
+constable, would probably have his hands full looking after the
+prisoners. Fortunately, the post office store of ammunition was not yet
+exhausted, to say nothing of that contained in various flasks and shot
+belts, and in the shape of cartridges. The colonel, apropos of warlike
+weapons, bemoaned the absence of bayonets, and warmly advocated a
+proposition of the lawyer's, that each combatant should carry, slung
+over the shoulder or in such way as not to interfere with the handling
+of his gun, a strong stick like those proposed by the commander-in-chief
+for his cavalry. Toner and Rufus were immediately roused from their
+slumbers, and sent to cut the requisite bludgeons, and drill them with
+holes to pass a cord through. Shortly after they had departed on their
+errand, the household awoke to life and activity, and, through casually
+opened doors, there came the gratifying odours of breakfast in
+preparation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+     Mr. Bangs Accredits Himself--Silences Squire Walker--Constable
+     Rigby in the Kitchen--The Inquests--Arrests, and Mr. Newberry--The
+     Beaver River Contingent--Mr. Bangs and the Squire Consult--The Army
+     Prepares--Wilkinson's Heroics--Mr. Bigglethorpe on Fishing.
+
+
+When Timotheus returned, he was not alone; a slightly built man of
+medium stature, and rather flashily attired, rode beside him. The Squire
+strode to the gate, to learn that the younger Pilgrim had accomplished
+his various missions successfully, and to be presented by him, in his
+usual clumsy way, to Mr. Bengs, a friend of Mr. Nash as was. "Yore men
+is right, Squire; my neme is Bengs, Hickey Bengs, end pore Nesh sent for
+me to kem end help ferret out a geng of dem excise slopers, end here I
+find my pore friend merdered. I tell you, Squire, it's too dem bed, O,
+too dem bed!"
+
+The Squire felt he must be cautious these times, but that did not hinder
+him being hospitable. "Come in, Mr. Bengs, and breakfast with us. My man
+will put your horse up. I have Nash's papers in my possession from his
+own hand, and, if I find they confirm your story, we will all be glad to
+take you into our confidence. You, of all men, understand the necessity
+for caution, and will, I hope, not take my precaution amiss."
+
+"O Lud, no, Squire; yo're pretty shore to find letters frem me ameng
+pore Nesh's papers, or some memorenda about me. H.B., you know, Hickey
+Bengs."
+
+Timotheus led the new detective's horse away, and the gentleman himself
+entered the house and office with the Squire. "Coristine," said the
+latter, familiarly addressing the lawyer, "would you mind looking up
+Errol quietly and sending him here?"
+
+Of course he didn't mind, and soon returned with the minister. Both
+noticed that the Squire had two loaded pistols on the table before him,
+the stranger being on the other side. "You can remain, Coristine. I must
+introduce you, and the Reverend Mr. Errol, my fellow trustee in the
+matter of these papers, to Mr. Bengs. Mr. Coristine is in the law, Mr.
+Bengs."
+
+The dapper gentleman with the red tie and large scarf pin bowed amiably
+to the two witnesses of the interview, and Mr. Carruthers, with the
+minister by his side, proceeded to examine the papers. "Here it is," he
+said, after a few minutes of painful silence, "but what in aa the
+warld's the meanin' o't? B.R.--B.T.--R.C.P. The date is Saturday night."
+
+"I think I know," interrupted the lawyer. "How will this do: Beaver
+River, Ben Toner, Roman Catholic Priest?"
+
+"The very thing! Well, here's Sabbath. Prom. cum S.W.L.C. sup. eq."
+
+Coristine had written the words down to study them. At last he said:
+"It's a mixture of French, Latin, and English abbreviations; Promenade
+or walk with Schoolmaster Wilkinson, Lawyer Coristine on the horse."
+
+"Eh, man!" ejaculated the pleased Squire; "I'll hae to turn lawyer
+mysel'. Now, here's later doon, the same day--B.D.--S.C.--P.O. scripsi
+H.B. ven. inst. Come, my prophetic friend."
+
+Triumphantly, the lawyer rolled out: "Bride's Dale, Squire Carruthers,
+Post Office. I have written H.B. to come instanter."
+
+"Have you his letter, Mr. Bengs?" the Squire asked, and at once it was
+produced with the Flanders post mark on it, written on the Bridesdale
+paper, and in Nash's peculiar way. Still Mr. Carruthers doubted. How
+could he be sure that the letter had fallen into the right hands, or
+that this smooth-spoken swell was not a cunning agent of Rawdon's?
+
+"John," said the minister, stooping, and lifting something off the
+carpet, "here's a bit of paper you've dropped out of the pocket-book, or
+perhaps out of that bookie you're reading from."
+
+The Squire eyed the paper, and then, stretching his arm over the table,
+shook the detective warmly by the hand. "It was very foolish of me, Mr.
+Bangs, not to have seen that at first. It gives notice of your arrival,
+and describes you perfectly. There's a bit of Latin, Mr. Errol, you
+might ask our friend. It seems to be a sort of watchword with a
+countersign."
+
+The minister took the paper and read, "quod quaeris?" whereupon the
+detective smiled, and answered promptly, "molares ebrii."
+
+"What in aa the warld's yon, Coristine?" enquired the Squire.
+
+"Mr. Errol asked Mr. Bangs, 'What are you looking for?' and he answered,
+'For full grindstones.'"
+
+"When a man is _ebrius_, John," continued the minister, "he's no' just
+sober. Weel, weel, the catechis is over, and ye can tak' puir Nash's
+frien' into our plans. Thank Providence, there's the breakfast gong."
+
+The ladies were astonished to see the new arrival enter the dining-room,
+the breakfast-room table being too small, with his three inquisitors. He
+was quite polite, however, though a little stiltedly so, as if not to
+the manner born. Mr. Terry insisted on vacating his seat in Mr. Bangs
+favour. He said: "There's a foine Oirishman from the narth by the name
+av Hill Oi wud be plazed to have some conversation wid, so yeez 'll jist
+koindly ekshcuse me all," and left for the kitchen. There were sixteen
+people at the table, so when Squire Walker turned up, Marjorie, who had
+been brought in to equalize the sides, had to yield her place to him,
+and follow the veteran to the lower sphere, in one apartment of which
+the children, under Tryphosa's rule, had a separate table. To this Mr.
+Terry invited his countryman, the old schoolmaster, who, in spite of his
+recent deipnosophistic repast with Mr. Maguffin, was ready for something
+warm. He confidentially whispered to Mr. Terry that no doubt nagurs had
+sowls and were human, but he wasn't pudden' fond of their society. In
+the dining-room, Mr. Bangs and Squire Walker, in the centre of the
+table, were in exile, for Wilkinson and the Captain flanked the former,
+and Coristine and Mr. Perrowne the latter. Mrs. Du Plessis sat between
+Carruthers and Mr. Thomas; Miss Halbert between the minister and Mr.
+Perrowne; Miss Du Plessis between the dominie and the doctor; and Miss
+Carmichael between Coristine and the colonel. Mrs. Carruthers, who
+occupied one end of the table, had the colonel on her right, and her
+sister-in-law, who took the other end, was supported in the same way by
+the host. Squire Walker, a portly man, but not too heavy for exercise,
+with a baldish head and large reddish whiskers, sporting a velveteen
+shooting coat, high shirt collar, and large blue silk scarf with white
+spots, was a man of much intelligence and a good talker. His
+conversation compelled attention, and, like the glittering eye of the
+ancient mariner, held, now Mr. Perrowne and now the lawyer from much
+pleasanter ones with their respective ladies. He seemed to take a
+fiendish pleasure in capturing Wilkinson from Miss Du Plessis, and the
+Captain from her mother, and even sent his conversational shafts far off
+to the Squire and the doctor, and to the presiding matrons. Mr. Errol
+and the colonel were happily sheltered from him. Perhaps the new
+detective perceived the state of unrest and terrible suspense in which
+many of the company were on account of Squire Walker's vagaries, and
+chivalrously sought to deliver them. Eyeing keenly the autocrat of the
+breakfast table, he remarked, "I'm afraid you heve fergotten me,
+Squire?"
+
+"Don't think I ever had the pleasure of your acquaintance, sir."
+
+"Oh, perdon me, you hed though. Two years ago, a large, stout, heavy
+bearded men kem to yore ohffice, with a yeng Cuban who could herdly
+speak a word of Inglish, asking you to commit him fer smeggling
+cigars--"
+
+"Haw! haw! haw!" laughed Mr. Walker, "and you were the bearded man were
+you, eh?"
+
+"Do please favour us with the whole story, Mr. Bangs," asked the
+hostess.
+
+"Go on, Bangs," added its victim, "I don't mind, haw! haw!"
+
+"The Squire asked the big revenue detective how he knew the cigars were
+smeggled, and he said that nobody could pay the duty and sell these
+cigars for seven dollars a hendred. The Squire asked to see the cigars,
+and while the pore yeng Cuban with the bleck mousteche stood twirling
+his sombrero and looking guilty, he took one, smilt it, and then smouked
+it. He said to the big detective, 'I won't let you hev a warrent for
+that pore foreigner on any sech evidence, for I ken bey the very same
+cigar at Beamish's for five dollars.' The detective said, 'Are you shore
+the cigar is the same?' when the Squire pulled a drawer open end brought
+out a box of the identical erticles. Then, the big men thenked him,
+hended him a revenue card, end took the pore Cuban away. Next day
+Beamish's was raided, end Nesh and I kem in for quite a rewerd."
+
+"Then the detective was Nash?" asked Mr Walker.
+
+"Yes, Nesh, with a big men's clowthes on, padded out."
+
+"And what were you in the matter?"
+
+"Oh, I wes the pore yeng Cuban thet could herdly speak Inglish."
+
+"I don't think he can yet," whispered Miss Carmichael to Coristine, who
+thought it an immense joke.
+
+"So you made Squire Walker an informer against his will, Mr. Bangs,"
+said Carruthers.
+
+"Yes; but it was complimentary, too. We knew if there were any good
+cigars in the village, the Squire's wes the best place to look for
+them."
+
+"You should have had me up for having smuggled goods in my possession,"
+said the complimented talker.
+
+"No, no, Squire; you see you were the next thing to Queen's evidence,
+and they always go scotfree."
+
+"A receiver and Queen's evidence! and the miserable little Cuban! Haw!
+haw! haw!"
+
+That is the story of how Squire Walker was silenced.
+
+After breakfast there were prayers, as usual, conducted by the two
+clergymen, and when they were over, the three J.P.'s, Doctor Halbert
+being one, assembled for consultation in the office. Tom Rigby, the
+constable, reported himself to the magistrate's court, and thereafter
+adjourned to the kitchen, there to hold converse with his brother
+veteran, Mr. Terry. Tom was tall, and as straight as if he had swallowed
+a ramrod. He gave the military salute with great precision and
+regularity. He was a widower, and a frequent visitor in the Bridesdale
+servants' quarters, whence it was commonly reported that he had an eye
+on Tryphena. Sylvanus had heard of this, with the effect that he lost no
+opportunity of running down the trade of a soldier, and comparing it
+most unfavourably with the free, rollicking life of the heaving sea. To
+hear Sylvanus speak, one would imagine that the _Susan Thomas_ was
+annually in the habit of circumnavigating the globe. The children's
+breakfast was over, and they were all out in the garden picking certain
+permitted flowers, and presenting them to their favourites among the
+guests; but Mr. Terry had still remained, conversing with Mr. Hill,
+whose book-larnin' was so voluminous that he made slow progress with his
+breakfast, having had his cold tea thrice removed by his eldest daughter
+and replaced with hot. When Rigby entered and saluted, the veteran rose
+and returned the salute. "Good morning, Sergeant Terry! was it company
+colour sergeant or on the staff you were, sir?"
+
+"Lasht noight, Carporal Rigby, Oi was sargint-major for the firsht toime
+in my loife. I wuz promawted loike."
+
+"That would be in the volunteer service, Sergeant-major."
+
+"Yiss; but we had a rale cornel in command that's been through the
+Amerikin war, they till me."
+
+"Sergeant-major, there are no American soldiers."
+
+"Shure, an' Oi'm thinkin', corporal," said the veteran, feeling a
+metaphorical thrid on the tail av his coat. "Oi'm thinkin' there's some
+pretty foine foightin's been done in Ameriky; Oi've sane it, carporal,
+wid my own two eyes."
+
+"A dog can fight, Sergeant-major, and cats are tantamount to the same
+thing; but where, I say, is the soldierly bearing, the discipline, the
+spree-doo-cor, as they say in France? Sergeant-major, you know and I
+know that a man cannot be a tailor today and a soldier to-morrow, and an
+agent for pictorial family bibles the day after."
+
+"I dunno, for you see you're a conshtable an' Oi'm a hid missenger in a
+governmint ahffice in the city."
+
+"A soldier, Sergeant-major, can always serve the country, is, even as a
+soldier, a government officer; that is a very different thing,
+Sergeant-major."
+
+"The cornel here was tillin' me there was min in his rigiment that was
+merchints an' lawyers an' clerks, an' shtudints, as good sowldjers as
+iver foired a carrboine or drawed a shabre on the inimy."
+
+"That was a case, Sergeant-major, of mob meeting mob. Did these men ever
+charge as our cavalry charged at Balaclava; did they ever stand,
+Sergeant-major, as we, myself included, stood at Inkerman? Never,
+Sergeant-major, never! They might have made soldiers, if taken young;
+but, as they were, they were no more soldiers than Sylvanus Pilgrim
+here."
+
+"You shet up yer tater-trap, Consterble Rigby, an' don't go fer to abuse
+better men nor you aint," angrily interrupted the subject of the
+corporal's unflattering comparison. Then, seeing the veteran, hopeless
+of convincing his opponent, retire to the garden to join the children,
+Sylvanus waxed bold. "A soldier, Trypheeny, a common soldier! Ef I owned
+a dawg, a yaller dawg, I wouldn't go and make the pore beast a soldier.
+Old pipeclay and parade, tattoo and barricks and punishment drill, likes
+ter come around here braggin' up his lazy, slavish life. Why don't he
+git a dawg collar and a chain at wonst and git tied up ter his kennel.
+Ef you want a man, Trypheeny, get one as knows
+
+     A life on the ocean wave
+     And a home on the rollin' deep,
+
+none o' your stiff starched, nigger driven, cat o' nine tails, ornery
+common soldiers."
+
+Tryphena snickered a little, but the constable went on with his
+breakfast, not deigning to waste a syllable on such unmilitary trash as
+Sylvanus, with whom it was impossible to reason, and to come to blows
+with whom might imperil his dignity. Some day, perhaps, Pilgrim might be
+his prisoner; then, the majesty of the law would be vindicated.
+
+A messenger came and summoned the constable to accompany the coroner,
+Dr. Halbert, to Richards, and bring the body of the murdered detective
+to the post office. On such an occasion, the pensioner's dignity would
+not allow him to drive the waggon, so Rufus had to be pressed into the
+service. Squire Walker, as the presiding magistrate, in view of
+Carruthers personal connection with the death of the subject of the
+jury's verdict, appointed the detective temporary clerk of the court
+that should sit after the inquests were over. Fearing that few of the
+settlers warned would turn out as jurors, through fear of the Select
+Encampment people, the master of Bridesdale chose a sufficient number of
+men for the purpose from the present sojourners at his house. These,
+some time after the doctor's departure, sauntered leisurely towards the
+most public place in the neighbourhood. Arrived at the post office, they
+found a large unfinished room in an adjoining building prepared for the
+court. This building had been begun as a boarding house, but, when
+almost completed, the conviction suddenly came to the post office people
+that there were no boarders to be had, all the transients of any
+financial value being given free quarters in the hospitable mansion of
+the Squire. Hence the house was never finished. The roof, however, was
+on, and the main room floored, so that it had been utilized for church
+and Sunday school purposes, for an Orange Lodge, for temperance and
+magic lantern itinerant lectures, and for local hops. Now, with the dead
+body of Harding laid out upon an improvised table of rough boards on
+trestles, it assumed the most solemn aspect it had ever exhibited. Three
+oldish men were there, whom people called Johnson, Newberry, and
+Pawkins; they were all the summoned jurors who had responded. Soon, from
+the other side, the waggon came in sight, and when it came forward, the
+remains of Nagle, alias Nash, were lifted reverently out and into the
+hall, where they were placed beside those of one of his murderers. The
+elder Richards accompanied the doctor, in order to give his testimony.
+The mad woman and her son were also there, in charge of Sylvanus and Ben
+Toner. Just as the party prepared to constitute the coroner's court, a
+stumpy figure on a high stepping horse came riding along. He was well
+disguised, but several persons recognized him. "Seize him," cried Squire
+Carruthers. "It's Grinstuns," said the lawyer. "Stop him!" shouted
+Bangs. But, Rawdon, having seen what he wanted, wheeled his horse and
+galloped away. There was neither saddled horse to pursue him, nor rifle
+to bring him down. "All the better," remarked Mr. Walker to his brother
+J.P.'s; "had he seen mounted men and fire-arms among us, he'd have smelt
+a rat. As it is, he thinks we are on the defensive and moving slowly."
+It was evident, from what people heard of the presiding magistrate's
+conversation, that the court had decided in favour of measures
+offensive.
+
+It was easy to get twelve good men and true for the first inquest. In
+addition to Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, there were the constable and
+Mr. Terry, Messrs. Hill and Hislop, Sylvanus, Timotheus, and Rufus, with
+Mr. Bangs and Maguffin. The colonel was an alien, and Carruthers did not
+care to sit on the jury. Dr. Halbert presided, flanked by his fellow
+justices, and Wilkinson, though a minor witness, was made clerk.
+Several persons identified the slain Nagle or Nash, and gave evidence as
+to his relations with Rawdon's gang. Ben Toner's information and
+Newcome's attested confession were noted. Mr. Errol and Coristine,
+backed by the Captain and Ben, told how the body was found. Wilkinson
+and Perrowne related their share in conveying the corpse to Richards'
+house, and Richards confirmed their story. The coroner himself, having
+examined the body, affirmed that the deceased came to his death by a
+fracture of the skull, inflicted by a heavy blow from some blunt
+instrument from behind, followed by a pistol shot in front through the
+temple. Two persons, evidently, were concerned in the murder. Who were
+they? Matilda Nagle was sworn. She repudiated the name of Rawdon. She
+testified that a man called Harding brought her a note from her long
+lost brother Steven, asking her to meet him at the barred gate in the
+narrows at a certain hour late on Monday morning. She went, but Rawdon
+would not let her go beyond the barred gate, so she called Stevy over.
+He came to the foot of a tree, where Rawdon told her she must stay; and
+then she saw Harding run up behind him and hit him over the head with an
+iron bar, and he fell down and went to sleep. Did Rawdon shoot him? She
+shivered, and didn't know, nor could any cross examination extract this
+evidence from her. Harding knocked him down with the iron bar, and he
+went to sleep, and she couldn't wake him. Then she went to the corpse
+and cried: "Oh, Stevy, Stevy, wake up, do wake up quick, for he'll come
+again." The court and jury were deeply affected. Old Mr. Newberry, the
+foreman of the jury, brought in the verdict to the effect that the
+deceased was murdered by a blow from an iron bar administered by one
+Harding, producing fracture of the skull, and by a pistol shot in the
+left temple by some unknown person. Thus the first inquest came to an
+end. The second inquest would have been a matter of difficulty, on
+account of the large number of people supposed to be implicated in
+Harding's death, had not Ben Toner, who had been called out of court,
+returned with three good men and true, namely Mr. Bigglethorpe, M.
+Lajeunesse, and a certain Barney Sullivan. These three parties, moved by
+the entreaties of Widow Toner, had set out early in the morning to look
+up the missing Ben; and were so delighted with their success, and so
+tired with their walk, that they were willing to sit on anything, even a
+coroner's jury. Accordingly, a new jury was empanelled, consisting of
+Messrs. Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, Bigglethorpe, Lajeunesse and
+Sullivan, Errol, Wilkinson and Richards, with the Captain, Mr. Bangs,
+and Squire Walker. The latter was chosen foreman. The coroner himself
+acted as clerk. Ben Toner had seen the deceased in company with one
+Newcome, and had heard him addressed as Harding. The coroner testified
+to having examined the body, which exhibited no shot wound of any kind,
+but the forehead was badly bruised, evidently by a stone, as gritty
+particles were to be seen adhering to it, and two table knives were
+still resting in the neighbourhood of the heart. The jury examined the
+corpse, and, led by the foreman under guard of the constable, went out
+across the road and over the fence into the field where Mr. Terry and
+Coristine found the dead Harding lying. The place was well marked by the
+beaten down grass, blood stains on a large boulder and on the ground,
+and by the finding of a loaded revolver. Carefully examining the spot,
+the detective pointed out, at last, the very root, not more than three
+quarters of an inch thick, which formed a loop on the surface of the
+ground, in which the unfortunate man's foot had caught, precipitating
+him upon the stone. Every member of the jury having examined it, Mr.
+Bangs took out his knife and cut it away in order to prevent similar
+accidents in future. The coroner did not think the blow sufficient to
+kill the man, though it must have rendered him insensible. The killing
+was done by means of the knives. These were identified by the Squire and
+Timotheus as belonging to the Bridesdale kitchen. There was neither time
+nor necessity for prolonging the examination. Matilda Nagle and her son
+Monty, with much satisfaction, confessed that they had followed the
+Bridesdale force and had seen the man fall, that she had turned him over
+on his back and struck him to the heart with the knife she carried,
+which she left there, because she had no further need for it. Her son
+had followed her example. The jury retired, or rather the court retired
+from the jury, and, when Squire Walker called the coroner in again, he
+read the second verdict, to the effect that the deceased Harding, while
+in a state of insensibility owing to a fall, had been murdered by one
+Matilda Nagle with a table knife, and that her son, commonly known as
+Monty, was accessory to the deed. The double inquest was over, and the
+bodies were transferred to coarse wooden shells, that of Nagle being
+claimed by his fellow detective, and Harding's being left for a time
+unburied in case some claimant should appear.
+
+The magistrates, and Mr. Bangs as clerk, now sat in close session for a
+little over half an hour, inasmuch as they had already come to certain
+conclusions in the office at Bridesdale. One result of their conference
+was the arrest of the madwoman and her son, much to the regret of the
+Squire, Mr. Errol, and many more. Rigby was ordered to treat them
+kindly, and convey them, with a written order signed by the three
+justices, to the nearest town, there to hand them over to the police
+authorities to be forwarded to their appropriate lunatic asylum. Old Mr.
+Newberry, whom the case had very much affected, volunteered to accompany
+the criminals, as he had to go to town at any rate, and offered to drive
+them and the constable there, and take his wife as company for the
+insane Matilda. Accordingly, he brought round the waggon in which he had
+driven up, and took the constable and his prisoners away towards his own
+house, which was on the road to their destination. The Squire and his
+battalion were much relieved to find that they were not responsible for
+Harding's death, although the fact reflected on their aim as
+sharpshooters. The two wounded men were informed that a magistrates'
+court was sitting, but evinced no anxiety to lodge a complaint against
+any person or persons in connection with their injuries. The coroner
+paid Messrs. Johnson and Pawkins their fee as jurymen, and, with the
+Squire's permission, invited them to dine at Bridesdale; but they
+declined the invitation with thanks, and returned, in company, to the
+bosom of their families. The lawyer, filled with military zeal as a
+recruiting officer, seeing that the new Beaver River contingent was
+armed, asked Carruthers if he had room for them.
+
+"The mair the merrier," answered the Squire, and bade him invite them.
+So Coristine invited the three to dinner, and to help in the support of
+the justices in the afternoon. Barney Sullivan said he wasn't going to
+leave Ben. Mr. Bigglethorpe, as a fisherman, had always wanted to see
+these lakes, and, if it would help the cause of good fishing, he was
+ready to lend a hand to drive out poachers and pot-hunters. Pierre
+doubted how Madame would take his absence; of course there was Bawtiste,
+but, well yes, for the sake of the poor dead M'syae Nash and Meestare
+Veelkeenson, he would stay. Que dommage, Meestare Bulky was not there, a
+man so intelligent, so clever, so subtle of mind! Mr. Bigglethorpe was
+introduced to the drawing-room, but Pierre, though invited, would not
+enter its sacred precincts. He accompanied Barney to the kitchen, and
+was introduced by Ben to the assembled company. His politeness carried
+the servants' quarters by storm, and wreathed the faces of Tryphena and
+Tryphosa in perpetual smiles. Mr. Hill and the Sesayder succumbed to his
+genial influence, and even the disheartened Maguffin, though deploring
+his poor English and lack of standing colour, confessed to Rufus that
+"his ways was kind o' takin'."
+
+"Squire Carruthers," said the detective, as they re-entered the office,
+"there is wen thing you failed to have den at the inquest."
+
+"What is that, Mr. Bangs?"
+
+"To search the bedy of the men, Herding; bet I attended to thet, and
+found pore Nesh's letter to his sister. Pore Nesh mest hev lost his head
+for wence, since he trested thet dem villain. I seppowse there's no such
+thing as a kemera ebout here?"
+
+"No; what did you want a camera for?"
+
+"To phowtogreph this Herding; there's a mystery about him. Nesh trested
+him, and he terned out a dem traitor. Nesh mest hev known him before; he
+would never trest a stranger so. Is there no wey of taking his
+likeness?"
+
+"There's a young lady staying here, you saw her at breakfast, Miss Du
+Plessis, who's very clever with brush and pencil, but it's no' a very
+pleasant task for a woman."
+
+"No, but in the interests of jestice it might be well to risk offending
+her. If you will reintroduce me more formally, I will esk the lady
+myself."
+
+Mr. Bangs was escorted to the garden, where the lady in question was
+actually sketching Marjory and the young Carruthers in a variety of
+attitudes. To the Squire's great astonishment, she professed her
+readiness to comply with the detective's desire in the afternoon, if
+somebody could be left to accompany her to the post office adjunct.
+
+"How long will it take, Miss Du Plessis?" he asked. "A few minutes," she
+answered, "a quarter of an hour at most."
+
+"Then, if you will allow me, I shell be heppy to be your escort, and
+indicate the features that should be emphasized for purposes of
+recognition. As I ride, I ken easily overtake the perty." This being
+agreed to, Mr. Bangs asked Carruthers to let him look over Nash's last
+memoranda, as they might be useful, and any recently acquired papers.
+Among the latter, taken from Newcome, was a paper of inestimable value
+in the form of a chart, indicating, undoubtedly, the way to the abode of
+Serlizer and the Select Encampment generally. In the memoranda of Nash's
+note-book the detective found a late entry F. al. H. inf. sub pot. prom,
+monst. via R., and drew the Squire's attention to it. "Look here,
+Squire, et our dog Letin again; F. perheps Foster alias H, Herding,
+informer, under my power (that's through some crime entered in this
+book), premises to show the way to Rawdon's. This premise was made last
+Tuesday, at Derham, a whole week ago."
+
+"Why is Harding called an informer?"
+
+"Because he belengs to an infamous cless raised up by our iniquitous
+kestoms administration. These informers get no selery, bet are rewerded
+with a share of the spoil they bring to the depertment. Semtimes they
+accuse honest men, and ectually hev been known to get them convicted
+falsely. Semtimes they take bribes from the greatest scoundrels, and
+protect them in their villainy. Nesh thought he hed this fellew safe by
+the law of fear; bet fear and envy and the dread of losing Rawdon's
+bribes, combined in his treacherous heart to make a merderer of him."
+
+"But Nash couldn't have written that letter last week. He knew nothing
+of his sister's whereabouts till yesterday morning."
+
+"Exectly; see here is the nowte, a sheet out of this very book fowlded
+ep. End it says: 'Meet me at wence, not later than noon, outside the
+barred chennel. You say he followed Rawdon from the powst office; then,
+at sem point behind Rawdon, this Herding must hev terned ep, end, O dem
+the brute if he is dead! hev cheated the cleverest fellow in the
+service."
+
+"But why should he have killed him? Why not leave that to Rawdon?"
+
+"Rawdon's kenning and deep. When he knew it wes Nesh, he got a fright
+himself end then frightened Herding into doing it. I'll bet you whet you
+like, thet revolver found with his body is the kelibre of the bellet
+wound in pore Nash's head. I'll look when I go ep this efternoon. His
+trick was to lay it all on Herding; I shouldn't wender if he towld thet
+med woman to kill him. It's jest like him, dem the brute!"
+
+In order that due preparations, in the shape of accoutrements, might be
+made, and after dinner delay avoided, the Squire and the colonel
+assembled the forces. Including the absent Richards family, the
+upholders and vindicators of the law numbered twenty-six. The Captain
+had already signified to Richards senior his willingness to take command
+of the scow and its complement of five men, armed with guns, and with
+axes for cutting away the barrier at the narrows. There was much romance
+about this side of the campaign, so that volunteers could have been got
+for marine service to any extent; but the means of transportation were
+limited, and even that able-bodied seaman Sylvanus had to be enrolled
+among the landsmen. Happily Tom Rigby was not there to see him descend
+once more to the level of military life. The colonel, rejoicing in
+Newcome's chart of the marked road, called for cavalry volunteers.
+Squire Walker, Mr. Bangs and Maguffin, having their horses with them,
+naturally responded. It then came to a toss-up between Mr. Perrowne and
+Coristine; the parson won, and the disappointed lawyer was relegated to
+the flat feet. As the doctor had been major in a volunteer regiment, the
+Squire ceded the command of the infantry to him. It was proposed to have
+at least one man behind as a home guard, but nobody was prepared to
+volunteer for this service, Messrs. Errol, Wilkinson, and Lajeunesse,
+who were severally proposed, expressing their sense of the honour, their
+high regard for the ladies, and anxiety for their well-being, but
+emphatically declining to be absent from the common post of duty and
+danger. Miss Halbert voiced the opinion of the fair sex that, being
+eight in number, including the maids, they were quite able to defend
+themselves. Nevertheless, the Squire inwardly determined to send old
+Styles, the post office factotum, back with Miss Du Plessis. The main
+attacking force of infantry consisted of Doctor Halbert, in command,
+sergeants Carruthers and Terry and their two squads, the first
+comprising privates Errol, Wilkinson, Coristine, Bigglethorpe,
+Lajeunesse, and Hill; the second, privates Hislop, Toner, Sullivan, Hill
+junior, and the two Pilgrims. Then, arms were inspected, and the twenty
+bludgeons dealt out, five for the cavalry, and fifteen for the infantry.
+Most of these had attachments of stout common string, but those of the
+three commanders, the Squire, the two clergymen, and the two
+pedestrians, were secured with red window cord, a mark of preference
+which rejoiced the hearts of three of them, namely, the younger men.
+With doubtful hands the dominie received his gun, and the minister more
+boldly grasped a similar weapon. At the request of the colonel the
+cavalry were served with a hasty luncheon, and thereafter set forward,
+with the exception of the detective, Miss Du Plessis' escort, to patrol
+the road and open communication with the Richards for the purpose of
+intercepting the enemy's possible scouts. Two waggons were ordered to
+take the infantry to the lake settlement, so that they might be fresh
+for the work before them.
+
+In his martial accoutrements, the dominie's soul was stirred within him.
+He repeated to his bosom friend pieces from Koerner's Leyer und Schwert,
+but as the lawyer's acquaintance with the Teutonic tongues was limited,
+including _sauer kraut, lager bier, nix kum araus, donner-wetter_, and
+similar choice expressions, he failed to make an impression. Nobody in
+the house knew German, unless it were Tryphena and Tryphosa, who had
+picked up a little from their mother, and, of course, he could hardly
+lie in wait to get off his warlike quotations on them. Ha! he remembered
+Wordsworth, and rolled forth:--
+
+     "Vanguard of liberty, ye men of Kent!
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+     They from their fields can see the countenance
+     Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance,
+     And hear you shouting forth your brave intent."
+
+Still failing to awake a responsive echo in the heart that once beat in
+poetic unison with his own, he turned to Mrs. Du Plessis, and, alluding
+to the departed colonel, recited in her native tongue:--
+
+     "Honor al Caudillo,
+     Honor al primero,
+     Que el patriota acero
+       Oso fulminar.
+     La Patria afligida
+     Oyo' sus acentos,
+     Y vio' sus tormentos,
+       En gozo tornar."
+
+"That is very pretty, Mr. Wilkinson, and I thank you much for recalling
+the pleasant memories of my early speech. Is there not an English
+translation of these words?"
+
+"There is, Mrs. Du Plessis, by Sir John Bowring, It is:--
+
+     Hail, hail to the Chieftain,
+     All honour to him
+     Who first in the gleam
+       Of that light bared the sword!
+     The drooping land heard him,
+     Forgetting her fears;
+     And smiled through her tears,
+       As she hung on his word."
+
+The dominie had thought only to give expression to the poetic fervour
+called forth by the circumstances, but accomplished a good deal more,
+the establishment of a common ground between himself and the nearest
+relative of a very charming and cultivated young lady. The said young
+lady came up to join in the conversation, and request Mr. Wilkinson to
+repeat all that he knew of the battle hymn. The lawyer was secretly of
+the opinion that his friend was making an ass of himself, and that, if
+he were to try that poetry quoting business on Miss Carmichael, he would
+soon discover that such was the case. Yet, if the Du Plessis liked that
+sort of thing, he had no right to interfere. He remembered that he had
+once been just such an ass himself, and wondered how he could have so
+far strayed from the path of common sense. It was worse than Tryphosa
+and Timotheus sitting down to sing with a hymn-book between them.
+
+"What are you doing out in the garden all by yourself, Eugene?" asked a
+small voice. He looked down and saw Marjorie fingering the barrel of his
+rifle. "Don't you know," she continued, "that all the people have gone
+in to dinner?"
+
+"Did the gong sound, Marjorie?"
+
+"To be sure it did. Tell me, what were you thinking about not to hear
+it?"
+
+"I was thinking about a dear little girl called Marjorie," answered the
+prevaricating lawyer, picking the child up and bestowing a hearty salute
+upon her lips.
+
+"You're a very good boy now, Eugene; you get a clean shave every day. Do
+you go to Collingwood for it in the night time, when I am in bed?"
+
+"No, Marjorie; I get the cat to lick my face," the untruthful man
+replied.
+
+"What? our pussy Felina that spits at Muggy?"
+
+"The very same."
+
+"Then I'll ask Tryphosa's father if he would like to have the loan of
+Felina. Don't you think she would do him good."
+
+Coristine laughed, as he thought of Mr. Hill's stubbly countenance, and
+carried "the darlin'" into the house.
+
+At the dinner table he found himself punished for his day-dreaming.
+Bangs was on one side of Miss Carmichael, and Bigglethorpe on the other,
+and he was out in the cold, between the latter gentleman and the
+minister. Mr. Bigglethorpe resumed the subject of fishing, and
+interrogated his right hand neighbour as to his success at the River. He
+laughed over the so-called mullets, and expressed a fisherman's contempt
+for them as devourers of valuable spawn, relating also the fact that, in
+the spring, when they swarm up into shallow parts of the stream, the
+farmers shovel them out with large wooden scoops, and feed them to the
+pigs or fertilize the land with them. Finding he had more than one
+auditor, the fishing store-keeper questioned the Squire about the
+contents of his brook, and, learning that dace, chubs, and crayfish were
+its only occupants, promised to send Mrs. Carruthers a basket of trout
+when the season came round. In order to give a classical turn to the
+conversation, the dominie mentioned the name of Isaac Walton and
+referred to his poor opinion of the chub in the river Lea. "I know the
+Lea like a book," said Mr. Bigglethorpe, "and a dirty, muddy ditch it
+has got to be since old Isaac's time. When I was a schoolboy I went
+there fishing one afternoon with some companions, and caught not a
+single fish, hardly got a nibble. We were going home disappointed, when
+we saw a man at the reservoir above the river, near the Lea bridge, with
+some eels in a basket. They were queer looking eels, but we bought them
+for sixpence, and one of our fellows, called Wickens, put them in his
+fishing can; then we maide for home. Before we could get there we had to
+cross a pretty rough part of the Kingsland road. It was pretty dark,
+but, of course, the shops were all lit up and we sawr a lot of boys,
+common cads, coming our wy. Just in front of a public house they called
+out 'Boots, Boots! fish, fish!' and out caime a stout lad of about
+eighteen to lead the gang. Three of us clubbed our rods over them,
+briking the top joints, of course, but Wickens wouldn't fall in with us.
+So Boots ran after him, followed by a crowd. When Wickens sawr he
+couldn't escype, he opened his can, took out an eel and slapped it over
+Boots' fyce. The beggar just yelled, 'O, Lawr, water snykes!' and he
+ran, and Wickens after the crowd like mad, slashing 'em with the water
+snykes. O dear, O dear, I shall never forget those snykes to my dying
+dy."
+
+"Are there any water snakes in our rivers in Canada?" enquired Mrs. Du
+Plessis.
+
+"Oh yes, ma'am," answered the fisherman, "I imagine those lykes we are
+going to visit this afternoon are pretty full of snykes. Mr. Bulky,
+whose nyme is known to Mr. Coristine, I'm sure, wears long waterproof
+boots for wyding in the Beaver River--"
+
+"But, Mr. Bigglethorpe," asked the fair questioner, "how can one ride in
+a river?"
+
+"Excuse me, ma'am, I did not say riding, I said wyding, walking in the
+water. Mr. Bulky was wyding, one morning, with rod in hand, when, all of
+a sudden, he felt something on his leg. Looking down, he sawr a big
+black water-snyke coiled round his boot, and jabbing awy at his leg. It
+hung on to him like a boa-constrictor, and squeezed his leg so tight
+that it gyve him a bad attack of gout. He had to get on shore and sawr
+it in two with his knife before the snyke would leave go. Fortunately,
+the brutes are not venomous, but that beggar's teeth scratched Mr.
+Bulky's boots up pretty badly, I must sy."
+
+When they rose from the table, Miss Carmichael went up to the lawyer and
+said: "Please forgive me for punishing myself between Mr. Bangs and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe. I sigh for good English." The lawyer answered, all
+unwittingly, of course, in his worst brogue: "Miss Carrmoikle, it's my
+frind Wilks I'll be aafther gitten' to shtarrt a noight school to tayche
+me to shpake Inglish in aal its purity." To this there could be but one
+response: "Go away, you shameful, shameless, bad man!" It pleased the
+lawyer better than a more elegant and complimentary remark.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+     Walk to the P.O.--Harding's Portrait--The Encampment
+     Besieged--Wilkinson Wounded--Serlizer and Other Prisoners--No
+     Underground Passage Found--Bangs and Guard Remain--The Constable's
+     New Prisoners--Wilkinson a Hero--The Constable and Maguffin--Cards.
+
+
+There was no room for twenty persons in two waggons, yet twenty proposed
+to go, seventeen to the seat of war, and three to the post-office. As
+those three were the young ladies of the house, all the warriors offered
+to surrender their seats to them. They refused to accept any surrender,
+preferring to walk, whereupon Messrs. Errol, Wilkinson and Coristine
+thought an after-dinner walk the height of luxury. Mr. Bangs saw he was
+not wanted as a fellow pedestrian, and mounted his horse instead of
+having him trot behind a waggon. The vehicles, or at least one of them,
+received instructions to wait at the post-office for the three members
+of squad No. 1. The walk was strictly proper, Mr. Errol taking Miss
+Carmichael, the dominie Miss Halbert, and the lawyer Miss Du Plessis.
+"What a goose you are, Mr. Wilkinson," said his fair companion. "What a
+goose you are to leave Cecile, whose footsteps you fairly worship, and
+to come and walk with a girl for whose society you don't care a penny."
+
+"I should care more for Miss Halbert's society if she did not say such
+unjustifiable things."
+
+"Cecile," called the young lady, "I want to change escorts with you; I
+like pleasant society."
+
+The dominie felt as if a big school-girl had declined to receive a
+reprimand from the principal, and coloured with vexation, but Miss Du
+Plessis calmly turned and said: "If Mr. Wilkinson is tired of you
+already, Fanny, I suppose I must send Mr. Coristine to comfort you,"
+whereat Mr. Errol and his companion exchanged a smile.
+
+"Did the villain shoot Wordsworth at you, Miss Halbert, or was it Hans
+Breitmann in the original, or a Spanish _cantinella_, or some such
+rubbish? If I was Miss Du Plessis I'd wear a signboard over my ears, 'No
+poetical rubbish shot here;' perhaps that might fix him."
+
+"Cecile is sentimental: she dotes on poetry."
+
+"Pardon me for saying I don't believe it. I offered to recite my
+original poem on the Grinstun man to her, and she didn't seem to want to
+hear it."
+
+"How ungrateful and unsympathetic! You will favour me with it, will you
+not?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure in the world. You know it's awful
+balderdash, but here goes."
+
+The original poem was recited with appropriate gestures, intended to
+imitate the walk of the hero of the piece and his various features. The
+people in front turned their heads to look at the performance and take
+in the words. Not to laugh was almost an impossibility, but the dominie
+succeeded in doing the impossible, and frowned heavily. He felt that his
+unworthy friend was bringing disgrace upon the causes of poetry and
+pedestrianism. When her laughter subsided, Miss Halbert said: "There is
+one thing I want to ask you seriously, Mr. Coristine." "Name it," he
+answered, "even to the half of my fortune." "It is to look after papa,
+and see that he does not expose himself too much to danger. I asked Mr.
+Perrowne too, but he is with the horsemen, you know." This last was said
+with a peculiarly arch smile, which convinced the lawyer that Perrowne
+was in deeper than was generally suspected. The first thought that
+followed in Coristine's mind was what awful cheek he had been guilty of
+in following Perrowne's precedent in drop the handkerchief. He managed,
+however, to assure the lady that he would do his best to watch over the
+safety of her father and Squire Carruthers, the latter words being
+spoken loud enough for Miss Carmichael to hear. When the post-office was
+reached Mr. Bangs dismounted, was ready to receive the ladies; and the
+three escorts, shaking hands warmly with each of their fair companions,
+entered the remaining waggon and drove away, the buts of their firearms
+rattling on the floor, and the suspended bludgeons playfully flogging
+their shoulders.
+
+It was ghastly work propping up the dead murderer's shoulders in the
+shell, and placing a rest for his head. The jaw had been tied up, but
+the eyes would not close; yet, staring though the face was, it was not a
+repulsive one. The ordinary observer could not read what Bangs saw
+there, greed and hypocrisy, envy, treachery, murder. While Miss Du
+Plessis went on calmly sketching, the other girls turned their heads
+away. No one cared to break the stillness by a word. The detective went
+out and secured the services of Styles to accompany the ladies home, and
+remain at Bridesdale till the armed band returned. Then he went over to
+the shell in which the body of his brother detective lay, and, nobody
+looking at him, allowed himself the luxury of a few tears, a silent
+tribute to the man he honoured. When the sketch was completed, he warmly
+thanked the artist, and told her that he never would have dreamt of
+proposing such a task, but for his desire to do justice to his dead
+friend, whom an informer named Flower had greatly injured in the
+department. The department had faith in his cleverness all along, but
+suspicions had been cast upon his honesty, which embittered his days,
+along with troubles that were then only known to himself.
+
+Bangs was not a detective, but a man of warm, brotherly heart, as he
+told the tale of the outwardly always cheerful, but inwardly
+sore-hearted, Nash, cut off in the midst of his years and usefulness.
+Then old Styles appeared, and, with a salute, the detective mounted and
+rode away to join the forces in front, while the ladies journeyed
+homeward. Mr. Bangs soliloquized as he rode rapidly on. "Boys read
+detective stories, and think our life an enviable one. They dowte on
+the schemes, the plots and counterplots, the risks, the triumphs, and
+look beyond to fame and rewerd, but they know nothing of the miserable
+envies and jealousies, the sespicions, the checks and counterchecks, and
+the demnable policy of the depertment, encouraging these irresponsible
+informers, dem 'em, to break up all legitimate business and merder
+honest men. O Nesh, my pore dead friend, yo're avenged in a wey, bet
+who's going to avenge yore pore sister, and even this devil of a Flower
+or Herding, whose death lies at the door of that greater devil of a
+Rawdon?"
+
+The expedition was waiting for him at Richards', the colonel in command.
+The scow had departed in charge of the captain, who had orders to do
+nothing to the barrier till he heard a signal shot; then he was to
+respond with the unmistakable blunderbuss, and batter down the
+obstruction. Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and Maguffin had patrolled,
+without meeting even a passing team or wayfarer; but the colonel judged
+it best to get off the road without delay. Accordingly the waggons were
+left in Richards' shed, and the infantry doubled forward after the
+colonel and Bangs. When the rocky ascent was reached, over which the
+fugitives of the night before had clambered, a halt was called, and the
+colonel gave Dr. Halbert instructions. Just where the rock rose out of
+the swamp, Sergeant Terry's squad entered, and easily wheeled round
+large trunks of trees resting on stone pivots, revealing a good
+waggon-track, the masked road. This the cavalry occupied, looking to the
+priming of their pistols, and bringing their clubs into handy positions.
+The Squire's squad scaled the height near the road, and Mr. Terry's took
+ground farther to the right. The doctor led the way in front of and
+between the two sections. The cavalry moved slowly, keeping pace with
+the climbers. Soon the crest was reached, and the main body began to
+descend gradually, when the dominie slipped and his piece went off, the
+trigger having caught in his red window cord, startling the echoes. Then
+came the diffusive boom and crackle of the blunderbuss, and the doctor,
+inwardly anathematizing Wilkinson, hurried his men on. They heard axes
+at work, as if trees were being felled; it was the Captain and the
+Richards at the barrier. No enemy appeared on the rocks, but pistol
+shots warned them that there was collision on the road, and the doctor
+called the second squad to wheel towards it. The dominie, on the left of
+the first, saw what was going on below. Revolvers were emptied and clubs
+brought into requisition. He could not load his old muzzle-loading piece
+to save his life, but he knew single stick. Two men were tackling the
+brave old colonel, while a third lay wounded at his horse's feet. The
+dominie sped down to the road like a chamois, and threw himself upon the
+man on the colonel's right, the dissipated farmer. He heard a shot, felt
+a sharp pain in his left arm, but with his right hit the holder of the
+pistol a skull cracker over the head, then fainted and fell to the
+ground. His luckless muzzle-loader was never found. The colonel had
+floored his antagonist on the left, and turned to behold the dominie's
+pale face. Leaving the command to the doctor, he dismounted and put a
+little old Bourbon out of a pocket flask into his lips, and then
+proceeded to bandage the wound. Wilkinson had saved his life; he was a
+hero, a grand, cultivated, sympathetic, chivalrous man, whom the colonel
+loved as his own son. When he came to, were not the very first words he
+uttered enquiries for Colonel Morton's own safety? Maguffin, having
+felled his man, held his master's horse.
+
+Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and Bangs galloped on, the latter eager to
+seize Rawdon. They and the infantry squads came almost simultaneously
+upon the select encampment, which was simply a large stone-mason's yard,
+full of grindstones in every state of preparation, and bordered by
+half-a-dozen frame buildings, one of which, more pretentious than the
+others, was evidently the dwelling-place of the head of the concern. Two
+simple-looking men in mason's aprons stood in the doorway of another,
+having retired thither when they heard the sound of firing. This was
+evidently the boarding-house of the workmen, and an object of interest
+to Ben Toner, who, with his friends Sullivan and Timotheus, pushed past
+the two stonecutters, immediately thereafter arrested by Sergeant Terry,
+and invaded the structure. Soon Ben reappeared upon the scene,
+accompanied by a young woman whose proportions were little, if at all,
+short of his own, and calling aloud to all the company, as if he had
+accomplished the main object of the expedition, "It's all raight, boys,
+I've got Serlizer!" Behind the happy pair came an old woman, gray,
+wrinkled, and with features that bore unmistakable traces of sorrow and
+suffering. "Hev they ben good to you, Serlizer?" asked Mr. Toner, after
+he had in the most public and unblushing manner saluted his long lost
+sweetheart. The large woman raised her bared arms from the elbow
+significantly, and replied, with a trace of her father's gruffness, "I
+didn't arst 'em; 'sides I allers had old Marm Flowers to keep 'em off."
+The expedition was demoralized. The colonel and his servant were with
+the dominie on the road. Ben, with Timotheus and Sullivan, was rejoicing
+in Serlizer; while Mr. Hislop and Rufus were guarding the captured
+stone-cutters. Sylvanus, not to be outdone by his companions of the
+second squad, attached himself, partly as a protector, partly as a
+prisoner's guard, to Mrs. Flower, the keeper of the boarding-house.
+Sergeant Terry, without a command, followed what remained of the first
+squad in its search for Rawdon. The first person he came upon, in his
+way down to the water, was Monsieur Lajeunesse, who could run no
+farther, and, perspiring at every pore, sat upon a log, mopping his face
+with a handkerchief.
+
+"A such coorse 'ave I not med, Meestare Terray, sinsa zat I vas a too
+ptee garsong." Mr. Terry understood, owing to large experience of
+foreigners, and could not permit the opportunity of making a
+philological remark to pass, "D'ye know, Mishter Lashness, that Frinch
+an' the rale ould Oirish is as loike as two pays? Now, there's garsan is
+as Oirish a worrud for a young bhoy as ye'll find in Connaught. But juty
+is juty, moy dare sorr, so, as they say in the arrmy, 'Fag a bealach,'
+lave the way." The sergeant's next discovery was the doctor, borne in
+the arms of the lawyer and the dismounted parson. He had sprained his
+ancle in the rapid descent to which his zeal had impelled him, and had
+thus been compelled to leave the Squire in command. Mr. Hill had been
+left behind on the left of the encampment with the horses of the three
+dismounted cavaliers, Squire Walker, Mr. Perrowne, and the detective, so
+that Sergeant Carruthers, now acting colonel, had with him a mere
+corporal's guard, consisting of Messrs. Errol and Bigglethorpe.
