Their heads assented, and their eyes fell:  three narrow-shouldered men, their faces with the pallor of the town still upon them after six months on the land; three men whom a fancy had torn from counter, office, piano-stool-from the only lives for which they were bred.  For it is not the peasant alone who suffers by uprooting from his native soil.  They were seeing their mistake, and knew they were too unlike in grain to copy those about them; lacking the strength, the rude health, the toughened fibre, that training for every task which fits the Canadian to be farmer, woodsman or carpenter, according to season and need.

The father was dreamily shaking his head, lost in thought; one of the sons, elbows on knees, gazed wonderingly at the palms of his delicate hands, calloused by the rough work of the fields.  All three seemed to be turning over and over in their minds the melancholy balance-sheet of a failure.  Those about them were thinking—­ “Lorenzo sold his place for more than it was worth; they have but little money left and are in hard case; men like these are not built for living on the land.”

Madame Chapdelaine, partly in pity and partly for the honour of farming, let fall a few encouraging words:—­” It is something of a struggle at the beginning-if you are not used to it; but when your land is in better order you will see that life becomes easier.”

“It is a queer thing,” said Conrad Neron, “how every man finds it equally hard to rest content.  Here are three who left their homes and came this long way to settle and farm, and here am I always saying to myself that nothing would be so pleasant as to sit quietly in an office all the day, a pen behind my ear, sheltered from cold wind and hot sun.”

“Everyone to his own notion,” declared Lorenzo Surprenant, with unbiassed mind.

“And your notion is not to stick in Hon-fleur sweating over the stumps,” added Racicot with a loud laugh.

“You are quite right there, and I make no bones about it; that sort of thing would never have suited me.  These men here bought my land-a good farm, and no one can gainsay it.  They wanted to buy a farm and I sold them mine.  But as for myself, I am well enough where I am, and have no wish to return.”

Madame Chapdelaine shook her head.  “There is no better life than the life of a farmer who has good health and owes no debts.  He is a free man, has no boss, owns his beasts, works for his own profit ...  The finest life there is!”

“I hear them all say that,” Lorenzo retorted, one is free, his own master.  And you seem to pity those who work in factories because they have a boss, and must do as they are told.  Free-on the land-come now!” He spoke defiantly, with more and more animation.