Chapter 15

Miss Carmichael Snubs and Thinks--The Constable and the Prisoner--Matilda and the Doctor--The Children Botanize--Pressing Specimens--Nomenclature--The Colonel Makes a Discovery--Miss Carmichael Does Not Fancy Wilks--Mr. Newberry Takes Matilda--Mr. Pawkins Makes Mischief and is Punished--Rounds on Sylvanus--Preparations for Inquest

"Mr. Coristine, I never gave you permission to call me by my Christian name, much less to think that I accepted Marjorie's foolish little charge. I am sorry if I have led you to believe that I acted so bold, so shameless a part."

"Oh, Miss Carmichael, forgive me. I'm stupid, as I said, but, as the Bible has it, I'll try and keep a watch on the door of my lips in future. And you such an angel of mercy, too! Please, Miss Carmichael, pardon a blundering Irishman."

"Nonsense," she answered. "I have nothing to pardon; only, I did not want you to misunderstand me." The gloves were on, and she shook hands with him, and laughed a comical little insincere laugh in his face, and ran away to her own room to have a foolish little cry. She heard her friend Cecile reading poetry to the wounded Wilkinson, and, looking out of her window, saw Mr. Perrowne helping her uncle to lift the doctor's chair out into the garden, and her mother, freed from conversation with the madwoman, plucking a flower for Mr. Errol's coat. There, too, was a young man, his hands encased in black kid gloves, sitting down on a bench with Mr. Terry, and with difficulty filling a meerschaum pipe. She thought he had a quiet, disappointed look, like a man's whose warm, generous impulses have been checked, and she felt guilty. It was true they had not known one another long, but what was she, a teacher in a common school, that was what people called them, to put on airs before such a man as that? If it had been Mr. Wilkinson, now; but, no; she was afraid of Mr. Wilkinson, the distant, the irreproachable, the autocratic great Mogul. She looked down again, through the blinds of course. Marjorie Thomas was on the lawyer's knee, and Marjorie Carruthers on the veteran's. The Captain's daughter was combing Coristine's brown hair with her fingers, and pointing the ends of his moustache, much to the other Marjorie's amusement and the lawyer's evident satisfaction. Miss Carmichael inwardly called her cousin a saucy little minx, resenting her familiarities with a man who was, of course, nothing to her, in a way that startled herself. Why had he not saved somebody's life and been wounded, instead of that poetic fossil of a Wilkinson? But, no; it was better not, for, had he saved the colonel's life, Cecile would have been with him, and that she could not bear to think of. Then, she remembered what Corry had told her of the advertisement to the next of kin. Perhaps she would be wealthy yet, and more than his equal socially, and then she could condescend, as a great lady, and put a treasure in those poor gloved hands. Where would they all have been without these hands, all scarred and blistered to save them from death? Everybody was very unkind to little Marjorie's Eugene, and failed to recognize his claims upon their gratitude. Oh, that saucy little minx, with her grand assumptions of proprietorship, as if she owned him, forsooth!

Mr. Bangs called the justices to business. There was a prisoner to examine, and two charred masses of humanity for the coroner to sit upon. So a messenger was sent off to summon the long-suffering Johnson, Newberry, and Pawkins, for the coroner's inquest, and the doctor was carried back into the office for the examination of the prisoner, Mark Davis. The two Squires sat in appropriate chairs behind an official table, at one side of which Mr. Bangs took his seat as clerk. Constable Rigby produced his prisoner, loaded with fetters. "Has this man had his breakfast, Rigby?" asked the Squire. "Certainly not, Squire," replied the constable. "Then take him at once to the kitchen, take off these chains and handcuffs, and let him have all that he can eat," replied the J.P., sternly. The corporal's sense of rectitude was offended. The idea of feeding criminals and releasing them from irons! The next thing would be to present them with a medal and a clasp for each new offence against society. But, orders were orders, and, however iniquitous, had to be obeyed; so Davis was allowed to stretch his limbs, and partake of a bountiful, if somewhat late, morning meal. "To trespass upon your kindness, Miss Hill, with such as this," said the apologetic constable, pointing to his prisoner, "is no act of mine; Squire Carruthers, who, no doubt, thinks he knows best, has given orders that it has to be, and my duty is to carry out his orders to the letter." Breakfast seemed to infuse courage into the dissipated farmer. When it was over, he arose, and, without a note of warning, doubled up the stiff guardian of the peace, and made for the door, where he fell into the arms of the incoming Serlizer. She evidently thought that Mark Davis, smitten with her charms, was about to salute her, for, with the words "Scuse me!" and a double turn of her powerful wrists, she deposited the assailant upon the floor. Sadly, but officially, the constable crawled over and sat upon the prostrate form of the would-be fugitive from justice. The prisoner squirmed, and even struck the doubled-up corporal, but the entrance of Ben Toner put an end to that nonsense, so that, handcuffed and chained once more, the desperate villain was hauled into the presence of the magistrates. In dignified, but subordinate, language, Mr. Rigby related the prisoner's escapade, and, by implication, more than by actual statement, gave the J.P.s to understand that they knew nothing about the management of offenders against the law. They were, therefore, compelled to allow the handcuffs to remain, but summoned sufficient courage to insist on the removal of the stable chains.