+
+The junction of the land forces with those operating on the water was
+effected in good order, the latter being intact under command of the
+captain, but the former exhibiting, by their terribly reduced numbers,
+the dreadful fatality of war. Squire Walker and Mr. Bangs alone
+represented the cavalry; Carruthers and his corporal's guard, the first
+squad, and the veteran all alone, the second squad of the infantry. Even
+this remnant had its deserter, for, during the conversation between the
+Squire and the Captain, private Bigglethorpe stole away, and when next
+seen was standing far out upon a dead hemlock that had fallen into the
+lake, fishing with great contentment, and a measure of success, for
+bass. The numbers of the force were soon augmented by the appearance of
+the doctor and his bearers. The disabled physician was accommodated with
+a seat on the bottom of the scow, two of the Richards boys being
+displaced in his favour. The Captain reported a prize in the shape of a
+handsome varnished skiff, which he found drawn up on some skids or
+rollers at the foot of a great mass of rock, that seemed as if cut all
+about in regular form, in readiness for quarrying. The finding of the
+boat just opposite it, the worn appearance of the ground, the absence of
+moss or any other growth on the severed edges of the square mass of
+limestone, led the detective to ask if there was any report of a
+subterraneous passage in connection with this mysterious region. The
+doctor, whom his former guide had taken by water, and insisted on
+blindfolding at a certain point, was sure that he had walked some
+distance on rock, and, although the lamp-lit room, in which he had seen
+his patients, was lined with wood, and had blinds on apparent windows,
+he doubted much that it was built in the open air. Then, Coristine
+remembered how the dissipated farmer had coupled Rawdon's geology with
+trap rock, as well as with galena, quartz and beryl. Knives were
+produced and thrust into the seams at the top and on the two sides, as
+far as the blades would go, but along the bottom there was no horizontal
+incision answering to that above; it was perpendicular towards the
+earth, and of no great depth.
+
+It was decided, in the meanwhile, to leave the Captain with Richards
+senior, his youngest son, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, who declined to leave
+his sport, as a guard on the skiff and the adjoining mysterious stone.
+The rest of the party returned to the encampment, to consult with the
+colonel and learn the reason of his absence. Pierre Lajeunesse was found
+where Mr. Terry had left him, and gladly accepted an arm up the hill.
+Arrived at the stone-yard, the Squire and Coristine learnt with concern
+of the dominie's wound, but were rejoiced to find it was nothing more
+serious, and that his was the only casualty, besides the doctor's.
+Squire Walker and Mr. Bangs accompanied the colonel, whom Coristine
+relieved in attendance upon the dominie, and Maguffin, to look for the
+felled accomplices of Rawdon, but, of the four who certainly were
+knocked insensible by the clubs, not one was to be found, nor was there
+any sign that the pistols of the cavalry had taken effect on the other
+three. The whole seven had escaped. Meanwhile Rawdon's house and all the
+other buildings had been searched by Carruthers, without a single
+incriminating thing, save a half empty keg of peculiar white spirits,
+being brought to light. The stables contained many horses; and strong
+waggons, such as those seen by the pedestrians at the Beaver River, were
+in the sheds. The stone-cutters and the women professed to know nothing,
+and, save in the case of the woman called Flower, Bangs was of opinion
+that they spoke the truth. All the men could tell was that Rawdon paid
+them good wages, so that they were able to live without work all winter;
+that six other men worked for him elsewhere and came to the
+boarding-house for their meals, but did not sleep there; that one of
+them had got hurt in the back, and was away in the hospital, and that
+two teamsters had left shortly before the intruders arrived, along with
+the remaining five. They had also seen Rawdon ride in that morning, but
+did not know where he had gone. Did they know of any underground vaults
+or trap doors, or any buildings apart from those in the encampment? No,
+they had seen none; but, three years ago, before they returned to work
+in the spring, there must have been quarrymen about, for enormous
+quantities of stone were lying ready for them, which they had not taken
+out. Mrs. Flower declined to answer any questions, but did not scruple
+to ask if the Squire and others had seen anything of a man called
+Harding. When she learned the man's fate, as she sat in a low chair,
+she rocked it to and fro and groaned, but shed no tear nor uttered an
+articulate syllable.
+
+Bangs would not give up the search, nor would he leave the place. There
+was food enough in the boarding-house, and he would remain, even if he
+had to stay alone. Squire Walker had to be home for an engagement early
+in the morning; the two clergymen had to prepare for Wednesday evening's
+duty, and had pastoral work before them; the colonel could not leave the
+man who had saved his life. The doctor and the dominie were
+incapacitated; Ben Toner was worse than useless over Serlizer; Pierre
+dreaded his beloved Angelique's ire if he remained away over night; and
+Sullivan's folks might be kinder anxious about him. Messrs. Hill and
+Hislop also thought they had better be going. Thus the army melted away.
+Everybody insisted on the Squire going home, and getting a good night's
+rest. When, with difficulty, persuaded to do so, he offered to leave
+Timotheus as his substitute, if that worthy were willing. Timotheus
+consented, whereupon Sylvanus and Rufus volunteered, it being understood
+that Ben Toner and Maguffin would do their work about the kitchen and
+stables, while Serlizer helped the Bridesdale maids. Two other
+volunteers were Mr. Terry and the lawyer; and two of the Richards
+offered to watch with Mr. Bigglethorpe on the lake shore. Thereupon, the
+three members of that gallant family withdrew to the lake, and, while
+one boarded the scow and helped his father and younger brother, under
+the Captain's directions, to paddle home, the others hailed the
+fisherman and asked if he was going to remain. "I'm here for the night,
+boys," replied the man of the rod. "I'll turn up that skiff against the
+wind and dew, light a fire by the water, and, early in the morning, have
+the loveliest bass fishing I've had for many a day. Oh yes, I'm here.
+D'ye see my gun lying about anywhere?" Mr. Bigglethorpe's gun was found,
+and deposited in the skiff. While this was going on below, Ben Toner
+harnessed up a team, hitched them to a waggon, for which he found seats
+by depriving other waggons of their boxes, and prepared to take the
+wounded dominie, his affectionate friend, the colonel, with Serlizer and
+the woman Flower, to Bridesdale. The last named person insisted upon
+going at once to see the dead body of Harding. The two stone-cutters
+also asked to be allowed to accompany the two props of the encampment
+boarding house. Mr. Hill rode the colonel's horse, and the Squire, that
+of the detective. Along the once masked, but now unmasked, road, the
+procession of waggon, horsemen, and footmen, passed, waving a farewell
+to the allies of Mr. Bangs who held the fort. It should be added that
+Sylvanus accompanied them as far as the Richards' place, to obtain the
+Captain's permission for his volunteering, and to bring the borrowed
+waggon back.
+
+At Richards' the waggons were brought out. One was devoted to the two
+injured men, the dominie and the doctor, with their attendants, the
+colonel and the Captain, and Barney Sullivan as driver. The other was
+driven by Ben, with Serlizer beside him. It also contained the woman
+Flower, Mr. Errol, Mr. Lajeunesse, and Mr. Hislop. The cavalry,
+consisting of Squire Walker in command, Mr. Perrowne, Carruthers, Hill,
+and Maguffin, trotted forward, and the infantry and prisoners,
+comprising Tom Rigby, who turned up at the Lake Settlement, and the two
+masons, followed in the rear. The constable was angry; he had lost his
+prisoners of the morning. Having arrived at Mr. Newberry's hospitable
+house, and being asked to take some refreshments, which, esteeming the
+objects of his care to be simple souls, he had no hesitation in doing,
+he was amazed, on his return to the waggon, to find his captives gone.
+At once he started in pursuit, but, up to the time of his arrival at the
+Lake Settlement, he had seen no trace of the fugitives. Accordingly, the
+corporal made the present life of the two stone cutters a burden. He
+searched them for concealed weapons, and confiscated the innocent pocket
+knives with which they shred their plug tobacco; he forbade them to
+smoke; and, finally, tied the left hand of the one to the right of the
+other to prevent their running away, of which they disclaimed any
+intention. The cavalry came first to the gate of Bridesdale, and
+reported the casualties, Perrowne proudly relating that he and
+Coristine, who was "now end of a good fellow," had carried the doctor to
+the scow, which he called "the bowt." Ben Toner's waggon came next,
+having dropped Mrs. Flower at the post office, where, a little later,
+the constable landed his prisoners. Her companion Serlizer sought the
+kitchen with Ben, while Mr. Errol joined his brother divine; but
+Messrs. Hislop and Lajeunesse, with Mr. Hill, waited only for Sylvanus'
+appearance to take their homeward journey. At last the ambulance waggon
+drove slowly up, and tender hands lifted out the disabled and the
+wounded. Miss Halbert and Miss Carmichael relieved the Captain of his
+patient, who managed to hop cheerfully into the house, with an arm on
+each of their shoulders. The Squire and the colonel helped the dominie
+along, and up to a special single room which was to be his hospital, and
+which Mrs. and Miss Du Plessis and Mrs. Carruthers were prepared to
+enter as nurses, so soon as his bearers had put him to bed. Then the
+doctor came up with his instruments, cut off the colonel's improvised
+bandage and the shirt sleeve, bathed the wound, found and extracted the
+bullet, and tied all up tight. The meek dominie bore it all with
+patience, and apologized to his surgeon for giving him so much trouble
+while he himself was suffering. The three ladies brought the wounded
+hero all manner of good things that sick people are supposed to like or
+to be allowed to eat and drink, and Wilkinson was in a _dolce far
+niente_ elysium. Little Marjorie, having knocked timidly at the door,
+came in with some square gaudily-covered books under her arm, and asked
+if Mr. Wilks would like her to read to him. She offered the victim his
+choice of "Puss in Boots," "Mother Goose," and "Nursery Rhymes"; but
+Miss Du Plessis, who, at the sufferer's request, was looking up in
+Wordsworth that cheerful theme, The Churchyard in "The Excursion,"
+interposed, saying, some other day, when Mr. Wilkinson had grown
+stronger, he might perhaps be able to make a selection from her juvenile
+library. Marjorie told her cousin that she was sure, if it had been her
+Eugene who was sick, he would have liked her to stay and read to him.
+She had told Eugene to marry Cecile, but she would never do so any more;
+she would give him all to cousin Marjorie.
+
+The three squires sat in council, and agreed to dismiss the nominal
+captives on condition of their promising to appear when wanted as
+witnesses. This Serlizer at once agreed to. Mr. Walker rode to the post
+office and exacted the promise from Mrs. Flower and the masons, thus
+depriving the constable of his prey. He was compelled to untie their
+hands, and restore the confiscated pocket knives. The masons were
+invited to supper at Bridesdale, as was the woman; but the men proposed
+to go on to the River, as they had money to pay their way; and Mrs.
+Flower, who would not leave Harding's body, was given in charge to the
+post mistress. The supper tables in hall and kitchen were very different
+from those of the previous night. In the latter, Ben Toner, the
+constable, and Maguffin had each a lady to talk to. Their superiors
+missed the company of the lawyer, the detective, and Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+to say nothing of Mr. Terry. The doctor was stretched out upon a sofa in
+the office, where his daughter waited on him, assisted by Perrowne, who
+had to carry the other articles of food while she preceded him with the
+tea. Miss Du Plessis, similarly helped by the colonel, attended to the
+wants of the dominie. Consequently, the steady members of the supper
+circle were the three matrons and Miss Carmichael, with Squires Walker
+and Carruthers, Mr. Errol, and the Captain. All agreed that Wilkinson
+had done a very fine thing, and Mrs. Du Plessis was warm in his praise.
+"The only men that stuck to me," said the Squire, "were Mr. Errol and
+Bigglethorpe, and even Bigglethorpe went off fishing as soon as he came
+to the water, so that I may say Mr. Errol was my only faithful
+adherent." The ladies all looked with much approbation on the blushing
+minister, and Mrs. Carmichael showed her approval by immediately
+refilling his cup. Squire Walker whispered in his ear: "Fine woman, Mr.
+Errol, fine woman, that Mrs. Carmichael! Is she a widow, sir?" Mr. Errol
+did not like this whispering at table, especially on such a subject, but
+he replied affirmatively in as brief a way as possible, and went on with
+his repast. The Captain said that his mill was clean run out of gear
+with all these starboard and port watches and tacks to every point of
+the compass; and, when conversation lagged, Carruthers fairly nodded
+over his plate. Nevertheless, after supper, the occupants of the kitchen
+were called in and prayers were held, in which Mr. Errol offered
+petitions for the bereaved, the suffering, and the criminal, and
+committed the watchers at the post of danger and duty to the care of
+their Heavenly Father, to all of which Mr. Perrowne responded with a
+hearty Amen. Then, the parsons insisted on going home to their boarding
+houses, and Squire Walker mounted his horse for home. Anxiously, Mrs.
+Carruthers asked her husband if he anticipated danger where her father
+was, and Miss Carmichael asked the Captain the same question, without
+mentioning anyone, but having Coristine in view. Both endeavoured to
+reassure the minds of the half tearful women, after which they carried
+the doctor upstairs, and all went to bed. Fearing that the idiot boy
+might repeat his double attempt to fire the verandah, Mr. Perrowne had
+told Muggins to lie there and watch it, and there the faithful dog lay
+the whole night through, to the satisfaction of the inmates of
+Bridesdale, although happily nothing happened to test his quality as a
+watch dog.
+
+In the kitchen, Mr. Maguffin considered himself, next to Tryphena and
+Tryphosa, the representative of the family, as the deputy of Timotheus
+and the servant of the colonel. Ben Toner was his ally in war, but had
+no local standing, and the pensioner was simply an intruder. Yet, with
+cool effrontery, the corporal sat in the place of honour beside
+Tryphena, and regaled her with narratives of warfare, to which she had
+listened many times already. Ben and Serlizer were still full of one
+another's society. He had comforted her heart, if it needed any
+comforting, over the condition of her father, whom he and Timotheus had
+treated so cavalierly, and urged her not to go home any more, but to
+come and help the old woman. With a bad example before her at home, and
+very far from improving ones at the Select Encampment, Serlizer was yet,
+though not too cultivated, an honest steady girl, and was pleased to
+learn that Ben had really turned over a new leaf. She gave her
+sweetheart to understand that she had kept her own money, not being such
+a fool as to let the old man get his hands on it, and that it was safe
+in the bundle she had brought from the boarding-house, whereupon Ben
+said she had better put that bundle away in a safe place, for you
+couldn't tell what kind of characters might be about. Mr. Maguffin heard
+these words, and, taking them to himself, waxed indignant.
+
+"Ef yoh'se diloodin' ter this pressum comperny, Mistah Tonah, I wants
+ter say I takes the sponsability ob these young ladies on my shouldahs,
+sah, the shouldahs ob Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin, sah. Foh what remains
+ober ob the mascline paht ob it, I ain't no call foh ter spress mysef.
+It kin speak foh itsef."
+
+The corporal glowered, and smote the table with his fist.
+
+"Pardon my indignation, Miss Hill! This creature, with no military or
+other standing that I know of, calls me, a retired non-commissioned
+officer of the British army, it. In India, where I served, I called such
+things _chakar_ and _banda_, the very dust beneath my feet, Miss
+Tryphena; and it was as much as their life was worth to call me less
+than _sahib_. And, now that I have retired on a pension, with my medals
+and clasps, and am an officer of the law, a black man, a _kali_,
+presumes to _it_ me. I have known a _kali chakar_ killed, yes killed,
+for less. 'Corporal,' said the commanding officer to me, 'Corporal
+Rigby,' said he, many a time, 'order one of your men to call up that
+black dog of mine!' I assure you he did, Miss Hill."
+
+"I doan' take no erbuse ner nigger talk in this yere house, where I'm
+takin' Timothis' place, an' where my bawss is mighty high ercount, no,
+not fom consterbles nor no nuther white tresh. I didn't go foh ter call
+Mistah Rigby _it_, Miss Tryphosy, I swan ter grashus I didn't. I
+spressed the pinion as all the comperny as isn't ladies is it and so it
+is it."
+
+"Ef you go a ittin' of me Maguffin," struck in Ben, "I'm buzz sawed and
+shingled of I don't hit you back fer what you're ma guvin us." Then he
+opened up his mouth and laughed, and Serlizer laughed, and the Hill
+girls. Even Maguffin displayed his ivories, and remarked: "Mistah Tonah,
+foh a gennelman what ain't trabbled none, yoh'se mighty smaht."
+
+"Oh, Serlizer," said Ben, "we don't go traavellin' much; we ain't like
+the rollin' stones as don't gaythyer no mawss."
+
+"When the cunnel and me was ridin' ter Tronter, laast Sat'day,"
+continued Mr. Maguffin, "the cunnel he began egspashuatin' on the things
+he see. 'That there mawss' says he, 'at Hogg's Holler, minds me ob two
+coloured men was habin' a counterbessy on they bawsses. Says one of the
+gennelmen, "My bawss," (the cunnel says massa, but that's a name I doan'
+take to) "my bawss says he ain't like yoh bawss, trabellin' around all
+the time and gatherin' no mawss." "No," said the other coloured
+gennelman, "but my bawss gathers what yoh bawss want mighty bad, and
+that's a heap ob polish."'"
+
+"For polish," remarked Constable Rigby, turning to Tryphena, "for
+polish, Miss Hill, commend me to an English army officer."
+
+"My bawss," said Maguffin, "is an officer and a gennelman, and yoh
+cayn't beat him foh polish nohow."
+
+"There are no officers and no soldiers in America," replied the
+pensioner.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Rigby," interrupted Tryphosa, "I remember reading in my history
+that the American soldiers beat the British army many times in the
+Revolutionary War."
+
+"Flim-flam. Miss Tryphosa Hill, garbled reports! The British army never
+has been beaten, never can be beaten. I belonged to the British army,
+Miss Hill, I beg pardon, Miss Tryphosa, and know what I assert from
+experience."
+
+"Le'ss stop this jaw and have a game o' keerds," suggested Serlizer.
+
+Ben seconded his lady love's proposal, and thought a game of euchre
+would pass away the time. The constable said euchre was no game. There
+was only one game at cards, and that was whist. The man or woman who
+could not play whist was uneducated. Sarah Eliza professed a preference
+for High, Low, Jack, and the Game; any saphead could play that. She
+wasn't a saphead herself, but there might be some about. Maguffin
+regretted that in the Baktis pussuasion cards were not allowed; and the
+Hill girls had distinctly promised their mother to play no games of
+chance. As, however, none of the parties owned a pack of cards, nor knew
+where to find one, further controversy on the subject was useless.
+Tryphosa, looking intelligent, left the room, and speedily returned with
+a little cardboard box in her hand, labelled Countries, Cities,
+Mountains, and Rivers, with which Timotheus had once presented her. She
+said it was an improving game, and that all could play it. The shuffling
+and dealing, of course, presented an almost unavoidable chance element,
+but, apart from that, the game was a matter of science, of geographical
+knowledge. Now the Hill girls were educated, as Mr. Rigby said; and he,
+having travelled far as a soldier, was not deficient in geographical
+lore; but what about the other three?
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Miss Newcome, "at them there keerds, I guess we jist
+are sapheads. Ain't that so, Ben?"
+
+Ben said "I guaiss"; and Mr. Maguffin added: "joggrify, entermoligy,
+swinetax, and paucity was teached me, but I done clar forgit how they
+run, it's so long sence."
+
+It was, therefore, agreed to play a triangular game, the pair having the
+most books to be winners, and have the right to shuffle and deal for the
+following trial of skill. The contending pairs were the pensioner and
+Serlizer, Ben and Tryphosa, Maguffin and Tryphena, partners were allowed
+to help each other. While the British Islands, Turkey, Russia, and India
+were being played, Rigby and Miss Newcome were triumphant, but when it
+came to any other part of the world, especially to America, with the
+exception of Canada, where Serlizer scored her one victory, that pair
+was helpless. Maguffin acquired a book by his own unaided wisdom, that
+of the Southern United States; otherwise Tryphena inspired him. Ben had
+an unavailing contest with Miss Newcome over Canada, and saw her make up
+the book and slam it on the table with mingled feelings of pride in her,
+and mortification for his own want of success. But, as he said, Tryphosa
+was "a daisy and parlyzed the hull gang." Laurel after laurel she took
+from the brow of the travelled pensioner; she swooped down upon Tryphena
+and Maguffin, and robbed them of books wholesale, till Mr. Toner
+remarked that she had "quayte a libery"; in her hands the strapping
+Serlizer was helpless as a child. Magnanimously, she allowed Ben to
+shuffle and Serlizer to cut, then Ben again to deal.
+
+The second game was more exciting. Mr. Maguffin, naturally quick and
+possessing a memory cultivated by closely following the prelections of
+his coloured Baptist religious instructors, rapidly seized the hitherto
+unknown combinations, and astonished Tryphena with his bold independence
+of action. The constable's mind worked more conservatively, as became
+his rank and profession, and Serlizer was worse than useless to him,
+but, by chance, they had magnificent hands. He piled up India in quick
+marching time, as he hummed "The British Grenadiers," and accompanied it
+with a drum beat of his right foot on the floor. Calcutta, Bombay, and
+Madras, Indus, Ganges, and Godavery, Himalayas, Ghauts, and Vindhyas,
+lay captured at his right hand. Ben won Ireland from him, but he
+annexed England, Scotland, and Turkey. Once more Serlizer took Canada,
+and, owing to Mr. Toner's imperfect shuffling, laid complete books of
+Egypt, Australia, and Brazil upon the table. The stars fought against
+Tryphena and Tryphosa, and, in spite of Mr. Maguffin's gallant struggle
+against fate, the pensioner took the honours. Then Miss Newcome favoured
+him with a friendly kick under the table, accompanied by the elegant
+expression: "Bully for you, old man!" Next, the victorious damsel
+shuffled, allowed Tryphena to cut, and dealt out the cards for the third
+game. This time the deal was fair, and Mr. Rigby, glancing over his
+partner's capacious hand, beheld there no prospect of continued good
+fortune. Tryphena was on her mettle as a geographer, and Maguffin had
+stowed away in his all-embracing memory the names of half the globe's
+prominent features in city, river, and mountain. He wrested half India
+and all Russia from the pensioner, captured the whole of the United
+States, Canada, Mexico, and various states of South America. Almost the
+entire continent of Europe succumbed to Tryphena. Tryphosa fought
+doggedly, and encouraged Ben to continue the unequal contest, but the
+constable and Serlizer yielded up card after card with the muteness of
+despair. Mr. Maguffin was transported with joy, when his partner counted
+up their united books, amounting to more than those of both the other
+pairs put together.
+
+"I'se larned moah joggrify this heah bressid night nor I'd git in six
+mumfs er schoolin'. Hit makes me feel kind er smaht all ober, but not
+smaht enough foh ter ekal you, Miss Trypheeny, ner yoh pah. Ain't he
+jest a smaht man, foolin' me on Typernosties and Gasternickle, words I
+nevah knowed afoah, yah! yah! yah!"
+
+A new game was in progress, when a tap came to the inside door, and,
+immediately thereafter, a figure in a dressing gown appeared, partly
+thrust into the half-opened entrance. "Do you know Tryphena," said a
+pretty voice, "that it is very late, long past midnight, and you two
+girls have to be up by six o'clock at the latest! Take Sarah with you,
+and go to bed. Toner, you know Timotheus' room, and had better get some
+rest, which I am sure you need." As the four parties addressed somewhat
+sheepishly departed, Mrs. Carmichael turned to the remaining card
+players, who were standing, corporal Rigby at military attention, and
+said, with a somewhat tremulous accent: "There's a large fire out in the
+Lake Settlement direction, but I cannot bear to awaken Mr. Carruthers or
+the other two gentlemen, for he is very tired, and they are much older
+and require rest also. Perhaps, Maguffin, you will be kind enough to
+saddle a horse quietly, and find out where it is and see that my father
+and Mr. Coristine are safe."
+
+"I'se ony too pleased ter obey yoh commandemens, marm, wif percision an'
+dispatches," answered the coloured gentleman, hasting stablewards.
+
+"As constable, ma'am, if I may be allowed to speak," said Corporal
+Rigby, saluting for the second time, "as constable, it is my duty to be
+present at all township fires, for the purpose of keeping order and
+directing operations. I shall, therefore, with your permission, ma'am,
+respectfully take my leave."
+
+"It is a long way, constable, and you and I are not so young as we once
+were--"
+
+"Pardon an old soldier's interruption, ma'am, but you are as young as
+ever you were, the youngest married lady I know."
+
+"Thank you, corporal! What I meant to say was that you had better get
+Maguffin to saddle a horse for you, as the distance is great."
+
+"You are very good, ma'am, but I never served in the cavalry. I belonged
+to Her Majesty's Foot Guards, ma'am, and could not possibly insult the
+memory of my old comrades lying in Crimean graves, by putting the legs,
+that a merciful Providence furnished me to march with, across the back
+of a horse. Had I even served in the Artillery or in the Engineers, I
+might have been able to comply with your kind request. Being what I have
+been, I must proceed without delay to the seat of the conflagration. I
+have the honour, ma'am, of saluting you. Good night!"
+
+So Maguffin quietly escaped from the stables, and rode rapidly towards
+the fire, which shed its lurid light far over the clouded sky; and the
+pensioner trudged after him on foot, with his official baton under his
+arm, to make that conflagration acquainted with the law.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+     Picnic Supper--Sentries--Sylvanus' Silence--Coristine and
+     Bigglethorpe Hear Sounds--Invaders Repelled--Fire and
+     Explosions--Victims Walled In--Water Retreat in the Rain--The
+     Constable Secures Mark Davis--Walk Home in the Rain--Bangs and
+     Matilda--Into Dry Clothes--Miss Carmichael's Mistake--A Reef in Mr.
+     Bangs--Ben has no Clothes--Three Young Gentlemen in a Bad Way.
+
+
+Mr. Bangs had no fewer than eight men under his command, Bigglethorpe
+and the two Richards at the water, and Coristine and the veteran, the
+two Pilgrims and Rufus, up above. The latter tired themselves out, under
+the detective's direction, looking for an opening in the ground, but
+found none, nor anything that in the least resembled one. Some of the
+searchers wondered why the chimney in Rawdon's house was so
+unnecessarily large and strong, but no examination about its base
+revealed any connection between it and an underground passage. The
+detective, in conference with Mr. Terry and the lawyer, decided on four
+sentries, namely one each at the house and the lake, as already set, one
+at the road looking towards the entrance, and the other half way between
+the lake and the house, to keep up the connection. Some bread and meat
+and a pot of tea, with dishes, were sent down to the three men on the
+shore by the hands of Timotheus, but they rejected the cold meat, having
+already made a fire, and broiled the bass caught by Mr. Bigglethorpe.
+They had a very jolly time, telling fish stories, till about eight
+o'clock, and the fisherman of Beaver River was in wonderful spirits over
+the discovery of a new fishing ground. If those lakes had only contained
+brook trout he would move his store to the Lakes Settlement; as it was,
+he thought of setting up a branch establishment, and getting a partner
+to occupy the two places of business alternately with him. The Richards
+boys were pleased to think that their new acquaintance was likely to be
+a permanent one, and made Mr. Bigglethorpe many sincere offers of
+assistance in his fishing, and subordinate commercial, ventures. At
+eight Mr. Bangs came down the hill, and posted one of the Richards as
+sentry, while the fisherman indulged in his evening smoke, preparatory
+to turning in under the skiff with his friend Bill. "I went that fire
+put out, gentlemen," said the detective, "net now, but say efter ten
+o'clock, as it might help the enemy to spy us out," to which Bill
+Richards replied: "All right, cap'n; she'll be dead black afore ten."
+Rufus was placed on the hill side to communicate between the distant
+posts; Timotheus overlooked the encampment; and Sylvanus was given the
+station on the road. Mr. Bangs walked about nervously, and the lawyer
+and Mr. Terry, bringing some clean coverlets out of the boarding-house,
+spread them on the chip-covered ground, and lay down to smoke their
+pipes and talk of many things. "Oi tuk to yeez, sorr," said the veteran
+with warmth, "soon as Oi mit ye in the smokin' carr, and to think what a
+dale av loife we've seen since, an' here's you an' me, savin' yer
+prisince, as thick as thaves."
+
+Nothing of any moment occurred till within a quarter of ten, when
+Sylvanus saw two figures suddenly start up close by him on the right. At
+first, he thought of challenging them, but seeing one was a woman, and
+remembering the going over the Squire gave him about capturing Tryphosa,
+he resolved to await their arrival. Both figures greeted him joyfully by
+his name, for it was his two proteges, the crazy woman and her son, who
+had escaped the constable and lain concealed until darkness veiled their
+movements. "Has Steevy woke up yet?" she asked the sentinel, quietly.
+
+"Not as I know on," responded the elder Pilgrim.
+
+"Then we will slip quietly into the house, and get some supper for
+Monty, and go to bed. It's tiresome walking about all day," she
+continued.
+
+"Don't you two go fer to make no noise, 'cos they's sentries out as
+might charlinge yer with their guns," remarked the compassionate guard.
+
+"No," she whispered back; "we will be still as little mice, won't we,
+Monty? Good night, Sylvanus!" The boy added, "Good night, Sylvy!" and
+the sentinel returned the salutation, and muttered to himself: "Pore
+souls, the sight on 'em breaks me all up."
+
+Sylvanus should have reported these arrivals, when the detective came
+to relieve him, and put Mr. Terry in his place, but he did not. He had
+forgotten all about them, and was wondering if that "kicked-out-of
+service old ramrod, the corpular, was foolin' round about Trypheeny."
+Coristine relieved Timotheus; Bill Richards, Rufus; and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe, Harry Richards. The relieved men went to sleep on the
+quilts and under the skiff. Mr. Bangs came up every quarter of an hour
+to the lawyer, and asked if he had heard a noise about the house, to
+which the sentinel replied in the affirmative every time; whereupon the
+detective would take a lamp and search the building from top to bottom
+without any result. Once, after such a noise, that sounded like some
+heavy article being dragged along, Coristine thought he heard the words:
+"Keep quiet, Tilly," and, "Take it hoff," but he was not sure. The night
+was cloudy and dark, and the mosquitoes' buzzing sometimes had a human
+sound, while the snoring of the Pilgrims, and the restless moving of the
+horses, brought confusion to the ear, which sought to verify suspected
+articulations. Had he known that Matilda Nagle was about the house, he
+would not have let Bangs rest until the mystery was solved. He did not
+know; and, being very tired and sleepy, was inclined to distrust the
+evidence of his senses and lay it to the charge of imagination.
+
+Down by the water's edge Mr. Bigglethorpe sat on a stone in front of the
+carved out block, thinking of the best fly for bass, and of a great
+fishing party to the lakes that should include Mr. Bulky. Standing up to
+stretch his legs and facing the block of limestone, he thought he saw a
+narrow line of light along the left perpendicular incision. Moving over,
+he saw the same perpendicular line on the right. Just then the clouds
+drifted off the moon, and he convinced himself that the light lines were
+reflections from the sheen that glimmered over the lake. He also thought
+he heard a whining noise, such as a sick person or a child might make,
+and then a rough voice saying: "Stow that now!" but Richards, like the
+two Pilgrims above, was snoring, and Harry had a slight cold in his
+head. "What a stoopid, superstitious being I should become," said the
+fisherman to himself, "if I were out here long all alone." But, hark!
+the sound of paddles softly dipping came from the left, and at once the
+sentry lay down behind the upturned skiff, and, gun in hand, listened.
+He poked Richards with his foot, and, as he awoke, enjoined silence.
+Richards crawled out, and quietly replaced the boat in its original
+position. There were now two on guard instead of one. The boat entered
+the lake. It was the scow, Richards' scow, and Harry was indignant.
+There were five men in it, and they were talking in a low tone.
+
+"Quite sure them blarsted Squire folks has all gone home, Pete?"
+
+"Sartin, I seen 'em, the hull gang's scattered and skee-daddled, parsons
+an' all."
+
+"Where's the blarsted light, then?"
+
+"Seems to me I kin see long, thin streaks. O Lawr, boys, Rodden must ha'
+been hard put, when he drapped the block into the hole. It's shet up
+tight. Hev ye got the chisel and mallet?"
+
+"They're all right."
+
+"Then less git ashore and drap the block out, though it's an orful pity
+to lose it in the drink."
+
+"Carn't we git the blarsted thing back to its place agin?"
+
+"Onpossible; wild horses couldn't do it."
+
+Harry whispered to Bigglethorpe: "What'll we do?" and the fisherman
+answered: "Our duty is to fire, but we weren't told to kill anybody.
+Don't you fire till I reload."
+
+Then Bigglethorpe called out: "Surrender in the Queen's name," and fired
+above the scow. Two or three pistol shots rattled over the sentries'
+heads, and flattened themselves on the rock behind. "All ready!" said
+the storekeeper, and Harry let fly his duck shot into the middle of the
+crowd, who paddled vigorously from the shore. Bill Richards, having
+alarmed the upper sentries by the discharge of his gun, came running
+down, with the Pilgrims and Rufus, led by the detective, not far behind
+him. "Shove out the skiff," called Bigglethorpe. The Richards shoved it
+off, and Bill rowed, when the two sentries got on board. "Go it, Bill,
+after the old tub," cried Harry; "we'll soon catch up." The Rawdon gang
+worked hard to get to the narrows, but found it hopeless. "Give it to
+them," shouted Bangs from the shore; and in response, the guns rang out
+again, while Bill strained every muscle to the utmost. The punt
+grounded on the shore above the narrows, and four of the men jumped out
+into the water and fled up the bank, firing their pistols as they
+retired. The punt was captured, and brought back to the guarded beach,
+with a wounded man and some tools in the bottom. Only by swimming, or by
+a long detour of very many miles, could the four fugitives find their
+way back to the shore they had sought in vain.
+
+The wounded man was taken out of the punt and laid on the beach. "Is he
+dead?" asked Bigglethorpe. "No," answered the detective, feeling the
+head of the victim, and inspecting him by the aid of matches struck by
+the smoker Sylvanus; "it's a good thing for him thet yore two gens were
+louded with deck shot end thet they sketter sow, else he'd a been a dead
+men. He's got a few pellets in the beck of his head, jest eneugh to sten
+the scoundrel for a few minutes. Ah, he's hed a creck owver the top of
+his head with a cleb, the colonel's werk, very likely."
+
+"Do you want him kept?" enquired Mr. Bigglethorpe, as sentry.
+
+"Oh, dear me, yes; he's Rawdon's chief men. I wouldn't lose him fer a
+hendred dollars. Rufus, do you mind blowing his brains out if he
+attempts to escaype?"
+
+The good-natured Rufus said he didn't mind watching the prisoner, but he
+imagined clubbing would be kinder than blowing out his brains.
+
+"All right!" answered the detective, "all right, so long as you keep him
+safely."
+
+So Mr. Bangs went back to the house, followed by Sylvanus, Timotheus and
+Bill Richards, the last of whom resumed his post, namely the trunk on
+which Pierre Lajeunesse had rested.
+
+When the encampment was reached, Mr. Bangs asked Coristine if he had
+been smoking on guard or lighting matches, but he had not. He asked Mr.
+Terry the same question, which the old soldier almost took as an insult.
+"An' is it to me ye come, axin' av Oi shmoke on guarrd, an' shpind my
+toime loightin' matches loike a choild? Oi've sane sarvice, sorr, and
+nobody knows betther fwhat his juty is."
+
+"I sincerely beg your pardon, Mr. Terry. Please excuse my enxiety; I
+smell fire."
+
+"Don't mintion it, sorr, betune us. Faix, an' it's foire I shmill an'
+moighty sthrong, too."
+
+The detective came back to the front of the house, and saw the fire that
+had broken forth in a moment, and was flaming in every room of basement
+and upper storey, a fire too rapidly advanced to be got under, even had
+the means been at hand.
+
+"Quick, Sylvanus, Timotheus, get out the horses and any other live
+stock," he cried; but the lawyer had been before him, and the two
+Pilgrims and he were already leading the frightened animals past the
+house and on to the road, where they turned their heads outward and
+drove them along. Forgetting their watch, Mr. Terry and Bangs himself
+helped, until every living creature, as they thought, was safely away on
+the road to the Lake Settlement. Then, two figures, that the guilty
+Sylvanus knew, came out of the door of the boarding house, and the
+flames leaped out after them. The woman came up to Coristine, and said:
+"I know you; you helped to carry poor Steevy, who is not awake yet. He
+said it was cold down there, so Monty and I have made a fire to keep him
+warm." The lawyer thought she meant that her dead brother was cold. As
+to the fire, when he saw Monty, it did not astonish him; but how came
+they both there through the guard?
+
+The frame buildings, their light clapboards dried by the summer sun,
+burned furiously, and the flames roared in the rising wind. The sheds
+and stables caught; the fire ran over the ground, in spite of the dew,
+catching in shrubs and fallen timber, and even climbing up living trees.
+Back the beholders were driven, as far as Bill Richards' post, by the
+terrible glare and heat of the conflagration. Leaving Bigglethorpe on
+sentry, and Rufus over the prisoner, Harry came running up to learn what
+was the matter, and to tell of noises like human voices and hammer blows
+behind the slab of rock. Then, as the fire in the house burned down to
+the ground, there was an explosion that seemed to shake the earth, and a
+column of fire sprang up the standing chimney, side by side with another
+less lofty and more diffused from the right of the building. Report
+after report followed, and the whole party, half terror-stricken,
+descended to the beach. Rufus, with Bigglethorpe's help, had
+considerately transferred his prisoner to the punt, and guarded him
+there. The store-keeper, taking chisel and mallet in hand, was striking
+off chip after chip of rock, in answer to muffled cries from within; and
+now the big rock had moved half an inch. Still the brave man worked away
+amid the continued explosions, and in spite of the advancing fire. The
+block continued to slide, and Bigglethorpe cried: "Take the boats out of
+the way, and get back from me, or you will all be crushed in a minute."
+The punt was out of danger, but Bill Richards, with a single movement,
+shoved off the skiff, and, kneeling on her stern, sent her far out into
+the lake. Then he rowed the boat rapidly back into a place of safety.
+The slab was still sliding, and had cleared the rock out of which it had
+been cut by an inch. A human hand was thrust out, a dumpy, beringed
+hand, bleeding with the effort; a most audible voice cried "For God's
+sake, 'urry!" and then there came a perfect Babel of explosions, and the
+gallant deliverer was forcibly drawn out of a fierce river of liquid
+fire that streamed down into the lake, and burned even out on the water.
+The fisherman was badly burnt, hair, beard and eyelashes almost singed
+off; but still he thought of rescue. "Fire at that miserable little chip
+that holds it," he cried; "fire, since you can't hit it otherwise. Oh,
+for an asbestos suit, and I would have styed." They fired pistol and gun
+with no effect, till the lawyer, out in the skiff with Bill, got his
+rifle sighted to the point in the blue flame, where he thought the
+preventing ridge ought to be. He fired at close range, the ball hit the
+rock projection, and at once the great block slid away into the lake,
+with a splash that damped the flames with a column of spray, and
+revealed an awful corridor of fire. No living creature was there, but
+the detective, dipping his feet in the lake, took a boat hook out of the
+returning skiff, and then, standing in the flames, hauled out two
+charred masses, and extinguished them in the shallow water by the shore.
+
+Mr. Terry came running down and crying: "Out on the wather wid yeez,
+ivery mother's son av yeez; the foire's spreadin' an' the threes is
+fallin'; fer yer loife, min." Mr. Bangs, still in command, asked:--
+
+"How many will the skiff howld, Bill?"
+
+"Seven, anyway," replied the Richards of that name.
+
+"Mr. Coristine and Mr. Terry take commend and choose crew."
+
+"Come, Matilda and Monty," said the lawyer.
+
+"Come on, Sylvanus, Timotheus, Rufus," cried Mr. Terry.
+
+"I'll row," said the Irishman.
+
+"And me, too," added Sylvanus.
+
+"Look after my prisoner, Mr. Bangs," cried Rufus; and the skiff went out
+to sea.
+
+Bill transferred himself to the scow, with his brother Harry and Mr.
+Bigglethorpe. The detective lifted the two charred masses to the
+opposite side of the middle thwart from that against which the prisoner
+lay. Then, Bill and Bigglethorpe having taken the bow, he and Harry took
+the stern, and the scow followed the skiff. For a time the two boats
+stood stock still, fascinated by the awful scene. The explosions were
+over, but the forest was blazing fiercely, and up towards the
+smouldering buildings, but underground, blazed a vault of blue fire that
+reached up to the standing brick chimney of Rawdon's house. Hundreds of
+animals were in the water around them, squirrels and snakes and
+muskrats, even mice, swimming for dear life. Then, pitter, patter, came
+the rain, hissing on the flames. It fell more heavily; and the lawyer,
+having doffed his coat to row, threw it over the woman's shoulders,
+while Mr. Terry put that of Sylvanus about the boy. "Lead on, Mr.
+Coristine," cried the detective; and the skiff shot through the narrows,
+with the punt hard after it. The rain fell in torrents and drenched the
+occupants of both vessels; but those whose faces were towards the stern
+could see the bush-fire still raging. "The rain'll stop it spreadin',"
+Bill called out cheerfully, and the lawyer rejoiced, because the fire
+was on Miss Du Plessis' land. Long was the journey, tired were the
+rowers and paddlers, and draggled was the crew, or rather draggled were
+the crews, that reached the Richards' homestead. The prisoner was awake
+by this time, had been so all along since he was deposited in the punt,
+and a paddle had splashed his face. When walked ashore, he had made a
+dash for liberty, but Mr. Bangs had brought him up short. "Yore in too
+great a herry, Merk Devis," he had said; "we went you, my men, and we'll
+hev you, dead or alive." So Mark Davis, since that was the name of
+Wilkinson's dissipated farmer, had to fall into line and march to the
+Richards' place. There the party found Maguffin and the constable.
+
+The colonel's servant had been much closer to the conflagration, but,
+having seen no sign of any person there, nothing but a number of
+startled horses, and the fire having taken possession of the sides of
+the masked road, he had retired to the nearest house. He at once
+enquired after the safety of Mr. Terry and the lawyer, and, finding that
+they and all the rest of the party were safe, rode back at his utmost
+speed to report. The constable, rejoiced at seeing his prisoners again,
+was about to rearrest them, when Coristine and Sylvanus interposed, the
+latter threatening to thrash the pipe-clay out of the pensioner's "old
+putrified jints" if he touched the boy. The Crew meant petrified, but
+the insult was no less offensive to the corporal on account of the
+mistake. As a private individual in the Squire's kitchen, Mr. Rigby was
+disposed to peace and unwilling to engage in a contest with big-boned
+Sylvanus, but, as a constable on duty, he was prepared to face any
+number of law-breakers and to fight them to the death. Drawing his
+baton, he advanced, and only the commands of his legal superior, Mr.
+Bangs, backed by the expostulations of the pseudo sergeant-major Terry,
+induced him to refrain from recapturing his former prisoners, and from
+adding to them the profane Pilgrim who had been guilty of interfering
+with an officer in the discharge of his duty. Finally he was mollified
+by being put in possession of a really great criminal, Mark Davis, whom
+he at once searched and deprived of various articles, including a
+revolver, all the chambers of which were fortunately empty. Then,
+producing his own revolver, the corporal gave it to his prisoner to
+smell, remarking that, if he tried any nonsense, he would have a taste
+of it that he would remember. Mrs. Richards was busy reducing the
+inflammation of Mr. Bigglethorpe's burns. She insisted that he should go
+no farther that night, and the whole Richards family, which had greatly
+taken to the fisherman, combined to hold him an honoured prisoner. Mr.
+Bigglethorpe consented to remain, and the Bridesdale contingent bade him
+and his hosts good night. The constable went first with his prisoner,
+followed by Matilda Nagle, between the lawyer and the detective. Monty
+came next, clinging to Sylvanus and Mr. Terry, while Timotheus and Rufus
+brought up the rear. Mrs. Richards had furnished the woman and her boy
+with two shiny waterproofs, called by the young Richards gum coats, so
+that Coristine and Sylvanus got back their contributions to the wardrobe
+of the insane, but, save for the look of the thing, they would have been
+better without them, since they only added a clammy burden to thoroughly
+water-soaked bodies.
+
+Still the rain fell in torrents. It trickled in many rills off the
+penthouses of the pedestrians' headgear; from the lapels of coats and
+from waistcoats it streamed down, concentrating itself upon soggy knees.
+Broad sheets, like the flow of a water-cart, radiated from coat tails of
+every description; and rivers descending trouser-legs, turned boots and
+shoes into lakes, which sodden stockinged feet pumped out in returning
+fountains. Happily there was no necessity for using gun or pistol, since
+these weapons shared in the general pervading moisture. Yet the corporal
+marched erect, with his left hand on his prisoner's shoulder. Poor
+Matilda was cheerful, though shivering, and, turning round to her boy,
+said; "It is a good thing, Monty, that we lit the fire when we did, for
+it would be very hard to light one now;" to which the lad answered, "I
+hain't a goin' to light no more fires no more." Sylvanus and the veteran
+had been telling him what a bad thing it was to set houses on fire, and
+the hypnotized boy, freed apparently from the mesmeric bond by the death
+of his unnatural father, responded to the counsels of his new friends.
+The influence lasted longer with Matilda, for as, in spite of the
+absorbing rain, her companions were able to make a study of her talk,
+they observed that it was controlled by one or two overmastering ideas,
+which were evidently the imposition of a superior will. In his
+dog-Latin, which he presumed the poor woman could not understand, Mr.
+Bangs said to the lawyer: "_Oportet dicere ad Doctorem dehypnotizere
+illem feminem._" To this elegant sentence Mr. Coristine briefly
+answered, "_Etiam_," but soon afterwards he asked: "Where did you pick
+up your Latin, Mr. Bangs."
+
+"I wes at school, you know where, with pore Nesh; _mulier nescit
+nomen_. We both took to Letin, because we could talk without being
+understood by the common crowd. You find velgar criminals thet know some
+French, German, Spenish or Portegese, bet none thet know Letin. In
+dealing with higher class criminals we used our own gibberish or
+artificial shibboleth."
+
+"A sort of Volapuk?"
+
+"Exectly; pore Nesh was ohfelly clever et it."
+
+"I am going to kill Mr. Nash as soon as I can find him," interrupted the
+woman, in an amiable tone of voice, as if she proposed to discharge some
+pleasant duty.
+
+The men shuddered, and Mr. Bangs said: "You know, my dear Matilda, what
+the Bible says, Thou shelt not kill. You surely would not kemmit the sin
+of merder?"
+
+"I am not to mind what the Bible says, or what Steevy says, or what
+clergymen or any other people say. I am only to do what he says, and I
+must."
+
+"Did he tell you to light thet fire?"
+
+"Not that fire, but the other said it was cold down there."
+
+"Why did he not come up?"
+
+"Because I covered the trap over with the big stones, and Monty helped
+me."
+
+"Surely he didn't tell you to dreg the stones on to the trep?"
+
+"Yes, he did, but not then. It was before, when Flower wanted to get up,
+and crawl away and tell, because he thought he was going to die."
+
+"Was Flower down there with him?"
+
+"Yes; that's why Monty and I put the big stones on the trap."
+
+"Flower was hert, wesn't he, shot in the beck, I think?"
+
+"Yes; he crawled in all the way on his hands and knees, and I helped his
+wife to tie him up, till the doctor came, the morning that I found
+Steevy."
+
+"How do you know thet Stephen wes esleep?"
+
+"He told me."
+
+"_Deminus Coristinus, mulier non est responsibilis pro suis ectionibus.
+Facit et credit omnia qua mendet enimel mertuus._"
+
+"_Eheu domine!_" replied the lawyer; "_sic est vita dolorosa!_"
+
+Bridesdale was all lit up, and the front door was open to receive the
+soaked wayfarers, but no one could be induced to enter it. Mr. Terry
+asked Honoria to leave his dry suit and a pair of shoes at the kitchen,
+when he would take them to the carriage house, and change there. The
+lawyer and the detective had no dry suit, so Mrs. Carruthers brought
+them some of her husband's clothes, and two umbrellas, under which they
+carried their bundles, wrapped in bath towels, to the place the veteran
+had chosen. While the three drawing-room guests stripped, rubbed
+themselves down with the grateful towels, and put on their dry attire,
+the kitchen filled up with the humid and steaming Pilgrims, Rufus, the
+idiot boy, and his mother. Constable Rigby lodged his prisoner on some
+straw in an empty stall in the stable, and, producing a pair of
+handcuffs, which he had left there, secured him, fastening also a stall
+chain round one of his legs with a padlock. The constable was severe,
+but he had lost two prisoners the previous day, had been abused by
+Sylvanus Pilgrim, and was very wet and tired. To the credit of Sylvanus
+be it said, that he came out with Ben Toner's clothes, and lent them to
+his elderly rival, and actually carried the corporal's wet garments into
+the kitchens, there to hang with a large assortment of others, drying
+before the two stoves, in full blast for the purpose. The gum coats had
+fairly protected the clothes of Matilda and Monty, but their feet needed
+reclothing, and it took some time to dry their heads. Maguffin had taken
+off his wet things, and was asleep in the loft bed, keeping one ear open
+for the safekeeping of the colonel's horses. Tryphena and Tryphosa were
+both up; and into their hands Rufus consigned the dripping habiliments
+of their two admirers as well as his own, his fraternal relation
+allowing him to appear before the ladies of the kitchen in a long white
+garment with frills that had never been constructed for a man. "Guess it
+ain't the last time you'll have to dry them clothes, gals," said the
+sportive Rufus, skipping along in his frilled surplice, when Tryphena
+chased him out of the apartment with a sounding smack between the
+shoulders. Tryphena hesitated to send the mad woman into the room in
+which Serlizer was sleeping, not knowing the nature of their relations
+at the Select Encampment. Matilda, however, evidenced no intention of
+retiring, or feeling of drowsiness. She talked, with the brightness and
+cheerfulness of other days, and in a gentle, pleasant voice, but on
+strange wild themes that terrified the two young women. Monty looked at
+the fire and then at Tryphosa, saying: "I hain't a goin' to light no
+more fires no more." "Why?" asked Tryphosa, and the answer came, which
+revealed a genuine working of the intellect: "'Cos Sylvy says hit's
+wicked." His mother turned, and said: "Monty, you must not mind what
+Sylvanus says or anybody else; you must mind what he says."
