Us humbler ceremonies now await;But in the bosom with devout respect,The banner of our joy we will erect,And strength of love our souls shall elevate;For, to a few collected in His name.The heavenly Father will incline His ear.Hallowing Himself the service which they frame.Awake! the majesty of God revere!Go—and with foreheads meekly bow'd,Present your prayer: go—and rejoice aloud—The Holy One will hear!"
Us humbler ceremonies now await;But in the bosom with devout respect,The banner of our joy we will erect,And strength of love our souls shall elevate;For, to a few collected in His name.The heavenly Father will incline His ear.Hallowing Himself the service which they frame.Awake! the majesty of God revere!Go—and with foreheads meekly bow'd,Present your prayer: go—and rejoice aloud—The Holy One will hear!"
Us humbler ceremonies now await;
But in the bosom with devout respect,
The banner of our joy we will erect,
And strength of love our souls shall elevate;
For, to a few collected in His name.
The heavenly Father will incline His ear.
Hallowing Himself the service which they frame.
Awake! the majesty of God revere!
Go—and with foreheads meekly bow'd,
Present your prayer: go—and rejoice aloud—
The Holy One will hear!"
"You should have been a parson, Mr. Wilkinson; you do that well. I'd like to take lessons from you; it would help me tremendously in my profession. But I find it mighty hard to do the solemn. That time in your school was almost too much for me, and your friend twigged my make-up last night."
"I find it hard," said the schoolmaster, "not to be solemn in such scenery as this on such a morning. All nature seems to worship, giving forth in scent and song its tribute of adoration to the Creator, to whose habitation made with hands we are on our way as worshippers."
"'Fraid I shan't do much worshipping, church or no church. You see, Mr. Wilkinson, my business is a very absorbing one. I'll be looking for notes, and spotting my men, and working up my clues all the time the parson's bumming away."
"Ah, you have read Tennyson's 'Northern Farmer'?"
"Never heard tell of it; but I've got my eyes on some northern farmers, and they'll have my attention soon."
"Your expression, 'bumming away,' occurs in it, so I thought you had found it there. It is rather a severe way in which to characterize the modern preacher, who, take him on the whole, deserves credit for what I regard as a difficult task, the presentation of some fresh subject of religious thought every Sunday all the year round."
"My mind works too fast for most of them. I can see where the conclusion is before they have half got started. There's no fun in that, you know."
"Do you not sometimes meet with clergymen that interest you?"
"Now and then. The learned bloke who cuts his text into three, and expounds them in detail, I can't stand; nor the wooden logical machine that makes a proposition and proceeds to prove it; nor the unctuous fellow that rambles about, and says, 'dear friends,' and makes you wish he had studied his sermon. But, now and then, I fall in with a man who won't let me do any private thinking till he's done. You hear his text and his introduction, and wonder, how the dickens he is going to reconcile the two. He carries you on and on and on, till he does it in a grand whirl at the end, that lifts you up and away with it, like the culminating arguments of the counsel for the prosecution, or the peeler's joyful run in of a long-sought gaol-bird. I like that sort of a parson; the rest are jackdaws."
"Perhaps they suit the average mind?"
"If they did, we ought to have graded churches as well as graded schools. But they don't, except, in this way, that people have got accustomed to the bumming. The preachers I like would keep up the interest of a child. There was one I heard on the text, 'I form the light and create darkness.' His introduction was, 'God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.' He jerked usup into the light and banged us down into the darkness, almost laughing one minute and crying the next. Then he went to hunt up his man, and found him in the devil and the devil's own, all fallen creations of God. Any schoolboy could follow that sermon and take its lessons home with him. There was a logical bloke, at least he thought himself logical, who took for his text Joseph's coat of many colours, a sort of plaid kilt I should think; and said, 'I shall now proceed to prove that this was a sacerdotal or priestly garment. First, it occupies a prominent position in the narrative; second, it excited the enmity of Joseph's brethren; and third, they dipped it in blood when they sold their younger brother.' I could have proved it as logically to be Stuart tartan, and, at the same time, the original of the song 'Not for Joe,' because he lost it before he became steward to Pharaoh. Bah! that's what makes people sick of going to church. I've pretty nigh quit it."
The pedestrians trudged on for a time silently, the detective, doubtless, revolving schemes in his brain, the dominie inwardly sighing over his companion's captious criticism, to which he could not well reply, and over the absence of his legal friend, whose warm Irish heart would have responded sympathetically to the inspiration of the Sabbath morning walk. At last, Mr. Nash resumed the conversation, saying:—
"I'm afraid, Mr. Wilkinson, that you think me a pretty hard-hearted, worldly man, and, perhaps, that my calling makes me so."
"I have no right to judge you, Mr. Nash," answered the schoolmaster; "but I should think that the work of hunting down law-breakers would have the effect of deadening one's sensibilities."
"It shouldn't, any more than the work of a clergyman, a doctor, a teacher, or a lawyer. We all, if we are honest, want to benefit society by correcting evils. I see a lot of the dark side of human nature, but a little of the bright too, for, thank Heaven, there is no man so bad as not to have some little good in him. There's that Toner, once a fine young fellow; I hate to see him going to the dogs, wasting his property, breaking his old mother's heart. I'd rather save that man any day than gaol him."
