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-class extraction. In drink an extraordinary thing occurred. He
then became sober, knew himself, and quoted from the classics; 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 Saturday 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