Two Knapsacks Part 12

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 t.i.tle "Why Doesn't G.o.d 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 ca.s.socked 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 a.s.sure 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 a.s.sert 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."