Two Knapsacks Part 24

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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d.

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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 amus.e.m.e.nt.

"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 s.e.x. 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.