Book Three Chapter 18 A Great Decision

As the autumn drew near excitement increased. Political meetings were being held everywhere. There was one feature more common in Canada than in any other country; opposing candidates met on the same platform and fought their fight out in the hearing of those whom they were wooing. One day Carnac read in a newspaper that Barode Barouche was to speak at St. Annabel. As that was not far from Charlemont he determined to hear Barouche for the first time. He had for him a sympathy which, to himself, seemed a matter of temperament.

"Mother," he said, "wouldn't you like to go and hear Barode Barouche at St. Annabel? You know him--I mean personally?"

"Yes, I knew him long ago," was the scarcely vocal reply.

"He's a great, fine man, isn't he? Wrong-headed, wrong-purposed, but a big fine fellow."

"If a man is wrong-headed and wrong-purposed, it isn't easy for him to be fine, is it?"

"That depends. A man might want to save his country by making some good law, and be mistaken both as to the result of that law and the right methods in making it. I'd like you to be with me when I hear him for the first time. I've got a feeling he's one of the biggest men of our day. Of course he isn't perfect. A man might want to save another's life, but he might choose the wrong way to do it, and that's wrongheaded; and perhaps he oughtn't to save the man's life, and that's wrong-purposed. There's no crime in either. Let's go and hear Monsieur Barouche."