On the Head of a Pin

by Janet Kellough

  “All people that on earth do dwell,” Simpson sang out. As well as being a fine exhorter, he had a good ear and a deep baritone voice that carried well.

  “All people that on earth do dwell,” three hundred voices sang back at him. Lewis noticed Rachel’s was not one of them. She did, however, have rather a rapt expression on her face, and when the crowd began to clap their hands in time, she joined in.

  “Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.”

  “Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,” came the response. Lewis was rather sorry that the crowd had started to clap, though, as it made the song sound like a march, and dragged the tempo down.

  By the time the next speaker climbed the platform, Lewis was aware that the sun was beating down on his neck and he turned to find his way to a shadier spot. As he and Rachel threaded their way through to the back, he asked, “Why didn’t you sing along with the hymn?”

  “I’ve not sung enough to develop any kind of voice.” She laughed. “Truth be told, I can scarcely carry a tune. I’ve always liked that particular hymn, though. It’s rather lovely, isn’t it?”

  She was right. It was lovely, and as much as he didn’t much like these meetings, he did like to hear all those voices singing together, especially when it was “The Old Hundredth,” one of his favourites.

  “You should sing anyway,” he said. “The Lord doesn’t mind if it’s not in tune.”

  “But the people standing next to me might. It would certainly drive all the loveliness out of the hymn.” She giggled as she said this, and he could do nothing but smile back at her.

  He left her with Minta, and was immediately claimed by Mr. Varney, who wanted to rehash the incident in the Demorestville churchyard, and Mrs. Varney, who wanted to fill him in on the shortcomings of those who had stepped forward during the morning.

  “That girl with the yellow hair is no better than she should be,” she said. “I sincerely hope she’s found the Lord and will mend her ways.”

  “Well, be assured the Lord can work miracles,” he replied.

  “I notice that Rachel Jessup was sticking pretty close to you. Is she thinking of joining the society?”

  “I don’t know. She’s here with her sister-in-law and was only standing with me because Minta needed to sit down.”

  “Poor Minta — married to that great hulk of a man. You can tell he’s a brute just by the look of him. I suppose she’s expecting and that’s why she looks so tired.”

  He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if he had been given that information in confidence or not and, after all, Betsy had already figured it out. He had just about decided that it didn’t matter when Mrs. Varney went on.

  “You can tell, with some of them. They start looking peaky as soon as the child starts. Some women just aren’t cut out for easy childbirth. I suppose that’s why Rachel is living with them, to help out.”

  “Yes, that’s my understanding.”

  Mrs. Varney snorted. “I don’t know how much help she is. Every time you look around there’s a mob of boys around her. Not that I’ve ever heard anything against the girl, mind, but you have to wonder. They always say that where there’s smoke, there’s sure to be fire. You just really have to wonder.”

  “Well, no, Mrs. Varney, you don’t. You don’t have to wonder at all.” He nodded his goodbyes and began to walk around the edge of the crowd, many of whom were lighting fires in preparation for the evening meal while giving half an ear to the preacher on the platform.

  He stepped around old folks, mothers and babies, and small children playing at the edge of the field. As he picked his way through an entire encampment of what seemed to be one huge, extended family, he stumbled into the small weaselly boy that Rachel had commented on with disgust, who had been picking his way in the opposite direction.

  “Isn’t this wonderful,” he exclaimed when he realized that he had bumped into a minister. “It’s incredible to see the spirit of the Lord at work. By the way, I saw that you were standing with Rachel Jessup. You don’t happen to know which way she went, do you?”

  So, he had been right. Morgan Spicer’s mind had been on girls instead of on the Lord.

  “I believe she’s sitting with her sister-in-law at the other side of the field,” he said. “What did you want her for?”

  He seemed a little taken aback at the directness of the question. “Why, to let her know that I’m saved, that I have seen the glory of the Lord. Besides, I have a present for her.”

  He opened his hand to show Lewis one of the little pocket-sized books that were for sale all over the campground. This one had a cheap red leather cover, the colour from which was already smudging the boy’s hands. The print inside was minute, so small that he had to squint to make any of it out. It consisted of the Book of Proverbs, an odd choice for a young man to give to a girl, he would have thought. Several sections of the Bible had been bound up separately, some in red covers, some in green, still others in brown, but all of them cheaply made and sure to fall apart with much use. He wondered why these miniature unreadable trinkets were so popular. The young man looked pleased with his purchase, though, so he kept his comments to himself. He shrugged. “Well, carry on then.”

  He knew Spicer was expecting him to rejoice, to congratulate him on being saved, but the truth was that he wasn’t at all sure that there was anything to rejoice about. It had happened too easily, in too mealy-mouthed a way to sit comfortably. He’d wait and see the depth of the boy’s commitment before he offered any encouragement.

  He kept an eye on the weedy little figure as he continued his journey to the other side of the field, and noted that he was probably far too late to grab much of Rachel’s attention. She was already surrounded by a group of young men and was deep in conversation with one of the Caddick brothers.

  VI

  Upon his return home the next day, Betsy informed Lewis that some men had come to the house, again asking why her husband had not yet reported to Kingston.