"Give me your hand, sir," said the dominie, heartily, transferring his staff to his left, and offering the right; "I honour you for the saying, and wish there were more officers of the law like you."
"Oh, as for that matter," replied the detective, "I and my colleagues have tried to save many a young fellow, but then—"
"What is the obstacle?"
"The obstacle is that there are men who simply won't be saved."
"Oh, I suppose that is true theologically as well as legally."
"Of course; if the law don't want to have a lot of criminals to hunt out and shut up and punish, it stands to reason that the Source of all law doesn't. But, for the good of society and the world, these criminals have to be separated from them, and their bad work stopped. To say that the law hates them, and takes vengeance on them like a Corsican, is utterly to misunderstand the nature of law. Yet, that is what nine-tenths of the parsons teach."
"That is very unfortunate."
"Unfortunate? it's diabolical. If I were to go into a good man's house, and present his children with a hideous caricature of their father, so as to terrify some and drive others clean away from him, wouldn't I deserve to be kicked out? I should think so! Now, I say every good thing in man must be found a million times better in man's Maker. If the foundation principle of human law is benevolence to society, the foundation principle of divine law must be something higher and better, not revenge. But you know these things better than I do."
"Not at all; I could not express myself better. What you have found out is stated by Dr. Whewell, the famous Master of Trinity, in the Platonic form, that every good thing in man and in the world has its archetype in the Divine Mind. Every bad thing, such as revenge and anger, has no such archetype, but is a falling away, a deflection, from the good."
"How do you explain the imputation of bad things to God, such as hate, revenge, terrorism, disease, death, beasts of prey, and all the rest?"
"In two ways; first, as a heathen survival in Christianity, borrowed partly from pagan national religions, partly from the misunderstood phraseology of the Old Testament; and, second, as the necessary result of a well-meant attempt to escape from Persian and Manichaean dualism."
"But there is a dualism in law, in morals, in nature, and in human nature, everywhere in this world; there's no getting over it."
"Of course there is, but the difference between the dualism of fact and that of the Persian system is, that the evil is not equal, but inferior and subordinate, to the good."
"It gets the upper hand pretty often, as far as this world is concerned."
"And why? Just for the same reason that bad governments and corrupt parties often get the upper hand, namely, by the vote of the majority, through which the minority has to suffer. Talk about vicarious suffering! Every good man suffers vicariously."
"These are deep things, Mr. Wilkinson, too deep for the average parson, who doesn't trouble himself much with facts unless he find them confirmed by his antiquated articles."
"Yet my attention has been drawn to them by thoughtful clergymen of different denominations."
"Well, I don't think I'll trouble the clergymen to-day, thoughtful or not thoughtful. I've had my sermon in the open air, a sort of walking camp meeting. What did they call these fellows who studied on the move?"
"Peripatetics."
"That's it; we're a peripatetic church."
"But, without praise or prayer or scripture lessons, which are more important than the sermon."
"Oh, you can do the praise and prayer part in a quiet way, as a piece of poetry says that I learnt when I was a boy. It ends something like this:—
So we lift our trusting eyesTo the hills our fathers trod,To the quiet of the skies,And the Sabbath of our God.
So we lift our trusting eyesTo the hills our fathers trod,To the quiet of the skies,And the Sabbath of our God.
So we lift our trusting eyes
To the hills our fathers trod,
To the quiet of the skies,
And the Sabbath of our God.
That's pretty, now! Hallo! here's the doctor!"
Coristine came up at the gallop, and reported that all the people he expected to find at the Carruthers' werethere, Grinstun man, Mrs. Carmichael, and Marjorie, included, all except Miss Du Plessis, who was staying at a house three miles this side of the farm, helping to nurse a sick neighbour.
"Has Rawdon seen her?" asked the detective. The lawyer did not know, but suggested that they could find out by calling at the house of Mrs. Talfourd, the sick woman, on the way.
"How far are we from it?" enquired Mr. Nash.
"About a mile or a mile and a-half," replied Coristine.
"Then, Mr. Wilkinson, let us stir our stumps a bit. Can you sing or whistle? There's nothing like a good tune to help a quick march."
"Yes; sing up, Wilks," cried The Cavalry; and the dominie started "Onward, Christian Soldiers," in which the others joined, the detective in a soft falsetto, indistinguishable from a half-cultivated woman's voice. He was combining business with pleasure, dissimulation with outward praise.
"Pretty good that for a blooming young lady of five foot ten," remarked Mr. Nash, at the end of the hymn.
"Blooming young ladies with a tonsure," replied Coristine, gazing on the detective's momentarily uncovered head, "are open to suspicion."
"Wait till you see my hair." chuckled the ex-priest.
The mile and a-half was soon covered, and the trio stood before a roomy farm-house. A boy, not unlike Tommy, but better dressed, was swinging on the gate, and him the detective asked if he could see Miss Du Plessis on important business. The boy ran into the house to enquire, and came back to the gate, accompanied by the lady in question. She changed colour as her eye took in The Cavalry, immovable as a life guardsman on sentry. The detective handed her his professional card, and explained that he and his two friends had been entrusted with the duty of protecting her property and herself. "You need have no doubts, Miss Du Plessis, for the Squire, as a J.P., knows me perfectly," he continued.
