Читать книгу Two Knapsacks - John Campbell - Страница 13

"What, you are stepping westward?" "Yea"—

'Twould be a wildish destiny,

If we, who thus together roam

In a strange land, and far from home,

Were in this place the guests of chance;

Yet who would stop, or fear t' advance,

Though home or shelter he had none,

With such a sky to lead him on.

The dewy ground was dark and cold;

"Faith, 'tis nothing of the kind, Wilks," interrupted Coristine; but the dominie went on unheeding.

Behind, all gloomy to behold,

And stepping westward seemed to be

A kind of heavenly destiny:

I liked the greeting; 'twas a sound

Of something without place or bound

And seemed to give me spiritual right

To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake

Was walking by her native lake;

The salutation had to me

The very sound of courtesy;

Its power was felt; and while my eye

Was fix'd upon the glorious sky,

The echo of the voice enwrought

A human sweetness with the thought

Of travelling through the world that lay

Before me in my endless way.

"O Wilks, but you're the daisy. So you're going to travel through the world with the human sweetness of the soft voice of courtesy? You're a fraud, Wilks, you're as soft-hearted as a fozy turnip."

"Corry, a little while ago you called me adamant. You are inconsequential, sir."

"All right, Wilks, my darling. But isn't it a joy to have the colonel taking the bad taste of the Grinstun man out of your mouth?"

"The colonel, no doubt, is infinitely preferable. He is a gentleman, Corry, and that is saying a good deal."

"Hurroo for a specimen! look at that bank on your left, beyond that wet patch, it's thyme, it is. Thymus serpyllum, and Gray says it's not native, but adventitious from Europe. Maccoun says the same; I wonder what my dear friend, Spotton, says? But here it is, and no trace of a house or clearing near. It's thyme, my boy, and smells sweet as honey:—

Old father Time, as Ovid sings,

Is a great eater up of things,

And, without salt or mustard,

Will gulp you down a castle wall,

As easily as, at Guildhall,

An alderman eats custard."

"Drop your stupid Percy anecdote poems, Corry, and listen to this," cried the dominie, as he sang:—

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grows,

Where oxlips and the nodding violets blow,

Where oxlips linger, nodding violets blow,

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme grow-ow-ow-ow-ows!!!

The lawyer joined in the chorus, encored the song, and trolled "ow ow ow ow ows" until the blood vessels over his brain pan demanded a rest. "Wilks," he said, "you're a thing of beauty and a joy forever."

Soon the road trended within a short distance of the lake shore. The blue waves were tumbling in gloriously, and swished up upon the shelving limestone rocks. "What is the time, Corry?" asked Wilkinson. "It's eleven by my repeater," he answered. "Then it is quite safe to bathe; what do you say to a dip?" The lawyer unstrapped his knapsack, and hastened off the road towards the beach. "Come on, Wilks," he cried, "we'll make believe that it's grampusses we are."

"What is a grampus?" enquired the dominie.

"Dad, if I know," replied his friend.

"A grampus, sir, etymologically is 'un grand poisson,' but, biologically, it is no fish at all, being a mammal, mid-way between a dolphin and a porpoise."

"So you got off that conundrum a porpoise to make a fool of me, Wilks?"

"O, Corry, you make me shudder with your villainous puns."

"That's nothing to what I heard once. There were some fellows camping, and they had two tents and some dogs for deerhunting. As it was raining, they let the hounds sleep in one of the tents, when one of the fellows goes round and says: 'Shut down your curtains.' 'Were you telling them that to keep the rain out?' asked one, when the rascal answered: 'To all in tents and purp houses.' Wasn't that awful, now?"

