Two Knapsacks Part 28

"Why?"

"Because henceforth ours are mere business relations, and I, a struggling junior partner, must be circ.u.mspect too, and stand in proper awe and distant respect for a prospective heiress."

"Do not allow your reverence to carry you too far to an opposite extreme. You have been very good during most of our walk, and I have enjoyed it very much."

As she tripped in at the French window, Coristine could not reply. It is probable that he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed inwardly, "the darlin'!" but, outwardly, he took out his pipe and sought consolation in the bowl of the Turk's head.

While patrolling the long path down towards the meadow, he heard a low whistle, and, proceeding to the point in the fence whence it came, found Mr. Rawdon, as pale as he well could be, and much agitated. "Look 'ere, Mr. Currystone," he said, "I've bin down to Talfourds and a good bit further, and I find a fellow called Nash 'as bin about, plottin' to 'urt my business along of that brute of a Chisholm. They can't 'urt it much, but I can 'urt them, and, wot's more, I will. 'Ow I found out wot they're about is my haffair. I hain't got no time to lose, so you tell the genniwin Simon Pure Miss Do Please-us as I'll hoffer 'er a thousan'

dollars cash for that there farm of 'ers till to-morrow mornin'. 'Er hacceptance must be hat the Post-hoffice hup the road hany time before ten o'clock, and the deed can be drawn hup between you and me and the Squire just has soon therehafter as she pleases. Ha, ha! pretty good, eh? Miss Do Please-us, she pleases! Bye, bye! Mr. Currystone, don't you forget, for it's business."

The Grinstun man stole along the meadow fence and travelled over the fields, back way, towards the Lake Settlement. Emptying his pipe, the lawyer found Miss Du Plessis and at once announced Mr. Rawdon's proposal, which he urged her not to accept. She said the land was certainly not worth any more, if it were worth that amount, and that a thousand dollars would be of much immediate use to her mother. But Coristine reminded her that Colonel Morton was, in all probability, with her mother now, and begged her at least to wait until their joint opinion could be procured. To this she agreed, and further conversation was checked by the arrival of Marjorie, the five young Carruthers and Mr. Michael Terry.

The whole party sallied out of the windows on to the verandah, the lawn, and thence out of the front gate, where they found the dominie in a state of radiant abstraction, strutting up and down the road, and quoting pages of his favourite poet. He had just completed the lines:--

And yet a spirit still, and bright With something of an angel light.

The lawyer went up to him before he came near and hissed at his friend, "What about our compact?" to which the dominie, with a fierce cheerfulness, replied, "It is broken, sir; shivered to atoms; buried in oblivion. When a so-called honourable man takes a young lady walking in garden and meadow alone, and breathes soft trifles in her ear, the letter, the spirit, the whole periphery of the compact is gone. Your conduct, sir, leaves me free to act as I please towards the world's chief soul and radiancy. I shall do as I please, sir; I shall read Louisa and Ruth and Laodamia and the Female Vagrant, none daring to make me afraid. A single tress of ebon hair, a single beam of a dove-like eye, shall be enough to fortify my heart against all your legal lore, your scorn, your innuendos, your coward threats."

"Wilks, you're intoxicated."

"Such intoxication as mine is that of the soul--a thing to glory in."

"Well, go and glory, and read what you please; only add the Idiot Boy to the Female Vagrant and you'll be a lovely pair. I'm going to do as I please, too, so we're both happy at last."

Thus saying, the lawyer returned to Marjorie, while the dominie stood stock still in the road, like a man thunderstruck, repeating: "The Idiot Boy, the Female Vagrant, a pair?--and he was once my friend! A pair, a pair--the Female Vagrant, the Idiot Boy!--and that slimy, crawling, sickening caterpillar of a garden slug was once known to me! Truly, a strange awaking!"

It was now six o'clock, the time under ordinary circ.u.mstances for tea; but the circ.u.mstances were extraordinary, as the Squire, Mr. Nash and the minister had to be waited for. The party was in the road waiting for them. "Look, Eugene!" cried Marjorie; "there's Muggins. Here Muggy, Muggy, good doggie!" Muggins came on at full speed, and, striding at a very respectable pace, his master followed.

"Ow, Mr. Coristine, sow glad to see you again, I'm sh.o.r.e. I was delighted to see you bringing two straye sheep into the true fowld this morning. I howpe Miss Marjorie will turn out a good churchwoman; woun't you now, Marjorie?"

"I'm not a woman, and I won't be one. A woman wears dirty clothes and a check ap.r.o.n and a sun-bonnet. We've had a charwoman like that in our house, and a washerwoman; and in Collingwood there's a fish-woman and an apple-woman. I've seen them with my very own eyes. I don't think it a bit nice of you, Mr. Brown, to call me a charwoman."

"I said churchwoman, my dear, not charwoman."

"It's the same thing; they scrub out churches. I've seen them do it. And they're as old and ugly--worse than Tryphena!"

