Produced by Al Haines
RINGFIELD
A NOVEL
BY
S. F. HARRISON,
"SERANUS"
[Transcriber's note: Author's full name is Susie Frances Harrison]
AUTHOR OF "THE FOREST OF BOURG-MARIE," "PINE, ROSE AND FLEURE DE LIS,"
"CROWDED OUT, AND OTHER SKETCHES," "THE CANADIAN BIRTHDAY BOOK," ETC.
TORONTO
THE MUSSON BOOK COMPANY, LIMITED
1914
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE HOLY WATERS
CHAPTER II
THE WHITE PEACOCK
CHAPTER III
THE MAN IN THE CHAIR
CHAPTER IV
THE HOUSE OF CLAIRVILLE
CHAPTER V
THE UNSEEN HAND
CHAPTER VI
THE MISSIONARY
CHAPTER VII
THE OXFORD MAN
CHAPTER VIII
THE "PIC"
CHAPTER IX
PAULINE
CHAPTER X
THE PICNIC
CHAPTER XI
"ANGEEL"
CHAPTER XII
THE HEART OF POUSSETTE
CHAPTER XIII
A SICK SEIGNEUR
CHAPTER XIV
FATHER RIELLE
CHAPTER XV
THE STORM
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE BARN
CHAPTER XVII
REVELRY BY NIGHT
CHAPTER XVIII
A CONCERT DE LUXE
CHAPTER XIX
REHABILITATION
CHAPTER XX
A RURAL AUTOCRAT
CHAPTER XXI
THE NATURAL MAN
CHAPTER XXII
THE TROUSSEAU OF PAULINE
CHAPTER XXIII
THE SEIGNEUR PASSES
CHAPTER XXIV
RELAPSE
CHAPTER XXV
THE TROUSSEAU AGAIN
CHAPTER XXVI
THE GLISSADE
CHAPTER XXVII
THE CARPET BAG
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE HAVEN
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WILL OF GOD
CHAPTER XXX
THE QUEST OF HAPPINESS
CHAPTER I
THE HOLY WATERS
"...... the sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion."
In a country of cascades, a land of magnificent waterfalls, that watery
hemisphere which holds Niagara and reveals to those who care to travel
so far north the unhackneyed splendours of the Labrador, the noble fall
of St. Ignace, though only second or third in size, must ever rank
first in all that makes for majestic and perfect beauty.
It is not alone the wondrous sweep and curve of tumbling brown water
that descends by three horseshoe ledges to a swirl of sparkling spray.
It is not alone the great volume of the dark river above sent over,
thrust down, nor the height from which the olive is hurled to the white
below. So, too, plunge and sweep other falls--the Grand Loup in
Terrebonne, the Petit Loup in Joliette, the Pleureuse, the Grand
Lorette, the Tuque, the big and little Shawenigan, the half-dozen or so
"Chaudière," the Montmorenci or La Vache, but none of these can equal
the St. Ignace in point of dignified, unspoilt approach and picturesque
surroundings. For a mile above the cataract the river runs, an inky
ribbon, between banks of amazing solitariness; no clearing is there, no
sign of human habitation, hardly any vestige of animal life. The trees
stand thick along the edges, are thick towards the high rocky
table-land that lies on either side; it is, in short, a river flowing
through a forest. And when it drops, it drops to meet the same
impassable wooded banks; it is now a cataract in a forest. Rocks are
turbulently heaped upon one hand; upon the other, the three great
ledges meet the shock of the descending waters and define the leap by
boldly curved thick masses of olive, topaz, and greenish jelly. Where
it is brown, it is nearest the rocky bed; where olive, more water is
going over; and where green, it is so solid that twice a yard measure
alone will penetrate the reach of rock beneath. The white of its
flowing spray is whiter than the summer cloud, and the dark green of
the pines framing it, shows often black against the summer blue. Its
voice--roar as of wind or steady thunder--calling always--has silenced
other voices. Birds do not build, nor squirrels climb too near that
deep reverberating note, although the blue heron, fearless, frequently
stands in summer on the spray-washed rock and seems to listen. Below
the filmy smoke of rainbowed arches there is quiet black water, with
circles, oily, ominous, moving stealthily along, and below these--a
quarter of a mile down--the rapids, swift, impetuous, flashing,
ushering in the latter half of the St. Ignace, here at last the river
of life and motion, bearing stout booms of great chained logs, with
grassy clearings and little settlements at each side, curving into
lilied bays, or breaking musically upon yellow beaches, a River of Life
indeed, and no longer a river of Death and Negation!