+
+The boy looked his mother full in the face, and replied in a very
+decided tone, "Hi'm blowed hif I do!"
+
+In the forepart of the house, only the ladies were up. The doctor and
+the colonel, the captain and the Squire, slept the sleep of tired men
+with good consciences, and the wounded dominie was enjoying a beautiful
+succession of rose-coloured dreams, culminating in a service, at which a
+tall soldierly man in appropriate costume gave away into his hand that
+of a very elegant and accomplished lady, saying, as he did so, "Can I do
+less for the heroic saver of her uncle's life?" Mr. Terry's appearance,
+on entering to salute his daughter, exacted no remark. The lawyer looked
+somewhat bucolic, but highly respectable. But poor little Mr. Bangs was
+buried in clothing, and tripped on his overflowing trowser legs, as he
+vainly strove to put his right hand outside of its coatsleeve, for the
+purpose of shaking hands with the company. Mrs. Carmichael took pity on
+him, and turned back his cuffs, and, his hands being thus of use to him,
+he employed them to do the same with the skirts of his trousers. The
+usually polite veteran took Coristine to a corner of the room, and,
+between violent coughs of suppressed laughter, said: "Och, Misther
+Coristine, it's the dumb aguey I'll be havin' iv his clawthes is not
+droied soon. It's Bangs by name he is and bangs by natur'. Shure, this
+bangs Banagher, an' Banagher bangs the world." The young ladies had not
+yet entered the apartment, and the three night-watchers were busy
+relating to the three matrons the terrible events of the night. The
+lawyer was sitting with his back to the door, conversing with Mrs.
+Carruthers, when Miss Carmichael came tripping in, followed by Miss Du
+Plessis and Miss Halbert. The lawyer's hair was brown, and so was her
+uncle's. The coat was the Squire's, and the white collar above it. So
+she slipped softly up to the back of the chair, took the brown head
+between her hands, and administered a salute on the forehead, with the
+words: "Why, Uncle John!--," then suddenly turned and fled, amid the
+laughter of the veteran and his daughter, and the amused blushes and
+smiles of her mother. The other young ladies came forward and joined in
+the conversation, but Miss Carmichael did not show her face until the
+family was summoned for prayers. The colonel came down in his usual
+urbane smiling way, saying that he had taken the liberty of looking in
+upon his dear friend and prisoner, and was rejoiced to find that he had
+spent a good night. The captain could be heard descending the staircase,
+and telling somebody that he was becalmed again with a spell of foul
+weather. The somebody was the Squire, who insisted that thieves had been
+through his wardrobe, and then eagerly asked for news from the
+encampment. All were shocked beyond measure when they heard of the
+terrible tragedy. "I wished the man no good," said the Squire, with a
+regretful expression on his manly face, "but, if he had been ten times
+the deep dyed villain he was, I couldn't have dreamt of such an awful
+fate for him." The captain remarked that in the midst of life we are in
+death, that the ways of Providence are mysterious, and that where a man
+makes his bed he must lie down, all of which he considered to be good
+Scripture and appropriate to the occasion. "Yoah fohce met with no moah
+casualties, I hope, Captain Bangs? I do not see our fishing friend, Mr.
+Bigglethorpe; is he safe, suh?" These questions led to an account of the
+fisherman's heroic attempt to release the self-imprisoned occupants of
+the underground passage, of his wounds, and of the subsequent exploits
+of the lawyer and the detective. Coristine escaped upstairs to put
+himself in shape for breakfast, and to visit his wounded friend. He
+found that gentleman progressing very favourably, and perfectly
+satisfied with his accommodation.
+
+After morning prayers, conducted by the Squire with unusual solemnity,
+the lawyer asked Miss Carmichael if she alone would not shake hands with
+him, making no allusion to any previous encounter. She complied, with a
+blush, and seemed pleased to infer that the Captain, above all, had not
+heard of her mistake. The two had no time for explanations, however, as,
+at the moment, Messrs. Errol and Perrowne, who had been told there was a
+fire out towards the Lake Settlement, came in to learn about it, and
+were compelled to sit down and add something substantial to their early
+cup of coffee. They reported the rain almost over, and the fire, so far
+as they could judge from the distance, the next thing to extinguished.
+Once more the trays were in requisition for the invalids, and again the
+colonel and Mr. Perrowne acted as aids to Miss Du Plessis and Miss
+Halbert. Just as soon as he could draw her attention away from the
+minister, Coristine remarked to Miss Carmichael: "I have the worst luck
+of any man; I never get sick or wounded or any other trouble that needs
+nursing." The young lady said in a peremptory manner, "Show me your
+hands;" and the lawyer had to exhibit two not very presentable paws. She
+turned them palms up, and shuddered at the scorched, blistered and
+scratched appearance of them. "Where are Mr. Errol's gloves I put on
+you?"
+
+"In the pocket of my wet coat in the kitchen."
+
+"Why did you dare to take them off when I put them on?"
+
+"Because I was like the cat in the proverb, not that I was after mice
+you know, but I couldn't fire in gloves."
+
+"Well, your firing is done now, and I shall expect you to come to me in
+the workroom, immediately after breakfast, to have these gloves put on
+again. Do you hear me, sir?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what else? Do you mean to obey?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Miss Carmichael, of course, always, with the greatest joy in
+the world."
+
+"Nobody asked you, sir, to obey always."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Carmichael, I'm afraid I'm a little confused."
+
+"Then I hope you will not put me to confusion, as you did this morning."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," said the mendacious lawyer, "but it was the coat
+and collar, you know." Then most illogically, he added, "I'd like to
+wear this coat and this collar all the time."
+
+"No, you would not; they are not at all becoming to you. Oh, do look at
+poor Mr. Bangs!"
+
+The detective's sleeves were turned back, thanks to Mrs. Carmichael,
+but, as he sat at breakfast, the voluminous coat sagged over his
+shoulder, and down came the eclipsing sleeve over his coffee cup. When
+he righted matters with his left hand, the coat slewed round to the
+other side, knocked his fork out of his hand, and fell with violence on
+his omelet. The Captain looked at him, and bawled: "I say, mate, you've
+got to have a reef took in your back topsel. You don't mind a bit of
+reef tackle in the back of your coat, do you, John?" The Squire did not
+object; so Miss Carmichael was despatched to the sewing room for two
+large pins, and she and the Captain between them pinched up the back of
+the coat longitudinally to the proper distance, and pinned the detective
+up a little more than was necessary.
+
+"Whey," asked he of his nautical ally, "em I consistent es a cherecter
+in bowth phases of my berrowed cowt?"
+
+"I know," chuckled the Captain; "'cause then you had too much slack on
+your pins, and now you've got too much pins in your slack, haw! haw!"
+
+"Try egain."
+
+Coristine ventured, "Because then your hands were in your cuffies, but
+now your coffee's in your hand." This was hooted down as perfectly
+inadmissible, Miss Carmichael asking him how he dared to make such an
+exhibition of himself. Mr. Errol was wrestling with something like
+Toulouse and Toulon, but could not conquer it. Then the detective said:
+"If the ledies will be kind eneugh not to listen, I should enswer,
+Before I wes loose in my hebits, end now I em tight."
+
+Of course the Captain applauded, but the lawyer's reprover remarked to
+him that she did not think that last at all a nice word. He agreed with
+her that it was abominable, that no language was strong enough to
+reprobate it, and then they left the table.
+
+There was trouble in the kitchen. Timotheus and Maguffin had each a
+Sunday suit of clothes, which they had donned. Sylvanus and Rufus having
+special claims on Tryphena, she had put their wet garments in a
+favourable place, and, being quite dry, handed them in to her befrilled
+brother, early in the morning, through a half open doorway. The
+constable, attired in the garb presented to him by Sylvanus, having
+fastened his prisoner securely with a second stall chain, entered the
+house, and politely but stiffly wished the cook and housemaid "Good
+morning." Breakfast was ready, and then the trouble began. Ben had no
+clothes, and the boys enjoyed the joke. The company was again a large
+one, for Serlizer and Matilda Nagle were added to the feminine part of
+it, and the constable and the boy brought its male members up to six,
+exclusive of the prostrate Ben. Mr. Terry had temporarily deserted the
+kitchen. Mr. Toner's voice could be heard three doors off calling for
+Sylvanus, Timotheus, Rufus, Mr. Rigby and Mr. Maguffin. These people
+were all smilingly deaf, enjoying their hot breakfast. Then, in despair,
+he called Serlizer.
+
+"What's the racket, Ben?"
+
+"My close is sto-ul, Serlizer."
+
+"They's some duds hangin' up here and in the back kitchen to dry. Praps
+yourn's there."
+
+"No, Serlizer, myuns never got wayt. You don't think I was sech a blame
+fooul as to go out in that there raiun do you?"
+
+"Didn't know but what yer might."
+
+"Whey's them close, anyway?"
+
+"I don't know nuthun 'bout yer clothes. Most men as ain't marrd looks
+after they own clothes."
+
+"Is that you Ben?" asked the more refined voice of Tryphena, in a tone
+of surprise.
+
+"Yaas, Trypheeny, that's jest who it is. Saay, ken you tayl me what's
+come o' my close?"
+
+"They are here, Ben, close to the table;" whereupon all the company
+glanced at Mr. Rigby, and choked.
+
+"Cayn't you take 'em off what they're on, and saynd one of the boys in
+with 'em, Trypheeny?"
+
+The cook coloured up, and laughter could no longer be restrained. The
+constable laughed, and the contagion spread to Matilda and her boy.
+
+"Dod rot it?" cried Mr. Toner, indignantly; "what are you fools and
+eejuts a screechin' and yellin' at? Gimme my close, or, s'haylp me,
+I'll come right out and bust some low down loafer's thinkin' mill."
+
+"Now, be quiet, Ben," answered Tryphena, "and I will send Rufus in with
+your breakfast. You shall have your clothes when they are ready."
+
+So, Rufus took in a plentiful breakfast to his friend Toner, who sat up
+in the big bed to enjoy it. "I'm powerful sorry for you, Ben," remarked
+the Baby. "You don't think Serlizer could ha' come in and taken your
+clothes out into the rain, do you?"
+
+"Hev they been out in the rain, Rufus?"
+
+"Why yes, didn't you know that much? If it hadn't been for the
+constable, they might ha' been out there yet. I'd say thank ye to him if
+I was you, Ben."
+
+"Consterble Rigby!" shouted Toner.
+
+"At your service, sir," replied the pensioner.
+
+"I'm awful obligated to you, consterble, fer bringin' in my wayt close."
+
+"Do not speak of it, sir," replied Mr. Rigby, with a large piece of
+toast apparently in his mouth; "I am proud to do you a service, sir."
+
+Ben was a big man, and somewhat erratic in his ways, so the constable
+retired, and came back in his own garb, which he had carried out with
+him. "I think, Miss Hill," he said, "that Mr. Toner's clothes are now
+dry enough for him to wear them with safety. What do you think, Miss
+Newcome?"
+
+"Guess we kin take them off now," answered Serlizer.
+
+"Serlizer," growled Ben, "you're an old cat, a desprit spiteful
+chessacat, to go skylarkin' on yer own feller as never did yer no harm.
+Gerlong with yer!"
+
+Rufus came in for the breakfast things, and deposited Ben's clothes on
+the bed. "It wasn't Serlizer, Ben, sure; If I was you I'd try the
+nigger. Them darkies are always up to tricks."
+
+Mr. Toner got into his clothes, resolved to have it out with somebody,
+even if Rufus himself should prove to be the traitor. When, a few
+minutes later, Mr. Terry, smoking his morning pipe, foregathered with
+Ben in the stable yard, and asked him what he was after now, the answer
+he gave was: "Lookin' araound fer somebody to whayul!" to which the
+veteran replied: "Bin, my lad, it's aisy talkin'."
+
+When the men were out of the kitchen, Mrs. Carruthers and her
+sister-in-law came in to see the mad woman and her boy. The boy they
+knew already, and had always been kind to, giving him toys and other
+little presents, as well as occasional food and shelter. They were much
+taken with the mother's quiet manners, and, having heard that she had
+been a milliner, invited her to join them in the workroom. But, when
+they unitedly arrived at the door of that apartment, they speedily
+retired to the parlour, and there engaged in conversation. Mrs. Du
+Plessis was upstairs, with the colonel to play propriety, sponging the
+dominie's face and hands, and brushing his hair, as if he were her own
+son. Every now and again Colonel Morton came up to the bedside, saying:
+"Be kind to him, my deah Tehesa, and remembeh that he saved the life of
+yoah poah sistah Cecilia's widowah." So the stately Spanish lady shook
+up the wounded man's pillows, while the colonel put his arm around him
+and held him up; and then, as he sank back again, she asked. "Are you
+strong enough to have Cecile come up and read to you?" Wilkinson, sly
+dog, as the Captain called him, said it was too much trouble to put Miss
+Du Plessis to; but his objections were overruled. Soon a beatific vision
+came once more on the scene, and Wordsworth was enthroned as the king of
+poets. Miss Halbert and Mr. Perrowne were in the garden, and the
+clergyman had a rose in his button hole which he had not plucked
+himself. If he had not been in holy orders, he would have thought Miss
+Fanny was awfully jolly. Then he said to himself, that holy orders don't
+hinder a man being a man, and Miss Fanny was, really was, awfully jolly,
+and boarding in the houses of uncultivated farmers was an awful bore.
+But this was nothing to what was going on in the studiously avoided work
+room. The lawyer's hands were being washed, because a voice from an
+arch-looking face said that he was a big baby, and didn't know how to
+wash himself. It was quite a big baby in size and aspect that was soaped
+and glycerined, and had some other stuff rubbed into his hands by other
+pretty hands, one of which wore the victim's ring. Corry felt that he
+could stand it, even to the putting on of the minister's gloves. When
+she had finished her work, the hospital nurse said, "that silly little
+Marjorie, angry because Cecile would not allow her to read fairy
+stories to Mr. Wilkinson, surrendered you to me."
+
+"O Marjorie, my darlin', and would you throw your lovely self away on a
+poor, stupid, worthless thing like me?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+     Miss Carmichael Snubs and Thinks--The Constable and the
+     Prisoner--Matilda and the Doctor--The Children Botanize--Pressing
+     Specimens--Nomenclature--The Colonel Makes a Discovery--Miss
+     Carmichael Does Not Fancy Wilks--Mr. Newberry Takes Matilda--Mr.
+     Pawkins Makes Mischief and is Punished--Rounds on
+     Sylvanus--Preparations for Inquest
+
+
+"Mr. Coristine, I never gave you permission to call me by my Christian
+name, much less to think that I accepted Marjorie's foolish little
+charge. I am sorry if I have led you to believe that I acted so bold, so
+shameless a part."
+
+"Oh, Miss Carmichael, forgive me. I'm stupid, as I said, but, as the
+Bible has it, I'll try and keep a watch on the door of my lips in
+future. And you such an angel of mercy, too! Please, Miss Carmichael,
+pardon a blundering Irishman."
+
+"Nonsense," she answered. "I have nothing to pardon; only, I did not
+want you to misunderstand me." The gloves were on, and she shook hands
+with him, and laughed a comical little insincere laugh in his face, and
+ran away to her own room to have a foolish little cry. She heard her
+friend Cecile reading poetry to the wounded Wilkinson, and, looking out
+of her window, saw Mr. Perrowne helping her uncle to lift the doctor's
+chair out into the garden, and her mother, freed from conversation with
+the madwoman, plucking a flower for Mr. Errol's coat. There, too, was a
+young man, his hands encased in black kid gloves, sitting down on a
+bench with Mr. Terry, and with difficulty filling a meerschaum pipe. She
+thought he had a quiet, disappointed look, like a man's whose warm,
+generous impulses have been checked, and she felt guilty. It was true
+they had not known one another long, but what was she, a teacher in a
+common school, that was what people called them, to put on airs before
+such a man as that? If it had been Mr. Wilkinson, now; but, no; she was
+afraid of Mr. Wilkinson, the distant, the irreproachable, the autocratic
+great Mogul. She looked down again, through the blinds of course.
+Marjorie Thomas was on the lawyer's knee, and Marjorie Carruthers on the
+veteran's. The Captain's daughter was combing Coristine's brown hair
+with her fingers, and pointing the ends of his moustache, much to the
+other Marjorie's amusement and the lawyer's evident satisfaction. Miss
+Carmichael inwardly called her cousin a saucy little minx, resenting her
+familiarities with a man who was, of course, nothing to her, in a way
+that startled herself. Why had he not saved somebody's life and been
+wounded, instead of that poetic fossil of a Wilkinson? But, no; it was
+better not, for, had he saved the colonel's life, Cecile would have been
+with him, and that she could not bear to think of. Then, she remembered
+what Corry had told her of the advertisement to the next of kin. Perhaps
+she would be wealthy yet, and more than his equal socially, and then she
+could condescend, as a great lady, and put a treasure in those poor
+gloved hands. Where would they all have been without these hands, all
+scarred and blistered to save them from death? Everybody was very unkind
+to little Marjorie's Eugene, and failed to recognize his claims upon
+their gratitude. Oh, that saucy little minx, with her grand assumptions
+of proprietorship, as if she owned him, forsooth!
+
+Mr. Bangs called the justices to business. There was a prisoner to
+examine, and two charred masses of humanity for the coroner to sit upon.
+So a messenger was sent off to summon the long-suffering Johnson,
+Newberry, and Pawkins, for the coroner's inquest, and the doctor was
+carried back into the office for the examination of the prisoner, Mark
+Davis. The two Squires sat in appropriate chairs behind an official
+table, at one side of which Mr. Bangs took his seat as clerk. Constable
+Rigby produced his prisoner, loaded with fetters. "Has this man had his
+breakfast, Rigby?" asked the Squire. "Certainly not, Squire," replied
+the constable. "Then take him at once to the kitchen, take off these
+chains and handcuffs, and let him have all that he can eat," replied the
+J.P., sternly. The corporal's sense of rectitude was offended. The idea
+of feeding criminals and releasing them from irons! The next thing would
+be to present them with a medal and a clasp for each new offence against
+society. But, orders were orders, and, however iniquitous, had to be
+obeyed; so Davis was allowed to stretch his limbs, and partake of a
+bountiful, if somewhat late, morning meal. "To trespass upon your
+kindness, Miss Hill, with such as this," said the apologetic constable,
+pointing to his prisoner, "is no act of mine; Squire Carruthers, who, no
+doubt, thinks he knows best, has given orders that it has to be, and my
+duty is to carry out his orders to the letter." Breakfast seemed to
+infuse courage into the dissipated farmer. When it was over, he arose,
+and, without a note of warning, doubled up the stiff guardian of the
+peace, and made for the door, where he fell into the arms of the
+incoming Serlizer. She evidently thought that Mark Davis, smitten with
+her charms, was about to salute her, for, with the words "Scuse me!" and
+a double turn of her powerful wrists, she deposited the assailant upon
+the floor. Sadly, but officially, the constable crawled over and sat
+upon the prostrate form of the would-be fugitive from justice. The
+prisoner squirmed, and even struck the doubled-up corporal, but the
+entrance of Ben Toner put an end to that nonsense, so that, handcuffed
+and chained once more, the desperate villain was hauled into the
+presence of the magistrates. In dignified, but subordinate, language,
+Mr. Rigby related the prisoner's escapade, and, by implication, more
+than by actual statement, gave the J.P.s to understand that they knew
+nothing about the management of offenders against the law. They were,
+therefore, compelled to allow the handcuffs to remain, but summoned
+sufficient courage to insist on the removal of the stable chains.
+
+"What is your name, prisoner?" asked Squire Carruthers.
+
+"Samuel Wilson," answered the man.
+
+"Oh! kem now," interposed Mr. Bangs, "thet's a lie, you know; yore name
+is Merk Devis, end yore a brether of Metthew Devis of the Peskiwenchow
+tevern, end you were Rawdon's right hend men. We know you, my led, so
+down't you try any alias games on us."
+
+"Ef you know my name so mighty well, what do you want askin' for't?"
+
+"To see if you can speak the truth," replied Carruthers.
+
+"What other prisoners hev you got asides me?"
+
+"That is none of your business," said the Squire.
+
+"If I might be ellowed to seggest, Squire," whispered the detective, "I
+think I'd tell him. Whet do you sey?"
+
+"Go on, Mr. Bangs."
+
+"Well, my fine fellow, the Squire ellows me to sey thet the ethers are
+Newcome, the stowne ketters, and the women."
+
+The name of Newcome disconcerted Mark, but he asked, "Whar's Rawdon and
+old Flower?"
+
+"Didn't you see?" asked Mr. Bangs.
+
+"I seen the fire all right, but they wasn't such blame fools as to stay
+there when there was a way out up atop."
+
+"The epper wey wes clowsed," said the detective.
+
+"Was they burned alive then?"
+
+"Yes, they were berned to eshes."
+
+"O Lord!" ejaculated the prisoner, and then, wildly: "What do you want
+along of me anyway?"
+
+The magistrates and Mr. Bangs consulted, after which the doctor
+answered: "We want information from you on three points: first, as to
+the attempt of Rawdon's gang to burn this house; second, as to the
+murder of Detective Nash; and, third, as to the whole secret of Rawdon's
+business at the Select Encampment. You are not bound to incriminate
+yourself, as every word of this preliminary examination may be used
+against you, but, on the other hand, if you make a clean breast of what
+you know on these questions, your confession will go a long way in your
+favour with judge and jury."
+
+"Suppose'n I don't confess not a syllabub?"
+
+"Then, we shall commit you, all the same, to the County Gaol, to stand
+your trial at the assizes."
+
+"That's all right, I'll stand my durned trile. You don't get nawthin
+out'n me, you misable, interferin', ornary, bushwhackin' jedges!"
+
+"Don't strike him, Rigby!" commanded Carruthers; for the constable,
+shocked and outraged by such indecorous language in a court of justice,
+was about to club his man. Then he added: "The colonel's servant,
+Maguffin, is going to town on business, and will drive you so far, and
+help to guard your prisoner. You can tie him up as tight as you like,
+without being cruel or doing him an injury. We shall have to do without
+you at the inquest."
+
+Accordingly, while Mr. Maguffin brought round a suitable vehicle, and
+received his commissions from the colonel, the commitment papers were
+made out, and Constable Rigby securely fastened the worst criminal that
+had ever come into his hands. The said criminal did a little hard
+swearing, which called the long unused baton into active service. Davis
+was quiet and sullen when the buggy, under the pensioner's command,
+wheeled away in search of connections for the County Gaol.
+
+The two bodies were still lying in their shells, with ice about them, in
+the unfinished annex of the post office. It was, therefore, decided to
+hold the new inquest in the Bridesdale coach house, as also more
+convenient for the doctor, whose sprain might have been aggravated by
+driving. While Ben Toner was sent with a waggon to the Richards, to
+bring the ghastly remains snatched from the flames out of the punt, and
+to convey three members of that family to the coroner's jury, Mr. Bangs
+explained to Doctor Halbert his and the lawyer's thought regarding
+Matilda Nagle. The doctor consented, and the detective went to find the
+patient, who was busy and cheerful in the sewing room with Mrs.
+Carruthers. He told her that she was not looking well, and had better
+come with him to see the doctor; but, with all the cunning of insanity,
+she refused to go. He had to go after Coristine in the garden, and take
+him away from Marjorie. With the lawyer she went at once, identifying
+him, as she did not the detective, with her brother Stevy. Mechanically,
+she sat down by the kind doctor's chair, and seemed to recognize him,
+although he did not remember her. After a few enquiries as to her
+health, he took one of her hands in his, and, with the other, made
+passes over her face, until she fell into the mesmeric sleep. "Your
+husband, Mr. Rawdon, is dead," he said; "you remember that he died by
+his own hand, and left you free." The woman gave a start, and seemed to
+listen more intently. "You will kill nobody, hurt nobody, not even a
+fly," he continued. "Do you remember?" Another start of comprehension
+was made, but nothing more; so he went on: "You will read your Bible
+and go to church on Sundays, and take care of your boy, and be just the
+same to everybody as you were in the old days." Then, with a few counter
+passes, he released her hand, and the poor woman told him all that he
+had enjoined upon her, as if they were the resolutions of her own will.
+She was not sane, but she was free from the vile slavery in which her
+inhuman keeper had held her. Moreover, she understood perfectly that
+Rawdon was dead, yet without manifesting either joy or grief in the
+knowledge. The lawyer led her back to the workroom, where she confided
+her new state of mind to Mrs. Carruthers, greatly to that tender-hearted
+lady's delight. The doctor did not think it necessary to practise his
+art upon the lad Monty, in whom the power of Rawdon's will was already
+broken, and upon whom his changed mother would, doubtless, exert a
+salutary influence.
+
+Coristine had nothing to do, and almost dreaded meeting Miss Carmichael,
+which he probably would do if he remained about the house and grounds.
+Therefore he got out the improvised vasculum, and invited Marjorie and
+the older Carruthers children to come with him down to the brook to look
+for wild flowers. This met with the full approval of the young people,
+and they prepared at once for the botanizing party. The Captain saw
+Marjorie putting on her broad-brimmed straw hat, and enquired where she
+was going. She answered that she was going buttonizing with Eugene, and
+he said that he guessed he would button too, whatever that was. A very
+merry little group frisked about the steps of the two seniors, one of
+whom was explaining to the older, nautical party that he was on the hunt
+for wild flowers.
+
+"Is it yarbs you're after?" asked the Captain.
+
+"Well, not exactly, although I want to get a specimen of every kind of
+plant."
+
+"You don't want to make medicine of 'em, Mandrake, Snakeroot, Wild
+Sassyperilly, Ginsing, Bearberry, Gentian, Cohosh and all that sort o'
+stuff, eh?"
+
+"No; I want to find out their names, dry and mount them, and classify
+them according to their kinds."
+
+"What good are they agoin' to do you?"
+
+"They will help me to know Nature better and to admire God's works and
+His plan."
+
+"Keep on there, mate, fair sailin' and a good wind to you. No pay in
+it, though?"
+
+"Not a cent in money, but lots of pleasure and health."
+
+"Like collectin' post stamps and old pennies, and butterflies, and
+bugs."
+
+"Something, but you see scenery and get healthy exercise, which you
+don't in stamp and coin collecting, and you inflict no suffering, as you
+do in entomologizing."
+
+"I can tell trees when they're a growin' and timber when its cut, but I
+don't know the name of one flower from another, except it's garden ones
+and common at that. Hullo, little puss, what have you got there?"
+
+Marjorie, who had run on in advance and was not by any means ignorant of
+the flora of the neighbourhood, had secured three specimens, a late
+Valerian, an early spotted Touch-me-not, and a little bunch of
+Blue-eyed-grass. Coristine took them from her with thanks, told her
+their names and stowed them away in his candle box. The zeal to discover
+and add to the collection grew upon all the party, the Captain included.
+Near the water, where the Valerian and the Touch-me-not grew, Marjorie
+Carruthers found the Snake-head, with its large white flowers on a
+spike. Another little Carruthers brought to the botanist the purple
+Monkey flower, but the Captain excelled his youthful nephew by adding to
+the collection the rarer and smaller yellow one. Then the lawyer himself
+discovered another yellow flower, the Gratiola or Hedge Hyssop, at the
+moment when Marjorie rejoiced in the modest little Speedwell. Once more,
+the Captain distinguished himself by finding in the grass the yellow
+Wood-Sorrel, with its Shamrock leaves, which, when Marjorie saw, she
+seemed to recognize in part. Then, crossing the stepping stones of the
+brook, she ran, far up the hill on the other side, to a patch of shady
+bush, from which she soon returned victorious, with a bunch of the
+larger Wood-Sorrel in her hand, to exhibit the identity of its leaves,
+and its delicate white blossoms with their pinky-purple veins. By the
+time the other juveniles brought in the blue Vervain, pink Fireweed and
+tall yellow Mullein, the botanist thought it about time to go home and
+press his specimens.
+
+Miss Carmichael met the scientists at the door, looking, of course, for
+the children and Uncle Thomas, who was never called by his Christian
+name, Ezekiel. Learning the nature of the work in hand, she volunteered
+the use of the breakfast-room table. The lawyer brought down his strap
+press, and, carefully placing oiled paper between the dried specimens
+and the semi-porous sheets that were to receive the new ones, proceeded
+to lay them out. The new specimens had all to be examined by the
+addition to the botanical party, their botanical and vulgar names to be
+recited to her, and, then, the arranging began. This was too monotonous
+work for the Captain, who carried the children off for a romp on the
+verandah. Marjorie stayed for a minute or so after they were gone, and
+then remembered that she had not given papa his morning button-hole.
+Coristine was clumsy with the flowers, owing to the gloves he said, so
+Miss Carmichael had to spread them out on the paper under his direction,
+and hold them in their place, while he carefully and gradually pressed
+another sheet over them. Of course his fingers could not help coming
+into contact with hers. "Confound those gloves!" he thought aloud.
+
+"Mr. Coristine, if you are going to use such language, and to speak so
+ungratefully of Mr. Errol's gloves, which I put on your hands, I shall
+have to leave you to put up your specimens the best way you can."
+
+"O Miss Carmichael, now, please let me off this once, and I'll never do
+it again. You know it's so hard working in gloves. Understand me as
+saying that botanically, in a Pickwickian sense as it were, and not
+really at all."
+
+"You must not say that, either botanically or any other way."
+
+"To hear the faintest whisper of your slightest command is to obey."
+
+It was delicate work arranging these little Speedwells, and Gratiolas,
+the Wood-Sorrels, and the smaller Monkey-flower. Hands had to follow
+very close on one another, and heads to be bent to examine, and
+sometimes there was just a little brush of brown and golden hair that,
+strange to say, sent responsive tingles along the nerves, and warm
+flushes to cheek and brow. What a hopeless idiot he was not to have
+foreseen the possibility of this, and to have brought home twice the
+number of specimens! Alas! they were all in the press. But, a happy
+thought struck him: would Miss Carmichael care to look at the dried
+ones, some of which had kept their colour very well? Yes, she had a few
+minutes to spare. So, he brought chairs up to the table, and they sat
+down, side by side, and he told her all about the flowers and how he got
+them, and the poetry Wilks and he quoted over them. Then the specimens
+had to be critically examined, so as to let Miss Carmichael learn the
+distinctive characteristics of the various orders, and this brought the
+heads close together again, when suddenly their owners were started by
+the unexpected clang of the dinner gong. "Thank you so much, Mr.
+Coristine," said the lady, frankly; "you have given me a very pleasant
+half hour." The lawyer bowed his acknowledgment, but said, beneath his
+moustache: "Half an hour is it? I thought it was a lifetime rolled up in
+two minutes, no, one."
+
+What did those deceitful men, Errol and Perrowne, mean, by saying they
+had to go away to get up their Wednesday evening talk, and to visit
+their parishioners? There they were, in their old places at the table,
+Mr. Errol at Mrs. Carmichael's right, and apparently on the best of
+terms with her, and Mr. Perrowne dancing attendance upon Miss Halbert
+and her invalid father. Mrs. Du Plessis thought she would take up Mr.
+Wilkinson's dinner with the colonel's help, as Cecile had been reading
+to him so long. Accordingly, the Captain talked to that young lady,
+while Mr. Bangs monopolized Mrs. Carruthers. There was a little
+commotion, when Mr. Bigglethorpe walked in, and received the sympathetic
+expressions of the company over his singed face and scorched hands. In
+spite of these, the sufferer had been up early fishing, just after the
+rain. Fortunately, he continued, there was no cleared land about the
+lakes, hence there were very few grasshoppers washed in by the heavy
+downpour. Had there been, he wouldn't have got a fish. But he had got
+fish, a big string of them, in splendid condition. He had left some with
+his kind entertainers, the Richards, but had plenty remaining, which he
+had left in the kitchen in care of the young woman with the
+unpronounceable Scripture name. "Now," said the fisherman, "a nime is a
+very important thing to a man or a woman. Why do people give their
+children such awful names? Bigglethorpe is Dinish, they say, but Felix
+Isidore is as Latin as can be. They called me 'fib' at school."
+
+"'Tis the hoighth av impartance to have a good name, say Oi," added Mr.
+Terry. "Moy fayther, glory be to his sowl, put a shaint's name an me,
+an' I put her own mother's name, the Howly Vargin rist her, on Honoria
+here. 'An', savin' all yer prisinces, there's no foiner Scripcher name
+than John; how's that, Squoire?"
+
+"It suits me well enough, grandfather," replied Carruthers. The Captain
+was feeling uneasy. He didn't want Ezekiel to come out, so he asked Miss
+Du Plessis how her young man was. Such a question would have either
+roused Miss Carmichael to indignation or have overwhelmed her with
+confusion, but Miss Du Plessis, calm and unruffled, replied: "I suppose
+you mean Mr. Wilkinson, Captain Thomas. He has been very much shaken by
+his wound, but is doing remarkably well."
+
+"Fwhat's Mishter Wilkison's name, Miss Ceshile, iv it's a fair quishtyon
+to ax at yeez?"
+
+"It is Farquhar, is it not, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+Mr. Coristine said it was, and that it was his mother's maiden name. She
+was a Scotchwoman, he had heard, and a very lovely character. The
+colonel had just returned from his ministrations. "Did I heah you
+cohhectly, Mr. Cohistine, when I thought you said that ouah deah young
+wounded friend's mothah's name was Fahquhah, suh?"
+
+"You did, Colonel Morton."
+
+"And of Scottish pahentage?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know if any of her relatives were engaged in the Civil Wahah,
+our civil wahah?"
+
+"I believe her brother Roderic ran the blockade, and fought for the
+South, where he fell, in a cavalry regiment."
+
+"Be pleased, suh, to say that again. Rodehic Fahquhah, do you say?"
+
+"His full name, I have seen it among Wilkinson's papers, was Roderic
+Macdonald Farquhar."
+
+"Tehesa, my deah," said the colonel, his voice and manner full of
+emotion, as he turned towards his sister-in-law, "you have heard me
+mention my bosom friend, Captain Fahquhah?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, many times," replied the lady addressed.
+
+"And ouah deah boy upstairs, the pehsehveh of my pooah life, is his
+nephew, his sistah's son. I was suah there was something drawing me to
+him. I shall make that brave boy my heih, my pooah deah comhade
+Fahquhah's nephew. What a fohtunate discovehy. Kindly excuse me, madam,
+and you my deah ladies, and you Squiah; I must go and tell my deah boy."
+So the colonel bowed to Mrs. Carruthers, and went out, with his
+handkerchief up to his face.
+
+After the colonel left the table, the Captain looked over at his niece,
+saying: "Too late, Marjorie, my lass, too late! Didn't play your cards
+right, so you're cut out. Shifted his sheet anchor to the t'other bow,
+Marjorie."
+
+Miss Carmichael was annoyed with good reason, and, in order to put a
+stop to such uncalled for and vulgar remarks, said, playfully, but with
+a spice of malice: "Take care, Uncle Thomas, or, as that funny
+theological student said to the people who were talking in church, 'I'll
+call out your name before the haill congregation.'" This terrible threat
+caused Ezekiel to subside, and carry on a less personal conversation
+with Miss Du Plessis. Then Mr. Terry came to the fore again.
+
+"My little grandchilders' coushin, Mishter Coristine, do be sayin' yer
+name is Eujane, an' that's Frinch, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes," replied the lawyer; "my mother was of Huguenot descent, and her
+name was Du Moulin. Some say that the Irish Mullens were once Du
+Moulins. That I don't know, but I'm not like the man-servant who applied
+for a situation, saying: 'Me name is Murphy, sorr, but me family came
+from France.' Coristine, I think, is good Irish."
+
+The name craze spread over the whole table. Miss Halbert thought Basil a
+lovely name. It was Greek, wasn't it, and meant a king? Mr. Perrowne
+thought that the sweetest name in the world was Frances or Fanny. Mr.
+Errol affected Marjorie, and Mrs. Carmichael knew nothing superior to
+Hugh.
+
+"What made you so savage with the Captain for coupling your name with
+Wilks?" asked the lawyer in an undertone.
+
+"Because he is the last man in the world I should want my name to be
+coupled with."
+
+"Oh, but that's hard on Wilks; he's a glorious fellow when you get to
+know his little ways."
+
+"I don't want to know Mr. Wilkinson's little ways. I am sorry for his
+wound, but otherwise I have not the remotest sympathy with him. He
+strikes me as a selfish, conceited man."
+
+"Not a kinder soul breathing, Miss Carmichael."
+
+"Yes, there is."
+
+"Who, then?"
+
+"Yourself."
+
+"Miss Carmichael, you make me the proudest man in the world, but I'm not
+fit to black Wilks' boots."
+
+"Well, I will not be so rude as to say I think you are. But, never talk
+that way to me again, if you want me to like you. I will not have you
+demeaning yourself, even in speech, before Cecile's friend. Now,
+remember, not a word!"
+
+The test was a severe one between loyalty to his old friend and devoted
+obedience to the girl he loved. As all the memories of past friendship
+came before him, he was inclined to be obdurate. Then, he looked at the
+golden hair which had brushed his awhile ago, and, as the head
+straightened up, at the pretty petulant lips and the blue eyes, lustrous
+with just a moist suspicion of vexation and feeling, and he wavered. He
+was lost, and was glad to be lost, as he whispered: "May I say it?"
+
+"Yes; speak out, like a man, what you have to say."
+
+"It's a bargain, Marjorie; never again!"
+
+Somehow his right hand met her left, and she did not snatch it away too
+quickly. Then he said: "You won't hate poor Wilks, my old friend,
+Marjorie?"
+
+She answered "No," and turned her face away to ask some trivial question
+of the Squire, who knew a good deal more than he saw any necessity for
+telling.
+
+The kitchen party still kept up its numbers. True, the absence of the
+constable and Maguffin left two serious blanks in the diversified talk
+of the table, but the place of these gentlemen was taken by no fewer
+than six persons, the three Richards and the three jurors, so that the
+dinner party numbered fifteen, of whom four were women. Old whitehaired
+Mr. Newberry, with the large rosy face, smooth, save for two little
+white patches of side-whiskers, took possession of Matilda Nagle, and
+rejoiced in her kindly ways and simple talk. He was a Methodist, and a
+class-leader and local preacher, but a man against whom no tongue of
+scandal wagged, and whose genuine piety and kindness of heart were so
+manifest that nobody dreamt of holding up to ridicule his oft homely
+utterances in the pulpit. If he could do good to the poor demented woman
+and her afflicted boy, he would, and he knew that his little
+quaker-bonneted wife would second him in such an effort. So he tried to
+gain her confidence and the boy's, and, after a while, found that
+Matilda would like to help Mrs. Newberry in her household duties, and
+have Monty learn useful work on the farm. When informed by the fatherly
+juror, in answer to her own questions, that she would not be expected to
+hurt a fly, and would be allowed to go to church, read her Bible and
+take care of her boy, she expressed her readiness to go away with him at
+once. Mr. Newberry felt a few qualms of conscience in connection with
+fly killing, but, having made an express stipulation that mosquitos and
+black flies should not be included in the bond, he became easier in
+mind, and said that, with Mrs. Carruthers and the Squire's permission,
+he would drive her home in the afternoon. Mr. Johnson and the elder
+Richards discussed local politics, and the tragedy calling for the
+inquest; but Mr. Pawkins attached himself to the boys, and consequently
+to the girls. This gentleman had brought his six feet of bone and
+muscle, topped with a humorous face, from which depended a Lincoln
+beard, from the States, and was now, for many years, as he said, "a
+nettrelized citizen of Kennidy." This disappointment at the absence of
+the constable was something pitiful, he did so want "to yank and rile
+the old Britisher." Still, that was not going to deprive him of his
+innocent amusement. He looked around the company and sized it up,
+deciding that he would leave the old folks alone, and mercifully add to
+them the crazy people; this still left him a constituency of nine, with
+large possibilities for fun.
+
+"Rufus," remarked Mr. Pawkins, "I seen your gal, Christy Hislop, along
+o' that spry sot up coon, Barney Sullivan, daown at the mill. He's a
+cuttin' you aout for sutten, yes sirree, you see if he ain't."
+
+"What's the use of your nonsense, Mr Pawkins? Barney went home along o'
+fayther and old man Hislop, and I guess he turned in to say we was all
+right."
+
+"If Andrew knowed you'd called him old man Hislop, he'd fire you aout o'
+the back door mighty suddent. When I see a spry, set up, young feller
+and a likely heifer of a gal a saunterin' through the bush, sort o'
+poetical like, daown to the mill, it don't take me two shakes to know
+that suthin's up. You're a poor, rejected, cast off, cut aout strip o'
+factory cotton."
+
+"What do you mean, Mr. Pawkins?"
+
+"I mean overalls, and it's all over with you, Rufus." Having planted
+this well-meant thorn in the breast of the younger Hill, and excited the
+commiseration of his sisters, the lover of innocent amusement turned to
+Ben, and asked that gentleman, whose attentions to Serlizer were most
+open and above board, "sence when he got another gal?"
+
+Mr. Toner turned angrily, and asked what Mr. Pawkins was "a givin' him."
+
+"I never see Bridget naow but she's a cryin' and rubbin' her eyes most
+aout with her cuffs," said the cheerful Pawkins; "she allaowed to me
+you'd the nighest thing to said the priest was ony waitin' for the word
+to splice; and here you air, you biggermus delooder, settin' along o'
+Newcome's gal as if you'd got a mortgage on her. Arter that, the sight
+ain't to be sawed that'll make me ashamed o' my feller-creeters, no
+sirree, boss, hull team to boot, and a big dog under the waggin!" Mr.
+Pawkins sniffed vehemently, and Ben and his affianced bride blushed and
+drew apart.
+
+"Is that so, Ben?" asked Sarah Eliza in a half whisper.
+
+"S'haylp me, Serlizer," replied the injured Toner in a similar voice,
+"that there Pawkins is the cussidest, lyinest old puke of a
+trouble-makin' Yankee as aiver come to Cannidy."
+
+"Are you engaged to Biddy Sullivan, Ben?"
+
+"No, I tell you, naiver said a word to Barney's sister I wouldn't say to
+any gal."
+
+"Then, what did Barney come here lookin' for you for?"
+
+"So did the tavern keeper and the store keeper, 'cause mother axed 'em,
+I suppose; you don't think they want me to marry their wives, do you?"
+
+"Wives an' darters is different things, Ben. Ef I'd thought you had been
+havin' goins on with Biddy, I'd flog the pair of you."
+
+"S'haylp me, Serlizer, it ain't so. Ef it was, you could whayull me till
+I was stripy as a chipmunk."
+
+"Talkin' abaout whalins," remarked the mischief-maker, who kept one ear
+open, "Miss Newcome's paa is jest a waitin' to git up and git araound,
+to give somebody, as ain't fer off'n this table, the blamedest,
+kerfoundedest lammin' as ever he knowed. He wants his gal home right
+straight for to nuss him, so's he kin git araound smart with that
+rawhide that's singein' its ends off in the oven."
+
+"What's dad got agin you, Ben?" enquired Miss Newcome.
+
+"Oh nawthin'; it's only that Pawkins' double-treed, snaffle-bitted,
+collar-bladed jaw." Mr. Pawkins smiled, but Ben and Serlizer were more
+uncomfortable than Rufus and his sisters.
+
+The naturalized Canadian turned his attention else where. "I'm kinder
+amazed," he remarked, eyeing first Sylvanus and then Timotheus, "to see
+you two a settin' here, as cam as if you never done nothin' to be sorry
+for. I s'pose you know, if you don't you had orter, that there's a
+war'nt aout agin the two Pilgrims for stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow
+tavern, or ho-tel, as Davis calls his haouse. I calclate the constable
+'ll be back with that war'nt afore night. I'd make myself skeerce if I
+was in your shoes."
+
+"O Sylvanus!" ejaculated Tryphosa.
+
+"O Timotheus!" added Tryphosa.
+
+"It's a lie!" cried Rufus; "it's a mill dam, boom jam, coffer-dam lie,
+and I won't believe a word of it."
+
+"Fact all the same," said Mr. Pawkins, calmly, "they air guilty, the two
+on 'em, of stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow ho-tel."
+
+"What did they steal out?" asked the Richards boys.
+
+"Clothes, I guess, boots, some money, books, I don't know all what, and
+it don't consarn me any; but them boys had best look spry and git aout
+o' this." With these words, the gentleman of American extraction
+finished his last piece of pie.
+
+Sylvanus rose cheerfully. He was so radiant over it that Tryphena
+thought him really handsome. He whispered to Rufus and to Ben; then
+remarked to Timotheus that he had perhaps better remain, in case the
+Squire should send for him. Next, he turned to Mr. Pawkins, and said: "A
+man mought as well be hung fer a sheep as fer a lamb, Mr. Pawkins, and
+sence they's a warn't out to 'raist me and Timotheus, we ain't a goin'
+to put the law to no more trouble 'bout a new one. Ef you'll come
+outside, I'll show you some o' them things we stoled out'n the
+Peskiwanchow tav." So Sylvanus took the accuser of the brethren by one
+arm, and Rufus linked his lovingly in the other, while Ben, with a
+glance of intelligence at Serlizer, and another at his top boots,
+followed. Mr. Pawkins, confident in his smartness and in the ignorance
+of the simple-minded Canucks, went quietly with the courteous criminal
+and his cut-out friend, till, passing the stables, they led him through
+a broad gate into the meadow. Then he hesitated.
+
+"The stoled things, leastways some on 'em, 'll be at the foot o' this
+yere slope soon's we will; so hurry, old man!" said Sylvanus. Mr.
+Pawkins demurred. "Look here, boys," he said, "a joke's a joke, ain't
+it? D'ye see, you did, the pair on you, steal aout of the hotel. I
+didn't go to say you took anythin' as didn't belong to you. I reckon
+your brother had clothes, and money, and books thar, and so, you and him
+took 'em aout. Lem me go, boys!"
+
+Sylvanus and Rufus were obdurate. "Boost him, Ben," cried the former:
+"we ain't no time ter spend foolin' with the likes o' him."
+
+Mr. Toner raised his boot and said, "One fer Serlizer!" which made the
+joker proceed. He had several other ones, before he was run down to the
+creek--for Timotheus and Tryphena, and Tryphosa, and Christie Hislop,
+and Barney and Biddy Sullivan, and old man Newcome. Ben's boot did
+capital service. With difficulty the executioners found a hole in the
+creek about two and a-half feet deep, in which, at full length and with
+great gravity, they deposited the exile from the States. Then, they
+guessed the Squire, or the Captain, or somebody, would be wanting them,
+and skipped lightly back to the house. They knew Mr. Pawkins would
+follow, since he was the last man in the settlement to miss his juror's
+fee of one dollar. After their return, there was a good deal of
+merriment in the kitchen, and the two Richards boys roundly upbraided
+the elder Pilgrim for depriving them of a share in the fun. "He baygged
+an' prayed for massy," said Mr. Toner, with a grim smile, "but we was
+the most onmassifullest craowd you ever see."
+
+Timotheus, still in Sunday garb, took his work-a-day suit, now quite
+dry, and went to meet Mr. Pawkins. Introducing him to the stable, he
+soon had that gentleman relieved of his wet toggery, when voices were
+heard without. It was the colonel, bringing his sister-in-law to see his
+horse, as a sort of relief to the strain on his feelings, consequent
+upon his interview with Wilkinson. Mr. Pawkins had only got Timotheus'
+flannel shirt on, when the stable door opened. "Shin up that ladder into
+the loft, Mr. Pawkins," cried the benevolent Pilgrim, and the spectacle
+of a pair of disappearing shanks greeted the visitors on their entrance.
+Timotheus had escaped into the coach-house, but all the clothes, wet and
+dry, save the shirt, lay over the sides of an empty stall. Immediately
+the colonel perceived the vanishing heels of the Yankee, he interposed
+his person between them and Mrs. Du Plessis. "My deah Tehesa," he said,
+hastily, "I think we had bettah retiah foh the pehsent, and visit the
+stables lateh in the day." Mrs. Du Plessis, however, once no mean judge
+of horseflesh, was scanning the good points of her brother-in-law's
+purchase, and seemed indisposed to withdraw. Soon a head and a pair of
+flannel shirted arms appeared, hanging over the loft trap, and a voice
+hailed the colonel.
+
+"Say, mister, you ain't a goin' to bring no wimmen folks up this here
+ladder, be you?"
+
+"Cehtainly not, suh!" answered the colonel, with emphasis.
+
+"If it won't hurt you, I wisht you'd sling up them dry paants and things
+daown there."
+
+The colonel looked at the man, and then at the articles, with
+impatience. Then he got a pitchfork, on the prongs of which he
+collected the garments, one by one, and so handed them up to Mr.
+Pawkins, who was still minus necktie, socks and boots. Before, however,
+he was ready for these, the visitors had retired, leaving him to
+complete his toilet in private. Hearing steps again, he hurriedly picked
+up his wet clothes and re-ascended the ladder. The colonel had evidently
+asked Sylvanus to take the place of Maguffin about the two horses, for
+he was the newcomer. Now, Mr. Pawkins bore no malice, but, when jokes
+were going, he did not like to be left the chief victim. He had had some
+fun out of the boys; now he would have some more. The Yankee could mew
+to perfection. He began, and Sylvanus called the strange cat. It would
+not come, so he climbed the ladder after it, and had almost reached the
+top, when, with vicious cries, the animal flew at him, seized him by the
+back of the neck, and drew blood that he could feel trickling down his
+back. Tugging ineffectually at the beast, he ran out to the kitchen,
+calling upon everybody to take off that mad cat that was killing him.