  “I told them you’re a minister now and won’t fight. They said it didn’t matter, everyone was to report, and that if you didn’t, it would prove what everybody knows — that the Methodists are traitors. You won’t have to go, will you?”

  “I won’t go to fight, but I will have to go to Kingston and straighten it out,” he said. He had put it off too long already. He made arrangements with the local preachers to cover his meetings for a couple of days, repacked his saddle bag, and set off.

  As he picked his way along the road, he reflected that, conscience notwithstanding, he was happy of an excuse not to go to war again. He had been a young man when he fought the Americans in 1812, full of himself and ready to achieve glory. The reality of the thing had been quite different than he had imagined: smelly, noisy, chaotic, and at times terrifying. Blood, vomit, and lice had been everyday companions.

  When he wasn’t terrified, he had been bored. But it was those moments of terror that stuck with him most, those moments that still caused him to wake from the nightmares in a cold sweat. He had seen legs blown off, a man with half his face shot away, dead bodies stiffening in the winter wind.

  He’d got off lucky, in a way. He had fallen ill — a malady that later proved to be typhus — and he had been invalided home. After he had recovered, he’d begun to drink and had been drunk for fifty days straight, he was told, though he could scarcely remember any of it. He could only recall not wanting to remember anything about the war. After he recovered from his binge, he’d found both Betsy and the Lord in the same week. He felt sure that the juxtaposition was no accident. Without Betsy, he would never have realized the depths he’d sunk to; without the Lord, he wasn’t sure that Betsy would have given him the time of day.

  He was perspiring by the time he reached the gates of the stone fort at Kingston, even though it was a brisk day and the wind was switching to the north. He asked the sentry if he could speak with the officer in charge.

  “Why do you want him?” the sentry asked in
that arrogant and challenging way that soldiers adopt when dealing with civilians.

  “That’s my business,” Lewis replied.

  “Are you ex-militia? If you’re militia that’s been called, you have to wait in the ready room.”

  “I’m ex-militia, but I have no intention of being called.”

  “You’ll have to wait in the ready room.”

  Lewis shrugged and went in the direction the sentry pointed.

  It was cold in the room; no one had made a fire for the soldiers being called in. The place was overflowing with grumbling farmers and tradesmen who were annoyed at the time that was being wasted while work waited for them at home. Lewis finally found a seat beside an old man who must have been seventy if he was a day.

  “Good afternoon,” the man said pleasantly, “although it could well be good evening by now.”

  “How long have you been waiting?” Lewis asked him.

  “I got here this morning.”

  This was unwelcome news. Lewis had been hoping to dispatch his business in a few minutes and be on his way back home.

  “Are you here for the fighting?” the old man wanted to know. “They say the Americans are coming across to burn Kingston.”

  “I was supposed to be, since I’m a militia veteran, but I won’t fight again. I’m a Methodist Episcopal minister, and I’m here to get an exemption.”

  The man peered at him closely, and Lewis realized that he was half-blind, his eyes clouded with a milky film. “Oh, I should have seen that you’re a man of the cloth. Of course you won’t fight, or at least not for anything less than men’s souls, eh?”

  “I should have thought that there was an age exemption as well,” Lewis said.

  “Oh, there is, there is. I ignored it. I don’t hold with revolutions or with Americans invading either, for that matter. Don’t care how bad things are, there’s no call for armed insurrection. Nasty things happen during revolutions, I tell you. Nasty, nasty things.”

  Lewis took a guess. “Loyalist?”

  “And proud of it. I was a young man back then in Dutchess County, New York. Had a wife and two children already. Damn Yankees came and took all my livestock on the first go round, then they came back and took the farm, too. I’d have stayed out of it if I could, but they didn’t leave me much choice. Fought with Rogers’ Rangers on the British side just to get back at them. Settled up here on land the government gave me for fighting. Fought them again in 1812 … lost my oldest son in that one … and I’m telling you, I’ll fight them again tomorrow before I let them take one damn thing more from me … pardon my language there, Preacher.”

  He took great rasping breaths between sentences and Lewis realized that he suffered from emphysema as well as being old and blind.

  “You know, whenever people take things into their own hands … the only ones who suffer … are the good hard-working folks who have better things to do with their time.” The man subsided into an exhausted silence.

  Lewis smiled. He’d heard much the same sentiments from the older folks on any of the circuits that had been settled by United Empire Loyalists, those Americans who had stayed true to the King during the Revolutionary War and who had been hounded out of the States for their pains. They had a basic mistrust of rabble-rousers, and with good reason, he figured. It was ironic that many of these were now the same people who were viewed with suspicion by the government as harbouring pro-American sentiments, an opinion based almost solely on their stubborn refusal to accept the established religion. How many times do you have to prove your loyalty?

  He sat for another hour while the old-timer got his sec–ond wind and rambled on. Every once in a while someone would get up and disappear somewhere on the other side of the parade ground, but would almost immediately be re–placed by someone else coming in. The call for militia must have been quite general, but what on earth they were going to do with the old fellow next to him, he had no idea.