"I have no fear, Mr. Nash," answered the lady, in a pleasant voice, with just a suspicion of a foreign accent; "your name is known to me, and you are in good company."
Wilkinson, standing by his friend's stirrup, heard this last statement, and blushed, while The Cavalry thought he had heard a voice like that before.
"Has Mr. Rawdon seen you, or have you seen him?" asked the detective.
"Neither; but the two Marjories have been here, and have told me about him. They do not seem to admire Mr. Rawdon."
"The darlins!" ejaculated the lawyer; whereupon Wilkinson pinched his leg, and made him cry "Owch!"
The rest of the conversation between the plotters at the gate was inaudible. At its conclusion, the lady's face was beaming with amusement.
"Give me that bundle for Miss Du Plessis," said Nash to Coristine, who lifted his hat to her, and handed the parcel over.
"Now, for instructions," continued the commander-in-chief. "The Cavalry will go to Bridesdale, that's Squire Carruthers' place, and keep Mr. Rawdon from going to church, or bring him back if he has started, which isn't likely. This branch of the Service will also make sure that all children are out of the way somewhere, and inform older people, who may be about, that Miss Du Plessis is coming to the house during church time, and is very much altered by night-watching and sick-nursing, so that they need not express astonishment before Mr. Rawdon. Fasten these knapsacks about you somehow, Horse-Doctor; put the beast up where he'll get a drink and a feed; and go to church like a good Christian. The Infantry will halt for the present, and afterwards act as Miss Du Plessis' escort. Infantry, attention! Cavalry, form threes, trot!"
Coristine took the knapsacks, made another bow, and trotted away, while the dominie walked up to the gate, and was introduced to the fair conspirator.
After showing the detective and his bundle into an unoccupied apartment, Miss Du Plessis returned to the sitting-room where she left the dominie. In the few minutes at their disposal, he informed his new acquaintance of his chance-meeting with her uncle, of whose arrival in Canada she was in complete ignorance. The imparting and receiving this news established such a bond between the two as the schoolmaster had hitherto thought impossible should exist between himself and one of the weaker sex. Yet, in her brief absence, he had taken pains to dust himself, and shake up his hair and whiskers. His companion was preparing to tell how she had heard of him from Miss Carmichael, when another young lady, almost her counterpart in general appearance, entered the room.
"Now," said the newcomer, in a deep but feminine voice, "now the false Miss Du Plessis will go on with her nursing, while the real one takes Mr. Wilkinson's arm and keeps her appointment at the Squire's."
Miss Du Plessis clapped her hands together and laughed heartily. Wilkinson, thinking, all the time, what a pretty, musical laugh it was, could not help joining in the amusement, for Nash was complete from his wig down to his boots. The colonel's niece threw a light, woolly shawl over the detective's shoulders, and accompanied the pair to the gate, where, before dismissing them, she warned her double not to compromise her to Mr. Rawdon.
"I hope soon to have the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Wilkinson, under more favourable circumstances," she called after that gentleman, as they moved off, and then ran into the house to hide her laughter.
The dominie felt his face getting red, with a pretty young lady hoping to meet him again, on the one hand, and a not by any means ill-looking personation of one hanging on to his arm, on the other. After a minute, the detective withdrew his hand from his companion's arm, but continued to practise his assumed voice upon him, in every imaginable enquiry as to what he knew of Miss Du Plessis, of her friend Miss Carmichael, and of the working geologist's intentions. He was thus pretty well primed, and all promised well, till, within a quarter of a mile of the house, a vision appeared that filled him and the disguised Nash, to whom he communicated his fears, with grave apprehensions as to the success of the plot. It was no less a person than the veteran, Mr. Michael Terry, out for a Sunday walk with the Grinston man. Their dread increased as the old man came running forward, crying: "An' it's comin' back yez are, my darlin' Mish Ceshile. It's a throifle pale yer lookin', an' no wonder." Saying this, Michael shook hands with Nash, and whispered: "Niver fare, sorr, Mishter Coristine towld me all about it."
The made-up lady introduced her father's old servant to Wilkinson, whose apprehensions were dispelled in a similar way, so that all were prepared to give Mr. Rawdon the reception intended.
"Ullo, hold Favosites Wilkinsonia," cried the working geologist, swaggering up with a cigar in his mouth, "'ow's yer bloomin' 'ealth? That hold bloke of a Hirish haint in a 'urry to do the hamiable between 'is hold guvner's gal an' yours truly. My name, Miss, is Rawdon, Haltamont Rawdon, workin' geologist and minerologist, and, between you and me and the bedpost, a pretty warm man."
"Yes; Mr. Rawdon," replied the pseudo Miss Du Plessis, "you look—well, not pretty—but warm."
"O, dash it hall, that haint wot I meant, Miss Do Please-us; I mean hi'm a man that's got the dibs, the rhino, the blunt, you know, wot makes the mare go. I don't go geologizin' round for nothin'."
"You pick up stones, I suppose?"
"Yes; grinstuns, limestun grit, that's the stuff to make you jolly."
