Rawdon drew back.  Nash he knew:  Mr. Perrowne, of Tossorontio, he did not; but the unknown to men of his stamp is often more dreaded than the known.  He wouldn’t intrude upon his friends just now, while everything must be upset.  Playfully, he asked Favosites Wilkinsonia to remind Miss Do Please-us of that hoffer and the hanswer before ten, and straightway resumed his journey in the direction of the Lake Settlement.

“Of all the impudent blackguards that I have met in the course of my experience, that fellow takes the cake,” said the detective, removing his disguise.

“What about Jones and the waggon?” asked the dominie.

“The waggon is the one I saw when patrolling.  Jones and his man are two of the ruffians who were in it.  Old Newcome, here, is a third.  The boy—­by-the-bye, what a wonderful inspiration that was of yours to give us Idiot and Boy for passwords—­well, the boy must have come from some other quarter.  But there’s either one or two wounded men under these buffaloes and bits of canvas, for I hit one in the waggon and sent the contents of Ben’s gun after another down the hill.  They both squealed.  Men of that kind almost always squeal when they’re hit.  The impudence of that fellow Rawdon!  Pon’t forget Miss Du Plessis’ letter; that’s our card now.  Never in all my life have I met with such colossal cheek!”

The Squire came out and dismissed the guard.  The parson and the lawyer strolled in together after Wilkinson and Nash.  Coristine remarked “The sunshine is a glorious birth, as my friend Wilkinson would say.”

“Yes,” answered Perrowne; “it brings to memory one verse of Holy Writ:  ’Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.’  The words are very simple, but beautiful in their simplicity.  People are apt to say there’s no dogma in them, and that’s why they are so acceptable to all.  But that’s a mistake.  They contain a double dogma; for they make a dogmatic statement about light, and another about the relation of the sun to the human eye.  In the Church we down’t get much training in dogma, outside of the dogma of the Church, and a little in the Articles and the Catechism.  Sow Mr. Enrol often flores me with his texts.  But I down’t bear him any malice, you know, nor any malice to dogma, so long as it’s the dogma of the Holy Scriptures; because that is just like the verse I quoted, it says what is true of a thing in itself, or in its relation to man.  To reject that sort of dogma is to reject the truth.”

“Still,” replied the lawyer, “a man in a burning desert, or who had been sunstruck, might curse the sun.”

“Very true; but you know how wrong is the motto ex uno disce omnes.  Believe that, and we are all scoundrels, because your Grinstun man was once under this roof.”

“There are, however, many ecclesiastical dogmas professedly taken from the Bible, against which good men, and earnest seekers after truth, rebel.”