The World for Sale, Complete Read online

  Produced by David Widger

  THE WORLD FOR SALE

  By Gilbert Parker

  CONTENTS:

  PRELUDE

  BOOK I I. "THE DRUSES ARE UP!" II. THE WHISPER FROM BEYOND III. CONCERNING INGOLBY AND THE TWO TOWNS IV. THE COMING OF JETHRO FAWE V. "BY THE RIVER STARZKE... IT WAS SO DONE" VI. THE UNGUARDED FIRES VII. IN WHICH THE PRISONER GOES FREE

  BOOK II VIII. THE SULTAN IX. MATTER AND MIND AND TWO MEN X. FOR LUCK XI. THE SENTENCE OF THE PATRIN XII. "LET THERE BE LIGHT" XIII. THE CHAIN OF THE PAST XIV. SUCH THINGS MAY NOT BE XV. THE WOMAN FROM WIND RIVER XVI. THE MAYOR FILLS AN OFFICE XVII. THE MONSEIGNEUR AND THE NOMAD XVIII. THE BEACONS XIX. THE BEEPER OF THE BRIDGE

  BOOK III XX. TWO LIFE PIECES XXI. THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER XXII. THE SECRET MAN XXIII. THE RETURN OF BELISARIUS XXIV. AT LONG LAST XXV. MAN PROPOSES XXVI. THE SLEEPER XXVII. THE WORLD FOR SALE

  INTRODUCTION

  'The World for Sale' is a tale of the primitive and lonely West andNorth, but the primitiveness and loneliness is not like that to be foundin 'Pierre and His People'. Pierre's wanderings took place in a periodwhen civilization had made but scant marks upon the broad bosom of theprairie land, and towns and villages were few and far scattered. TheLebanon and Manitou of this story had no existence in the time ofPierre, except that where Manitou stands there was a Hudson's BayCompany's post at which Indians, half-breeds, and chance settlersoccasionally gathered for trade and exchange-furs, groceries, clothing,blankets, tobacco, and other things; and in the long winters the postwas as isolated as an oasis in the Sahara.

  That old life was lonely and primitive, but it had its compensatingbalance of bright sun, wild animal life, and an air as vivid and virileas ever stirred the veins of man. Sometimes the still, bright cold wasbroken by a terrific storm, which ravaged, smothered, and entombed thestray traveller in ravines of death. That was in winter; but insummer, what had been called, fifty years ago, an alkali desert was aneverlasting stretch of untilled soil, with unsown crops, and hereand there herds of buffalo, which were stalked by alert Red Indians,half-breeds, and white pioneer hunters.

  The stories in 'Pierre and His People' were true to the life of thattime; the incidents in 'The World for Sale', and the whole narrative,are true to the life of a very few years ago. Railways have piercedand opened up lonely regions of the Sagalae, and there are two thrivingtowns where, in the days of Pierre, only stood a Hudson's Bay Company'spost with its store. Now, as far as eye can see, vast fields of graingreet the eye, and houses and barns speckle the greenish brown or Tuscanyellow of the crop-covered lands, while towns like Lebanon and Manitouprovide for the modern settler all the modern conveniences which sciencehas given to civilized municipalities. Today the motor-car and thetelephone are as common in such places as they are in a thriving townof the United Kingdom. After the first few days of settlement two thingsalways appear--a school-house and a church. Probably there is no countryin the world where elementary education commands the devotion andthe cash of the people as in English Canada; that is why the towns ofLebanon and Manitou had from the first divergent views. Lebanonwas English, progressive, and brazenly modern; Manitou was slow,reactionary, more or less indifferent to education, and strenuouslyCatholic, and was thus opposed to the militant Protestantism of Lebanon.

