Ben's Sudden Sickness--The Spurious Priest--Coristine as
Doctor--Saved by the Detective--Anxiety at the Maple--A Pleasant
Evening--Sunday Morning and Ben--The Lawyer Rides--Nash and the
Dominie Talk Theology on the Road--At the Talfourds--Miss Du
Plessis the Real--The False Meets Mr. Rawdon--Mr. Terry and
Wilkinson at the Kirk.
"What is the matter with Ben?" asked Coristine, as they single-filed
along the narrow path by the river.
"He's tumbled down over some grindstones, and hurt himself, and fainted
right away," replied the youthful Tommy, pulling up handfuls of tall
grass and breaking an occasional twig from a bush as he stumbled along.
"What are you to the Toners?"
"I ain't nuthun' to the Toners."
"How did you come to be their messenger, then?"
"I was runnin' to the farm to tell the widder that the priest was
comin', when she come out cryin' and sent me off. Guess the priest's
there by now."
"What priest is it you saw?"
"I didn't see no priest. Old Mum Sullivan, she saw him, and sent and
told mother to tell widder Toner, 'cos she's a Roman, too. She said it
was a new priest, not Father McNaughton, the old one, and she guessed he
was all right, but she didn't like his looks as well as t'other's."
"Then you are not a Roman."
"Naw, what are you givin' us? I play a fife on the Twelfth."
"Oh, you are an Orangeman?"
"Yum, Young Briton, same thing."
"So, you Orangemen run to help the Roman Catholics when they are sick or
want to know if the priest is coming, and then, on the Twelfth, you feel
like cutting each other's throats."
"I don't want to cut nobody's throat, but we've got to sass 'em on the
Twelfth to keep up the glorious, pious and immortal memory, and to
whistle 'em down 'The Protestant Boys.' We've got three fifes and three
drums in our lodge."
After more of this edifying conversation, the pair arrived at a clearing
on the river, containing a house and some out buildings, not far from
its bank. These communicated by a private road with the public one,
which crossed the stream about an eighth of a mile farther on. Turning
the corner of the barn, Coristine saw a gray-haired woman, and a clean
shaven man in clerical garb, leaning over the prostrate figure of Ben.
"Are you a doctor, sir?" asked the tearful woman, rising and coming
towards him.
"Not exactly, Ma'am," replied the lawyer; "but perhaps I may be of use."
He then leaned over the sick man, and saw that he not only breathed, but
had his eyes open upon the world in quite a sensible way. "What is the
matter?" he asked the reverend gentleman, who was also contemplating the
recumbent Toner.
"He says his back is sore, paralyzed, and that he can't move a limb,"
replied the priest in an unprofessional tone.
"How did it happen, Mr. Toner?" enquired the lawyer; and Ben, in a
feebly and husky voice, replied:--
"I was rollin' quite a loaud on the slaant, when I got ketched with a
back sprain, and the loaud slipped and knocked me down, and rolled over
my stummick. That's all."
"Quite enough for one time," said Coristine; "is there such a thing as a
loose door, or some boards we can make into a stretcher, anywhere
about?" Ben called to his mother to show the doctor where the door was
that he was going to put on the hen-yard. This was soon found, and, a
blanket or two being laid upon it, the clergyman and the improvised
doctor transferred the groaning patient to it, and so carried him into
the house, where they undressed him and put him to bed on his face.
"Say, doctor, I'll choke like this," came from the bed in the sick man's
muffled voice, to the lawyer, who was ordering the widow to get some hot
water and provide herself with towels or cotton cloths. "No you won't,
Toner; turn your head to one side," he called. "That's better," remarked
the patient, as he took advantage of the permission, and then
continued: "I'd like ef you'd call me Ben, doctor, not Toner; seems as
ef I'd git better sooner that way." Coristine answered, "All right,
Ben," and withdrew to a corner with the priest for consultation. "What's
the matter?" asked the priest, in a businesslike, unsympathetic tone.
"So, you give me back my question. Well, as the water will be some time
getting ready, and it will do our man no harm to feel serious for a few
minutes more, I'll go into it with your reverence homeopathically. The
root of his trouble is a whiskey back. That accidentally led to a
muscular strain, involving something a little more paralyzing than
lumbago. He has no bones broken in that strong frame of his, but the
grindstones have bruised him abdominally. I hope my treatment for the
root of the disease will be more successful than that of the oriental
physician, who prescribed for a man that had a pain in his stomach,
caused by eating burnt bread. The physician anointed him with eye salve,
because he said the root of the disease lay in his eyes; had they been
all right, he would not have eaten the burnt bread, and consequently
would not have had the pains."
The priest chuckled beneath his breath over the story; then, with
earnestness, asked, or rather whispered: "Will he get well soon?"
