THE PICNIC
".... The charm
Of pious sentiment diffused afar
And human charity and social love."
There is an idea which prevails among many thoughtful people, but which
is nevertheless a good deal of a fallacy, that in the complex and
congested life of cities greater opportunities for observation of
character can be found than in the country. Ringfield, for example,
would have combated this idea, feeling that he might have left college
and taken up his work in some large Western town, preaching every
Sunday to a numerous and flourishing congregation, and continued thus
for several years without encountering the strongly marked types he had
met within a few weeks at St. Ignace. It may be said in general of
life in cities of the new world that dwellers in such populous centres
are apt to undergo considerable change of character; their natural
traits become altered or turned aside, dissimulation and caution are
engendered by force of circumstances, while conformity to usage and
imitation enter largely into daily conduct. Thus, environment becomes
stronger than heredity; respectability at least is demanded,
individualities disappear, and the natural man is outwardly vanquished.
In the village, family failings, vices and virtues remain on
exhibition, as it were, for years, known to all about. The blend here
and there is recognized; individuals are often remarkable for
peculiarities or defects of moral and physical construction, and
heredity is strong. The simplicity of surrounding life supplies an
impressive background for the elemental passions which reveal
themselves in primitive or aboriginal force. Absence of standards,
absence of amusements, the lack of contrast, these are a few of the
causes that contribute towards the self-centred existence led by most
inhabitants of rural communities. To prove this, one has but to think
of a cripple, or a dwarf, or a drunken man, or a maniac; also, to
revert to pleasanter images, of an unusual flower or animal, or of
convincing and conspicuous personal beauty. What is a cripple in the
city? He is passed by without a glance, for there are, alas! many like
him. What is a dwarf? He only suggests the unnatural or unpleasant;
the last circus or a fairy-book. What is a drunken man in a city? Or
what a poor maniac? Officers of the police, and places of correction,
physicians and nurses are at hand; the suffering and the evildoer are
taken away and we know them no more.
But if we change a little part of speech and write the cripple, and
proceed to think of the cripple in a village, or the dwarf, or the
drunken man or the maniac, we instantly perceive how their presence
must greatly colour the limited society in which they exist; how they
must either amuse or disgust, arouse sympathy or create fear, as the
case may be, and although a calla lily and a red-blooming cactus, a
parrot or Persian kitten, are scarcely regarded as curiosities or
rarities in the city, they may easily come to be regarded as such in
the village.
From uninteresting and unimpersonal generalizations and aggregations
such as dwarfs, cripples, lunatics, cats and parrots, we turn to the
individuals of the species and behold--it is now The Cripple, The
Dwarf, The Maniac, and so on, and how profoundly important the
appearance and conduct, habits and dwellings of these--our
companions--immediately become. We cannot get away from them, nor they
from us. And the beautiful young girl! She is often safer in the
city, where a kind of dove-like wisdom soon informs and protects, than
in the lonely and silent places of the wilderness. The beauty that was
fatally conspicuous in the village finds its rival and its level in the
town.
Ringfield had certainly had his full share of ministering to the
decadent and the unhappy at St. Ignace, and he was therefore very
pleased one day to be called on by the Rev. Mr. Abercorn, incumbent of
St Basil's at Hawthorne, the latter a small settlement, about nine
miles distant, in which the English element predominated. Once a year
the congregation of St. Basil's gave a picnic tea, when members of
surrounding denominations met tranquilly on common ground and neutral
territory. Macaulay's description of the peculiar position of the
Church of England is nowhere truer than in some isolated districts like
these Lower Canadian hamlets. She does, indeed, occupy a happy middle
place between the unadorned wooden temples with whitewashed windows of
the sects, and the large, aggressive stone churches of the Romish
faith. Were her clergy as alive to the situation and the peculiar
wants of the _peuple gentil-homme_ as they ought to be, one would meet
with greater numbers of adherents to the Episcopal ritual.
Mr. and Mrs. Abercorn were fully in sympathy with the countryside, and
acted themselves as runners and scouts in connexion with the picnic
tea, the lady seconding her husband in the most able and sagacious
manner, the latter bringing to his duties all those charms of culture
and presence which ministers of the Episcopal Church so often possess,
even when not too richly dowered with profound theological learning or
magnetic gifts of oratory. Moral and social wisdom, tact and
experience of the world, often atone for intellectual shortcomings,
especially in rural districts, and Ringfield was compelled to admit
that he was not the only worker in the neighbourhood capable of
understanding the wants of the people. Mr. Abercorn was about fifty,
but as enthusiastic and energetic as a much younger man.
