“Better and better! but that’s what the churches don’t see, nor the politicians, nor the socialists, nor the prohibitionists, nor the scientists, nor anybody else hardly, it seems to me.  When a man’s got two eyes to see with, why should he shut one and keep out half the view?  This ‘ariston men hudor’ idea—­I’m not arguing against temperance, for it’s temperate enough we are both—­but this one thing is best notion would bring the beautiful harmonious world into dull, dead uniformity.  There’s a friend of mine that studies his Bible without any reference to the old systems of theology, and finds these old systems have made some big mistakes in interpreting its sayings, when a newspaper blockhead comes along and says if he won’t conform let him go out of the church.  There’s a one-eyed man for you, an ecclesiastical Polyphemus!  Our politicians are just the same, without a broad, liberal idea to clothe their naked, thieving policies with.  And the scientists! some of them stargazing, like Thales, so that they fall into the ditch of disrepute by failing to observe what’s nearer home, and others, like Bunyan’s man in Interpreter’s house, so busy with the muckrake that they are ignorant of the crown held over their heads.  Now, you and I are liberal and broad, we can love nature and love God too, we can admire poetry and put our hands to any kind of honest work; you can teach boys with your wonderful patience, and, with your pluck, knock a door in, and stand up, like a man, to fight for your friend.  But, Wilks, my boy, I’m afraid it’s narrow we are, too, about the women.”

“Come, come, Corry, that subject, you know—­”

“All right, not another word,” interposed the lawyer, laughing and springing to his feet; “let us jog along

     A village schoolmaster was he,
       With hair of glittering grey;
     As blithe a man as you could see
       On a spring holiday.

     And on that morning, through the grass,
       And by the streaming rills,
     We travelled merrily, to pass
       A day among the hills.”

“When did you take to Wordsworth, Corry?”

“Oh, many a time, but I refreshed my memory with that yesterday, when I came across the tear in the old man’s eye.”

“It is most appropriate, for there, on the right, are actual hills.”

As the travellers approached the rising ground, which the dominie had perceived, the lawyer remarked that the hillocks had an artificial look.

“And they are undoubtedly artificial,” replied Wilkinson.

“This is the township of Nottawasaga, once inhabited by the Tobacco tribe of the Hurons, who had many villages, and grew tobacco and corn, besides making beads, pipes, and other articles, for sale or barter.  They made their pipes out of the Trenton sandstone.  A great many village sites and ossuaries have been found in the township, the latter containing thousands of skeletons.  They have all been opened up by the settlers for the sake of the copper kettles and other objects buried in them.  These long, narrow hillocks are earthworks, the foundation of a rude fortification or palisade round a village.  The Archaeological Reports of the Canadian Institute contain very full and interesting accounts of the explorations made in this very region.  We are on historic ground, Corry.”