"I have heard of drawing blood out of a stone, Mr. Rawdon, but never of extracting merriment or exhilaration from a grindstone."
"Then you don't know my grinstuns, Miss; they're full o' fun."
"Are they indeed? How amusing! In what way does the fun display itself?"
"A bundle of my grinstuns, distributed at a loggin' bee, a raisin' bee, or a campaign caucus, ware there's a lot of haxes to grind, can make more fun than the Scott Act'll spile in a month. But silence is silence 'twixt partners, which I opes you and me is to be."
The fictitious Miss Du Plessis, with much simpering and affectation, quite unworthy of the original, drew the working geologist out, and inspired him with hopes of securing her hand and property. Mr. Rawdon spoke very freely of the wealth he had in the hand and in the bush, of his readiness to make allowance for Madame Du Plessis, if that "haffable hold gent," her brother in law, was not prepared to provide for her. When they reached the house, they found that no one was at home but Tryphena, who was confined to the kitchen by culinary duties. They,therefore, occupied the parlour, the Grinstun man seeing no impropriety in being there alone with a young lady whom he had met for the first time. Indeed, he was much gratified to find that the lady was not at all stiff and offish, as he had feared, but as "haffable as her huncle and more." The lady laughed, and blushed at loud compliments, as loud as the check of Mr. Rawdon's clothes, and asked flattering questions, which he answered with a jolliky and recklessness that almost astonished himself. Was there no romance, no spice of daring in his occupation? she had asked, and he, remembering that he was talking to a soldier's daughter, who would, doubtless, appreciate courage, replied enigmatically that the grinstun business was about the riskiest business on earth, and required 'eroism of no hordinary kind.
While this conversation was going on, the dominie and the veteran were walking churchward, for, as the former had signified his intention of going to a place of worship, the old man insisted on accompanying him.
"Oi was born a Catholic, sorr, and a Catholic Oi'll doie, though my darter is a Pratestant, and what's more, a Prosbytarian. She rades her Boible an' Oi rade moine, an' there's sorra a bit av differance betwane thim. If the church is good enough for her, it's good enough for the loikes av me."
"That is what I call being a Catholic in the truest sense of the term. We will not deprive people of the kingdom of Heaven because they refuse to go our way."
"Till me now, sorr, what's that that's pertindin' to be my dear young misthress, Miss Ceshile?"
"An old soldier knows how to keep a secret, I am sure. It is the famous detective, Mr. Nash."
"Sure I hope, by my sowl, that he'll make the crathur gnash his tayth. It was all I could do to kape my hands aff him, as we were walkin' along to mate yez. Him to make up to the cornel's darter, the misherable, insignifikint, bad shpokin, thavin' scrap av impidence!"
The church bell had ceased ringing, the horses and waggons were in the driving shed without any attendant, and, as the pair approached, they could hear the sound of hearty singing coming through the open windows. They entered together, the old man crossing himself as he didso, and sat down in a pew near the door. The schoolmaster saw that the church was that of Mr. Errol, who occupied the pulpit. He looked round, but could not see his friend Coristine; nor was little Marjorie anywhere visible. They must have strolled on farther to Mr. Perrowne's consecrated edifice for the sake of the walk. Then, with reverent mind, the dominie joined in the simple worship of the Kirk.
The Services—Nash Routs Rawdon—The Dinner Talk—The Pedestrians with the Ladies—Singing out of One Hymn-book—Grinstuns Again—The Female Vagrant and the Idiot Boy—Little Marjorie—Nash's Thoughts—The Captain and the Plot—Arrival of Rufus and Ben—To Arms!
The Services—Nash Routs Rawdon—The Dinner Talk—The Pedestrians with the Ladies—Singing out of One Hymn-book—Grinstuns Again—The Female Vagrant and the Idiot Boy—Little Marjorie—Nash's Thoughts—The Captain and the Plot—Arrival of Rufus and Ben—To Arms!
Mr. Errol's sermon was on the text, "Lord, I knew thee, that thou art an hard man." He elaborated the unfaithful servant's harsh opinion of God, and, before he sat down, completely exonerated the Father in Heaven from the blasphemous judgment of those who call themselves His children. There is a thief in the world who comes to steal and kill and destroy; he is not God, but the enemy of God's children. The dominie's heart warmed to the man who, though of a different communion, fulfilled St. Paul's ideal of a clergyman, in that he arrogated no dominion over the people's faith, but was a helper of their joy. The sermon lifted the schoolmaster up, and brought God very near; and the hearty hymns and reverent prayers helped him greatly. When the service was over, he waited, and soon Carruthers presented his comely, matronly wife, while Mrs. Carmichael recalled herself to his remembrance; and, finally, the minister, having divested himself of gown and bands in the vestry, came down the aisle with cheery step and voice to bid him welcome to Flanders. Wilkinson was happy—happier than he had been for many a long year. He seemed to have so many friends, and they were all so cordial, so glad to see him—not a hard man or woman among them; and, therefore, God could not be hard. He walked with the minister,who was going to dine at Bridesdale and then ride five miles to preach at another station. He thanked him for his sermon, and talked over it with him, and, of course, quoted "The Excursion":—
If the heartCould be inspected to its inmost folds,By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,Who shall be named—in the resplendent lineOf sages, martyrs, confessors—the manWhom the best might of conscience, truth and hope,For one day's little compass, has preservedFrom painful and discreditable shocksOf contradiction from some vague desireCulpably cherished, or corrupt relapseTo some unsanctioned fear.