"What is your name, prisoner?" asked Squire Carruthers.

"Samuel Wilson," answered the man.

"Oh! kem now," interposed Mr. Bangs, "thet's a lie, you know; yore name is Merk Devis, end yore a brether of Metthew Devis of the Peskiwenchow tevern, end you were Rawdon's right hend men. We know you, my led, so down't you try any alias games on us."

"Ef you know my name so mighty well, what do you want askin' for't?"

"To see if you can speak the truth," replied Carruthers.

"What other prisoners hev you got asides me?"

"That is none of your business," said the Squire.

"If I might be ellowed to seggest, Squire," whispered the detective, "I think I'd tell him. Whet do you sey?"

"Go on, Mr. Bangs."

"Well, my fine fellow, the Squire ellows me to sey thet the ethers are Newcome, the stowne ketters, and the women."

The name of Newcome disconcerted Mark, but he asked, "Whar's Rawdon and old Flower?"

"Didn't you see?" asked Mr. Bangs.

"I seen the fire all right, but they wasn't such blame fools as to stay there when there was a way out up atop."

"The epper wey wes clowsed," said the detective.

"Was they burned alive then?"

"Yes, they were berned to eshes."

"O Lord!" ejaculated the prisoner, and then, wildly: "What do you want along of me anyway?"

The magistrates and Mr. Bangs consulted, after which the doctor answered: "We want information from you on three points: first, as to the attempt of Rawdon's gang to burn this house; second, as to the murder of Detective Nash; and, third, as to the whole secret of Rawdon's business at the Select Encampment. You are not bound to incriminate yourself, as every word of this preliminary examination may be used against you, but, on the other hand, if you make a clean breast of what you know on these questions, your confession will go a long way in your favour with judge and jury."

"Suppose'n I don't confess not a syllabub?"

"Then, we shall commit you, all the same, to the County Gaol, to stand your trial at the assizes."

"That's all right, I'll stand my durned trile. You don't get nawthin out'n me, you misable, interferin', ornary, bushwhackin' jedges!"

"Don't strike him, Rigby!" commanded Carruthers; for the constable, shocked and outraged by such indecorous language in a court of justice, was about to club his man. Then he added: "The colonel's servant, Maguffin, is going to town on business, and will drive you so far, and help to guard your prisoner. You can tie him up as tight as you like, without being cruel or doing him an injury. We shall have to do without you at the inquest."

Accordingly, while Mr. Maguffin brought round a suitable vehicle, and received his commissions from the colonel, the commitment papers were made out, and Constable Rigby securely fastened the worst criminal that had ever come into his hands. The said criminal did a little hard swearing, which called the long unused baton into active service. Davis was quiet and sullen when the buggy, under the pensioner's command, wheeled away in search of connections for the County Gaol.

