"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?