"Well enough, I think, to sit up in half-an-hour," replied the doctor of
the moment.
"My dear sir, may I ask you to delay your treatment until I perform a
religious office with your patient? This is a favourable time for making
an impression," said the hitherto callous priest.
"Certainly, Father, only be short, for he is suffering physically, and
worse from apprehension."
"I shall require all persons, but the one to whom I give the comforts of
religion, to leave the room," called the priest aloud.
"It isn't the unction, Father?" cried Ben, piteously.
"Oh, doctor, the boy's not going to die?" besought the mother, at the
boiler on the stove.
"I can answer for his reverence and myself," replied the lawyer; "he
will not administer the last rites of the Church to the living, nor will
I let my patient die."
Then he and the widow retired, as the priest took out a book, knelt by
the bedside, and opened it. The reverend gentleman, however, was in too
great a hurry to begin, and too little sensible how far his penetrating
voice would carry, for, at the first words of the prayer, Coristine made
an indignant start and frowned terribly. The words he heard were,
"Oratio pro sickibus, in articulo mortis, repentant shouldere omnes
transgressores et confessionem makere----"
He felt inclined to rush in and turn the impudent impostor and profaner
of the sacred office out of the house neck and crop, especially as the
poor mother took him by the arm, and, with broken voice through her
tears, said: "O, doctor, doctor, it's the last words he's taking!" But
his legal training acted as a check on his impetuosity, and, standing
where he was, he answered the grief-stricken woman: "Never fear, Mrs.
Toner, you and I will pull him through," which greatly comforted the
widow's heart.
Five minutes passed by Coristine's watch, and then he determined to
stand the nonsense no longer. He coughed, stamped his feet, and finally
walked in at the door, followed by the widow. The pseudo priest was
sitting on a chair now, listening to the penitent's confidences. "Time
is up," said the lawyer fiercely, and the impostor arose, resumed his
three-cornered black wideawake, pocketed his book, which really was a
large pocket book full of notes in pencil, and expressed his regret at
leaving, as he had another family, a very sad case, to visit that night.
As he passed Coristine, the latter refused his proffered hand and hissed
in his ear: "You are the most damnable scoundrel I ever met, and I'll
serve you out for this with the penitentiary." The masquerader grinned
unclerically, his back being to the other occupants of the house, and
whispered back, "Not much you won't, no nor the halfpenny tentiary
either; bye-bye!"
"How are you feeling, Ben?" the lawyer asked the sick man, as he
approached his bedside.
"Powerful weak and so-er," replied the patient.
Coristine called the mother, poured some St. Jacob's Oil into the palm
of her hand, and bade her rub down her son's back at the small. "Rub
hard!" he said; and she rubbed it in. Three or four more doses followed,
till the back was a fine healthy colour.
"How does that work, Ben?"
"It smarts some, but I can wriggle my back a bit."
Then the doctor poured some whiskey out of his flask in the same way and
it was applied.
"Do you think you can turn round now?" he asked; and, at once, the
patient revolved, lying in a more convenient and seemly position.
"Bring the hot clothes, Mrs. Toner, and lay them on the bruised part, as
hot as he can stand it. The patient growled a little when the clothes
were abdominally applied, one after the other, but they warmed him up,
and even, as he said, 'haylped his back.'"
"Now, Ben, when did you take whiskey last?"
"I ain't had nary a drop the hull of this blessed day."
"Is that true?"
"Gawspel truth, doctor, so haylp me."
"If you don't promise me to quit drinking, I can do nothing for you."
"But he will promise, doctor; won't you now, Benny dear?" eagerly asked
the mother.
"Yaas!" groaned the sufferer, with a new hot cloth on him; "yaas; I
guess I'll have to."
Then, the perfidious doctor emptied his flask into a glass, and poured
in enough oil to disguise its taste. Adding a little water, he gave the
dose as medicine to the unconscious victim, who took it off manfully,
and naturally felt almost himself again.
"Have you plenty coal-oil in the house, Mrs. Toner?" enquired the family
physician; and the widow replied that she had. "Rub the afflicted parts
with it, till they will absorb no more; then let him sleep till morning,
when he can get up and go about light work. But, mind, there's to be no
lifting of heavy weights for three days, and no whiskey at all."
With these words, Coristine received the woman's warm expressions of
gratitude, and departed.
