THE MISSIONARY
"Nor is it a mean phase of rural life,
And solitude, that they do favour most,
Most frequently call forth and best sustain
These pure sensations."
The following day Ringfield's curiosity naturally ran high; he was
entirely in the dark as to the peculiar treatment he had received at
the hands of Poussette, and it followed that one strong idea shut out
others. Miss Clairville's image for the time was obliterated, yet he
remembered to ask Crabbe whether the letter had been safely delivered,
to which the guide replied rather curtly in the affirmative. He
supposed Pauline to be still at the manor-house, but the truth was, on
the receipt of his letter a sudden temper shook her; she wrote at once
to M. Rochelle, her former manager in Montreal, requesting a place in
his company, and the evening that brought Ringfield back to St. Ignace
took her away.
There were symptoms of thaw stirring in Poussette, and the minister did
his best to encourage them, but on the Saturday afternoon following his
return, when it was necessary to hold some sustained business
conversation with his patron, the latter could not be found. The bar
was a model of Saturday cleanliness, damp and tidy, smelling equally of
lager beer and yellow soap. Fresh lemons and newly-ironed red napkins
adorned the tall glasses ranged in front of Sir John A. Macdonald's
lithograph, and the place was dark and tenantless, save for Plouffe, a
lazy retriever, stretched at the door. The dining-room was abandoned,
the general room was full of children engaged in some merry game, but
otherwise the place wore that air of utter do-nothingness which
characterizes a warm afternoon in the country. Yet Ringfield
persevered and at last heard familiar accents from the "store" across
the road, a kind of shack in which a miscellaneous collection of
groceries, soft drinks, hardware and fishing appliances were presided
over by the man called Crabbe. Ringfield crossed, and found the two
men lolling on chairs; Poussette slightly drunk and Crabbe to all
appearances decidedly so. The place was of the roughest description;
it had no windows but an open space occupied by a board counter on
which were boxes of cigars, bottles, a saucer of matches and the mail,
duly sorted out for the inhabitants by Crabbe, who was supposed to be a
person of some importance and education, and postmaster as well as
guide. As Ringfield paused at this aboriginal place of barter, not far
removed from the rough shelter up the road under the trees where some
Indians held camp and displayed their grass and quill wares on planks
supported by barrels, he was struck by the sight of his own name.
There in front of him lay the missing telegram which Mr. Beddoe had
dispatched to Montmagny nearly a fortnight before. He took the folded
yellow paper up and put it in his pocket--no need to open it there and
then.
"How long has this been here?" he asked, but Crabbe only moved uneasily
in his chair, reaching sideways in a pretence of arranging boxes
underneath the improvised counter, his hands shaking so that the goods
tumbled out of them.
Poussette laughed and swore, yet a gleam of good nature seemed to
illumine his puffy face, and Ringfield, catching at this ray of
kindness, hoped he had come at the right moment.
"Why, Poussette!" he said. "I'm sorry to see you neglecting a good
business like yours in this manner.--Get up, man, and walk along the
road with me. Where is the fun, or glory, or enjoyment of this
muddling and tippling--I am ashamed of you! Come on, I say!"
But Poussette was hard to move; Crabbe, on the other hand, rose and
shuffled out of doors in the direction of the forest; Ringfield thought
he saw Madame Poussette's skimp skirts behind a tree; presently she
emerged and stood talking to the guide.
"Come now, Poussette! There's your wife. Don't let her see you like
this. Then there's Father Rielle."
"Where?" Poussette rose, superstitious fears of the village _curé_
giving him strength and aiding his resolution.
"Nowhere at present. But he's coming to tea. The cook told me he was."
"What cook? I'm the cook!"--with great dignity.
"No, no. You are cook extraordinary, when you wish it. I mean Frank,
who gets the wood and keeps the fire going, who cooks under you--you
know well enough whom I mean. Now, are you coming?"
Poussette allowed himself to be hauled out of the shack and presently
he and Ringfield were walking up the road.