"Hush, hush, Marjorie!" interposed Miss Du Plessis; "you must not speak like that of good Tryphena. Besides, Mr. Perrowne means by a churchwoman one who is like me, and goes to the Church of England."

"If it's to be like you, and you will marry Eugene and go to the Church of England, I will be a churchwoman and go with you."

Mr. Perrowne glowered at the lawyer, whom, a moment before, he had greeted in so friendly a way. Coristine laughed, as he could afford to, and said: "I'm sorry, Marjorie, that it cannot be as you wish. I am not serious enough for Miss Du Plessis, nor a sufficient judge of good poetry. Your friend wouldn't have me at any price; would you now, Miss Du Plessis?"

"Certainly not with that mode of asking. How unpleasantly personal children make things."

Muggins and the young Carruthers were having lots of fun. He sat up and begged for bread, he ran after sticks and stones thrown by feeble hands, he shook paws with the children, had his ears stroked and his tail pulled with the greatest good-nature. Right under the eyes of the still dumbfoundered dominie, his owner accompanied Miss Du Plessis into the house, while Coristine prevailed on Marjorie to sing a hymn with a pretty plaintive tune, commencing:--

Once in royal David's city Stood a lowly cattle shed, Where a mother laid her infant In a manger for his bed; Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ her little child.

The old soldier left his grandchildren with Muggins and came to hear the hymn. "The Howly Vargin bliss the little pet," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, and then crooned a few notes at the end of each verse.

"Fwat is it the Howly Scripchers says, sorr, about little childher an'

the good place?" he asked Coristine.

The lawyer took off his hat, and reverently replied: "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The veteran crossed himself, and said: "There niver was a thruer word shpoke or in wroitin', an' fwat does the childher, the innicents, know about Pratishtants an' Cathlics, till me that now?"

As Coristine could not, the pair refilled their pipes and smoked in company, an ideal Evangelical Alliance.

Soon the waggonette came rattling along the road, and Marjorie ran to meet her Uncle John and the minister, with both of whom she was a great favourite. Mr. Nash also had a word to say to her: "You remember scolding me for not going to church when I was Mr. Chisholm? Well, I've been there this afternoon, and Mr. Errol told us we are all getting ready here for what we are to do in Heaven. Now, you're a wise little girl, and I want you to tell me what I will be able to do when I get there. It can't be to hunt up bad people, because there are no bad people in Heaven. What do you think about it?"

"I know," answered Marjorie, gravely; "play chess with dead uncles and ministers, and teach tricks to the little children that never growed up."

"Out of the mouths of babes!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Errol, who overheard the conversation; then continued: "Could anything be truer? The training in observation and rapid mental combinations, which has made you successful in your profession, is the foundation of your prowess on the chess board. Your skill in every sort of make-up enables you to manipulate handkerchiefs and oranges for children's amus.e.m.e.nt. The same training and skill our Father can turn to good account in the upper sanctuary."

"Thank you, Mr. Errol, thank you, Marjorie, my dear. Perhaps the good G.o.d will be kinder than we think, and find some use for a poor, lonely, careless detective." Mr. Nash was unusually thoughtful, yet still had an eye to business. He made diligent enquiries about Rawdon, and, at last, getting on the scent through Miss Du Plessis, found out all that Coristine and Timotheus had to tell of him. The latter had watched the working geologist slinking off in the Lake Settlement direction across the fields and by bush tracks. Mr. Terry and the children, having partaken of tea, remained out in the front with Muggins, and sang some more hymns, Marjorie leading their choir. The rest of the household, reinforced by Mr. Perrowne, who, much to Wilkinson's disgust, monopolized Miss Du Plessis, sat round the ample tea-table. In a shamefaced way, as if engaged in an illegal ecclesiastical transaction, the English clergyman mumbled: "For what we are about to receive," and the evening meal proceeded. The Squire had ceded his end of the table to his sister, and had taken his post at her left, where he talked to the dominie, his next neighbour, and across the table to Mr. Errol. Perrowne flanked the hostess on the right, and Nash on the left. Miss Du Plessis sat between Perrowne and Wilkinson, a stately and elegant bone of contention; while the lawyer had the detective on one side and Miss Carmichael on the other. As that young lady had something to do with the arrangement of the table by Tryphosa, in the matter of napkin rings, it was, if Coristine only knew it, a mark of her confidence in him that she permitted his presence on her right. Nevertheless he profited little by it, as she gave all her conversation to the minister, save when the attention of that elderly admirer was taken up by her uncle. As Perrowne was compelled to be civil to Mrs. Carruthers, while Mr. Nash entertained the lawyer, an opportunity was afforded the schoolmaster of improving his acquaintance with Miss Du Plessis, of which he took joyful advantage, feeling that in so doing with all brilliancy he was planting thorns in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of two innocent beings, whom he inwardly characterized as a clerical puppy and an ungrateful, perfidious, slanderous worm. Neither the puppy nor the worm were happy, as he joyfully perceived.