Tommy had gone, so the lawyer had to go back to the Inn alone, and in
the dark. He turned the barn, before which one bundle of grindstones
still lay, the one, apparently, that had floored Ben. Then he made his
way along a path bordered with dewy grass, that did not seem quite
familiar, so that he rejoiced when he arrived at the road and the
bridge. But, both road and bridge were new to him, and there was no
Maple Inn. He now saw that he had taken the wrong turning at the barn,
and was preparing to retrace his steps, when a sound of approaching
wheels and loud voices arrested him. On came the waggons, three in
number, the horses urged to their utmost by drunken drivers, in whom he
recognized the men that he and Wilkinson had met before they took the
road to the Inn. Coristine was standing on the road close by the bridge
as they drove up, but, as the man with the first team aimed a blow at
him with his whip, he drew back towards the fence. "Shoot the d----d
spy, boys," the ruffian cried to the fellows behind him, and, as they
slacked their speed, the lawyer jumped the fence to put some solid
obstacle between himself and their revolvers, which, he knew, they were
only too ready to use. At that moment a horseman rode towards the party
from the other side of the bridge, and, while aiming a blow with a stout
stick at the first scoundrel, a blow that was effectual, called to the
others, in a voice of authority, to put up their pistols "O Lord, boys,
it's Nash; drive on," called one, and they whipped up their patient
animals and rattled away in a desperate hurry. "You can come out now,
Mr. Coristine," said the horseman; "the coast is clear."
"You have the advantage of me, sir," remarked the lawyer, as he vaulted
back again into the road.
"No I have not," replied the other; "you called me a damnable scoundrel,
and threatened me with the penitentiary, a little while ago. How's
Toner?"
"I am obliged for your interference just now on my behalf, but must
decline any intercourse with one who has been guilty of what I regard as
most dishonourable conduct, profaning the sacred name of religion in
order to compass some imfamous private end."
"My ends, Mr. Coristine, are public, not private, nor are they infamous,
but for the good of the community and the individuals composing it. I
know your firm, Tylor, Woodruff and White, and your firm knows me,
Internal Revenue Detective Nash."
"What! are you the celebrated Mr. Nash of the Penetang Bush Raid?" asked
the lawyer, curiosity, and admiration of the man's skill and courage,
overcoming his aversion to the latest detective trick.
"The same at your service, and, as the best thing I can do for you is
to take you to your Inn, a dry way out of the dew, you can get on my
beast, and I'll walk for a rest," replied the detective, alighting.
Coristine was tired, so, after a little pressing, he accepted the mount,
and, of course, found it impossible to refuse his confidence to the man
whose horse he was riding.
"What did you do with your clerical garb?" he asked.
"Have it on," replied Nash; "it's a great make up. This coat of black
cord has a lot of turned up and turned down tag ends, the same with the
vest, and the soft hat can be knocked into any shape with a dift of the
fist. With these, and three collars, and moustache, beard, and whiskers,
that I carry in my pocket, I can assume half-a-dozen characters and
more."
"How do you justify your assumption of the priestly character?"
"I want information, and assume any character to get it, in every case
being guilty of deception. You think my last rôle unjustifiable because
of the confessional. Had I simulated a Methodist parson, or a
Presbyterian minister, or a Church of England divine, you would have
thought much less of it; and yet, if there is any bad in the thing, the
one is as bad as the other. Personally, I regard the confessional as a
piece of superstitious ecclesiastical machinery, and am ready to utilize
it, like any other superstition, for the purpose of obtaining
information. Talk about personating the clergy; I have even been bold
enough to appear as a lawyer, a quaker, a college professor, a sailor,
and an actress."
"You have certainly led me to modify my opinion of your last
performance."
"Which nearly gave me away. So you won't send me to the penitentiary;
thanks! And now, as I said at first, how's Toner?"
"Oh, Toner's all right, with the fieriest skin on him that ever lay
between two sheets. He has promised to give up drinking."
"It's very likely he'll have to."
"Why so?"
"They don't allow refreshments so strong in gaol."
"Be as easy as you can with the poor fellow, Mr. Nash."
"All depends on his future behaviour, and, in some other capacity, I
shall let him know his danger."
As the two figures came down the road toward the Inn, a voice hailed
them, the voice of the dominie. "Is Mr. Coristine there?" it shouted.
"Yes; here am I," came from the back of the horse.
"What bones are broken or wounds received?" was the pitiful but correct
question.
"Not a bone nor a wound. Mr. Nash has treated me to a ride."
"Aw ça!" ejaculated Pierre, "M'syae Nasha homme treh subtil, treh rusé,
conneh tout le monde, fait pear aux mauveh sujah."
"What is he?" asked the schoolmaster, speaking English, in his
eagerness; and the landlord replied in the same.
"Ee is vat you call detecteur, police offisare vis no close on 'im.
Anysing vas to go in ze custom house and goes not, he find it out. O, a
veray clevaire mann!"
Coristine dismounted for the purpose of introducing his companion.