"I knew something of French life and character before I came out here.
My wife is a native of Jersey. Our severe climate with its long,
rigorous winter and short but hot summer has helped to form the
national character; also the scenery. I mean that the beauty of the
place, of all these fine but lonely, austere rivers and forests creates
a melancholy, reflective tendency, and this makes it difficult in the
matter of recreation, which last is what so many of our people require,
particularly the French. I would have amusements going all the time if
I could afford it, but that, of course, is not feasible; the _joie de
vivre_ is only to be arrived at modestly, and in our small way we try
to make our picnic tea a success. We hope you will come over and join
us on that occasion. We shall be having it later than usual this year,
one reason for this being the fact that such serious illness exists in
your own parish. I refer to Mr. Henry Clairville. It would not do to
have much visiting between the parishes. And how is he getting on, for
I suppose you hear all about him from time to time."
Ringfield, as it happened, knew very little of what was transpiring at
the Manor House, but remarked that the worst was over, that the wife of
Poussette was still absent from her home, and that Miss Clairville had
not returned to her vocation.
"Ah," ejaculated Mr. Abercorn thoughtfully, "a peculiar family, a
peculiar family indeed; but they are very fortunate in having you here.
Oh, yes, I am not in the least bigoted, you know,--can't afford to be
down here,--and I only hope you'll stay and make a great success of the
new church. If everything goes well, we'll hold our picnic on the 1st
of November, sort of Harvest Festival and Thanksgiving all in one, and
either I or Mrs. Abercorn will drive over for you, as I suppose you
will not be setting up a horse just yet."
On the day appointed Ringfield was sitting dully enough in his room
over the carpenter's shop. Pauline was lingering on at Poussette's,
partly because she had no other place to go, and partly because
Ringfield was near. Their relations had not outwardly progressed since
the evening on her balcony; several other meetings had taken place, but
once assured that she was free, Ringfield settled to his work,
preferring to put the whole episode from him for a while, until he
could feel satisfied that she might be approached on the subject of the
theatre. Thus their feelings were like Tennyson's wood, all in a mist
of green with nothing perfect; meanwhile only a couple of planks
separated them at this very instant, and, as usual, his thoughts were
hovering about her at this hour, about half-past one o'clock, when he
heard his name called by a younger member of the Gagnon family (a
numerous one of five boys and four little girls), and descended to meet
Mrs. Abercorn. This lady was taking the opportunity, in her rôle of
auxiliary parson and general parochial assistant, of putting in a good
word for Hawthorne and St. Basil's as she sat in her buggy at the door,
surrounded by Poussette, Martin, and eight or ten children.
An intractable little mare pawed and shuffled in an uncertain frame of
mind, apparently viewing with special disfavour the fiddling of Antoine
Archambault, who had been hanging around the village ever since
Pauline's return. Glancing consciously up, Ringfield thought he
perceived a white hand and gleaming bracelet at the window of his old
room.
"We have a rough drive before us, with a bad four miles in one place,"
said Mrs. Abercorn, "so we'll get away at once. You haven't been over
to Hawthorne yet, Mr. Ringfield, how is that? But never mind, you'll
be one of us after this afternoon at any rate. Do you play croquet?"
Looking rather astonished, Ringfield said "_No_," and the emphasis led
Mrs. Abercorn to smile as she observed him more closely. She herself
was one of those people of good birth who instinctively ask, no matter
where they are placed, of everybody they meet, "Is she a _lady_?" "Is
he a _gentleman_?" but who, in spite of this inherent and clannish
trait, manage to make friends with the mammon of No-Family. She was
literally as broad as she was high; short hair, turning grey, was
fantastically curled about her clever, dark eyes; she had two hats, one
for summer and one for winter, the latter a man's old seal cap; her
skirts and jackets were skimp and dowdy, and her features and
complexion unattractive, yet the authority and ease, the whole manner
of the true lady made her a delightful companion, and she would have
been equally diverting and diverted at a Royal Audience in Buckingham
Palace or at a bean-feast on an Indian reserve. She displayed
ornaments that were not precisely jewels, the value of which was of
genealogical order; thus, she wore her grandfather's fobs and seals,
her mother's bracelets of bog-oak and lava, and her brooch contained
the hair of her only child, long deceased. She had had one
dinner-dress for ten years of black "uncrushable grenadine," cut
square, and it was quite true that she was the niece of an earl and the
daughter of an admiral, and that she had eloped with the Rev. Marcus
Abercorn eighteen years ago.
