CHAPTER LII

THE COMING OF BILLY

Chaudiere had made--and lost--a reputation. The Passion Play in the
valley had become known to a whole country--to the Cure's and the
Seigneur's unavailing regret. They had meant to revive the great story
for their own people and the Indians--a homely, beautiful object-lesson,
in an Eden--like innocence and quiet and repose; but behold the world had
invaded them! The vanity of the Notary had undone them. He had written
to the great papers of the province, telling of the advent of the play,
and pilgrimages had been organised, and excursions had been made to the
spot, where a simple people had achieved a crude but noble picture of the
life and death of the Hero of Christendom. The Cure viewed with
consternation the invasion of their quiet. It was no longer his own
Chaudiere; and when, on a Sunday, his dear people were jostled from the
church to make room for strangers, his gentle eloquence seemed to forsake
him, he spoke haltingly, and his intoning of the Mass lacked the old
soothing simplicity.

"Ah, my dear Seigneur!" he said, on the Sunday before the playing was to
end, "we have overshot the mark."

The Seigneur nodded and turned his head away. "There is an English play
which says, 'I have shot mine arrow o'er the house and hurt my brother.'
That's it--that's it! We began with religion, and we end with greed,
and pride, and notoriety."