Two Knapsacks Part 16

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

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

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

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

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

"It has a moral," answered the lawyer; "it means that I am going to take all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger a.s.s of yours.

I'll apologize to the pair of them for me and you."

"That being the case, in spite of the objectionable words, 'bigger a.s.s,'

which you will live to repent, I shall stay."

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

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

Yes; Mrs. Hill had noticed that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"He asked if I knew the story of Mahomet and the mountain, and how Mahomet said, if the mountain will not come to the prophet, the prophet must go to the mountain. So, said he, you are the prophet and must come to my house under the mountain, and be a Hill yourself. It was so funny and clever that I came; besides I was glad to change the name Prophet.

People were never tired making the most ridiculous plays upon it. The old Scotch schoolmistress, who taught me partly, was named Miss Lawson, so they called us Profit and Loss; and they p.r.o.nounced my Christian name as if it was Purses, and nicknamed me Property, and took terrible liberties with my nomenclature." At this the whole company laughed heartily, after which the dominie said: "I see your pipe is out, Corry; you might favour our kind friends with a song." The lawyer did not know what to sing, but took his inspiration, finally, from Wilkinson's last question, and sang the ballad of William Rufus, as far as:--

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

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

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

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

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

"My opinion," said the host, "my opinion is that you could'nt quell a man's pride better than by hitting him fair in the middle. It might be against the laws of war, but it would double him up, and take all the consayt out of him sudden. I mind when Rufus was out seeing his sisters, there was a parson got him to play cricket, and aggravated the boy by bowling him out, and catching his ball, and sneering at him for a good misser and a b.u.t.ter-fingers; so, when he went to the bat again, he looked carefully at the ball and got it on the tip of his bat, and, the next thing he knowed, the parson was doubled up like a jack knife. He had been hit fair in the middle, where the bad boy meant to do it. There was no sarvice next Sunday, no, nor for two weeks."

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

Night had fallen, and the coal oil lamp was lit. The old lady deposited a large Bible on the table, to which her husband drew in a chair, after asking each of his guests unsuccessfully to conduct family wors.h.i.+p. He read with emphasis and feeling the 91st Psalm, and thereafter, falling on his knees, offered a short but comprehensive prayer, in which the absent children were included, and the two wayfarers were not forgotten.

While the good wife went out to the dairy to see that the milk was covered up from an invisible cat, the men undressed, and the pedestrians turned into a double bed, the property of the missing Rufus. The head of the household also turned in upon his couch, and coughed, the latter being a signal to his wife. She came in, blew out the lamp, and retired in the darkness. Then four voices said "good-night"; and rest succeeded the labours of the day. "No nightmares or fits to-night, Corry, an' you love me," whispered the dominie; but the lawyer was asleep soon after his head touched the pillow. They knew nothing till morning, when they were awakened by the old man's suppressed laughter. When they opened their eyes, the wife was already up and away to her outdoor tasks; and a well-built, good-looking young fellow of the farmer type was staring in astonishment at the two strangers in his bed. The more he stared, the more the father laughed. "There's not a home nor a place for you, Rufus, with you kapin' such onsaysonable hours. It's a sesayder you'll be becoming yourself, running after Annerew Hislop's pretty daughter, and dancing the toes out of your stockings till broad daylight. So, if you're going to sesayde, your mother and me, we're going to take in lodgers."

"What are they selling?" asked the Baby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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