For in the countryside, the _paroisse_ of Juchereau de St. Ignace, the
upper part or inky ribbon of the river was frequently called by that
gloomy name; a Saguenay in miniature, icy cold, black, solitary,
silent, River of Death, who shall live in sight of your blackness? Who
may sing aloud at his toil, whether he dig, or plant, or plough, or
trap, or fish? Beautiful though the grand sweep and headlong rush of
the fall, the people of the settlement avoid its sombre majesty and
farms were none and smaller clearings few along the upper St. Ignace.
A quarter of a mile back from the fall lay the village, holding a
cluster of poor houses, a shop or two, a blacksmith's forge, a large
and well-conducted summer hotel patronized for the fishing, a sawmill,
depending for power on the Rivière Bois Clair, a brighter, gayer stream
than the St. Ignace, and lastly a magnificent stone church capable of
containing 1500 people, with a Presbytère attached and quarters for
some Recollet brothers.
Such was and is still, doubtless, with a few modifications, the hamlet
of St. Ignace, fair type of the primitive Lower Canadian settlement,
dominated by the church, its twin spires recalling the towers of Notre
Dame, its tin roof shining like silver, the abode of contented
ignorance and pious conservatism, the home of those who are best
described as a patient peasantry earning a monotonous but steady
livelihood, far removed from all understanding of society or the State
as a whole. With each other, with Nature, and with the Church they had
to do--and thought it enough to keep the peace with all three.
Yet change was in the air, destiny or fate inevitable. The moving on
process or progressive spirit was about to infect the obscure, remote,
ignorant, contented little _paroisse_ of Juchereau de St. Ignace when
one April morning there stood upon the edge of rock nearest the great
fall, still partly frozen into stiff angular masses, two men of
entirely different aspects, tastes, and habits, yet both strongly
agreed upon one essential point, the importance of religion, and, more
particularly, the kind of religion practised and set forth by the
Methodist Church.
The elder was Monsieur Amable Poussette, owner of the sawmill at Bois
Clair and proprietor of the summer hotel, a French Canadian by birth
and descent and in appearance, but in clothes, opinions, and religious
belief a curious medley of American and Canadian standards.
Notwithstanding the variety of his occupations, one of which was
supposed to debar him from joining the Methodist Church, he was an
ardent member of that community. The younger man was a Methodist
preacher, working as yet on the missionary circuit, and to him M.
Poussette was holding forth with round black eyes rolling at the
landscape and with gestures inimitably French.
"See, now," he was saying, standing perilously near the wet edge of
rock, "there is no difficult thing! I own the ground. I give the
money. I have it to give. My friend Romeo Desnoyers, of Three Rivers,
he shall come at this place, at this point, and build the church. It
will be for a great convenience, a great success. My guests, they will
attend. I myself will see to that. I shall drive them over."
The younger man smiled faintly. It was necessary at times to restrain
M. Poussette. He pulled him back now, but gently, from the slippery
rock.
"In the summer--yes, of course, I see that. I see that it is needed
then. The rest of the year----"
"The rest of the year! Bigosh--_excusez_,--I tell you, it is needed
_all_ the year round. Look at that big ugly barn full of bad
pictures--yes, sir, I went to Mass regular, when I was a boy--_petit
garçon_--well, every one was the same, sure. But now, ah!--excuse
_me_. A seegar? Yes? You will thry one?"
The minister declined, but M. Poussette lit one of a large and
overfragrant variety, while he frowned at the fall, rolled his large
eyes around again and finally led the way through thick underbrush and
across fallen logs to the deeply-rutted highroad where a horse and
_caleche_ awaited them. The prospective church builder took a long
last look and then said:--
"And you--you shall preach the first sermon. How long does it take to
build nice church, nice pretty Methodist church--not like that big
stone barn I used to go to Mass in?"
At this the Reverend Joshua Ringfield did more than smile. He threw
back his fine head and laughed heartily.
"Oh--Poussette!" he cried; "you're the funniest fellow, the funniest
man alive! Ask somebody else how long it takes to build any kind of
church--how should I know! But if you're in earnest, and I admire you
for it if you are, and I wish there were more like you, I'll come and
do the preaching with pleasure. You'll require a bigger man than I am,
I'm afraid though."
"No, no," pronounced Poussette with fierce and friendly emphasis,
driving away at a reckless pace. "See now, this is it. This is my
affair. It will be my church, and my friend, Mister Romeo Desnoyers of
Three Rivers, shall build it. Bigosh--_excusez_; I'll have only
friends in it; you're my friend, I am good Methodist since I hear you
preach, and Goddam,--well, _excusez_ again, sir, I'll have you and no
other. We'll say July, and you will have one, two, three months to get
the sermon ready. Get on there, _m'rch donc, animal-l-l_! I am too
long away from my business."
