Turncoat

by Don Gutteridge

  “Did Joshua press you for answers? Reasons? Your own opinion of Jesse’s state of mind before he died?”

  “Not directly. That wasn’t his way. But when I told him Jess was feelin’ low, I also explained about the state of the farm and what the future looked like to him back then. One day, Father just asked me to take him to one of the rallies. So I did. And he listened, as I already told you.”

  “He didn’t hint in any way that he thought Jesse might have been tempted by more radical forms of action?”

  “No.”

  “And you have no recollection of him remarking on anything unusual or suggestive that he might have found among Jesse’s effects or heard about Jesse from some third party?”

  “I was the one that sorted through my husband’s effects.”

  “Still, it’s difficult to believe that you and your father-in-law did not have, from time to time, some moments of severe disagreement. After all, he was accompanying you to Reform rallies, and presumably listening to their arguments, but, as you’ve pointed out, he remained a Tory and a supporter of the government you despise.”

  Beth didn’t answer, but he could see she was deep in thought.

  “Cobourg’s just over the creek!” Durfee called out.

  MARC’S KNOWLEDGE OF THE TOWNS OF Toronto, Hamilton, and London should have prepared him for the village of Cobourg, not yet confident enough to declare itself incorporated. There was a main thoroughfare—King Street, no less—with intersecting avenues and even, Beth told him, two or three concession roads running parallel to it farther north. But to one conditioned to expect cobbled roadways, brick buildings, gas lamps on every corner, tended gardens and stone fences, the rumble of hackney carriages, market wagons, and vegetable barrows, and the buzz and jostle of citizens on the go, Cobourg was a rude shock. The many log cabins and the few frame houses were largely obscured by clumps of untouched primeval forest. The roadbed was rutted solid from the last thaw and only somewhat smoothed out by packed snow. There were no sidewalks along the verges of King Street.

  Marc’s hosts vied with one another to point out to him the glories of the only stone church (“Presbyterian,” Emma added, “up there on William Street”), the simple, frame-built Congregational church (vast enough to entertain two hundred of the faithful), and at the junction of King and Division (the lone treeless intersection) the first stop on their journey: Benjamin Throop’s Emporium (a glorified general store). Kitty-corner to this squared-timber, two-storey commercial structure stood St. Peter’s Anglican Church.

  Hatch’s sleigh pulled up behind them a minute later. The women were left to forage through the emporium and, afterwards, walk across to St. Peter’s for their committee meeting. Goodall was to pick them up there at four o’clock and drive them up Division Street to the Township Hall for the political “picnic.” Sandwiches and cake for afternoon tea had already been packed in wicker hampers, as if it were July and the occasion pastoral. In the meantime, Hatch had agreed to meet the sheriff, not at the new courthouse and jail in Amherst just down the highway, but in the more commodious Cobourg Hotel.

  IN THE SHERIFF’S “OFFICE,” MARC WAS handed a mug of beer by the smaller of two constables and urged to tell his story. While the sheriff of the Newcastle District, Hamish MacLachlan, rocked back in a chair constructed for his considerable girth and backside, Marc recited his tale much as he had rehearsed it with Hatch (minus all but a dozen arguably necessary polysyllables). The young constables, part-time supernumeraries or deputies like the miller, were so awed they forgot to sample their complimentary beer. But the sheriff himself showed no reaction beyond an occasional pull on his pipe.

  “Well, what do you think, Hamish?” Hatch said when Marc had finished.

  MacLachlan put out a boot to slow his rocking. “What you’ve got there, son, is one helluva bowl of beans—and no fart.”

  Marc was not deflated by the sheriff’s summary judgment. Nor was the sheriff offended by Marc’s intrusion into local affairs. If Sir John and his successor wished to waste the time of an energetic young ensign on such a fool’s errand, then it was no skin off his nose, especially if it meant no effort on his part. Besides, he was far too beset by immediate problems, like the potential firestorm out at the Township Hall.