"I've got to get you sober for to-morrow, you see. To-morrow's Sunday
and I want to know about the music. If we are going to introduce our
hymns to St. Ignace, you must help me to find some one to play the
harmonium. Better be a lady. Do you know any one?"
But Poussette was not following. The mention of the priest had
awakened a flood of memory.
"Father Rielle--I don't know if I like that one or not. One's enough,
you're enough, Mr. Ringfield. Give Father Rielle a drink and let him
go."
"I'm not talking about Father Rielle at all just now. I'm talking
about our church and some one to play for us. And look here,
Poussette, this returning of mine wasn't my own doing. I want you to
know this. The man who wrote to me telegraphed afterwards--here's the
message in my pocket--and you see I never got it. I'm here now and we
must make the best of things. That fellow Crabbe mislaid the message
or detained it knowingly, I can't tell which, and I don't like him,
Poussette, I don't like his looks at all. He's a low fellow, always
drunk, and if I were you I wouldn't be seen going about with him. I'm
astonished at you, Poussette, with such a good businesss, two good
businesses, you may say, well-to-do and prosperous as you are, keeping
such a fellow on the premises. For I suppose he rents the shack from
you. Well, I know I wouldn't have him round the place at all."
Poussette wagged his head in imbecile accord.
"Low fellow--Crabbe--_marche donc_--get off, _animal_, don' come my
place 'tall."
"You know I'm talking _right_, Poussette. Get rid of Crabbe. And
sober up now, man; don't let folks see you like this."
Ringfield put his arm through the other's and led him aside under a
thick canopy of trees as a party of fishermen and Martin came along.
"Look here--I'll make a pillow for you, here, out of these balsam
twigs! You lie down--that's it--and get a good sound sleep. Got a
cigar? And a light? That's all right. Now, you sleep--yes, don't
bother about the smoke now--just go to sleep and when you wake up, have
your smoke, clear your head, shake yourself and show up at tea-time,
straight and sober as I am! You'd better! Father Rielle's over for
tea. You wouldn't like him to see you like this!"
Poussette collapsed on the improvised balsam couch, but managed to
remark that he would not get up on account of Father Rielle, nor give
him anything good to eat.
"Why, I thought you liked him! Liked his good opinion, anyway!"
"Beeg liar! Beeg rascal! I like you, Mr. Ringfield, when you don'
take away my girl. You leave my bes' girl alone and I like you--first
rate. Bigosh--excuses, I'll just go to sleep--for--while."
Ringfield rose from the ground and sighed. He earned his livelihood
pretty hard when such scenes came into his life. Pastoral slumming,
one might term it, for he had only just laid Poussette respectably to
rest when he encountered Crabbe, lurching dully along the road, and at
the sight of him Poussette's extraordinary remark about his "best girl"
came back. What possible connexion could have suggested itself to
Poussette between the faded sickly creature he called his wife and the
visitor from Ontario? Ringfield thought it not unlikely that Poussette
was confusing him with Crabbe, for to-day was not the first time he had
seen the woman wandering in the proximity of the shack. However,
Crabbe gave him no opportunity for ministerial argument or reasoning,
for as soon as he perceived the other he turned, and straightening in
his walk very considerably, soon disappeared in the forest.
Ringfield was thus thrown on his own resources after all, and in
thinking over the question of the Sunday music, not unnaturally was led
to associate Miss Clairville with it. He did not know her to be
exactly musical, but he gathered that she could sing; at all events,
she was the only person he had met in St. Ignace capable of making
arrangements for a decorous and attractive service, and he resolved to
see her and ask for her co-operation. Thus again he was drawn by
inclination and by a steady march of events along the road that led to
Lac Calvaire. Arrived at the _métairie_ he was told of Pauline's
departure for Montreal, and also that Henry Clairville was confined to
his bed by a severe cold. Some new awkwardness led Ringfield over the
threshold; the old Archambault woman who had attended the front door
threw open another on her left hand, and the next moment he found
himself in what must have been once the _salon_ of the family. The
furniture was of faded tapestry; a spinning-wheel, an armoire of dark
mahogany, miniatures, one very old and very ugly oil painting of some
mythological subject, cracked with age, the gilt frame thick with
fly-specks; a suit of Court clothes hung ostentatiously on a common
nail--these were the impressions he received as he sat waiting to hear
whether the Sieur would see him.