+The cat was taken off, amid shrieks of laughter, and proved to be Mr.
+Pawkins' rolled up wet trousers and vest, the water from which was the
+blood imagined by Sylvanus. The owner of the garments entered
+immediately behind his victim, and from his banter the elder Pilgrim
+gladly escaped to resume his stable duties, feeling that he had been
+demeaned in the eyes of the laughing Tryphena.
+
+Timotheus and Ben were busy cleaning out the coach house, putting tables
+and seats into it, and generally preparing for the inquest. Mr. Bangs,
+at the coroner's request, empanelled the jury, consisting of the Squire,
+the captain, and the two clergymen, the three Richards, the three cited
+jurors, with old Styles from the post office, and Ben Toner. The charred
+masses of humanity, pervaded by a sickening smell of spirits, were taken
+from the waggon, and placed in rough board shells, decently covered over
+with white cloths. The woman called Flower was brought from the post
+office, and kept in custody, till she gave her evidence; and Bangs
+himself, with Messrs. Terry, Coristine, and Bigglethorpe, Sylvanus,
+Rufus, and Timotheus were cited as witnesses. Some evidence was also
+expected from Matilda and her son. When the coach house doors were
+thrown open, all hilarity ceased--even the children seemed to realize
+that something very solemn was going on. A weight of trouble and danger
+was lifted off many hearts by the terrible tragedy, yet in no soul was
+there the least feeling of exultation. The fate of the victims was too
+awful, too sudden for anyone to feel aught but horror at the thought of
+it, and deep sorrow for one at least who had perished in his sins. The
+light-hearted lawyer took one look at the remains of him, whom, within
+the past few days, he had seen so often in the full enjoyment of life
+and health, and resolved that never again, in prose or verse, would he
+speak of the person, whose crimes and cunning had returned so avengingly
+upon his own head, as the Grinstun man. Mr. Pawkins joked no more, for,
+with all his playful untruthfulness, he had a feeling heart. The most
+unconcerned man outwardly was Mr. Bangs, and even he said that he would
+willingly have given a hundred dollars to see his prisoner safely in
+gaol with the chaplain, and afterwards decently hanged. The doctor was
+carefully carried out, and set in the presiding chair as coroner over
+the third inquest within two days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+     Inquest and Consequences--Orther Lom--Coolness--Evening
+     Service--Mr. Pawkins and the Constable--Two Songs--Marjorie, Mr.
+     Biggles and the Crawfish--Coristine Falls Foul of Mr. Lamb--Mr.
+     Lamb Falls Foul of the Whole Company--The Captain's Couplet--Miss
+     Carmichael Feels it Her Duty to Comfort Mr. Lamb.
+
+
+It is unnecessary to relate the details of the inquest. By various
+marks, as well as by the testimony of the woman Flower and of Mr. Bangs
+and his party, the remains were identified as those of Rawdon and his
+wounded henchman Flower. Some of the jurymen wished to bring in a
+verdict of "Died from the visitation of God," but this the Squire, who
+was foreman, would not allow. He called it flat blasphemy; so it was
+altered to: "Died by the explosion of illicit spirits, through a fire
+kindled by the wife of the principal victim, Altamont Rawdon." Nobody
+demanded the arrest of Matilda; hence the Squire and the doctor did not
+feel called upon to issue a warrant for that purpose. The widowed and
+childless Mrs. Flower, for the so-called Harding was her son, claimed
+his body, and what remained of her husband's; and asked Mr. Perrowne to
+read the burial service over them in the little graveyard behind his
+humble church. Mr. Bangs, his work over, got the use of a waggon and the
+services of Ben Toner, to take his dead comrade's coffin to Collingwood.
+Nobody claimed the remains of Rawdon, till old Mr. Newberry came
+forward, and said he would take the shell in his waggon, with the woman
+and the boy, and give it Christian burial in the plot back of the
+Wesleyan church. "We can't tell," he said, "what passed between him and
+his Maker when he was struggling for life. Gie un the bainifit o' the
+doot." So, Ben and Serlizer rolled away with Bangs, and Nash's coffin;
+and Matilda and her son accompanied Rawdon's remains, in Mr. Newberry's
+waggon. At the same time, with the sad, grey-haired woman as chief
+mourner, and Mrs. Carmichael beside her, a funeral procession passed
+from Bridesdale to the post office, and thence to the English
+churchyard, where old Styles and Sylvanus dug the double grave, around
+which, in deep solemnity, stood the Captain and Mr. Terry, the minister
+and the lawyer, while Mr. Perrowne read the service, and two victims of
+Rawdon's crime and treachery were committed, earth to earth, dust to
+dust, and ashes to ashes. Immediately the grave was covered in, the
+doubly-bereaved woman slipped away, and was never again heard of. There
+appeared no evidence, far or near, that she had done away with herself;
+it was, therefore, concluded that she had a child or children elsewhere,
+and had gone to hide the rest of her wasted life with them. The two
+clergymen went their ways to their lodgings, and the Bridesdale party
+walked silently and sorrowfully home.
+
+Mr. Bigglethorpe wanted to go back with the Richards, so that he might
+have another morning's fishing; but Mrs. Carruthers thought he had
+better take Mr. Bangs' room, and nurse his eyes and other burned parts
+before going home. Marjorie and her young cousins dragged him off, after
+his green shade was put on, to the creek, and made him rig up rods and
+lines for them in the shape of light-trimmed willow boughs, to which
+pieces of thread were attached with bent pins at the other ends.
+Fishing with these, baited with breadcrumbs, they secured quite a number
+of chub and dace, and made the valley musical with their laughter at
+each success or mishap, by the time the Bridesdale people returned from
+the impromptu funeral. The Squire was busy in his office, looking over
+Nash's legacy, preparatory to sending it to Bangs, who had begged him to
+forward the documents without delay. The only thing of note he found
+was, that Rawdon did not bank his money; he had no bank account
+anywhere. Where did he stow away the fortune he must have made? There
+was a note of the casual conversation of an assumed miser with Rawdon,
+in which Rawdon was represented as saying: "Dry sandy soil, well drained
+with two slopes, under a rain-shed, will keep millions in a cigar box."
+That the Squire noted; then he sealed up the rest of the papers, and
+addressed them to Hickey Bangs, Esq., D.I.R., ready for the post in the
+morning. The colonel, Mrs. and Miss Du Plessis were all in Wilkinson's
+room. The colonel was commenting upon the four poor souls that had gone
+before God's judgment seat, three of them, probably, with murder on
+their hands; and thanked God that his boy had died in the war, brave and
+pure and good, with no stain on his young life. "When my boy was killed,
+my deah Fahquhah, I felt like the Electoh Palatine of the Rhine, when
+young Duke Christopheh, his son, fell at Mookerheyde, accohding to
+Motley: he said ''Twas bettah thus than to have passed his time in
+idleness, which is the devil's pillow.' Suh, I honouh the Electoh
+Palatine foh that. What melancholy ghaves these pooah creatuhes fill."
+Then Mrs. Du Plessis wept, mildly, and Miss Du Plessis, and they all had
+to wipe a few tears out of Wilkinson's eyes. Had Coristine been there,
+he would have been scandalized. The lawyer's lady-love was engaged in
+very prosaic work in the sewing-room, with her aunt, running a
+sewing-machine to make much-needed clothes for the unhappy woman, whom
+the coroner's jury, by a euphemism, called Rawdon's wife. The two had
+seen her off in charge of good old Mr. Newberry, and had promised to
+send her the work, which she herself had begun; and, now, they were
+toiling with all their might to redeem the promise, as early as
+possible, in spite of the tears that would come also into their foolish
+eyes, blurring their vision and damping their material. Coristine, who
+longed for a sight of fresh young life after the vision of death, did
+not know what kept that young life within, and, like an unreasonable
+man, was inclined to be angry. He was overwrought, poor fellow,
+sleepless and tired, and emotionally excited, and, therefore, ready for
+any folly under the sun.
+
+Mrs. Carmichael had entered the house, with the Captain and Mr. Terry.
+The lawyer remained alone in the garden, waiting for something to turn
+up. Something did turn up in the shape of the stage on its way to the
+post office, which dropped its only passenger at the Bridesdale gate.
+The passenger was a young fellow of about twenty-five, rather over than
+under middle height, of good figure, and becomingly dressed. His
+features were good enough, but lacked individuality, as did his combined
+moustache and side whiskers, that formed a sort of imperfect W across
+his face. He held his nose well up in the air, spoke what, in his
+ignorance, he fondly imagined to be aristocratic English, and carried,
+with an apologetic and depressed air, a small Gladstone bag. The
+newcomer dusted his trouser legs with a cane utterly useless for walking
+purposes; then, adjusting his eye-glass, he elevated it towards the
+solitary occupant of the garden, as he entered the gate. "Haw, you sir,"
+he called out to him; "is this, haw, Mr. Corrothers' plaice?" Coristine
+was nettled at the style of address, but commanded himself to reply as
+briefly as possible that it was. "Miss Morjorie Cormichael stoying
+here?" continued the stage passenger. "Miss Carmichael is here,"
+responded the lawyer. "Haw, I thort so. Just you run in now, will you,
+ond tell Miss Morjorie thot on old friend wonts to speak to her." The
+lawyer was getting furious, in spite of himself. Taking his pipe out of
+his pocket, and proceeding to fill it with all apparent deliberation and
+calmness, he replied: "So far as I have the honour of Miss Carmichael's
+acquaintance, she is not in the habit of receiving visitors out of
+doors. There are both bell and knocker on the door before you, which
+servants will probably answer; but, if that door doesn't suit you, you
+will probably find others at the back." With this ungracious speech, he
+turned on his heel, lit his pipe, and puffed vigorously along the path
+towards the meadow gate. Then, he strolled down the hill and met the
+returning fishers, the two youngest in Mr. Bigglethorpe's arms, and with
+their arms about his neck. Coristine indulged in a kissing bee with the
+rest of them, so as to assure himself that he was the true old friend,
+the genuine Codlin, while the other man was Short. "Marjorie," he said,
+as that fishing young lady clung to him, "there's a duffer of a dude,
+with an eye-glass, up at the house, who says he's an old friend of your
+cousin Marjorie; do you know any old friend of hers?" Marjorie stopped
+to think, and, after a little pause, said: "It can't be Huggins." "Who
+is Huggins, Marjorie?" asked the lawyer. "He's the caretaker of
+Marjorie's school."
+
+"Oh no, this dude is too young and gorgeous for a caretaker."
+
+"Then, I think I know; its Orther Lom."
+
+"Who is Orther Lom?"
+
+"I don't know; only Auntie Marjorie said, she wouldn't be astonished if
+Orther Lom was to come and find cousin Marjorie out, even away up here.
+It must be Orther Lom."
+
+This was all the information the lawyer could obtain; so he and Marjorie
+joined Mr. Bigglethorpe and the other anglers, and talked about making
+domestic sardines and smelts of the chub and dace they had caught.
+
+The summons to tea greeted the wanderers before they had had time to
+cleanse their hands of fishy odours; consequently Mr. Bigglethorpe and
+the lawyer were a minute or two late. They found the man of the
+eye-glass seated on one side of Miss Carmichael, and, as she beckoned
+the fisherman to the other, she introduced her protege to him as Mr.
+Arthur Lamb, a very old friend. Miss Halbert made way for Coristine
+beside her, and he congratulated her on the doctor's reappearance at the
+table.
+
+"Mr. Coristine," said Miss Carmichael, and the lawyer, with a somewhat
+worn society face, looked across.
+
+"Mr. Lamb, who is an old friend of ours, tells me he met you in the
+garden, but you did not introduce yourself. Let me introduce you, Mr.
+Lamb, Mr. Coristine."
+
+Coristine gave the merest nod of recognition, and went on talking to
+Miss Halbert. He thought Perrowne was right; there was some
+satisfaction conversing with a girl like that, a girl with no nonsense
+about her. The minister's gloves had got fishy, handling Marjorie's
+catch, so he had taken them off when preparing himself for tea, and had
+left them in his room. Miss Carmichael looked at the burnt hands, and
+felt disposed to scold him, but did not dare. Perhaps, he had taken the
+gloves off intentionally. She wished that ring of his were not on her
+finger. Between Mr. Lamb and Miss Halbert, she felt very uncomfortable,
+and knew that Eugene, no, Mr. Coristine, was behaving abominably. The
+colonel and his belongings had been so much about the wounded dominie
+all afternoon, that Mrs. Carruthers insisted on her right, as a hostess,
+to minister to him, while her sister-in law presided in her stead.
+Coristine at once rose to help the hostess, and regained his spirits,
+while rallying his old friend over the many attentions he was receiving
+at the hands of the fair sex. He could hardly believe his eyes and ears
+when he beheld the meek and helpless creature who had once been the
+redoubtable Wilkinson. How had the mighty fallen! "We'll put you in a
+glass case, Wilks, like the old gray horse that was jined to the
+Methodis, and kicked so high they put him in the museum."
+
+"Corry," interrupted the still correct dominie, "I have no sympathy with
+that rude song; but if you will quote it, please adhere to the original.
+It was 'my old aunt Sal that was joined to the Methodists,' not the old
+gray horse."
+
+"Thanks, Wilks, thanks, I'll try and remember. Any more toast or jam,
+old boy?"
+
+"No, I have a superabundance of good things."
+
+"Well, see you again, sometime when I have a chance. You're pretty well
+guarded you know. Au revoir."
+
+Coristine followed Mrs. Carruthers down stairs; while the dominie
+sighed, and said: "It seems as if nothing will give that boy stability
+of character and staidness of demeanour."
+
+"Who is going to service to-night?" asked the Squire. Mrs. Carruthers
+could not, because of the children; the doctor was unfit to walk; and
+the colonel and Mrs. Du Plessis had so much to say to each other over
+their dear boy that they desired to be excused. Mr. Bigglethorpe said
+he was a church-going man, but hardly cared to air his green shade in
+public; whereupon Mr. Terry volunteered to remain and smoke a pipe with
+him. Mrs. Carmichael and her daughter signified their intention of
+accompanying the Squire, and Mr. Lamb at once asked permission to join
+them. Miss Halbert stated that she would like to go to week service, if
+anybody else was going. Of course, the lawyer offered his escort, and
+Miss Du Plessis and the Captain begged to be included. Thus, four of the
+party set out for Mr. Perrowne's mid-week service, and four to Mr.
+Errol's prayer meeting. Mr. Lamb did not get much out of Miss Carmichael
+on the way, and Miss Halbert thought her escort unusually absent-minded.
+Coming home, Mr. Perrowne deprived Coristine of his fair charge, and Mr.
+Errol relieved the Squire of his sister. Accordingly, the freed
+cavaliers drew together and conversed upon the events of the day. Good
+Mr. Carruthers was startled, when the lawyer expressed his intention of
+leaving in the morning, as he could be of no further use, and felt he
+had already trespassed too long upon his generous hospitality.
+
+"Noo, Coristine," he said, falling into his doric, "what ails ye, man,
+at the lassie?"
+
+"My dear Squire, I have none but the kindest and most grateful thoughts
+towards all the ladies."
+
+"Weel, weel, it's no for me to be spierin', but ye maun na gang awa
+frae's on accoont o' yon daft haveral o' a Lamb."
+
+"Who is this Mr. Lamb?"
+
+"I ken naething aboot him, foreby that he's a moothin' cratur frae the
+Croon Lans Depairtment, wi' no owre muckle brains."
+
+Dropping the subject, the Squire proceeded to tell what he had found in
+Nash's papers, and proposed an expedition, ostensibly for fishing, in
+which the two of them, providing themselves with tools, should prospect
+for the hidden treasure of the former master of the Select Encampment.
+As it was unlikely that any claimant for Rawdon's property would appear,
+all that they found would belong to Matilda and her boy, unless it were
+judged right to indemnify Miss Du Plessis for any injury done to her
+land. There was no reason for the lawyer's departure. He had another
+week of leave, which he did not know how to put in. True, he could not
+remain until Wilkinson was perfectly well, but it would seem heartless
+to desert him so soon after he had received his wound. He had thought of
+writing the Squire about Miss Carmichael's position as her deceased
+father's next of kin, but it would save trouble to talk it over. All
+things considered, Mr. Carruthers did not find it a difficult task to
+make his pleasant new acquaintance reconsider his decision and commit
+himself to an indefinite prolongation of Bridesdale hospitality. Yet, as
+he entered the gate, he almost repented his weakness, on hearing the
+eye-glassed Lamb say: "What ohfully jawlly times we hod, Morjorie, when
+you and I were sweethorts." He wished that he could recall some
+frightfully injurious and profane expression in a foreign tongue, with
+which to anathematize the wretched, familiar, conceited Crown Lands
+Department cad. While the Squire joined the doctor and the Captain in
+the office, he went over to a corner in which the pipes of the veteran
+and Mr. Bigglethorpe were still glowing, and, lighting his own, listened
+to their military and piscatorial yarns.
+
+Rufus had remained at Bridesdale, at the urgent entreaty of his sisters
+and the Pilgrims; but the sight of the people going to prayer meeting
+smote his conscience. He knew his father and mother would be at meetin'
+in their own church, and that there would be a good deal of work to do.
+Besides he hadn't brought home the team from Mr. Hislop's since the bee.
+Nothing would stop him, therefore; he shouldered his gun, and, bidding
+all good bye, started for home. Nobody was left in the kitchen but the
+two maids and the two Pilgrims. Yes, there was one more, namely Mr.
+Pawkins, who was afeard his duds warn't dry. The nettrelized citizen of
+Kennidy was telling stories, that kept the company in peals and roars of
+laughter, about an applicant for a place in a paper mill, who was set to
+chewing a blue blanket into pulp, who was given a bottle of vinegar to
+sharpen his teeth with, and who was ignominiously expelled from the
+premises because he didn't "chaw it dry"; about a bunting billy goat;
+and a powerful team of oxen, that got beyond the control of their
+barn-moving driver, and planted the barn on the top of an almost
+inaccessible hill. Mr. Pawkins complimented the young women, and drew
+wonderful depths of knowledge out of Sylvanus and Timotheus. But, when a
+vehicle rolled into the stable yard that brought the constable and
+Maguffin to join the party, the quondam American citizen waxed jubilant,
+and beheld endless possibilities of amusement. "Good evenin',
+consterble," said Mr. Pawkins, blandly.
+
+"Good evening, sir, at your service," replied the pensioner.
+
+"Pawkins is my naum, consterble, kyind er Scotch, I reckin. They say
+pawky means sorter cute an' cunnin', like in Scotch. Never was thar
+myself, to speak on, but hev seed 'em."
+
+"The Scotch make good soldiers," said Mr Rigby.
+
+"Yaas; I reckin the oatmeal sorter stiffens 'em up."
+
+"There are military authorities who assert that the Scotch are the only
+troops that can reform under fire; but that is a mistake. In that
+respect, sir, the Guards are equal to any other Household Troops."
+
+"Fer haousehold trooeps and reformin' under fire, you had orter ha seen
+aour fellers at Bull Run. When the shooten' begun, all the Bowery plug
+uglies, bred to cussin' and drinkin' and wuss, dropped ther guns and
+fell on ther knees a reformin'; then, when they faound they couldn't
+reform so suddent, they up on ther two feet and started fer the
+haoushold. Eurrup ain't got nuthin' ter ekal aour haousehold trooeps."
+
+"You mistake me, Mr. Pawkins; the Household Troops in infantry are the
+Guards and Highlanders, whose special duty it is to guard the royal
+household."
+
+"Is it big?"
+
+"Is what big, sir?"
+
+"Why, the household! How many storeys is ther to it besides the attic
+and basement? Hev it got a mansard?"
+
+"The Household, sir, dwells in royal palaces of great dimensions. It is
+the royal family and their attendants over whom the Guards watch."
+
+"That's the Black Guards, ain't it?"
+
+"No, sir; you are thinking of the Black Watch, a name of the
+Forty-second Highlanders."
+
+"D'ye hear that, you Sambo? You orter go and git draafted inter that
+corpse, and go araound breakin' the wimmin's hyearts in a cullud flannel
+petticut."
+
+"There are no negroes, sir, in the Black Watch," interposed the
+corporal.
+
+"See heah, yoh Yankee Canajiun," answered Mr. Maguffin with feeling,
+"fo' de law ob this yeah kintry I'se jess es good a man as yoh is. So
+yoh jess keep yoh Samboo in yoh mouf atter this. Specks yoh'se got a
+mighty low down name yohsef if t'was ony knowed by respeckable pussons."
+
+"My name, Mr. Julius Sneezer Disgustus Quackenboss, my name is Pawkins,
+great grandson of Hercules Leonidas Pawkins, as was briggidier ginral
+and aijicamp to George Washington, when he drummed the haousehold
+trooeps, and the hull o' the derned British army, out'n Noo Yohk to the
+toon o' 'Yankee Doodle.'"
+
+The constable turned pale, shivered all over, and swayed about in his
+chair, almost frightening the mendacious Yankee by the sight of the
+mischief his words had wrought. Tryphena, however, quickly filled the
+shocked corporal a hot cup of tea, and mutely pressed him to drink it.
+He took off the tea at a gulp, set down the cup with a steady hand, and,
+looking Mr. Pawkins in the face, said: "I regret, sir, to have to say
+the word; but, sir, you are a liar."
+
+"That's true as death, consterble," remarked Timotheus, who did not
+share the hostile feelings of Sylvanus towards Corporal Rigby; "true as
+death, and the boys, they ducked him in the crick for't, but they's no
+washin' the lies out'n his jaws."
+
+Mr. Pawkins looked as fierce as it was possible for a man with a merry
+twinkle in his eyes to look, and roared, "Consterble, did you mean that,
+or did you only say it fer fun like?"
+
+Mr Rigby, glaring defiance, answered, "I meant it."
+
+"Oh waall," responded the Yankee Canadian, mildly, "that's all right;
+because I want you to know that I don't allaow folks to joke with me
+that way. If you meant it, that's a different thing."
+
+"What your general character may be, I do not know. As for your remarks
+on the British army, they are lies."
+
+"I guess, consterble, you ain't up in the histry of the United States of
+Ameriky, or you'd know as your Ginral Clinton was drummed aout o' Noo
+Yohk to the toon o' 'Yankee Doodle.'"
+
+"I know, sir, that a mob of Hanoverians and Hessians, whom the Americans
+could not drive out, evacuated New York, in consequence of a treaty of
+peace. If your general, as you call him, Washington, had the bad taste
+to play his ugly tune after them, it was just what might be expected
+from such a quarter."
+
+"My history," said Tryphosa, "says that the American army was driven out
+of Canada by a few regulars and some French-Canadians at the same time."
+
+"Brayvo, Phosy!" cried Timotheus.
+
+"I assert now, as I have asserted before," continued Corporal Rigby,
+"that the British army never has been defeated, and never can be
+defeated. I belong to the British army, and know whereof I speak."
+
+"Were you in the American war, Mr. Pawkins?" asked Tryphena.
+
+"Yaas, I was thar, like the consterble, in the haouse hold trooeps. When
+they come araound a draaftin', I skit aout to Kennidy. I've only got one
+thing agin the war, and that is makin' every common nigger so sassy he
+thinks he's the ekal of a white man. Soon's I think of that, the war
+makes me sick."
+
+"It is the boast of our Empire," remarked the pensioner, grandly, "that
+wherever its flag floats, the slave is free."
+
+"It's a derned pity," said Mr. Pawkins; "that there boy, Julius Sneezer
+Disgustus Quackenboss, ud be wuth heaps more'n he is, if his boss jest
+had the right to lick him straight along."
+
+"Who," shrieked Maguffin; "who'se yar Squackenbawsin' an' gibbin' nigger
+lip ter? My name's Mortimah Magrudah Maguffin, an' what's yourn?
+Pawkins! Oh massy! Pawkins, nex' thing ter punkins. I cud get er punkin,
+an' cut a hole er two in it an' make a bettah face nor yourn, Mistah
+Pawkins, candaberus, lantun jaw, down east, Yankee white tresh. What you
+doin' roun' this house, anyway?"
+
+"Arrah, hush now, childher!" said Mr. Terry, entering from the hall.
+"The aivenin's the time to make up aall dishputes, an' quoiet aal yer
+angry faylins afore yeez say yer worruds an' go to shlape, wid the howly
+angels gyardin' yeez. Good aivenin', Corporal."
+
+"Good evening, Sergeant-Major."
+
+"Mr. Terry," asked Tryphosa, timidly, "will you play a game at Cities,
+Rivers and Mountains? We were waiting for even numbers to begin." The
+veteran, who knew the game, agreed. Gallantly, the gentlemen asked the
+two ladies to choose sides, whereupon Tryphena selected Mr. Pawkins,
+Maguffin and Sylvanus; Mr. Terry, the constable, and Timotheus fell to
+Tryphosa. Peace once more reigned, save when the great-grandson of the
+brigadier general was detected in looking over his opponent's cards and
+otherwise acting illegally.
+
+Bigglethorpe and the lawyer entered the house, not far from bed time.
+The company was in the drawing-room, and a lady was at the piano
+singing, and playing her own accompaniment, while Mr. Lamb was standing
+beside her, pretending to turn over the music, of which he had as little
+knowledge as the animal whose name he bore. The song was that beautiful
+one of Burns,
+
+     O wert thou in the cauld blast
+     On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
+
+and, though a gentleman's song, it was rendered with exquisite taste and
+feeling. The singer looked up appealingly at Mr. Lamb twice, solely to
+invoke his aid in turning the music leaf. But, to Coristine's jealous
+soul, it was a glance of tenderness and mutual understanding. Four long
+days he had known her, and she had never sung for him; and now, just as
+soon as the Crown Land idiot comes along, she must favour him with her
+very best. He would not be rude, and talk while the singing was going
+on, but he would let Lamb do all the thanking; he wasn't going shares
+with that affected dude. The music ceased, and he turned to see whom he
+could talk to. Mrs. Carmichael and Miss Halbert were busy with their
+clerical adorers. The colonel and Mrs. Du Plessis had evidently bid
+their dear boy good night, for they were engaged in earnest
+conversation, in which he called her Teresa, and she called him Paul as
+often as colonel. Miss Du Plessis was turning over the leaves of an
+album. He went up to her, and asked if she would not favour the company
+with some music. "Instrumental or vocal, Mr. Coristine?" she asked. "Oh,
+vocal, if you please, Miss Du Plessis; do you sing, 'Shall I wasting in
+despair,' or anything of that kind?" Miss Du Plessis did not, but would
+like to hear Mr. Coristine sing it. He objected that he had no music,
+and was a poor accompanyist. Before the unhappy man knew where he was,
+Miss Du Plessis was by Miss Carmichael's side, begging her dear friend
+Marjorie to accompany Mr. Coristine. She agreed, for she knew the song,
+and the music was in the stand. Like a condemned criminal, Coristine was
+conducted to the piano; but the first few bars put vigour into him, and
+he sang the piece through with credit. He was compelled, of course, to
+return thanks for the excellent accompaniment, but this he did in a
+stiff formal way, as if the musician was an entire stranger. Then they
+had prayers, for the gentlemen had come in out of the office, and,
+afterwards, the clergymen went home. As the inmates of Bridesdale
+separated for the night, Miss Carmichael handed the lawyer his ring,
+saying that since his hands were fit to dispense with gloves, they must
+also be strong enough to bear its weight. He accepted the ring with a
+sigh, and silently retired to his chamber. Before turning in for the
+night, he looked in upon Wilkinson, whom he found awake. After enquiries
+as to his arm and general health, he said: "Wilks, my boy, congratulate
+me on being an ass; I've lost the finest woman in all the world by my
+own stupidity." His friend smiled at him, and answered: "Do not be
+down-hearted, Corry; I will speak to Ceci--Miss Du Plessis I mean, and
+she will arrange matters for you." The lawyer fervently exclaimed: "God
+bless you, Wilks!" and withdrew, not a little comforted. We cannot
+intrude into the apartment of the young ladies, but there was large
+comfort in their conversation for a person whose Christian name was
+Eugene. If he only had known it!
+
+By the constable, Ben Toner, and other messengers, Mr. Bigglethorpe had
+acquainted his somewhat tyrannical spouse that he was staying for a
+while at the Flanders lakes to enjoy the fishing. Mr. Rigby had brought
+from the store his best rods and lines and his fly-book. He was,
+therefore, up early on Thursday morning, lamenting that he was not at
+Richards, whence he could have visited the first lake and secured a mess
+of fish before breakfast. He was sorting out his tackle in the office,
+when Marjorie, an early riser, came in to see if Uncle John was there.
+When she found out the occupant, she said: "Come along, Mr. Biggles, and
+let us go fishing, it's so long before breakfast." Fishing children
+could do anything with Bigglethorpe; he would even help them to catch
+cat-fish and suckers. But he had an eye to business. "Marjorie," he
+asked, "do you think you could find me a pickle bottle, an empty one,
+you know?" She thought she could, and at once engaged 'Phosa and 'Phena
+in the search for one. A Crosse and Blackwell wide-mouthed bottle,
+bearing the label "mixed pickles," which really means gherkins, was
+borne triumphantly into the office. Mr. Bigglethorpe handled it
+affectionately, and said: "Put on your hat, Marjorie, and we'll go
+crawfish hunting." Without rod or line, the fisherman, holding the
+pickle bottle in his left hand, and taking Marjorie by the right, walked
+down to the creek. On its bank he sat down, and took off his shoes and
+socks, an example quickly and joyfully followed by his young companion.
+Then he splashed a little water on his head, and she did the same; after
+which they waded in the shallow brook, and turned up flat stones in its
+bed. Sometimes the crawfish lay quite still, when Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+getting his right hand, with extended thumb and forefinger, slily behind
+it, grasped the unsuspecting crustacean at the back of his great
+nippers, and landed him in the bottle filled with sparkling water.
+Sometimes a "craw," as Marjorie called them, darted away backward in a
+great hurry, and had to be looked for under another stone, and these
+were generally young active fellows, which, the fisherman said, made the
+best bait for bass. It was wild, exciting work, with a spice of danger
+in it from the chance of a nip from those terrible claws. Marjorie
+enjoyed it to the full. She laughed and shrieked, and clapped her hands
+over every new addition to the pickle bottle, and Mr. Biggles was every
+bit as enthusiastic as she was. Soon they were aware of a third figure
+on the scene. It was the sleepless lawyer. "Come in, Eugene," cried
+Marjorie; "take off your shoes and stockings, and help us to catch these
+lovely craws." He had to obey, and was soon as excited as the others
+over this novel kind of sport.
+
+Coristine looked up after securing his twelfth victim, and saw four
+figures sauntering down the hill. Three were young ladies in print
+morning gowns; the fourth was the ineffable dude, Lamb. At once he went
+back, and put himself into socks and boots, turning down his trouser
+legs, as if innocent of the childish amusement. "Haw," brayed Mr. Lamb,
+"is thot you, Cawrstine? Been poddling in the wotter, to remind yoursolf
+of the doys when you used to run round in your bare feet?" Outwardly
+calm, the lawyer advanced to meet the invaders. Bowing somewhat too
+ceremoniously to the three ladies, who looked delightfully fresh and
+cool in their morning toilets, he answered his interlocutor. "I am sure,
+Mr. Lamb, that it would afford Mr. Bigglethorpe and Marjorie additional
+satisfaction, to know that their wading after crawfish brought up
+memories of your barefooted youth. Unfortunately, I have no such
+blissful period to recall." Mr. Lamb blushed, and stammered some
+incoherencies, and Miss Carmichael, running past the lawyer towards
+Marjorie, whispered as she flitted before him, "you rude, unkind man!"
+This did not tend to make him more amiable. He snubbed the Crown Land
+gentleman at every turn, and, more than usually brilliant in talk,
+effectually kept his adversary out of conversation with the remaining
+ladies. "Look, Cecile!" said Miss Halbert; "Marjorie is actually joining
+the waders. "Mr. Lamb stroked his whisker-moustache and remarked: "Haw,
+you know, thot's nothing new for Morjorie; when we were childron
+together, we awften went poddling about in creeks for crowfish and
+minnows." Then he had the impertinence to stroll down to the brook, and
+rally the new addition to the crawfishing party. To Coristine the whole
+thing was gall and wormwood. The only satisfaction he had was, that Mr.
+Lamb could not summon courage enough to divest himself of shoes and
+stockings and take part in the sport personally. But what an
+insufferable ass he, Coristine, had been not to keep on wading, in view
+of such glorious company! What was the use of complaining: had he been
+there she would never have gone in, trust her for that! Wilkinson and he
+were right in their old compact: the female sex is a delusion and a
+snare. Thank heaven! there's the prayer gong, but will that staring,
+flat-footed, hawhawing, Civil Service idiot be looking on while she
+reattires herself! He had half a mind to descend and brain him on the
+spot, if he had any brains, so as to render impossible the woeful
+calamity. But the fates were merciful, sending Mr. Lamb up with Marjorie
+and Mr. Bigglethorpe. Now was the angry man's chance, and a rare one,
+but, like an angry man, he did not seize it. The other two ladies
+remarked to each other that it was not very polite of three gentlemen to
+allow a lady, the last of the party, to come up the hill alone. What did
+he care?
+
+At breakfast, Miss Carmichael sat between Messrs. Bigglethorpe and Lamb,
+and the lawyer between Miss Halbert and the veteran. "Who are going
+fishing to the lakes," asked the Squire, to which question the doctor
+replied, regretting his inability; and the colonel declined the
+invitation on account of his dear boy. Mr. Lamb intimated that he had
+business with Miss Du Plessis on Crown Land matters, as the department
+wished to get back into its possession the land owned by her. This was a
+bombshell in the camp. Miss Du Plessis declined to have any conference
+on the subject, referring the civil servant to her uncle, to Squire
+Carruthers, and to her solicitor, Mr. Coristine. The lawyer was disposed
+to be liberal in politics, although his friend Wilkinson was a strong
+Conservative; but the contemptible meanness of a Government department
+attempting to retire property deeded and paid for in order to gain a few
+hundred dollars or a new constituent, aroused his vehement indignation,
+and his determination to fight Lamb and his masters to the bitter end of
+the Privy Council.
+
+"Mr. Lamb," said the colonel, "is yoar business with my niece
+complicated, or is it capable of being stated bhiefly?"
+
+"I can put it in a very few words, Colonel," replied the civil service
+official; "the deportment hos received on awffer for Miss Du Plessis'
+lond which it would be fawlly to refuse."
+
+"But," interposed the Squire, "the department has naething to dae wi'
+Miss Cecile's land: it's her ain, every fit o't."
+
+"You don't know the deportment, Squire. It con take bock lond of its
+own deed, especially wild lond, by the awffer of a reasonable equivolent
+or indemnity. It proposes to return the purchase money, with five per
+cent. interest to date, and the amount of municipal toxes attested by
+receipts. Thot is regorded os a fair odjustment, ond on Miss Du Plessis
+surrendering her deed to me, the deportment will settle the claim within
+twelve months, if press of business ollows."
+
+"Such abominable, thieving iniquity, on the pairt o' a Government
+ca'ain' itself leeberal, I never hard o' in aa my life," said the
+indignant Squire.
+
+"Do you mean to say, Arthur," asked Mrs. Carmichael, "that your
+department can take away Cecile's property in that cavalier fashion, and
+without any regard to the rise in values?"
+
+"I'm ofraid so, Mrs. Cormichael."
+
+"What have you to say to that, Mr. Coristine, from a legal standpoint?"
+enquired Mrs. Carruthers.
+
+"A deed of land made by the Government, or by a private individual,
+conveys, when, as in this case, all provisions have been complied with,
+an inalienable title."
+
+"There is such a thing as expropriation," suggested Mr. Lamb, rather
+annoyed to find a lawyer there.
+
+"Expropriation is a municipal affair in cities and towns, or it may be
+national and provincial in the case of chartered railways or national
+parks, in all which cases remuneration is by arbitration, not by the
+will of any expropriating body."
+
+"The deportment may regord this as a provincial offair. Ot any rate, it
+hos octed in this way before with success."
+
+"I know that the department has induced people to surrender their rights
+for the sake of its popularity, but by wheedling, not by law or justice,
+and, generally, there has been some condition of payment, or something
+else, not complied with."
+
+"Thot's simple enough. A few lines in the bookkeeping awffice con
+involidate the deed."
+
+"One or two words, Mr. Lamb, and I have done; the quicker you answer,
+the sooner Miss Du Plessis' decision is reached. Do you represent the
+commissioner, the minister?"
+
+"Well, not exoctly."
+
+"Were you sent by his deputy, the head of the department?"
+
+"Not the head exoctly."
+
+"Is the name of the man, for whom your friend wants to expropriate Miss
+Du Plessis' land, called Rawdon, Altamont Rawdon?"
+
+"How did you know thot? Ore you one of the deportment outriggers?"
+
+"No; I have nothing to do with any kind of dirty work. You go back, and
+tell your man, first, that Rawdon is dead, and that in life he was a
+notorious criminal; second, that Miss Du Plessis' land has been
+devastated by the fire in which he perished; and, third, that if he, or
+you, or any other contemptible swindler, moves a finger in this
+direction, either above board or below, I'll have you up for foul
+conspiracy, and make the department only too happy to send you about
+your business to save its reputation before the country."
+
+As Ben Toner and his friends in the kitchen would have said, Mr. Lamb
+was paralyzed. While the lawyer had spoken with animation, there was
+something quite judicial in his manner. Miss Carmichael looked up at him
+from under her long lashes with an admiration it would have done him
+good to see, and a hum of approving remarks went all round the table.
+Then, in an evil moment, the young lady felt it her duty to comfort the
+heart of poor Orther Lom, whom everybody else regarded with something
+akin to contempt. She talked to him of old times, until the man's
+inflated English was forgotten, as well as his by no means reputable
+errand. The young man was quite incapable of any deep-laid scheme of
+wrong-doing, as he was of any high or generous impulse. He was a mere
+machine, educated up to a certain point, able to write a good hand, and
+express himself grammatically, but thinking more of his dress and his
+spurious English than of any learning or accomplishment, and the
+unreasoning tool of his official superiors. He had been checkmated by
+Coristine, and felt terribly disappointed at the failure of his mission;
+but the thought that he had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did
+not trouble him in the least. Yet, had he been offered a large bribe to
+commit robbery in the usual ways, he would have rejected the
+proposition with scorn. Miss Carmichael, knowing his character, was
+sorry for him, little thinking that his returning vivacity under her
+genial influence smote Coristine's heart, as the evidence of double
+disloyalty on the lady's part, to her friend, Miss Du Plessis, and to
+him. Tiring of her single-handed work, she turned to Mr. Bigglethorpe,
+saying: "You know Mr. Lamb, do you not!" The fisherman answered: "You
+were kind enough to introduce us last night, Miss Carmichael, but you
+will, I hope, pardon me for saying that I do not approve of Mr. Lamb."
+Then he turned away, and conversed with the Captain. When the company
+rose, the only person who approached the civil servant was the colonel,
+who said: "I pehsume, suh, aftah what my kind friend, Mr. Cohistine, has
+spoken so well, you will not annoy my niece with any moah remahks about
+her propehty. It would please that lady and me, as her guahdian, if you
+will fohget Miss Du Plessis' existence, suh, so fah as you are
+concehned." This was chilling, but chill did not hurt Mr. Lamb. The
+little Carruthers, headed by Marjorie, were in front of the verandah
+when Miss Carmichael and he went out. Marjorie had evidently been
+schooling them, for, at her word of command, they began to sing, to the
+tune of "Little Bo Peep," the original words:--
+
+     Poor Orther Lom,
+     He looks so glom.
+
+Miss Carmichael seized her namesake and shook her. "You naughty, wicked
+little girl, how dare you? Who taught you these shameful words?" she
+asked, boiling with indignation. Marjorie cried a little for vexation,
+but would not reveal the name of the author. Some said it was the
+doctor, and others, that it was his daughter Fanny; but Miss Carmichael
+was sure that the lawyer, Marjorie's great friend, Eugene, was the
+guilty party, that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that the
+sooner he left Bridesdale the better. Coristine was completely innocent
+of the awful crime, which lay in the skirts of Marjorie's father, the
+Captain, as might have been suspected from the beauty of the couplet.
+The consequence of the poetic surprise was the exclusive attachment of
+Miss Carmichael to the Crown Lands man, in a long walk in the garden, a
+confidential talk, and the present of a perfectly beautiful button-hole
+pinned in by her own hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+     The Picnic--Treasure Trove--A Substantial Ghost
+     Captured--Coristine's Farewell--Ride to Collingwood--Bangs Secures
+     Rawdon--Off to Toronto--Coristine Meets the Captain--Grief at
+     Bridesdale--Marjorie and Mr. Biggles--Miss Du Plessis Frightens Mr.
+     Lamb--The Minister's Smoke--Fishing Picnic.
+
+
+After his Parthian shot, the Captain ordered Sylvanus to get out the
+gig, as he was going home. Leaving Marjorie in the hands of her aunt
+Carmichael, he saluted his daughter, his niece, and his two sisters in
+law, and took their messages for Susan. There was grief in the kitchen
+at the departure of Sylvanus, who expected to be on the rolling deep
+before the end of the week. Mr. Pawkins and Constable Rigby had already
+taken leave, travelling homeward in an amicable way. Then, Doctor
+Halbert insisted on his vehicle being brought round, as there must be
+work waiting for him at home; so a box with a cushion was placed for his
+sprained leg, and he and Miss Fanny were just on the eve of starting,
+when Mr. Perrowne came running up in great haste, and begged to be
+allowed to drive the doctor over. With a little squeezing he got in,
+and, amid much waving of handkerchiefs, the doctor's buggy drove away.
+Mr. Lamb exhibited no desire to leave, and Miss Carmichael was compelled
+to devote herself to him, a somewhat monotonous task, in spite of his
+garrulous egotism. Timotheus, by the Squire's orders, harnessed the
+horses to the waggonette, and deposited therein a pickaxe and a spade.
+Mr. Bigglethorpe brought out his fishing tackle, joyous over the
+prospect of a day's fishing, and Mr. Terry lugged along a huge basket,
+prepared by his daughter in the kitchen, with all manner of eatables and
+drinkables for the picnic. The lawyer made the fourth of the party,
+exclusive of Timotheus, who gave instructions to Maguffin how to behave
+in his absence. The colonel was with Wilkinson, but the ladies and Mr.
+Lamb came to see the expedition under way. It was arranged that
+Timotheus should drive the Squire and the lawyer to the masked road and
+leave them there, after which he was to take the others to Richards
+place, put up the horses, and help them to propel the scow through the
+lakes and channels. Accordingly, the treasure seekers got out the pick
+and shovel, and trudged along to the scene of the late fire. As they
+neared the Encampment, their road became a difficult and painful one,
+over fallen trees blackened with fire, and through beds of sodden ashes.
+At the Encampment, the ground, save where the buildings had stood, was
+comparatively bare. The lofty and enormously strong brick chimney was
+still standing in spite of the many explosions, and, here and there, a
+horse appeared, looking wistfully at the ruins of its former home.
+There, the intending diggers stood, gazing mutely for a while on the
+scene of desolation.
+
+"'Sandy soil, draining both ways, and undercover,' is what we want,
+Coristine," said the Squire. The two walked back and forward along the
+ridge, rejecting rock and depression and timbered land. They searched
+the foundations of houses and sheds, found the trap under Rawdon's own
+house that led to the now utterly caved-in tunnel, and tried likely
+spots where once the stables stood, only to find accumulations of
+rubbish. A steel square such as carpenters use, was found among the
+chips in the stone-yard, and of this Coristine made a primitive
+surveyor's implement by which he sought to take the level of the ground.
+"Bring your eye down here, Mr. Carruthers," he said. "I see," answered
+the Squire; "but, man, yon's just a conglomeration o' muckle stanes."
+The lawyer replied, "That's true, Squire, but it's the height of land,
+and that top stone lies almost too squarely to be natural. Let us try
+them at least. It will do no harm, and the day is young yet." They went
+forward to a spot beyond the stone yard, on the opposite side from the
+burnt stables, which they saw had once been railed off, for the
+blackened stumps of the posts were still in the ground. It was a
+picturesque mass of confusion, apparently an outcrop of the limestone,
+not uncommon in that region. But the lawyer probed the ground all about
+it. It was light dry soil, with no trace of a rocky bottom. Without a
+lever, their work was hard, but they succeeded in throwing off the
+large flat protecting slab, and in scattering its rocky supports. "Man,
+Coristine, I believe you're richt." ejaculated the perspiring
+Carruthers. Then he took the pick and loosened the ground, while the
+lawyer removed the earth with his spade. "There's no' a root nor a
+muckle stane in the haill o't, Coristine; this groond's been wrocht
+afore, my lad." So they kept on, till at last the pick rebounded with a
+metallic clang. "Let me clear it, Squire," asked the lawyer, and, at
+once, his spade sent the sand flying, and revealed a box of japanned
+tin, the counterpart of that discovered by Muggins, which had only
+contained samples of grindstones. A little more picking, and a little
+more spading, and the box came easily out. It was heavy, wonderfully
+heavy, and it was padlocked. The sharp edge of the spade loosened the
+lid sufficiently to admit the point of the pick, and, while Coristine
+hung on to the box, the Squire wrenched it open. The tin box was full of
+notes and gold.
+
+"There's thoosands an' thoosands here, Coristine, eneuch to keep yon
+puir body o' a Matilda in comfort aa' her days. Man, it's a graun'
+discovery, an' you're the chiel that's fund it," cried the Squire, with
+exultation. The lawyer peered in too, when, suddenly, he heard a shot, a
+bullet whizzed past his ear, and, the next moment, with a sickening
+thud, Carruthers fell to the ground. Coristine rose to his feet like
+lightning, and faced an apparition; the Grinstun man, with pistol in one
+hand and life preserver in the other, was before him. Without a moment's
+hesitation he regained his grasp of his spade, and stretched the ghost
+at his feet, mercifully with the flat of it, and then relieved his
+victim of pistol and loaded skull-cracker. He heard voices hailing, and
+recognized them as those of the veteran and the fisherman. He replied
+with a loud cry of "Hurry, hurry, help!" which roused the prostrate
+spectre. It arose and made a dash for the tin box, but Coristine threw
+himself upon the substantial ghost, and a struggle for life began. They
+clasped, they wrestled, they fell over the poor unconscious Squire, and
+upset the tin box. They clasped each other by the throat, the hair; they
+kicked with their feet, and pounded with their knees. It was Grinstun's
+last ditch, and he was game to hold it; but the lawyer was game too.
+Sometimes he was up and had his hand on his opponent's throat, and
+again, he could not tell how, he was turned over, and the heavy squat
+form of Rawdon fell like an awful nightmare on his chest. But he would
+not give in. He saw his antagonist reach for a weapon, pistol,
+skull-cracker, he knew not what it was, but that reach released one hand
+from his throat. With a tremendous effort, he turned, and lay side to
+side with his enemy, when Timotheus dashed in, and, bodily picking up
+the Grinstun man in his arms, hammered his head on the big flat stone,
+till the breathless lawyer begged him to stop. Up came Mr. Bigglethorpe
+and Mr. Terry in great consternation, and gazed with wonder upon the
+lately active ghost. "Make him fast," cried Coristine with difficulty,
+"while I look after the poor Squire." So, Timotheus and the fisher took
+off Rawdon's coat and braces, and bound him hand and foot with his own
+belongings. But the veteran had already looked to his son-in-law, and,
+from the picnic stores, had poured some spirits into his lips. "Rouse
+up, John, avic," he cried piteously, "rouse up, my darlint, or Honoria
+'ull be breakin' her poor heart. It's good min is scarce thim toimes,
+an' the good God'll niver be takin' away the bist son iver an ould man
+had." The Squire came to, although the dark blood oozed out of an ugly
+wound in the back of his head, and the amount of liquor his affectionate
+father-in law had poured into him made him light-headed. "Glory be to
+God!" said the old man, and all the others gratefully answered "Amen."
+
+The lawyer explained the circumstances, the excavation, the money, the
+assault, to his deliverers; but the resurrection of the Grinstun man was
+a mystery which he could not explain. Without being told, Timotheus,
+whose arrival had been so opportune, ran all the way to Richards, and
+brought from thence the waggon, along with Harry Richards, who
+volunteered to accompany him, and Mr. Errol, who was visiting in the
+neighbourhood. Young Richards brought an axe with him, and cleared some
+of the obstructions of the once masked road, so that the vehicle was
+able to get up within reasonable distance of the encampment. It was
+desirable to get the Squire home, lest his injuries should be greater
+than they supposed, and the prisoner ought to be in Mr. Bangs' hands at
+once. Accordingly, Mr. Errol and Harry Richards offered to stay with Mr.
+Bigglethorpe and carry out the original picnic, it being understood that
+Timotheus would either call or send for them about four o'clock.
+
+"Gin I'm gaun to be oot on the splore, I maun hae a bit smokie. Wha's
+gotten a bit pipe he's no usin'?" asked the usually sedate minister.
+Coristine handed over to him his smoking materials, penknife included;
+and Mr. Errol, taking off his coat, sat down on a stone to fill the
+pipe, saying, "Nae mair pastoral veesitation for me the day. Gin any
+body spiers whaur I am, just tell them I'm renewin' my youth." Timotheus
+and Harry carried the prisoner to the waggon, while the veteran and the
+lawyer followed, leading the Squire, and carrying the box of treasure.