  “I could use another pair of strong arms out there,” he said to Marc. “And that flamin’ red petticoat of yours won’t be a hindrance either. Too bad ya didn’t bring your sword, and a Brown Bess with a bayonet.”

  “He’s exaggerating a tad,” Hatch ventured.

  “You know perfectly well, Hatch old man, there’s lunatics on either fringe, and it’s a bitch to try and look over both yer shoulders at the same time.”

  “You’re not anticipating a Tory riot?” Marc said with a glance at Hatch.

  “No, but Ogle Gowan’s Orange Lodgers have been spotted over in Durham County holdin’ powwows, or whatever monarchist, anti-papist mumbo-jumbo they get up to when they’re well liquored and foamin’ at the mouth.”

  “What about the Hunters’ Lodges?” Marc said.

  “Never heard of ’em, but they probably exist, if only to keep me from my good wife’s bed. You fellas can take your cutter or ride with the constables here, but one way or t’other, I’m gonna need all of ya. I’ve outlawed all liquor in the hall and, of course, there’ll be no weapons of any kind, not even a gardenin’ trowel. Transgressors’ll be bounced out pronto. I’m also gonna patrol the grounds and privies, and empty every jug and teapot I see.”

  When Marc looked skeptical, MacLachlan added: “You can be sure Mad Annie’s brood’ll be somewhere nearby. If you sight any one of them cretins—male, female, or otherwise—I want ya to latch on and hold ’em down till I come with the irons.” He took a lusty pull at his beer. “Philander Child’s gonna be present to see the bylaws of the last quarter session are strictly enforced.”

  The young constables had finally noticed that their mugs were still full.

  “All right, lads, finish your drinks and be off. I’ll trot down on Old Chestnut in a while.” He winked. “My whistle ain’t quite wetted.”

  MARC STOOD SENTRY ON THE PORCH of the Hamilton Township Hall, the largest secular structure in the village, and watched with growing amazement the arrival of the Reform party’s adherents and detractors. They came by sled, sleigh, and cutter, pony and dray-horse, by shank’s mare and snowshoe, toboggan and skid and Norwegian skis; in family groupings, couples, and fraternal cliques. That the backwoods could harbour so many sentient beings without advertising their presence was in itself astonishing, but that somehow these scattered and bush-bound castaways from Britain and elsewhere could discover the date and locale of this political gathering, could find the time to consider its significance, and then arrange for their simultaneous arrival within the hour appointed—this was truly cause for wonder.

  For a few minutes Beth stood at Marc’s side greeting one newcomer after another by name, many of whom, to Marc’s consternation and concern, were women. “How did all these people find out about the rally?” Marc asked.

  “Well, most of us can read,” Beth said, “and the Cobourg Star gives us some practice once a week.”

  At five o’clock the front doors were closed. A few torches had already been lit inside under the supervision of Magistrate Child and the fire warden. The brand-new Rochester Pumping Wagon stood at the ready on Division Street. At his own watch, Marc heard the commotion at the rear of the hall as a sleighful of dignitaries apparently drew up in a lane behind the building and entered it via a vestibule presided over by the sheriff and the larger of the two constables. A raucous cheer, punctuated by hoots and catcalls, rose up. Marc hoped that Beth had kept her promise to stay close to the Durfees.

  Before going inside to monitor the proceedings, Marc circled the grounds of the hall and checked the privies. All seemed quiet. He lifted each of the several dozen confiscated jugs and jars near the front door: all were now empty. Next to these lay a jumble of wooden handles from farm
implements. The smaller constable was instructed to guard these rudimentary weapons, and keep an eye on traffic to and from the privies and the side door of the hall.

  Marc made note of the arrival of Azel and Lydia Stebbins, Israel Wicks with his two sons, an unsteady Orville Hislop, and, to his mild surprise, Elijah, the hired man. How had he got himself to town? For the briefest second, Marc’s eye caught Lydia’s as she brushed past him. She looked quickly away, but not before offering him the hint of a smile—mocking or conspiratorial, he could not tell.

