The pedestrians ceased their theological discussion and went towards the deserted buildings, where, in former days, a bad smelling oil had been distilled from the slaty-looking black stones, which lay about in large numbers.  Wilkinson picked up fossils enough, species of trilobites chiefly, with a few graptolites, lingulas and strophomenas, to start a museum.  These, as Coristine had suggested in Toronto, he actually tied up in his silk handkerchief, which he slung on the crook of his stick and carried over his shoulder.  The lawyer also gathered a few, and bestowed them in the side pocket of his coat not devoted to smoking materials.  The pair were leaving the works for the ascent of the mountain, when barks were heard, then a pattering of feet, and soon the breathless Muggins jumped upon them with joyous demonstrations.

“Where has he been?  How came we not to miss him?” asked the dominie, and Coristine answered rather obliquely:—­

“I don’t remember seeing him since we entered Collingwood.  Surely he didn’t go back to the Grinstun man.”

“It is hard to be poetical on a dog called Muggins,” remarked Wilkinson; “Tray seems to be the favourite name.  Cowper’s dogs are different, and Wordsworth has Dart and Swallow, Prince and Music, something like Actaeon’s dogs in ‘Ovid.’  Nevertheless, I like Muggins.”

“Oh, Tray is good, Wilks:—­

To my dear loving Shelah, so far, far away,
I can never return with my old dog Tray;
He’s lazy and he’s blind,
You’ll never, never find
A bigger thief than old dog Tray.”

“Corry, this is bathos of the worst description.  You are like a caterpillar; you desecrate the living leaf you touch.”

“Wilks, that’s hard on the six feet of me, for your caterpillar has a great many more.  But that dog’s gone back again.”

As they looked after his departing figure, the reason was obvious.  Two lightly, yet clerically, attired figures were coming up the road, and on the taller and thinner of the twain the dog was leaping with every sign of genuine affection.

“I’m afraid, Wilks, that Muggins is a beastly cur, a treacherous ’ound, a hungrateful pup; look at his antics with that cadaverous curate, keeping company with his sleek, respectable vicar.  O Muggy, Mug, Mug!”

The pedestrians waited for the clergy, who soon came up to them, and exchanged salutations.

“My dawg appears to know you,” said the tall cassocked cleric in a somewhat lofty, professional tone.

“He ought to,” replied Wilkinson, “seeing that he was given to me by a Mr. Rawdon, a working geologist, as he calls himself.”

“Ow, really now, it seems to me rather an immoral transaction for your ah friend, Mr. Rawdon, to give away another man’s property.”

“Mr. Rawdon is no friend of mine, but his dog took a fancy to us, and followed us from Dromore to Collingwood.”

“Allow me to assure you that Muggins is not this ah Mr. Rawdon’s dawg at all.  I trained him from a puppy at Tossorontio.  The Bishop ordered me from there to Flanders, and, in the hurry of moving, the dawg was lost; but now, I should rather say stowlen.  My friend, the Reverend Mr. Errol and myself, my name is Basil Perrowne, Clerk, had business in Collingwood last night, when Muggins, most opportunely, met us, and went howme with me.”