+The fishermen came to see them off, and, then, they descended to the
+lake shore and began the sport of the day. Timotheus drove, and the
+Squire sat up between him and his affectionate father-in-law. The lawyer
+was in the rear seat with the prisoner, who, for greater security, was
+lashed to the back of it. Rawdon's revolver was in his captor's hand,
+and his skull-cracker in a handy place. Several times, shamming
+insensibility, the prince of tricksters endeavoured to throw his
+solitary warder off his guard, but the party reached Bridesdale without
+his succeeding in loosening a single thong. There was great
+consternation when Timotheus drove up to the gate. The children had been
+at their old game of the handkerchief, and Miss Carmichael was actually
+chasing Orther Lom, to their great glee, and to Coristine's intense
+disgust. Of course, they stopped when they saw the waggon and the
+Squire's pale face. The colonel, who had been smoking his morning cigar
+on the verandah, came forward rapidly, and, with Mr. Terry, helped the
+master of Bridesdale to alight. Then, his wife and sister took the
+wounded man in charge, and led him into the house, for he was thoroughly
+dazed and incapable of attending to any business. "If you will allow me,
+colonel," said the lawyer, "I will take charge of legal matters in this
+case," to which Colonel Morton answered, "Most cehtainly, my deah suh,
+no one moah competent."
+
+Maguffin had come round to see if his services would be required, and
+was appointed to mount guard over the prisoner in company with
+Timotheus. To Mr. Terry the lawyer gave the heavy cash box, with orders
+to put it in a safe place in the Squire's office. Then, Coristine went
+up-stairs, washed and brushed away the traces of conflict, and knocked
+at Wilkinson's door. A lady's voice told him to enter, and, on his
+complying with the invitation, he beheld Miss Du Plessis sitting by the
+bedside of his friend, with a book, which was not Wordsworth, in her
+hand. "Please to pardon my intrusion, Miss Du Plessis; the Squire is
+hurt, and we have captured Grinstuns, who was not burnt up after all. I
+must see the prisoner safely caged, and have other business to attend
+to, so that I have come to say good-bye. I am sure that you will take
+every care of my dear friend here." After this little speech, hard to
+utter, the lawyer shook his friend by the well hand, saying: "Good-bye,
+Wilks, old boy, and keep up your heart; any messages for town?" Before
+he had time to receive any such commissions, he shook hands warmly with
+the lady, and vanished. Replacing Maguffin over Rawdon, he told him to
+saddle a horse, and bring it round. His orders to Mr. Terry and
+Timotheus were to secure their prisoner between them in some lighter
+vehicle, and bring him with all speed to Collingwood, whither he would
+precede them on horseback. He found the Squire in an easy chair in the
+sitting room with three lady attendants. Shaking hands with the
+half-unconscious man, he assured him that he would attend to the
+business of the day, and then, with a few words of grateful recognition
+to Mrs. Carruthers, bade all the ladies good-bye. "Hasten back," they
+all said, and the kind hostess added: "We will think long till we see
+you again." Walking back into the kitchen, he bestowed a trifle in his
+most gracious manner, on Tryphena and Tryphosa, and then went forth to
+look for Marjorie. As he kissed her an affectionate farewell in the
+garden, the little girl intuitively guessed his absence to be no common
+one, and begged her Eugene to stay, with tears in her eyes. But he was
+obdurate with her and all the little Carruthers, on whom he showered
+quarters to buy candy at the post office. Maguffin was there with the
+horse, and, near the gate, was Miss Carmichael with that ineffable ass
+Lamb. Looking at the latter as if he would dearly love to kick him, he
+raised his hat to his companion, and extended his hand with the simple
+words "Good-bye." Miss Carmichael did not offer hers in return; she
+said: "It is hardly worth while being so formal over an absence of a few
+hours." Coristine turned as if a serpent had bitten him, slipped some
+money into Maguffin's hand, as that worthy held open the gate for him,
+and vaulted on his horse, nor did he turn to look round so long as the
+eyes of Bridesdale were on his retreating figure.
+
+The lawyer rode hard, for he was excited. He went by Talfourd's house
+like a flash, and away through the woods he had traversed on Nash's
+beast that last pleasant Sunday morning. At the Beaver River he watered
+his horse, and exchanged a word with Pierre and Batiste bidding the
+former look out that no attempt at rescuing the prisoner should be made
+in that quarter. Away he went, with madame's eyes watching him from
+afar, up the ascent, and along the road to where the Hills dwelt at the
+foot of the Blue Mountains. He doffed his hat to the old lady as he
+passed, then breasted the mountain side. For a moment, he stood on the
+summit to take in the view once more, then clattered down the other
+side, and away full pelt for the town. Soon he entered Collingwood, and
+sought the police headquarters without delay. Where was Mr. Bangs? He
+was told, to his great delight, that the detective was in town, and
+would report at four o'clock. It was now half-past three. Putting up his
+horse at the hotel, the lawyer partook of a hasty meal at a restaurant,
+and returned in time to meet Bangs on the very threshold. "Whet ere you
+doing here, Lawyer Coristine?" he asked.
+
+"You will never guess, Mr. Bangs."
+
+"Any more trebble et Bridesdele?"
+
+"No, but I'll tell you; we've caught Rawdon."
+
+"Why, the men's dead, berned to a cinder, you know."
+
+"No, he is not; that was some other man."
+
+"Ere you shore, Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"Perfectly. Mr. Terry and Timotheus are bringing him here now."
+
+"Whet, only the two of them, and kemming pest the Beaver too?"
+
+"Yes; there were no more to send. I warned Pierre Lajeunesse to be on
+the lookout."
+
+"Is your beast fit to trevel eny more?"
+
+"I think so; it seems a strong animal."
+
+"Then get on hersebeck quick! Here, kensteble, hend me two betons, and a
+kerbine!"
+
+When the lawyer returned with his hard-ridden steed, he found Mr. Bangs
+mounted, with a baton by his side and a carbine slung behind him. Off
+they went along the shore and up the hill. Descending, they saw the
+buggy approaching slowly in the neighbourhood of the Hills' log shanty,
+attended by four persons who seemed to be armed. Hastening down the
+slope, they came up to it, and found the prisoner safe but awfully
+profane. The foot guards were Ben Toner, Barney Sullivan, and Rufus
+Hill, under the command of Monsieur Lajeunesse. They were relieved of
+their self-imposed duty with many thanks, and Coristine shook hands with
+the honest fellows, as he and the detective replaced them in escort
+duty. Then Timotheus whipped up his horse, and they drove and rode into
+town, an imposing spectacle for the eyes of the youth of Collingwood.
+
+Bangs could hardly believe his eyes, and could not conceal his delight,
+on beholding the murderer of his now buried friend. No pains were spared
+for the safe-keeping of the notorious criminal. In the presence of a
+magistrate, Coristine and Mr. Terry made affidavit as to his crimes and
+capture. The latter and Timotheus also related his attempts to bribe
+them into giving him his liberty, offering large sums and promising to
+leave the country. "Now, Mishter Corstine," says the veteran, "it's
+hoigh toime we was gettin' home. The good payple 'ull be gettin' onaisy
+about yeez, 'an spashly Miss Carrmoichael that was gravin' sore to think
+she niver said good-boye to yeez. Come, now, come away, an' lave the
+baste in the shtable, for it's toired roidin' ye must be."
+
+"I am not going back, Mr. Terry. I said good-bye to them all at
+Bridesdale, and must hurry away to business. Perhaps Timotheus will ride
+the horse, while you drive."
+
+"Thet pore enimel isn't fit fer eny more werk to-night, Mr. Coristine.
+I'll tell you, Mr. Terry, whet I'll do. I shell be beck here to-morrow
+evening, end will ride the horse to Bridesdele. I've got a weggon and
+team of the Squire's here, which yeng Hill will drive beck for me. Then
+he ken ride pore Nesh's horse, and I ken get my own. Strenge they didn't
+give you one of thowse beasts instead of the colonel's, Mr. Coristine."
+
+"Is this the colonel's horse?"
+
+"I should sey it is. You down't think eny ether enimel could hev brought
+you elong so fest, do you?"
+
+"God bless the kind old man!" ejaculated the lawyer.
+
+"Mishter Corstine, dear, it'll be breakin' aall the poor childer's
+hearts an' some that's growed up too if you 'll be afther lavin' us this
+way," continued Mr. Terry; and Timotheus, whom his Peskiwanchow friend
+rewarded, added his appeal: "I wisht you wouldn't go fer to go home
+jess' yet. Mister." But all entreaties were unavailing. He and Mr. Bangs
+saw the buggy off, and then retired to the hotel to get some supper. On
+the way thither, he invested in a briar root pipe and some tobacco to
+replace those he had given to Mr. Errol. They would be home from fishing
+long ago, and perhaps good Bigglethorpe would take Miss Carmichael away
+from that miserable Orther Lom. After supper, the two sat over their
+pipes and a decoction of some kind in the reading-room, talking over the
+sad and wonderful events of the past few days. Mr. Bangs took very
+kindly to the lawyer, and promised to look him up whenever he came to
+town. He advised him to keep silent about the discovery of Rawdon's
+money, as the crown might claim it, and thus deprive poor Matilda Nagle
+of her only chance of independence. He said also that he would instruct
+the Squire in the same direction on the morrow.
+
+That night, two gaol guards armed to the teeth arrived in police
+quarters to take charge of Davis, but the bigger criminal was placed in
+their care. Early in the morning there was a stir in the railway
+station, when the handcuffed prisoners were marched down under strong
+escort, and securely boxed up with their guards and Mr. Bangs. Many
+rough characters were there, among whom the lawyer recognized Matt of
+the tavern, and Bangs and he could have sworn to the identity of others,
+whom the former had met in the cavalry charge on the masked road and
+whom Coristine had seen and heard in the Richards' scow the night of the
+catastrophe. They scowled, but attempted no rescue. Thanks to the
+lawyer's generalship, things had been pushed through too quickly for
+them to combine. For some time, Coristine travelled alone. There were
+other people in the car, but he did not know them, nor did he care to
+make any new acquaintances. All his friends were at Bridesdale, and he
+was a homeless exile going back to Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house. At
+Dromore, however, he caught sight of the wide-mouthed barrel of a
+blunderbuss, and knew the Captain could not be far off. Soon that naval
+gentleman got on board, helping Mrs. Thomas up to the platform, followed
+by Sylvanus with the saluting weapon. They were to be his companions as
+far as Barrie, and much the lawyer enjoyed their society. Marjorie was
+the great subject of conversation, although, of course, the Captain had
+to be enlightened in many points of recent history. He still thought
+Wilkinson a sly dog, but wondered greatly at Coristine's going away.
+Mrs. Thomas explained the relationship of Orther Lom. He had been a poor
+neglected boy, when Marjorie Carmichael was a little girl, whom her
+father, the member, had interested himself in, giving him an education,
+and supporting him in part while at the Normal School in Toronto. Just
+before he died, he exerted his influence to obtain a Government berth
+for him, and that was the whole story. The lawyer saw it all now, and
+learned too late what a foolish fellow he had been. Of course, there
+were old times, and they had much to talk of, and she could not help
+being civil to him, and being angry when he had reminded her father's
+protege of his early poverty. Coristine sighed, and felt that, if Lamb
+had been present, he would have apologized to him. To cheer him up, the
+Captain invited him to join Mrs. Thomas and himself on a cruise in the
+_Susan_. He would have enjoyed it immensely he said, but, having made so
+many assertions of pressing business in the city, he had to be
+consistent and miserable. At Barrie, he bade his last friends adieu,
+parted affectionately with The Crew, and then gazed longingly at the
+spars of the _Susan Thomas_ in Kempenfeldt Bay. If only the Captain had
+brought the two Marjories for a cruise, he would have shipped with him
+for a month, and have let business go to the dogs. There were no more
+objects of interest till he arrived in Toronto, took a streetcar, and
+deposited himself, much to that lady's astonishment, in his bachelor's
+quarters at Mrs. Marsh's boarding-house. After a special lunch, he sat
+down to smoke and read a little Browning.
+
+It was very late when Mr. Terry and Timotheus arrived at Bridesdale. All
+the ladies had retired, with the exception of Mrs. Carruthers, who had
+staid up to await her father's arrival. The gentlemen of the party were
+the Squire, quite clear in head and not much the worse of his crack on
+the skull, Mr. Bigglethorpe, and Mr. Errol, who had been induced to
+continue his splore in the office. He was still renewing his youth, when
+the veteran entered all alone, and said he didn't mind if he did help
+Mr. Bigglethorpe with that decanter, for it was tiresome work driving.
+
+"Where is Mr. Coristine, grandfather?" asked the Squire.
+
+"It's in Collinwud he is an his way to Teranty."
+
+"What! do you mean to say he has left us, gone for good?"
+
+"That's fwhat it is. Oi prished 'em, an' porshwaded 'em, an' towld 'em
+it was desprut anggery an' graved yeez wud aall be. Says he Oi've bud
+'em aall good-boye an' Oi'm goin' home to bishness. It was lucky for
+you, Squoire, that it wasn't lasht noight he wint."
+
+"It is that, grandfather. I'd have been a dead man. He maun hae focht
+yon deevil like a wild cat tae get oot o' the way o's pistols and
+things."
+
+"'Twas Timawtheus as kim up furrust an' tuk the thafe av a Rawdon out av
+his arrums, for he grupped 'em good an' toight."
+
+"Well done, Timotheus!" said Mr. Errol. "He's a fine lad, Mr.
+Bigglethorpe, though a bit clumsy in his ways."
+
+"We can't all be handsome, sir," answered that gentleman. "If he's got
+the good principle in him, that's the mine thing, so I always say."
+
+Mrs. Carruthers put her head into the smoke, coughed a little, and said:
+"Come, father, supper is waiting for you in the breakfast room." The
+veteran followed his daughter, and, over his evening meal, gave her a
+detailed account of the proceedings of the afternoon. "And to go away
+without a bite to eat, and ride all that distance, and leave his
+knapsack and his flowers and I don't know what else behind him, what is
+the meaning of it, father?"
+
+"Honoria, my dear, I aalways thought women's eyes was cliverer nor
+min's. There's a little gyurl they call Marjorie, an' she's not so
+little as aall that, if she isn't quoite the hoighth av Miss Ceshile.
+That bhoy was jist dishtracted wid the crool paice, that goes aff
+philanderin wid the Shivel Sharvice shape av a Lamb. He didn't say it
+moind in wurruds, but I see it was the killin' av 'em, an' he jist
+coulden' shtand it no langer. Smaal blame to him say Oi!"
+
+So grandfather got his supper, and went back to the office to finish his
+pipe and his tumbler, while Timotheus was entertaining Tryphosa in the
+kitchen. Mrs. Carruthers retired, but, first, she visited the young
+ladies' apartment, and said, in a tone which she meant to be reproachful
+as well as regretful: "Mr. Coristine has left us never to return." The
+kindest-hearted woman in the world, having thrown this drop of
+bitterness into her niece's cup, left her to drink it to the dregs.
+Meanwhile Orther Lom was dreaming that he could not do better than marry
+the Marjorie of his youth and begin housekeeping, in spite of tailors'
+bills.
+
+The sun rose bright on Friday morning, and, peeping in upon Mr.
+Bigglethorpe in his room and upon Marjorie in the nursery bedroom, awoke
+these two early birds. They met on the stairs and came down together.
+The fisherman said he thought he would get his things bundled up,
+meaning his gun and rods, and walk home to breakfast, but Marjorie said
+he just wouldn't, for Eugene was gone, and, if he were to go, she would
+have nobody. Well broken in to respect for feminine authority, save when
+the fishing fit was on, Mr. Bigglethorpe had to succumb, and travel down
+to the creek after crawfish, chub and dace. He told his youthful
+companion fishing stories which amused her; and confided to her that he
+was going to train up his little boy to be a great fisherman. "Have you
+got a little boy, Mr. Biggles?" she asked, and then added: "How funny!"
+as if her friend ought to have been content with other people's
+children, and fish.
+
+"What is his name, Mr. Biggles?" she enquired.
+
+"He hasn't been christened yet, but I think I'll call him Isaac Walton,
+or Charles Cotton, or Piscator. Don't you think these are nice nimes?"
+
+"No, I don't. Woollen and Cotton and what Mr. Perrowne belongs to are
+not pretty. Eugene is pretty."
+
+Mr. Bigglethorpe laughed, and said: "I didn't say Woollen but Walton,
+and I said Piscator, which is the Latin for fisher, not Episcopalian,
+which Mr. Perrowne is."
+
+"Why do you want to call him a fisher? It is like a Sunday School story
+Marjorie read me, a Yankee book, about a little baby boy that was left
+on a doorstep, and the doorstep man's name was Fish, and he had him
+baptized Preserved because he was preserved, and he grew up to be a good
+man and was called Preserved Fish. Wasn't that awful?"
+
+"Oh very streinge! If my boy had been a little girl, I would have nimed
+her Marjorie."
+
+"See, Mr. Biggles, here she comes again, and Cecile, and, O horrors!
+Orther Lom."
+
+It was too true. The young ladies had come out to enjoy the morning air,
+and, after a turn in the garden, had rushed to the hill meadow to escape
+the Departmental gentleman, whose elegant morocco slippers they had
+heard on the stairs. Spite of the morning dew he had pursued them, well
+pleased with himself, and doubtful whom to conquer with his charms.
+
+"O Mr. Biggles," continued Marjorie, "that horrid man got me a naughty,
+cruel shaking, and he's sent my dear Eugene away never to come back any
+more. I know, because I went into aunty's room when I got up; and she
+told me."
+
+"It's too bad, Marjorie. Who mide that little song on Mr. Lamb?"
+
+"You'll never tell?"
+
+"No."
+
+"'Pon your honour?"
+
+"'Pon my honour."
+
+"It was papa, you old goosey."
+
+"Not Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"No, of course not."
+
+"My I sy that it wasn't Mr. Coristine?"
+
+"O yes, don't let them think any bad things about Eugene, poor boy."
+
+"Good morning, Miss Carmichael," said Mr. Bigglethorpe, or rather he
+bawled it; "will you come here a minute, please?"
+
+Miss Carmichael gladly skipped down, leaving her companion a prey to the
+gentleman of the morocco slippers.
+
+"I want to clear our friend, Mr. Coristine, of a suspicion which you may
+not have shired," said the fisherman. "He didn't mike that little piece
+of poetry on Mr. Lamb that Marjorie and the other children sang
+yesterday morning."
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Bigglethorpe; I am very glad to hear it."
+
+"Nasty pig!" said Marjorie to herself; "she drove Eugene away all the
+same."
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Lamb was conversing with Miss Du Plessis.
+
+"You don't seem to mind the doo, Miss Cecile."
+
+"Oh, but I do," she answered.
+
+"Your shoes are parfectly wat, sowking I should think."
+
+"No, they are not wet through; they are thicker than you imagine."
+
+"By the bye, where is his high mightiness, the lawyer, this mawrning?"
+
+"Mr. Coristine has returned to the city."
+
+"Haw, cawlled oway to some pettifogging jawb I suppowse?"
+
+"Such as your Crown Lands case."
+
+"Naw, you down't say, Miss Cecile, thot he's awff ofter thot jawb?"
+
+"I cannot tell what Mr. Coristine may have to do in addition to that. He
+did not confide his business to me."
+
+"I wonder whot time the stage goes awff at!"
+
+"It will pass the gate," said Miss Du Plessis, consulting her watch, "in
+ten minutes."
+
+"Haw, ofally onnoying you know, but I'll hov to pock up and leave before
+breakfost. Please remember me to Morjorie, will you Cecile, if I shont
+hov time to see her before I gow."
+
+Mr. Lamb took his morocco slippers back to the house, and soon
+reappeared at the gate, Gladstone bag and cane in hand, looking at the
+approaching stage. It was filled up with a roughish crowd, all except
+one seat in the back, into which he jumped. The driver flicked his
+horses, and Bridesdale was relieved of the presence of Orther Lom.
+
+"Marjorie," said Miss Du Plessis, "I have bad news for you."
+
+"What is it, Cecile?"
+
+"Your young man has called me by my Christian name, without even putting
+Miss before it."
+
+"Have you killed him and dug his grave with those eyes of yours?"
+
+"No, I simply told him that Mr. Coristine had returned to Toronto,
+perhaps on Crown Land business."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It terrified him so, that he packed his valise forthwith and is gone."
+
+"But how?"
+
+"By the stage. Did you not hear the horn just now?
+
+"No, I was too busy with that delightful Mr. Bigglethorpe. But do you
+mean to tell me that Arthur has left without a farewell word to
+anybody?"
+
+"He said, 'Please remember me to Marjorie, will you, Cecile?' What do
+you think of that?"
+
+"What odious impertinence! I am glad the silly creature has gone, and,
+were it not for the safety of your land, I wish he had never come."
+
+"It was not he who saved my land, Marjorie."
+
+"Oh, don't I know? Don't talk to me any more! You are hateful, Cecile!"
+
+"If you can forget fifty acts of disinterested kindness, Marjorie, it
+does not follow that I am to do the same." By which it will appear that
+Miss Du Plessis had her orders to rub it in pretty hot to her friend,
+and was rubbing it in accordingly, even though it did smart. Miss
+Carmichael broke away from her, and ran to the house, leaving her once
+dear Cecile to follow with Marjorie and Mr. Bigglethorpe.
+
+At breakfast the Squire appeared quite picturesque, with a silk
+handkerchief tied over his head to conceal and hold on what Marjorie
+called a plaster of vinegar and brown paper, having reference to the
+mishaps of Jack and Jill.
+
+"Marjorie," said Mr. Carruthers, "ye ken what Jill got for lauchin' at
+Jock's heed and the plaister."
+
+"Yes, Uncle John, but mother isn't here to do it."
+
+"Papa said I was to be your mother now, Marjorie," said Mrs. Carmichael.
+
+"You've got a Marjorie of your own, Auntie, that needs to be punished
+worse than me."
+
+The colonel looked round the table anxiously, and then addressed the
+hostess: "I fail to pehceive my deah friend, Mr. Cohistine, Mrs.
+Cahhuthehs; I sincehely trust he is not unwell afteh his gallant fight?"
+
+"I am sorry to say, Colonel, that Mr. Coristine has left us, and has
+gone back to Toronto."
+
+"O deah, that is a great loss; he was the life of our happy pahty,
+always so cheehful, so considehate, ready to sacrifice himself and lend
+a hand to anything. I expected him back on my hohse."
+
+"Timotheus tells me that Mr. Bangs is going to bring your horse over
+this evening."
+
+"I'm gey and gled to hear 't, gudewife. I'd like weel tae hae anither
+crack wi' Bangs. But it's an awfu' shame aboot Coristine; had it no'
+been for his magneeficent pluck, fleein' on yon scoundrel like a lion,
+I'd hae been brocht hame as deed as a red herrin'. Isna that true,
+granther?"
+
+"It's thrue, ivery worrud av it. Savin' the company, there's not a
+jantleman I iver tuk to the way I tuk to that foine man, and as
+simple-harrted and condiscindin' as iv he wor a choild."
+
+"Where is that lazy boy Arthur, I wonder?" asked Mrs. Carmichael;
+whereupon Miss Du Plessis told her story, and all joined in a hearty
+laugh at Mr. Lamb's fright and sudden retreat.
+
+Mr. Errol, feeling none the worse of the previous day's splore, and
+still renewing his youth over the fish he and Mr. Bigglethorpe had
+caught, suddenly remembered and confessed: "Dear me, Mrs. Carmichael, I
+forgot that I had Mr. Coristine's merschaum, and his tobacco and
+penknife. Puir lad, what'll he dae withoot his pipe?"
+
+"You naughty man, Mr. Errol, is it possible that you smoke?"
+
+"Whiles, mem, whiles."
+
+"How many pipes a day, now, Mr. Errol?"
+
+"Oh, it depends. When I'm in smoking company, I can take a good many, eh
+Mr. Bigglethorpe?"
+
+"Yesterday was a very special occaision, Mr. Errol. You called it
+renewing your youth, you know, and nimed the picnic a splore."
+
+"I felt like a laddie again at the fishing, Mrs. Carmichael, just as
+light-hearted and happy as if I were a callant on the hills."
+
+"And what do you generally feel like? Not an old man, I hope?"
+
+"I'll never be a young one again, Mrs. Carmichael."
+
+"Perfect nonsense, Mr. Errol! Don't let me hear you talk like that
+again."
+
+"Hearin's obeyin'," meekly replied the minister, showing that he was
+making some progress in his mature wooing.
+
+After breakfast, the company sat out on the verandah. The colonel had to
+smoke his morning cigar, and courteously offered his cigar case to all
+the gentlemen, who declined with thanks. "If it were not that I might
+trouble the ladies," said the minister, "I might take a draw out of poor
+Coristine's meerschaum." Mrs. Carmichael at once said: "Please do so,
+Mr. Errol; the doctor smoked, so that I am quite used to it. I like to
+see a good man enjoying his pipe."
+
+"You are quite sure, Mrs. Carmichael, that it will not be offensive? I
+would cut off my right hand rather than be a smoking nuisance to any
+lady."
+
+"Quite sure, Mr. Errol; go on and fill your pipe, unless you want me to
+fill it for you. I know how to do it."
+
+So, Mr. Errol continued the splore, and smoked the Turk's head. Mr.
+Terry lit his dudheen, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, his briar. The Squire's
+head was too sore for smoking, but he said he liked the smell o' the
+reek. While thus engaged, a buggy drove up, and Miss Halbert and Mr.
+Perrowne alighted from it, while Maguffin, always watchful, took the
+horse round to the stable yard. The doctor had heard of Rawdon's
+capture, and had sent these two innocents to see that all was right at
+Bridesdale. Miss Halbert sat down by Miss Du Plessis, and the parson
+accepting one of the colonel's cigars, joined the smokers. He also
+regretted the absence of Coristine, a splendid fellow, he said, a
+perfect trump, the girl will be lucky who gets a man like that,
+expressions that were not calculated to make Miss Carmichael happy. Mr.
+Perrowne had proposed and had been accepted. He was in wild spirits,
+when Mr. Bigglethorpe startled the company by saying, "I've got an
+idear!"
+
+"Howld on to it, Bigglethorpe, howld on; you may never get another,"
+cried the parson.
+
+"What is it?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, who was shooing the children away
+to Tryphosa.
+
+"It's a united picnic to the likes. Who's got to sty at home?"
+
+"I have for one," answered the Squire; "yon deevil o' a Rawdon has gien
+me a scunner at picnics."
+
+"I cannot go," said his wife, "for I have him and the children to keep
+me."
+
+"Paul, you must go, and Cecile also," interposed Mrs. Du Plessis; "I
+will attend to the wants of our patient."
+
+"Then," spoke up the fisherman, "we shall have Mrs. Carmichael and Mr.
+Errol, Miss Halbert and Mr. Perrowne, the colonel and Miss Carruthers,
+Mr. Terry and Miss Du Plessis, and, please Mrs. Carmichael, Marjorie and
+me. Can ten get into one waggon?"
+
+"O aye," replied the Squire, "the waggon'll haud nine, and Marjorie can
+sit on Mr. Bigglethorpe's knees. Hi, Timotheus, get oot the biggest
+waggon wi' three seats, quick, man!"
+
+Once more, the mighty ham was carved into sandwiches, and others were
+made of sardines and marmalade. Chickens were hastily roasted, and pies
+and cakes, meant for dinner and tea, stowed away in baskets, with
+bottles of ale and cider and milk, and materials for tea-making, and a
+huge chunk of ice out of the ice-house, and a black bottle that Mr.
+Terry eyed affectionately. "This is for you old men, grandpapa," said
+Mrs. Carmichael to the veteran; "now, remember, none for these boys,
+Errol and Perrowne." Mr. Terry replied: "To be sure, ma'am," but thought
+in his heart, would it be him that would deprive the boys of a bit of
+innocent recreation at such a time. Such a looking out there was of hats
+and wraps, of guns and fishing tackle. The colonel was to drive in
+person. Mr. Terry was to be chief of the commissariat under Mrs.
+Carmichael. Mr. Bigglethorpe was to direct fishing operations, and
+bring, with the assistance of Mr. Terry, the scow and Rawdon's boat to
+the Encampment lake. Marjorie was wild with delight, and insisted on
+going with the grandfather and dear Mr Biggles. It was ten o'clock when
+all the preparations were concluded, and Timotheus brought round the
+capacious waggon. All the household assembled to see the picnic party
+off, and the young Carruthers lifted up their voices and wept. The whole
+ten got in, but there was no free rollicking Irish voice to sing:--
+
+     Wait for the waggon.
+     And we'll all take a ride.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+     At the Encampment--Botany--Fishing--Matilda--The New
+     Lake--Tillycot--Luncheon--After Recreation--New Visitors to
+     Tillycot--Edifying Talk--Songs on the Way Home--Mr. Bigglethorpe's
+     Departure--Uncle and Niece--Mr. Bangs and Rufus--Ladies Catch a
+     Burglar--The Constable Secures Him--Muggins' Death--Burglars
+     Repulsed--Rebecca Toner--The Clergy Hilarious--A Young Lady Finds a
+     Poem.
+
+
+Mr. Bigglethorpe, Mr. Terry and Marjorie, with part of the picnic
+material, got off the waggon at the Richards' place, and proceeded to
+the lake. They found the punt there, but saw no sign of the skiff.
+Marjorie inherited her father's love of the water, and greatly enjoyed
+even the slow progress made by the paddles of her boatmen in the
+unwieldy craft. Meanwhile, the waggon arrived as near the encampment as
+it was possible to get; the company descended to the blackened ground;
+and Mr. Perrowne found a path for the ladies up to the ruins. The
+horses, sedate, well-behaved animals, were unhitched, and allowed to
+pick about where they pleased, after which the three gentlemen carried
+the wraps and picnic baskets and pails to where the ladies stood,
+inspecting the ravages of the fire. Muggins had come with Mr. Perrowne,
+and sniffed about, rediscovering the treasure hole which had so nearly
+proved fatal to the Squire. It was agreed to go down to the water's
+edge, and encamp upon some green spot, near good fishing, over which the
+bush fire had not run. Such a place was found to the right of the
+caved-in tunnel, a broad patch of fine-leaved native grass, shaded by
+oaks and maples of second growth. There the provisions were deposited,
+and, the rugs being spread over the grass, the ladies sat down to await
+the arrival of the boat party. A good three-quarters of an hour passed
+before they heard the splash of the paddles, and Muggins ran barking to
+meet the intruders upon the sabbath stillness of the scene. While
+waiting, Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Errol took a stroll in the dark woods
+adjoining, and brought back some floral specimens in the shape of
+Prince's Pines, Pyrolas, and Indian Pipes, which were deposited in the
+lap of the finder's daughter, with a suggestiveness that young lady felt
+disposed to resent. However, Marjorie's voice was heard just then, and
+thoughts and conversation were turned into other channels. "Where is the
+skiff?" asked the fisherman, but nobody could enlighten him; they simply
+answered that it was not there. The colonel remarked that its absence
+looked suspicious, and bade them be on their guard. He, accordingly,
+inspected the arms of the expedition, and finding them to consist of two
+fowling pieces, those of Messrs. Perrowne and Bigglethorpe, and two
+pistols borne by Mr. Terry and himself, was comforted. As the fisherman
+had inaugurated the picnic, it was obviously his duty to act as master
+of ceremonies. He proposed making two fishing parties, one off the scow,
+and another off a pier, which he and the gentlemen were about to build
+out from the shore below the picnic ground.
+
+A large pine had been felled many years before, probably by lumbermen,
+and two lengths of it, each about eight feet, had been rejected as
+unsound. These the gentlemen, colonel included, got behind, and rolled
+down into the water. Mr. Perrowne and the fisherman doffed their shoes
+and socks, rolled up their trouser legs, and waded in to get the logs in
+position as sleepers. Three spars of driftwood, bleached white, were
+found along the bank, and were laid over the logs at right angles, and
+kept in their places, as were the logs, by stakes hammered into the lake
+bottom. Mr. Errol and Mr. Terry produced some planks, saved from the
+fire that devoured the stables, and laid them over the erection, making
+a substantial pier, that would have been the better of a few spikes to
+steady the boards. Mr. Bigglethorpe provided rods and lines, and baited
+the hooks for the ladies, with grasshoppers, frogs, crawfish and
+minnows. The last were provided by Marjorie. At the fisherman's
+suggestion, she had got from Tryphena a useless wire dish-cover that had
+lost its handle, a parcel of oatmeal, and a two-quart tin pail. Mr.
+Bigglethorpe had fastened a handle cut out of the bush to the dish
+cover, thus converting it into a scoop-net. Barefooted, Marjorie stood
+in the shallow water, scattering a little oatmeal, when up came a shoal
+of minnows eager for the food thus provided. At one fell swoop, the
+young fisherwoman netted a dozen of the shiny little creatures, and
+transferred them all alive to the tin pail. Mr. Errol had a great mind
+to join her in this exciting sport, but was not sure what Mrs.
+Carmichael would think of it. The possibility that he might have become
+Mr. Coristine's father-in-law also tended to sober the renewer of his
+youth. As Marjorie had practically deserted her friend for the minnows,
+Mr. Bigglethorpe invited her cousin to accompany him, with Miss Halbert
+and Mr. Perrowne, in the scow, which paddled off to try how the fishing
+was at the narrows. The colonel did not care to fish; it was too dirty
+work for him. Neither did the remaining ladies show any appetite for it;
+but Mr. Errol and the veteran manned the lately constructed pier, and
+beguiled some bass that came seeking shelter from the sun beneath it.
+While the gentlemen were thus engaged, the colonel lying on his back
+near Marjorie's fishing ground, indulging in a second cigar, the two
+ladies strolled away, followed by Muggins, to look for more flowers.
+After they had gone about a hundred yards to the right, the dog ran on
+before them, barking furiously. Mrs. Carmichael clutched her companion's
+arm and stood still. "It may be a wild beast, Cecile, or some of those
+terrible men. Let us go back at once." But Miss Du Plessis calmly
+answered, "It may be only a bird or a squirrel; dogs often make a great
+fuss over very little." So they stood and waited.
+
+Muggins' barking ceased. The reason was apparent in the sound of a
+gentle voice they both knew, saying, "Poor Muggins, good doggie, has he
+come back again to his old friends?" It was the voice of Matilda Nagle,
+and she seemed to be alone. Taking heart, the two ladies went in its
+direction, and, guided by Muggins, who came back to lead them, they
+descended to a little bay with a sandy beach, where, in the skiff, sat
+the woman they sought. She was neatly dressed, and wore a large straw
+hat. When they greeted her, she showed no astonishment, but invited them
+to enter the skiff and see the pretty place she had back there. Miss Du
+Plessis hardly cared to accept the invitation, but the curiosity of the
+older lady was aroused and she pressed her companion to comply. Bringing
+the bow of the skiff into the shore, Matilda told them to enter the boat
+and walk back to the stern. When they had taken their seats, the stern
+was depressed, and the bow floated clear of the sand. Then, with every
+motion of an accomplished oarswoman, she rowed the skiff along the
+shore, altogether out of sight of the other picnickers in scow and on
+pier. After a few strokes, she told her companions to lower their heads,
+and, ducking her own, shot the boat through what had seemed a solid bank
+of foliage, but which was a naturally concealed channel, out into one of
+the loveliest little lakes eye ever rested upon. No fire had touched its
+shores, which were wooded down to the sandy margin, the bright green
+foliage of the hardwood in the foreground contrasting with the more
+sombre hues of the pines and hemlocks beyond. In little bays there were
+patches of white and yellow water lilies, alternating their orbed
+blossoms with the showy blue spikes of the Pickerel weed, and, beyond
+them, on the bank itself, grew many a crimson banner of the Cardinal
+flower. Another little bay was passed with its last rocky point, and
+then a clearing stood revealed, void of stump or stone or mark of fire,
+covered with grass and clover, save where, in the midst of a little
+neglected garden, stood the model of a Swiss chalet. "Do not be afraid!"
+said the woman, catching sight of Mrs. Carmichael's apprehensive look;
+"there is nobody in it or anywhere near. We are all alone; even Monty
+would not leave his work to come with me." Thus reassured, the party
+landed, gathered a few late roses and early sweet peas, and then
+proceeded to inspect the chalet. The whole building and everything in it
+was in admirable taste, even to the library smoking-room, which was only
+disfigured by ugly spittoons and half-burned cigars. Many books were
+there, chiefly on chemistry, geology and mineralogy, and there was a
+large cabinet full of geological specimens, betokening much research and
+abundant labour in their preparation and classification.
+
+The whole thing was so unexpected, so surprising, that the picnic ladies
+had to rub their eyes to be sure that it was not a dream; but their
+astonishment was increased when the woman turned to the younger one and
+said, "I know you are Miss Du Plessis, for I heard you called so at
+Bridesdale." Miss Du Plessis answered that she was right. Then Matilda
+said, "This is all your land, and of course, the land carries the
+buildings with it. I have forgotten a great many things, but I remember
+that, you see. So Tillycot is yours too; besides I do not want to stay
+here any more. Good-bye, I am going home to Monty." At first, the two
+ladies were afraid she was going to take the skiff away and leave them
+in the house, but she did not. In spite of their entreaties, she walked
+quickly up the grassy slope at the back, and disappeared in the forest
+beyond. "Is it not wonderful?" asked Miss Du Plessis. "Come, Cecile,
+hasten back, or those poor people will be starving," answered the more
+practical Mrs. Carmichael.
+
+On their return to the skiff, the presiding matron, while Miss Du
+Plessis rowed, unfolded a long piece of yellow leno she had picked up in
+one of the rooms. The channel was quite visible from, what may now be
+called, the Tillycot end, but when the passengers ducked their heads and
+emerged, they saw there would be difficulty in finding it from the other
+side. Accordingly, Mrs. Carmichael bade her companion keep the boat
+steady, while she stood up, and fastened the strip of gauze to two
+saplings, one on either side of the opening, making a landmark visible
+immediately the point was passed that intercepted the picnic party from
+their view. Rowing round this point, the two travellers appeared, to the
+astonishment of the fishers on punt and pier. The colonel was stretched
+out on the grass asleep, and Marjorie, having deserted her minnows, was
+tickling him about the ears with a long blade, greatly enjoying his
+occasional slaps at the parts affected, and his muttered anathemas on
+the flies.
+
+"Oi'm thinkin', Mishtress Carrmoikle, it's gettin' toime fer the aitin'
+an' drhinkin', wid your lave, mum; but fwhere did yez foind the
+skifft?" Brief explanations followed to the veteran and Mr. Errol, who
+were at once put under orders, the one to light a fire and produce the
+tea-kettle, the other to fill two pails with clean water, and put a
+piece of ice in one of them. Soon the colonel and Marjorie came to help,
+the cloth was laid, the sandwiches, chickens, pies and cakes, placed
+upon it, and everything got in readiness for the home-coming of the
+punt. "O Aunty," said Marjorie, "this would be so lovely, if only poor
+Eugene were here too."
+
+"So it would, dear," answered the sympathetic aunt and mother, "but we
+must try to make the best of it without him."
+
+The kettle boiled under Mr. Terry's superintendence, the tea was infused
+in the little Japanese tea-pot, and the colonel, taking from his
+waistcoat pocket a silver whistle that had done duty for a cavalry
+trumpet in former days, blew a signal for the information of the
+punters. In a minute they arrived, bearing two grand strings of fish,
+only the strings that went through the gills of the bass were hazel
+twigs. Then there was washing of hands without soap, Mr. Bigglethorpe
+showing his companions how to improvise a substitute for Pears' by
+pulling up the pretty little water-lobelia and using the unctuous clay
+about its spreading roots for the purpose. All sat about the
+table-cloth, Mr. Perrowne said, "For what we are about to receive," and
+the _al fresco_ repast began. Mrs. Carmichael dispensed the tea, and was
+displeased with Mr. Errol for declining a cup just then, because he was
+busy with a corkscrew and an ale bottle. Mr. Perrowne joined him with
+another; but the fisherman said ale made him bilious and his name was
+not William. So Mr. Terry produced his special charge, and treated the
+colonel first, then Mr. Bigglethorpe, and finally his honoured self. The
+boys, as the matron had termed the two clergymen, seemed to be happy
+with their beer, somewhat to his sorrow. "It takes moighty little,
+cornel, to shatishfy some payple, but there's aall the more av it for
+the risht av us."
+
+Miss Halbert said that Basil had eaten ten sandwiches, two plates of
+chicken, and an extra drumstick in his hand, a whole pie, and she
+couldn't count the cake. There were also some empty beer bottles at his
+feet. He said he was perfectly ashamed of Fanny's appetite, and would
+have to petition the Bishop for an allowance from the mission fund, if
+she was going through life at the same rate.
+
+"If we only had ouah deah boy with us, Cecile, what a pleasuhe it would
+be," remarked the colonel in a personal way, that caused even the
+stately Miss Du Plessis to blush.
+
+"Eugene would be better than the whole lot," added Marjorie, with an
+injured air, and added: "If some people I know hadn't been pigs, he
+would have been here, too." Mrs. Carmichael called her niece to order,
+and told the gentlemen they might go away to their pipes and cigars,
+while she and the young ladies put away the things. The black bottle
+trio adjourned to a shady nook by the shore, and carried three tumblers
+and a pail of iced water with them. The bottle revealed its neck from
+Mr. Terry's side pocket. The colonel handed his cigar case again to Mr.
+Perrowne, who selected a weed, but could not be prevailed upon to fetch
+a tumbler. Mr. Errol also declined the latter, having the fear of Mrs.
+Carmichael before his eyes, but, withdrawing a short distance in his
+brother clergyman's company, he filled the Turk's head, and said he felt
+twenty years younger. All sorts of banter and pleasant talk went on
+between the smoking gentlemen and the working ladies. Mr. Errol
+distinguished himself above his brethren by bringing up water from the
+lake and by carrying pailfuls of dishes down to it, for which he
+received great commendation. Mr. Perrowne had his ears boxed twice by
+Miss Halbert, it was said, for cheek. Mr. Terry was called upon to
+deliver up his sacred charge, but demurred. When the ladies made a raid
+upon his party to recover it, he fled, but Marjorie caught him by the
+coat-tails, and the spoil was wrested from him, although not before he
+had poured himself out a final three fingers in his tumbler. Filling it
+up with ice-water, he drank to the success of the picnic, and especially
+to absent friends. Mr. Bigglethorpe had been so long fishing in the sun
+that he thought a rest would do him good. Accordingly, he lay down on
+his back with his hat drawn over his eyes, and composed himself to
+sleep. Finally, the clergymen went over to where Mrs. Carmichael was
+sitting with Miss Halbert and Marjorie, while Miss Du Plessis, having
+had a chat with Miss Carmichael, invited her uncle and the veteran to
+go for a row in the skiff. At first, these gentlemen were disposed to
+decline, but, when they learned that there was something to be seen,
+they changed their minds, and accompanied her and Miss Carmichael to the
+shore.
+
+The colonel was entranced with the little lake, the clearing, and the
+chalet, as were Miss Carmichael and Mr. Terry. It was decided that a
+guard, in the form of a caretaker, should be put over the place as soon
+as possible, and it was suggested that Timotheus and Tryphena would make
+an ideal pair of guardians. While much of the land round about might be
+cleared to advantage, it was agreed that the wood around Tillycot lake
+should be left intact, save the breadth of a road to the main highway.
+Then they fell to discussing Rawdon, a man plainly of extensive reading,
+of scientific attainments, of taste in architecture and
+house-furnishing, and yet an utterly unprincipled and unscrupulous
+villain. "One would think," said Miss Carmichael, "that the natural
+beauties of a place like this would be a check upon evil passions and
+the baser part of one's nature." But the colonel answered, "In the
+wahah, Miss Cahmichael, I have seen soldiehs, even owah own soldiehs,
+wilfully and maliciously destyoying the most chahming spots of scenehy,
+without the least pohfit to themselves or matehial injuhy to the enemy.
+The love of destyuction is natuhal to ouah fallen human natuhe." Mr.
+Terry corroborated this statement, and added, "Faix, it sames to me
+there's jist two sarts an koinds av payple in the wurruld, thim as
+builds up an' thim as batthers down. For moy paart, I'd lafer build a
+log shanty an' clane a bit land nor pull a palish to paces." Miss Du
+Plessis assented, but drew attention to the fact that Rawdon had
+cleared, built up, and beautified the place, and improved his mind on
+the one hand, while he was warring against society and law, robbing and
+even murdering, on the other. "Mr. Errol said once," rejoined Miss
+Carmichael, "that there are two opposite natures, an old man and a new,
+in all human beings, as well as in those who are converted, and that no
+contradiction of the kind is too absurd for human nature." "Mistah Ehhol
+is quite right, my deah Miss Mahjohie, as all expehience attests. Bret
+Hahte has shewn it from a Califohnian standpoint. I have seen it in
+times of wanah and of peace, bad men, the bent of whose lives was
+destyuction, risking evehything to save some little memohial of a dead
+motheh or of a sweetheaht, and good men, the regular couhse of whose
+cahheah was to do good, guilty of an occasional outbuhst of vandalism."
+
+"Thrue fer yez, cornel, ivery bit. There was a little whipper-snapper av
+a Shunday Shcool shuperintindent out in a lake, about a hundrid moiles
+frum the city, wid some dacent lads; and, afore they knowed where they
+was, the cratur had sit a foine grane oisland a foire for the fun, he
+sid, av sayin' the blaze. Oi'd loike to have had the shuperintindin' av
+him fer foive minutes."
+
+The explorers were making their way back to the skiff when the colonel,
+who had gone back for his handkerchief which he had dropped, said:
+"There is a pehson coming down towahds the house, a woman appahently."
+Miss Du Plessis looked up the hill, and saw who it was. "It is Matilda
+Nagle," she said; "see, she is going back again." At once Miss
+Carmichael ran up the hill after the retreating figure, and, as she was
+a good runner, and the poor wanderer was tired, she soon overtook her.
+Taking both her hands in her own, and kissing the woman, she said: "Come
+with us, Matilda, and we will drive you home." The half-witted creature
+responded to the caress, and allowed herself to be led to the boat. "I
+lost my way," she said. "It is a new road I had never been on before,
+and I got turned round and came back here three times, and I am very
+tired." The colonel and Mr. Terry made her enter the boat before them,
+and then Miss Du Plessis and the veteran rowed the party back to the
+picnic ground, Miss Carmichael, at her friend's suggestion, removing the
+landmark put up by her mother as they passed out of the channel. At once
+Matilda was taken to the shady retreat where Mrs. Carmichael and Miss
+Halbert were, and all the ladies waited upon her with what was left of
+the eatables and drinkables, in spite of Mr. Perrowne's appetite. Then,
+Mr. Terry and Mr. Bigglethorpe went after the horses, and harnessed them
+to the waggon. The fisherman came back to summon the party and help to
+carry the baskets. Mr. Errol and Mr. Perrowne agreed to row the punt
+back to the Richards, and walk the rest of the way, as the addition of
+Matilda to the company would make riding uncomfortable if they did
+otherwise. The picnickers were safely seated, the baskets and the
+strings of fish stowed away, and the Colonel again took the reins for
+his party of nine. The two clergymen returned to the scow and paddled
+home, singing songs, one of which Mr. Perrowne gave in genuine cockney
+style to a Primitive Methodist hymn tune
+
+     "Oh we was rich and 'appy once,
+     And we paid all we was due,
+     But we've sold our bed to buhy some bread,
+     And we hain't, got nowt to do;
+         We're all the way from Manchesteher.
+         And we hain't got nowt to do.
+
+     "Oh him as hoppresses the pooer man
+     Is a livin on humin' lives,
+     An I will be sarved in tohother land
+     Like Lazarius and Dives,
+         And will be sarved in tohother land
+         Like Lazarius and Dives."
+
+Mr. Errol applauded the song, but thought it was hardly right to put a
+hymn tune to it. He said he "minded an auld Scotch song aboot the
+barrin' o' the door." So he sang:--
+
+     "It fell aboot the Martimas time,
+     And a gay time it was then O,
+     When our gude wife got puddins to mak',
+     And she biled them in the pan O.
+         The barrin' o' oor door weel, weel, weel.
+         And the barrin' o' oor door, weel."
+
+Thus, lightening the journey, they arrived at the last lake, said
+how-d'ye-do to the Richards, and tramped home. "How are you feeling now,
+Mr. Errol?" asked his comrade. "Man, it's just as I tellt ye, I'm
+renewin' my youth."
+
+It was just about six when the pedestrians arrived at Bridesdale. Mr.
+Newberry had been there, anxious about his charge, and had joyfully
+hailed her appearance in the waggon. Mr. Bigglethorpe insisted on going
+home; so, after a whispered consultation with Miss Halbert, Mr. Perrowne
+offered him the doctor's carriage, if he would call in and tell Dr.
+Halbert that his daughter and all the Bridesdale people were safe, which
+he agreed to do. The colonel and Miss Du Plessis were up with the dear
+boy, whose name and virtues Miss Carmichael could hardly hear mentioned
+with civility. Marjorie fairly wept over the leave-taking of Mr.
+Biggles, but commanded herself sufficiently to beg that he would not
+christen that baby Woollens, Cottons or Piscopalian. He said
+emphatically that he would not, and then departed, taking home a string
+of bass to propitiate Mrs. Bigglethorpe. The tea party, spite of Miss Du
+Plessis' marvellous story of Tillycot, was very slow. The newly engaged
+couple were full of each other. Mrs. Du Plessis, her daughter and the
+colonel had Wilkinson on the brain, Mrs. Carmichael and the minister
+were self-sufficient, and Mr. Terry was discoorsin' to his daughter,
+Honoria. The only free person for Miss Carmichael was the Squire, and
+happily she sat at his left.
+
+"Marjorie, lassie," said Uncle John, "you're no lookin' weel."
+
+"That's not very complimentary, uncle; but I am quite well."
+
+"Yon block o' a Lamb has been wearin' ye, I'm thinkin'."
+
+"Not at all, uncle; his gifts and graces are not adequate to that."
+
+"Did Coristine tell ye o' that adverteesment in the Barrie paper?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did he say he had dune onything aboot it?"
+
+"Yes, he said he had written to the Edinburgh lawyer and to other people
+about it."
+
+"That was unco gude o' the lad, Marjorie."
+
+"Yes, it was very kind."
+
+"What garred the laddie gang awa before the time, lassie?"