If the heartCould be inspected to its inmost folds,By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,Who shall be named—in the resplendent lineOf sages, martyrs, confessors—the manWhom the best might of conscience, truth and hope,For one day's little compass, has preservedFrom painful and discreditable shocksOf contradiction from some vague desireCulpably cherished, or corrupt relapseTo some unsanctioned fear.
If the heart
Could be inspected to its inmost folds,
By sight undazzled with the glare of praise,
Who shall be named—in the resplendent line
Of sages, martyrs, confessors—the man
Whom the best might of conscience, truth and hope,
For one day's little compass, has preserved
From painful and discreditable shocks
Of contradiction from some vague desire
Culpably cherished, or corrupt relapse
To some unsanctioned fear.
"That's just all the trouble, Mr. Wilkinson," said the delighted minister. "People think to honour and glorify God by being afraid of Him, forgetting that perfect love casts out the fear that hath torment, and he that feareth is not made perfect in love."
With such conversation they beguiled the way till they stood at the gate of Bridesdale, and entered the hospitable mansion, there to be received by the odious Grinstun man.
"What in aa' the warld, Marjorie, did Susan mean, sending us yon godless, low-lived chairact o' a Rawdon?" asked the Squire of his sister, Mrs. Carmichael.
"I cannot understand it, John," she answered; "for her own Marjorie fairly detests the little man. Perhaps it is some business affair with the Captain."
"Aweel, aweel, we maun keep the peace, sin' I'm a judge o't; but I do not like thee, Dr. Fell."
Then they all entered the house together. Wilkinson found the spurious Miss Du Plessis gone.
The dominie saw that the working geologist was boring Mrs. Carmichael, after her return to the drawing-room from laying aside her walking attire, and valorously interposed to save her. He enquired for her niece, Marjorie, and learned that that young lady had annexed Coristine as her lawful prey, and, introducing him to her grown-up cousin, had arranged the triangular journey to Mr. Perrowne's church. The service there was longer than in the kirk, so that half an hour would probably elapse before the two Anglican perverts appeared with their captive, the lawyer. Before the absentees made their appearance, aman—dressed in Mr. Nash's clothes, but with the beard and moustache recognized by Ben Toner as those of the bailiff—was ushered in and greeted by the Squire as Mr. Chisholm. The rest of the company seemed to know the transformed detective, including the Grinstun man, whom he rallied on his attentions to a young lady.
"You're a nice man, Rawdon, when every decent person has gone to church, gallivanting with young ladies. I saw you at the Talfourds."
"Don't care a 'ang if you did," replied Rawdon, "if Miss Do Pleas us takes a shine to a warm man, and gives you 'and-to-mouth beggars the go-by, that honly shows 'er common sense."
"What has Miss Du Plessis got to do with it?"
"She's got this to do with it, that she's promised to be my missus before the week's hout."
"When?"
"Wy, this mornin'; 'ere in this blessed room."
"Oh, come, Rawdon, you are joking. Miss Du Plessis hasn't been out of Mrs. Talfourd's to-day."
"Don't you try none of your larks hon me, Mr. Chisholm. You can't take a rise hout of this kid, hinnercent has he looks."
"But, I tell you she has not. Who do you think that girl was you brought home Talfourd's place?"
"Wy, Miss Do Please us, of course; 'oo else could it be?"
Mr. Chisholm laughed loud and long, and at last ejaculated: "Miss Du Plessis! Oh, but you're a green hand, Rawdon, to take Martha Baggs for her; the daughter of old Baggs, in the revenue service. Hope you didn't give your friends away, Rawdon?"
"You think you're pretty clever, Mr. Chisholm, comin' hover me with your Marther Baggses. Hold Hirish knows Miss Do Please-us, I should say, and wouldn't go takin' no Marther Baggs for 'er."
"Mr. Rawdon," interposed the Squire, "I'll thank you to speak more respectfully of my father-in-law; as good a man, I judge, as yourself."
"No hoffence, Squire; but I wish you'd hask the hold gent to come 'ere and shut up this 'ere bailiff's mouth with 'is Marther Baggs."
Mr. Terry, who preferred the society of the kitchen to that of the parlour, was produced, and, on being asked if the lady with Mr. Rawdon was Miss Du Plessis, answered that his "sight was gettin' bad, an' the sinse av hairin' too, an' if it wor Miss Jewplesshy, she had changed her vice intoirely, an' got to be cruel rough an' common in her ways. Av coorse, it moight have been the young misthress; but Talfer's was nigh to han', an' it was aisy axin'."
A horrible suspicion came over the Grinstun man, and paled his rubicund visage. He darted up to his room, and speedily re-appeared with knapsack on back and staff in hand, ready for the road. Mr. Carruthers pressed him to stay at least for dinner, but he was resolved to solve the mystery by a visit to the Talfourds, and said that, if Mr. Chisholm was right, he would not be back for a while. His retreating figure was watched with positive pleasure by most of the company, and with still greater satisfaction by the small party returning from the Anglican service.