The two bodies were still lying in their shells, with ice about them, in the unfinished annex of the post office. It was, therefore, decided to hold the new inquest in the Bridesdale coach house, as also more convenient for the doctor, whose sprain might have been aggravated by driving. While Ben Toner was sent with a waggon to the Richards, to bring the ghastly remains snatched from the flames out of the punt, and to convey three members of that family to the coroner's jury, Mr. Bangs explained to Doctor Halbert his and the lawyer's thought regarding Matilda Nagle. The doctor consented, and the detective went to find the patient, who was busy and cheerful in the sewing room with Mrs. Carruthers. He told her that she was not looking well, and had better come with him to see the doctor; but, with all the cunning of insanity, she refused to go. He had to go after Coristine in the garden, and take him away from Marjorie. With the lawyer she went at once, identifying him, as she did not the detective, with her brother Stevy. Mechanically, she sat down by the kind doctor's chair, and seemed to recognize him, although he did not remember her. After a few enquiries as to her health, he took one of her hands in his, and, with the other, made passes over her face, until she fell into the mesmeric sleep. "Your husband, Mr. Rawdon, is dead," he said; "you remember that he died by his own hand, and left you free." The woman gave a start, and seemed to listen more intently. "You will kill nobody, hurt nobody, not even a fly," he continued. "Do you remember?" Another start of comprehension was made, but nothing more; so he went on: "You will read your Bible and go to church on Sundays, and take care of your boy, and be just the same to everybody as you were in the old days." Then, with a few counter passes, he released her hand, and the poor woman told him all that he had enjoined upon her, as if they were the resolutions of her own will. She was not sane, but she was free from the vile slavery in which her inhuman keeper had held her. Moreover, she understood perfectly that Rawdon was dead, yet without manifesting either joy or grief in the knowledge. The lawyer led her back to the workroom, where she confided her new state of mind to Mrs. Carruthers, greatly to that tender-hearted lady's delight. The doctor did not think it necessary to practise his art upon the lad Monty, in whom the power of Rawdon's will was already broken, and upon whom his changed mother would, doubtless, exert a salutary influence.

Coristine had nothing to do, and almost dreaded meeting Miss Carmichael, which he probably would do if he remained about the house and grounds. Therefore he got out the improvised vasculum, and invited Marjorie and the older Carruthers children to come with him down to the brook to look for wild flowers. This met with the full approval of the young people, and they prepared at once for the botanizing party. The Captain saw Marjorie putting on her broad-brimmed straw hat, and enquired where she was going. She answered that she was going buttonizing with Eugene, and he said that he guessed he would button too, whatever that was. A very merry little group frisked about the steps of the two seniors, one of whom was explaining to the older, nautical party that he was on the hunt for wild flowers.

"Is it yarbs you're after?" asked the Captain.

"Well, not exactly, although I want to get a specimen of every kind of plant."

"You don't want to make medicine of 'em, Mandrake, Snakeroot, Wild Sassyperilly, Ginsing, Bearberry, Gentian, Cohosh and all that sort o' stuff, eh?"

"No; I want to find out their names, dry and mount them, and classify them according to their kinds."

"What good are they agoin' to do you?"

"They will help me to know Nature better and to admire God's works and His plan."

"Keep on there, mate, fair sailin' and a good wind to you. No pay in it, though?"

"Not a cent in money, but lots of pleasure and health."

"Like collectin' post stamps and old pennies, and butterflies, and bugs."

"Something, but you see scenery and get healthy exercise, which you don't in stamp and coin collecting, and you inflict no suffering, as you do in entomologizing."

"I can tell trees when they're a growin' and timber when its cut, but I don't know the name of one flower from another, except it's garden ones and common at that. Hullo, little puss, what have you got there?"

Marjorie, who had run on in advance and was not by any means ignorant of the flora of the neighbourhood, had secured three specimens, a late Valerian, an early spotted Touch-me-not, and a little bunch of Blue-eyed-grass. Coristine took them from her with thanks, told her their names and stowed them away in his candle box. The zeal to discover and add to the collection grew upon all the party, the Captain included. Near the water, where the Valerian and the Touch-me-not grew, Marjorie Carruthers found the Snake-head, with its large white flowers on a spike. Another little Carruthers brought to the botanist the purple Monkey flower, but the Captain excelled his youthful nephew by adding to the collection the rarer and smaller yellow one. Then the lawyer himself discovered another yellow flower, the Gratiola or Hedge Hyssop, at the moment when Marjorie rejoiced in the modest little Speedwell. Once more, the Captain distinguished himself by finding in the grass the yellow Wood-Sorrel, with its Shamrock leaves, which, when Marjorie saw, she seemed to recognize in part. Then, crossing the stepping stones of the brook, she ran, far up the hill on the other side, to a patch of shady bush, from which she soon returned victorious, with a bunch of the larger Wood-Sorrel in her hand, to exhibit the identity of its leaves, and its delicate white blossoms with their pinky-purple veins. By the time the other juveniles brought in the blue Vervain, pink Fireweed and tall yellow Mullein, the botanist thought it about time to go home and press his specimens.

