Chapter 5

Conversation with the Hills--Tobacco--Rural Hospitality--The Deipnosophist and Gastronomic Dilemma--Mr. Hill's Courtship--William Rufus rouses the Dominie's Ire--Sleep--The Real Rufus--Acts as Guide--Rawdon Discussed--The Sluggard Farmer--The Teamsters--The Wasps--A Difference of Opinion.

It was very pleasant for all four, the walk down the mountain road; and the pedestrians enjoyed the scenery all the more with intelligent guides to point out places of interest. The old schoolteacher, having questioned Wilkinson as to his avocation, looked upon him as a superior being, and gratified the little corner of good-natured vanity that lies in most teachers' hearts. Coristine told the wife that he trusted her daughters had good places, where they would receive the respect due to young women of such upbringing; and she replied:--

"O yes, sir, they are both in one family, the family of Squire Carruthers in Flanders. Tryphena is the eldest; she's twenty-five, and is cook and milker and helps with the washing. Tryphosa is only twenty, and attends to the other duties of the house. Mrs. Carruthers is not above helping in all the work herself, so that she knows how to treat her maids properly. Still, I am anxious about them."

"Nothing wrong with their health, I hope?" asked the lawyer.

"No, sir; in a bodily way they enjoy excellent health."

"Pardon me, Mrs. Hill," interrupted Coristine, "for saying that your perfectly correct expression calls up that of a friend of mine. Meeting an old college professor, very stiff and precise in manner and language, he had occasion to tell him that, as a student, he had enjoyed very poor health. 'I do not know about the enjoying of it, sir,' he answered, 'but I know your health was very poor.' Ha, ha! but I interrupted you."

"I was going to say, sir, that I have never been ambitious, save to keep a good name and live a humbly useful life, with food convenient for me, as Agur, the son of Jakeh, says in the Book of Proverbs, in which, I suppose, he included clothing and shelter, but I did hope my girls would look higher than the Pilgrims."

"You don't mean John Bunyan's Christian and Christiana, and Great Heart, and the rest of them?"

"Oh, no!" replied the old lady, laughing, "mine are living characters, quite unknown to the readers of books, Sylvanus and Timotheus, the sons of old Saul Pilgrim."

"Oh, that's their name, is it? The Crew never told me his surname, nor did Captain Thomas."

"You know Sylvanus' captain, then? But, has he many sailors besides Pilgrim?"

"No; that's why I call him The Crew. It's like a Scotch song, 'The Kitty of Loch Goil,' that goes:--

For a' oor haill ship's companie, Was twa laddy and a poy, prave poys

Sylvanus is The Crew, who goes on a cruise, like Crusoe. O, do forgive me, Mrs. Hill, for so forgetting myself; we have been so long away from ladies' society," which, considering the circumstances of the preceding day, was hardly an ingenuous statement.

"I am not so troubled about the elder Pilgrim and Tryphena," continued the old lady, "because Tryphena is getting up a little in years for the country; I believe they marry later in the city, Mr. Coristine?"

"O yes, always, very much, I'm sure," answered the lawyer, confusedly.

"Tryphena is getting up, and--well, she takes after her father in looks, but will make any man a good wife. Then the elder Pilgrim has good morals, and is affectionate, soft I should be disposed to call him; and he has regular employment all the year round, though often away from home. He has money saved and in the bank, and has a hundred-acre farm in the back country somewhere. He says, if Tryphena refuses him, he will continue to risk his life among the perils of the deep, by which the silly fellow means Lake Simcoe." Here the quondam schoolmistress broke into a pleasant laugh that had once been musical.

"And Miss Tryphosa, did I understand you to say you apprehend anything in her quarter from the Pilgrims?" enquired Coristine.

"Please say Tryphosa, sir; I do not think that young girls in service should be miss'd."

"But they are very much missed when they go away and get married; don't grudge me my little joke, Mrs. Hill."

"I would not grudge you anything so poor," she replied, shaking a forefinger at the blushing lawyer. "You are right in supposing I apprehend danger to Tryphosa from the younger Pilgrim. She is--well, something like what I was when I was young, and she is only a child yet, though well grown. Then, this younger Pilgrim has neither money nor farm; besides, I am told, that he has imbibed infidel notions, and has lately become the inmate of a disreputable country tavern. If you had a daughter, sir, would you not tremble to think of her linking her lot with so worthless a character?" Before the lawyer could reply, the old man called back: "Mother, I think you had better give the gentleman a rest; he must be tired of hearing your tongue go like a cow-bell in fly time." Coristine protested, but his companion declined to continue the conversation.

"The mistress is as proud of wagging that old tongue of hers," remarked the dominie's companion, "as if she had half the larnin' of the country, and she no more nor a third class county certificut."

"Many excellent teachers have begun on them," remarked Wilkinson.