Ringfield had never met any one like her before, but in spite of her
accent, so extremely English that in the Canadian country it was almost
certain to be dubbed "affected," and in spite of a bright worldliness
he found unusual in a clergyman's wife, he liked her very much and
watched her manipulation of the mare--Flora Macdonald--with great
interest, and not a little apprehension.
The bad four miles turned out to consist of alternate patches of
ancient corduroy road, the logs exposed for a foot or so above the
soil, and a long hogs-back of dyke-veined limestone, the ridges of spar
and quartz cutting deep into the rock.
Mrs. Abercorn sighed eloquently for the lanes of Old England as the
mare pranced, and the buggy flew over the various obstructions, bumping
and swinging in a reckless manner Ringfield had never seen equalled.
"We are a little late," said his aristocratic charioteer, her hat
crooked and her mouth quite as vicious as Flora's when touched up with
a ragged whip, "but we'll be in time for a game of croquet before tea.
We have the tea at five, because it's beginning to darken so early, and
then we have a nice little show in the school-house: Marcus and I both
believe in amusing the people. So you see it's not exactly a picnic,
but quite a lot of things put together. You'll see presently."
And he did. Father and mother of their people, Mr. and Mrs. Abercorn
had instituted a remarkable series of "events," as they say on regatta
programmes--nautical, terpsichorean, athletic, musical and
histrionic--grouped under the head of "games" and the large and
delighted crowd drawn from several parishes rewarded their cheerful and
untiring efforts. The Rector was not only all things to all men but to
many women and numerous children as well, and Ringfield noted that,
unlike the West, the men assembled were nearly all old men; there was a
marked scarcity of boys and youths, and these old men appeared to be
many years older than they had any right to appear. Many of them
possessed but a couple of sound teeth apiece, others had retained the
lower set more or less horribly intact, while a single tusk adorned the
upper gum. Absence of regular visits to the dentist, or indeed of any
visits at all, had wrought this ruin in faces also wrinkled and
weather-beaten by exposure to the strenuous climate. The women showed
to better advantage than the men, and the French were more
prepossessing and better preserved than the English, especially in the
matter of teeth, owing probably to a steady diet of onions and
comparative lack of meat.
Diversity among the ladies included the fat, motherly looking ones,
several of whom were spinsters; the young, too-smartly dressed
daughters of farmers, possessing very little beauty, but of good height
and figure; one person clothed entirely in black silk and very
conscious of a new kind of watch, of gold and colours and small, pinned
to her left bosom; and last, a couple of conventional Englishwomen
staying at the Rectory.
It was natural that Mrs. Abercorn should desire to present to her
friends and a few of the "quality" so good-looking a young man as
Ringfield, and as soon as the buggy had been tied up under a grove of
maples, he was led about by the energetic queen of the feast, whose
attire, weird enough while driving, had now culminated in a highly
rational although unusual aspect. Everything upon her partook of an
unpleasing and surely unnecessary brevity; thus her figure was too
short for her breadth, and her skirts too short for her figure; her
jacket was too short over her hips, and her gloves too short over her
wrists; her hair was too short on her neck and her veil too short over
her nose. Yet the rakish hat settled, and the fobs and seals shaken
out, she appeared mentally fresh and charming, and the rich cadences of
her cultivated voice gave Ringfield pleasure, slightly recalling Miss
Clairville's accents, and he was happy in experiencing for the first
time in his life that amiable naturalness, inimitable airiness, ease
and adaptability, which characterize the Anglican clergy and their
method of doing things. Attenuated tennis, Lilliputian Badminton,
swings, a greased pole, potato and sack races, fiddling, and dancing on
a platform, for the French, all these he passed in review with Mrs.
Abercorn and the English ladies, presently participating in a merry
game of croquet on a rocky, uneven, impossible kind of ground. The
Rev. Marcus, and the person in black silk joined in this game of
croquet, the latter so exclusive that it gave Ringfield the feeling
that people must have when they are chosen for a _quadrille d'honneur_.