The water was cold but pleasant on a hot day, and the swimmers enjoyed striking out some distance from shore and then being washed in by the homeward-bound waves. They sat, with their palms pressed down beside them, on smooth ledges of rock, and let the breakers lap over them. The lawyer was thinking it time to get out, when he saw Wilkinson back into the waves with a scared face. "Are you going for another swim, Wilks, my boy?" he asked. "Look behind you," whispered the schoolmaster. Coristine looked, and was aware of three girls, truly rural, sitting on the bank and apparently absorbed in contemplating the swimmers. "This is awful!" he ejaculated, as he slid down into deep water; "Wilks, it's scare the life out of them I must, or we'll never get back to our clothes. Now, listen to me." Dipping his head once more under water till it dripped, he let out a fearful sound, like "Gurrahow skrrr spat, you young gurruls, an' if yeez don't travel home as fast as yer futs'll taake yeez, it's I'll be afther yeez straight, och, garrahow skrr spat whishtubbleubbleubble!" The rural maidens took to their heels and ran, as Coristine swam into shore. In a minute the swimmers were into their clothes and packs, and resumed their march, much refreshed by the cool waters of the Georgian Bay.

"And where is it we're bound for now, Wilks?"

"For the abandoned shale-works at the foot of the Blue Mountains."

"Fwhat's that, as Jimmie Butler said about the owl?"

"The Utica formation, which crops out here, consists largely of bituminous shales, that yield mineral oil to the extent of twenty gallons to the ton. But, since the oil springs of the West have been in operation, the usefulness of these shales is gone. The Indians seem to have made large use of the shale, for a friend of mine found a hoe of that material on an island in the Muskoka lakes. Being easily split and worked, it was doubtless very acceptable to the metal wanting aborigines."

"But, if the works are closed up, what will we see?"

"We shall meet with fossils in the shale, with trilobites, such as the Asaphus Canadensis, a crustacean, closely allied to the wood-louse, and occasionally found rolled up, like it, into a defensive ball, together with other specimens of ancient life."

"Wilks, my son, who's doing Gosse's Canadian Naturalist, now, I'd like to know? Pity we hadn't the working geologist along for a lesson."

"I am sorry if I have bored you with my talk, but I thought you were interested in science. Does this suit you better?

Many a little hand

Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks,

Many a light foot shone like a jewel set

In the dark crag; and then we turn'd, we wound

About the cliffs, the copses, out and in,

Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names

Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff,

Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun

Grew broader towards his death and fell, and all

The rosy heights came out above the lawns."

"That's better, avic. Tennyson's got the shale there, I see. But rag and trap and tuff is the word, and tough the whole business is. Just look at that living blue bell, there, it's worth all the stony names of rock and fossil.

Let the proud Indian boast of his jessamine bowers,

His garlands of roses and moss-covered dells,

While humbly I sing of those sweet little flowers,

The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells.

We'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,

The blue bells of Scotland, the Scottish blue bells."

"You are a nice botanist, Mr. Coristine, to confound that campanula with the Scottish blue-bell, which is a scilla, or wild hyacinth."

"Poetic license, my dear friend, poetic license! Hear this now:—

Let the Blue Mountains boast of their shale that's bituminous,

Full of trilobites, graptolites and all the rest,

It may not be so learned, or ancient, or luminous,

But the little campanula's what I love best.

So we'll shout in the chorus forever and ever,

The little campanula's worth all the rest.

Whew! What do you think of that for an impromptu song, Wilks?"

"I think that you are turning your back upon your own principle that there is no best, or no one best, and that everything is best in its place."

"Barring old Nick and the mosquitoes, Wilks, come now?"

"Well, an exception may be made in their favour, but what says the poet:—

O yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill.

Come, along, though, for we have much to see before sunset."

"You don't think that good is going to come out of the devil and mosquitoes?"

"Yes I do; not to themselves, perhaps, but to humanity."

"I saw a book once with the title "Why Doesn't God Kill the Devil?" and sympathized with it. Why doesn't He?"

"Because man wants the devil. As soon as the world ceases to want him, so soon is his occupation gone."

"Wilks, my dear, that's an awful responsibility lying on us men, and I fear what you say is too true. So here's for the shale works."