"But she begun and ended there; the next certificut she got was a marriage one, and, in a few years, she had a class in her own house to tache and slipper."

"Your wife seems to be a very superior woman, Mr. Hill."

"That's where the shoe pinches me. Shuparior! it's that she thinks herself, and looks down on my book larnin' that's as good as her own. But, I'll tell ye, sir, I've read Shakespeare and she hasn't, not a word."

"How is that?"

"Her folks were a sort of Lutherian Dutch they call Brethren. They're powerful strict, and think it a mortal sin to touch a card or read a play. My own folks were what they called black-mouthed Prosbytarians, from the north of Ireland, but aijewcation made me liberal-minded. It never had that effect on the mistress, although her own taycher was an old Scotch wife that spent her time tayching the childer Scott, and Pollok's 'Course of Time,' and old Scotch ballads like that Packman one she was reciting to your friend. Now, I larnt my boys and gyurls, when I was school tayching, some pieces of Shakespeare, and got them to declaim at the school exhibitions before the holidays. I minded some of them after I was married, and, one day when it was raining hard, I declaimed a lovely piece before Persis, that's the mistress' name, when the woman began to cry, and fell on her knees by the old settle, and prayed like a born praycher. She thought I had gone out of my mind; so, after that, I had to keep Shakespeare to myself. Sometimes I've seen Tryphosa take up the book and read a bit, but Rufus, that's the baby, is just like his mother--he'll neither play a card, nor read a play, nor smoke, nor tell lies. I dunno what to do with the boy at all, at all."

"But it is rather a good thing, or a series of good things, not to play cards, nor smoke, nor tell lies," remarked Wilkinson. "Perhaps the baby is too young to smoke or read Shakespeare."

"He's eighteen and a strapping big fellow at that, our baby Rufus. He can do two men's work in a day all the week through, and go to meetin' and Sunday school on Sundays; but he's far behind in general larnin' and in spirit, not a bit like his father. Do I understand you object to smoking, sir?"

"Not a bit," replied his companion, "but my friend Coristine smokes a pipe, and, as smokers love congenial company, I had better get him to join you, and relieve him of his load." So saying, Wilkinson retired to the silent pair in the rear, took the old lady's bundle from the lawyer and sent him forward to smoke with the ancient schoolmaster. The latter waxed eloquent on the subject of tobackka, after the pipes were filled and fairly set agoing.

"There was a fanatic of a praycher came to our meetin' one Sunday morning last winter, and discoorsed on that which goeth out of a man. He threeped down our throats that it was tobackka, and that it was the root of bitterness, and the tares among the wheat, which was not rightly translated in our English Bible. He said using tobackka was the foundation of all sin, and that, if you counted up the letters in the Greek tobakko, because Greek has no _c_, the number would be 483, and, if you add 183 to that, it would make 666, the mark of the Beast; and, says he, any man that uses tobackka is a beast! It was a powerful sarmon, and everybody was looking at everybody else. When the meetin' was over, I met Andrew Hislop, a Sesayder, and I said to him, 'Annerew!' says I, 'what do you think of that blast? Must we give up the pipe or be Christians no more?' Says Andrew, 'Come along wi' me,' and I went to his house and he took down a book off a shelf in his settin' room. 'Look at this, Mr. Hill,' says he, 'you that have the book larnin', 'tis written by these godly Sesayders, Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, and is poetry.' I took the book and read the piece, and what do you think it was?"

"Charles Lamb's farewell to tobacco," said Coristine wildly:--

Brother of Bacchus, later born, The Old World were sure forlorn, Wanting thee.

'No, sir; it was a 'Gospel Sonnet on Tobackka and Pipes'; pipes, mind you, as well--all about this Indian weed, and the pipe which is so lily white. Oh, sir, it was most improvin'. And that fanatic of a praycher, not fit to blacken the Erskines' shoes, even if they were Sesayders! I went home and I says, 'Rufus, my son,' and he says, 'Yes, fayther!' Says I, 'Rufus, am I a Christian man, though frail and human, am I a Christian man or am I not?' Rufus says, 'You are a Christian, fayther.' Then says I, 'What is the praycher, Rufus, my boy?' and Rufus, that uses tobackka in no shape nor form, says, 'He's a consayted, ignerant, bigitted bladderskite of a Pharisee!' Sir, I was proud of that boy!'

"That was very fine of your son to stand up for his father like that. You can't say that your foes were those of your own household. In such cases, young people must do one of two things, despise their parents or despise the preacher; and, when the parents go to church, the children, unless they are young hypocrites, uniformly despise such preachers."

"Yes, and to think I had never told Rufus a word about the 'Gospel Sonnets of the Sesayders!' It's a great pleasure, sir, to an old man like me to smoke a pipe with a gentleman like yourself."

Coristine replied that it afforded him equal satisfaction, and they puffed away with occasional remarks on the surrounding scenery.

