ambassador one who stood in the place--who fulfilled the duties--of an absent king? “Glory be to God on high!” shouted the Reverend Timotheus, and the dense woods echoed back “God on high!” as the old man, forty years a conscientious pastor, but only that instant converted to Christianity, drove his paddle into the water with a force that nearly threw the canoe into the air. As for Parson Wedgewell, whom we left arising from his knees after asking information from his Divine guide, he found himself upon the right road. The river was nearer than he had dared to hope; a run of half a mile brought him into a clearing, in which stood Brown’s warehouse, near the river. The _Excellence_ had just put her nose against the bank, and the clerk at the warehouse was tired of wondering why Fred Macdonald, on the opposite bank, was shouting so impatiently to the ferryman, and why an old man in a canoe should be coming down the river at the rate of fifty-paddle strokes per minute, when he saw Parson Wedgewell, coatless, hatless, with open shirt, disordered hair, and face covered with dirt deposited just after an unlucky stumble, come flying along the road, closely followed by Tom Adams, who was lashing his horses furiously. A happy inspiration struck the clerk; he shouted “Horse thief!” and seized the parson, and instantly received a blow under the chin which rendered him inactive and despondent for the space of half an hour. The parson saw the gang-plank shoved out; he saw Harry Wainright step aboard; he saw the Rev. Timotheus jump from his canoe into water knee deep, dash up the plank, and throw his arm over Harry Wainright’s shoulder; but only a second or two elapsed before Parson Wedgewell monopolized the runaway’s other side, and then, as the three men stared at each other, neither one speaking a word, and the two pastors bursting into tears, Tom Adams hurried aboard, and exclaimed, “Mr. Wainright, Mrs. Wainright is particular anxious to see you this evenin’, for somethin’, I don’t know what, an’ I hadn’t time to get any sort of a carriage for fear I’d lose the boat; but there’s good springs to the seat of the brick-yard wagon, an’ a new sheep-skin besides.” No other words coming to Tom’s mind, he abruptly walked forward muttering, “That’s the cock-an’-bullest yarn I ever _did_ tell; I _knew_ I wouldn’t know what to say.” As Tom meditated, he heard one “roustabout” say to another, “I say, Bill, you know that feller that used to sell such bully whiskey in Barton? Well, he’s around there on the guards, dancin’ like a lunatic. I shouldn’t wonder if that’s what come of swearin’ off drinkin’.” “Mighty unsafe perceedin’,” replied Bill, eyeing Crupp suspiciously.