The pedestrians ceased their theological discussion and went towards the deserted buildings, where, in former days, a bad smelling oil had been distilled from the slaty-looking black stones, which lay about in large numbers. Wilkinson picked up fossils enough, species of trilobites chiefly, with a few graptolites, lingulas and strophomenas, to start a museum. These, as Coristine had suggested in Toronto, he actually tied up in his silk handkerchief, which he slung on the crook of his stick and carried over his shoulder. The lawyer also gathered a few, and bestowed them in the side pocket of his coat not devoted to smoking materials. The pair were leaving the works for the ascent of the mountain, when barks were heard, then a pattering of feet, and soon the breathless Muggins jumped upon them with joyous demonstrations.

"Where has he been? How came we not to miss him?" asked the dominie, and Coristine answered rather obliquely:—

"I don't remember seeing him since we entered Collingwood. Surely he didn't go back to the Grinstun man."

"It is hard to be poetical on a dog called Muggins," remarked Wilkinson; "Tray seems to be the favourite name. Cowper's dogs are different, and Wordsworth has Dart and Swallow, Prince and Music, something like Actaeon's dogs in 'Ovid.' Nevertheless, I like Muggins."

"Oh, Tray is good, Wilks:—

To my dear loving Shelah, so far, far away,

I can never return with my old dog Tray;

He's lazy and he's blind,

You'll never, never find

A bigger thief than old dog Tray."

"Corry, this is bathos of the worst description. You are like a caterpillar; you desecrate the living leaf you touch."

"Wilks, that's hard on the six feet of me, for your caterpillar has a great many more. But that dog's gone back again."

As they looked after his departing figure, the reason was obvious. Two lightly, yet clerically, attired figures were coming up the road, and on the taller and thinner of the twain the dog was leaping with every sign of genuine affection.

"I'm afraid, Wilks, that Muggins is a beastly cur, a treacherous 'ound, a hungrateful pup; look at his antics with that cadaverous curate, keeping company with his sleek, respectable vicar. O Muggy, Mug, Mug!"

The pedestrians waited for the clergy, who soon came up to them, and exchanged salutations.

"My dawg appears to know you," said the tall cassocked cleric in a somewhat lofty, professional tone.

"He ought to," replied Wilkinson, "seeing that he was given to me by a Mr. Rawdon, a working geologist, as he calls himself."

"Ow, really now, it seems to me rather an immoral transaction for your ah friend, Mr. Rawdon, to give away another man's property."

"Mr. Rawdon is no friend of mine, but his dog took a fancy to us, and followed us from Dromore to Collingwood."

"Allow me to assure you that Muggins is not this ah Mr. Rawdon's dawg at all. I trained him from a puppy at Tossorontio. The Bishop ordered me from there to Flanders, and, in the hurry of moving, the dawg was lost; but now, I should rather say stowlen. My friend, the Reverend Mr. Errol and myself, my name is Basil Perrowne, Clerk, had business in Collingwood last night, when Muggins, most opportunely, met us, and went howme with me."

"Well, Mr. Perrowne, I am very glad you have recovered your dog, which I was only too glad to rescue from a somewhat inhuman master. My name is Wilkinson, of the Toronto schools, my friend is Mr. Coristine, of Osgoode Hall, barrister."

The gentlemen exchanged formal salutations, and proceeded on their way, Wilkinson with Perrowne, and Coristine with Erroll. Muggins was in the seventh heaven of delight.

"You belong to Tossorontio, Mr. Perrowne?" asked Wilkinson, by way of starting the conversation.

"Ow, now! I said I had trained Muggins from a pup there, but that ownly extends owver a few years. Durham is my university, which you may have heard of."

"I am familiar by name with the university and the cathedral, although the juvenile geography books say that Durham is famous for its mustard."

"Ow, now, really, they down't, do they? Ow dear, mustard! We Durham men can serve it out pretty hot, you know. You belong to the Church, of course, Mr. Wilkinson?"

"I was brought up in the Church of England, and educated in what are called Church principles; I am fond of the Prayer Book and the Service, but, to my way of thinking, the Church is far more extensive than our mere Anglican communion."

