CHAPTER XVI.
THE CLERGYMAN.
A man he was to all the country dear, And passing rich with forty pounds a-year.
GOLDSMITH'S _Deserted Village_.
Mrs.Dods's conviction, that her friend Tyrrel had been murdered by the sanguinary Captain MacTurk remained firm and unshaken; but some researches for the supposed body having been found fruitless, as well as expensive, she began to give up the matter in despair.

"She had done her duty"-- "she left the matter to them that had a charge anent such things"-- and "Providence would bring the mystery to light in his own fitting time"-- such were the moralities with which the good dame consoled herself; and, with less obstinacy than Mr.Bindloose had expected, she retained her opinion without changing her banker and man of business.
Perhaps Meg's acquiescent inactivity in a matter which she had threatened to probe so deeply, was partly owing to the place of poor Tyrrel being supplied in her blue chamber, and in her daily thoughts and cares, by her new guest, Mr.Touchwood; in possessing whom, a deserter as he was from the Well, she obtained, according to her view of the matter, a decided triumph over her rivals.

It sometimes required, however, the full force of this reflection, to induce Meg, old and crabbed as she was, to submit to the various caprices and exactions of attention which were displayed by her new lodger.

Never any man talked so much as Touchwood, of his habitual indifference to food, and accommodation in travelling; and probably there never was any traveller who gave more trouble in a house of entertainment.

He had his own whims about cookery; and when these were contradicted, especially if he felt at the same time a twinge of incipient gout, one would have thought he had taken his lessons in the pastry-shop of Bedreddin Hassan, and was ready to renew the scene of the unhappy cream-tart, which was compounded without pepper.