"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. a.s.sist 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed that way?
CHAPTER VII
THE OXFORD MAN
"Here Nature was my guide, The Nature of the dissolute; but Thee, O fostering Nature! I rejected..."
Ringfield, now committed to his duty at St. Ignace, was experiencing that reaction which must always follow upon a sudden change in the affairs of life when the person concerned has a tendency towards the reflective. The absence from the manor house of that interesting personality, Miss Clairville, threw him altogether on the society of the village, but, apart from Poussette, who had become mysteriously friendly again, the two individuals most in need of his ministrations were Mme. Poussette and the shambling guide, Edmund Crabbe, in whom were the dregs of a being originally more than the preacher"s equal.
Old world distinctions would seem to be of small account in such a hamlet as St. Ignace and yet questions of caste were felt even there.
Crabbe, the owner of the "Tennyson," was that melancholy wraith of breeding, a deteriorated gentleman, spoken of in whispers as an "Oxford man," slouching along the winding country road, more or less in liquor, with the gait and air of a labourer, yet once known as the youngest son of a good county family. Few would have recognized in the whiskered blear-eyed, stumbling creature an educated Englishman of more than middle-cla.s.s extraction. In drink an extraordinary thing occurred. He then became sober, knew himself, and quoted from the cla.s.sics; when sober, he was the sullen loafer, the unmannerly cad, and his service as guide alone redeemed him from starvation and neglect. Ringfield, who had seen him, as he supposed, drunk on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon when Miss Clairville"s departure had been made known, concluded to call upon him at his shack a few days later, and was considerably surprised to find the place roughly boarded up, while sounds of talking came from a shanty at the back. The latter was on the plumed edge of an odorous hemlock wood; squirrels and chipmunks ran, chattering, hither and thither in quest of food, and a muskrat, sitting on a log near the water, looked unconcernedly at Ringfield as he stood, hesitating, for a few seconds. While he thus remained, a boy came along, looked at the "store" and scudded away; then came a little girl, and, finally, one of the maidservants from Poussette"s. Muttering her annoyance, she too waited for a while and was on the point of going away, when the door of the cabin opened, and Crabbe looked out. He held himself erect, he had shaved, his faded _neglige_ shirt was clean and laced with blue--a colour that matched his eyes, and his voice had a certain expressive and even authoritative drawl in it.
"No supplies to-day, my good people," he said, affecting to suppose Ringfield a customer. "Call to-morrow, or--ah--the next day. Sorry to inconvenience you, but I"ve had to take a few hours off, writing letters to the Old Country, asking about my remittance and so forth.
So I can"t attend to business."
In these polite if slightly satirical cadences there was the element of superiority; the woman and the girl faded away, while Ringfield hardly knew how to proceed.
"I have come over just for a chat," he finally said, "if you are not too much engaged. I have a good deal of time on my hands, and I"m trying to get to know the people around. I am speaking to Mr. Crabbe, I think?"
"You are not sure, eh? Want to apologize for calling me a low fellow to mine host Poussette, I expect! Well, come in and have your chat.
I"m not much in favour of clergymen, but then--you"re only a Methodist, I hear. You don"t count."
He shut the door, after piloting the other in, and led the way into a sort of dining and living room, in the middle of which was a long, narrow table covered with white oilcloth, graced by a monster bouquet of wild-flowers, gra.s.ses and ferns at the end; at the other end was a tumbler and a bottle and Ringfield saw clearly enough that it held whisky. Yet he did not comprehend that Crabbe was drunk, while the bold, blue eyes, the erect stature and the loud voice did not make a single suspicion. Indeed, surprise and pity worked in him a kind of false modesty.
"I certainly should never have used that expression. My defence is, that Poussette, though a good fellow, is rough, and difficult to impress in English, you understand, especially when he is about half-tipsy himself!"
Looking around, the sight of faded photographs of English scenes on the wall, of a large lithograph of Tennyson and of many well-bound books and other evidences of refinement, led Ringfield to say, in vague apology, "If I had known----"
"Known what?" said Crabbe in loud, dictatorial, dangerous tones, all shiftiness gone. "That I was a gentleman, eh? Well, gentle is as gentle does, I suppose, and I"ve never scored anywhere, so here I am, here I _am_, Ringfield (bringing his hand down on the table) that"s your name, I believe--and I"ve not worn so badly all these years. From Oxford to Manitoba; then robbed and ruined by a shark of a farming agent, d.a.m.n him, down here to this wilderness and hole of a Quebec Province for a change. For keeps, I imagine."