"Ow, yes, there are Christian people, who, I howpe, will get to heaven some way through the uncovenanted mercies, in spite of their horrid schism from the True Body. There is Errol, now, whom, out of mere courtesy, I call reverend, but he is no more reverend than Muggins. His orders are ridiculous, not worth a farthing candle."

"Come, come, Mr. Perrowne, his orders are as good as those of St. Timothy, which were laid on him by the hands of the Presbytery."

"That is precisely what the cheeky dissenter says himself. We have dropped that line of controversy now, for one ever so much more practical."

"I hope you don't take off your coats and fight it out? You have the advantage in height and youth, but Mr. Errol seems a strong and active man."

"Now, we down't fight. I have set a cricket club a-gowing, and he has turned a neglected field into a golf links. My club makes Churchmen, and his makes Scotch dissenters."

"I thought the Presbyterian Church was established in Scotland?"

"Ow, down't you see, we are not in Scotland."

"Then, in Canada, there is no established church, unless it be the Roman Catholic in the Province of Quebec."

"Ow, well, drop that, you know; we are the Church, and all the outside people are dissenters. I down't antagonize him. He helped me to make my crease, and joined my club, and I play golf with him every fine Monday morning. But the young fellows have now true English spirit here. Errol has twenty golfers to my six cricketers. When he and I are added, that makes eight, not near enough, you know. As a mission agency, my club has not succeeded yet, but every time I make a cricketer, I make a Churchman."

"I have known some very good cricketers that were not Anglicans."

"Now you haven't, my dear sir; you thought you have, but you haven't; that's the trouble with those who reject Church authority. The Methodist plays rounder, what you call base-ball; the Independents and Baptists played croquet and lawn tennis after other people stopped playing them; the Presbyterian plays golf; and the Churchman plays cricket."

"To argue with one who sweeps all experience aside with a wave of his hand," said the schoolmaster, indignantly, "is not to argue at all. It is a case of Roma locuta."

"Ow, yes, just sow, you know, we down't argue, we simply assert the truth."

"How d'ye like the Durham mustard, Wilks, my boy?" put in Coristine from the rear, where he and Mr. Errol were laughing amusedly; "it's hot, isn't it, not much solid food, but lots of flavour? It reminds me of The Crew, when he said what was, is, and ever shall be, Amen. Mr. Perrowne is the owner of a splendid dog, and he is a splendid dogmatist. What he doesn't know isn't worth knowing."

"Ow, thanks awfully, Mr. Coristine, you are really too flattering!" gravely and gratefully replied the parson. Wilkinson was afraid that his friend's banter might become too apparent, as the simple egotism of the graduate of Durham led him on, so, he changed the subject, and soon had the cleric quoting Virgil and Mrs. Hemans.

Meanwhile Coristine and Mr. Errol were taking one another's measure. The lawyer recited to his companion the conversation between Marjorie and himself relative to Timotheus. He found that Errol knew Marjorie, who had often been in his church and Sunday school in Flanders. "She's a comical little piece," he said; "her Sunday school teacher asked her who killed Goliath? and what do you think was her reply!"

"Give it up."

"It was 'Jack,' no less than Jack the Giant-Killer."

"The darlin'!" cried the lawyer, with admiration, and straightway won the minister's heart.

"Marjorie has a cousin stopping at the house of Mr. Carruthers, one of my elders, since last Tuesday night, as blithe and bonnie a young leddy as man could wish to see. While she's here, she's just the light of the whole country side."

Mr. Coristine did not care for this turn in the conversation.

"Tell me some more about little Marjorie," he said.

"Ah," replied the minister, "then you know that her cousin is called Marjorie, too! Little Marjorie went to church once with Miss Du Plessis, whom Perrowne had got to sing in the choir, that was last summer, if I mind right, and, when the two rideeclus candles on the altar were lighted, and the priest, as he calls himself, came in with his surplice on, she put her face down in Miss Cecile's lap. 'What's the trouble, Marjorie?' asked Miss Du Plessis, bending over her. 'He's going to kiss us all good-night,' sobbed the wee thing. 'No he is not, Marjorie; he's on his knees, praying,' replied the young leddy, soothingly. 'That's what papa always does, when he's dressed like that, before he kisses me good-night, but he takes off his boots and things first,' and she sobbed again, for fear Perrowne was coming to kiss them all, put out the candles, and go to bed. If Miss Du Plessis had not been a sober-minded lass, she would have laughed out in the middle of the choir. As it was, she had to hand Marjorie over to a neighbour in a back seat, before the bit lassie would be comforted."

