So it is not strange that the Canadian peasant dwells in a world charged with the supernatural.  Night furnishes the opportunity for goblins to be abroad; the flickering lights on the marshes are goblin fires.  Then, too, the vagrant dead wander about restlessly, sinful souls refused entrance to Heaven until they have sought and secured adequate prayers for their pardon and relief.  To cross a cemetery at night might attract the fatal vengeance of the dead thus disturbed.  The grumbling mendicant at the door may really be an evil spirit bent on mischief.  With a few, magic and the gift of the evil eye are still dreaded forces and it is well to know some charm by which evil may be averted.  Since night is the time of danger, if abroad then be watchful; if at home close doors and windows, ere you go to sleep.  I was once on a fishing expedition with habitant guides when we had to share the same cabane.  The air becoming insufferable, I got up quietly, opened the door and went back to bed.  Presently I heard one of the guides steal softly to the door and close it.  When I thought he was asleep I opened it again.  But in vain; once more it was closed.  In the morning nothing was said about it.  Certainly not cold was what he feared, for the weather was hot.  I do not think it was the mosquitoes.  Was it the goblins?

A simpler and touching faith is common.  Every one has noticed in the Province of Quebec the numerous crosses by the way side.  These Calvaires are of rough wood, usually eight or ten feet high; sometimes with the cross are the dread implements of Christ’s pain—­the crown of thorns, the hammer and nails, the executioner’s ladder, the Roman soldier’s spear.  Often at the foot is a box for alms to help the forgotten dead who are in purgatory.  As the habitant passes them he usually lifts his hat.  The Calvaires are a kind of domestic altar to which the people come.  In the summer evenings one may see a family grouped about them in prayer.  When there is need for special prayers, several families will come across the fields to meet at the Calvaire.  Dr. Henry, of whom more later, tells how at Malbaie some eighty years ago he found in the cottages social family worship night and morning.  It is to be feared that the present generation at Malbaie is less devout, corrupted it may be by the heretic visitors’ bad influence and example.  But still the guide with whom one goes camping rarely neglects his evening devotions.  In some families prayer sanctifies all the actions of the day.  There is prayer at rising, prayer at going to bed.  Though here, as in France, women are spoken of as only creatures, the mother is usually better educated than the father and often leads these devotions, the others joining in the responses.  Before meals is recited a prayer, usually the Benedicite.  There is often a family oratory and here at the appropriate seasons, in the month consecrated to the special family saint and guardian, in May, the Virgin’s month, in