Suddenly he started. The woman had closed the door, the room had been
empty when he entered it and yet--there were three cats in front of his
chair! Where had they come from? The window was closed, how had they
got in? Watching, Ringfield saw what greatly astonished him, for
presently the cats walked towards the door and a miracle appeared to
happen! They not only walked towards it but through it, and he was
ignorant of the apparent cause of the miracle until observing the door
very closely he discovered a little door down at the bottom, a cat door
through which they were in the habit of calmly passing back and forth
at will. Another cat door appeared in the hall where he stood a minute
later before being shown out, for Mr. Clairville would not receive him,
and nothing more impressed him with the idea of being in a strange
house given over to strange people than the knowledge of a system of
little doors cut in the big ones for the use of a dozen cats.
Once more on the road, Ringfield experienced that sense of frustration
inseparable from first love. He had been so confident of seeing Miss
Clairville once again, and now, as he learned from the servant, it
might be Christmas before she would return, and despite his
resolutions, he knew he should be very lonely indeed, without any
congenial soul in the village, for a period of four months. He roused
himself, however, to think of the morrow's duties, particularly of the
music, and at tea that evening he found the person he wanted through
the kind offices of Father Rielle, who was a very liberal Catholic,
well acquainted with the whole countryside and who could ask, as he
said, in eloquent broken English, nothing better than co-operation in
good works with his young Methodist _confrère_. Poussette was present
at the evening meal, rather pale and subdued and pointing with the
pride of a true _chef_ to the omelettes which were his alone to make by
special dispensation, and after supper Ringfield walked out to the
great Fall, remaining till it was dark and late--so late that he knew
no one would pass that way. Then he knelt on a slab of rock and lifted
up his voice in this wise:--
"O Lord," he began, "look down on Thine unworthy servant. Help him and
guide his footsteps aright. He has returned to this place and to this
people. Assist him to preach the truth of the Gospel in the wilderness
and to those who know Thee not. Make him kind and keep him humble.
Give him light and understanding that he may be acceptable in this
place and that he may witness for Thee and for the Gospel, and that his
labours may be blessed and the harvest thereof indeed be great." He
paused, his eyes opening on the white wilderness of the Fall. Knowing
that the roar of its foaming waters would drown his voice he did not
scruple to use his fine, sonorous tones to the full, and went on again:
"Strip from Thy servant, O God Most High, all that savours of self.
Strike at sin if it lodgeth in him; cause him to remember now his
Creator in the days of his youth. Grant him wisdom in dealing with the
froward, and may Thy Holy Spirit descend in this solemn evening hour
and be with him now through the watches of the night and to-morrow when
he rises to plead Thy righteous cause. For Christ's sake, Amen."
The mixture of the orthodox circuit style with an occasional direct and
colloquial abruptness made this prayer worthy of record, and after
silent meditation under the dark, swaying pine-trees, Ringfield, braced
by temporary abandonment of self, returned to Poussette's. As he rose
from his knees, however, something rolled down several ledges of rock
and he promptly went after it and picked it up. It proved to be a
book, not very large, and opening easily, but there was no light to
view it by, and it was not until he came near the village windows that
he discovered it to be, much to his astonishment, a well-worn copy of
Tennyson's Poems. On the fly-leaf were the initials "E. C. H." and
underneath, the word "Oxford" and date "1873". Ringfield took it up to
his room; some tourist had probably dropped it, and it was safer with
him than with Poussette. But when had an Oxford man passed that way?