  It was my idea to picture a situation in the big new West where destinyis being worked out in the making of a nation and the peopling of thewastes. I selected a very modern and unusual type of man as the centralfigure of my story. He was highly educated, well born, and carefullybrought up. He possessed all the best elements of a young man in a newcountry--intelligent self-dependence, skill, daring, vision. He had anoriginal turn of mind, and, as men are obliged to do in new countries,he looked far ahead. Yet he had to face what pioneers and reformers inold countries have to face, namely the disturbance of rooted interests.Certainly rooted interests in towns but a generation old cannot beextensive or remarkable, but if they are associated with habits andprinciples, they may be as deadly as those which test the qualitiesand wreck the careers of men in towns as old as London. The difference,however, between the old European town and the new Western town is thatdifferences in the Western town are more likely to take physical form,as was the case in the life of Ingolby. In order to accentuate theprimitive and yet highly civilized nature of the life I chose my heroinefrom a race and condition more unsettled and more primitive than that ofLebanon or Manitou at any time. I chose a heroine from the gipsy race,and to heighten the picture of the primitive life from which she hadcome I made her a convert to the settled life of civilization. I hadknown such a woman, older, but with the same characteristics, the samestruggles, temptations, and suffering the same restriction of her lifeand movements by the prejudice in her veins--the prejudice of racialpredilection.

  Looking at the story now after its publication, I am inclined to thinkthat the introduction of the gipsy element was too bold, yet I believeit was carefully worked out in construction, and was a legitimate,intellectual enterprise. The danger of it was that it might detract fromthe reality and vividness of the narrative as a picture of Western life.Most American critics of the book seem not to have been struck by thisdoubt which has occurred to me. They realize perhaps more faithfullythan some of the English critics have done that these mad contrasts areby no means uncommon in the primitive and virile life of the West andNorth. Just as California in the old days, just as Ballaret in Australiadrew the oddest people from every corner of the world, so Western towns,with new railways, brought strange conglomerations into the life. Forinstance, a town like Winnipeg has sections which represent the life ofnearly every race of Europe, and towns like Lebanon and Manitou, withEnglish and French characteristics controlling them mainly, are still assubject to outside racial influences as to inside racial antagonisms.

  I believe The World for Sale shows as plainly as anything can showthe vexed and conglomerate life of a Western town. It shows how racialcharacteristics may clash, disturb, and destroy, and yet how wisdom,tact, and lucky incident may overcome almost impossible situations. Theantagonisms between Lebanon and Manitou were unwillingly and unjustlydeepened by the very man who had set out to bring them together, as oneof the ideals of his life, and as one of the factors of his success.Ingolby, who had everything to gain by careful going, almost wrecked hisown life, and he injured the life of the two towns by impulsive acts.

  The descriptions of life in the two towns are true, and the chiefcharacters in the book are lifted out of the life as one has seen it.Men like Osterhaut and Jowett, Indians like Tekewani, doctors likeRockwell, priests like Monseigneur Fabre, ministers like Mr. Tripple,and ne'er-do-weels like Marchand may be found in many a town of the Westand North. Naturally the book must lack in something of that magneticpicturesqueness and atmosphere which belongs to the people in theProvince of Quebec. Western and Northern life has little of the settledcharm which belongs to the old civilization of the French province. Theonly way to recapture that charm is to place Frenchmen in the West,and have them act and live--or try to act and live--as they do in oldQuebec.

  That is what I did with Pierre in my first book of fiction, Pierre andHis People, but with the exception of Monseigneur Fabre there is noFrenchman in this book who fulfils, or could fulfil, the temperamentalplace which I have indicated. Men like Monseigneur Fabre have livedin the West, and worked and slaved like him, blest and beloved by allclasses, creeds, and races. Father Lacombe was one of them. The part heplayed in the life of Western
Canada will be written some day by one whounderstands how such men, celibate, and dedicated to religious life, mayplay a stupendous part in the development of civilization. Something ofhim is to be found in my description of Monseigneur Fabre.

  NOTE

  This book was begun in 1911 and finished in 1913, a year before warbroke out. It was published serially in the year 1915 and the beginningof 1916. It must, therefore, go to the public on the basis of its meritsalone, and as a picture of the peace-life of the great North West.