Pierre and his People, Volume 2

The missionary at Fort Anne of the H. B. C. was violently in earnest. / Before he piously followed the latest and most amply endowed batch of / settlers, who had in turn preceded the new railway to the Fort, the word / scandal had no place in the vocabulary of the citizens. The H. B. C. had / never imported it into the Chinook language, the common meeting-ground of / all the tribes of the North; and the British men and native-born, who / made the Fort their home, or place of sojourn, had never found need for / its use. Justice was so quickly distributed, men were so open in their / conduct, good and bad, that none looked askance, nor put their actions in / ambush, nor studied innuendo. But this was not according to the new / dispensation -- that is, the dispensation which shrewdly followed the / settlers, who as shrewdly preceded the railway. And, the dispensation / and the missionary were known also as the Reverend Ezra Badgley, who, on / his own declaration, in times past had "a call" to preach, and in the far / East had served as local preacher, then probationer, then went on / circuit, and now was missionary in a district of which the choice did / credit to his astuteness, and gave room for his piety and for his holy / rage against the Philistines. He loved a word for righteous mouthing, / and in a moment of inspiration pagan and scandal came to him. Upon these / two words he stamped, through them he perspired mightily, and with them / he clenched his stubby fingers -- such fingers as dug trenches, or snatched / lewdly at soft flesh, in days of barbarian battle. To him all men were / Pagans who loved not the sound of his voice, nor wrestled with him in / prayer before the Lord, nor fed him with rich food, nor gave him much / strong green tea to drink.

But these men were of opaque stuff, and were / not dismayed, and they called him St. Anthony, and with a prophetic and / deadly patience waited. The time came when the missionary shook his / denouncing finger mostly at Pretty Pierre, who carefully nursed his / silent wrath until the occasion should arrive for a delicate revenge / which hath its hour with every man, if, hating, he knows how to bide the / will of Fate.