"Ah! did you ever now? the little innocent!"

"It's not that improbable that there'll be a marriage in the church before long. Perrowne's just clean daft and infatuated with his occasional soprano. He's sent her the 'Mirror of Devotion' and the 'Soul's Questioner,' and a lot of nicely bound trash, and walks home with her whenever he has the chance, to the scandal and rage of all his farmers' daughters. It's very injudeecious o' Perrowne, and has dreeven two of his best families to the Kirk. Not that she's no a braw looking lass, stately and deegnified, but she has na the winsomeness of Miss Marjorie."

"Is that your quarter, Mr. Errol?"

"Hech, sirs, I'm an old bachelor that'll never see five and forty again; but, as we say in Scotch or the vernacular Doric, 'an auld carle micht dae waur.' There's not a more sensible, modest, blithesome, bonnie lassie in all the land. It's a thousand peeties some young, handsome, well to do steady, God-fearing man has na asked at her to be 'the light o' his ain fireside.' Gin I were as young as you, Mr. Coristine, I would na think twice about it."

"Avaunt, tempter!" cried the lawyer, "such a subject as matrimony is strictly tabooed between me and my friend."

"I'll be your friend, I hope, but I cannot afford to taboo marriages. Not to speak of the fees, they're the life of a well-ordered, healthy congregation."

A neat turn-out, similar to that of Mrs. Thomas, came rattling along the road. "That's John Carruthers' team," remarked the minister, and such it turned out to be.

"Maister Errol," said its only occupant, a strong and honest-faced man with a full brown beard, "yon's a fine hanky panky trick to play wi' your ain elder an' session clerk."

"Deed John," returned the minister, relapsing into the vernacular; "I didna ken ye were i' the toon ava, but 'oor bit dander has gien us the opportunity o' becomin' acquent wi' twa rale dacent lads." Then, turning to the lawyer, "excuse our familiar talk, Mr. Coristine, and let me introduce Squire Carruthers, of Flanders." The two men exchanged salutations, and Perrowne, having turned back with Wilkinson, the same ceremony was gone through with the latter. They were then all courteously invited to get into the waggon. Errol and Perrowne sprang in with an air of old proprietorship, but the two pedestrians respectfully declined, as they were especially anxious to explore the mountain beauties of this part of the country on foot and at their leisure.

"Aweel, gentlemen," cried the squire, "gin ye'll no come the noo, we'll just expect to see ye before the Sawbath. The Church and the Kirk'll be looking for the wayfarers, and my house, thank Providence, is big eneuch to gie ye a kindly welcome."

The parsons ably seconded Mr. Carruthers' peculiar mixture of English and Lowland Scotch, on the latter of which he prided himself, but only when in the company of someone who could appreciate it. Wilkinson looked at Coristine, and the lawyer looked at the dominie, for here they were invited to go straight into the jaws of the lion. Just then, they descried, climbing painfully up the hill, but some distance behind them, the Grinstun man; there was no mistaking him. "Hurry, and drive away," cried Coristine, in an under tone; "that cad there, the same that stole Muggins, is going to your house, Squire. For any sake, don't facilitate his journey."

"I'll no stir a hoof till ye promise to come to us, Mr. Coristine, and you, Mr. Wilkins, tae."

"All right, many thanks, we promise," they cried together, and the waggon rattled away.

"Now, Wilks, over this ditch, sharp, and into the brush, till this thief of the world goes by. We've deprived him of a ride, and that's one good thing done."