Meanwhile, Wilkinson was striving to draw out the somewhat offended mistress.

"Your husband tells me, Mrs. Hill, that you are of German parentage," he remarked blandly.

"Yes," she replied; "my people were what they call Pennsylvania Dutch. Do you know German, sir?"

"I have a book acquaintance with it," remarked the dominie.

"Do you recognize this?

Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye, Yo een fayter in der ayvig-eye, Meen fayter rue mee, Ee moos gay Tsoo lowwen in der ayvig-eye."

"No; I distinctly do not, although it has a Swabian sound."

"That is the Pennsylvania Dutch for 'I have a Father in the Promised Land,' a Sunday School hymn."

"Were you brought up on hymns like that?"

"Oh, no; I can still remember some good German ones sung at our assemblies, like:--

Christi Blut und Gerechtigkeit, das ist mein Schmuck und Ehrenkleid, damit will ich vor Gott besteh'n, wenn ich in Himmel werd 'eingeh'n.

Do you know that?" asked the old lady, proud of her correct recitation.

"Yes; that is Count Zinzendorff's hymn, which Wesley translated:--

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness My beauty are, my glorious dress; Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, With joy shall I lift up my head.

The translation is wonderfully free, and takes unpardonable liberties with the original."

"Graf Zinzendorff revived our Brethren when persecution had almost destroyed them. He was in America, too, and had his life saved by a rattlesnake. The Indians were going to kill him, when they saw him sleeping with the snake by his side, and thought it was his Manitou."

"I hope that is not a snake-story, Mrs. Hill. I had a boy once in my school who came from Illinois, and who said that his mother had seen a snake, which had stiffened itself into a hoop, and taken its thorny tail in its mouth, trundling along over the prairie after a man. The man got behind a tree just in the nick of time, for the hoop unbent, and sent the thorny tail into the tree instead of into the man. Then the man came out and killed it. That was a snake story."

"I give the story as I heard it from our people; you know, I suppose, that there is a Moravian Indian Mission on the borders of the counties of Kent and Middlesex. I once thought of going there as a missionary, before I fell in with Mr. Hill."

"I knew a lady who married a clergyman, with the express understanding that he was to become a foreign missionary. His church missionary societies refused to accept him, because of some physical defect, so he had to settle down to a home charge. But his wife never went to hear him conduct service. She said she could not listen to a fraud who had married her under false pretences."

"It is a great pity he married such a woman. If a wife has not the missionary spirit in her own house, how can she expect to acquire it by going abroad? Besides, there is so much mission work to be done in a new country like this. A few years ago, this place was almost as bad as Peskiwanchow, but now it has greatly improved."

"There was a young man we met there, Mrs. Hill, in whom my friend and I were much interested," said the dominie, and proceeded to give an account of the exploit of Timotheus. He also narrated what Coristine had told him of his hero's attitude towards the catechism, as accounting for his present position. The old lady relented in her judgment of the younger Pilgrim, thought that Saul, perhaps, was too severe, and that the catechism could stand revision. Wilkinson agreed, and, the ice being completely broken between them, they also proceeded to view the scenery in a poetic light, or rather in two, the dame's a Cowperish, and the dominie's a Wordsworthian reflection. Suddenly, the latter saw the father of Tryphena and Tryphosa open a gate, and turn into a side road, along which the lawyer seemed not quite disposed to accompany him. The elder smoker, therefore, came back to the gate, and waited for Wilkinson and the old lady to come forward.

"Mother!" said the old man, as the pair came up to the halting place, "you've got a soft blarneying Lutherian tongue in your head--"

"Henry Cooke," she replied sharply, "how often must I tell you that Lutherian is wrong, and that I am not a Lutheran, and have ceased even to be a United Brother since I cast in my lot with you; moreover, it is not pleasant for an old woman like me to be accused of blarneying, as if I were a rough Irishman with a grin on his broad face."

"Well, well, mother, I don't care a snuff if you were a Sesayder or even a Tommykite--"

"A Tommykite?" cried Coristine, anxious to extend his knowledge and increase his vocabulary.

"It's a man called Thomas," answered the interrupted husband, "that made a new sect out our way, and they call his following Tommykites; I dunno if he's a relation of the captain or not. Give a dog a bad name, they say, and you might as well hang him; but the Tommykites are living, in spite of their name."

"Henry Cooke, your remarks are very unnecessary and irrevelant," said his wife, falling into bad English over a long adjective.

"I was just going to say, mother, that I wanted you to try and keep these gentlemen from going beyond our house to-night, because you can put it so much better than I can."