The meal was over, and they were preparing to have early evening prayers for the sake of the children, when a vehicle drove up, and a burly form, clad in navy blue broadcloth with a plentiful tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of gilt b.u.t.tons, descending from it, came along the path towards the house, accompanied by Marjorie.

"It's papa!" she cried to Carruthers and his wife, who had gone to the door to see who their visitor was, and call the children in. It was the Captain, and in the buggy, holding the reins, sat The Crew. "Don't sit grinning there, you blockhead!" shouted the ancient mariner to Sylva.n.u.s; "hev ye been so long aboard ship ye can't tell a stable when you see it?

Drive on, you slabsided swab!" The Captain's combination of lumbering with nautical pursuits gave a peculiar and not always congruous flavour to his pet phrases; but Sylva.n.u.s did not mind; he drove round the lane and met Timotheus.

"We have just finished tea, Captain," said Mrs. Carruthers with her pretty touch of a cultivated Irish accent; "but Marjorie will tell Tryphosa to set yours on the table at once."

"All right, Honoria!" growled Mr. Thomas; "I'm in port here for the night, and I'm a goin' to make fast; so be I hev to belay on to the lee side of a stack of shingle bolts. Now, Marjorie, my pet, give daddy another kiss, and run away for a bit. John, I want you right away."

With the latter words, the Captain took the Squire off to the far end of the verandah, and sat down with his legs dangling over among the flowers, causing his brother-in-law to do the same. "John," said he, taking off his naval cap, and mopping his forehead, "you're all goin' to be murdered to-night in your bunks, else I wouldn't ha' quit dock o'

Sunday."

"Whatever do you mean, Thomas?"

"I mean what I say, and well to you and yourn. Sylva.n.u.s was down at Peskiwanchow, gettin' some things his brother left there, when he shipped for you. There's a bad crew in that whiskey mill, and, fool as he is, he was sharp enough to hear them unbeknown. Says one of 'em, 'Better get out the fire-engines from town,' and he laughed. Says another, 'Guess the boys'll hev a nice bonefire waitin' for us, time we get to Flanders.' Then the low-down slab-pilers got their mutinous heads together, and says, 'The J.P. and the bailiff's got to be roasted anyway, wisht we could heave Nash in atop.' I've left the cursing and swearin' out, because it's useless ballast, and don't count in the deal any more'n sawdust. Now, John, what do you think of that?"

"It looks serious, Thomas, if your man is to be depended on."

"My man depended on? Sylva.n.u.s Pilgrim to be depended on? There's no more dependable able-bodied seaman and master mill-hand afloat nor ash.o.r.e.

He's true as the needle to the pole and the gang-saw to the plank. Don't you go saying wrong of Sylva.n.u.s."

"I must take Nash into confidence with us, and call up your informant,"

said the Squire, leading the Captain into the house and setting him carefully down at the tea table, where Mrs. Carruthers waited upon him.

Then he looked up Sylva.n.u.s in the kitchen, and told him to report as soon as he had taken his supper. "We have no time to lose, Pilgrim," he added, "so let Tryphena alone till our talk is over. She'll keep."

"I ain't agoin' ter persume ter tech Trypheeny, Square, an' I'll be along in a half tack," replied The Crew.

Next, Nash was found smoking a cigar, and talking very earnestly with Mr. Errol about presentiments, and sudden remembrances of childhood's days. He dropped the conversation at once when business was mentioned, and, in a few minutes, the Squire's official room contained five men, with very serious faces, seeking to come to a full understanding of what seemed a diabolical plot on the part of some spiteful malefactors. Four of these have already been indicated; the fifth was the lawyer, who proved a useful addition for pumping Sylva.n.u.s dry and taking careful notes.

While the consultation was in progress, a gentle tap came to the door, and, following it, a voice that thrilled the lawyer, saying, "May I come in, uncle; I have some news for you?" Carruthers opened the door, when Miss Carmichael told him that young Hill, the girls' brother, had arrived with another man, and wanted to see him immediately on special business that would not wait, and that they seemed to have been out shooting. The Squire went out and returned with Rufus and Ben Toner. The former related how Ben had gone to afternoon meetin' to tell what he knew of the conspiracy to clean out all the scabs in Flanders, and have trade run smooth. Coristine examined his old patient, who readily responded, and Nash, who was now Chisholm in beard and moustache, helped the interrogation. Toner's information, like that of Sylva.n.u.s, came from accidentally overhearing the talk of four men in a waggon, driving Flanders way during church time, while he was fishing in the river.

"I heerd 'em say as they'd be a big blayuz afore mornin', and as Squier Cruthers, and the bailiff, and Nash, and a raivenue gaal, had got to go to kingdom come. One on 'em says he seen Mr. Nash and got a hit off his stick. He's a goin' to lay for him straight and for them two walkin'