Lawrence and this section of the
continent--his history, his tradition, his honour and fame are in the
history books of the world. If I should live a hundred years, I should
wish nothing better than the honour of having served the men whose
forefathers served Frontenac, Cartier, La Salle and Maisonneuve, and all
the splendid heroes of that ancient age. What they have done is for all
men to do. They have kept the faith. I am for the habitant, for the
land of his faith and love, first and last and all the time."
He sat down in a tumult of cheering. Many present remarked that no two
men they had ever heard spoke so much alike, and kept their attacks so
free from personal things.
There had been at this public meeting two intense supporters of Carnac,
who waited for him at the exit from the main doorway. They were Fabian's
wife and Junia.
Barode Barouche came out of the hall before Carnac. His quick eye saw
the two ladies, and he raised his broad-brimmed hat like a Stuart
cavalier, and smiled.
"Waiting for your champion, eh?" he asked with cynical friendliness.
"Well, work hard, because that will soften his fall." He leaned over, as
it were confidentially, to them, while his friends craned their necks to
hear what he said: "If I were you I'd prepare him. He's beaten as sure
as the sun shines."
Junia was tempted to say what was in her mind, but her sister Sibyl, who
resented Barouche's patronage, said:
"There's an old adage about the slip 'twixt the cup and the lip, Monsieur
Barouche.
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