Miss Carmichael met the scientists at the door, looking, of course, for the children and Uncle Thomas, who was never called by his Christian name, Ezekiel. Learning the nature of the work in hand, she volunteered the use of the breakfast-room table. The lawyer brought down his strap press, and, carefully placing oiled paper between the dried specimens and the semi-porous sheets that were to receive the new ones, proceeded to lay them out. The new specimens had all to be examined by the addition to the botanical party, their botanical and vulgar names to be recited to her, and, then, the arranging began. This was too monotonous work for the Captain, who carried the children off for a romp on the verandah. Marjorie stayed for a minute or so after they were gone, and then remembered that she had not given papa his morning button-hole. Coristine was clumsy with the flowers, owing to the gloves he said, so Miss Carmichael had to spread them out on the paper under his direction, and hold them in their place, while he carefully and gradually pressed another sheet over them. Of course his fingers could not help coming into contact with hers. "Confound those gloves!" he thought aloud.

"Mr. Coristine, if you are going to use such language, and to speak so ungratefully of Mr. Errol's gloves, which I put on your hands, I shall have to leave you to put up your specimens the best way you can."

"O Miss Carmichael, now, please let me off this once, and I'll never do it again. You know it's so hard working in gloves. Understand me as saying that botanically, in a Pickwickian sense as it were, and not really at all."

"You must not say that, either botanically or any other way."

"To hear the faintest whisper of your slightest command is to obey."

It was delicate work arranging these little Speedwells, and Gratiolas, the Wood-Sorrels, and the smaller Monkey-flower. Hands had to follow very close on one another, and heads to be bent to examine, and sometimes there was just a little brush of brown and golden hair that, strange to say, sent responsive tingles along the nerves, and warm flushes to cheek and brow. What a hopeless idiot he was not to have foreseen the possibility of this, and to have brought home twice the number of specimens! Alas! they were all in the press. But, a happy thought struck him: would Miss Carmichael care to look at the dried ones, some of which had kept their colour very well? Yes, she had a few minutes to spare. So, he brought chairs up to the table, and they sat down, side by side, and he told her all about the flowers and how he got them, and the poetry Wilks and he quoted over them. Then the specimens had to be critically examined, so as to let Miss Carmichael learn the distinctive characteristics of the various orders, and this brought the heads close together again, when suddenly their owners were started by the unexpected clang of the dinner gong. "Thank you so much, Mr. Coristine," said the lady, frankly; "you have given me a very pleasant half hour." The lawyer bowed his acknowledgment, but said, beneath his moustache: "Half an hour is it? I thought it was a lifetime rolled up in two minutes, no, one."

What did those deceitful men, Errol and Perrowne, mean, by saying they had to go away to get up their Wednesday evening talk, and to visit their parishioners? There they were, in their old places at the table, Mr. Errol at Mrs. Carmichael's right, and apparently on the best of terms with her, and Mr. Perrowne dancing attendance upon Miss Halbert and her invalid father. Mrs. Du Plessis thought she would take up Mr. Wilkinson's dinner with the colonel's help, as Cecile had been reading to him so long. Accordingly, the Captain talked to that young lady, while Mr. Bangs monopolized Mrs. Carruthers. There was a little commotion, when Mr. Bigglethorpe walked in, and received the sympathetic expressions of the company over his singed face and scorched hands. In spite of these, the sufferer had been up early fishing, just after the rain. Fortunately, he continued, there was no cleared land about the lakes, hence there were very few grasshoppers washed in by the heavy downpour. Had there been, he wouldn't have got a fish. But he had got fish, a big string of them, in splendid condition. He had left some with his kind entertainers, the Richards, but had plenty remaining, which he had left in the kitchen in care of the young woman with the unpronounceable Scripture name. "Now," said the fisherman, "a nime is a very important thing to a man or a woman. Why do people give their children such awful names? Bigglethorpe is Dinish, they say, but Felix Isidore is as Latin as can be. They called me 'fib' at school."

"'Tis the hoighth av impartance to have a good name, say Oi," added Mr. Terry. "Moy fayther, glory be to his sowl, put a shaint's name an me, an' I put her own mother's name, the Howly Vargin rist her, on Honoria here. 'An', savin' all yer prisinces, there's no foiner Scripcher name than John; how's that, Squoire?"

"It suits me well enough, grandfather," replied Carruthers. The Captain was feeling uneasy. He didn't want Ezekiel to come out, so he asked Miss Du Plessis how her young man was. Such a question would have either roused Miss Carmichael to indignation or have overwhelmed her with confusion, but Miss Du Plessis, calm and unruffled, replied: "I suppose you mean Mr. Wilkinson, Captain Thomas. He has been very much shaken by his wound, but is doing remarkably well."

"Fwhat's Mishter Wilkison's name, Miss Ceshile, iv it's a fair quishtyon to ax at yeez?"