"What garred ye fricht Rawdon awa, Mr. Chisholm?" asked the Squire.
"I wanted to eat my dinner comfortably," replied the detective, putting beard and moustache in his pocket, when all the company, except the dominie who knew, cried out, "it's Mr. Nash."
"To think of you deceiving me," exclaimed Mr. Carruthers, "and me a justice of the peace. I've a thocht to bring you up for conspiracy."
"There can be no conspiracy without at least two persons," answered the detective.
"But, man, you are two persons, that I've known off and on as Chisholm and Nash."
"When he was one of my masters," put in the dominie, "his name was Dowling."
"And this morning," remarked the man of aliases, with a smile, "I was Miss Du Plessis or Martha Baggs, so Rawdon will have hard work to find the lady of his affections."
At this juncture Coristine and his fair companions entered, and, while the young Marjorie renewed her acquaintance, Wilkinson was gravely introduced to one of his own teachers, to the no little amusement of the ladyherself, of the lawyer, and of the company generally who were in the secret. Miss Carmichael explained that Mr. Perrowne had declined to come to dinner, but would look in later in the day when Cecile came home; whereat many smiled, and the dominie frowned heavily. Mrs. Carruthers now announced dinner, when the Squire took in his sister, Wilkinson, her daughter, Coristine, Marjorie, and Mr. Errol, the hostess. All the pairs agreed in congratulating themselves on the absence of the Grinstun man, and looked with approbation on Mr. Nash, who, all alone but cheerful, brought up the rear. There was no room at the table for the five youthful Carruthers, who rejoiced in the fact and held high carnival in the kitchen with Tryphena and Tryphosa and their maternal grandfather. Mr. Errol had said grace, and dinner was in progress, when the hall door was heard to open, and, immediately, on went the detective's facial disguise. But the lightness of the step that followed it reassured him, so that his smooth features once more appeared. Shortly afterwards Miss Du Plessis entered, apologizing for her lateness, and taking the vacant chair between the host and the dominie.
"I was really frightened," she said to the former, "by a dreadful little man, with an Indian hat and a knapsack, who stopped and asked me if I was Miss Do Please-us. When I told him that my name was Du Plessis, he became much agitated, and cried 'Then I'm done, sold again and the money paid,' after which he used such very bad language that I actually ran away from him. I looked round, however, and saw him hurrying away towards the Talfourds'." Wilkinson looked very fierce and warlike, and attacked his food as if it were the obnoxious Rawdon.
"Cecile," said Miss Carmichael across the indignant dominie, "I told a fib about you this morning, but quite innocently. I said you would not be home to dinner."
"Neither I would, were it not that Mrs. Talfourd's sister came in after church, and offered to stay with her the rest of the day. Whom did you tell?"
"Your devoted friend, Mr. Perrowne."
Miss Du Plessis blushed a little, and the schoolmaster cut the clergyman up several times and stuck his fork into him savagely. Then he commenced a conversation with the Squire, into which the lady between them was almostnecessarily drawn. Mr. Nash edified Mrs. Carmichael; her daughter conversed with the minister, to the latter's delight; while Coristine divided his attentions between the hostess and Marjorie.
"What was Mr. Perrowne preaching on, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Carruthers.
"Pillows on the ground," replied that young person.
Her cousin laughed, and came to the rescue, saying: "It was the Church, the pillar and ground of the truth; Marjorie seems to associate all English Church services with bedtime."
"There wasn't much bedtime about the service this morning," interposed the lawyer; "the parson rattled along in grand style, and gave Miss Carmichael, and all other broken reeds of dissenters, some piping hot Durham mustard. Did it sting, Miss Carmichael?"
"Is that the effect mustard has on broken reeds, Mr. Coristine?"
"It is rather a mixing of metaphors, but you must make allowance for an Irishman."
Mrs. Carruthers at once conversed with her countryman, or rather her father's countryman, on Ireland, its woes and prospects, during which Marjorie informed Mr. Errol that she had not known what made her cousin's cheeks so red when looking on Eugene's prayer-book. Now she knew; it was Durham mustard that stings. There must have been some in the book. The victim of these remarks looked severely at the culprit, but all in vain; she was not to be suppressed with a frown. She remarked that Saul had a hymn-book that made you sneeze, and she asked him why, and he said it was the snuff.
"What did Eugene put mustard in his prayer-book for?"
"Mr. Coristine didna say he put mustard in his bookie, Marjorie," said the minister; "he said that Mr. Perrowne put mustard in his sermon, because it was so fiery."
"I don't like mustard sermons; I like stories."
"Aye, we all like them, when they're good stories and well told, but it's no easy work getting good stories. That was the way our Saviour taught the people, and you couldna get a higher example."
"Why have we hardly any of that kind of teaching now?" asked Miss Carmichael.
"Because the preachers are afraid for one thing, and lazy, for another. They're afraid of the most ignorant folk in their congregation, who will be sure to charge them with childishness and a contempt for the intellect of their people. Then, it takes very wide and varied reading to discover suitable stories that will point a Scripture moral."
