his word, and Poussette, though
rough, was not a bad fellow. It would take, say, three or four days
out of his last week of recreation, but still, he was engaged,
earnestly and sincerely engaged in the work of bringing souls to
Christ, and, no small thing, his expenses would be paid. The better
counsel, as it seemed, prevailed, and he went east the next night.

Meanwhile the energetic Poussette, mill owner of Bois Clair, rich man
and patron of the countryside, had put his plan into execution, and in
the space of three months a tract of rocky ground on the north side of
the Fall had been cleared and a neat, convenient church erected from
the native woods, furnished with benches, a table and chair for the
minister, and a harmonium. St. Ignace was quite excited, for the thing
seemed pure imbecility to the French, who were to a man true Catholics,
but Poussette stoutly asserted his belief that before long conversions
to Methodism would be numerous and for the present there were his
"guests," a couple of families from Beaulac, the foreman of the
mill--_voila un congregation tres distingue_! Much, too, would depend
upon the choice of a preacher, and Poussette was cherishing the hope
that some inducement might be held out to retain Ringfield in their
midst.

Of this the younger man was at first ignorant. Impatience at detention
in such a place warred with strict conceptions of duty, yet his
excellent training in subservience to his Church and a ready gift of
oratory assisted him in a decision to do the best he could for the new
_paroisse_, heretofore so distinctively Catholic, of Juchereau de St.
Ignace. That M. Poussette's congregation was more _distingue_ than
numerous did not for a moment affect the preacher on the warm, rainy
Sunday when he stood within sound of the great Fall and read from the
forty-seventh chapter of the Prophet Ezekiel. Romeo Desnoyers, thin,
keen, professional looking; Poussette and his wife, the latter an
anaemic, slightly demented person who spoke no English; Mr. Patrick
Maccartie, foreman of the mill, who likewise was ignorant of English,
despite his name, and the Methodist contingent from Beaulac were
planted along the front seats at markedly wide intervals, for Poussette
had erected his church on a most generous scale. Summer visitors of
all denominations trickled in out of the moist forest arcades, so that
when Ringfield rose to conduct the service he was facing seventy or
eighty people