"It is Farquhar, is it not, Mr. Coristine?"

Mr. Coristine said it was, and that it was his mother's maiden name. She was a Scotchwoman, he had heard, and a very lovely character. The colonel had just returned from his ministrations. "Did I heah you cohhectly, Mr. Cohistine, when I thought you said that ouah deah young wounded friend's mothah's name was Fahquhah, suh?"

"You did, Colonel Morton."

"And of Scottish pahentage?"

"Yes."

"Do you know if any of her relatives were engaged in the Civil Wahah, our civil wahah?"

"I believe her brother Roderic ran the blockade, and fought for the South, where he fell, in a cavalry regiment."

"Be pleased, suh, to say that again. Rodehic Fahquhah, do you say?"

"His full name, I have seen it among Wilkinson's papers, was Roderic Macdonald Farquhar."

"Tehesa, my deah," said the colonel, his voice and manner full of emotion, as he turned towards his sister-in-law, "you have heard me mention my bosom friend, Captain Fahquhah?"

"Yes, indeed, many times," replied the lady addressed.

"And ouah deah boy upstairs, the pehsehveh of my pooah life, is his nephew, his sistah's son. I was suah there was something drawing me to him. I shall make that brave boy my heih, my pooah deah comhade Fahquhah's nephew. What a fohtunate discovehy. Kindly excuse me, madam, and you my deah ladies, and you Squiah; I must go and tell my deah boy." So the colonel bowed to Mrs. Carruthers, and went out, with his handkerchief up to his face.

After the colonel left the table, the Captain looked over at his niece, saying: "Too late, Marjorie, my lass, too late! Didn't play your cards right, so you're cut out. Shifted his sheet anchor to the t'other bow, Marjorie."

Miss Carmichael was annoyed with good reason, and, in order to put a stop to such uncalled for and vulgar remarks, said, playfully, but with a spice of malice: "Take care, Uncle Thomas, or, as that funny theological student said to the people who were talking in church, 'I'll call out your name before the haill congregation.'" This terrible threat caused Ezekiel to subside, and carry on a less personal conversation with Miss Du Plessis. Then Mr. Terry came to the fore again.

"My little grandchilders' coushin, Mishter Coristine, do be sayin' yer name is Eujane, an' that's Frinch, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied the lawyer; "my mother was of Huguenot descent, and her name was Du Moulin. Some say that the Irish Mullens were once Du Moulins. That I don't know, but I'm not like the man-servant who applied for a situation, saying: 'Me name is Murphy, sorr, but me family came from France.' Coristine, I think, is good Irish."

The name craze spread over the whole table. Miss Halbert thought Basil a lovely name. It was Greek, wasn't it, and meant a king? Mr. Perrowne thought that the sweetest name in the world was Frances or Fanny. Mr. Errol affected Marjorie, and Mrs. Carmichael knew nothing superior to Hugh.

"What made you so savage with the Captain for coupling your name with Wilks?" asked the lawyer in an undertone.

"Because he is the last man in the world I should want my name to be coupled with."

"Oh, but that's hard on Wilks; he's a glorious fellow when you get to know his little ways."

"I don't want to know Mr. Wilkinson's little ways. I am sorry for his wound, but otherwise I have not the remotest sympathy with him. He strikes me as a selfish, conceited man."

"Not a kinder soul breathing, Miss Carmichael."

"Yes, there is."

"Who, then?"

"Yourself."

"Miss Carmichael, you make me the proudest man in the world, but I'm not fit to black Wilks' boots."

"Well, I will not be so rude as to say I think you are. But, never talk that way to me again, if you want me to like you. I will not have you demeaning yourself, even in speech, before Cecile's friend. Now, remember, not a word!"

The test was a severe one between loyalty to his old friend and devoted obedience to the girl he loved. As all the memories of past friendship came before him, he was inclined to be obdurate. Then, he looked at the golden hair which had brushed his awhile ago, and, as the head straightened up, at the pretty petulant lips and the blue eyes, lustrous with just a moist suspicion of vexation and feeling, and he wavered. He was lost, and was glad to be lost, as he whispered: "May I say it?"

"Yes; speak out, like a man, what you have to say."

"It's a bargain, Marjorie; never again!"

Somehow his right hand met her left, and she did not snatch it away too quickly. Then he said: "You won't hate poor Wilks, my old friend, Marjorie?"

She answered "No," and turned her face away to ask some trivial question of the Squire, who knew a good deal more than he saw any necessity for telling.

