PRELUDE
Harvest-time was almost come, and the great new land was resting undercoverlets of gold. From the rise above the town of Lebanon, therestretched out ungarnered wheat in the ear as far as sight could reach,and the place itself and the neighbouring town of Manitou on the otherside of the Sagalac River were like islands washed by a topaz sea.
Standing upon the Rise, lost in the prospect, was an old, white-hairedman in the cassock of a priest, with grey beard reaching nearly to thewaist.
For long he surveyed the scene, and his eyes had a rapt look.
At last he spoke aloud:
"There shall be an heap of corn in the earth, high upon the hills; his fruit shall shake like Libanus, and shall be green in the city like grass upon the earth."
A smile came to his lips--a rare, benevolent smile. He had seen thisexpanse of teeming life when it was thought to be an alkali desert, fitonly to be invaded by the Blackfeet and the Cree and the Blood Indianson a foray for food and furs. Here he had come fifty years before, andhad gone West and North into the mountains in the Summer season, whenthe land was tremulous with light and vibrating to the hoofs of herds ofbuffalo as they stampeded from the hunters; and also in the Winter time,when frost was master and blizzard and drift its malignant servants.
Even yet his work was not done. In the town of Manitou he still saidmass now and then, and heard the sorrows and sins of men and women, andgave them "ghostly comfort," while priests younger than himself took theburden of parish-work from his shoulders.
For a lifetime he had laboured among the Indians and the few whites andsquaw-men and half-breeds, with neither settlement nor progress. Then,all at once, the railway; and people coming from all the world,and cities springing up! Now once more he was living the life ofcivilization, exchanging raw flesh of fish and animals and a meal oftallow or pemmican for the wheaten loaf; the Indian tepee for the warmhouse with the mansard roof; the crude mass beneath the trees for therefinements of a chancel and an altar covered with lace and white linen.
A flock of geese went honking over his head. His eyes smiled in memoryof the countless times he had watched such flights, had seen thousandsof wild ducks hurrying down a valley, had watched a family of heronsstretching away to some lonely water-home. And then another soundgreeted his ear. It was shrill, sharp and insistent. A great serpent wasstealing out of the East and moving down upon Lebanon. It gave out puffsof smoke from its ungainly head. It shrieked in triumph as it came. Itwas the daily train from the East, arriving at the Sagalac River.
"These things must be," he said aloud as he looked. While he losthimself again in reminiscence, a young man came driving across theplains, passing beneath where he stood. The young man's face and figuresuggested power. In his buggy was a fishing-rod.
His hat was pulled down over his eyes, but he was humming cheerfullyto himself. When he saw the priest, he raised his hat respectfully, yetwith an air of equality.
"Good day, Monseigneur" (this honour of the Church had come at last tothe aged missionary), he said warmly. "Good day--good day!"
The priest raised his hat and murmured the name, "Ingolby." As thedistance grew between them, he said sadly: "These are the men who changethe West, who seize it, and divide it, and make it their own--
"'I will rejoice, and divide Sichem: and mete out the valley of Succoth.'
"Hush! Hush!" he said to himself in reproach. "These things must be. Thecountry must be opened up. That is why I came--to bring the Truth beforethe trader."
Now another traveller came riding out of Lebanon towards him, gallopinghis horse up-hill and down. He also was young, but nothing about himsuggested power, only self-indulgence. He, too, raised his hat, orrather swung it from his head in a devil-may-care way, and overdid hissalutation. He did not speak. The priest's face was very grave, if not alittle resentful. His salutation was reserved.
"The tyranny of gold," he murmured, "and without the mind or energy thatcreated it. Felix was no name for him. Ingolby is a builder, perhaps ajerry-builder; but he builds."
He looked across the prairie towards the young man in the buggy.
"Sure, he is a builder. He has the Cortez eye. He sees far off, andplans big things. But Felix Marchand there--"
He stopped short.
"Such men must be, perhaps," he added. Then, after a moment, as he gazedround again upon the land of promise which he had loved so long, hemurmured as one murmurs a prayer:
"Thou suferedst men to ride over our heads: we went through fire and water, and Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place."
The World for Sale, Complete Page 2