+
+"How should I know, uncle?"
+
+"Wha sud ken were it no you, Marjorie, my pet?"
+
+"I am not in Mr. Coristine's confidence."
+
+"I'se warrant ye, Marjorie, he's just bitin's nails to the quick at yon
+Mrs. Swamp's that's he no here the nicht."
+
+"Oh nonsense, uncle, why should he be so foolish? If he wanted to stay,
+there was no one to hinder him."
+
+"Weel, weel, lassie, we'll hear frae him sometime aboot yon neist o' kin
+business. Aiblins, ye'll be a braw leddy wi' a gran' fortune yet, and
+turn up your bonnie bit nose at puir lawyer chappies."
+
+"I don't want to turn up my nose at Mr. Coristine, uncle. I think it
+was very splendid of him to fight for you as he did; but I knew nothing
+about that when he said good-bye, and I wouldn't shake hands with him."
+
+The Squire put up his hand and stroked his niece's hair. "Puir lassie!"
+he said, "it's a gran' peety, but ye're no feelin' half as bad as he is
+the noo, gin I ken the lad, and I think I dae."
+
+It was ten when Mr. Bangs brought home the colonel's horse, and Rufus
+rattled the missing waggon and team into the stable yard. The latter
+joyfully saluted his sisters, shook hands with Timotheus, and
+courteously responded to the greeting of Maguffin. Mr. Bangs, declining
+any solid refreshment, entered the office, where, besides the Squire,
+Mr. Errol and the veteran were established. The picnic ladies were tired
+and had gone to rest, and the colonel was relating the events of the day
+to the wakeful dominie. Mr. Bangs gave his company an account of the
+safe lodgment of Rawdon and Davis, and mentioned incidentally that he
+had seen Mr. Coristine alight from the train at Toronto and go up town.
+He also cautioned the Squire against divulging the secret of the exhumed
+box of money, if he wished to save it for Matilda Nagle.
+
+"Squire," he said, "I don't went to elerm you, bet I'm efreid there's
+gowing to be more trebble to-night; I saw thet tevern-keeper from
+Peskiwenchow, Devis' brether, et the stetion this merning, with sem of
+the fellows we fought et the Enkempment. They're not in Kellingwood now,
+end yeng Hill tells me he saw strenge men kemming this way in the
+efternoon. I towld yeng Hill to bring his gen, and I brought my mounted
+petrol kerbine."
+
+"This is terribly vexatious, Mr. Bangs, just as we thought all our
+troubles were over."
+
+"It is, bet I think it will be their lest ettempt, a final effort to get
+meney and revenge. We must wound es many ef them es we ken, end ellow
+the survivors to kerry off the dead end wounded. Thet will be the end of
+it. I met Toner, end he tells me old Newcome is ep and eway. Toner kent
+come, for Newcome hes threatened to bern down his house."
+
+A gentle rap at the door interrupted the conversation. The Squire went
+to open it, and saw his niece in night attire, with a pale, scared
+face, hardly able to speak. "What is the matter, Marjorie?"
+
+"There's a man in Mr. Coristine's room, either in the cupboard-wardrobe
+or under the bed," she answered, and slipped quietly upstairs to her own
+apartment.
+
+Quickly the information was imparted, and the detective at once took
+command.
+
+"Mr. Terry, I know you are a good shot. Tek my kerbine which is loaded,
+and wetch the windows of Mr. Coristine's room outside. Give Mr. Errol a
+pistol, Squire, and kem on. Ah, Mr. Perrowne, we went you, sir; bring
+that lemp end follow us."
+
+All obeyed, and slipped up stairs with as little noise as possible. Mr.
+Bangs opened the door and listened. Intuitively, he knew that Miss
+Carmichael was right; somebody was in that room. Whispering to Mr. Errol
+to guard the door, and to the Squire to stand by the wardrobe, he took
+the lamp from Mr. Perrowne and flashed it under and over the bed. There
+was nobody there. In a moment, however, the wardrobe door burst open,
+the Squire was overturned, the light kicked over and extinguished, and
+Mr. Errol pushed aside, when three feminine voices called: "Help,
+quick!" and, tumbling over one another into the hall, the clever lookers
+for burglars found their man in the grasp of three picturesque figures
+in dressing gowns. They were at once relieved of their capture, and many
+anxious enquiries were made as to whether they had received any injuries
+from the felonious intruder. It appeared that they had not received any
+of importance, and that Miss Carmichael was the first to arrest the
+flight of the robber.
+
+The household was aroused. The colonel came down with his pistols.
+Timotheus, Rufus and Maguffin awaited orders, so he ordered them to arm,
+and posted them as sentries, relieving Mr. Terry from his watch on the
+windows. Then the examination of the prisoner began. He was the youth
+who had driven the buckboard over for the doctor on the eventful Monday
+morning. His name was Rawdon, but he was not the son of Altamont Rawdon.
+His father's name was Reginald, who was Altamont's brother.
+
+"Where is your fether?" asked Mr. Bangs.
+
+"I dunno," he answered, sulkily.
+
+"Then I ken tell you. He is dead, berned to death by yore precious encle
+Eltemont."
+
+"O my God!" exclaimed the youth; "is that so?"
+
+"Esk any of these gentlemen, end they will tell you that yore fether end
+old Flower were berned to death, end thet a keroner's jury set on their
+remains, which are buried."
+
+"You say as 'ow my huncle Haltamont did that?"
+
+"Yes, I do, end, whet's more, you know it."
+
+Having terrorized his victim, and antagonized him to Rawdon, the
+detective drew from him the information that five men, three of Rawdon's
+old employees, the tavern-keeper Matt, and Newcome, were coming at
+midnight to burglarize the house and get possession of the dug-up
+treasure. He confessed that he had slipped into the house while the
+party was away picnicking, and, knowing that Coristine had left without
+his knapsack, had looked round till he found a room with knapsacks in
+it. There he intended to remain till his confederates should require his
+services to open the house to them.
+
+"Who towld you thet awful lie ebout Rawdon's meney being in this house?"
+
+"Matt knew. Uncle Monty guv it 'im by signs, I guess. Oh, he's O.K., he
+is."
+
+"Well, sir, yore a prisoner here, end if things don't turn out es you
+sey, I'll blow yore brains out."
+
+"For goodness sake don't be aisty, mister. I've told you the 'ole truth,
+I swear."
+
+Mr. Bangs next found out that the robbers were coming in a waggon, which
+would halt some distance to the left of the house, and that their plan
+was to set one man at the end of the hall to hinder communication with
+the servants' quarters, and two on the upper landing to command the
+front and back stairs, while the remaining burglars ransacked the office
+and any other rooms in which plunder might be found. The youth's
+appointed mission was to fire the house, when the search was completed.
+Hardly had this information been received when Maguffin's challenge was
+heard, and a well-known voice in military accents replied "A friend."
+The colonel went out, and brought in Corporal Rigby, panting for want of
+breath.
+
+"You've been running, Rigby," said the astonished Squire.
+
+"Duty required it, sir," replied the constable, saluting; "I have come
+at the double, with trailed arms, all the way from Squire Halbert's.
+This is his rifle I am carrying. The enemy is on the move, sir, in
+waggon transport." "You are jest in time, kenstable," remarked Mr.
+Bangs. "Miss Kermichael and the ether ledies hev jest keptured an
+impertent prisoner. Hev you yore hendkeffs?"
+
+"I have, sir, and everything else the law requires." Mr. Terry handed a
+glass to the breathless constable, who bowed his respects to the company
+generally, smacked his lips as a public token of satisfaction, and
+proceeded to handcuff and search his prisoner. Several blasting
+cartridges with long fuses, and other incendiary material, were the
+results of the last operation.
+
+"If I had my way with him, sergeant-major," the constable remarked,
+while taking his man under the veteran's command, to the stable, "I
+would borrow an old chair from the back kitchen, not the front,
+sergeant-major, tie him to it, and set off all these cattridges under
+him. He would not go to heaven, sergeant-major, but they would help him
+a bit in that direction. The man that would cattridge a house with
+ladies in it should be made a targate out of, sergeant-major."
+
+"Poor, deluded crathur!" replied Mr. Terry, "it's but a shlip av a bhoy,
+it is, wid a burnt up father, that's been shet on to mischief by thim as
+knows betther. Kape him toight, Corporal Rigby, but be tindher wid the
+benoighted gossoon." Mr. Bangs ordered all lights out, save one in the
+thoroughly darkened office, and another in the closet back in the hall,
+which had no window. He called in the three sentries, ordered the
+constable to maintain silence in the stable, and slipped out to
+reconnoitre. The colonel, the Squire and Maguffin prepared their pistols
+for the first volley on the housebreakers. The clergymen, with Timotheus
+and Rufus, got their guns in order for the second. It was almost on the
+stroke of midnight when the detective slipped in and closed the door
+after him. "They are here," he whispered; "wait for me to ect! Now, not
+another word." Silent, as if themselves conspirators, the eight men
+crouched in the darkened hall, listening to steps on the soft grass of
+the lawn. There was the low growl of a dog, a short bark, and then a
+muttered oath, a thud, and a groan that was not human. Poor Basil
+Perrowne ground his teeth, for he had heard the last gasp of the
+faithful Muggins. A hand was on the outside knob of the door. Mr. Bangs
+turned the key and drew back the catch of the lock, when two men thrust
+themselves in. "Ware's the lights, you blarsted fool?" one of the
+ruffians asked. The detective drew back, and the others with him, till
+all five had entered. Then Mr. Perrowne threw open the office door, and
+Timotheus that of the linen closet. In the sudden light cast on the
+scene the pistol men fired and the burglars tumbled back, two hanging on
+to three. "Don't shoot," cried Mr. Bangs to the gunners, "but kem on,
+fellow them up." After the fugitives they went, not too quickly,
+although the bereaved parson was longing for a shot at the murderer of
+Muggins. The burglars were on the road, and the waggon, driven by a
+woman, was coming to meet them. "Now then," said the detective, as a
+couple of revolver shots whizzed past him, "give the scoundrels thet
+velley, before there's any denger of hitting the woman." The four guns
+were emptied with terrible effect, for the woman had to descend in order
+to get her load of villainy on. The detective gave but one minute for
+that purpose, and then ordered a pursuit; but the waggon had turned,
+and, spite of screams and oaths that made hideous the night air, the
+woman drove furiously, all unconscious, apparently, that her course
+betrayed itself by a trail of human blood. "Nen ere killed outright,"
+remarked Mr. Bangs, "bet I downt believe a single mether's sen of them
+escaped without a good big merk of recognition."
+
+"Do you think we have seen the last of them, Bangs?" asked the Squire.
+
+"Certainly! This wes a lest desperate effort of a broken-up geng."
+
+"I wonder who that woman can have been," said Mr. Errol. "I know most of
+the people about here by sight."
+
+"She's a very clever yeng woman," Mr. Bangs answered, evasively.
+
+"It'll no be Newcome's daughter?" half asked the Squire.
+
+The detective drew Mr. Carruthers aside, and said: "It wes to hev been
+Serlizer, bet she wouldn't gow, even if Ben hed ellowed her; bet a nice
+gel from wey beck, a cousin of Ben's, whom he had never seen before, end
+who hed just called on Mrs. Towner in the efternoon, offered to take her
+place. Her neme is Rebecca Towner, a very nice young person."
+
+"Losh me, Bangs, you're an awfu' man! What deevilment is this ye've been
+at?"
+
+"I didn't went you to shoot Rebecca Towner, because, next to pore Nesh,
+she is our best female personater, end her name, when she takes off
+these clowthes, is Cherley Verley."
+
+"So, you brocht thae villains here by deputy?"
+
+"Yes; they hed to kem, you know, bet I didn't know anything ebout thet
+boy end their plans, except in a general way. Rebecca woun't leave the
+pore fellows till they're pretty sick."
+
+Bridesdale was lit up again, for nobody cared to go to bed. The ladies
+came down to see that the belligerents were safe, and Miss Carmichael
+and her brave companions received the meed of praise and thanks their
+splendid services deserved. Sorry for the injuries of the would-be
+robbers, and perhaps murderers, the Squire was nevertheless relieved in
+mind by the success of the night's work. In his satisfaction he entered
+the kitchen, and ordered late supper for his allies in that quarter.
+Then he summoned Constable Rigby from the stable, bidding him bring his
+prisoner with him, and give him something to eat. The constable declined
+to sit in a prisoner's presence in an unofficial capacity, but had no
+objection to feeding him. When, therefore, the young intruder had eaten
+his supper, his gaoler standing by, he was reconducted to the separate
+stable, handcuffed, chained, and locked in, the key being deposited in
+the constable's pocket. Then, and only then, did Mr. Rigby unbend, and,
+after supper, indulge with his five companions, male and female, in the
+improving geographical game of cards. The dining room bell occasionally
+called Tryphosa away, when, as a matter of course, Timotheus played for
+her. The colonel, with a cigar in his lips, and a substitute for fine
+old Bourbon in his hand, went up-stairs to enlighten his dear boy as to
+the doings of the night, and, especially as to dear Cecile's magnificent
+courage. The dominie was terribly concerned about that lady's
+single-handed contest with the desperate robber, and would not be
+satisfied until she came in person to let him know she was not hurt in
+the least, that Marjorie deserved all the credit of the capture, and
+that the unhappy youth had seemed so taken aback by the character of his
+hall assailants as to be almost incapable of resistance. The colonel
+smoked, and sipped, and smiled incredulously, as much as to say, You may
+believe this young person if you like, my dear boy, but there is
+somebody who knows better, and can make allowance for a young lady's
+charming self-depreciation. Mrs. Carruthers, grateful for the safety of
+her husband and her father, and Mrs. Carmichael, for that of her brother
+and Mr. Errol, were prepared to be hospitable to a degree. The minister
+had another opportunity of praising the toddy which the latter lady
+brewed, and Mr. Perrowne said: "It isn't half bad, you know, but I
+down't know what Miss Crimmage's Band of Howpe would think of it, if she
+knew the two temperance champions were imbibing at three o'clock in the
+morning." The minister remarked that he didn't care for all the
+Crimmages in the world, nor the Crummages either, whatever he meant by
+that, for there was no such name in the neighbourhood. "Basil," said
+Miss Halbert, "you had better take care. I shall not allow you any
+toddy, remember, but shall subscribe for the Montreal _Weekly Witness_".
+Mr. Perrowne put a little out of the decanter into his tumbler, with a
+practised air very unlike that of a Band of Hope patron, saying:
+"Drowned the miller, Fanny! Must take time by the forelock, if you are
+going to carry out your threats. But I think I'll drop you, and ask Mrs.
+Carmichael to have compassion on me. She wouldn't deprive a poor man of
+his toddy, would you now, Mrs. Carmichael?"
+
+"Mrs. Carmichael," said Mr. Errol, answering for that lady, "would hae
+mair sense," which shut the parson effectually out of conversation in
+that quarter.
+
+Miss Carmichael listened to the conversation, and beheld the minister
+renewing his youth. She heard Mr. Bangs entertain her uncle with
+stories about a certain Charley Varley, and Mr. Terry say to Mrs Du
+Plessis, "Whin I was in Sout Ameriky wid the cornel, God save him." She
+saw her friend Fanny exciting the lighter vein in the affianced
+Perrowne, and knew that Cecile was upstairs, the light of the dominie's
+eyes. There was a blank in the company, so she retired to the room in
+which she had found the burglar, and looked at the knapsacks there. She
+knew his; would it be wrong to look inside? She would not touch Mr.
+Wilkinson's for wealth untold. If he had not wanted his knapsack opened,
+he should not have left it behind him. But it was open; not a strap was
+buckled over it. The strap press was there, and a little prayer-book,
+and a pocket volume of Browning, some cartridges and tobacco, and an
+empty flask, and a pair of socks and some collars. What was that? A
+sheet of paper that must have fallen out of Browning. It had fluttered
+to the floor, whence she picked it up, and it was poetry; perhaps the
+much-talked-of poem on the Grinstun man. No, it was another, and this
+was how it ran, as she read it, and hot and cold shivers ran alternately
+down her neck:--
+
+     The while my lonely watch I keep,
+     Dear heart that wak'st though senses sleep
+       To thee my heart turns gratefully.
+     All it can give to thee is given.
+     From all besides, its heartstrings riven.
+       Could ne'er be reft more fatefully.
+
+     For thou art all in all to me,
+     My life, my love, my Marjorie,
+       Dow'ring each day increasingly
+     With wealth of thy dear self. I swear
+     I'll love thee false, I'll love thee fair.
+       World without end, unceasingly.
+
+"O, Eugene, Eugene," she sobbed to herself, "why would you go away, when
+everybody wanted you, and I most of all?" Then she put the things back
+into the knapsack, all but the sheet of paper, which she carried away,
+and thrust into the bosom of her dress, as she saw Miss Du Plessis
+approaching. In common with the other ladies of the house, they retired
+to their rooms and to bed, leaving the gentlemen to tell stories and
+smoke, and otherwise prepare themselves for an unsatisfactory breakfast
+and a general disinclination for work in the morning. In the back of
+the house, geographical studies continued to flourish, the corporal and
+Maguffin contending with the ladies for educational honours, now being
+lifted up to the seventh heaven of success, and, now, depressed beneath
+the load of many adverse books. All the time, a little bird was singing
+in Miss Carmichael's sleeping ear, or rather in that which really does
+the hearing, certain words like, "My life, my love, my Marjorie," and
+then again "I'll love thee false, I'll love thee fair, world without
+end, unceasingly." When she awoke in the morning, the girls told her she
+had been crying in her sleep, and saying "O Eugene!" which she
+indignantly denied, and forbade them to repeat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+     The Glory Departed--The Mail--Coristine's Letters to Miss
+     Carmichael, Mrs. Carruthers and the Dominie--Sylvanus to
+     Tryphena--Burying Muggins--A Dull Week--A Letter From Coristine and
+     Four to Him--Marjorie's Letter and Book--Telegram--Mr. Douglas and
+     Miss Graves--Reception Parties--The Colonel and Marjorie.
+
+
+After breakfast on Saturday morning, Mr. Bangs departed, riding his own
+horse, while Rufus bestrode that of his late friend Nash. As the colonel
+had no need for the services of Maguffin, that gentleman drove the
+constable and his prisoner in a cart between these two mounted guards.
+The clergymen went home to look over their sermons for the morrow, and
+to make good resolutions for pastoral duty in the week to come, not that
+either of them was disposed to be negligent in the discharge of such
+duty, but a week of almost unavoidable arrears had to be overtaken. The
+Squire was busy all day looking after his farm hands, and laying out
+work to be commenced on Monday morning; and Mr. Terry went the rounds
+with him. The colonel's time was spent largely in conversation, divided
+between his dear Farquhar and his dearer Teresa. When not engaged in
+helping the hostess and her sister in-law in the press of Saturday's
+household work, the young ladies were in consultation over the new
+engagement, the ring, the day, the bridesmaids, the trousseau, and other
+like matters of great importance. Marjorie took her young cousins
+botanizing in honour of Eugene, and crawfishing in memory of Mr.
+Biggles; then she formed them into a Sunday school class, and instructed
+them feelingly in the vanity of human wishes, and the fleeting nature of
+all sublunary things. Even Timotheus could not be with Tryphosa as much
+as he would have desired, and had to console himself with thoughts of
+the morrow, and visions of two people in a ferny hollow singing hymns
+out of one hymn-book. The glory seemed to have departed from Bridesdale,
+the romance to have gone out of its existence on that humdrum Saturday.
+The morning passed in drudgery, the dinner table in prosaic talk, and
+the hot afternoon was a weariness of the flesh and spirit. Just about
+tea time the mail waggon passed the gate; there was nobody in it for
+Bridesdale. When the quiet tea was over, the veteran lit his pipe, and
+he and Marjorie went to the post office to enquire for letters, and
+invest some of Eugene's parting donations in candy. Half the mail bag
+and more was for the Squire, the post-mistress said, and it made a large
+bundle, so that she had to tie it up in a huge circus poster, which,
+being a very religious woman, she had declined to tack up on the
+post-office wall. "Marjorie," whispered Mr. Terry, so that the
+post-mistress could not hear, "I wudn't buoy any swates now, for I
+belave there's a howll box iv thim in the mail for yeez." Accordingly,
+they left without a purchase, to the loss of the candy account at the
+store.
+
+The circus poster and contents were deposited on the office table, and
+Mr. Carruthers called big Marjorie to sort the mail. So Miss Carmichael
+appeared, and gave him his own letters and papers. There were two from
+India for Mr. Terry, that had been forwarded from Toronto, and one from
+the same quarter for aunt Honoria. Some United States documents were the
+colonel's property, and a hotel envelope, with a Barrie postmark, bore
+the name of Miss Tryphena Hill. The bulk of the mail was in one
+handwriting, which the Bridesdale post-mistress had seen before. Only
+two letters were there, a thick one for aunt Honoria, and one of
+ordinary size for Mr Wilkinson, but there were several papers and
+magazines for that invalid, and at least half a dozen illustrated papers
+and as many magazines or paper-bound books for herself, which she knew
+contained material of some kind in which she had expressed an interest.
+Then came three large thick packages, one marked "Misses Marjorie,
+Susan, and Honoria Carruthers," another "Masters John and Michael
+Carruthers," and the third "Miss Marjorie C. Thomas and Co." The young
+lady with the Co. laid violent hands upon her own property; but that of
+the young Carruthers was given to their mother, along with her letters.
+Miss Du Plessis, failing to receive anything of her own, carried the
+dominie's spoil to him, and found that some of the magazines, though
+sent to his name, were really meant for her, at least dear Farquhar said
+so. Mrs. Carruthers opened her Toronto letter and read it over with
+amusement. Then she held up an enclosure between forefinger and thumb,
+saying, "You see, Marjorie, it is unsealed, so I think I must read it,
+or give it to your mother to read first, in case it should not be right
+for you to receive it." But Miss Carmichael made a dash at the document,
+and bore it off triumphantly to her own room, along with her literary
+pabulum. It was dated Friday afternoon, so that he could not have been
+long in the city when he wrote it, and ran thus:--
+
+     _My Dear Miss Carmichael_,--I wish to apologize to you very humbly,
+     and, through you, but not so humbly, to Mr. Lamb, for any harsh,
+     and apparently cruel, things I said to or about him. Your aunt,
+     Mrs. Thomas, whom I met, with the Captain and Sylvanus, on their
+     way to the schooner, enlightened me regarding Mr. Lamb's history,
+     of which I was entirely ignorant while at Bridesdale. I should be
+     sorry to think I had been guilty of wilfully wounding the feelings
+     of anyone in whom you take the slightest interest, and I trust you
+     will pardon me for writing that, apart from my natural gratitude
+     for your patience with me and your kindness to me, a mere stranger,
+     there is no one in the world I should be more sorry to offend than
+     yourself.
+     Believe me,
+
+                     My dear Miss Carmichael,
+                               Ever yours faithfully,
+                                               EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+     P.S.--I have taken the liberty of addressing to you some trifles I
+     thought might interest the kind friends at Bridesdale.     E.C.
+
+The note was satisfactory so far as it went, but there was not enough of
+it; no word about the gloves, the ring, the half confession, the
+promise, no word about coming back. Still, it was better than nothing.
+Eugene could be dignified too; she would let everybody see that letter.
+
+"I hope you had a nice letter, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Carruthers. "You
+would like, perhaps, to read what Mr. Coristine has to say to me." Her
+niece replied that the letter was quite satisfactory, and the ladies
+exchanged documents. That of Mrs. Carruthers read:--
+
+     _Dear Mrs. Carruthers_,--Since I left your hospitable mansion I
+     have been like a boy that has lost his mother, not to speak of the
+     rest of the family. I look at myself like the poor newsboy, who was
+     questioned about his parents and friends, and who, to put an end to
+     the enquiries, answered: "Say, mister, when you seen me, you seen
+     all there is on us." Please tell Marjorie Thomas, and your own
+     little ones, that, perhaps, if I am good and am allowed, I may run
+     up before the end of next month, to see if the fall flowers are
+     out, and if they have left any crawfish and shiners in the creek.
+     Will you kindly give the inclosure to Miss Carmichael, with whom,
+     through my foolishness, I had an awkward misunderstanding that
+     still troubles me a good deal. If I had known I was offending her,
+     I would not have done it for the world. I cannot sufficiently thank
+     you for your great kindness to my friend Wilkinson and me, nor
+     shall I soon forget the happiest days of my life in your delightful
+     home. Please make my sincere apologies to the Squire, and any other
+     dear friends whom I may have left abruptly, under the peculiar
+     circumstances of my departure. Remember me gratefully to Mrs.
+     Carmichael, Mrs. Du Plessis, and the young ladies, and give my love
+     to all the children.
+                      I am, dear Mrs. Carruthers,
+                              Very sincerely and thankfully yours,
+                                                       EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+     P.S.--Please forgive me for sending a few bonbons for the children
+     by this mail.                                            E.C.
+
+"That's a very nice gentlemanly letter, Marjorie," said Mrs. Carruthers,
+returning it.
+
+"I like yours better, Aunty; it is not so stiff."
+
+"Nonsense, you silly girl. I am only 'dear' and you are 'my dear.' He
+thinks of me as a mother, and of you as the chief person in the world. I
+think you are getting vain and greedy, Marjorie. Well, I must put these
+bonbons away, or the children will see them, and will be making
+themselves too ill to go to church. Where is cousin Marjorie?"
+
+"Oh, she is off with her box. Very likely she is giving some to uncle
+and grandpa. It's a great pity the Captain is not here; he has a sweet
+tooth. Do you know Tryphena has a letter from Sylvanus?"
+
+"That accounts for her delay with the dishes. What other letters did you
+get?"
+
+"None; only a lot of books, magazines, and illustrated papers from Mr.
+Coristine for the family."
+
+"For the family, Marjorie?"
+
+"Yes; did you not read the postscript?"
+
+"To be sure I did; but you know better than to take that
+literally,--Marjorie, I think you're deep, deep."
+
+"Do you think he will come here next month?"
+
+"I am going to command my niece, Marjorie Carmichael, or to ask
+Marjorie's mother, to answer his letter for me, and to insist upon his
+coming back as soon as possible."
+
+The aunt and niece had a kissing match, after which the latter said:
+"Thank you, aunt Honoria," and went out of the room, ready for the
+congratulations of the Bridesdale world.
+
+Meanwhile Miss Du Plessis, having laid the dominie's wealth of postal
+matter before his eyes, at his request read the solitary letter.
+
+     _My Dear Wilks_,--I hope that, under your excellent corps of nurses
+     and guardian angels, you are gradually recovering from your
+     Falstaffian encounter with Ancient Pistol. Don't let Miss Du
+     Plessis see this or she'll faint. I had a toughish ride to
+     Collingwood, and part of the way back, the latter at the suggestion
+     of Hickey Bangs. If I were as plucky for my size as that little
+     fellow is, I could face a regiment. He got the prisoner safely
+     caged, which is the proper thing to say about gaol birds. I came
+     down with him and his select party this morning, meeting Captain
+     and Mrs. Thomas and The Crew on the way. They wanted me to go on a
+     cruise. The kindness of the whole Carruthers family is like the
+     widow's curse; it's inexhaustible. Having been badly sold, however,
+     over a Lamb, and cheap, too, I was not eligible for more sail. I
+     write this, Wilks, more in sorrow than in anger, but I do hanker
+     after those jolly Bridesdale days. Mrs. Marsh received me
+     cordially, but not in character; she was the reverse of martial.--
+
+"Really, Farquhar, this is very terrible," said Miss Du Plessis,
+laughing; "I hardly know whether to go on. Who knows what dreadful
+things may be before us?"
+
+"The taste, Cecile, is shocking; otherwise any child might read his
+letters."
+
+"I left off at 'martial.'"
+
+     I went to the office, very unlike the Squire's, and pulled White
+     _off his_ stool before he knew I was there. He told me I had just
+     come in the nick of time, for he wants to go to some forsaken
+     watering place down the Gulf--as Madame Lajeunesse said "Law
+     baw"--and that immediately. So, I get my two weeks next month, by
+     which time I hope to have got that next of kin matter straightened
+     out. Then, if I'm let, I'll go up and have my _golf_ with Mr. Errol
+     on his links. How are his links matrimonial progressing, and
+     Perrowne's, not to mention those of Ben Toner, Timotheus, yourself,
+     and other minor personages? Will you commission me to buy the ring?--
+
+"Really, dear, I think I must stop."
+
+"Please do not, dear; there is not much more, is there?"
+
+"Not much, but it is so personal!"
+
+     The York Pioneers are having an exhibition of antiques; couldn't
+     you get somebody to send down our two knapsacks, it seems such an
+     age since we started them? Ask Miss Du Plessis and Miss Carmichael
+     what they meant giggling at them at the Brock Street station and on
+     the train that Tuesday morning.--
+
+"Farquhar, did he, did you think it was Marjorie and I who did that,
+what he calls giggling?"
+
+"I certainly never thought you did, and I think it is only his banter."
+
+"Neither Marjorie nor I could have so disgraced ourselves. Did you not
+see the school-girls behind us? I was ashamed of my sex."
+
+"When you write Corry for me, you must give him a talking to for that."
+
+"Very well; where was I, oh, yes, 'Tuesday morning.'"
+
+     I send a few lines by post. If there is anything in the world I can
+     do for you, Wilks, let me know. If my presence can help you at all,
+     I'll run up at a moment's warning. Love to all at Bridesdale. Sorry
+     I made an ass of myself running away. Mail closes and must stop.
+
+                             Your affectionate friend,
+                                            EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+     P.S.--Tell Errol to keep that pipe as a memorial of a poor deluded
+     wretch who had hoped one day to call him by the paternal name.
+     Fancy having the good minister for a step father-in-law! No such
+     luck, as Toner would say. Adieu                         E.C.
+
+"Is she fond of him, Cecile?"
+
+"Yes, very much so."
+
+"Is it not a pity, when they think so much of one another, that a mere
+trifle should keep them apart, perhaps for ever?"
+
+"Yes it is, but I am not sorry for Marjorie. Kind heart and all, she
+ought to have had more sense and more forbearance than to have openly
+preferred that selfish creature, Mr. Lamb, to your warm-hearted friend."
+
+"Corry is the soul of honour and generosity, Cecile, in spite of his
+hideous taste in language."
+
+"That is a mere eccentricity, and does not affect his sterling
+qualities. I shall make it my duty to speak to Marjorie again. Good
+night, Farquhar dear!"
+
+"Good night, Cecile, my darling, my guardian angel, as Corry rightly
+says."
+
+Miss Tryphena Hill was reading Sylvanus' letter in the kitchen, first to
+herself. It ran as follows:--
+
+                                     _A Board_ THE SUSAN THOMAS
+                                                        Friday noon.
+
+     _My ever of thee I'm fondly dreaming, Tryphena_,--U sed my spelins
+     was caple of beterment so I got the tittle out of a song buk in the
+     cars and wrot it down in the end lefe of the litel testymint you
+     giv me wile the capen and the nusboy was int lukin on. How duz it
+     tak yor i. The capen he brung Mrs. T long for a sale. I see Mr.
+     Corstoene in the cars lukin poekit lik wat is the mater of him. He
+     wooden cum long on the skuner. Giv my luv to Tryphosa and Timotheus
+     i can get there names all rite out of the testymint NEW TESTAMENT
+     Now my ever of thee Tryphena I am orf wunc more on the oshin waive
+     and the hevin depe and If i never more cum bak but the blew waives
+     role over yor Silvanus, the TESTAMENT dont spel it with a why, i
+     left my wil at farthys in the yaler spelin buk on the sheluff nere
+     the side windy levin all my property to my saley Tryphena. I wud of
+     kist u of i had dard beefor I leff wen I am more prospuz i wil dar
+     of I get slaped for it The capen has fyred the blungeybush and i
+     must go ashore with the dingy and get the tavun boy to get ma a
+     nenblope out of the orfis
+
+                             Yore onley luving afekshunit saler boy
+                                                      SYLVANUS PILGRIM.
+
+Just as Tryphena had finished this touching epistle, a knock came to the
+kitchen door. She opened it, and Mr. Perrowne appeared. "Is Timotheus
+here?" he asked. Timotheus himself answered, "Yaas sir!" when the parson
+said, "Would you mind bringing a spaide to help me to bury my poor
+dawg?" The willing Pilgrim rose, and went in quest of the implement,
+while Mr. Perrowne walked round to the verandah, under which lay the
+inanimate form of his long lost canine friend, over which he mourned
+sincerely. The Squire and Miss Halbert came out to assist at the
+obsequies, and were soon joined by Miss Carmichael and Mr. Terry, all of
+whom regretted the loss of poor Muggins, the children's friend.
+
+"Do you think you will ever see your dog again, Basil?" asked the
+doctor's daughter.
+
+"I down't know," replied the parson. "He was part of the creation that
+St. Paul says is growning and waiting for the redemption of the body
+from pain and disease and death. It used to be said that man ownly is
+naturally and necessarily immortal, but that is rubbish, built up on a
+pantheistic idea of Platow. If God continues the life of man beyond this
+world, I see no reason why He should not continue that of a dawg which
+has shared man's fight here below. There are some such good dawgs, don't
+you know, moral, kind, faithful dawgs!"
+
+"Is it not the poor Indian who thinks his faithful dog shall bear him
+company in another world?" asked Miss Carmichael.
+
+"Yes, it is Low; but really, in the great Sanscrit epic of the Bharatan
+war, King Yoodistheer is represented as refusing immortality, unless the
+god Indra will let him take his dawg to heaven along with him."
+
+"And left his wife behind, did he not? He did not even hold her
+something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse."
+
+"Ow, now, I think Draupadee died before him. Still, it is a strange fact
+though that some people do love animals better than human beings."
+
+"D'ye ken why?" asked the Squire, with a glance at his niece. "It's
+because they're no as exacting and fashious as beass."
+
+"Well, there's a lesson for you, Fanny. Good-night. I must gow to my
+sermon and the hymns." So Mr. Perrowne departed, and the mourners
+returned to the house.
+
+On Sunday it rained; nevertheless all went to their respective churches,
+except the Carruthers children, whom Tryphena kept in order, and the
+colonel, who sat with Wilkinson. Both clergymen preached impressively
+with reference to the events of the past week, and, at the close of the
+services, they both repaired to Bridesdale for dinner. In the afternoon
+they rode to their respective stations, but the Squire stayed at home to
+teach the children and read to them, while they devoured the contents of
+the lawyer's elaborate boxes. Tryphosa and Timotheus had to do their
+singing in the kitchen, in which they were joined by Tryphena and
+Maguffin. The latter had a very soft rich voice, and made a great
+addition to the musical performance. The colonel smoked an after dinner
+cigar, and Mr. Terry a pipe, on a dry part of the verandah. The young
+ladies overhauled the entire collection of literature sent to Miss
+Carmichael and to Wilkinson, and read a good many things that were not
+for Sunday. As to the three matrons, it is nobody's business what they
+did with their afternoon. Mr. Perrowne came back to his Fanny in the
+evening, and Mr. Errol, to have "a crack" with Mrs. Carmichael. Monday
+was fair enough to permit of a game of golf between the parsons, with
+the colonel and the veteran for spectators. Miss Halbert went home in
+the evening, and so, except for the wounded dominie upstairs and the
+colonel, things went on in the usual jog-trot way, for Miss Du Plessis
+had been at Bridesdale before. Letters and papers came from Coristine to
+the bedridden dominie, and another package for Marjorie, before Saturday
+night, but none for anybody else, for the reason that Miss Du Plessis
+had written him simply at Wilkinson's dictation, and Mrs. Carruthers and
+Miss Carmichael had not written at all. In her round of household duties
+and the care of a young family, the former had forgotten all about her
+letter, and the latter did not know what to say for herself, and did not
+feel disposed to humiliate her sense of self-respect by reminding her
+aunt of her promise. Another Sunday passed without other incident than
+Mr. Errol's visit. Mr. Perrowne spent most of his spare time at the
+Halbert's. But, Monday night's post brought an official envelope,
+type-written, from the offices of Tylor, Woodruff and White for Miss M.
+Carmichael. She opened it, with a feeling of irritation against
+somebody, and read the wretched type-writing:--
+
+     _Dear Madam_,--I have the honour to inform you that I have received
+     a cable message from Mr. P.R. Mac Smaill, W.S., of Edinburgh, to
+     the effect, that, as very large interests are involved in the case
+     which I had the honour to claim on your behalf as next of kin, his
+     nephew, Mr. Douglas, sailed to-day (Saturday) for Montreal, vested
+     with full powers to act in concert with your solicitors. As my firm
+     has no written instructions from you to act in the matter, I am
+     prepared to hand over the documents and information in my
+     possession to the solicitors whom you and your guardians may be
+     pleased to appoint to deal with Mr. Douglas on his arrival.
+     Awaiting your instructions, I have the honour to remain,
+
+                             Dear madam,
+                                 Your obedient servant,
+                                            EUGENE CORISTINE.
+
+Nothing but the signature was in his writing; this was terrible, the
+worst blow of all.
+
+She took the letter to uncle John in the office and laid it down before
+him. He read it gravely, and then bestowed a kiss of congratulation on
+his niece. "I aye kennt your fayther was weel conneckit, Marjorie, but
+lairge interests in the cen o' writers to the signet like Mac Smaill
+means a graun' fortune, a muckle tocher, lassie. We maun caa' your
+mither doon to talk it owre." So Mrs. Carmichael came to join the party.
+Her daughter wished to appoint some other firm of lawyers in Toronto, or
+else to leave all in the hands of Mac Smaill, but the Squire and Mrs.
+Carruthers would not hear of either alternative. They knew Coristine,
+and could trust him to work in the matter like one of themselves; so the
+young lady's scruples were outwardly silenced, and the Squire was duly
+authorized to conduct the correspondence with the lawyer. This he did in
+twofold fashion. First he wrote:--
+
+     EUGENE CORISTINE, ESQ.,
+                Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff and White.
+
+     _Dear Sir_, Although my niece, Marjorie Carmichael, is of legal
+     age, it is her desire and that of her mother that I, in the
+     capacity of guardian, should authorize you or your firm, as I
+     hereby do in her name, to prosecute her claim as the heir of the
+     late Dr. James Douglas Carmichael, M.P., to the fortune advertised
+     by P.R. Mac Smaill, W.S., of Edinburgh as falling her late father,
+     and to conduct all necessary negotiations with Mr. Mac Smaill and
+     his clients in the case. Kindly notify me at once of your
+     acceptance of the trust, and make any necessary demands for funds
+     and documents as they may be required.              Yours,
+                                                  JOHN CARRUTHERS, J.P.
+
+The other letter was:--
+
+     _My Dear Coristine_, What do you mean, you scamp, by frightening
+     the wits out of my poor lassie with that typewritten bit of legal
+     formality? I have a great mind to issue a warrant for your arrest,
+     and send Rigby down with it, to bring you before me and Halbert and
+     Walker. Man, we would put you through better than Osgoode Hall!
+     But, seriously, we all want you to stick to this next of kin case.
+     Spare no expense travelling about, especially if your travel is in
+     this direction. I think you are not judging Marjorie fairly, not
+     that I would throw my bonnie niece at the head of a prince of the
+     blood, but I have taken a great liking to you, and I know that you
+     have more than a great liking for her. So, no more nonsense.
+     Honoria and Marjorie (Mrs. Carmichael), and all the rest of
+     Bridesdale, send kind love and say "come back soon."
+                                      Yours affectionately,
+                                                  JOHN CARRUTHERS.
+
+Mrs. Carruthers also wrote a note that will explain itself:--
+
+     _Dear Mr. Coristine_,--Please to overlook my long delay in replying
+     to your kind letter and in thanking you for your goodness to the
+     children, who miss you very much, I intended to get Marjorie or
+     her mother to write for me, but in the bustle of housework,
+     preserving, and so on, forgot, which was not kind of me. Father
+     desires me to remember him to you, and says he longs for another
+     smoke and talk. The others have a delicacy in writing, so I am
+     compelled to do it myself, though a very poor correspondent. John
+     has told me about Mr. Douglas coming out to see about Marjorie's
+     fortune. As I suppose he will want to see her and her mother, will
+     you please bring him up yourself, and arrange to give us a long
+     visit. Marjorie Thomas says there are many new flowers out, and
+     that she and my little ones have hardly touched the creek since you
+     left us.
+
+                          With kind regards,
+                                Your very sincere friend,
+                                        HONORIA CARRUTHERS.
+
+Coristine came home jaded on Wednesday evening. The day had been hot,
+and in the absence of all the other principals, the work had been heavy.
+He had interested himself, also, in lady typewriters since his return,
+and had compelled some to take a much-needed holiday. Four unopened
+letters from Bridesdale were in his pocket, which he had saved for after
+dinner. At that meal, the young men of Mrs. Marsh's grown-up family
+rallied him on his lack of appetite and general depression. He had not
+made a pun for four days running, a thing unprecedented. Dinner over, he
+slipped away to his rooms, lit a pipe, and read the letters, the
+contents of two of which, three including the Squire's formal one, are
+already known. Another, in a fine clerkly hand, was from Mr. Errol.
+
+     _My Dear Mr. Coristine_,--A thousand thanks for the bonny pipe,
+     which I fear you must have missed. I shall take great care of it as
+     a memorial of pleasant, though exciting, days. I wish you were here
+     to help Perrowne and me at our cricket and golf, and to have a
+     little chat now and then on practical theology. My ministerial
+     friend is that infatuated with Miss Halbert (they are engaged, you
+     know) I can get very little out of him. Mrs. Carmichael sends her
+     kind regards. Her daughter Marjorie is looking pale and lifeless, I
+     do trust the dear lassie is not going like her poor father. We all
+     love to hear her sing, but she has got that Garden of Gethsemane
+     poem of his set to music. It is very beautiful but far too sad for
+     her young life. I have been visiting your friend Mr. Wilkinson,
+     pastorally, and am just delighted with him. He is a man of a very
+     fine mind and most devout spirit. Miss Cecile and he will suit one
+     another admirably. Colonel Morton is wearying for your society, and
+     so is the good old grandfather. If it will not be putting you to
+     too much trouble, will you ask your bookseller to get me a cheap
+     Leipsic edition of Augustine's "De Civitate Dei," as I wish to
+     polish up my patristic Latin, in spite of the trash written in it,
+     that still defiles our theological teaching. I have been visiting
+     Matilda Nagle, and even that old reprobate, Newcome, who got a
+     terrible shaking in his last nefarious adventure. Matilda is doing
+     remarkably well, and her boy is quite bright and intelligent. Half
+     a dozen cases of sickness in my two charges have kept me from
+     writing, especially as one was a case of infection. Haste ye back
+     to all your warm friends here.
+
+                                   Yours very faithfully,
+                                                 HUGH ERROL.
+
+The last was a stuffy envelope addressed correctly to Mister Eugene
+Coristine, in the hand of a domestic, Tryphosa probably, and contained
+some half dried flowers, among which a blue Lobelia and a Pentstemon
+were recognizable, along with a scrap of a letter in large irregular
+characters.
+
+     _Derest Eugene_--Wat makes you stay sew long a way. This is meter
+     as Pol sed to Petre put on the gridel and take of the heter. A lot
+     more flours are out in bloome like the ones I send with my love so
+     dear fete have been in the creke sints you went a way I think that
+     pig is sory she made you go now the chilren granpa sed to me to
+     rite you to come back for a smok. Dere mister Bigls has gone too
+     and no nice one is left give my love to Tyler and say he must let
+     you go for the house is sew quite their is no more fun in it. Feena
+     got a funy leter from old Sil with moste orfle speling the pusy is
+     well but pore Mug in ded. It was verry good of you to send me
+     candes but I like to have you beter           Your litel love
+                                                               MARJORIE.
+
+The lawyer put this letter reverently away in a special drawer which
+contained his peculiar treasures, but registered a vow to reprove his
+little love for applying the word pig to a young lady. He did not know
+whether to be glad or sorry that Miss Carmichael's case was left in his
+hands. Of course he could not refuse it. If this man Douglas had to go
+up to Bridesdale, he supposed he would have to introduce him, and watch
+him on behalf of his client. A great heiress, perhaps with a title for
+all he knew, would be very unlikely to take more than a passing interest
+in her solicitor. Still, it cut him to the heart that the girl was as
+Mr. Errol represented her. Doubtless she was quite right in not
+acknowledging his business note in person. Then he laid down his pipe,
+put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, exclaiming
+bitterly, "O Marjorie, Marjorie."
+
+Before the end of the week, the Squire received answers to his official
+and non-official letters, accepting the trust confided to him, and
+regretting that Miss Carmichael had given the writer no opportunity of
+more fully explaining himself. The non-official letter also stated that
+the lady's position was so much changed by the prospect of a large
+fortune as to make it little less than dishonourable in him to press his
+suit, at least in the meantime. Mrs. Carruthers also received a promise
+that the lawyer would, if practicable, accompany Mr. Douglas to
+Bridesdale. Mr. Errol reported a nice letter received by him from the
+same quarter, along with the "Civitate Dei" and some reviews. Wilkinson
+was in clover so far as papers and magazines were concerned, and both
+Miss Carmichael and Miss Du Plessis were remembered with appropriate
+literary pabulum of the same nature. More bonbons for the juveniles
+arrived by Saturday night, and a letter for Marjorie.
+
+     _My Dear Little Love, Marjorie._--It was very kind of you to
+     remember your poor boy in his exile from home in the big, hot,
+     dusty city. I liked your dear little letter very much, all except
+     that one word about you know who. I am sure you did not think, or
+     you would never have written so of one so good and kind to you and
+     me. You will not say that any more I am sure. I have put your
+     letter and the flowers you were so kind as to pick and dry for me
+     in my best drawer where I keep my treasures. I send you a new
+     picture book just out, with many coloured plates of flowers in it.
+     When I come up you must tell me if you know their names. Please
+     tell your cousins' grandpapa that I would like very much if he were
+     here, or I were there, that we might have a nice quiet smoke and
+     talk together. I am sorry poor old Muggins is dead. You did not
+     tell me what killed him. Tryphena ought to make Sylvanus buy a
+     spelling book to study while he is on watch in your papa's ship.
+     Your papa and mamma asked me to go for a sail with them, but I had
+     to go to town. Now, my little love, be very kind and nice to
+     everybody, and above all to your dear cousins, big and little, and
+     when I come up and hear how good you have been, we will fish in the
+     creek on week days and sing some of those pretty hymns on Sunday.
+     Do you ever go to see my poor sick friend Wilks? I think he would
+     like to see a little girl some times. Try him with a bonbon and
+     with the poetry under the pictures of flowers in your new book.
+     Give my love to all the kind friends, and keep a great lot for your
+     dear little self.
+
+                         From your own                 EUGENE.
+
+"Where is the book?" asked Marjorie, when the letter was read to her by
+the lady whom she had written so slightingly of. Miss Carmichael looked
+over her own mail matter, and found a large flat volume addressed Miss
+Marjorie Carmichael, while the other packages bore simply Miss
+Carmichael. She opened it up, and found the book demanded. The lawyer
+had been so full of the name that he had written it mechanically,
+instead of Miss Marjorie Thomas. Marjorie was not well pleased that her
+cousin should have usurped her book, but loyalty to Eugene made her
+suppress any expression of indignation. Mr. Terry had to read that
+letter through his spectacles, and Tryphosa; and on Sunday she proposed
+to invade the sanctity of Mr. Wilks' chamber and interest him in both
+letter and book.
+
+The Sunday came and went, and then the slow week dragged along. Whoever
+would have thought that, a short time ago, they had been so cheerful, so
+merry, even with danger threatening and death at their door. The dominie
+was out of his room at last, walking about with his arm in a sling,
+rejoicing in changes of raiment which Coristine had sent from his
+boarding house by express and the mail waggon. The city clothes suited
+him better than his pedestrian suit, and made him the fashionable man of
+the neighbourhood. In conversation over his friend, he remarked that he
+was pleased to find Corry toning down, writing quiet sensible letters,
+without a single odious pun. "Puir laddie!" said the Squire, "if it wad
+mak him blither, I could stan' a haill foolscap sheet o' them. I'm feard
+the city's no' agreein' wi' him." Before noon on Friday there came a
+hard rider to the Bridesdale gate, a special telegraph messenger from
+Collingwood, with a telegram for Mrs. Carruthers. She took it hastily
+from Timotheus, and, breaking the seal, read to the group gathered about
+her: "If agreeable, Douglas and I will be with you by Saturday's stage.
+Please answer by bearer. Eugene Coristine." The Squire, home a little
+sooner than usual, said: "Let me answer that, Honoria," and retired to
+his office. When he came out, it was with a written paper in his hand,
+which he read for approval. "You and Douglas heartily welcome--will meet
+you at station, so do not disappoint." This was accepted by a unanimous
+vote; after which the messenger partook of a hasty meal, as did his
+horse, and then galloped back to town. "The waggonette will hold six,"
+said the Squire; "that's Coristine, Mr. Douglas and me. Who are the
+other three? Will you no come, Marjorie? The ride'll dae ye guid, lass."
+
+No, Miss Carmichael declined, and the Squire was inwardly wroth. Mrs.
+Carmichael took the place offered to her daughter, and Marjorie Thomas
+and Mr. Terry volunteered to make up the required number. It seemed
+such a long time till Saturday morning, but Marjorie tried to shorten
+it, by running everywhere and telling everybody that Eugene was coming.
+The whole house caught the infection. Tryphena and Tryphosa were kept
+busy, preparing already for a late six o'clock dinner on the morrow.
+There was a putting of rooms in order for the coming guests, during
+which Miss Carmichael, conscience stricken, returned the lawyer's verses
+to the leaves of Browning. She dreaded meeting the author of them, and
+found comfort in the fact that he was not coming alone. If she had not
+been, in her own estimation, such a coward, she would have gone on a
+visit to Fanny, but she dared not thus offend her uncle and aunt, and
+desert her mother and Cecile. What was he coming for? She had not sent
+for him. Why did she not want him to come? She did not know, and it was
+the right of nobody to question her on the subject. She only knew that
+she was very unhappy, and hoped she would not act stupidly before the
+stranger from Edinburgh.