The kitchen party still kept up its numbers. True, the absence of the constable and Maguffin left two serious blanks in the diversified talk of the table, but the place of these gentlemen was taken by no fewer than six persons, the three Richards and the three jurors, so that the dinner party numbered fifteen, of whom four were women. Old whitehaired Mr. Newberry, with the large rosy face, smooth, save for two little white patches of side-whiskers, took possession of Matilda Nagle, and rejoiced in her kindly ways and simple talk. He was a Methodist, and a class-leader and local preacher, but a man against whom no tongue of scandal wagged, and whose genuine piety and kindness of heart were so manifest that nobody dreamt of holding up to ridicule his oft homely utterances in the pulpit. If he could do good to the poor demented woman and her afflicted boy, he would, and he knew that his little quaker-bonneted wife would second him in such an effort. So he tried to gain her confidence and the boy's, and, after a while, found that Matilda would like to help Mrs. Newberry in her household duties, and have Monty learn useful work on the farm. When informed by the fatherly juror, in answer to her own questions, that she would not be expected to hurt a fly, and would be allowed to go to church, read her Bible and take care of her boy, she expressed her readiness to go away with him at once. Mr. Newberry felt a few qualms of conscience in connection with fly killing, but, having made an express stipulation that mosquitos and black flies should not be included in the bond, he became easier in mind, and said that, with Mrs. Carruthers and the Squire's permission, he would drive her home in the afternoon. Mr. Johnson and the elder Richards discussed local politics, and the tragedy calling for the inquest; but Mr. Pawkins attached himself to the boys, and consequently to the girls. This gentleman had brought his six feet of bone and muscle, topped with a humorous face, from which depended a Lincoln beard, from the States, and was now, for many years, as he said, "a nettrelized citizen of Kennidy." This disappointment at the absence of the constable was something pitiful, he did so want "to yank and rile the old Britisher." Still, that was not going to deprive him of his innocent amusement. He looked around the company and sized it up, deciding that he would leave the old folks alone, and mercifully add to them the crazy people; this still left him a constituency of nine, with large possibilities for fun.

"Rufus," remarked Mr. Pawkins, "I seen your gal, Christy Hislop, along o' that spry sot up coon, Barney Sullivan, daown at the mill. He's a cuttin' you aout for sutten, yes sirree, you see if he ain't."

"What's the use of your nonsense, Mr Pawkins? Barney went home along o' fayther and old man Hislop, and I guess he turned in to say we was all right."

"If Andrew knowed you'd called him old man Hislop, he'd fire you aout o' the back door mighty suddent. When I see a spry, set up, young feller and a likely heifer of a gal a saunterin' through the bush, sort o' poetical like, daown to the mill, it don't take me two shakes to know that suthin's up. You're a poor, rejected, cast off, cut aout strip o' factory cotton."

"What do you mean, Mr. Pawkins?"

"I mean overalls, and it's all over with you, Rufus." Having planted this well-meant thorn in the breast of the younger Hill, and excited the commiseration of his sisters, the lover of innocent amusement turned to Ben, and asked that gentleman, whose attentions to Serlizer were most open and above board, "sence when he got another gal?"

Mr. Toner turned angrily, and asked what Mr. Pawkins was "a givin' him."

"I never see Bridget naow but she's a cryin' and rubbin' her eyes most aout with her cuffs," said the cheerful Pawkins; "she allaowed to me you'd the nighest thing to said the priest was ony waitin' for the word to splice; and here you air, you biggermus delooder, settin' along o' Newcome's gal as if you'd got a mortgage on her. Arter that, the sight ain't to be sawed that'll make me ashamed o' my feller-creeters, no sirree, boss, hull team to boot, and a big dog under the waggin!" Mr. Pawkins sniffed vehemently, and Ben and his affianced bride blushed and drew apart.

"Is that so, Ben?" asked Sarah Eliza in a half whisper.

"S'haylp me, Serlizer," replied the injured Toner in a similar voice, "that there Pawkins is the cussidest, lyinest old puke of a trouble-makin' Yankee as aiver come to Cannidy."

"Are you engaged to Biddy Sullivan, Ben?"

"No, I tell you, naiver said a word to Barney's sister I wouldn't say to any gal."

"Then, what did Barney come here lookin' for you for?"

"So did the tavern keeper and the store keeper, 'cause mother axed 'em, I suppose; you don't think they want me to marry their wives, do you?"