Together they jumped the ditch, and squatted among the bushes, waiting for the Grinstun man. They heard him puffing up the rising ground, saw his red, perspiring face in full view, and heard him, as he mopped himself with a bandanna, exclaim: "Blowed if I haint bin and lost the chance of a lift. Teetotally blawst that hold hass of a driver, and them two soft-'eaded Tomfools of hamateur scientists ridin' beside 'im. I knew it was Muggins, the cur I stole, and guv a present of to that there guy of a Favosites Wilkinsonia. I don't trust 'im, the scaly beggar, for hall 'is fine 'eroic speeches. 'E'll be goin' and splittin' on me to that gal, sure as heggs. And that Currystone, six feet of 'ipocrisy and hinsolence, drat the long-legged, 'airy brute. O crikey, but it's 'ot; 'owever, I must 'urry on, for grinstuns is grinstuns, and a gal, with a rich hold huncle, ridin' a fine 'orse, with a nigger behind 'im carryin' his portmantle, haint to be sneezed hat. Stre'ch your pegs, Mr. Rawdon, workin' geologist hand minerologist!"

"By Jove!" cried Coristine, when the Grinstun man was out of sight; "that cad has met the colonel, and has been talking to him."

"A fine nephew-in-law he will get in him!" growled Wilkinson; "I have half a mind—excuse me Corry."

"I thought you were very much taken with the old Southerner."

"Yes, that is it," and the dominie relapsed into silence.

"It's about lunch time, Wilks, and, as there's sure to be no water on the top of the hill, I'll fill my rubber bag at the spring down there, and carry it up, so that we can enjoy the view while taking our prandial."

Wilkinson vouchsafed no reply. He was in deep and earnest thought about something. Taking silence for consent, Coristine tripped down the hill a few yards, with a square india rubber article in his hand. It had a brass mouthpiece that partly screwed off, when it was desirable to inflate it with air, as a cushion, pillow, or life-preserver, or to fill it with hot water to take the place of a warming-pan. Now, at the spring by the roadside, he rinsed it well out, and then filled it with clear cold water, which he brought back to the place where the schoolmaster was leaning on his stick and pondering. Replacing the knapsack, out of which the india rubber bag had come, the lawyer prepared to continue the ascent. In order to rouse his reflective friend, he said, "Wilks, my boy, you've dropped your fossils."

"I fear, Corry, that I have lost all interest in fossils."

"Sure, that Grinstun man's enough to give a man a scunner at fossils for the rest of his life."

"It is not exactly that, Corry," replied the truthful dominie; "but I need my staff and my handkerchief, and I think I will leave the specimens on the road, all except these two Asaphoi, the perplexing, bewildering relics of antiquity. This world is full of perplexities still, Corry." So saying, the dominie sighed, emptied his bandanna of all but the two fossils, which he transferred to his pocket, and, with staff in hand, recommenced the upward journey. In ten minutes they were on the summit, and beheld the far-off figure of the working geologist on the further slope. In both directions the view was magnificent. They sat by the roadside on a leafy bank overshaded with cool branches, and, producing the reduplication of the Barrie stores procured the night before at Collingwood, proceeded to lunch al fresco. The contents of the india rubber bag, qualified with the spirit in their flasks, cheered the hearts of the pedestrians and made them more inclined to look on the bright side of life. Justice having been done to the biscuits and cheese, Coristine lit his pipe, while the dominie took a turn at Wordsworth.

With musical intonation, Wilkinson read aloud:—

Some thought he was a lover, and did woo:

Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong:

But verse was what he had been wedded to;

And his own mind did like a tempest strong

Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.

With him there often walked in friendly guise,

Or lay upon the moss by brook or tree,

A noticeable man with large grey eyes,

And a pale face that seemed undoubtedly

As if a blooming face it ought to be;

Heavy his low-hung lip did oft appear,

Depress'd by weight of musing phantasy;

Profound his forehead was, though not severe;

Yet some did think that he had little business here.

He would entice that other man to hear

His music, and to view his imagery.