Ringfield, who was right in supposing that his friend and patron had
tasted of the "viskey blanc" before starting, refrained from any
criticism of the scheme, promising his services merely, should they be
required, and that evening saw him depart for the west to attend a
course of lectures at a theological college. Before many hours the
tumbling, foaming Fall, the lonely river, the Bois Clair settlement and
Poussette were almost forgotten. A camping trip with friendly
Ontarians succeeded the lectures, then ensued a fortnight of hard
reading and preparation for the essay or thesis which his Church
demanded from him as token of his standing and progress, he being as
yet a probationer, and thus the summer passed by until on the 6th of
August a letter reached him from the Lower Province bidding him attend
at the opening services of the new Methodist church recently built at
St. Ignace through the enterprise and liberality of M. Amable
Poussette. The letter, in Canadian French, had an English postscript;
"I pay all expense. Me, Amable Poussette, of Juchereau de St. Ignace."
Ringfield put the letter away with a frown. He was busy, in demand,
ambitious. Born in one of the Maritime Provinces, he owed all he was
to Ontario, and now--Ontario claimed him. Return he might some day to
the rapid rivers, the lonely hills, the great forests and the remote
villages, but not now. Now, just as he was beginning to fill his
place, to feel his power, to live and work, and above all preach, a man
among men, a man for men, he resented any interruption in his plan of
existence, in his scheme of self-consecration. The big bustling cities
of Western Ontario and of the State of Ohio, where some of his holidays
had been spent, were very far away from the hamlet of Juchereau de St.
Ignace, a mere handful of souls--yes, Souls, and here Ringfield stopped
and reconsidered. After all, there was his word, and Poussette, though
rough, was not a bad fellow. It would take, say, three or four days
out of his last week of recreation, but still, he was engaged,
earnestly and sincerely engaged in the work of bringing souls to
Christ, and, no small thing, his expenses would be paid. The better
counsel, as it seemed, prevailed, and he went east the next night.
Meanwhile the energetic Poussette, mill owner of Bois Clair, rich man
and patron of the countryside, had put his plan into execution, and in
the space of three months a tract of rocky ground on the north side of
the Fall had been cleared and a neat, convenient church erected from
the native woods, furnished with benches, a table and chair for the
minister, and a harmonium. St. Ignace was quite excited, for the thing
seemed pure imbecility to the French, who were to a man true Catholics,
but Poussette stoutly asserted his belief that before long conversions
to Methodism would be numerous and for the present there were his
"guests," a couple of families from Beaulac, the foreman of the
mill--_voilà un congrégation très distingué_! Much, too, would depend
upon the choice of a preacher, and Poussette was cherishing the hope
that some inducement might be held out to retain Ringfield in their
midst.
Of this the younger man was at first ignorant. Impatience at detention
in such a place warred with strict conceptions of duty, yet his
excellent training in subservience to his Church and a ready gift of
oratory assisted him in a decision to do the best he could for the new
_paroisse_, heretofore so distinctively Catholic, of Juchereau de St.
Ignace. That M. Poussette's congregation was more _distingué_ than
numerous did not for a moment affect the preacher on the warm, rainy
Sunday when he stood within sound of the great Fall and read from the
forty-seventh chapter of the Prophet Ezekiel. Romeo Desnoyers, thin,
keen, professional looking; Poussette and his wife, the latter an
anaemic, slightly demented person who spoke no English; Mr. Patrick
Maccartie, foreman of the mill, who likewise was ignorant of English,
despite his name, and the Methodist contingent from Beaulac were
planted along the front seats at markedly wide intervals, for Poussette
had erected his church on a most generous scale. Summer visitors of
all denominations trickled in out of the moist forest arcades, so that
when Ringfield rose to conduct the service he was facing seventy or
eighty people, far more than he or the architect had expected to see,
although doubtless inferior in numbers to the great throngs existing in
the imagination of M. Poussette.
The opening hymn and prayer over, the young man took his Bible and read
in natural colloquial tones but with considerable emphasis as follows:--
"Afterward he brought me again unto the door of the house; and, behold,
waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward: for
the fore-front of the house stood towards the east, and the waters came
down from under, from the right side of the house, at the south side of
the altar".
A slight pause was here made by the reader and caused a rustling in the
porch to be the more distinctly heard, as a late comer, a lady,
evidently afraid of the weather because of cloak and veil, moved to a
seat near the door and sat down. The reader, seeing only a female
figure merge itself in the congregation, resumed.
"Then brought he me out of the way of the gate northward, and led me
about the way without unto the outer gate by the way that looketh
eastward; and behold, there ran out waters on the right side."
Again there was that slight pause, and again, too, a rustling as of
silken feminine garments. Ringfield caught Poussette's eye, but it was
somewhat vacant; evidently the analogy of the picture was lost upon him.