Personally, he would as readily have performed this office on horseback,
but he knew that the schoolmaster was a stickler for ceremony. While the
introduction was going on, Pierre took Mr. Nash's horse by the bridle,
and led the procession home. There, Madame stood in the porch eagerly
waiting for news of "ce jeune homme si courageux, si benveillont," and
was delighted to hear that he was safe, and that Mr. Nash, an old
acquaintance, was with him. When the party entered the house, Wilkinson
looked at the detective, and then, with a start, said: "Why, you are
Dowling, the Dowling who came to the Sacheverell Street School, with a
peremptory letter from the trustees, to take the lower division boys,
and disappeared in ten days."
"The same, Mr. Wilkinson; I knew you as soon as I heard your voice."
"You disarranged our work pretty well for us, Mr. Dow--Nash. What were
you after there, if it is a fair question?"
"I was after the confidence of some innocent youngsters, who could give
me pointers on grindstones and their relation to the family income. As I
know you both, and our friends of the hotel are not listening, I may say
that I am so interested in this problem as to have made up my mind to go
into grindstones myself."
These remarks led to an animated triangular conversation over the
Grinstun man, in which the two pedestrians gave the detective all the
information they possessed regarding that personage. They urged that an
immediate effort should be made to hinder his acquiring the hand and
property of Miss Du Plessis, and, thereafter, that united action should
be taken to break up his injurious commerce. Mr. Nash prepared to
accompany them on their walk to church in Flanders, and asked the lawyer
if he had any objection to ride his horse part of the way, with a bundle
behind him, if he, the detective, would carry his knapsack. Coristine
consented, on condition that his new friend would also lend him his
riding gaiters. Madame produced the wherewithal to spend a social
half-hour before retiring, and, in answer to the detective, said: "Ze
sack ees in ze commode in ze chombre of M'syae." Mr. Nash laughed, and
over his glass and clay pipe, confided to his fellow-conspirators that
he had a few little properties in that bag, and was much afraid that
some of them would compel him to desecrate the Sabbath. "You are used to
my religious performances, Mr Coristine; I hope your friend, and my old
principal, Mr. Wilkinson, will not be as hard on me as you were."
Then the dominie was informed of the events of the evening, and the
parties separated for the night.
Sunday morning dawned clear and cloudless, giving promise of a glorious
day. Everybody in the inn was up before six o'clock; for at seven it was
the intention of the three guests to take the road for a place of
worship in Flanders. Ben Toner was waiting on the verandah for the
appearance of Coristine; and, when that gentleman came out to taste the
morning air, greeted him with clumsy effusion, endeavouring, at the same
time, to press a two-dollar bill upon his acceptance. The lawyer
declined the money, saying that he had no license to practise, and
would, consequently, be liable to a heavy fine should he receive
remuneration for his services. He enquired after Ben's health, and was
pleased to learn that, while his heroic remedies had left the patient
"as rayd as a biled lobister," externally, he was otherwise all right,
except for a little stiffness. Mr. Nash came down-stairs, dressed in a
well-fitting suit of tweed, and sporting a moustache and full beard that
had grown up as rapidly as Jonah's gourd. Going up to the man whom he
had confessed the night before, he asked him: "Do you know me again,
Toner?" to which Ben replied: "You bet your life I do; you're the curous
coon as come smellin' round my place with a sayrch warnt two weeks ago
Friday." Satisfied that his identity in Ben's eye was safe, the
detective led him away on to the bridge, and engaged in earnest
conversation with him, which made Mr. Toner start, and wriggle, and back
down, and impart information confirmatory of that extorted the night
before, and give large promises for the future. The two returned to the
verandah, and, before the lawyer went in to breakfast, his patient bade
him an affectionate farewell, adding, "s'haylp me, Mr. Corstine, ef I
don't be true to my word to you and the old woman about that blamed
liquor. What I had I turned out o' doors this mornin', fust thing, and I
shaant take in no more. That there bailiff's done me a good turn, and I
won't ferget him, nor you nuther, Doctor, ef so be it's in my power to
haylp you any." Coristine took his leave of the simple-hearted fellow,
and went to join the company at the breakfast table. Mr. Nash was there,
but, for convenience of eating and not to astonish the host and hostess,
he had placed his beard and moustache in his pocket. It was handy,
however, and could be replaced at a moment's warning.
Batiste brought round the detective's horse, and the lawyer, in borrowed
riding gaiters, bestrode him, hooking on to the back of the saddle a
bundle somewhat larger than a cavalry man's rolled-up cloak. The bundle
contained Mr. Nash's selected properties. That gentleman allowed Madame
to fasten the straps of Coristine's knapsack on his shoulders, while
Pierre did the same for Wilkinson. The dominie had paid the bill the
night before, as he objected to commercial transactions on Sunday, so
there was nothing to do but to say good bye, bestow a trifle on Batiste
and take to the road. The detective, after they had done half a mile's
pleasant walking, took command of the expedition, and ordered The
Cavalry, as Coristine called himself, to trot forward and make a
reconnoisance. His instructions were to get to the Carruthers' house in
advance of the pedestrians, to find out exactly who were there, and to
return with speed and report at headquarters, which would be somewhere
on the road. Saluting his friend and his superior officer, the lawyer
trotted off, his steed as well pleased as himself to travel more
speedily through the balmy atmosphere of the morning. The dominie and
his quondam assistant were thus left to pursue their journey in company.