And, sooth, these two did love each other dear,

As far as love in such a place could be;

There did they dwell—from earthly labour free,

As happy spirits as were ever seen:

If but a bird, to keep them company,

Or butterfly sate down, they were, I ween,

As pleased as if the same had been a maiden queen.

"That's the true stuff, Wilks, and has the right ring in it, for we love each other dear, and are as happy spirits as were ever seen, but not a large grey eye, pale face, or low-hung lip between us. Just hear my music now, and view my imagery with your mind's eye:—

Far down the ridge, I see the Grinstun man,

Full short in stature and rotund is he,

Pale grey his watery orbs, that dare not scan

His interlocutor, and his goatee,

With hair and whiskers like a furnace be:

Concave the mouth from which his nose-tip flies

In vain attempt to shun vulgarity.

O haste, ye gods, to snatch from him the prize,

And send him hence to weep—and to geologize!"

"The rhythm is all right, Corry, and the rhyme, but I hope you do not call that poetry?"

"If that isn't superior to a good many of Wordsworth's verses, Wilks, I'll eat my hat, and that would be a pity this hot weather. Confess now, you haythen, you," cried the lawyer, making a lunge at his companion with his stick, which the latter warded off with his book.

"There are some pretty poor ones," the schoolmaster granted grudgingly, "but the work of a great poet should not be judged by fragments."

"Wilks, apply the rule; I have only given you one stanza of the unfinished epic, which unborn generations will peruse with admiration and awe, 'The Grinstun Quarry Restored':—

I have striven hard for my high reward

Through many a changing year

Now, the goal I reach; it is mine to teach.

Stand still, O man, and hear!

I shall wreathe my name, with the brightness of fame,

To shine upon history's pages;

It shall be a gem in the diadem

Of the past to future ages!

Oh, Wilks for immortality!" cried the light-hearted lawyer, rising with a laugh.

Looking back towards the ascent, he perceived two bowed figures struggling up the hill under largish, and, apparently, not very light burdens.

"Wilks, my dear, we're young and vigorous, and down there are two poor old grannies laden like pack mules in this broiling sun. Let us leave our knapsacks here, and give them a hoist."

The schoolmaster willingly assented, and followed his friend, who flew down the hill at breakneck speed, in a rapid but more sober manner. The old couple looked up with some astonishment at a well-dressed city man tearing down the hill towards them like a schoolboy, but their astonishment turned to warmest gratitude, that found vent in many thankful expressions, as the lawyer shouldered the old lady's big bundle, and, as, a minute later, the dominie relieved her partner of his. They naturally fell into pairs, the husband and Wilkinson leading, Coristine and the wife following after. In different ways the elderly pair told their twin burden-bearers the same story of their farm some distance below the western slope of the mountain, of their son at home and their two daughters out at service, and mentioned the fact that they had both been schoolteachers, but, as they said with apologetic humility, only on third-class county certificates. Old Mr. Hill insisted on getting his load back when the top of the mountain was reached, and the pedestrians resumed their knapsacks and staves, but the lawyer utterly refused to surrender his bundle to the old lady's entreaties. The sometime schoolteachers were intelligent, very well read in Cowper, Pollock, and Sir Walter Scott, as well as in the Bible, and withal possessed of a fair sense of humour. The old lady and Coristine were a perpetual feast to one another. "Sure!" said he, "it's bagmen the ignorant creatures have taken us for more than once, and it's a genuine one I am now, Mrs. Hill," at which the good woman laughed, and recited the Scotch ballad of the "Wee Wifukie coming frae the fair," who fell asleep, when "by came a packman wi' a little pack," and relieved her of her purse and placks, and "clippit a' her gowden locks sae bonnie and sae lang." This she did in excellent taste, leaving out any objectionable expressions in the original. When she repeated the words of the Wifukie at the end of each verse, "This is nae me," consequent on her discovery that curls and money were gone, the lawyer laughed heartily, causing the pair in front, who were discussing educational matters, to look round for the cause of the merriment. "I'm the man," shouted Coristine to them, "the packman wi' a little pack." Then Mr. Hill knew what it was.