The old lady, thereupon, so judiciously blended coaxing with the apology of disparagement, that the only alternative left the pedestrians was that of remaining; for to go on would have been to treat the disparagement as real, and a sufficient cause for their seeking other shelter. The house they entered was small but neat. It consisted almost altogether of one room, called a living room, which answered all the purposes of eating, sleeping and sitting. Outside were a summer kitchen and a dairy or milk-house, and, a short distance off, were the barn and the stable, the sole occupant of the latter at the time being a cow that spent most of its leisure out of doors. Supper did not take long preparing, and the travellers did ample justice to a very enjoyable meal. The dominie engaged the hostess in conversation about German cookery, Sauer Kraut, Nudeln and various kinds of Eierkuchen, which she described with evident satisfaction.

"Mrs. Hill and Wilkinson are regular Deipnosophists," remarked Coristine to the host.

"That's too deep for me," he whispered back. "But tell it to the mistress now; she's that fond of jawbreakers she'll never forget it."

"We were remarking, Mrs. Hill, that you and Wilkinson are a pair of Deipnosophists."

The old man looked quizically at his wife, and she glanced in a questioning way at the dominie.

"My friend is trying to show off his learning at our expense," the latter remarked. "One Athenæus, who lived in the second century, wrote a book with that name, containing conversations, like those in 'Wilson's Noctes Ambrosianæ,' but upon gastronomy."

"I was not aware," said the hostess, "that they had gas so far back as that."

Wilkinson bit his lip, but dared not explain, and the lawyer looked sheepish at the turn affairs were taking.

"It's aisy remembered, mother," put in the quondam schoolmaster.

"Think of astronomy, and that'll give you gastronomy; and a gastronomer is a deipnosophist. That's two new words in one day and both meaning the same thing."

The hostess turned to the dominie, with a little shrug of impatience at her husband, and remarked: "The life of a deipnosophist in gastromical works must be a very trying one, from the impure air and the soft coal dust; do you not think so, Mr. Wilkinson?"

That gentleman thought it must, and the lawyer first chewed his moustache, and then blew his nose severely and long. Fortunately, the meal was over, the host returned thanks, and the party left the table. The old man took a pail and went to water the stock, which seemed to consist of the cow, while the wife put away the supper things, and prepared for the evening's milking.

The pedestrians, being told there was nothing they could do, strolled out into the neighbouring pasture, and pretended to look among the weeds and stones, at the end of the fence farthest away from the stock-waterer for botanical and geological specimens; but, in reality, they were having a battle royal.

"Corry, you ass, whatever put it into your stupid head to make a fool of that kind little woman?"

"Sauer Kraut and Speck Noodle, what did you begin with your abominable Dutch dishes for?"

"I had a perfect right to talk German and of German things with Mrs. Hill. I did not insult her, like an ungrateful cur, I know."

"I never insulted her, you blackguard, wouldn't do such a thing for my life. I had a perfect right, too, to talk Greek to the old man, and it was you put your ugly foot in it with your diabolical gastronomy. I wonder you don't pray the ground to open up and swallow you."

"I consider, sir, an apology from you to our host and hostess absolutely necessary, and to be made without any delay."

"I'll apologize, Wilks, for the deipnosophist part of it, but I'll be jiggered if I'll be responsible for your nasty gastronomy."

"That means that you are going to put all the onus of this hideous and cruel misunderstanding on my shoulders, when I explained your expression in charity to all parties, and to help you out."

"Help me out, is it? I think it was helping me into the ditch and yourself, too."

"Will you or will you not accept the responsibility of this whole unfortunate business? Here is my ultimatum: Decline to accept it, and I return to Collingwood this very night."

"Wilks, my boy, that would never do. It's dead tired you'd be, and I'd hear of you laid up with fever and chills from the night air, or perhaps murdered by tramps for the sake of your watch and purse."

"It matters nothing. Right must be done. _Fiat justitia, ruat coelum._ Every law of gratitude for hospitality cries aloud: 'Make restitution ere the sun goes down.' I understand, sir, that you refuse." So saying, the offended dominie moved rapidly towards the house to resume his knapsack and staff.

"Wilks, if you don't stop I'll stone you to death with fossils," cried the repentant lawyer, throwing a series of trilobites from his tobacco-less pocket at his retreating friend. The friend stopped and said curtly: "What is it to be?"

"Wilks, you remind me of an old darkey woman that had a mistress who was troubled with sneezing fits. The mistress said: 'Chloe, whenever I sneeze in public, you, as a faithful servant, should take out your handkerchief, and pretend that it was you; you should take it upon yourself, Chloe.' So, one day in church, the old lady made a big tis-haw, when Chloe jumped up and cried out: 'I'll take dat sneeze my ole missus snoze on mysef,' waving her handkerchief all around."

"I did not delay my journey to listen to negro stories, Mr. Coristine."

"It has a moral," answered the lawyer; "it means that I am going to take all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger ass of yours. I'll apologize to the pair of them for me and you."

"That being the case, in spite of the objectionable words, 'bigger ass,' which you will live to repent, I shall stay."