"Do you enjoy Wordsworth, Mr. Nash?" asked Wilkinson.
"Oh yes," replied the detective, "the poet, you mean, We are seven, and
the primrose by the river's brim. Queer old file in the stamp business
he must have been. Wish I could make $2,500 a year like him, doing next
to nothing."
"There is a passage that seems to my mind appropriate. It is:--
Us humbler ceremonies now await;
But in the bosom with devout respect,
The banner of our joy we will erect,
And strength of love our souls shall elevate;
For, to a few collected in His name.
The heavenly Father will incline His ear.
Hallowing Himself the service which they frame.
Awake! the majesty of God revere!
Go--and with foreheads meekly bow'd,
Present your prayer: go--and rejoice aloud--
The Holy One will hear!"
"You should have been a parson, Mr. Wilkinson; you do that well. I'd
like to take lessons from you; it would help me tremendously in my
profession. But I find it mighty hard to do the solemn. That time in
your school was almost too much for me, and your friend twigged my
make-up last night."
"I find it hard," said the schoolmaster, "not to be solemn in such
scenery as this on such a morning. All nature seems to worship, giving
forth in scent and song its tribute of adoration to the Creator, to
whose habitation made with hands we are on our way as worshippers."
"'Fraid I shan't do much worshipping, church or no church. You see, Mr.
Wilkinson, my business is a very absorbing one. I'll be looking for
notes, and spotting my men, and working up my clues all the time the
parson's bumming away."
"Ah, you have read Tennyson's 'Northern Farmer'?"
"Never heard tell of it; but I've got my eyes on some northern farmers,
and they'll have my attention soon."
"Your expression, 'bumming away,' occurs in it, so I thought you had
found it there. It is rather a severe way in which to characterize the
modern preacher, who, take him on the whole, deserves credit for what I
regard as a difficult task, the presentation of some fresh subject of
religious thought every Sunday all the year round."
"My mind works too fast for most of them. I can see where the conclusion
is before they have half got started. There's no fun in that, you know."
"Do you not sometimes meet with clergymen that interest you?"
"Now and then. The learned bloke who cuts his text into three, and
expounds them in detail, I can't stand; nor the wooden logical machine
that makes a proposition and proceeds to prove it; nor the unctuous
fellow that rambles about, and says, 'dear friends,' and makes you wish
he had studied his sermon. But, now and then, I fall in with a man who
won't let me do any private thinking till he's done. You hear his text
and his introduction, and wonder, how the dickens he is going to
reconcile the two. He carries you on and on and on, till he does it in a
grand whirl at the end, that lifts you up and away with it, like the
culminating arguments of the counsel for the prosecution, or the
peeler's joyful run in of a long-sought gaol-bird. I like that sort of a
parson; the rest are jackdaws."
"Perhaps they suit the average mind?"
"If they did, we ought to have graded churches as well as graded
schools. But they don't, except, in this way, that people have got
accustomed to the bumming. The preachers I like would keep up the
interest of a child. There was one I heard on the text, 'I form the
light and create darkness.' His introduction was, 'God is light and in
Him is no darkness at all.' He jerked us up into the light and banged
us down into the darkness, almost laughing one minute and crying the
next. Then he went to hunt up his man, and found him in the devil and
the devil's own, all fallen creations of God. Any schoolboy could follow
that sermon and take its lessons home with him. There was a logical
bloke, at least he thought himself logical, who took for his text
Joseph's coat of many colours, a sort of plaid kilt I should think; and
said, 'I shall now proceed to prove that this was a sacerdotal or
priestly garment. First, it occupies a prominent position in the
narrative; second, it excited the enmity of Joseph's brethren; and
third, they dipped it in blood when they sold their younger brother.' I
could have proved it as logically to be Stuart tartan, and, at the same
time, the original of the song 'Not for Joe,' because he lost it before
he became steward to Pharaoh. Bah! that's what makes people sick of
going to church. I've pretty nigh quit it."
The pedestrians trudged on for a time silently, the detective,
doubtless, revolving schemes in his brain, the dominie inwardly sighing
over his companion's captious criticism, to which he could not well
reply, and over the absence of his legal friend, whose warm Irish heart
would have responded sympathetically to the inspiration of the Sabbath
morning walk. At last, Mr. Nash resumed the conversation, saying:--
"I'm afraid, Mr. Wilkinson, that you think me a pretty hard-hearted,
worldly man, and, perhaps, that my calling makes me so."
