"Work is prayer, work is song."

And now a scene broke upon his sight, which made him think he was back among the apple-orchards and smiling farms of Normandy—a fair and tranquil scene: wide meadows, with flocks of kine grazing, fields of corn ripe for the sickle, and orchards, round which girls and boys were frolicking in holiday costume. Beyond that was a village of white huts and a church all of wood, its porch hung with evergreens, and a wedding-party grouped beneath; and through the landscape the same river on whose banks Robert thought he had fallen asleep once years ago, when it flowed through the heart of the primeval forest. Higher up in the distance were still the old pine-woods; but there was much timber felled, and great rafts were paddled down the stream, laden with the wealth of the forest. Robert knew that civilization had come to this spot with a cross in its hand instead of a sword, and baptismal dews instead of "fire-water." He saw the bronzed, athletic men of the New World working like brothers side by side with the stalwart, golden-haired pilgrims from the Old; and he looked around to see who had thus brought about that which his former experience had sadly told him was an impossibility. Just then there rose a chant from the village church:

"Sing to the Lord a new song. Offer up the sacrifice of justice and hope in the Lord, ... who showeth us good things.... By the fruit of their corn, and wine, and oil are they multiplied"; while from the fields where the red man and the white toiled together rose an answering chorus: "Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity." Then from the church came a long file of dark-robed men, with cowls of ancient make, like those that the Norman boy had seen carved on the monuments of the abbots in his own land—nay, his own village (for Villeneuve had once belonged to the Benedictines)—and they marched in slow procession to a spot of ground a mile beyond the gathering of white huts.

Here a large area was marked out in the shape of a cross, the outline being drawn in wreaths of gaily-colored autumn leaves. Many Indians stood round the enclosure, and one old chief kept in his hands a quantity of wampum belts. Opposite him was a man of athletic build, nearly seventy years old, in whom Robert thought he saw a great likeness to himself as he might become in a happy and prosperous old age. The chief of the dark-robed men lifted up his voice, and addressed this figure:

"Robert Maillard"—and the dreamer started to hear his own name—"this day you end a noble work; you crown a life worthy to be held in remembrance for ever. You came to this spot a wanderer without an aim, at war with man, almost despairing of God. You stand here, after half a century has gone over your head, the father of your people, the benefactor of two races, the founder, so to speak, of a new kingdom. You crown the sacrifice of a lifetime used in God's service by a free gift of your choicest possession to his everlasting majesty. To all ages will a school of holy discipline and of sacred song plead for you at the throne of God, and the laus perennis of holy lives shall represent the ceaseless hymn of inanimate creation to its Lord."

Then the old man turned to the Indian chief, and called him. "My brother," he said, "I have only given to God what you gave me; without a fair title to your land, I durst not have offered it to the God whose eldest child on this side of the sea is the red man; and half the blessing which this reverend minister of our Lord has promised me falls to your share."

"My pale-faced brother speaks words of justice and of wisdom," answered the chief; "his God shall be my God, and his people my people, because his faith has taught him truth and honesty towards his red brother. The black-robe hath spoken well, and Great Eagle is glad to hear him praise the friend of his people, and he who hath taught the Indian maidens to sing the song of the stars and the clouds."

So saying, he laid at the priest's feet a wampum belt; and as each ceremony of the laying of a first stone was completed, he laid down another, as if ratifying the compact after the manner of his people. The dreamer stood apart in silent wonder; the dark-robed choir intoned the psalm Lauda Jerusalem:

"Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise thy God, O Sion!"

"For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy children within thee.