"Wives an' darters is different things, Ben. Ef I'd thought you had been havin' goins on with Biddy, I'd flog the pair of you."

"S'haylp me, Serlizer, it ain't so. Ef it was, you could whayull me till I was stripy as a chipmunk."

"Talkin' abaout whalins," remarked the mischief-maker, who kept one ear open, "Miss Newcome's paa is jest a waitin' to git up and git araound, to give somebody, as ain't fer off'n this table, the blamedest, kerfoundedest lammin' as ever he knowed. He wants his gal home right straight for to nuss him, so's he kin git araound smart with that rawhide that's singein' its ends off in the oven."

"What's dad got agin you, Ben?" enquired Miss Newcome.

"Oh nawthin'; it's only that Pawkins' double-treed, snaffle-bitted, collar-bladed jaw." Mr. Pawkins smiled, but Ben and Serlizer were more uncomfortable than Rufus and his sisters.

The naturalized Canadian turned his attention else where. "I'm kinder amazed," he remarked, eyeing first Sylvanus and then Timotheus, "to see you two a settin' here, as cam as if you never done nothin' to be sorry for. I s'pose you know, if you don't you had orter, that there's a war'nt aout agin the two Pilgrims for stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow tavern, or ho-tel, as Davis calls his haouse. I calclate the constable 'll be back with that war'nt afore night. I'd make myself skeerce if I was in your shoes."

"O Sylvanus!" ejaculated Tryphosa.

"O Timotheus!" added Tryphosa.

"It's a lie!" cried Rufus; "it's a mill dam, boom jam, coffer-dam lie, and I won't believe a word of it."

"Fact all the same," said Mr. Pawkins, calmly, "they air guilty, the two on 'em, of stealin' aout o' the Peskiwanchow ho-tel."

"What did they steal out?" asked the Richards boys.

"Clothes, I guess, boots, some money, books, I don't know all what, and it don't consarn me any; but them boys had best look spry and git aout o' this." With these words, the gentleman of American extraction finished his last piece of pie.

Sylvanus rose cheerfully. He was so radiant over it that Tryphena thought him really handsome. He whispered to Rufus and to Ben; then remarked to Timotheus that he had perhaps better remain, in case the Squire should send for him. Next, he turned to Mr. Pawkins, and said: "A man mought as well be hung fer a sheep as fer a lamb, Mr. Pawkins, and sence they's a warn't out to 'raist me and Timotheus, we ain't a goin' to put the law to no more trouble 'bout a new one. Ef you'll come outside, I'll show you some o' them things we stoled out'n the Peskiwanchow tav." So Sylvanus took the accuser of the brethren by one arm, and Rufus linked his lovingly in the other, while Ben, with a glance of intelligence at Serlizer, and another at his top boots, followed. Mr. Pawkins, confident in his smartness and in the ignorance of the simple-minded Canucks, went quietly with the courteous criminal and his cut-out friend, till, passing the stables, they led him through a broad gate into the meadow. Then he hesitated.

"The stoled things, leastways some on 'em, 'll be at the foot o' this yere slope soon's we will; so hurry, old man!" said Sylvanus. Mr. Pawkins demurred. "Look here, boys," he said, "a joke's a joke, ain't it? D'ye see, you did, the pair on you, steal aout of the hotel. I didn't go to say you took anythin' as didn't belong to you. I reckon your brother had clothes, and money, and books thar, and so, you and him took 'em aout. Lem me go, boys!"

Sylvanus and Rufus were obdurate. "Boost him, Ben," cried the former: "we ain't no time ter spend foolin' with the likes o' him."

Mr. Toner raised his boot and said, "One fer Serlizer!" which made the joker proceed. He had several other ones, before he was run down to the creek--for Timotheus and Tryphena, and Tryphosa, and Christie Hislop, and Barney and Biddy Sullivan, and old man Newcome. Ben's boot did capital service. With difficulty the executioners found a hole in the creek about two and a-half feet deep, in which, at full length and with great gravity, they deposited the exile from the States. Then, they guessed the Squire, or the Captain, or somebody, would be wanting them, and skipped lightly back to the house. They knew Mr. Pawkins would follow, since he was the last man in the settlement to miss his juror's fee of one dollar. After their return, there was a good deal of merriment in the kitchen, and the two Richards boys roundly upbraided the elder Pilgrim for depriving them of a share in the fun. "He baygged an' prayed for massy," said Mr. Toner, with a grim smile, "but we was the most onmassifullest craowd you ever see."