He went round the table and poured out some whisky, drank it off raw, and still Ringfield did not understand. He thought this was the sober phase, the other, the drunken one, and feeling his way, ventured on general topics.
"Well, I"m here too by a curious twist of circ.u.mstances. I"m a "varsity" man--Toronto, you know--and might look for something different from St. Ignace."
"You"re a what?" cried the other. "O Lord!" and a strange kind of rude contempt filled the rich cadences with which he spoke, so different from the surly repression of his ordinary tone.
"O I see!" he drawled presently. "I"m an Oxford man myself--worse luck--and much good it"s done me; hope you"ve benefited more thereby.
What disgusting rot, Ringfield, filling us up with Horace and Virgil, and then sending us out to a land like this! I"m the youngest of five; there was nothing left for me at home, and then there was fuss about a woman--there always is."
"Is there?" echoed the other sweetly, determined not to be annoyed.
"Don"t lay everything at their door. Our mothers, Crabbe, our sisters----"
The Englishman suddenly ran amuck, as it were.
"In G.o.d"s name, Ringfield, drop that! I can see you know nothing about it, nothing about life or women--G.o.d, Ringfield, women are the Devil!
If I thought you"d listen and not preach----"
The other"s hand, which had been lifted in horror and deprecation, came down again.
"I don"t care to listen," he said, "but I can gather your meaning--all the same! Don"t take any more of that vile stuff, you"ll make yourself drunk. Here----" and then, with sudden fury, the preacher grabbed the bottle, threw it out of the window among the debris of rotting fruit and rusty cans and faced the Englishman.
For a moment Crabbe looked, spat, and swore like a fiend; then he collapsed into his chair, though still gazing at Ringfield with those full, rolling eyes and that hateful, superior smile.
"I"ll hear anything you have to tell about yourself," continued Ringfield, "but I won"t listen to tales of other people, men or women.
And what"s the use of telling me about yourself? That won"t do any good. Put it all back in the past, man; put it all away. Now is your accepted time, now is your day of salvation, right here, this moment.
But I won"t preach to you. I won"t vindicate my calling and talk religion, as you"d call it, in this place and at this hour, because I see you"re not ready. I thought you were sober. Now I see my mistake, and now, I don"t know _how_ to talk to you. I don"t know how to begin!
I"ve never tasted the stuff myself--not even a gla.s.s of wine has ever pa.s.sed my lips, and my mother, Crabbe, used to make home-made wine and give it to us--all but me. I wouldn"t taste it. If I understood the fascination of it, if I could follow the process, if I could sympathize at all with you, then I might appreciate the difficulty and realize the force of the temptation. But I can"t! Other vices, take theft or treachery, or cowardice, or insubordination; the seed of hatred suffered to grow till the black Death Flower of Murder be born; covetousness, sins of temper, all these I understand. And in some degree those other temptations to which you have alluded."
A slight wave of colour surged in the young minister"s cheeks. Crabbe was apparently beyond impressing. He sat and whistled, looking wisely at his nails. The loss of the whisky did not trouble him, for he remembered where he had a second bottle hidden, and a small quant.i.ty yet remained at the bottom of the tumbler, unnoticed by Ringfield. But presently he broke out again.
"As for women," he cried thickly, as if he had not heard the other"s latest speech. "I"ve had enough of them, too much, as I said before.
You be warned, Ringfield! You keep out of trouble! I wouldn"t swear that I did not take to drink on account of them, and then, look here--the trouble followed me out to this country, even to St. Ignace, even to this hut and hole. What d"ye think of that?"
"Why, who is there here?" exclaimed Ringfield, but as he spoke he had a vision; the foolish wife of Poussette seemed to come along the path, chanting as she came some minor French refrain and tapping at the uncared for window as she pa.s.sed. She might have been attractive once, and Crabbe was not a very young man now. Some graces she must have had; a way of catching at the side of her skirt, suggesting a curtsy; plenty of fair hair and a child"s smile playing at the corners of her mouth--not so foolish then. But wise or foolish, she had been another man"s wife, unless he had encountered her in her maiden days, which seemed improbable.