"I have no right to judge you, Mr. Nash," answered the schoolmaster;
"but I should think that the work of hunting down law-breakers would
have the effect of deadening one's sensibilities."
"It shouldn't, any more than the work of a clergyman, a doctor, a
teacher, or a lawyer. We all, if we are honest, want to benefit society
by correcting evils. I see a lot of the dark side of human nature, but a
little of the bright too, for, thank Heaven, there is no man so bad as
not to have some little good in him. There's that Toner, once a fine
young fellow; I hate to see him going to the dogs, wasting his property,
breaking his old mother's heart. I'd rather save that man any day than
gaol him."
"Give me your hand, sir," said the dominie, heartily, transferring his
staff to his left, and offering the right; "I honour you for the saying,
and wish there were more officers of the law like you."
"Oh, as for that matter," replied the detective, "I and my colleagues
have tried to save many a young fellow, but then--"
"What is the obstacle?"
"The obstacle is that there are men who simply won't be saved."
"Oh, I suppose that is true theologically as well as legally."
"Of course; if the law don't want to have a lot of criminals to hunt out
and shut up and punish, it stands to reason that the Source of all law
doesn't. But, for the good of society and the world, these criminals
have to be separated from them, and their bad work stopped. To say that
the law hates them, and takes vengeance on them like a Corsican, is
utterly to misunderstand the nature of law. Yet, that is what
nine-tenths of the parsons teach."
"That is very unfortunate."
"Unfortunate? it's diabolical. If I were to go into a good man's house,
and present his children with a hideous caricature of their father, so
as to terrify some and drive others clean away from him, wouldn't I
deserve to be kicked out? I should think so! Now, I say every good thing
in man must be found a million times better in man's Maker. If the
foundation principle of human law is benevolence to society, the
foundation principle of divine law must be something higher and better,
not revenge. But you know these things better than I do."
"Not at all; I could not express myself better. What you have found out
is stated by Dr. Whewell, the famous Master of Trinity, in the Platonic
form, that every good thing in man and in the world has its archetype in
the Divine Mind. Every bad thing, such as revenge and anger, has no such
archetype, but is a falling away, a deflection, from the good."
"How do you explain the imputation of bad things to God, such as hate,
revenge, terrorism, disease, death, beasts of prey, and all the rest?"
"In two ways; first, as a heathen survival in Christianity, borrowed
partly from pagan national religions, partly from the misunderstood
phraseology of the Old Testament; and, second, as the necessary result
of a well-meant attempt to escape from Persian and Manichaean dualism."
"But there is a dualism in law, in morals, in nature, and in human
nature, everywhere in this world; there's no getting over it."
"Of course there is, but the difference between the dualism of fact and
that of the Persian system is, that the evil is not equal, but inferior
and subordinate, to the good."
"It gets the upper hand pretty often, as far as this world is
concerned."
"And why? Just for the same reason that bad governments and corrupt
parties often get the upper hand, namely, by the vote of the majority,
through which the minority has to suffer. Talk about vicarious
suffering! Every good man suffers vicariously."
"These are deep things, Mr. Wilkinson, too deep for the average parson,
who doesn't trouble himself much with facts unless he find them
confirmed by his antiquated articles."
"Yet my attention has been drawn to them by thoughtful clergymen of
different denominations."
"Well, I don't think I'll trouble the clergymen to-day, thoughtful or
not thoughtful. I've had my sermon in the open air, a sort of walking
camp meeting. What did they call these fellows who studied on the move?"
"Peripatetics."
"That's it; we're a peripatetic church."
"But, without praise or prayer or scripture lessons, which are more
important than the sermon."
"Oh, you can do the praise and prayer part in a quiet way, as a piece of
poetry says that I learnt when I was a boy. It ends something like
this:--
So we lift our trusting eyes
To the hills our fathers trod,
To the quiet of the skies,
And the Sabbath of our God.
That's pretty, now! Hallo! here's the doctor!"
Coristine came up at the gallop, and reported that all the people he
expected to find at the Carruthers' were there, Grinstun man, Mrs.
Carmichael, and Marjorie, included, all except Miss Du Plessis, who was
staying at a house three miles this side of the farm, helping to nurse a
sick neighbour.
"Has Rawdon seen her?" asked the detective. The lawyer did not know, but
suggested that they could find out by calling at the house of Mrs.
Talfourd, the sick woman, on the way.
"How far are we from it?" enquired Mr. Nash.
"About a mile or a mile and a-half," replied Coristine.
"Then, Mr. Wilkinson, let us stir our stumps a bit. Can you sing or
whistle? There's nothing like a good tune to help a quick march."
"Yes; sing up, Wilks," cried The Cavalry; and the dominie started
"Onward, Christian Soldiers," in which the others joined, the detective
in a soft falsetto, indistinguishable from a half-cultivated woman's
voice. He was combining business with pleasure, dissimulation with
outward praise.