Without relief or intermission the amusements held sway till about
half-past four, when even the quality tired of their croquet; the day,
though bright, was cold, and a bonfire on the rocks was greatly
patronized by the very old and very young, while distant preparations
for tea were viewed, at first with stealthy, half-reluctant admiration,
and then with open restlessness. The patriarchs--toothless and
wrinkled, yet not a man of them over fifty-eight--stood around in
expectant silent clusters, and also in their best clothes, of which a
great deal of faded red neck-tie and pepper and salt trousers seemed
chiefly to strike the eye.
The tea was to be served in the large barn adjoining the church,
surrounded on two sides by tall plantations of Indian corn, a rough
kind known as horse corn, and not used at table. Very soon those
engaged in the games fell away by twos and threes, and the rector and
his wife gaily beating the covers afforded by forest and grove, all
gradually converged to the meeting point outside the big doors of the
barn, through which were now passing the wives and daughters of the
plough, bearing coarse bedroom jugs of tea and coffee, plates of cakes,
pies, and sandwiches. The people waiting thus in patient content at
the doors were orderly and sober, and none ventured to enter till their
rector, having unearthed even the remotest and shyest member of his
flock, advanced in florid hurry and taking his wife and Ringfield with
him, passed under the hanging branches of maize, asparagus, fern and
crabapples which decorated the great door. The floor of the barn,
although partially cleared, was still half full of straw, and flecks of
it flew through the air as the people trooped in, decently awed but
amused too, for the ripple of lowered laughter and pleased hum of
voices resounded throughout the building. The walls, draped with flags
and coloured curtains, held sheaves of grasses and several lamps in
brackets at the sides, and the food, good, plain, with plenty of it,
adorned the two long tables that ran down the middle. Ringfield, at
the head of a table, was comparing the scene with some Harvest Homes of
his youth, and wondering who would start the Doxology, when he heard
the rector say, standing a long way off at the end of the other table:--
"We have the Rev. Mr. Ringfield of St. Ignace with us this afternoon,
and I have no doubt that he is already as anxious as the rest of you
for a share of the good things we see here before us, so I am going to
ask him to say--ah--Grace, then we can fall to. Mr. Ringfield, will
you be kind enough to ask the blessing?"
There was a pause, not because Ringfield was unready on these occasions
nor because of any fear lest his special kind of intercessory
gastronomic prayer might fail to carry conviction with it, but on
account of the intrusion of two belated arrivals down by the door. He
could not distinguish very clearly, but there seemed to be some one
either invalided or very young in a basket-chair, wheeled in by a young
woman of twenty-two or twenty-three, who entering brusquely, on a run,
and laughing, was silenced, and the chair and its occupant pushed back
against the wall. This slight but untimely interruption over,
Ringfield gazed solemnly around--it was already growing a little dim in
the barn--and spoke as follows, with head thrown back, and closed
eyes:--
"O Lord, the giver of all good things, who sendest seed-time and
harvest, rain and sun on the fruits of the earth and crownest the year
with fatness, look down on us at this time and bless us." At this
point the Anglicans present sat down under the impression that the
"grace" was over. They rose again in confusion as Ringfield
continued:--
"We thank Thee for these, Thy temporal blessings vouchsafed unto us as
a people. We have Thy pledge in the book of Thy Holy Word, that while
the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest shall not fail. We thank
Thee for the fields white with harvest. We thank Thee for our great
and beautiful country; for its beneficent laws, its opportunities, its
great and unequalled privileges, and we pray for our rulers, for all in
authority, for all engaged in the ministry of whatever denomination,
for the Queen and the Royal Family. We pray for him whose duty it is
to go in and out before this assembly; grant him wisdom and spiritual
strength; bless also the partner of his life work, and may their united
labours prevail and resound to Thy glory and the honour of Thy name,
and while we remember at this time to thank Thee with full hearts for
these temporal gifts, let us be swift to remember also Thy choicer,
greater, holier gift of Free Salvation; Mercy, Pardon, Peace, and
glorious relief from sin and its thraldom--these may be ours for the
asking. O Lord, if any sinner lurk among us, if any poor sinner be at
this board to-night, search him, O Lord, and purge his mortal body, try
it with Thy true refiner's fire. As our snows are pure, so let us be
pure. As our waters are deep yet clear, let our minds be clear of
evil, and rid of all offence; and for all who by reason of sin, or
pain, or sickness, or any other infirmity either of body or of mind
cannot be with us at this time, we pray that Thou wilt comfort, uplift,
forgive and relieve them. All--for Christ's sake--Amen."