Mrs. Hill was proceeding to milk the cow, and her husband was busy at the wood-pile. Coristine sauntered up to the old lady, and carried the milking pail and stool for her, the latter being of the Swiss description, with one leg sharp enough to stick into the ground. The lawyer adroitly remarked:--

"Turning to the subject of language, Mrs. Hill, one who has had your experience in education must have observed fashion in words as in other things, how liable speech is to change at different times and in different places."

Yes; Mrs. Hill had noticed that.

"You will, I trust, not think me guilty of too great a liberty, if I say, in reference to my friend's remark at the supper table, that gastronomy, instead of meaning the art of extracting gas from coal, has now come to denote the science of cookery or good living, and that the old meaning is now quite out of date. I thought you would like to know of the change, which, I imagine, has hardly found its way into the country yet."

"Certainly, sir, I am much obliged to you for setting me right so kindly. Doubtless the change has come about through the use of gas stoves for cooking, which I have seen advertised in our Toronto religious paper."

"I never thought of that," said the perfidious lawyer. "The very uncommon word deipnosophist, hardly an English word at all, when employed at the present day, always means a supper philosopher, one who talks learnedly at supper, either about cookery or about other things."

"I see it very clearly now. In town, of course, supper is taken by gas light, so that the talker at supper is a talker by gas-light?"

"Yes, but the word gas, even the idea of it, has gone out of fashion, through its figurative use to designate empty, vapouring talk; therefore, when deipnosophist and gastronomer are spoken, the former is employed to denote learned talkers at supper, such as we were half an hour ago, and the latter, to signify one who enjoys the culinary pleasures of the table."

"I am sure I am very much indebted to you, sir, for taking the trouble to correct an old woman far behind the age, and to save her the mortification of making mistakes in conversation with those who might know better."

"Do not mention it, I beg. Should I, do you think, say anything of this to Mr. Hill?"

"Oh, no," replied the old lady, laughingly; "he has forgotten all about these new words already; and, even if he had not, he would never dare to make use of them, unless they were in Shakespeare or the Bible or the School Readers."

By this time the milking was over, and the lawyer, relieved in part, yet with not unclouded conscience, carried pail and stool to the milkhouse.

The old man and Coristine sat down on a bench outside the house and smoked their pipes. Mrs. Hill occupied a rocking-chair just inside the doorway, and the dominie sat on the doorsill at her feet.

"Mother," called Mr. Hill to his spouse, "whatever has become of Rufus?"

"You know very well, Henry Cooke, that Rufus is helping Andrew Hislop with his bee, and will not be back before morning. The young people are to have a dance after the bee, and then a late supper, at which the deipnosophists will do justice to Abigail's gastronomy." This was said with an approving side glance at the lawyer. When Wilkinson looked up, his friend perceived at once that his offence was forgiven. The husband, without removing the pipe from between his teeth, mumbled, "Just so, to be sure."

"Is your son's name William Rufus, Mrs. Hill?" enquired the dominie.

"No; it is simply Rufus. William, you know, is not a Scripture name. We thought of baptizing him Narcissus, which comes just before Tryphena, but my husband said, as he was the youngest, he should come lower down in the chapter, and after Persis, which is my name."

"I was tayching school, and a bachelor," put in the said husband, "when there was a county meeting--they call them conventions now--that Persis was at. They called her Miss Persis Prophayt, but it was spelled like the English Prophet. She was that pretty and nice-spoken then I couldn't kape my eyes off her. She's gone off her nice looks and ways a dale since that time. Then I went back to the childer and the Scripture readins, with a big dictionary at my elbow for the long names. 'The beloved Persis' was forever coming up, till the gyurls would giggle and make my face as red as a turkey cock. So I had this farrum and some money saved, and I sent to ask the beloved Persis to put me out of my misery and confusion of countenance."

"Indeed he did," said the old lady, with a merry laugh, "and what do you think was his way of popping the question?"

"Oh, let us hear, Mrs. Hill," cried Coristine.

"Mother, if you do," interposed the old man, "I'll put my foot down on your convention of retired taychers at Owen Sound." But mother paid no attention to the threat.

"He asked if I knew the story of Mahomet and the mountain, and how Mahomet said, if the mountain will not come to the prophet, the prophet must go to the mountain. So, said he, you are the prophet and must come to my house under the mountain, and be a Hill yourself. It was so funny and clever that I came; besides I was glad to change the name Prophet. People were never tired making the most ridiculous plays upon it. The old Scotch schoolmistress, who taught me partly, was named Miss Lawson, so they called us Profit and Loss; and they pronounced my Christian name as if it was Purses, and nicknamed me Property, and took terrible liberties with my nomenclature." At this the whole company laughed heartily, after which the dominie said: "I see your pipe is out, Corry; you might favour our kind friends with a song." The lawyer did not know what to sing, but took his inspiration, finally, from Wilkinson's last question, and sang the ballad of William Rufus, as far as:--

Men called him William Rufus because of his red beard, A proud and naughty king he was, and greatly to be feared; But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, hit him in the middell, And, instead of a royal stag that day, a king of England fell.