"You seem to be on gude solid releegious groond doon there, meenister," interrupted the master of the house; "but Miss Du Plessis and Mrs. Carmichael here are just corruptin' the minds o' Maister Wilkinson and Maister Nash wi' the maist un-Sawbath like havers I ever hard at an elder's table. We had better rise, gudewife!"
Shortly after the company returned to the parlour, Mr. Errol signified that he must take his departure for the Lake Settlement, where his second congregation was. At this Mr. Nash pricked up his ears, and said he would saddle his horse and ride over with him. "Na, na!" cried the Squire, "he'll no ride the day; I'll just get the waggon oot, and drive ye baith there and back." Orders were given through Tryphosa, a comely, red-cheeked damsel, who appeared in a few minutes to say that Timotheus was at the gate. All went out to see the trio off, and there, sure enough, was Timotheus of Peskiwanchow holding the restive horses. It transpired that Carruthers, having lost his house servant through the latter's misconduct, had commissioned his sister to find him a substitute, and Marjorie's interest in Timotheus had resulted in his being chosen to fill the vacant situation. He grinned his pleased recognition of the two pedestrians, who bravely withstood all the temptations to get into the waggon and visit the Lake Settlement. When the waggon departed, Mrs. Carruthers went to her children, taking Marjorie with her, and Mrs. Carmichael went upstairs for a read of a religious paper and a nap. The young ladies and the tourists were the sole occupants of the sitting-room. The lawyer went over to Miss Du Plessis, and left his friend perforce to talk to Miss Carmichael.
"I hear, Miss Du Plessis, that you own a farm and valuable mineral land," said Coristine.
"Did Messrs. Tylor, Woodruff and White give you that information?" she asked in return.
"No, indeed; do you know my firm?"
"Very well, seeing I have been two years in Mr. Tylor's office."
"Two years in Tylor's office, and me not know it?"
"You do not seem to take much interest in feminine stenographers and typewriters."
"No, I don't, that's a fact; but if I had known that it was you who were one, it would have been a different thing."
"Now, Mr. Coristine, please make no compliments of doubtful sincerity."
"I never was more sincere in my life. But you haven't answered me about the land."
"Well, I will answer you; I have no farm or valuable minerals, but my father left me two hundred acres of water and wild land near what's called the Lake Settlement, which he bought when Honoria married Mr. Carruthers and took up her residence here."
"Do you know if the taxes are paid on your land?"
"No, I was not aware that wild land and water could be taxed."
"Taxed is it? You don't know these municipalities. If you had a little island in your name, no bigger than this room, they'd tax you for it, and make you pay school rate, and do statute labour beside, though there wasn't a school or a road within ten miles of it. For downright jewing and most unjustifiable extortion on non-residents, commend me to a township council. You'll be sold out by the sheriff of the county, sure as eggs, and the Grinstun man'll buy your property for the arrears of taxes."
"Whatever shall I do, Mr. Coristine?" asked the alarmed young lady; "I do not wish to lose my father's gift through negligence."
"You should have taken advice from the junior member of Tylor, Woodruff and White," replied the lawyer, with a peculiar smile; "but the Grinstun man has bagged your estate."
"Oh, do not say that, Mr Coristine. Tell me, what shall I do? And who is the man you mean?"
"The man I mean is the one that met you when you came here to dinner. He is going to quarry in your farm for grindstones, and make his fortune. But, as he wants yourself into the bargain, I imagine he can't get the land without you, so that somebody must have paid the taxes."
"Then it is the little wretch Marjorie told me of, the cruel creature who kicked a poor dog?"
"The very same; he is the Grinstun man. I've got a poem on him I'll read you some day."
"That will be delightful; I am very fond of good poetry."
"Wilks says it isn't good poetry; but any man that grovels over Wordsworth, with a tear in the old man's eye, is a poor judge."
"I admire Wordsworth, Mr. Coristine, and am afraid that you are not in earnest about poetry. To me it is like life, a very serious thing. But, tell me, do you think the land is safe?"
"Oh yes; I wrote to one of the salaried juniors, giving him instructions to look after it, just as soon as I heard what Grinstuns had his eye on."
"Mr. Coristine! How shall I ever thank you for your kindness, you, of all men, who profess to treat us workers for our living as positive nonentities?"
"By forgetting the past, Miss Du Plessis, and allowing me the honour of your acquaintance in future. By the-bye, as you admire Wordsworth, and good poetry, and airnest, serious men, I'll just go and send Wilks to you. I have a word for Miss Carmichael. Is she constructed on the same poetic principles as yourself?"
"Go away then,farceur! No; Marjorie is inclined to frivolity."
With a wave of her fan, she dismissed the lawyer, who began to think lady stenographers and typewriters a class worthy of platonic attention. "Short hand!" he muttered to himself; "hers is rather a long one and pretty, and she is a favourable type of her kind, but I'm afraid a pun would make her faint, when Wilks would certainly call me out and shoot me dead with his revolver."
"Wilks, my boy," said Coristine aloud, when he reached the stiff chair in which the dominie sat erect, facing Miss Carmichael on a lounge at safe distance; "Miss Du Plessis would like to hear you discuss Wordsworth and other Sunday poets. She doesn't seem to care about hearing my composition on the Grinstun man."