"And when the man that had the line in his hand went forth eastward, he
measured a thousand cubits and he brought me through the waters; the
waters were to the ankles. Again he measured a thousand, and brought
me through the waters; the waters were to the knees. Again he measured
a thousand, and brought me through; the waters were to the loins.
Afterward he measured a thousand; and it was a River that I could not
pass over: for the waters were risen, waters to swim in, a River that
could not be passed over. And he said unto me, Son of man, hast thou
seen this? Then he brought me, and caused me to return to the brink of
the river."
With the climactic force and aptness of the description his voice had
grown louder till it completely filled the building. His fine head
erect, his steady passionless blue-gray eyes fastened more on the dark
sopping cedars outside the window than upon the people in front, his
large but as yet undeveloped frame denoting strength, vigour, rude
health--all testified to his unsullied manhood, to the perfection of
sane mind in pure body which it was his highest joy and duty to retain.
There is an asceticism among Methodists of his class which does not
differ greatly from that enforced by other religious orders. Thus
Ringfield, handsome, healthy, with pulsing vitality, active senses and
strong magnetic personality, was consecrated to preaching and to what
was called "leading souls to Christ" as much as any severe,
wedded-to-silence, befrocked and tonsured priest. And over and beyond
this self-consecration there was the pleasure involved in fulfilling
his mission, and herein perhaps he differed from the conventional and
perfunctory Roman. The sound of his own voice, the knowledge that he
was bound to interest, to convince, even to convert, the very attitude
in which he stood, with chest inflated, head thrown back, hand
uplifted, all these things delighted him, communicated to his lively
sentient side many delightful and varying sensations. As the _prima
donna_ among women so is the popular preacher among men.
"Now, when I had returned, behold, at the bank of the river were very
many trees on the one side and on the other. Then said he unto me, ...
everything that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall
come, shall live; and there shall be a very great multitude of fish,
... And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it
... they shall be a place to spread forth nets: their fish shall be
according to their kinds, exceeding many.... And by the river, upon
the bank ... shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaves shall not
fade, ... because their waters they issued out of the sanctuary; and
the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for a
medicine."
This concluded the customary reading of a portion of Scripture, but
when the second hymn had been sung and the preacher began his sermon he
asked the congregation to let their minds revert for a moment to that
Vision of the Holy Waters which he was about to take as a text. Yet,
although throughout the sometimes flowery, sometimes didactic, but
always eloquent address which followed, more than one present looked
for a reference to the landscape outside, so markedly similar to that
pictured by the prophet, nothing of the kind occurred. The four
thousand years of religious growth, the spread of Gospel knowledge and
counsel, the healing qualities of the Stream of Salvation flowing down
the ages through a dark world of sin and affliction, the medicine for
the soul of man and the spiritual food for his spiritual nature--these
were the thoughts so warmly sketched and the lessons so skilfully drawn
from the passage in question.
At the conclusion of the service, Ringfield was moving out quietly
behind the others, with that sense of slight collapse upon him which
frequently follows oratorical efforts, when Poussette and the
architect, Desnoyers, turned back and shook hands with him.
Madame Poussette, standing irresolutely near the door, weak,
vacant-eyed, badly dressed, was staring at another woman, the veiled
and cloaked figure who had rustled in during the reading of Scripture,
but the veil was lifted now and the cloak hanging over her arm. The
face and form were undoubtedly those of a most attractive, youthful and
well-dressed person, in fine, a lady, and Ringfield at once recollected
her presence in the congregation. So mutual was their recognition,
that, accustomed to being sought in this manner, he was about to
inquire if she wished to speak with him, when Poussette came between
them, taking his wife's arm, and the opportunity was lost. In a few
moments they were driving along the road to Bois Clair, and the young
minister, looking back, could discern no trace of the lady. So little
did he connect her with the remote wildness of the place, so different
did she appear even in a moment's glimpse from the natives and visitors
alike, who had made up the morning assembly, that he did not ask M.
Poussette for any information. As for the latter, no achievement had
ever put him into such good humour with himself as the building of the
new church; and the Sunday dinner at which M. Romeo Desnoyers and the
Rev. Joshua Ringfield were guests of honour, was eaten with the utmost
relish and hilarity. Cabbage soup, the French Canadian staple; young
Beauport ducks, dressed plentifully with onions; deep pies in earthern
bowls containing jointed chickens and liver cut in shapes; apples and
pears baked in the oven with wine and cream; good butter, better bread,
and indifferent ice cream, _crême d'office_, made up one of the
characteristic meals for which "Poussette's" was famous, and it need
not detract from Ringfield's high mental capacities to state that
having partaken of this typical and satisfying fare, he was compelled,
when he could escape the importunities of his French friends, to walk
away by himself along the muddy highroad for the benefit of his health.