Then the correct ear and literary sense of the dominie were offended, and he opened out on his friend.

"I think, Corry, that you might at least have saved our generous hosts the infliction of your wretched travesties. The third line, Mrs Hill, is really:--

But an arrow from a cross-bow, sirs, the fiercest pride can quell.

There is nothing so vulgar as hitting in the verse, and your ear for poetry must tell you that _middle_ cannot rhyme with _fell_, even if it were not a piece of the most Gothic barbarity. Thus a fine English song, such as I love to hear, is murdered."

"My opinion," said the host, "my opinion is that you could'nt quell a man's pride better than by hitting him fair in the middle. It might be against the laws of war, but it would double him up, and take all the consayt out of him sudden. I mind when Rufus was out seeing his sisters, there was a parson got him to play cricket, and aggravated the boy by bowling him out, and catching his ball, and sneering at him for a good misser and a butter-fingers; so, when he went to the bat again, he looked carefully at the ball and got it on the tip of his bat, and, the next thing he knowed, the parson was doubled up like a jack knife. He had been hit fair in the middle, where the bad boy meant to do it. There was no sarvice next Sunday, no, nor for two weeks."

"That was very wrong of Rufus," said the old lady with a sigh, "however, he did offer to remunerate Mr. Perrowne for his medical expenses, but the gentleman refused to accept any equivalent, and said it was the fortune of war, which made Rufus feel humiliated and sorry."

Night had fallen, and the coal oil lamp was lit. The old lady deposited a large Bible on the table, to which her husband drew in a chair, after asking each of his guests unsuccessfully to conduct family worship. He read with emphasis and feeling the 91st Psalm, and thereafter, falling on his knees, offered a short but comprehensive prayer, in which the absent children were included, and the two wayfarers were not forgotten. While the good wife went out to the dairy to see that the milk was covered up from an invisible cat, the men undressed, and the pedestrians turned into a double bed, the property of the missing Rufus. The head of the household also turned in upon his couch, and coughed, the latter being a signal to his wife. She came in, blew out the lamp, and retired in the darkness. Then four voices said "good-night"; and rest succeeded the labours of the day. "No nightmares or fits to-night, Corry, an' you love me," whispered the dominie; but the lawyer was asleep soon after his head touched the pillow. They knew nothing till morning, when they were awakened by the old man's suppressed laughter. When they opened their eyes, the wife was already up and away to her outdoor tasks; and a well-built, good-looking young fellow of the farmer type was staring in astonishment at the two strangers in his bed. The more he stared, the more the father laughed. "There's not a home nor a place for you, Rufus, with you kapin' such onsaysonable hours. It's a sesayder you'll be becoming yourself, running after Annerew Hislop's pretty daughter, and dancing the toes out of your stockings till broad daylight. So, if you're going to sesayde, your mother and me, we're going to take in lodgers."

"What are they selling?" asked the Baby.

"Whisht! Rufus, whisht! come here now; it's not that they are at all, but gentlemen from the city on a pedestrian tower," the father replied in an audible whisper.

"What do they want testering the beds for! Is that some new crank got into the guvment?"

"Rufus, Rufus, you'll be the death of your poor old father yet with your ignorance. Who said anything about testing the beds? It's a pedestrian tower, a holiday walking journey for the good of their healths, the gentlemen are taking. Whisht, now, they're waking up. Good morning to you, sirs; did I wake you up laughing at the Baby?"

The roused sleepers returned the salutation, and greeted the new comer, apologizing for depriving him of his comfortable bed. Rufus replied civilly, with a frank, open manner that won their respect, and, when they had hastily dressed, led them to the pump, where he placed a tin basin, soap and towels, at their disposal. After ablutions, they questioned him as to the events of last evening, and were soon in nominal acquaintance with all the country side. He was indignant at the free and easy conduct of a self-invited guest called Rodden, who wanted to dance with all the prettiest girls and to play cards. "But when he said cards, Annerew, that's a sesayder, told him to clare, although it was only four in the morning, and he had to clare, and is on his way to Flanders now."

"I suppose you did not hear him make any enquiries regarding us?" asked the dominie.

"But I did, and it was only when he hard that you hadn't been past the meetin'-house, that he stopped and said 'ee'd 'ave a lark. Do you know him?"

"Yes," said Coristine, "he is the Grinstun man," whereat they all laughed; and the old lady, coming in with her milking, expressed her pleasure at seeing them such good friends.

After prayers and breakfast, the pedestrians prepared to leave, much to the regret of the household.

