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Two Knapsacks: A Novel of Canadian Summer Life

by John Campbell · English · Gutenberg #17532 · 922,213 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Two Knapsacks: A Novel of Canadian Summer Life

Author: John Campbell


        
Release date: January 16, 2006 [eBook #17532]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17532

Credits: E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Martin Pettit, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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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 ov

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