“Thank you, Mr. Errol, thank you, Marjorie, my dear.  Perhaps the good God 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 breasts 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 trimming of gilt buttons, 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 Sylvanus; “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 Sylvanus did not mind; he drove round the lane and met Timotheus.