"Where are you bound for now?" asked Mr. Hill, to which Wilkinson replied, with the air of a guide-book, "for the Beaver River." The Baby, nothing the worse of last night's wakefulness, volunteered to show them the way by a shorter and pleasanter route than the main road, and they gladly availed themselves of his services. As the party walked on, the guide said to Coristine, "I hard fayther say that you were a lawyer, is that true?" Coristine answered that he was.

"Then, sir, you ought to know something about that man Rodden; he's a bad lot."

"What makes you think so?"

"He knows all the doubtfullest and shadiest settlers about, and has long whispers with them, and gets a lot of money from them. His pocketbook is just bulging out with bank bills."

"Perhaps it is the payment of his grindstones, Rufus."

"You don't tell me that a lawyer, a clever man like you, believe in his grindstones?"

"Why not? Doesn't he make and sell them?"

"Yes; he makes them and sells them in bundles of half-a-dozen, but the buyer of a bundle only has two to show, and they're no good, haven't grit enough to sharpen a wooden spoon."

"How do you know all this?"

"Mostly out of big Ben Toner. He used to be a good sort of fellow, but is going all to ruination with the drink. I saw his grindstones and what came between 'em. It's more like a barl than anything else, but Ben kept me off looking at it close."

"Where does Toner live?"

"Down at the river where you're going. There's a nice, quiet tavern there, where you'll likely put up, and he'll be round it, likely, and pretty well on by noon. He don't drink there, though, nor the tavern-keeper don't buy no grindstones like he does. Well, here you are on the track, and I must get back to help dad. Keep right on till you come to the first clearing, and then ask your way. Good-bye, wishing you a good time, and don't forget that man Rodden." They shook the Baby warmly by the hand, and reciprocated his good wishes, Coristine promising to keep his eyes and ears open for news of the Grinstun man.

"Did you overhear our talk, Wilks, my boy?" he asked his friend.

"No; I thought it was private, and kept in the background. I do not consider it honourable to listen to a conversation to which one is not invited, and doubtless it was of no interest to me."

"But it is, Wilks; listen to this now," and volubly the lawyer poured forth the information and his suspicions concerning Mr. Rawdon. That gentleman's ears would have tingled could he have heard the pleasant and complimentary things that Coristine said about him.

The first clearing the pedestrians reached, after an hour's walk since parting with Rufus, was a desolate looking spot. Some fallow fields were covered with thistles, docks, fire-weed and stately mulleins, with, here and there, an evening primrose, one or two of which the lawyer inserted in his flower-press. There was hardly any ground under cultivation, and the orchard bore signs of neglect. They saw a man in a barn painfully rolling along a heavy cylindrical bundle which had just come off a waggon. As they advanced to ask him the way, he left his work and came to meet them, a being as unkempt as his farm, and with an unpleasant light in his bloodshot eye.

"What are you two spyin' around fer at this time o' day, stead o' tendin' to your work like the rest o' folks? Ef you want anything, speak out, 'cause I've no time to be foolin' round."

"We were directed to ask you, sir, the way to the Beaver River," said the dominie, politely. The man sulkily led them away out of view of the barn, and then pointed out a footpath through his farm, which he said would lead them to the highroad. As they were separating, Wilkinson thanked the man, and Coristine asked him casually:--

"Do you happen to know if a Mr. Rawdon, who makes and sells grindstones, has passed this way lately?"

"No," cried the sluggard farmer; "who says he has?" Then, in a quieter tone, he continued: "I heern tell as he passed along the meetin'-house way yesday. What do you want of Rawdon?"

"My friend, here, is a geologist, and so is that gentleman."

"Rawdon a geologist!" he cried again, with a coarse laugh. "Of course he is; allers arter trap rock, galeny, quartz and beryl. O yes, he's a geologist! Go right along that track there. Good day." Then he rapidly retraced his steps towards the barn, as if fearful lest some new visitor should interrupt him before his task was completed.

"It may be smuggling," said the lawyer, "but it's liquid of some kind, for that dilapidated granger has given his friend away. What do hayseeds know about galena, quartz and beryl? These are Grinstun's little mineralogical jokes for gallon, quart and barrel, and trap rock is another little mystery of his. What do you think of the farmer that doesn't follow the plough, Wilks?"

"I think he drinks," sententiously responded the schoolmaster.

"Then he and Ben Toner are in the same box, and both are friends or customers of the workin' geologist. I believe it's whiskey goes between the grindstones, and that it's smuggled in from the States, somewhere up on the Georgian Bay between Collingwood and Owen Sound. The plot is thickening."

When the pedestrians emerged from the path on a very pretty country road the first objects that met their view were three stout waggons, drawn by strong horses and driven by bleary eyed men, noisy and profane of speech. Their waggon loads were covered with buffalo robes and tarpaulins, which, however, did not effectually conceal the grindstones beneath. The drivers eyed the pedestrians with suspicion, and consigned them to the lower regions and eternal perdition.

