Читать книгу 47 Sorrows - Janet Kellough - Страница 6

Rumball kept them to a strict schedule, and each time they stopped it seemed to Luke that he was out of the cart for only a minute or two before he had to climb back up and continue their bumpy journey. The road had at one point been cleared to a width of sixty feet or so, but, except in the places where the settlers themselves kept the brush cleared back, bushy growth and spindly saplings had gained a toehold and threatened to reclaim the trail. The spring rains had left deep ruts wherever a vehicle had passed, and Luke feared for their wagon’s axle every time a wheel slid into one of these.

After many hours on the road, however, they drove into Galt and across the bridge that spanned the Grand River. It seemed a very built-up and crowded place to Luke, after his years in the sparsely settled area to the north. The town boasted three-storey buildings, a towering mill, and a number of fine stone houses, odd contrasts to the log shanties and cabins he had become used to.

He parted company with Rumball at Shade’s Inn, where he discovered that he had two options for continuing his journey. He could board the stage that left daily for Guelph, and go by land from there to Toronto, or he could find his way to Burlington Bay and catch a steamer from there.

He had arrived in Galt too late to catch the connection to either Guelph or to Dundas, where he needed to get in order to board a steamer. It was already late afternoon. Whichever he chose, he needed to find some place to spend the night. He was loathe to spend money on an inn. He had counted his money up carefully and calculated his costs as far as he was able, but wasting money now could result in hardship later on. He debated asking the local livery stable if he could bed down in their hayloft, but then he had another thought.

He stopped the first respectable-looking gentleman he met on the street.

“Excuse me, sir, can you tell me whether or not there might be a Methodist meeting house nearby?”

The man looked startled at the question, as though he had expected to be asked the location of the nearest tavern, not a church, and Luke became aware of his travel-stained coat and the dirt of the road that had settled on his trousers.

“Just over on the next street,” the man said, pointing to the end of a substantial brick building. “As soon as you round the corner, you’ll see the steeple.”

Luke touched the brim of his hat in thanks, and headed in the direction the man had pointed.

He found a bit of luck when he reached the meeting house. A class meeting had evidently just finished, and a group of soberly clad women were filing out the front door, the minister just behind them.

“Excuse me, sir,” Luke said when he saw the man. “I wonder if I might trouble you for a moment?”

All of the women stopped, eager to overhear what this young stranger might have to say.

The minister looked startled, but friendly enough. “Of course, of course, what could I do for you? If it’s a private affair, we could go back inside.” But he was already securing the lock on the door as he said it.

“Oh no, that’s all right,” Luke said, smiling. “I have no secrets.” His purposes would be better met with the women there to overhear. “My father is a Methodist minister, and I thought that, as I was nearby, I would stop and pay my respects. I know he would want me to.”

He had the minister’s full attention, and that of the group of women as well.

“Now, that’s fine.” The minister beamed. “And what is your father’s name then? I probably know him. There aren’t so many of us that we’re strangers to each other.”

“He’s retired now, of course, but he spent many years as an itinerant preacher. His name is Thaddeus Lewis.” And then Luke held his breath. He had not been able to ascertain if this church was Wesleyan Methodist or Methodist Episcopal, and hard feelings over the failed union of the two denominations had yet to settle entirely.

He hadn’t taken into account his father’s notoriety.

“Oh, my goodness, Thaddeus Lewis. I haven’t met him personally, of course, since we’re a Wesleyan congregation, but everyone knows of your father, after all that unpleasantness a few years ago. Retired, you say? That’s a shame. The church has lost a good man. Awfully good of you to pass on his respects. But tell me, what brings you to these parts?”

Luke was a little taken aback. He was perfectly willing to trade on his father’s good name as a preacher. He hadn’t expected to be welcomed on the strength of Thaddeus’s reputation as a solver of crimes. He hoped that if he were indeed offered a bed for the night, he wouldn’t be expected to regale his host with details of the infamous Simms killings, or his father’s role in the discovery of a murderous wild boy in the sand hills of Wellington. Such lurid tales were novelties, he supposed, and apparently people had little else to talk about, but he had recounted what little detail he knew far too many times.

“I’m on my way to visit my father,” he said in reply to the preacher’s question. “Unfortunately, I seem to have missed the last stage. I could walk it, but I don’t fancy navigating the way by moonlight.”

“Very wise, very wise,” the preacher said. “There’s a rough crowd on the roads these days. All the emigrants coming in — they all say they’re looking for work, but when they don’t find it, they have no compunction about taking what they need.”

Luke wondered if the brother of the man from the Irish settlement was one of these, and if the want of a few coppers was enough to turn him into a thief. He resolved to make every effort to find Charley Gallagher.

One of the women stepped forward then. She had had time to get a close look at Luke’s cheap and travel-worn apparel. “Have you a place for tonight?” she asked.

“I thought I’d just ask the local livery if I could bed down in the straw,” he said. “But from what you tell me, strangers aren’t exactly welcome these days.”

The woman turned to the preacher. “This boy can stay with us if he likes. It would be an honour to have the son of such a famous preacher.” She turned back to Luke. “I’m afraid our little house is quite full, but you’re welcome to a meal and the kitchen bed if you can find no better.”