+
+That night the Squire received a letter from Coristine, written on
+Thursday, saying that Mr. Douglas had arrived, and was a very fine
+fellow; and that, as soon as he had made up his mind to go to
+Bridesdale, a telegram would be sent. He also requested Mr. Carruthers,
+if it was not trespassing too far upon his kindness, to secure the
+rooms, which the postmistress had told him she had to let, for Miss
+Graves, a young lady in his firm's offices, who needed complete rest and
+change of scene, and who would either go up by the stage on Saturday or
+accompany Mr. Douglas and him at a later date. The letter was read at
+the tea table, and Miss Du Plessis said she knew Marion Graves very
+well, and was glad to think she would be so near, as she was a lovely
+girl; but what a strange thing for Mr. Coristine to recommend her to
+come to Flanders! "Oi'm thinkin'," remarked Mr. Terry, "that av the
+young lady in dilikit loike, it 'ud be a marcy to kape her aff that
+rough stage; so, iv yer willin', Squoire, I'll shtay at home an' lave my
+place to put the poor lady in inshtid av me." Mrs. Carruthers would not
+hear of the veteran's losing the drive, and resigned her seat. Honoria
+would probably want her at any rate, so it was very foolish and selfish
+in her to have thought of going. "There maun be some one o' the female
+persuasion, as good old Newberry calls it, to invite Miss Graves and to
+keep her company, especially if she's an invalid," said the Squire. "I
+will go, uncle," said Miss Carmichael, quietly. The uncle was amazed at
+this new turn things were taking, and arranged in his mind to have Miss
+Graves and Mr. Douglas with him in the front seat, and Coristine between
+the two Marjories behind. After tea, Timotheus and Maguffin were sent to
+invite Miss Halbert and the two clergymen to the Saturday evening
+dinner, but, by Mrs. Carruthers' directions, the postmistress was not
+notified that her rooms were wanted. If Miss Graves were all that Cecile
+said of her, she had remarked, she would be better at Bridesdale, and
+would also be an acceptable addition to the number of their guests.
+
+Saturday morning was a time of wild excitement for Marjorie. She went to
+the brook by anticipation, to look at the sportive fish, and turned up a
+flat stone or two, to be sure the crawfish, which the ignorant Timotheus
+called crabs, were still there. She was prepared to report favourably on
+the creek. Then she journeyed along the banks, looking for new flowers,
+and over the stepping stones to the opposite shore, and up the hill to
+the strip of brush, returning with a handful of showy wild blossoms.
+Next, she visited the stable yard, and watched Timotheus and Maguffin
+polishing up the waggonette and the harness of the horses. The colonel
+was there, and, in answer to Marjorie's enquiry regarding his interest
+in the scene, said: "You are not going to leave me behind, you little
+puss, although you did not invite me. I have invited myself, and am
+going to accompany you on hohseback."
+
+"Are you going to take Guff too, colonel?"
+
+"Who is Guff, my deah?"
+
+"Don't you know Guff?"
+
+"No; I am not awahe that I do."
+
+     "Oh Guffee am de niggah
+       Wif de tah on his heel;
+     He done trabble roun' so libely
+       Dat he's wuff a mighty deal."
+
+"You do not shuhly mean Maguffin?"
+
+"Of course I do; who else could be Guff?"
+
+"No, I shall not take Maguffin, seeing we come right back. Had we been
+going to put up anywheah, of couhse, he would have been indispensable."
+
+"What a funny name! Do you mean the waggonette?"
+
+"By what, Mahjohie?"
+
+"By this fencepail?"
+
+"Silly child, I did not say that. I said indispensable, which means,
+cannot be done without."
+
+"Oh!" answered Marjorie; "it's a long word, is it?"
+
+There was no necessity for starting before ten, at which hour Timotheus
+brought round the waggonette, and Maguffin the colonel's horse. The
+Squire assisted the two Marjories to the front seat, and took his place
+beside the younger. The colonel chivalrously bowed to the ladies while
+on foot; then, he mounted his horse with a bound, and the transport and
+escort trotted away. Mr. Terry, alone and neglected, betook himself to
+the Carruthers children, who soon found many uses to which a
+good-natured grandfather could be put, to the advantage and pleasure of
+his grandchildren.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+     The Collingwood Arrivals--Coristine Goes to the Post Office--Mr.
+     Perrowne is Funny--Bang's Note and the Lawyer's Fall--Coristine in
+     Hospital--Miss Carmichael Relents--Bangs on the Hunt--The
+     Barber--Mr. Rigby on Wounds--Berry-Picking with the New
+     Arrivals--The Lawyer's Crisis--Matilda's--Miss Carmichael in
+     Charge.
+
+
+The train had just come in when Squire Carruthers' party arrived at the
+station, so nicely had he timed his driving. As there was nobody to hold
+the horses, he kept his seat, while Coristine, looking faultlessly neat
+in his town dress, came forward and assisted Miss Carmichael and
+Marjorie to alight. Having asked the former's permission, the lawyer
+introduced Miss Graves, a young lady not unlike Miss Du Plessis in
+stature and carriage, but with larger, though handsome, features and
+lighter complexion. Then, Mr. Douglas, a fine-looking blonde man of
+masculine Scottish type, was made acquainted with his fair client, and
+with her nominal guardian on the box. Finally, the colonel, standing by
+his horse's head, bowed with genial dignity to the new arrivals, and
+warmly pressed the hand of his dear boy's friend. The Squire's little
+scheme was frustrated. His niece, without asking advice or permission
+from anybody, placed Miss Graves beside the driver, and established
+herself on the same seat, leaving Marjorie between the two gentlemen on
+the one behind, after they had bestowed their valises and Miss Graves'
+portmanteau in their rear. Beyond a ceremonious handshake, Miss
+Carmichael gave Coristine no recognition, although she could not have
+failed to perceive his delight at once more meeting her. To Miss Graves,
+however, she was all that could be desired, cheerful, even animated, and
+full of pleasant conversation. Marjorie kept her Eugene and the new
+gentleman busy. She reported on the creek, and presented her faded
+bouquet of wild flowers, which Eugene received with all the semblance of
+lively satisfaction. She made many enquiries regarding the big girl in
+front, and insisted especially on knowing if she was nice. Then she
+turned to Mr. Douglas and asked his name.
+
+"My name is Douglas," he answered.
+
+"Oh, I know that, even Timotheus himself knows that. I mean what's your
+real name, your very own, the name your mamma calls you?"
+
+"She used to call me James."
+
+"Oh; have you got a brother called John?"
+
+"Yes; how did you know that?"
+
+"Oh, I know. Then your papa's name is Zebedee, and your mamma's is
+Salome."
+
+"No, we are not those two James and Johns; they are dead."
+
+"They are the only James and John I know."
+
+"I don't think so. Your uncle, Dr. Carmichael, was called James Douglas,
+like me."
+
+"Marjorie's dead papa?"
+
+"Yes; your cousin is a sort of far-away cousin of mine; so you must be
+one of my cousins, too. What do you think of that?"
+
+"I think it's nice to have a growed-up man cousin. I'll call you Jim."
+
+"Marjorie!" said a reproving voice from the front seat; "you must not
+talk to Mr. Douglas in that pert way."
+
+"If my cousin lets me call him Jim, it's none of your business, cousin
+Marjorie. You will let me, won't you, cousin Jim?"
+
+"To be sure, if Miss Carmichael will allow me."
+
+"I don't think it's fair to let her boss the whole show."
+
+Mr. Douglas laughed loud and long over this expression, so novel to his
+British ears.
+
+"Where did you learn that, Marjorie?" asked Coristine.
+
+"Oh, from Guff; there's heaps of fun in Guff."
+
+Her companions occasionally took advantage of silent intervals to
+discuss the scenery, and the Canadian lawyer pointed out spots,
+memorable in the great pedestrian tour, to his Scottish compeer. Miss
+Carmichael never turned, nor did she give Miss Graves a chance to do so;
+but the Squire managed to sit sideways, without at all incommoding the
+ladies, and, keeping one eye on his horses, at the same time engaged in
+conversation with Marjorie's captives. The colonel also kept close to
+the vehicle, and furnished Coristine with new information concerning his
+wounded friend. Miss Graves was informed that she was not to be allowed
+to go to the post office, and her protests were imperiously silenced by
+Marjorie's "boss of the whole show." The horses, having come out
+quietly, went home at a rattling pace, and, a good hour before dinner
+time, the party arrived at Bridesdale, there to be greeted by Miss
+Halbert and the parsons, in addition to the occupants of the house.
+Wilkinson and Mr. Terry received Coristine with enthusiasm, but all the
+ladies bore down upon the latest arrival of their sex and carried her
+away, leaving the man, in whom they had expressed so much interest, to
+feel as if there were a plot on foot to ignore him.
+
+"It mast be very pleasant for you, Corry, to find all the ladies so
+attentive to your lady friend," remarked the Dominie.
+
+"Very pleasant for Miss Graves, no doubt; I can't say the same about
+myself."
+
+"I should have thought you would have regarded a compliment to her as
+more gratifying than one to yourself."
+
+"Haven't reached that heavenly stage of Christian self-abnegation yet,
+Wilks."
+
+"Perhaps I am mistaken in supposing you take a great interest in the
+lady?"
+
+"Interest, yes; great, more than doubtful. She's the third girl I've had
+to send away for the good of her health. The other two knew where to go,
+and went. She didn't; so I thought of establishing her at the post
+office. I never dreamt the Squire would come for us till I got his
+message. I meant to accompany her in the stage, and land her in the arms
+of Mrs. Tibbs; but here we are, like a bridal party, with Marjorie for
+bridesmaid and Douglas for best man."
+
+"Thank you, Corry; you have relieved me from a great anxiety. Miss Du
+Plessis thinks very highly of your ---- travelling companion."
+
+"Douglas, do you mean?"
+
+"No, the lady."
+
+"Oh, bother the lady! Wilks, it's a doubly grave situation. If it wasn't
+for Mr. Terry and Marjorie, I'd cut my stick. As it is, I'll run and
+engage that post-office room for myself, and be back in time for dinner
+or whatever else is up. Au revoir." With a bound he was off the
+verandah, valise in hand, and away on to the road.
+
+When Coristine returned, he was just in time for dinner. He had not been
+missed; the entire interest of the feminine part of the community was
+centred in Miss Graves. The Squire took her in, as the latest lady
+arrival, while Mr. Douglas escorted the hostess. To his infinite
+annoyance, Coristine, who had brought in Mrs. Du Plessis, was
+ostentatiously set down by the side of his invalided type-writer, to
+whom he was the next thing to uncivil. Miss Carmichael, between Mr.
+Douglas and Mr. Errol, was more than usually animated and
+conversational, to the worthy minister's great delight. The amusing man
+of the table was Mr. Perrowne. His people were building him a house,
+which Miss Halbert and he had inspected in the morning, with a view to
+the addition of many cupboards, which the lady deemed indispensable to
+proper housekeeping. Mr. Perrowne thought he would call the place
+Cubbyholes; but Miss Du Plessis asked what it would really be, the
+rectory, the vicarage or the parsonage? Miss Halbert suggested the
+basilica, to which he replied that, while a good Catholic, he was
+neither Fannytic nor a Franciscan. He derided his intended bride's taste
+in architecture, and maintained that the income of a bishop would be
+insufficient to stock half the storerooms and wardrobes, leaving all the
+rest of the house unfurnished. As it was, he feared that the charming
+Fanny would be in the predicament of old Mother Hubbard, while he,
+unfortunately, would be in that of the dog. "In that case, Basil," said
+Miss Halbert, "you would be like an inclined plane."
+
+"How so?" enquired Mr. Perrowne.
+
+"An inclined plane is a slope up, you know," answered the mischievous
+bride elect.
+
+"Talking about dawgs," remarked the victim of the terrible conundrum, "I
+asked a little girl belonging to one of my parishoners what kind her
+dawg was. She said it had been given to her as a spanuel, but she
+thought it was only a currier."
+
+"When I was at the school," said the Edinburgh gentleman, "a boy whom I
+had offended some way, offered to make the like of me with a street cur
+and an old gun. He said he could make 'one dowg less' in the time it
+took to fire the gun."
+
+"What did you do to that boy, Mr. Douglas?" asked Miss Carmichael.
+
+"I left him alone, for he was a good deal bigger than me."
+
+"You were not a Boanerges then?"
+
+"No, I was James the Less."
+
+"What are you dreaming about, Mr. Coristine," called the Squire, "to let
+all this wild talk go on without a word?"
+
+"I am sorry to say I did not hear it, Squire," replied the moody lawyer,
+whose little conversation had been wholly devoted to Mrs. Du Plessis.
+
+After dinner, the lawyer repaired to the Squire's office, and briefly
+informed him, that the fortune in funds and property to which his niece
+had fallen heir was valued at 80,000 pounds sterling, and that,
+fortunately, there was no sign of any contest or opposition in the
+matter. He also explained that, under the circumstances, he felt
+constrained to take a brief lodging at the post office, and begged Mr.
+Carruthers to apologize to his wife for the desertion of Bridesdale.
+Then, he sought out Mr Terry in the garden and smoked a pipe with him,
+while his new friend, Mr. Douglas, was chatting on the verandah between
+Miss Carmichael and Miss Graves. Nobody else seemed to want him or care
+for him; he had even lost his old friend Wilks, who was absorbed in his
+beloved Cecile. The colonel was as bad with Cecile's mother, and Mr.
+Errol with Mrs. Carmichael. The Squire was busy, so the veteran and he
+were left alone. For a time, they smoked and talked, listening all the
+while, as they could not fail, to the merry badinage of the party on the
+verandah. At last he could stand it no longer. He rose, bade his
+companion good-night, and strolled away on to the road. Once out of
+observation from the house, he walked rapidly to his new quarters. "Is
+that you, Styles?" asked Mrs. Tibbs, as he entered. He assured the
+postmistress that he was not Styles, and asked if there was anything he
+could do for her. "There is a letter here for Squire Carruthers, marked
+'immediate,' and they have not been for their mail," she answered. So,
+sorely against the grain, the lawyer had to take the letter and return
+with it to Bridesdale. Mr. Carruthers was still in his office. He opened
+the envelope and read:--
+
+                                           COLLINGWOOD, Saturday, 12 m.
+     _My Dear Squire,--_
+
+     Rawdon and his nephew have broken gaol and escaped. Be on your
+     guard. Will go to you as soon as possible.
+
+                                          Yours truly,
+                                                  J. HICKEY BANGS.
+
+"This is bad news, Coristine. It seems as if we're never to hear the
+last o' yon villain."
+
+"I'm at your service, Squire."
+
+"I canna thole to ask the colonel, puir man, to lose his nicht's rest,
+an' I'm no ower sure o' his man. Sae, the granther an' I'll watch till
+it's twal', if you wi' Timotheus 'll relieve us till two i' the mornin'.
+What say ye to thon?"
+
+"All right, I'll be here at midnight. Could you get me the cartridges
+out of my knapsack upstairs?"
+
+The Squire produced the cartridges, and the lawyer went back to his
+post-office quarters.
+
+Punctually at midnight he returned, and relieved Mr. Carruthers in
+front of the house, while Timotheus took Mr. Terry's place behind. It
+was after one when he saw a figure, which he did not recognize as
+belonging to any one in the house, steal out of the front door with a
+heavy burden. He ran towards the figure, and it stole, as rapidly as
+possible, down the garden to the hill meadow. He knew it now, outlined
+against the heavens, and fired his revolver. He knew that he had hit his
+man, and that Rawdon was wounded in the body or in the upper part of a
+leg. Hurriedly he pursued, entering the strip of woodland towards the
+brook, when something fell upon him, and two keen qualms of pain shot
+through his breast. Then he lay insensible. Meanwhile, a lithe active
+form, leaving a horse tethered at the gate, had sprung to meet a second
+intruder, issuing from the front door of Bridesdale. The opposing forces
+met, and Mr. Bangs had his hands upon the younger gaol breaker. A loud
+shout brought Timotheus on the scene, and the prisoner was secured. The
+household was aroused. The Squire found his office a scene of confusion,
+his safe broken open, the hidden treasure and many of his papers gone.
+Inwardly he muttered maledictions on the sentry of the watch, little
+knowing that the burglars had entered the house while he was himself on
+guard. In his vexation, and the general excitement, with the presence of
+Miss Graves and Messrs. Douglas and Bangs, the unhappy lawyer's absence
+was overlooked. His shot apparently had not been heard. The vicinity of
+the house was scoured for Rawdon, but without effect. He had got away
+with his own money and many incriminating papers, to be a continued
+source of annoyance and danger. Those who gave any thought to Coristine
+imagined him asleep at the post office, and wondered at his
+indifference. Chief among them were the dominie and Miss Carmichael.
+There was little more rest that night in Bridesdale. One villain at
+large was sufficient to keep the whole company in a state of
+uncomfortable disquiet and apprehension. It was still dark, when old
+Styles came to the gate and asked for Mr. Coristine, as he said the
+crazy woman was at the post office, and Mrs. Tibbs wanted to know if she
+could have the use of the spare room for the rest of the night. Then the
+Squire was alarmed, and a great revulsion of feeling took place. The
+man almost entirely ignored was now in everybody's mind, his name on all
+lips but those which had been more to him than all the rest.
+
+Stable lanterns were got out, and an active search began. Mr. Terry's
+practiced ear caught the sound of voices down the hillside, and he
+descended rapidly towards them. Soon, he came running back, tearing at
+his long iron grey hair, and the tears streaming from his eyes, to the
+place where his son-in law was standing. "Get a shate or a quilt or
+something, John, till we take it out av that Och, sorra, sorra, the
+foine, brave boy!" At once, Mr. Douglas and Timotheus accompanied the
+Squire to the little wood, and beheld the owners of the voices, Mr.
+Newcome and his intending son-in-law, Ben Toner.
+
+"Aw niver tetched un, Ben. Aw wor jest goan troo t' bush, when aw
+stoombled laike over's carkidge and fall, and got t' blood on ma claws,"
+said the former to his captor.
+
+"S'haylp me," replied Ben, "ef I thunk it was you as killed the doctor,
+I'd put the barl o' this here gun to your hayd and blow out your
+braiuns."
+
+"Don't let that man go," said the Squire to Toner.
+
+"Ain't that what I come all this way fer?" answered the lover of
+Serlizer.
+
+The Squire and the veteran, with terrible mental upbraidings, raised the
+body from its bed of leaves and wood-mould and placed it reverently upon
+the sheet, which it stained with blood at once. Then, while the colonel
+held one lantern and Wilkinson the other, Mr. Douglas and Timotheus took
+the other corners of the simple ambulance, and bore their burden to the
+house. In his own room they laid Rawdon's victim, removed the clothing
+from his wounds, washed away the clotted blood, only to despair over the
+flow that still continued, and rejoiced in the fact that life was not
+altogether extinct, when they handed him over to the care of the three
+matrons. While the colonel was sending Maguffin in search of the doctor,
+the voice of Squire Halbert was heard in the hall, saying he thought it
+must have been Miss Carmichael who had summoned him, at any rate it was
+a young lady from Bridesdale. He stanched the bleeding, administered
+stimulants, and ordered constant watching. "The body has suffered
+terribly," he said, "and has hardly any hold upon the soul, which may
+slip away from us at any moment." The good doctor professed his
+willingness to stay until the immediate crisis from loss of blood was
+overpast. To all enquiries he answered that he had very little hope, but
+he sent the kind ladies away from the death-like chamber, and
+established himself there with Wilkinson, who would not leave his
+friend.
+
+The light of a beautiful Sunday morning found Miss Du Plessis, Miss
+Halbert, and Miss Graves in bitter sorrow, and little Marjorie beside
+herself with grief. The very kitchen was full of lamentation; but one
+young woman went about, silent and serious indeed, yet tearless. This
+was Miss Carmichael. The doctor had come down to breakfast, leaving the
+dominie alone with the patient, when she took a tray from Tryphena, and
+carried up the morning repast of the watcher. Then, for the first time,
+she got a sight of the wounded man, whose eyes the doctor had closed,
+and whose jaw by gentle pressure he had brought back, till the lips were
+only half parted. She could hardly speak, as she laid a timid hand on
+her late principal's shoulder, directing his attention to the breakfast
+tray. "Look away, please, for Cecile's sake if not for mine," she
+managed to stammer, and, as he turned his head aside, she flung herself
+upon her knees beside the bed, and took the apparently dead man's hand
+in her own, covered it with tears and kisses, and transferred the ring
+she had once worn back to her own hand, replacing it with one of her own
+that would hardly slip down over the bloodless emaciated finger. Quietly
+she arose, and noiselessly left the room, when the dominie returned to
+his watching and administration of stimulants. When she came down
+stairs, outwardly calm but looking as if she had seen a ghost,
+everybody, who was in the secret of past days, knew, and respected her
+silence. Even Mr. Douglas, who had thought to improve his distant
+cousinship, read there the vanity of all his hopes, and bestowed a
+double share of attention upon Miss Graves, charming in her genuine
+sorrow over her considerate employer. Nobody cared to go to church, but
+the good Squire pointed out that few could be of any service at home,
+and that, if ever they had need of the comforts of religion, it was at
+such a time. So Mr. Perrowne and Mr. Errol each received a quota of
+grief-stricken worshippers from Bridesdale, and, at the close of their
+respective services, mingled heartfelt expressions of sorrow with
+theirs. The clergymen declined to intrude upon the saddened household,
+until they could be of some service, so the worshippers returned as they
+went.
+
+Mr. Bangs and the doctor were the lights of the dinner table, their
+professional acquaintance with all sorts of trouble hindering them from
+being overcome by anything of the kind. The former had sent for Mr.
+Rigby, and had placed the two prisoners in his charge, thus releasing
+Timotheus and Ben Toner. The latter reported that his patient was
+restored to animation, but this restoration was accompanied with fear
+and delirium, the effects of which on a rapidly enfeebled body he
+greatly dreaded. If he could keep down the cerebral excitement, all
+might be well, and for this he depended much on the presence with the
+sufferer of his friend, Mr. Wilkinson. Just as he said this, the
+dominie's voice was heard calling for assistance, and the doctor and the
+Squire sprang upstairs. The patient had broken his bandages, and was
+sitting up fighting with his attendant, whom in his delirium he
+identified with Rawdon. It was almost ludicrous to hear him cry, as he
+clutched at Wilkinson's throat: "Ah, Grinstuns, you double-dyed villain,
+I've got you now. No more free circus for you, Grinstuns!" With
+difficulty the three men got him down, and bandaged him again; but his
+struggles were so violent that they feared for his life. He recognized
+none of them. Little Marjorie heard his loud shouts, and ran to save her
+friend from his murderers, as she thought them to be. The Squire would
+have repelled her intrusion angrily, but Doctor Halbert said: "Come,
+little girl, and tell your poor friend he must be quiet, if he wants to
+live for you and the rest of us." It is hard to say what prompted her,
+but she took out a little tear-soaked handkerchief and laid it on
+Coristine's shoulder, calling, "Eugene, you silly boy". The silly boy
+closed his staring eyes, and then opened them again upon the child. "Is
+that you, pet Marjorie?" he asked feebly; and she sobbed out: "Yes,
+Eugene dear, it's me; I've come to help you to get well."
+
+"Thank you, Marjorie; have I been sick long?"
+
+"No, just a little while; but the doctor says you must be very very
+still, and do just what you're told. Will you, Eugene?"
+
+"Yes; where's your cousin, Marjorie?"
+
+"Can you turn your head? If you can, put it down, and I'll whisper
+something in your very own ear. Now listen! don't say a word till I come
+back. I'm going to bring cousin Marjorie to you." Then she slipped away
+out of the room.
+
+"Doctor," said the Squire in a shaky voice, "we had aa better gang awa
+oot o' the room till the meetin's owre." So the three men withdrew to
+the hall as the two Marjories entered.
+
+"Eugene," whispered little Marjorie, "have you been good while I was
+away, and not spoken?"
+
+"Not a word, Marjorie," breathed rather than spoke the enfeebled lawyer.
+
+"I have brought cousin Marjorie to you. You must be very good, and do
+all she says. Give me your hand." She took the limp hand, with the ring
+on the little finger, and placed it in her cousin's; then, with a
+touching little sigh, departed, leaving the two alone. Their hands lay
+clasped in one another, but they could not speak. His eyes were upon
+her, all the fierce light of delirium out of them, in spite of the fever
+that was burning in every limb, resting upon her face in a silly wistful
+way, as if he feared the vision was deceptive, or his prize might vanish
+at any moment. At last she asked: "Do you know me, Mr. Coristine?" and
+he murmured: "How could I help knowing you?" But, in a minute, he
+commanded himself, and said: "It is very kind of you to leave your
+friends and come to a stupid sick man. It is too much trouble, it is not
+right, please go away."
+
+"Look me straight in the face, Eugene," said Miss Carmichael, with an
+effort. "Now, tell me, yes or no, nothing more, mind! Am I to go away?"
+As she asked the question, her face bent towards that of the sufferer,
+over which there passed a feeble flush, poor insufficient index of the
+great joy within, and then, as they met, his half-breathed answer was
+"No." She commanded silence, shook up his pillows, bathed his forehead,
+and in many ways displayed the stolen ring. He saw it, and, for the
+first time, perceived the change on his own hand. Then, she ordered him
+to go to sleep, as if he were a child, smoothing his hair and chanting
+in a low tone a baby's lullaby, until tired nature, with a heart at
+peace, became unconscious of the outer world and slumbered sweetly. On
+tiptoe, she stole to the door, and found many waiting in the hall for
+news. Proudly, she called the doctor in and showed him his patient, in
+his right mind and resting. "Thank God!" said the good man, "he is
+saved. We must come and relieve you now, Miss Carmichael." But she
+answered: "No, my place is here. If I want assistance I will call my
+uncle or Mr. Wilkinson." Doctor Halbert told the joyful news to the
+Squire and the assembled company. The clergymen would not arrive till
+tea time, so Mr. Carruthers, as the priest of the family, gathered the
+household together, and, in simple language but full of heart, thanked
+God for the young life preserved. The doctor went away home, but without
+Miss Fanny, and, as he drove off, remarked to the Squire, significantly:
+"There is no medicine in the world like love," a sentiment with which
+the Squire thoroughly agreed.
+
+The evening was a very pleasant one. Messrs. Errol and Perrowne rejoiced
+to hear the good news from the sick room, and Mrs. Carmichael gave the
+former to understand, in a vague, yet to his intelligence perfectly
+comprehensible, way, that the assurance of her daughter's future
+happiness would remove a large obstacle in the way of her becoming the
+mistress of the manse. Mr. Perrowne appreciated Dr. Halbert's
+consideration in leaving his daughter at Bridesdale. The Du Plessis
+quartette were even farther advanced than the Carmichael four; and
+consequently Miss Graves was left to the entertainment of Mr. Douglas.
+The patient upstairs awoke, feeling very stiff and sore, but quite
+rational, and almost too happy to speak, which was a good thing, as his
+strength was that of a baby. He had to be lifted and turned, and propped
+up and let down, which the Squire generally did for him, under the head
+nurse's instructions, received from the doctor. Then he had to be fed,
+and begged to have his moustache curtailed, so as to facilitate the
+task. Two little hands, a comb, and a pair of scissors went to work,
+and, without annihilating the hirsute adornment, so trimmed it as to
+reveal a well-curved upper lip, hitherto almost invisible. It is
+astonishing what a sense of proprietorship this "barberous operation,"
+as she termed it, developed in the heiress, who thought more of it than
+of her prospective thousands. It was past ten o'clock before she
+consented to yield her post to the devoted Wilkinson, who already began
+to look upon her as a sister, and to whom she gave directions, with all
+the gravity and superior dignity of an experienced nurse. The colonel
+would willingly have taken his turn in the sick room, but Mr. Terry, Mr.
+Douglas, and the Squire insisted on relieving him. Mr. Bangs was away
+with Ben Toner and two guns hunting for the Grinstun man. The watchers
+got along very well through the night, with the exception of the
+veteran, who was a little too liberal in the application of stimulants,
+which led to a reappearance of fever, and necessitated his calling in
+the aid of the ever-willing and kindly Honoria. Both the clergymen had
+volunteered to sit up with him, whom they were proud to call their
+friend, but it was not considered fair to impose upon them after the
+labours of their hardest day.
+
+The morning saw Miss Carmichael in the sick room again, putting things
+to rights, purifying and beautifying it, as only a woman can, with the
+romantic and tearful, Shakespeare loving Tryphosa in her train. Poor
+little neglected Marjorie, who had performed for her young self an art
+of heroic sacrifice in handing over her own Eugene to her unworthy
+cousin, was allowed, a great and hitherto unheard of reward, to bring
+the patient an armful of flowers from the garden, gathering any blossoms
+she chose, to fill vases and slender button-hole glasses in every
+corner. She was even permitted to kiss Eugene, although she protested
+against the removal of that lovely moustache. She offered to bring
+Felina to lick off the stubble on her friend's chin, but that friend, in
+a wheezy whistling voice, begged that Maguffin might be substituted for
+the cat, in case pussy might scratch him. Maguffin came with the
+colonel's razors, and Marjorie looked on, while he gave the author of
+his present fortunes a clean shave, and made ironical remarks about
+moustache trimming. "Guess the man what trimmed yoh mustash fought he
+was a bahbah, sah?" The patient smiled seraphically, and whistled in
+his throat. "Never want to have a better, Maguffin."
+
+"It's awful, Guff, isn't it?" asked Miss Thomas, and continued, "it
+quite gives me the horrows!"
+
+"Dey's bahbahs and dey's bahbahs," replied the coloured gentlemen, "and
+I doan want ter blame a gennelum as cayn't help hisself."
+
+The barbering completed, Marjorie junior was dismissed with her ally
+Guff, and the senior lady of that name reigned supreme. The eyes of the
+feeble invalid, whose heart had been hungering and thirsting for love
+during a month that had seemed a lifetime, followed her all over the
+room, and almost stopped beating when she went near the door. But she
+came back, and held that hot fevered hand on which her modest ring
+glistened, and cooled his brow, and made him take his sloppy food, and
+answered back in soft but cheery tones his deprecating whispers. She had
+him now safe, and would tyrannize over him, she said; till, spite of the
+weakness and the sharp pains, his eye began to twinkle with something of
+the old happy light that seemed to be of so long ago, and, smilingly, he
+murmured: "We are not ready for our graves yet." Miss Carmichael looked
+severe, and held up a warning finger. "Repeat that, Eugene, and I will
+send her to take care of you at once," she said; "that is, if she will
+leave her dear Mr. Douglas for a poor bed-ridden creature like you." As
+an affectionate salute followed these words, it may be presumed they
+were not so harsh as they sounded. The doctor came in time for
+breakfast, but, before partaking of that meal, he visited his patient,
+eased his bandages, looked to the wounds, and praised the nurse. "He
+could not be doing better," he said, as he cheerfully descended to the
+breakfast table.
+
+The constable had respected the sanctity of the Sabbath, and was still
+in the kitchen, while his prisoners languished in the stables. Tryphena
+presided over the morning meal, at which Timotheus and Ben sat; and
+Tryphosa, who had just descended from her labours in the sick room, was
+giving them so touching and poetical an account of the invalid and his
+nurses that Timotheus began seriously to consider the propriety of
+having some frightful injury inflicted upon his own person. Mr. Toner
+related for the tenth time how the spurious doctor had cured him, and
+then proceeded to tell of Serlizer's wonderful skill in pulling through
+her shot-riddled old reprobate of a father, till "he was eenamost as
+good as new and a mighty sight heavier 'n he was, along o' the leaud in
+his old carkidge." Constable Rigby laughed at the wounds of the day, and
+characterized them as mere scratches, unworthy of mention in casualty
+despatches. "There was a man of ours, an acting corporal, called
+Brattles, in the melee at Inkerman, who broke the tip of his bagginet
+off in one Rooshian, and the butt of it in another. Then he had nothing
+to do but to club with what the French call the crosse. He forgot that
+he had not emptied his gun of the last charge so, just as he had floored
+his fourth Rooshian, the piece went off into his left breast, and the
+bullet ran clear down him and came out of his boot under the hollow of
+the left foot. Captain Clarkson thought he was done for; but Brattles
+asked him for two champagne corks, plugged up the incoming and the
+outgoing wounds with them, and stuck to it till the Rooshian bugles
+sounded the retreat. That I call a wound to speak of." Tryphena, who had
+listened to this story of her elderly admirer with becoming gravity,
+ventured to ask: "Do officers carry champagne corks about with them on
+the battle-field, Corporal Rigby?"
+
+"Not all officers, Miss Hill. I never heard that Lord Raglan or Sir
+Colin did. But the young fellows, of course. How else could they blacken
+each other's faces?"
+
+"Do they do that?"
+
+"Regular. There was a subaltern they called Baby Appleby, he was so
+white-skinned and light-haired. Well, one night we had to turn out for
+an alarm in the dark, and charged two miles up to the rifle pits of the
+first line. When we came back, the colonel halted us for inspection
+before dismiss. When he came to Mr. Appleby, he turns to his captain and
+says: 'Where did you get this nigger in uniform, Ford?' The captain
+looked at him and roared, for poor Mr. Appleby was as black as Maguffin.
+The gentlemen had amused themselves corking him when he was asleep."
+
+"Yoh finds it mighty easy, consterble, ter say disrespeckshus remahks on
+cullud folks," said the temporary barber, entering at that moment. "Ef
+the Lawd made as dahk complected, I specks the Lawd knowed what He was
+a doin', and didn't go foh ter set white folks a-sneezin' at 'em. I'se
+flissertaten myself ebery day yoh cayn't cohk me inter a white folks."
+
+"They's whitewaush, Maguffin," interpolated Ben. "A good heavy coaut o'
+whitewaush 'ud make a gashly Corkashun of you."
+
+"Yah! yah! yah! I'se got a brudder as perfesses whitewashin' an'
+colourin'. When he's done got a job, he looks moh like the consterble's
+brudder nor myuns, yah! yah! yah!"
+
+The corporal frowned, and went on with his breakfast, while Mr. Maguffin
+gave an account of his shaving adventure, and of the sight of that poor
+man whose moustache had been trimmed by a non-professional.
+
+Ben was soon after called by the detective to re-engage in the hunt for
+Rawdon, who was now known to be wounded, and, therefore, to be lurking
+somewhere in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Carmichael accompanied Mr. Errol on
+a visit to Matilda Nagle at the post office. The absence of the minister
+made the morning game of golf impossible, so that Mr. Perrowne had to
+surrender himself to the care of Miss Halbert, which he did with a fine
+grace of cheerful resignation. Mr. Douglas expressed a desire to take a
+walk in the surrounding country, and the dominie echoed it, with the
+condition that the ladies should share in the excursion. The Squire and
+Mrs. Carruthers were busy; the doctor had his patient to look after, and
+expected to be summoned to the other at the post office; and Mr. Terry
+occupied himself with the children. But Mrs. Du Plessis and her
+daughter, Miss Graves, Miss Halbert, and, of course the colonel and Mr.
+Perrowne, were willing to be pedestrians, if the proposers of the tramp
+promised not to walk too fast. There was a pretty hillside, beyond
+Talfourds on the road towards the Beaver River, from which the timber
+had once been removed, and which was now covered, but not too thickly,
+with young second growth; and thither the party determined to wend their
+way. Marjorie had intended to stay at home, in the hope of being allowed
+to see Eugene again, but the doctor had begged her to leave him alone
+for a day or two, and now the prospect of blackberry and thimbleberry
+picking on the hillside was too much for her to resist. Gaining
+permission from her aunt, she loaded Jim with baskets and little tin
+pails, and led him away to the road between herself and Miss Graves. The
+other gentlemen relieved the burdened Edinburghian of portions of his
+load, and fell into natural pairs with the ladies, Miss Du Plessis and
+Wilkinson bringing up the rear. There was a pleasant lake breeze to
+temper the heat of the fine August morning, which gave the dominie
+license to quote his favourite poet:--
+
+     And now I call the pathway by thy name,
+     And love the fir-grove with a perfect love.
+     Thither do I withdraw when cloudless suns
+     Shine hot, or wind blows troublesome and strong.
+
+Anticipating the thimbleberries, he recited:--
+
+     Thy luscious fruit the boy well knows,
+     Wild bramble of the brake.
+
+Miss Du Plessis liked that sort of thing. It was a blessed relief from
+type-written legal business letters. So she responded in the lines of
+Lamartine:--
+
+     Mon coeur a ce reveil du jour que Dieu renvoie,
+     Vers un ciel qui sourit s'eleve sar sa joie,
+     Et de ces dons nouveaux rendant grace au Seigneur,
+     Murmure en s'eveillant son hymne interieur,
+     Demande un jour de paix, de bonheur, d'innocence,
+     Un jour qui pese entier dans la sainte balance,
+     Quand la main qui les pese a ses poids infinis
+     Retranchera du temps ceux qu'il n'a pas benis!
+
+By this it will appear that the two were admirably suited to each other,
+finding in their companion peculiar excellences they might have vainly
+sought among a thousand on Canadian soil. "This is a morning of
+unalloyed happiness, Farquhar," remarked Miss Du Plessis in prose, and,
+in the same humble style of composition, he answered: "Thank God,
+Cecile! Think what it might have been had the worst happened to poor
+Corry!"
+
+"As it is," replied that lady, archly, "the worst has turned out for the
+best."
+
+"As it was with me," the dominie humbly responded, and relapsed into
+silence.
+
+Meanwhile, Marjorie trotted on ahead, and, her eyes, made observant by
+former botanical expeditions on a small scale, found the purplish blue
+five-flowered Gentian by the open roadside, the tall orange Asclepias
+or Butterfly Weed, and the purple and yellow oak leaved Gerardias or
+False Foxgloves in grassy stretches among the second growth. These she
+bestowed on Jim, who begged to be allowed to present the most perfect
+specimens to Miss Graves. The walkers were now on the top of the hill,
+and strayed off into the overgrown clearing. A shout from Marjorie
+declared that the berries had been reached, and within five minutes the
+whole party was engaged in gathering, what Mr. Douglas hailed with
+delight as "brammles." Marjorie accused the colonel of picking for his
+own mouth, but this was a libel. He picked for Mrs. Du Plessis, whom he
+established under the shade of a straggling striped maple of tender
+growth. That lady received the tribute of brother Paul very gracefully,
+and darkened her lips with the ripe berries, much to the colonel's
+amusement and their mutual gratification. Miss Halbert stood over Basil,
+and so punished him with a sunshade, whenever he abstracted fruit for
+personal consumption, that the man became infatuated and persisted in
+his career of wrong doing, till he was deprived of his basket, which he
+only received back after an abject apology delivered on his knees, and a
+solemn promise to have regard to the general weal. Miss Du Plessis and
+the dominie would have done well, had not the worship of nature and
+human nature, in prose and in verse, withheld their hands from labour,
+and fortunately, as Mr. Perrowne remarked, from picking and stealing.
+Mr. Douglas was absorbed in admiration for Miss Graves, who, thinking
+nothing of the handsome picture she made, attended strictly to business,
+and roused him to emulation in basket filling. Marjorie, with her
+oft-replenished tin can, aided them time about impartially, as the only
+honest workers worthy of recognition. Steadily, they toiled away, until
+the rising sun and shortening shadows, to say nothing of stooped backs
+and flushed faces, warned them to cease their labours, and prepare to
+take their treasures home. Then they compared baskets, to the exultation
+of some and the confusion of others. Miss Graves and Mr. Douglas were
+bracketed first with a good six quarts a piece. Miss Halbert came next,
+with Mr. Perrowne a little behind. Miss Du Plessis and Mr. Wilkinson had
+not six quarts between them; and, when Marjorie saw the colonel's
+little pail only half full, she exclaimed: "O horrows!" and said it was
+a lasting disgrace. But Mrs. Du Plessis smiled sweetly with her
+empurpled lips, and the colonel did not mind the disgrace a particle.
+They all went home very merry and full of innocent jocularity.
+
+"Cecile," said the dominie, "I trust you will excuse the adjective, but
+I should dearly love to hear Corry's jolly laugh just now. Poor fellow,
+I think I could almost bear a pun."
+
+The audacious Mr. Perrowne overheard the last words, and, with great
+exuberance of feeling, propounded a conundrum.
+
+"Mr. Wilkinson, why is a pun of our friend Coristine's like your sling?
+D'ye give it up? Because there's now arm in it now. Ha! ha!"
+
+They had only been a few hours away, but, when they returned to
+Bridesdale, it did not require clever eyes to see that a great change
+had taken place. The people were in the house, even the children, but
+they were all very quiet. Neither the doctor nor the Squire was visible,
+and instinctively the berry-pickers feared the worst. Mrs. Carruthers
+told them that excitement had been too much for the enfeebled patient.
+Happily, he was not strong enough to be delirious, but he seemed
+sinking, and had fallen into unconsciousness, only muttering little
+incoherences in his attenuated voice. Doctor Halbert hoped much from a
+strong constitution, but work and worry had reduced its vitality before
+the dreadful drain came on the life blood. Soon, he came down stairs
+with the Squire, both looking very solemn. "Let me go to my friend,
+Doctor," pleaded Wilkinson, and many other offers of service were made,
+but the doctor shook his head. "Miss Marjorie is there and will not
+leave him," he answered; "and, if she cannot pull him through, nobody
+else can. When she wants help, she will summon you." Then, turning to
+Mr. Errol, he said: "I will go with you now, and see to that poor woman
+at the post office." The minister took the good doctor's arm, and they
+went away dinnerless to attend to the wants of Matilda Nagle, suddenly
+smitten down with fever while on the way to obey the imperious infelt
+summons of the unseen Rawdon. Mr. Newberry was with her, having been
+driven over by that strange mixture of humanity, Yankee Pawkins, and
+Mrs. Tibbs was acting as the soul of kindness. The woman's case was a
+remarkable combination of natural and mesmeric causes, but presented no
+reason for serious apprehension. The doctor prescribed, and Pawkins
+drove off at breakneck speed to get the prescription filled by the
+medical student at his dispensary. Then, he and the minister returned to
+the sobered and melancholy company at Bridesdale. "Resting, but hardly
+breathing," was the bulletin that greeted them, when they enquired after
+the solitary battler for life in the upper chamber. Yet he was not
+alone; one sad stricken woman's heart was bound to that poor shadow of
+former vital wealth forever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+     Matilda Free--The Constable Captured--The Thunderstorm--Rawdon
+     Found--The Lawyer Revives--Inquest--Mr. Pawkins
+     Again--Expeditions--Greek--Committee of the Whole--Miss Graves and
+     Mr. Douglas--Weddings--The Colonel, Wilkinson and Perrowne
+     Off--Arrival of Saul--Errol, Douglas and Coristine
+     Wedded--Festivities in Hall and Kitchen--Europe--Home--Two
+     Knapsacks--Envoi.
+
+
+That was a dreary Monday afternoon inside Bridesdale, in spite of the
+beautiful weather without, for the shadow of death fell heavy and black
+on every heart. Those who had shared in the morning's merriment felt as
+if they had been guilty of sacrilege. Even Mr. Rigby exhibited his share
+in the general concern by being more than usually harsh towards his
+prisoners. About four o'clock there was an incident that made a little
+break in the monotony of waiting for the death warrant. Old Styles
+arrived, to say that the crazy woman was no longer crazy. Half an hour
+before she sat up in bed and cried "Free at last!" and since then,
+though the fever was still on her, her mind was quite clear. Doctor
+Halbert took a note of the time, and wondered what the sudden and
+beneficial change meant. Mrs. Carmichael and Mr. Errol sympathized with
+him, rejoicing for the poor woman's sake. The detective and Ben Toner
+came home, very tired and disgusted with their want of success. When
+night came, the dominie again offered to stay with his friend, and, in
+his anxiety, even forced himself into the sick room. Miss Carmichael was
+very pale, but very quiet and resolute. "He is your dear friend, I
+know," she said, calmly, "but he belongs to me as he does not to anybody
+else in the world. I may not have him long, so please don't grudge me
+the comfort of watching." Wilkinson had to go away, more pained at heart
+for the sad eyed watcher awaiting the impending blow than for the
+unconscious friend on whom it was to fall more mercifully. Mr. Bangs
+took charge of the outside guard that night, in which the clergymen had
+volunteered to serve. Mr. Rigby took a grey blanket out to the stables,
+and lay down near his prisoners, with baton and pistol close at hand.
+About eleven o'clock Ben Toner, on guard before the house, saw a female
+figure approaching, and challenged. "Squit yer sojer foolins, Ben, and
+leave me pass," came from the well known voice of Serlizer. "Is the gals
+up in the kitchen?"
+
+"They is," replied Mr. Toner, humbly and laconically; and his ladylove
+proceeded thitherward. Miss Newcome looked in upon Tryphena, Tryphosa,
+and Timotheus, Mr. Maguffin being asleep, and, after a little
+conversation, guessed she'd go and see Ben. She had found out that the
+constable had two prisoners in charge, quite incidentally, and listened
+to the news as something that did not concern her. Instead of going to
+see Ben, however, she visited the stables. The corporal was evidently
+tired of lying in front of his captives, and probably proposed to
+himself an improving game of geography over a mug of cider in the
+kitchen, for he had risen and unlocked the door. Serlizer stood by it
+with a stout handkerchief in her hand, in the middle of which was
+knotted a somewhat soft and unsavoury potato. As Mr. Rigby slipped out,
+after a glance at his shackled charges, that potato went across his
+month, and was fastened in its place by the handkerchief, firmly, though
+quickly, knotted at the back of his neck. The terror of Russians and
+Sepoys struggled for liberty, but he was a child in the arms of the
+encampment cook. Halters, ropes, and chains of many kinds were hanging
+up, and with some of these the Amazon secured her prisoner in a stall.
+Then she searched him, retaliating upon the constable the indignities he
+had practised on his former victims. Handcuff and padlock keys were
+found in his pockets, and with these she silently freed her venerable
+father, who, in his turn, delivered young Rawdon from his bonds. "Now,
+you two," said the rescuer, quietly, "go round the end of the stables,
+cross the road into the bush beyont, and leg out fast as ye can. I'm
+a-goin' ter foller, and, ef I see ye take a step 'campment way, I'll
+have ye both hung, sure pop." Mr. Newcome gave the prostrate constable
+two parting kicks in the ribs, and obeyed orders, while his affectionate
+daughter followed, until she saw the fugitives safely on the homeward
+road. Then she strayed back to the kitchen, and guessed, seeing Ben was
+all safe, she'd go home, as the night was fine. She put in half an
+hour's irrelevant talk with Mr. Toner after this, and, thereafter, left
+him, suggesting, as she departed, that, when his watch was over, he
+might look into the stables, where the horses seemed to be restless.
+
+Simple-hearted Ben informed Mr. Bangs that he had heard noises in the
+stables, which was not true. Proceeding thither with a lantern he found
+only one prisoner, who, on examination, proved to be the constable. He
+had attacked the unsavoury potato with his teeth as far as the tightness
+of his gag allowed, and was now able to make an audible groan, which
+sounded slushy through the moist vegetable medium. When released, he was
+speechless with indignation, disappointment, and shame. Ben flashed the
+lantern on the handkerchief, and recognized it as the property of a
+young woman of his acquaintance, whereupon he registered an inward vow
+to throw off a Newcome and take on a Sullivan. Bridget was better
+looking than Serlizer anyway, and wasn't so powerful headstrong like.
+Mr. Bangs came to see the disconsolate corporal, and Mr. Terry sought in
+vain to comfort him. The detective was not sorry, save for the
+possibility of the fugitives effecting a junction with Rawdon, who would
+thus be at the head of a gang again. Otherwise, Newcome was not at all
+likely to leave the country, and could be had any time, if wanted. As
+for the unhappy lad, he had suffered enough, and if there were any
+chance of his amending his company, Mr. Bangs was not the man to put
+stumbling blocks in his way. But the demented constable, having
+recovered his baton, began searching. He explored the stables, the
+lofts, the coach-house, the sheds, examined every manger, and thrust a
+pitchfork into every truss of hay and heap of straw. He came outside and
+scrutinized the angle of every fence, poked every bush, peered under
+verandahs, and, according to the untruthful and unsympathetic Timotheus,
+rammed twigs down woodchucks' holes for fear the jail breakers had taken
+refuge in the bowels of the earth. Ben and Maguffin brought him in by
+force, lest in his despair he should do himself an injury, and sat him
+down in an easy chair with the wished-for cider mug before him. He had
+sense enough left to attach himself to the mug, and draw comfort from
+its depths. Then he murmured: "Thomas Rigby, eighteen years in service,
+promoted corporal for valour before the enemy, Crimean and Indian medals
+and clasps, captured by a female young woman, bound and imprisoned by
+the same, Attention! no, as you were!" Addressing Mr. Terry he
+continued: "Sergeant Major, that woman, unless I find her, will bring my
+grey hairs with sorrow to the grave."
+
+"Come, come, now, corporal dear! shure it isn't the firsht toime a foine
+lukin' owld sowljer has been captivated boy the ladies. Honoria's
+blissed mother, rist her sowl in heaven, tuk me prishner wid a luk av
+her broight black eyes, an', iv she wor livin', she cud do it agin."
+
+With the morning came a thunderstorm, altogether unexpected, for
+Monday's north-western breeze had promised fine and cooler weather. But
+the south wind had conquered for a time, and now the two blasts were
+contending in the clouds above and on the waters of the distant great
+lake below. The rain fell in torrents, like hail upon the shingled roof;
+the blue-forked lightning flashed viciously, followed instantaneously by
+peals of thunder that rattled every casement, and made the dishes dance
+on the breakfast table. The doctor had been with his patient; and as the
+clergymen were about to conduct family worship, he whispered to them
+that the soul might slip away during the terrors of the storm, as he had
+often seen before. It was a very solemn and awful time. In vain Mrs.