  He was about to get up and go looking for something to eat when an officer in a commandant’s uniform strode through the room. He looked neither to the left nor the right, but Lewis realized that this must be the man he was looking for, and rose to block his path.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” the man said impatiently.

  “You can give me an exemption.”

  “What? Former militia? Been pestered into coming here?”

  Lewis smiled. “Yes, that’s about it.”

  The officer snorted. “Honestly, I don’t know what they’re thinking. Anyone can see that you’re a preacher. Preachers and old men — what am I supposed to do with any of you? Have you got your papers?”

  Lewis nodded.

  “Follow me.”

  Lewis almost had to run to keep up with him. They entered a small office, and the officer rummaged through a pile of papers and extracted a form.

  “Let’s see them, then.” He held out his hand. Lewis passed him his documents.

  “Oh … Methodist. Been having a rough time of it?”

  “There are some who seem to think that just because my church originated in America that that is where my loyalties lie,” Lewis conceded.

  “Damn bunch of fools. Let me guess — your parents were Loyalists, you were born here, you fought in the War of 1812, and you’d be perfectly willing to fight again except for the fact that you’ve found the Lord.”

  “All true, except for the last part. I don’t think I’d ever be willing to fight again. I saw too much the last time around.”

  He knew he was taking a chance by saying this, but the officer didn’t strike him as the sort of man who would take offence at an honest statement.

  He didn’t. He treated him to a penetrating stare, then signed the form with a flourish.

  “There you go, Preacher. And if I were you, I’d be careful who you share your sentiments with.”

  Lewis nodded and was about to go, but turned back. “Just one thing …”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a blind old gaffer out in the ready room who’s determined to do his bit. Can you find something for him that wouldn’t be too taxing? You’ll break his heart if you send him home.”

  The officer heaved a sigh. “You know, I’ve got a whole platoon of old men who do nothing but sweep the parade ground every day because they’re not fit for anything else.” Then he smiled. “But I’ll do my best to get him enlisted again. Good luck.”

  VII

  The Wesleyans had been about their wicked work again, or so Lewis was informed the next time he rode into Demorestville. This was according to the Varneys, who were quite upset by it.

  “They’re telling everyone that Methodist Episcopals are American spies,” Mrs. Varney told him. “They’re saying that joining the Methodist Episcopal Church is an act of disloyalty and will be viewed as treason by the government.”

  “It nearly always has been viewed as the next thing to treason by the government,” Lewis returned mildly. “They’d have us all Anglicans, you know that. The Wesleyans would have us all Wesleyans. The only ones who seem able to leave us alone are the Quakers. Just ignore the talk. It will settle down as soon as somebody catches Bill Johnston.”

  The notorious pirate had been marauding up and down the St. Lawrence River again, and in that opportunistic way that all rogues have, seemed to have thrown his lot in with the bands of American Patriots who were determined to invade Canada and relieve its inhabitants of the yoke of British tyranny, whether they wanted relief or not. No one who lived along the shore of the St. Lawrence River felt entirely safe, but Johnston had a particular vindictiveness for anything British, and had masterminded what appeared to be retaliation for their sending The Caroline plummeting over Niagara Falls.

  The British ship Sir Robert Peel had been peacefully moored at Well’s Island when twenty-five of Johnston’s men, dressed as Indians, boarded it in the middle of the night. Armed to the teeth, they had forced the passengers into a small cabin on the shore, then sailed the ship off to loot it
at their leisure.

  Newspaper reports varied in the amount of booty Johnston took from the Peel. The rumour mill added and subtracted and embellished, but one thing was clear: the pirate had made off with the payroll intended for British troops in Canada, as well as a large quantity of the passengers’ valuables found aboard.

  “They say he took a hundred thousand pounds,” Mrs. Varney reported anxiously.

  “Nay, there’s never that much money in the whole world,” Varney said. “A hundred thousand American dollars, maybe.”

  “We’re all going to be murdered in our beds.” She sighed.

  “He’s a thief and a brigand, but I’ve never heard him described as a murderer,” Lewis pointed out.

  Mrs. Varney looked at him in wonderment. “Now, there’s a Christian attitude for you,” she said. “My goodness, you have charity even for a pirate.”

  “It’s not charity — it’s fact,” Lewis said. “I just don’t like all these wild rumours. The facts are the facts.”

  In any event, it appeared that the pirates had set the Peel on fire and left, and according to the newspapers, Johnston had taken to wearing the ship’s flag as a sash. True to form, he had the temerity to confirm these reports with a proclamation that was reprinted widely. In it he claimed to be a commander-in-chief in something called “the patriot service of Upper Canada” and took full responsibility for the attack on the Sir Robert Peel.

  His words both reassured Americans and threw down the gauntlet at Britain’s feet:

  My headquarters were an island in the St. Lawrence River without the jurisdiction of the United States, at a place named by me Fort Wallace. I am well acquainted with the boundary line, and know which of the islands do and which do not belong to the United States, and in the selected I wished to be positive and not locate within the jurisdiction of the United States, and had reference to the decision of the commissioners under the sixth article of the treaty of Ghent, done at Utica in the state of New York, 13th of June, 1822, I know the number of islands and by that decision, it was British territory.