Mr. Black, Leroy,
King, and so on.

Poussette was, to his credit, among those who gauged Le Caron's
sentiments fairly correctly, and he had no wish either to leave his
country or to change his name. Succeed he would--and did; make money
above all, but make it just as well in St. Ignace or Bois Clair as in
the States; learn English but not forget French, both were necessary;
become "beeg man," "reech man," but marry and live where his name would
be carried down most easily and quickly. As for his change of
religion, it was a good evening's entertainment to "seet roun," in the
bar and listen to Poussette's illustrated lecture entitled "How I
became a Methodist"; the illustrations being repeated sips of whisky
and water, imitations of different priests and anecdotes of indifferent
preachers.

Most of this Ringfield was familiar with, but while Poussette as a sort
of accepted "character," a chartered entertainer, was one thing,
Poussette as a patron, importunate, slightly quarrelsome, and
self-willed, was another. For a few months the arrangement might work
well enough, but for the entire winter--he thought of the cold, of the
empty church at service time, of the great snowdrifts lasting for weeks
and weeks, and more than this too, he thought of his plans for
self-improvement, the lectures he would miss, the professors and
learned men he would not meet, the companionship of other students he
must perforce renounce.

Reflections of this kind were continuing to occupy him when he suddenly
saw through the trees on the right hand the gleam of open water. He
had reached Five Mile Lake or Lac Calvaire, a spot he had heard of in
connexion with fabulous catches of fish, and on the opposite side of
the shining water he also discerned the roof of a large house, painted
red, and somewhat unusual in shape. That is, unusual in the eyes of
the person who saw it, for the steep, sloping roof, the pointed
windows, the stone walls, and painted doors, are everyday objects in
French Canada. The house at Lac Calvaire was a type of the superior
farm-house built in the eighteenth century by thrifty and skilful
fur-traders, manufacturers and lesser seigneurs, differing rather in
appearance and construction from the larger chateaux or manoirs, a few
of which at one time existed along the banks of the St. Laurent, but of
which now only three well-preserved examples survive. As the size of
the original grants of land or seigneuries varied