"I cannot think," went on Ringfield, striving to shut this vision out, "how women, any woman, plain or fair, sane or mad, could bring herself to care for you,--and not because,--hear me, Crabbe, you are beyond caring about. G.o.d forbid!--but because your form of vice must ever be so distasteful to a woman. And then you are all wrong about your surroundings. You are, you have been, at least, a man of education, and yet you call this a hut and a hole. It is you who make it so! You vilify, where you might enn.o.ble. You defile where you should enrich and keep pure. You are set here, in the midst of the most beautiful scenes of Nature, scenes that cannot be matched anywhere in the world, and yet you despise them and use them for your own undoing and that of others. Nature lies at your door and you are answerable for your treatment other."
Crabbe laughed surlily. "She"s no business lying--where"d you say--at my door. Nature, always Nature! Much good it"s done me, Nature, and all that rubbish. I hate it, I hate and abhor it, Ringfield. That"s what makes me drink. Too much Nature"s been my ruin. I"d be sober enough in a big town with lively streets and bustle and riot and row.
I wouldn"t drink there. I"d show them the pace, I"d go it myself once more and be d----d to all this rot and twaddle about Nature! Nature doesn"t care for me. So careful of the type she seems, but so careless of the single life. She doesn"t bother her head about me, or you, or Henry Clairville or Pauline!"
He paused, and Ringfield shivered with sudden poignancy of recollection. What right had this miserable scion of good family, so fallen from grace, so shaken and so heartless, to call the lady of Clairville Manor by her Christian name?
"Or Mme. Poussette!" said the minister hurriedly, but with meaning, as he p.r.o.nounced the name, his voice trembling in spite of himself.
"Nature, it is true, does not care for any of us. Nature will let you starve, get drunk, go mad. Therefore, we need a greater than Nature.
Therefore, having this committed unto us we speak as----"
"O Mme. Poussette!" interrupted Crabbe, pouring the contents of the tumbler down his throat. "Shall I get you some? No? Well, I don"t blame you, don"t blame you. Mme. Poussette, poor creature! I have heard she was pretty once. That was before I came, before--G.o.d"s truth this, Ringfield--before I taught her husband to drink deep."
"I might have known!" escaped from the other. "Our own people rarely drink--like you."
"He was no innocent! He tippled, tippled. Then I came along and set up my sign, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree, Esquire; no, we"ll drop the last and stick to E. Crabbe without the Esquire, d----n it! Lord! what a mess I"ve made of it, and this rankles, Ringfield. Listen. Over at Argosy Island there"s a slabsided, beastly, canting Methodist Yankee who has a shop too. Must copy the Britisher, you see. Must emulate--gentleman."
His sentences were beginning to be less clear now. His head was falling forward. "Well! then--this fine fellow does well out of _his_ shop; sets up another down the river and yet another over at Beausoley.
He"s made money! He"s rich, married, and has a big family. Why don"t I make money, Ringfield, and get away from here? Why don"t you make money and not go about preaching? Eh? So careless of the single life!
Who said that? Whoever said that, knew what--was talking about. I know what I"m talking about. I"m a gentleman, that"s what I am, Ringfield, and yet I can"t make money."
The wagging head toppled--he fell over on the table. The fire and youth Ringfield had observed were gone and in their place were the decrepit tone and the surly animalism which one a.s.sociated with the guide. Here, then, thought the young and impressionable minister, is the living result of two corroding vices; the man is a sot, but something beside the l.u.s.t for liquor has helped to make him one. He has followed after sin in the shape of his neighbour"s wife, and perhaps the latter"s decline may be traced to the working of remorse and the futile longing after a better life.
As he was thus thinking, the vision of his thought actually flitted past the window without turning her head. Still with those thin hands picking at her shabby skirts and with that tremulous smile she emerged from the wood and Ringfield heard her singing long after the rustling of the closely arched branches had ceased. Crabbe seemed to be dropping asleep when Ringfield touched him on the arm and tried again to reason with him.
"Tell me, I ask it for your own good and for that of the poor unfortunate woman who has just gone by, tell me what there is between you, how far the matter went, how long ago it was. Tell me, and I will help you perhaps to get away, leave this place and all in it. That would be the best thing. Come, Crabbe, I"ll believe in you if you"ve lost belief in yourself. Can I, can anyone, do more than that?"