"Pretty good that for a blooming young lady of five foot ten," remarked
Mr. Nash, at the end of the hymn.
"Blooming young ladies with a tonsure," replied Coristine, gazing on the
detective's momentarily uncovered head, "are open to suspicion."
"Wait till you see my hair." chuckled the ex-priest.
The mile and a-half was soon covered, and the trio stood before a roomy
farm-house. A boy, not unlike Tommy, but better dressed, was swinging on
the gate, and him the detective asked if he could see Miss Du Plessis on
important business. The boy ran into the house to enquire, and came back
to the gate, accompanied by the lady in question. She changed colour as
her eye took in The Cavalry, immovable as a life guardsman on sentry.
The detective handed her his professional card, and explained that he
and his two friends had been entrusted with the duty of protecting her
property and herself. "You need have no doubts, Miss Du Plessis, for the
Squire, as a J.P., knows me perfectly," he continued.
"I have no fear, Mr. Nash," answered the lady, in a pleasant voice, with
just a suspicion of a foreign accent; "your name is known to me, and you
are in good company."
Wilkinson, standing by his friend's stirrup, heard this last statement,
and blushed, while The Cavalry thought he had heard a voice like that
before.
"Has Mr. Rawdon seen you, or have you seen him?" asked the detective.
"Neither; but the two Marjories have been here, and have told me about
him. They do not seem to admire Mr. Rawdon."
"The darlins!" ejaculated the lawyer; whereupon Wilkinson pinched his
leg, and made him cry "Owch!"
The rest of the conversation between the plotters at the gate was
inaudible. At its conclusion, the lady's face was beaming with
amusement.
"Give me that bundle for Miss Du Plessis," said Nash to Coristine, who
lifted his hat to her, and handed the parcel over.
"Now, for instructions," continued the commander-in-chief. "The Cavalry
will go to Bridesdale, that's Squire Carruthers' place, and keep Mr.
Rawdon from going to church, or bring him back if he has started, which
isn't likely. This branch of the Service will also make sure that all
children are out of the way somewhere, and inform older people, who may
be about, that Miss Du Plessis is coming to the house during church
time, and is very much altered by night-watching and sick-nursing, so
that they need not express astonishment before Mr. Rawdon. Fasten these
knapsacks about you somehow, Horse-Doctor; put the beast up where he'll
get a drink and a feed; and go to church like a good Christian. The
Infantry will halt for the present, and afterwards act as Miss Du
Plessis' escort. Infantry, attention! Cavalry, form threes, trot!"
Coristine took the knapsacks, made another bow, and trotted away, while
the dominie walked up to the gate, and was introduced to the fair
conspirator.
After showing the detective and his bundle into an unoccupied apartment,
Miss Du Plessis returned to the sitting-room where she left the dominie.
In the few minutes at their disposal, he informed his new acquaintance
of his chance-meeting with her uncle, of whose arrival in Canada she was
in complete ignorance. The imparting and receiving this news established
such a bond between the two as the schoolmaster had hitherto thought
impossible should exist between himself and one of the weaker sex. Yet,
in her brief absence, he had taken pains to dust himself, and shake up
his hair and whiskers. His companion was preparing to tell how she had
heard of him from Miss Carmichael, when another young lady, almost her
counterpart in general appearance, entered the room.
"Now," said the newcomer, in a deep but feminine voice, "now the false
Miss Du Plessis will go on with her nursing, while the real one takes
Mr. Wilkinson's arm and keeps her appointment at the Squire's."
Miss Du Plessis clapped her hands together and laughed heartily.
Wilkinson, thinking, all the time, what a pretty, musical laugh it was,
could not help joining in the amusement, for Nash was complete from his
wig down to his boots. The colonel's niece threw a light, woolly shawl
over the detective's shoulders, and accompanied the pair to the gate,
where, before dismissing them, she warned her double not to compromise
her to Mr. Rawdon.
"I hope soon to have the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Wilkinson, under
more favourable circumstances," she called after that gentleman, as they
moved off, and then ran into the house to hide her laughter.
The dominie felt his face getting red, with a pretty young lady hoping
to meet him again, on the one hand, and a not by any means ill-looking
personation of one hanging on to his arm, on the other. After a minute,
the detective withdrew his hand from his companion's arm, but continued
to practise his assumed voice upon him, in every imaginable enquiry as
to what he knew of Miss Du Plessis, of her friend Miss Carmichael, and
of the working geologist's intentions. He was thus pretty well primed,
and all promised well, till, within a quarter of a mile of the house, a
vision appeared that filled him and the disguised Nash, to whom he
communicated his fears, with grave apprehensions as to the success of
the plot. It was no less a person than the veteran, Mr. Michael Terry,
out for a Sunday walk with the Grinston man. Their dread increased as
the old man came running forward, crying: "An' it's comin' back yez are,
my darlin' Mish Ceshile. It's a throifle pale yer lookin', an' no
wonder." Saying this, Michael shook hands with Nash, and whispered:
"Niver fare, sorr, Mishter Coristine towld me all about it."