The dominie eagerly but properly arose, answering: "Miss Du Plessis does too much honour to my humblepoetic judgment, and, in regard to your doggrel, shows her rare good sense." He then walked across the room to the object of his laudation, and, taking Coristine's vacated chair, remarked that few poets preach a sermon so simply and beautifully as the author of "The Excursion." Would Miss Du Plessis allow him to bring down his pocket volume of the Rydal bard? Miss Du Plessis would be charmed; so the schoolmaster withdrew, and soon reappeared with the book all unconsciously open at "She was a phantom of delight." With guilty eyes, he closed it, and, turning over the pages, stopped at the fifth book of "The Excursion," announcing its subject, "The Pastor." It was now the lady's turn to be uncomfortable, with the suggestion of Mr. Perrowne. The lawyer, whose back had been turned to the poetic pair, looked unutterable things at Miss Carmichael, who, not knowing to what extreme of the ludicrous her companion might lead her, suggested a visit to the garden, if Mr. Coristine did not think it too warm. "It's the very thing for me," answered the lawyer, as they arose together and proceeded to the French windows opening upon the verandah; "it's like 'Come into the garden, Maud.'" They were outside by this time, and Miss Carmichael, lifting a warning finger, said: "Mr. Coristine, I am a school teacher, and am going to take you in hand as a naughty boy; you know that is not for Sunday, don't you now?"
"If it was only another name that begins with the same letter," replied the incorrigible Irishman, "I'd say the line would be good for any day of the week in fine weather; but I'm more than willing to go to school again."
"Sometimes," said the schoolteacher quietly, "sometimes the word 'garden' makes me sad. Papa had a great deal of trouble. He lost all his children but me, and almost all his property, and he had quarrelled with his relations in Scotland, or they had quarrelled with him; so that he was, in spite of his public life, a lonely, afflicted man. When he was dying, he repeated part of a hymn, and the refrain was 'The Garden of Gethsemane.'"
"Ah, Miss Carmichael, dear, forgive me, the stupid, blundering idiot that I am, to go and vex your tender heart with my silly nonsense. I'm ashamed, and could cry to think of it."
"I will forgive you, Mr. Coristine," she replied, recovering from her serious fit, and looking at the victim in a way that blended amusement with imperiousness: "I will forgive you this once, if you promise future good behaviour."
An impulse came over the lawyer to shake Miss Carmichael's hand, but she made him no shadow of an excuse for so doing. It was plain that the mutual confidences of the girls, which embraced, using the word in a mere logical sense, their year long distant acquaintance with the transformed pedestrians had given maturity to the closer and more pleasant acquaintance of the day. Little Marjorie's appropriation of the lawyer as her Eugene added another ripening element to its growth; so that the two garden explorers felt none of the stiffness and uncertainty of a first introduction. What Miss Carmichael's thoughts were she only could tell, but she knew that the impetuous and affectionate Coristine required the merest trifle of encouragement to change the steady decorous tide of advancing knowledge and respect into an abruptly awkward cataract, threatening the rupture of pleasant relations or the loss of self-respect. She would have preferred talking with Wilkinson, as a check upon the fervour of his friend, but, although she laughed at the dominie's culpable ignorance of her city existence, in her secret soul it piqued her not a little. No; she would rather take refuge with the clergy, Mr. Errol or Mr. Perrowne.
Many roses were still in bloom, but, spite of many hints, Coristine's button hole remained empty. He admired the pinks, the carnations, the large-eyed pansies, "like Shakespeare's winking Mary-buds," he said, but all in vain, save a civil answer. The Day-lilies and the sweet-scented pure white and Japan lilies, the early Phloxes, the Honeysuckles against the arbours, and many other floral beauties he stopped to inspect, and wondered if Mrs. Carruthers would mind his gathering a few, although the house was full of flowers. His companion did not satisfy his wonder, only answering that she thought flowers looked so much better growing. Then he pulled himself together, and answered naturally, joking on the tall Scarlet Lychnis, now almost a garden flower of the past, which boys call scarlet likeness and scarlet lightning, and ran oninto accounts of botanical rambles, descriptions of curious plants, with here a little bit of reverent natural theology, and there an appropriate scrap from some flower loving poet, or a query as to where the worshippers of Wordsworth had got, if they had left "The Excursion" for the smaller pieces on the Daisy, and the Celandine, the Broom, the Thorn and the Yew. In thus talking he gained his end without knowing it, for, instead of a mere routine lawyer and impulsive Irishman, Miss Carmichael found in her companion an intelligent, thoughtful, and cultured acquaintance, whose society she thoroughly enjoyed. Occasionally an unconscious and half-timid lifting of her long eye-lashes towards his animated, handsome face thrilled the botanist with a new, if fleeting, sensation of delight. As they passed through a gate into a hillside meadow, at the foot of which ran a silvery brook, they were made aware of voices in song. The voices were two, one a sweet but somewhat drawly female soprano, the other, a raucous, loud, overmastering shout, that almost drowned the utterance of its companion. The masculine one furnished the words to the promenaders, and these were:—