The other women looked quite put out. They hadn’t spoken up soon enough and now they’d been trumped.

“I’d be much obliged, ma’am,” Luke said. It might cost him a few tales about his father, and perhaps a prayer or two, but the Methodists had not failed him, bless their hearts.

Luke found not only a bed and a meal, but a ride. The Methodist woman, whose name was Mrs. Howard, was married to a book merchant who, as it happened, had business in the town of Guelph the next day. Mr. Howard was perfectly happy to accommodate a travelling companion, and they set off the next morning after what seemed to Luke a rather late breakfast. It was fully eight o’clock by the time Howard collected a horse and trap from the nearby stable.

The Guelph Road was very busy in comparison to the Huron Road, where he and Rumball had sometimes driven for miles without encountering another soul. Now Luke saw everything from coaches to smart traps, farm wagons, single horsemen, and pedestrians heading west toward Galt.

Mr. Howard obligingly deposited him at the coach inn, where he had only a short wait before he climbed aboard a stage for the final leg of the journey to Toronto. He found himself sharing the coach with a well-dressed man and an older woman. The woman snatched her skirts away from Luke’s dusty boots when he climbed in to sit beside her, but the man seemed friendly enough and inclined to chat.

He was a lawyer, he said, on his way back to Toronto after trying a case in Guelph. “A nasty case of aggravated assault. It’s a wonder the victim survived at all, and I’m sure he won’t be quite right as the result of it. Culprit safely locked away now, of course.”

“One of the Irish, I suppose,” sniffed the woman. “They’re causing trouble everywhere.”

“On the contrary,” the lawyer replied. “Boy from quite a good family, in fact. Just goes to show that you can never tell.”

As they continued east, they were passed by a great number of wagons, carts, and drays piled high with luggage and household goods.

“Where is everyone going?” Luke asked. “It looks like the whole world is moving house.”

“They are,” the woman said. “Everyone who has somewhere else to go is getting away from the ports, because of the malignant fever. My daughter lives just on the outskirts of Toronto, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m on my way to collect her now. She and the children will stay with me until the contagion passes. It’s the emigrants, you see. They’ve brought it with them and now it’s spreading everywhere.”

“Malignant fever?” Luke had heard of it, but only in passing. Cholera was the usual companion of emigration, and even in his short life there had been a number of epidemics that had raged through Upper Canada.

“That and ship’s fever,” the lawyer said, “although I’m not sure if they’re one and the same. Any emigrant who looks ill is supposed to be held in quarantine, but it seems as though a dreadful number of them are slipping through.”

As they passed the long miles, the traffic increased, although it began to change in nature. Those who were walking were, for the most part, respectable-looking enough — farmwives or labourers — but here and there they would pass knots of sullen-looking men who could have done duty as scarecrows placed in a field of grain to chase the birds away. These men would step aside and let them pass, but they grumbled as they did so. Occasionally, it appeared that there were whole families trudging along the road, wives and children straggling along in the rear, ragged, thin, and scowling.

They were like grey shadowy wraiths on the road, haunting the lanes with their cheekbones jutting in reproach. What work could these thin ghosts find in a land that was still being wrested away from the trees, and whose soil was so recently broken to the plow? No one would hire these men, Luke knew, even if there hadn’t been fear of the diseases they brought.

It was well after noon when the coach halted at a stop in order to water the horses. Luke climbed down, weary from the ride, and walked across the road to where a large oak tree offered a shady place to sit. As he left Galt, the good Mrs. Howard had pressed a box on him. Now he opened it to discover most of a loaf of bread and a large wedge of cheese wrapped in cloth.

As he lowered himself down on the soft grass, he noticed a woman and a boy sitting in a heap beside the watering trough. The woman seemed exhausted and indifferent to their arrival, huddled into the tatters of clothing that hung off her. But the boy eyed him curiously, his eyes widening at what had been hidden by the cloth. Luke was ravenous, and stuffed a huge piece of the crusty bread into his mouth. But he was disconcerted by the boy’s stare. He pulled another chunk from the loaf and held it out.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Would you like this?”

The boy jumped to his feet and ran forward, snatching the bread from Luke’s hand. He returned to the woman, tore the bread in two, and handed her a piece.

Roused from her apathy, the woman looked up.

“Go raibh mile maith agat,” she called in a lilting cadence. “Bless you, sir.”

“Is your name Gallagher by any chance?” Luke called. A woman and a boy travelling alone didn’t exactly fit the description of Henry Gallagher’s brother, but it was worth asking in case they knew of the missing Irishman.

The woman shook her head and turned her face away.

Luke returned to his meal, but he couldn’t bring himself to eat it all. When it appeared that the coach was ready to continue its journey, he wrapped another chunk of the bread and a small piece of cheese in the cloth and handed it to the boy before he once again boarded the stage.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” the lawyer said. “If that’s the way you’re going to go on, you’ll have every beggar in the Canadas following you about.”

“It’s only one boy,” Luke said, “and he looks starved.”

The lawyer grunted, but remonstrated no further. The woman glared at him, and pulled herself as far into the corner as she could.