Timotheus, still in Sunday garb, took his work-a-day suit, now quite dry, and went to meet Mr. Pawkins. Introducing him to the stable, he soon had that gentleman relieved of his wet toggery, when voices were heard without. It was the colonel, bringing his sister-in-law to see his horse, as a sort of relief to the strain on his feelings, consequent upon his interview with Wilkinson. Mr. Pawkins had only got Timotheus' flannel shirt on, when the stable door opened. "Shin up that ladder into the loft, Mr. Pawkins," cried the benevolent Pilgrim, and the spectacle of a pair of disappearing shanks greeted the visitors on their entrance. Timotheus had escaped into the coach-house, but all the clothes, wet and dry, save the shirt, lay over the sides of an empty stall. Immediately the colonel perceived the vanishing heels of the Yankee, he interposed his person between them and Mrs. Du Plessis. "My deah Tehesa," he said, hastily, "I think we had bettah retiah foh the pehsent, and visit the stables lateh in the day." Mrs. Du Plessis, however, once no mean judge of horseflesh, was scanning the good points of her brother-in-law's purchase, and seemed indisposed to withdraw. Soon a head and a pair of flannel shirted arms appeared, hanging over the loft trap, and a voice hailed the colonel.

"Say, mister, you ain't a goin' to bring no wimmen folks up this here ladder, be you?"

"Cehtainly not, suh!" answered the colonel, with emphasis.

"If it won't hurt you, I wisht you'd sling up them dry paants and things daown there."

The colonel looked at the man, and then at the articles, with impatience. Then he got a pitchfork, on the prongs of which he collected the garments, one by one, and so handed them up to Mr. Pawkins, who was still minus necktie, socks and boots. Before, however, he was ready for these, the visitors had retired, leaving him to complete his toilet in private. Hearing steps again, he hurriedly picked up his wet clothes and re-ascended the ladder. The colonel had evidently asked Sylvanus to take the place of Maguffin about the two horses, for he was the newcomer. Now, Mr. Pawkins bore no malice, but, when jokes were going, he did not like to be left the chief victim. He had had some fun out of the boys; now he would have some more. The Yankee could mew to perfection. He began, and Sylvanus called the strange cat. It would not come, so he climbed the ladder after it, and had almost reached the top, when, with vicious cries, the animal flew at him, seized him by the back of the neck, and drew blood that he could feel trickling down his back. Tugging ineffectually at the beast, he ran out to the kitchen, calling upon everybody to take off that mad cat that was killing him. The cat was taken off, amid shrieks of laughter, and proved to be Mr. Pawkins' rolled up wet trousers and vest, the water from which was the blood imagined by Sylvanus. The owner of the garments entered immediately behind his victim, and from his banter the elder Pilgrim gladly escaped to resume his stable duties, feeling that he had been demeaned in the eyes of the laughing Tryphena.

Timotheus and Ben were busy cleaning out the coach house, putting tables and seats into it, and generally preparing for the inquest. Mr. Bangs, at the coroner's request, empanelled the jury, consisting of the Squire, the captain, and the two clergymen, the three Richards, the three cited jurors, with old Styles from the post office, and Ben Toner. The charred masses of humanity, pervaded by a sickening smell of spirits, were taken from the waggon, and placed in rough board shells, decently covered over with white cloths. The woman called Flower was brought from the post office, and kept in custody, till she gave her evidence; and Bangs himself, with Messrs. Terry, Coristine, and Bigglethorpe, Sylvanus, Rufus, and Timotheus were cited as witnesses. Some evidence was also expected from Matilda and her son. When the coach house doors were thrown open, all hilarity ceased--even the children seemed to realize that something very solemn was going on. A weight of trouble and danger was lifted off many hearts by the terrible tragedy, yet in no soul was there the least feeling of exultation. The fate of the victims was too awful, too sudden for anyone to feel aught but horror at the thought of it, and deep sorrow for one at least who had perished in his sins. The light-hearted lawyer took one look at the remains of him, whom, within the past few days, he had seen so often in the full enjoyment of life and health, and resolved that never again, in prose or verse, would he speak of the person, whose crimes and cunning had returned so avengingly upon his own head, as the Grinstun man. Mr. Pawkins joked no more, for, with all his playful untruthfulness, he had a feeling heart. The most unconcerned man outwardly was Mr. Bangs, and even he said that he would willingly have given a hundred dollars to see his prisoner safely in gaol with the chaplain, and afterwards decently hanged. The doctor was carefully carried out, and set in the presiding chair as coroner over the third inquest within two days.