+Carmichael, aided by the other ladies, sought to make her daughter rest
+or even partake of food. How could she? The storm outside was nothing to
+that which raged in her own breast, calm as was her outward demeanour.
+Marjorie crouched on the mat outside the bed-room door, and quietly
+sobbed herself to sleep amid the crash of the elements. But, when
+another sad dinner was over, the colonel and Mr. Terry bethought them of
+asking the detective if he knew of the inner lake on the shore of which
+Tillycot stood. He did not, but saw the importance of searching there.
+As the last of the rain had ceased, he proposed to explore it, but told
+the Squire, with whom he communicated, that the skiff his informants had
+mentioned was not at the place where first found, or anywhere on that
+lake. Therefore Mr. Perrowne and Mr. Douglas proposed to go with Ben
+Toner to get the Richards' scow, and meet Mr. Bangs with the colonel and
+Mr. Terry at the encampment. The two parties armed and drove away. One
+of the Richards boys, namely Bill, joined the three watermen, and
+together they propelled the punt to the extent of a punt's travelling
+capacity; but it was between four and five when the explorers of
+Tillycot, leaving Ben, Timotheus and Richards on the shore, entered with
+difficulty through the veiled channel, into the beautiful hidden lake.
+They saw the skiff on the shore near the house, and soon perceived the
+numerous blood stains in it. They ran up the bank, entered the chalet,
+and, at last, in the library, beheld him whom they sought, extended upon
+the floor. He had died by his own hand, his fingers being still upon the
+pistol whose bullet had pierced his brain. Mr. Bangs seized a scrap of
+writing lying on the table, which ran thus:--
+
+"Curse you, Tilly, for leaving me to die like a rat in a hole. I have
+stood the pains of hell for thirty-eight hours, and can't stand them any
+longer. They shan't take me alive. Box and that hound Carruthers' papers
+are covered with brush and leaves under the last birch in the bush,
+where I finished that meddlesome fool of a lawyer. You know why you
+ought to give a lot to Regy's boy. It's all over. Curse the lot of you.
+Here goes, but mind you kill that damnable Squire, or I'll come when I'm
+dead and torture the life out of you."
+
+No compassion could follow the reading of this document. There was
+nothing of legal importance in the chalet, so Mr. Bangs, aided by Mr.
+Terry and Mr. Douglas, carried the dead man to the punt, and the party
+in it and in the skiff returned to the Encampment lake. Richards, Ben
+Toner, and Timotheus carried the body up the hill to the waggon on the
+masked road. Then they returned to the scow, while Mr. Bangs drove to
+the post office annex, with the colonel and Mr. Terry, Mr. Perrowne and
+Mr. Douglas. Ben Toner and Timotheus arrived in the other waggon, soon
+after the ghastly burden had been deposited in the unfinished hall, and
+were left in charge, while the others went home to inform the Squire and
+the doctor. Having done this, the detective took the former to the
+little wood, and, after a little searching, found the concealed box,
+which held the incriminating papers as well as the original treasure.
+But for Coristine's fatal shot, these would have been carried away. On
+their return, Doctor Halbert said, after consulting Mr. Bang's paper:
+"He took his life the very hour Matilda exclaimed 'Free at last.' The
+neighbourhood and the whole country may breathe more freely now that he
+is gone. Your poor friend upstairs, John, has not died in vain."
+
+"But he's not dead, Halbert!" almost sobbed the Squire.
+
+"Not yet," replied the doctor, gravely.
+
+Coristine had survived the thunderstorm and the finding of Rawdon's
+remains; and, now that all sympathy in the latter was forfeited, many a
+one would gladly have gone to the sinking man who fired the shot to tell
+him, in his own vernacular, that Grinstuns had ceased from troubling.
+But few dared intrude upon the stillness of his chamber, from the door
+of which Marjorie had to be carried bodily away. The villain dead, the
+treasure and papers recovered, Matilda Nagle in her right mind,
+confidence was restored in Bridesdale, and only one absorbing thought
+filled all minds. Yet, while the colonel shared his cigar case with Mr.
+Douglas, and Mr. Terry smoked his dudeen, Mr. Bangs wrote to Toronto an
+account of the escaped prisoner's death, Miss Du Plessis resigned her
+type writership to Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff, and White, Mr. Wilkinson
+sent in to the Board of School Trustees his resignation of the
+Sacheverell Street School, and the Squire, on behalf of his niece,
+signified that her position in the same was vacant, and informed the
+legal firm of the serious illness of their junior partner. The clergymen
+returned to their lodgings and their duties, and the constable, having
+no living criminal to watch over, relieved Timotheus and Ben Toner of
+their care of the dead. Maguffin had summoned Messrs. Newberry, Pawkins,
+and Johnson for the coroner's jury in the morning, and no excitement was
+left at Bridesdale. When night came, all retired to rest, except the one
+watcher by the bedside of despair. Early in the morning, when the sun
+began to shine upon the night dews and peep through the casements, a tap
+came to the dominie's door. He was awake, he had not even undressed,
+and, therefore, answered it at once. He knew the pale figure in the
+dressing gown. "Put on your pedestrian suit," she said with eagerness,
+"and bring your knapsack with you as quickly as possible." He put it on,
+although the arms of coat and shirt were ripped up for former surgical
+reasons, and he objected to the blood marks on the sleeves. Then he took
+up his knapsack, and went hastily to the sick room. His friend was lying
+on his side, and looking very deathly, but he was speaking, and a wan
+smile flitted over his lips. "Two knapsacks," he murmured, and, "Dear
+old Wilks," and, "rum start." Miss Carmichael said: "Put yours here on
+the table above his, where he can see them," and he obeyed. "Now, stand
+beside them, and say 'Corry,' gently." The dominie could hardly do it
+for a queer choking in his throat, but at last he succeeded in
+pronouncing the abbreviation in an interrogative tone. "Wilks," wheezed
+the sick man, "O Wilks, she called them pads!" and his eyes rested on
+the knapsacks. "Stay with him," the nurse whispered, "while I call
+Fanny." Soon Miss Halbert came, and, walking boldly but quietly up to
+the bedside, asked: "Who are you calling she, you naughty boy that want
+to leave us all?" With an effort, he answered: "I beg your pardon, Miss
+Halbert, but you know you did call them pads." "Well, so they are, you
+poor dear," she replied, bending over and kissing the white forehead,
+for which it is to be hoped Mr. Perrowne absolved her; "but you must
+stay here, for see, I have brought Marjorie to nurse you till you are
+fit to carry a knapsack again." Then Miss Carmichael came forward, and
+the patient became ceremoniously polite in a wheezing way, and was
+ashamed of himself to be ill and give so much trouble; but he allowed
+himself to be shaken up and receive his strengthening mixtures, and
+behaved like a very feeble rational man with a little, but real, hold on
+life. That was the turning point in the lawyer's career; and, when the
+doctor descended from seeing him later in the morning, he announced that
+the crisis was past, and that, with proper care, the Squire's
+prospective nephew would live. Joy reigned once more in Bridesdale, from
+Mr. Terry to Marjorie, and from the stately Mrs. Du Plessis to Maguffin
+in the kitchen.
+
+The only thing to mar the pleasure of that day was the inquest, and even
+that brought an agreeable surprise. When Matilda Nagle was called, she
+refused to acknowledge the name, insisting that she was Matilda Rawdon,
+and producing from her pocket a much crumpled marriage certificate,
+bearing the signature of a well-known clergyman who had exercised his
+sacred office in a town within thirty miles of Toronto. This she had
+taken from the library on the occasion of her last visit to Tillycot.
+Old Mr. Newberry's face beamed with delight, and that of Mr. Bangs was a
+curious study, revealing a mind which had joyfully come to a decision it
+had been struggling after in the face of serious difficulties. When the
+verdict of suicide was given, the jury dismissed, and he prepared, along
+with the constable, to deliver over the body of the escaped prisoner
+into the gaoler's hands, he bade Mrs. Rawdon an almost affectionate
+goodbye, and made touching enquiries after the welfare of her son Monty.
+As an honourable woman, she was received, in spite of her late husband's
+character, and her own unconscious crimes, into the Bridesdale circle,
+which, however, she soon left in the company of her benevolent host. The
+Squire informed her that he had a large sum of money in keeping for her
+and her son, and that Miss Du Plessis would either send her all the
+furniture of Tillycot, when she was prepared to receive it, or take it
+from her at an equitable valuation, to either alternative of which she
+strongly objectd. Before Mr. Rigby finished his midday meal, without
+which it was impossible that he, at his age, could travel, Mr. Pawkins
+twisted the British lion's tail several times, to which the corporal
+replied sadly: "Had I still been in the British army, sir, I should have
+been degraded for losing prisoners committed to my guard, but any man
+who allows himself to speak as you do, sir, of what you are too ignorant
+to judge of, is degraded already." The cautious Yankee was equally
+unsuccessful with Ben, who met him with: "Don't give me no more lip
+about Serlizer and old man Newcome, but jist you tell 'em I've waushed
+the bilin' of 'em clear off'n my hands fer a gayul as Serlizer ain't a
+patch on." Then Mr. Pawkins amused himself asking Tryphosa if it was
+Maguffin or Timotheus was her young man, giving as his private opinion
+that the nigger was the smarter man of the two. When Tryphena playfully
+ordered him out of the house, he expressed intense sorrow for Sylvanus'
+future, but was glad to hear he was getting a present rest, paddling his
+mud barge round the Simcoe pond. Mr. Pawkins was offensively personal,
+but kept the table lively, and parted with them, regretting that, having
+left his catechism at home, he was unable to favour his dear children
+with a little much-needed religious instruction. The door was slammed
+behind him, and Mr. Rigby remarked with animation: "Very properly done,
+Miss Hill, a very timely rebuke of unpardonable American insolence!"
+
+When evening came, the Squire and Mrs. Carmichael mastered courage, and
+took Coristine's pale-faced nurse away from him with gentle force, the
+mother taking the daughter's place for a time. After this, Miss
+Carmichael was allowed no night duty, Wilkinson and the Squire, the
+clergymen, Mr. Terry, and Mr. Douglas attending to it in turns, while
+all the ladies, in the same way, relieved her during part of each day.
+Very slowly, but silently and patiently, the invalid regained his lost
+strength. He was grateful, sometimes with a few words of thanks, but
+oftener mutely, with a deprecating look, to all who ministered to his
+comfort. One day Marjorie was allowed in, and, among other wise remarks,
+informed her Eugene that "cousin Marjorie wasn't you know what any
+more." "My little love," he answered, "she's an angel, and always was";
+Marjorie was not at all sure of this, but did not like to cross a sick
+man. During his progress towards health, there were walks and drives,
+picnics to Tillycot and the Beaver River, expeditions to town, fishing
+expeditions with Mr. Bigglethorpe, for whom the lawyer had brought a
+bundle of new flies, which in his anxious state of mind he had forgotten
+to deliver, and a four days' trip on the _Susan Thomas_, which pleased
+Miss Graves and Mr. Douglas immensely. Only two days were actually spent
+on the water, but, as Tryphena was there in the capacity of cook, and a
+coloured lady of Maguffin's acquaintance was temporarily engaged for
+Mrs. Du Plessis, the crew and the manservant were in the seventh heaven
+of delight. Marjorie, of course, was present, and shared the command of
+the schooner with her father. She also attached herself a good deal to
+Jim, and, although resenting the attentions he bestowed upon the big
+girl, carefully abstained from porcine epithets, a result of Eugene's
+epistolary instructions. The great Mr. Tylor came up to Bridesdale in
+person to see his junior, and was duly informed of the engagement
+between him and the heiress, Miss Carmichael, "Ah, Coristine, my dear
+fellow, we shall be losing you for the law, now, and, the first thing we
+know, you will be in Parliament. If not, I may say White is going out of
+the firm, and Woodruff and I had resolved on Tylor, Woodruff and
+Coristine for the new style. Your servant, Miss Carmichael! I
+congratulate my friend and partner on a friend and prospective partner,
+in life as well as law, so infinitely superior, and I trust you will
+allow an oldish man to congratulate you on being won by as fine a young
+fellow as ever lived." When the good Q.C. left the room, the patient
+remarked: "Everybody shows me so much kindness, now, Marjorie, when I
+have all I want in yours."
+
+"Is it kindness, Eugene, only kindness?"
+
+"No, no, it is love, Marjorie, isn't it, undying love? Would you think
+me very foolish if I were to go back for once to Wilks' and my habit of
+reciting all sorts of poetry?"
+
+"I could not stand all sorts, Eugene. There are some that Marjorie
+quotes which are simply awful. She says she gets them from Guff."
+
+"Oh, this isn't that kind. It is Greek, Modern Greek:--
+
+     O Erot' antherotate,
+     Glyke kai hilarotate,
+       Tou kosmou kybernete.
+     Esen ho nous, to soma mou,
+     To stethos, kai to stoma mou,
+        Latreuei kai keryttei."
+
+"That is very pretty, Eugene, for love in a general kind of way--love in
+the aibstrac', as the metaphysical Scotch girl said."
+
+"What! Marjorie, you know Greek!"
+
+"Yes; my father taught me to read the Greek Testament, and I have read
+some of it with Mr. Errol."
+
+"Oh, you are a treasure! But I mean your love, and my mind and body,
+heart and voice."
+
+"That will do, you silly boy. Now lie down, and do not excite yourself
+any more." But she said in her heart that she did not believe Mr.
+Wilkinson could quote Greek, and, if he did, Cecile, she was sure, could
+not understand him.
+
+One evening, by general agreement, a committee of the whole sat in the
+office, the Squire in the chair. The chairman jocularly asked the
+colonel, as the senior of the meeting, his intentions. "My intentions,
+Misteh Chaihman, or ratheh ouah intentions, those of my deah Tehesa and
+me, are to be mahhied heah, if you will pehmit, by Misteh Pehhowne, whom
+we also wish to unite in holy matymony ouah daughteh Cecile to ouah deah
+boy Fahquhah. Also, with yoah pehmission, we will place Timotheus and
+Tryphosa, when mahhied, in chahge of Tillycot and Cecile's fahm heah;
+and will then jouhney westwahd to the Mississippi, and so southwahd, to
+show ouah deah childyen theih futuhe inhehitance, and save Misteh
+Wilkinson's ahm the rigouhs of yoah Canadian winteh. That is all, Misteh
+Chaihman, three weddings, a meeah tyifle, suh." The colonel laughed,
+took a little imaginary Bourbon, and whiffed his cigar, while Mrs. Du
+Plessis, her daughter, and the dominie blushed, but also smiled, to
+think that explanations had been frankly made and the coast was clear.
+"I suppose," said the Squire, "it will be my turn next to explain for
+self and freens. The doctor says my nephew that's to be maun tak' a sea
+voyage for the guid o's health, and Marjorie, wha sud be here by richts
+to speak for hersel', is gaun tae kill twa birds wi' ane stane, tak care
+o' her husband, and spier aifter her graun' fortune. But the meenister's
+wantin' tae take her mither wi' him; sae the gudewife and me, we're
+thinkin' o' sendin' aa the weans tae Susan at Dromore, and makin' a
+pairty o't. We canna leave Bridesdale unproteckit, that means Sylvanus
+and Tryphena 'll be pit in chairge till we're back, and they gang to
+Sylvanus' ain fairm. Ony mair intentions?" Mr. Perrowne sought the
+chairman's eye, and addressed him. "Mr. Chairman, unaccustomed as I am
+to public speaking (derisive cheers), and unwilling as we are to obtrude
+our private affairs upon what Virgil calls the _ignobile vulgus_ (hisses
+from Messrs. Errol and Bangs and the doctor), nevertheless, on this
+festive occasion, we owvercome our natural modesty and spirit of
+self-effacement (more derision) sow far as to remark that Cubbyholes (a
+dig from Miss Halbert) will be ready for our occupation in the second
+week of September, about which time the Bishop will make a visitation,
+including the office of howly matrimony. Meanwhile the bride elect will
+look forward with pleasant expectation to those precious tyings of the
+nuptial knot, which will enrich her housekeeping account with liberal
+marriage fees." Here the parson was compelled to stop, since one of the
+indignant Miss Fanny's hands was over his mouth, and the other actively
+engaged in boxing his mercenary ears. "Ony mair intentions?" cried the
+Squire again, warming to his work. "Pahdon me, Misteh Chaihman, foh
+rising a second time, but I am given to undehstand by Madame Du Plessis
+that Maguffin, who accompanies us, has matyimonial intentions towahds
+her new maid, Sophronia Ann Trelawny Tolliveh; that is all, suh." "I see
+Maister Bangs has a word for the chair," said the Squire, when the
+colonel ended. The detective, for the first time in his life, looked
+uneasy. "I ownly wented to sey, Mr. Chairman, thet, within a year, when
+you are all beck frem yore visit, Mrs. Metilda Rawdon hes premised to
+bekem Mrs. Bengs. I may also edd thet, frem kenversation with Ben
+Towner, I hev learned thet the priest is soon to selemnize his union
+with Miss Bridget Sellivan." The company was aghast, and cried out as
+one man, "What is to become of Serlizer?" Mr. Bangs responded: "The
+yeng weman, Sarah Eliza Newcome, wes the person who rebbed kenstable
+Rigby of his prisoners. When he kem to know the fect, he conceived sow
+high a degree of respect fer her kerrage end skill, thet he et wence
+propowsed to her, end hes been eccepted. Mr. Perrowne hes been esked, I
+believe, to merry them; is it net sow, Mr. Perrowne?"
+
+"Yes, the corporal bespowke me, as he said; but that wretched Maguffin
+insists on being married by the Baktis. I'm ashamed of you, colonel,
+allowing so unhallowed a marriage tie in your household."
+
+"I leave religion, Misteh Pehhowne, to evehy man's conscience." The
+meeting then adjourned.
+
+Two young people had been sitting on the verandah while the matrimonial
+congress was going on, and were much amused by what they occasionally
+heard of the proceedings. Next morning, Marjorie carried off one of this
+pair by the name of Jim to look for crawfish and shiners in the creek.
+Under her able tuition, Mr. Douglas was making rapid progress in
+Canadian slang, and treasured in his memory many choice extracts from
+the words of supposed coloured poets, contributed originally by Guff.
+The scraps of doleful ballads, taken from the stores of the Pilgrim
+brothers, Marjorie objected that he did not seem to take stock in. While
+up to the bared elbows in the crawfishery, the twain heard voices, those
+of Miss Graves and Mr. Terry, but they kept on turning over stones and
+shouting all the same. Marjorie had never had the veteran really
+interested in that creek, so she ran to secure him, while her friend
+pulled down his sleeves and went to meet the lady. It was a pretty
+place, the bank of that creek, an ideal spot for a morning stroll, and
+they were soon out of earshot of the fishers. Mr. Douglas remarked, in
+allusion to the previous night's committee of the whole, that Bridesdale
+was going to be Bridesdale indeed, and would soon be no place for single
+people, like himself and his companion. "But I suppose we will both be
+gone before then," she answered. "I should have been back a week ago,
+had not Mr. Tylor kindly lengthened my holiday. It is hard to have to
+leave this place."
+
+"Very," replied Mr. Douglas, "and harder to leave the people. I haven't
+known you very long Miss Graves."
+
+"No, only a few weeks, but very pleasant weeks."
+
+"They have been so to me, and the more I see of you, the more I dislike
+going away."
+
+"Yes, the people gathered here are delightful, almost a unique party."
+
+"I did not mean the people in general. I meant Miss Graves. I hope that
+blunt speech doesn't offend you."
+
+"Not at all. It is blunt, as you say, but complimentary."
+
+"I don't want to make compliments, Miss Graves, until I have the right.
+I want you to come home with me to Edinburgh as my wife."
+
+"This is very sudden and very kind, Mr. Douglas. What do you know of me,
+a poor girl working for my living?"
+
+"I know more than you think, and honour you for your work and
+independent spirit. I am not going to say I want to take you away from
+drudgery, and put you in a better position, because I want you to take
+me for myself, if I am worth taking, as a man."
+
+Miss Graves looked upon his manly honest face with eyes as honest, yet
+with the merest shade of coquetry in them, and said: "You are worth
+taking as a man."
+
+"Then, take me, Marion, and all I have."
+
+"You are not a bit like my picture of a Scotch wooer. You give a poor
+girl no chance to hold you back."
+
+"But I don't want to be held back. Shall we report ourselves to the
+matrimonial congress?"
+
+"Oh no, not yet, Mr. Douglas; you take wonderful liberties with a new
+acquaintance."
+
+Some distance off, Mr. Terry was trying to still the voice of Marjorie.
+"I saw him, granpa, I saw Jim with my very own eyes. Oh, these men will
+break my heart!"
+
+The first parties to perpetrate matrimony were Ben Toner and Biddy
+Sullivan. Mr. Toner, to use his own expressive language, was afraid
+Serlizer might round on him if he delayed. Therefore, Father McNaughton
+was called in, and, with the aid of Rufus Hill and Barney Sullivan,
+groomsmen, Norah Sullivan and Christie Hislop, bridesmaids, and the
+Bigglethorpes and Lajeunesses, spectators, the knot was tied. A
+honeymoon trip of two days to Toronto, where, in their new clothes and
+white cotton gloves, they were the admired of all beholders, rounded off
+the affair, and delivered Ben from all fear of the redoubtable Serlizer.
+Next Sunday morning there was a great commotion in the Church of St.
+Cuthbert's in the Fields. Miss Newcome, gorgeous of attire, supported by
+Tryphena in her very best, first marched proudly up the aisle, and then
+came the corporal, in full uniform, even to his stock, and adorned with
+medals and clasps which told of his warlike achievements, backed by Mr.
+Terry in an unostentatious suit of black broadcloth. Shortly before the
+close of the service, Mr. Perrowne, in his most ecclesiastical manner,
+called the parties up, and put them through their catechism. The
+corporal answered with military precision and dignity, and Serlizer,
+glancing at his martial magnificence, was so proud of the bridegroom
+that she felt equal to answering a bench of bishops. Mrs. Newcome, who
+had given her daughter away, remarked, as all the bridal party retired
+from the vestry to receive their friends' congratulations, that the
+constable, for a widower, was a very proper man, and Serlizer might have
+done much worse. To his best man, Mr. Terry, the corporal said:
+"Sergeant-major, I have got my guard. A prisoner may slip from me,
+Sergeant-major, but when that strapping woman puts her arms round him,
+he'll be as helpless as a child. I shall apply to the Council for an
+increase of pay." Soon afterwards, Maguffin got a holiday, went to
+Dromore, where Miss Tolliver was sojourning with Mrs. Thomas, took that
+lady to Collingwood, the coloured Baptist preacher of which united them,
+and came home triumphantly in the stage with his bride. They received a
+great ovation in the kitchen, and, Mr. Terry having joined the party,
+played the geographical game till midnight, as a sober, improving, and
+semi-religious way of celebrating the event. Mr. Maguffin remarked that
+the Baktis preacher had promised, out of the two-dollar fee, to insert a
+notice of the marriage in a leading paper, adding the words, "No Cards,"
+but, said Tobias, "he warn't nebber moah leff in all hees life, 'kase
+here's the keerds and heaps on 'em. Yah! yah! yah!"
+
+The colonel was getting anxious to start for the Mississippi, and
+begged his deceased wife's sister to confer with her daughter, and name
+the day. The dominie was also consulted, and, seeing it was vain to hope
+for his friend's restoration to the extent of performing groomsman's
+duty, he acquiesced in whatever decision should be reached. Mr. Douglas
+took Coristine's place, and Miss Graves that of Miss Carmichael, and,
+for both of them, the Edinburgh lawyer ordered from the city handsome
+wedding presents to bestow upon the two couples, a little proof of
+generosity gratifying to the lady whom he now regularly called Marion.
+The said Marion had definitely resigned her situation with Messrs.
+Tylor, Woodruff, and White. On Thursday morning, St. Cuthbert's in the
+Fields was a scene of wonder to the assembled rustics, with flowers and
+favours and lighted candles. Miss Du Plessis, stately and lace bedight,
+was led in by her uncle, and followed by Miss Graves and Marjorie, while
+Wilkinson, in elegant morning dress, preceded Mr. Douglas and Mr. Bangs.
+The colonel, with much emotion, gave his niece away, and Mr. Perrowne
+made them one. Then came Mrs. Du Plessis, arm in arm with her former
+husband's faithful servant, Mr. Terry, and behind her followed Miss
+Halbert, training for her own approaching celebration. Mr. Errol was the
+colonel's right hand man. The second couple was united, and, amid the
+strains of the wedding march on the parlour organ, there went on
+salutes, congratulations, and hysterical little weepings, until the
+serious business of affixing signatures in the vestry called the
+contracting and witnessing parties to order. Then they retired to
+Bridesdale, where there was a wedding breakfast, at which Mr. Perrowne,
+elated with liberal fees, was the soul of jocularity, and Mr. Douglas
+let the cat out of the bag as to his relations with Miss Graves. Mr.
+Bangs sang "He's a jolly good fellow" to every toast indiscriminately.
+The Squire was felicitous in his presidential remarks; but Mr. Terry
+broke down at the thought of parting with Madame and with Miss Ceshile
+that was. Mr. Errol made a good common-sense speech, and alluded
+roguishly to the colonel's setting a good example that even ministers
+were not too good to follow. Marjorie, in the dignity of a bridesmaid,
+slipped away to bring Cousin Marjorie down, and was accompanied by the
+new brides, who hugged Miss Carmichael, and implanted motherly and
+sisterly kisses on the cheek of the only man who was left out of the
+festivities. Lastly, Wilkinson appeared on the scene with the colonel,
+and took a most affectionate leave of his friend. "You will not forget
+me, Corry?" said the late dominie. "Never, Wilks, never, nor you me I
+hope. I'll tell you, let us each carry away our knapsacks, and, when we
+look at them, think of each other, and the happy chance that brought us
+here together." The Squire's voice rung out: "Come, come, good people,
+pack up quick, for the carriage is at the door." The valises were got
+down by Timotheus, who received large tips. The two ladies and Wilkinson
+got in with the Squire, and the new Mrs. Maguffin occupied the hind
+seat, while the colonel and his servant rode away amid much throwing of
+old shoes and rice, and waving of handkerchiefs, to make steamboat
+connections at Collingwood. The departure of so large a company left
+quite a blank at Bridesdale.
+
+The Bishop, a gentlemanly cleric in orthodox hat and gaiters, arrived on
+Saturday with his examining chaplain. Mr. Perrowne conducted them to Dr.
+Halbert's, where the Squire, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Errol, with the ladies,
+were invited to meet them. The Bishop turned out to be much more liberal
+and evangelical in his views than the clergyman under visitation. On
+Sunday, there was a confirmation service, and, on the following Monday,
+St. Cuthbert's put on its festal robes once more. Mr. Douglas and Mr.
+Errol stood by Mr. Perrowne, and Miss Graves and Miss Carmichael by Miss
+Fanny, whom the doctor gave away in person. The Bishop did his duty
+well, and afterwards honoured the wedding breakfast with his presence.
+The sight of his diocesan kept Mr. Perrowne in order, and devolved the
+jocularity on the Squire and the doctor. Mr. Terry was at home with
+Coristine, describing the ceremony; and somebody at the Halbert's
+hospitable table was longing for a chance to replace him. This, however,
+she could not effect without its being noticed. The examining chaplain
+fell foul of Mr. Errol by remarking that, when Scotch Presbyterians came
+into the church, they generally did well, both in England and in Canada,
+several of them having risen to the episcopate. "That minds me,"
+answered the minister, intentionally putting on his broad Scotch, "that
+minds me o' Jockey Strachan, that was Bishop o' Toronto. He met a Kirk
+man aince, frae Markham, I'm thinkin', that had a threadbare coat.
+'Man,' said he till's auld freend, 'yon's a shockin' worn-out coat. Can
+yer freens i' the Kirk no dae better than that by ye?' 'Toot, toot,
+Jockey,' said the Kirk man, 'what ails ye at the coat? It's no turned
+yet.'" The sensible Bishop saw that the chaplain, who was preparing to
+reply, would probably put his foot farther in, and turned the
+conversation into other channels. Then the wedding presents were
+re-examined, the bride donned her travelling costume, and, amid
+affectionate leave takings, the doctor drove off his daughter and
+son-in-law, with the clerics, toward the distant railway station, en
+route for Ottawa, Montreal and Lake George. The Bridesdale party went
+home, and, while Mrs. Carmichael and Miss Graves were attended by their
+respective cavaliers, Miss Carmichael flew to the bedside where Mr.
+Terry kept cheerful guard.
+
+Everything hinged now upon the sick man's health. "He must be got away,
+John, before the winter comes," the doctor had said to the Squire, and
+all wrought with this end in view. Some time before Maguffin left, he
+had determined, with his Marjorie's permission, to give up being shaved
+and let his beard grow, and now the beard was there, long, brown and
+silky, a very respectable beard. But the face above it was very pale
+yet, and the cruel knife wounds were still sore, and the whole man
+enfeebled in limb by long bed-keeping. One pleasant day, far on in
+September, the doctor allowed him to rise, and, between the Squire and
+Mr. Terry, he was raised up and dressed. Then they carried the wasted
+form out into the autumn sun, and laid him on a couch on the verandah.
+Marjorie and all the little Carruthers came to see him, with bouquets of
+garden flowers. Timotheus ventured to pay his respects, and even
+Tryphena came round to congratulate him on his recovery. "Shall I read
+Wordsworth to you, dear?" asked Miss Carmichael, ironically.
+
+"Marjorie," answered a beard-muffled voice, "your single word's worth
+more than all in that old duffer's poems," which the lady took as an
+indication that her patient was improving.
+
+"They are all depending on us to fix the day, Eugene; when will you be
+strong enough?"
+
+"Any time, Marjorie; what's to-day?"
+
+"Saturday, you foolish man, don't you smell the preparations for
+Sunday?"
+
+"And the New York steamer sails on Saturday?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, if we are all married next Wednesday, we shall have time to get
+to New York easily on Saturday morning."
+
+"Then I will get uncle to arrange with papa Errol, and to summon the
+Captain and auntie and Sylvanus."
+
+"Oh yes, and Bigglethorpe and Bangs, and old Mrs. Hill. I would like to
+have Ben here, too, if you wouldn't mind, Marjorie."
+
+"We shall have everybody, and leave here on Thursday morning, to get you
+well on the sea."
+
+Mr. Terry came to ask if Mr. Coristine didn't think the least draw of a
+pipe would do him good. The invalid thought it would, and, while the
+veteran went upstairs to fetch the lawyer's long-unused briar, Miss
+Carmichael left him, ostensibly offended that he preferred a pipe to her
+society, yet inwardly glad that he was strong enough to relish tobacco
+again. Mr. Douglas joined the smokers, and they had a very jolly time.
+"What will you do, Mr. Terry, when we are all gone!" asked the Edinburgh
+lawyer. "It 'ull be gone too Oi will mysilf by that toime," replied the
+veteran.
+
+"I mean, when we are on the Atlantic."
+
+"Plaze God, Oi'll be an the Atlantic mysilf."
+
+"What, are you coming with us?"
+
+"Av coorse! D'ye think the departmint cud ha done so long wit'out me iv
+Oi hadn't shint in my risignaation?"
+
+"Then you are really going across for a holiday?"
+
+"Oi'm goin' to lit Honoria git a shmill av the Oirish cloimate, an' a
+peep at the ould shod, fwhere her anshisters is slapin' it's many a long
+year."
+
+"What a glorious time we're going to have!"
+
+"Troth for you, sor, an' we'll sit this bhoy on his pins agin."
+
+Many letters were despatched that afternoon, and Timotheus was kept
+busy, inviting parties whom the post was slow in reaching. On Sunday,
+there being no service at St. Cuthbert's in the Fields, the Kirk was
+crowded, and Mr. Errol announced a service of special interest on
+Wednesday morning at 11 o'clock, when his co-presbyter, the Rev. Dr.
+MacPhun, would officiate. His own text was "It is not good that the man
+should be alone," and towards the close of the service he stated that
+the Presbytery had given him leave of absence for three months, which he
+intended to spend in Britain, during which time his people would have an
+opportunity of hearing many profitable preachers, under Dr. MacPhun's
+moderatorship _pro tem_. Monday was a day of trunk packing and other
+preparations, connected with all sorts of boxes and parcels brought by
+the stage during the previous week. The next day the guests arrived. Dr.
+Halbert came first, excusing his early appearance by saying he felt
+lonely, and wanted to see young faces again. Then the Captain drove up
+in grand style, having on board Mrs. Thomas, her domestic, Malvina
+McGlashan, Sylvanus, and his strict parent, Saul. Malvina was received
+by the maids with great effusion, while the paternal Pilgrim eyed
+Timotheus, who had come forward to shake hands with his father. "What is
+the chief end of man, Timotheus?" The son answered correctly. "What is
+sin?" was appropriately solved, and "What is the reason annexed to the
+fifth commandment?" Then came, "What is repentance unto life," and on
+the answer to this Mr. Pilgrim preached a brief homily. "With grief and
+hatred of his sin, turns from it, with full purpose of, and endeavour
+after, new obedience. Is that you, Timotheus?" "Yes, fayther."
+
+"Young women," said Saul, addressing the maids, "has the walk and
+conversation of Timotheus been according to his lights, or according to
+his whilom lammentable and ungodly profession?"
+
+Tryphena could not reply, for the audacious Sylvanus, unaffected by the
+propinquity of his venerable relative, had whispered in her ear, "he's a
+livyer' 'cordin' to his lights, he is;" but Tryphosa spoke up and said
+that nobody, not even a minister, could have behaved better than
+Timotheus. Then Saul shook hands with his repentant son, solemnly, and
+producing a well-worn catechism from his tail pocket, placed it with
+reverence in the shaken hand. Looking upon Tryphosa, he remarked:
+"Remember, Timotheus, the words of wisdom, 'Favour is deceitful and
+beauty is vain, but whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.' Go thou
+and do likewise, Amen." Further improvement of the occasion was checked
+by the arrival of a well-laden waggon, driven by Rufus, and containing
+his parents, Christie Hislop, Mr. Bigglethorpe and Ben. Mr. Bigglethorpe
+was hailed with delight by Marjorie, who immediately carried off "dear
+Mr. Biggles" to see the creek, and tell her about his little boy, who
+was not yet christened, because, in the face of Marjorie's opposition,
+he could not call him Walton, Cotton or Piscator, and he could not think
+of any other name. She had objected to Felix as too catty like, and
+Isadore she had said was as bad as Is-a-window. However, he enjoyed the
+creek for a few minutes before dinner. Mrs. Hill was installed as the
+mother of the kitchen. With her great conversational powers and large
+knowledge of scripture, she rather overawed father Pilgrim, and her own
+and her husband's abundant cheerfulness revived a company, ready to
+droop under the austerities of Saul's genuine but unpleasant religion.
+Ben, as a sedate married man, gave himself largely to Mr. Hill's
+society, until Mr. Terry came in to see his friend from the north, and
+unfold his plans of an Irish tour. Later in the day Mr. Bangs rode over,
+and made excuses for Matilda, who thought it wrong to go into society so
+soon after her husband's death. Finally, the constable appeared in full
+regimentals, with the stalwart Mrs. Rigby on his arm. That lady bestowed
+on the faithless Ben a glance of withering contempt, but the constable
+shook hands with him, as if he had been his greatest earthly benefactor.
+
+It would take chapters to recite the goings on of that evening in either
+end of the house, the jokes of father Hill, and the homilies of father
+Pilgrim. Sylvanus dared and was slapped; and Timotheus followed his
+example, but was more gently dealt with. Christie and Malvina, as
+bridesmaids, had to inspect the trousseaus with Mrs. Hill. In spite of
+Saul's protest against worldly amusements, the geographical cards were
+produced, and the lady of the third-class county certificate swept the
+board, although the constable maintained his right to Russia and India,
+and Pilgrim pater easily secured all Palestine and Syria, owing to his
+extensive study of Josephus, which he recommended to Mr. Hill as a
+valuable commentar on the Old Testament Scriptures. Nor were the
+occupants of the drawing-room less jolly. The Squire and the doctor, Mr.
+Bangs and Mr. Bigglethorpe, kept the conversation lively, and would have
+hurt the feelings of Orther Lom, who arrived by the stage, if he had had
+any to hurt. The contracting parties were grave and self-contained, as
+became their position; and, to look at Mr. Errol, no one could have
+dreamt of his ever having gone on the splore. Dr. MacPhun came late, in
+his own buggy, accompanied by his daughter Maggie, a pretty girl of
+seventeen, who was just what the feminine community wanted. The reverend
+doctor warmly congratulated his co-presbyter, and jocularly quoted words
+to the effect that hope's blest dominion never ends, and the greatest
+sinner may return, which Mrs. Carmichael regarded as an unworthy
+reflection upon her intended's antiquity. Wednesday came at last, and
+the Kirk was decked at morning tide, but, unlike St. Cuthbert's, the
+tapers did not glimmer fair. The concourse was great, and the organ and
+choir were at their best. Mrs. Carmichael was attended by Miss Graves
+and Miss MacPhun, and Mr. Errol by Mr. Douglas and Mr. Lamb. When Dr.
+MacPhun had united them, and spoken a few felicitous words, he retired
+to the vestry, and yielded the gown and bands to the new bridegroom,
+before whose bar appeared Miss Graves, supported by the two Marjories,
+and Mr. Douglas with Mr. Bangs and Mr. Lamb. When little Marjorie saw
+herself paired off with Orther Lom, she thought of the Captain's
+couplet, and burst into a fit of laughter, which drew down upon the
+culprit her cousin's reproof. The Squire had given away his sister, and
+Miss Graves was handed over to Mr. Douglas by the doctor, for the reason
+that her late lamented father had been a distinguished medical man. When
+the wedded pairs passed out of the church, there was great cheering, in
+which Mr. Terry and Mr. Bigglethorpe seemed to be rival fuglemen. At
+Bridesdale, a pale young man with a long brown beard was reclining on a
+couch, and looking eagerly out of a window. His dark blue frock coat,
+light grey trousers, and white silk necktie, meant business, too. It
+would never do for little Marjorie to be three times a bridesmaid, for
+that was unlucky; so Miss MacPhun stood by Marjorie the greater, and
+Bangs helped Coristine to his feet. The two divines mercifully made the
+service brief, and two well mated souls obtained each its chief desire.
+Mr. Errol and the Squire were very patronizing towards their new made
+son and nephew. The Captain was satisfied. "I thought all along it was
+that sly dog Will-kiss-em was after the old man's niece, the sly dog;
+but he's off, and a good riddance to poor stuck-up rubbish, say I." The
+table speeches were marvellous. Dr. MacPhun exhausted Dean Ramsay's
+anecdotes, Mr. Bigglethorpe allegorized marriage as fishing in all its
+branches, Doctor Halbert said the great trouble with female nurses
+always was that they would go and marry their patients, and Mr. Bangs
+remarked that, if he could run down somebody who was wanted as quickly
+as Mr. Douglas had done, he would make his fortune. Mr. Lamb lavished
+himself on Maggie MacPhun, and, as she was young, semi-rural, and unused
+to the masculine production of cities, his attentions were agreeable,
+much to his satisfaction; his peace of mind with himself nothing could
+disturb.
+
+In the evening, Mr. Errol put on his gown once more, and Dr. MacPhun
+stood by his side, while in front of them there was a small table on
+which lay a Bible, and, a short distance off, a larger one with a
+marriage register, pen and ink, and duly filled certificates. At a given
+signal, Mr. Hill appeared, leading his daughter Tryphena, followed by
+Christie Hislop and Malvina McGlashan. Next came Sylvanus in the grasp
+of Saul Pilgrim, attended by Rufus, and the ubiquitous Mr. Bangs.
+Without being asked, Mr. Pilgrim senior ostentatiously stated, after Mr.
+Hill had bestowed his oldest daughter, that he gave his son to be that
+woman's husband, and trusted they would bring up their family, as he had
+done his, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. This bombshell
+excited some merriment in the rear of the procession, where Mrs. Rigby
+was pushing the corporal forward to exhibit his uniform and medals. When
+the ceremony was over, the bride and bridegroom remained, but the
+fathers and the assistants returned to the kitchen. Tryphosa now hung
+upon her father's arm, and Timotheus was hauled in by Saul, receiving
+admonitions on the way. The groomsmen and bridesmaids were as before.
+Mrs. Hill, who stood by Mrs. Carruthers, wept copiously, when her
+favourite daughter's turn came, and Hill senior gave her away with a
+qualm, especially as the parent of Timotheus presented him as the
+prodigy's son come back from the swine husks. So the last ceremony was
+over. "Siccan a thing as five waddins in ae day was never heard o' in
+Flanders before," said the Squire, with a sigh of relief. Of course, the
+people ought all to have gone away somewhere, according to all the rules
+that govern civilized marriage. Mr. Errol went to his lodgings to pack
+up, and took Mr. Douglas with him. As for the rest of the married
+people, they simply went on with their ordinary tasks and amusements as
+if nothing personal had happened. Before these two gentlemen retired,
+however, they had to take part in a dance in the coach-house, at which
+old Styles played the fiddle, and the constable called out the figures,
+while Mr. Pilgrim groaned in the ears of Mrs. Hill over the worldly
+spirit that was sapping the foundations of spiritual life. When the
+drawing-room people left the festive coach-house, the ladies divested
+themselves of the day's finery, and the gentlemen retired to the office,
+where Mr. Errol smoked three pipes and renewed his youth. Dr. MacPhun
+told more stories, as did Messrs. Bigglethorpe and Bangs, and at last
+they all became so happy, that a deputation of the Squire and the
+minister was sent to produce their new relative Coristine, and make him
+drink a bumper of champagne to his bride's health. As the relatives
+crossed arms, and, on this improvised chair, carried the bridegroom
+round the table in triumph, the Captain roared: "Pour it down his
+scuppers, boys, for he's the A1 clipper; and that sly dog thought he'd
+have the old man's niece, with no more fun in his calf's hide than a
+basswood figure head!"
+
+Next morning early, Messrs. Errol and Douglas appeared to claim their
+brides at the Dale, and found them packed, and ready to start after
+breakfast. Mrs. Thomas was left mistress of the house, with directions
+to hand it over to Sylvanus and Mrs. S. Pilgrim when she wished to
+return home. Timotheus and Mrs. T. Pilgrim were told to go and take
+possession of Tillycot, and put in a winter of judicious clearing. Good
+bye was said all round. Coristine was lifted into the second seat,
+between Mrs. Carruthers and his new made wife, who looked her loveliest.
+Mrs. and Mr. Errol sat by the Squire, and Mr. Bigglethorpe intruded
+himself as far as the bridge on Mr. and Mrs. Douglas. Ben Toner, tired
+of being haughtily glared at by Mrs. Rigby, offered to drive the trunks
+in a separate vehicle, but, to the great delight of the junior Pilgrims,
+the Captain ordered Saul to perform that duty. Nevertheless, Ben
+accompanied Saul part of the way, and got off with Mr. Bigglethorpe. The
+patient was tired when Collingwood was reached, but recovered in the
+parlour car and arrived in Toronto in good condition, and able to
+introduce his bride to Mrs. Marsh. Mr. Douglas and he got together their
+portable effects, and Mrs. Douglas increased her travelling impedimenta.
+The party then left in time to see the glorious fall scenery of the
+Hudson in the morning, and reached New York in abundance of leisure.
+Coristine's imperious wife insisted that he should begin at once to
+spend her fortune, saying that was the only reason for her marrying him;
+but the invalid, otherwise so biddable, was very firm on this point, and
+represented that his bank account was far from exhausted. They were
+hardly on the steamer, when Mrs. Carruthers ran forward and fell into an
+old man's arms. It was Mr. Terry, who had bidden them an affectionate
+farewell at Bridesdale, and had then taken the stage in their wake to
+give them all a grand surprise. The weather was fine, the equinoctials
+all past, and the sea gently flowing. Rugs and pillows were laid on the
+deck, between camp chairs and stools, and, while the bearded lawyer lay
+propped on the former, with the most beautiful woman on board kneeling
+beside him, the rest of the company occupied the higher seats. The
+ladies worked away at airy nothings, and the gentlemen, Squire included,
+smoked cigars and pipes, all talking of the stirring events of the past,
+and forecasting the pleasures of the near future. Somehow they all
+seemed to miss little Marjorie, and wondered what sort of time she and
+the rest of them were having at Bridesdale.
+
+Three months soon passed away. Mrs. Coristine's fortune was secured, and
+transformed into Canadian securities by her legal husband, half being
+made over to Mrs. Errol. The minister took his bride to Perth, and
+introduced her to his friends, who received her as graciously as the
+Edinburgh people did Mr. Douglas' queenly wife from Canada. On Princess
+Street many a pedestrian stopped to look at the well-matched pair. Mr.
+Carruthers looked up his Scotch relations, and then crossed the Irish
+Sea to inspect the "owld shod," under Mr. Terry's proud guidance. But
+the great doctors said Mrs. Coristine must take her husband away to the
+south of France, to the Riviera, perhaps even to Algeria, for the
+winter. Mr. Douglas, who was like a brother, saw them safely established
+at Mentone, and returned to England in time to see the Flanders' five on
+board their steamer at Liverpool, laden with presents for the children
+and the servants, the Thomases and the Perrownes, not forgetting Mr.
+Bigglethorpe and Mr. Bangs. Three more months of winter passed at
+Bridesdale, then the brief spring, and at length summer came round in
+all its glory. Timotheus and his men had cleared the encampment of its
+scorched trees, had put many acres into crop, and had built the farm
+house on the site of the burnt buildings, into which he and his blooming
+wife had moved, because the Wilkinsons and the Mortons were coming to
+the chalet in July. The Bridesdale people heard that the former dominie
+had not been idle, but, by means of his geological knowledge, had
+discovered iron and lead mines, which were already yielding him a
+revenue. Mrs. Errol brought them a letter from Marjorie, saying that
+Eugene was quite restored, and that they would be home early in July,
+bringing that dear old lady, Eugene's mother, with them. Correspondence
+had also been going on between the Wilkinsons and the Coristines on both
+sides of the houses, and Mr. Terry seemed to be included in the circle.
+One fine July morning he asked for the loan of the waggonette and set
+off to town, whence he returned in the afternoon, with three ladies and
+a coloured ladies' maid, attended by a gentleman and his servant on
+horseback. Strange to say, the Errols, the Perrownes, the newly-married
+Bangs, and Mr. Bigglethorpe, were at Bridesdale. Marjorie's terrier, a
+new Muggins given her by Mr. Perrowne, but which she called Guff, ran
+barking to meet the approaching party, and the animal's mistress,
+following it, was soon in the arms of long absent friends. "Where is
+Eugene?" she cried, in a tone of disappointment. "Where is Mr.
+Wilkinson?" asked Mrs. Carruthers, in concern. "We have lost them for a
+little while," replied the ladies, cheerfully. So they changed their
+things, unpacked their trunks, dispensed many gifts, brought through all
+sorts of custom houses, and assembled in the drawing-room to await the
+stated six o'clock tea. The clock was on the stroke, when they all heard
+singing, on the road, of two male voices:--
+
+     For, be it early morning,
+     Or be it late at night,
+     Cheerily ring our footsteps,
+                 Right, left, right!
+
+Then two jovial pedestrians came swinging through the gate, with the old
+knapsacks on their backs, and newly cut staves in their hands. They
+responded heartily to the varied salutations of the company, and, as
+each bowed himself over the woman he loved best, they said: "God has
+been very good to us, and has sent us more than a marshal's baton
+through these two knapsacks."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Pleasant were the two summer months at Bridesdale and Tillycot, with
+visits to the Manse and Cubbyholes, to Bangslea and the Beaver River.
+Two little Pilgrim girls and a Toner boy appeared before the visitors
+went home; and, soon after their arrival at their homes, they learned
+that Basil primus was marching Basil secondus in his arms, clad in a
+nocturnal surplice. Mr. Bigglethorpe had had his baby christened Felix
+Marjoram, regarding the latter botanical word as a masculine equivalent
+of Marjorie. When, next year, the welcome visitors came to Flanders from
+Toronto and the far south, they brought each a maid and a warm little
+bundle. The bundle of Mrs. Coristine was called James Farquhar, and that
+of Mrs. Wilkinson was Marjorie Carruthers. When they cried, Mr.
+Coristine, M.P., and Dr. Wilkinson, if they were about, carried them
+round, singing outlandish songs; when they were good, the parents laid
+two knapsacks over a rag on the lawn, put pillows on top, and the babies
+against the pillows, betting quarters as to which would kick the
+highest.
+
+The culprits were all set free or left unmolested. The two Davis
+brothers disappeared, evidently across the lines. Old man Newcome is
+said to have been converted by Father Newberry and to be living a life
+in keeping with the exalted station of his daughter Serlizer. Reginald
+Rawdon's son was looked up by Mr. Bangs, and started in business in a
+new town, as a country store-keeper, on part of his uncle's ill-gotten
+money. Monty, growing a big lad, has charge of the farm at Bangslea,
+and, to see him and his grey-haired, but otherwise young-looking,
+mother, none would think they had ever been deprived of their reason.
+The character of Nagle, alias Nash, has been amply cleared by his
+friend, who has erected a suitable memorial to him at Collingwood
+cemetery. Peskiwanchow is hardly recognizable in its reformed condition,
+and the Beaver River, like the Flanders' lakes, is safer to visit,
+though otherwise as delightful as ever, than when the Maple Inn was
+invaded by two knapsacks. Mr. Bulky is still its hero, and Wilkinson,
+who does not smoke, has had him up to Tillycot with Mr. Bigglethorpe and
+without his fishing coat.
+
+
+
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