“Mere inferences based on circumstantial evidence.”

“They’re things that should be looked into, though.”

“Perhaps so, but is it your business to do so?  Are you a whiskey informer?”

“Come now, Wilks, that’s a pretty bad name to call a man.”

“That may be, but it seems to denote the role you have set before yourself.”

“I’d like to run that brute into the ground.”

“Worse and worse; you are going to prosecute, not from principle, but from malice.”

“I’m going to show up a scoundrel.”

“If that is your work you will never lack employment.  But, seriously, Corry, cui bono?”

“To keep him off Miss Du Plessis’ land, to prevent him marrying her, to hinder him corrupting the farmers and causing their farms to go to waste with smuggled liquor.”

“As you like, but Wordsworth says:—­

     Whatever be the cause, ’tis sure that they who pry and pore
     Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before.”

“A fig for Wordsworth, and his tear in the old man’s eye!  I’ll not be happy till I bring that murdering thief of the world to justice.”

Further conversation was checked by the view of the river from the top of the hill, challenging the admiration of the two lovers of scenery, and they began their descent towards the hamlet that lay on either side of the bridge which crossed the swiftly-flowing stream.  Then the lawyer commenced the recitation of a poem in one of the old Irish readers:—­

     River, river, rapid river,

in which the dominie sharply interrupted him, recommending his tall, mustachioed friend to put a stick of candy in his mouth and go back to petticoats and pinafores.

“Wilks, you remind me of a picture I saw once, in Punch or somewhere else, of a nigger sandwich man advertising baths, and a sweep looking at him, and saying:  ’It’s enough to tempt one, he looks so jolly clean hisself.’  That’s the way with you, always firing out Wordsworth’s silly twaddle, and objecting to a piece of genuine poetry because it’s in a reader.  The pig-headed impudence of you birchers beats all.”

CHAPTER VI.

The Maple Inn—­Mr. Bigglethorpe’s Store—­Dinner—­Worms—­Ben Toner—­The Dugout—­Fishing in the Beaver River—­The Upset Suckers—­The Indignant Dominie Propitiated and Clothed—­Anecdotes of Mr. Bulky—­A Doctor Wanted.

A very clean and attractive hostelry received the travellers, and compelled the dominie to remark cheerfully, “Now shall I take mine ease in mine inn,” which led to his lately indignant friend’s response:—­

     Who’er has travell’d life’s dull round,
     Where’er his stages may have been,
     May sigh to think he still has found
     The warmest welcome at an inn.