"Wilks, my dear," said the lawyer, in a sort of cool fever heat, "there's a revolver and a box of cartridges in my pack that I'd like to have in my right hand pocket for that kind of cattle."

"I have one, too," said the dominie, quietly, "but we had better pass on and not heed them. See, they are armed as well."

Just as he spoke there was a report; a pistol in the hand of the first teamster smoked, and a poor little squirrel, that had been whirring on the limb of a basswood, dropped to the ground dead.

"I'd as lief as not put a hole into the back of them d----d packs," said the second teamster, whereupon the others swore at him to shut up and save his cartridges.

"Wilks, I could once hit a silver dollar at twenty yards. Dad, I'll get the thing out anyway." The lawyer sat down, undid his knapsack and primed his revolver, which he then placed with the box of cartridges in the pocket out of which he had thrown the fossils. The dominie did the same, all the time saying: "No violence! my dear friend; in this world we must pretend not to see a great many things that we cannot help seeing." The teamsters went by, and no further use for the revolver appeared. Wilkinson would not allow his companion to shoot at birds or chipmunks, and, on being expostulated with, the kindly lawyer confessed that it would have been a shame to take their innocent young lives. At last they saw a gray paper-like structure of large size on the limb of an oak pretty high up. "I'll bet you can't hit that, Wilks," said the lawyer. "I shall try," replied the dominie. They fired simultaneously and both struck the grey mass, and then the warriors ran, ran as they had hardly done since they were boys, for a hundred wasps were after them, eager to take vengeance on the piercers of their communal home. After two hundred yards had been done in quick time, they stopped and faced each other.

"I've killed three that got down my back, but the beggar that stung me on the lip escaped," said Coristine.

"I have one sting on the left hand and another on the right temple," replied Wilkinson.

"Is it safe to stop yet, Wilks?"

"Yes; they have given up the pursuit."

"Then, my poor boy, let us go into hospital." So he produced his flask and bathed the dominie's temple and hand with the cooling spirit, after which Wilkinson loosened his friend's flannel shirt and applied the same remedy to his afflicted back, down which the three dead wasps slid to the ground. The lawyer healed his own lip by allowing a little of the cratur, as he termed it, to trickle over into his mouth.

"It seems to me, Wilks, that, when a man is looking for war, he's bound to get it."

"Yes; I suppose that that is what is meant by 'they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.'"

"Bad luck to these wasps; they revolved on us."

As the travellers continued their journey, Coristine turned to his friend and asked him for counsel.

"You've studied casuistry, Wilks, and I want you, as a judge of what a loyal citizen should do, to say what is our duty in regard to the Grinstun man."

"What are you, Corry, a lawyer in general practice or a revenue detective?"

"A lawyer, of course, but a citizen too."

"Have you, as lawyer or as citizen, a case against Mr. Rawdon?"

"As a contributor to the revenue of the country, I think I have."

"How?"

"Well, he is making money by cheating the Government."

"Where is your proof?"

"Look at what Rufus said, at the doings of that bogus farmer, at these three teams on the road."

"Mere inferences based on circumstantial evidence."

"They're things that should be looked into, though."

"Perhaps so, but is it your business to do so? Are you a whiskey informer?"

"Come now, Wilks, that's a pretty bad name to call a man."

"That may be, but it seems to denote the rôle you have set before yourself."

"I'd like to run that brute into the ground."

"Worse and worse; you are going to prosecute, not from principle, but from malice."

"I'm going to show up a scoundrel."

"If that is your work you will never lack employment. But, seriously, Corry, _cui bono?_"

"To keep him off Miss Du Plessis' land, to prevent him marrying her, to hinder him corrupting the farmers and causing their farms to go to waste with smuggled liquor."

"As you like, but Wordsworth says:--

Whatever be the cause, 'tis sure that they who pry and pore Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before."

"A fig for Wordsworth, and his tear in the old man's eye! I'll not be happy till I bring that murdering thief of the world to justice."

Further conversation was checked by the view of the river from the top of the hill, challenging the admiration of the two lovers of scenery, and they began their descent towards the hamlet that lay on either side of the bridge which crossed the swiftly-flowing stream. Then the lawyer commenced the recitation of a poem in one of the old Irish readers:--

River, river, rapid river,

in which the dominie sharply interrupted him, recommending his tall, mustachioed friend to put a stick of candy in his mouth and go back to petticoats and pinafores.

"Wilks, you remind me of a picture I saw once, in _Punch_ or somewhere else, of a nigger sandwich man advertising baths, and a sweep looking at him, and saying: 'It's enough to tempt one, he looks so jolly clean hisself.' That's the way with you, always firing out Wordsworth's silly twaddle, and objecting to a piece of genuine poetry because it's in a reader. The pig-headed impudence of you birchers beats all."