The made-up lady introduced her father's old servant to Wilkinson,
whose apprehensions were dispelled in a similar way, so that all were
prepared to give Mr. Rawdon the reception intended.
"Ullo, hold Favosites Wilkinsonia," cried the working geologist,
swaggering up with a cigar in his mouth, "'ow's yer bloomin' 'ealth?
That hold bloke of a Hirish haint in a 'urry to do the hamiable between
'is hold guvner's gal an' yours truly. My name, Miss, is Rawdon,
Haltamont Rawdon, workin' geologist and minerologist, and, between you
and me and the bedpost, a pretty warm man."
"Yes; Mr. Rawdon," replied the pseudo Miss Du Plessis, "you look--well,
not pretty--but warm."
"O, dash it hall, that haint wot I meant, Miss Do Please-us; I mean hi'm
a man that's got the dibs, the rhino, the blunt, you know, wot makes the
mare go. I don't go geologizin' round for nothin'."
"You pick up stones, I suppose?"
"Yes; grinstuns, limestun grit, that's the stuff to make you jolly."
"I have heard of drawing blood out of a stone, Mr. Rawdon, but never of
extracting merriment or exhilaration from a grindstone."
"Then you don't know my grinstuns, Miss; they're full o' fun."
"Are they indeed? How amusing! In what way does the fun display itself?"
"A bundle of my grinstuns, distributed at a loggin' bee, a raisin' bee,
or a campaign caucus, ware there's a lot of haxes to grind, can make
more fun than the Scott Act'll spile in a month. But silence is silence
'twixt partners, which I opes you and me is to be."
The fictitious Miss Du Plessis, with much simpering and affectation,
quite unworthy of the original, drew the working geologist out, and
inspired him with hopes of securing her hand and property. Mr. Rawdon
spoke very freely of the wealth he had in the hand and in the bush, of
his readiness to make allowance for Madame Du Plessis, if that "haffable
hold gent," her brother in law, was not prepared to provide for her.
When they reached the house, they found that no one was at home but
Tryphena, who was confined to the kitchen by culinary duties. They,
therefore, occupied the parlour, the Grinstun man seeing no impropriety
in being there alone with a young lady whom he had met for the first
time. Indeed, he was much gratified to find that the lady was not at all
stiff and offish, as he had feared, but as "haffable as her huncle and
more." The lady laughed, and blushed at loud compliments, as loud as the
check of Mr. Rawdon's clothes, and asked flattering questions, which he
answered with a jolliky and recklessness that almost astonished himself.
Was there no romance, no spice of daring in his occupation? she had
asked, and he, remembering that he was talking to a soldier's daughter,
who would, doubtless, appreciate courage, replied enigmatically that the
grinstun business was about the riskiest business on earth, and required
'eroism of no hordinary kind.
While this conversation was going on, the dominie and the veteran were
walking churchward, for, as the former had signified his intention of
going to a place of worship, the old man insisted on accompanying him.
"Oi was born a Catholic, sorr, and a Catholic Oi'll doie, though my
darter is a Pratestant, and what's more, a Prosbytarian. She rades her
Boible an' Oi rade moine, an' there's sorra a bit av differance betwane
thim. If the church is good enough for her, it's good enough for the
loikes av me."
"That is what I call being a Catholic in the truest sense of the term.
We will not deprive people of the kingdom of Heaven because they refuse
to go our way."
"Till me now, sorr, what's that that's pertindin' to be my dear young
misthress, Miss Ceshile?"
"An old soldier knows how to keep a secret, I am sure. It is the famous
detective, Mr. Nash."
"Sure I hope, by my sowl, that he'll make the crathur gnash his tayth.
It was all I could do to kape my hands aff him, as we were walkin' along
to mate yez. Him to make up to the cornel's darter, the misherable,
insignifikint, bad shpokin, thavin' scrap av impidence!"
The church bell had ceased ringing, the horses and waggons were in the
driving shed without any attendant, and, as the pair approached, they
could hear the sound of hearty singing coming through the open windows.
They entered together, the old man crossing himself as he did so, and
sat down in a pew near the door. The schoolmaster saw that the church
was that of Mr. Errol, who occupied the pulpit. He looked round, but
could not see his friend Coristine; nor was little Marjorie anywhere
visible. They must have strolled on farther to Mr. Perrowne's
consecrated edifice for the sake of the walk. Then, with reverent mind,
the dominie joined in the simple worship of the Kirk.