  The fifteen or so women stood at the back of the hall near the double doors, not so much because their presence was considered inappropriate but because, in the event of a disturbance or fire, they could get out easily. James Durfee, though not officially deputized, stood watch for the women. Winnifred, Emma, and Beth were close beside him. Mary was with her sister—and many wives and children who had made the arduous trek with their husbands—a block away on King Street. Here, between the Cobourg Hotel and Throop’s Emporium, there was much socializing around several bonfires and in the “open-air parlours” of the bigger sleighs.

  Every one of the several hundred spectators inside the hall was standing, even though a number of benches were available on the periphery for the infirm or dyspeptic. The torches that lit the smoky, shadowed interior were set high on metal sconces on the walls. As Marc took up his assigned place between the podium and the side door, the first speaker was being introduced: Peter Perry, member of the Legislative Assembly for the nearby constituency of Lennox and Addington. A thunderous roar erupted as he stepped into an undulating pool of torchlight in the centre of the makeshift platform. His companions in the cause, four of them, were seated behind him, hidden in the oily darkness beyond the reach of torchlight.

  The crowd’s shouted approval rattled the windows and ricocheted into the rafters. Perry, a squat bulldog of a man stripped to his shirtsleeves and in fighting trim, began his speech at full throttle and cranked it upwards from there in carefully calibrated degrees of vehemence and mockery. His target was Sir John Colborne and the news that, in the final days of his regime, he had secretly signed a bill creating fifty-seven additional rectories for the Established Church, thereby adding a thousand or more acres to the already corrupt and bloated glebe lands of the Clergy Reserves.

  The crowd roared its disapproval as one. It cheered each note and jab of Perry’s defiance. The occasional dissenting “Nay” or “Shame” was drowned out instantly or used by Perry to goad the faithful to further indignation. The heat in the hall—the heat of exhaled rage, of bodies sweating in winter gear, of anticipation—was growing unbearable as Perry soared to the peak of his impassioned flight.

  “We shall no longer tolerate the insolence of high office, the flouting of His Majesty’s will by petty appointees of the colonial secretary, the hauteur of Rector John Strachan and his Anglican cronies, the daily repudiation of bills passed by the people’s duly elected Assembly! We will march through every village and town in this province and tear these ill-got rectories down, board by arrogant board!”

  During the tidal wave of applause that pursued Perry to his seat, Marc slipped out the side door. He breathed in several draughts of cold, fresh air and set about on the first of his half-hourly rounds. It was completely dark now. Marc studied the steady stream of men moving from hall door to privy and back. The glazed excitement in their eyes, like a flame under liquid wax, was not wholly due to the effects of the fiery rhetoric from the platform. Many, he suspected, would have concealed flasks to draw inspiration from as occasion demanded, but such a limited source could not account for the extent of the weaving and yawing in front of him.

  Half an hour later, after the third speaker, a failed Reform candidate from Kingston, had finished, Marc noticed a pronounced increase in the level of inebriation. The crowd, somewhat more subdued during the two speeches following Perry’s opening salvo, was pacing itself no doubt for the feature attraction yet to come. At the current rate of imbibing, Marc hoped it would come soon.

  “Where in Sam Hill are they getting the stuff?” Hatch said to him outside.

  “Damned if I can figure it.” The two men stared at the three privies carefully. They had been erected in such a way that they were set into a hedge-like row of cedars: to mute their vulgar presence perhaps, or to provide in the cedar fringe a ready alternative for male relief. Only some of the men here bothered to use a privy, but they were the ones for the most part doing the weaving and muttering. Marc took a quick look into each cubicle and in the near-dark could see nothing unusual. No jugs littered the floor or bench.

  As he turned back towards the hall, Marc heard a shout that he imagined might have risen from the Highlanders on their first charge at Culloden or King Billy’s Protestants at the Battle of the Boyne.

  WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE WAS CENTRE STAGE, the spot marked out for him by Destiny—God’s or the Devil’s, depending on your politics. The heat and stink of the room was overpowering, but the audience pressed forward so tightly that anyone fainting would remain upright and unnoticed. The double doors were open, the principal effect of which was to have the torches shudder more ominously in their tin calyxes and throw a less reliable light on the crowd below. Marc stood on a bench to better monitor the proceedings.

  Mackenzie, the Scots firebrand whose name Marc’s superiors had never uttered except in contempt, was surprisingly small. Even though he was swaddled in two greatcoats (of different colours), the thinness of his frame and fragility of his bones was evident—in the delicacy of his fingers, which probed and struck the air in rhetorical bursts, and in the dancer’s nimbleness of his feet, which hopped and paused in concert with his words. His head was absurdly large for such a body, as if it had been fashioned solely for the passion of public speech. His blue eyes blazed continuous outrage yet still found moments to dart and judge, or confer brief benediction on those few apostles positioned near enough to receive it. During the first minutes of his jeremiad, the crowd, even those who had been jeering bravely, went quiet, as if some stupefying awe had taken hold. Their messiah did not disappoint.

  He reviewed for them the long and sorrowful history of their attempts to gain a legitimate voice in those affairs of state that most affected their lives and the future of their children. There was no need to remind anyone in the room, he said, of the sacrifice already made by a populace comprised almost entirely of outcasts, voluntary exiles, and the dispossessed: ordinary men and women who, like their courageous counterparts in France and the United States, were to be numbered among those first generations of humankind who, in the simplicity of their conviction, said no to tyranny, laid their bodies naked before it, and proclaimed to all oppressed peoples of the Earth: “It shall not pass!”

  A rustling thrum and a sustained murmur began to resonate through the hall, wordless but nonetheless coordinated and edged with threat. Marc glanced anxiously towards the big doors but could see no one that mattered. A few souls—exhausted, drunk, or frightened—were slipping out into the night.

  The firebrand moved on to catalogue the most recent outrages, pausing between tirades for roars of approval and working the crowd like a seasoned tent-preacher, while his orange-red hair flared about his face like a demonic halo. The throng hooted and participated in his derision of Chief Justice Robinson and Attorney General Boulton and other charter members of the Family Compact who had three times had him expelled from the parliament to which he had been elected and defiantly re-elected. They laughed wildly when he recounted, with apt mimicry, the stunned response of said worthies when, unable to assume his lawful seat in the House, he had subsequently been elected the first mayor of the new city of Toronto. He paused, took a swig of water from a pitcher, ran his fingers through the shock of his hair, and glared out over the crowd as if seeing, beyond them, their common tormentors.

  He changed to the subject raised by his fellow legislator, Peter Perry: the fate of the Seventh Report on Grievances. One by one, and in a vo
ice now more terrible for its calculated restraint, he touched on the particular wounds that festered and burned amongst them: the Clergy Reserves, the ruinous lending policies of the Bank of Upper Canada, the rejection by the appointed Legislative Council of bill after bill that would alleviate their suffering, the graft and bumbling of the Welland Canal Company, the low prices of grain manipulated for the benefit of the mother country and its coddled emissaries here among the ruling clique, the greed and venality of district magistrates more arrogant than English squires or the absentee landlords of Scotland and Ireland.

  A chant now rose up from the throng, softening whenever Mackenzie hammered home a point and swelling to occupy even the briefest pause: “No more! No more! No more!”

  The rage had become contagious. The parishioners were slowly metamorphosing into a mob, with a mob’s unreasoned and overfocused hate, its craving for a scapegoat. Suddenly Marc realized that this kind of collective outrage was potent enough to propel one of its participants to murder, to a sort of political execution whose sole purpose might be release for pent-up anger. The choice of victim could be arbitrary, as long as he represented the party of oppression. Even someone like Joshua Smallman might well do, particularly if he were behaving like a paid agent of the enemy.

  Mackenzie had not quite finished. Having stirred their passions and gained their full attention, he began explaining to them, in moderated tones and with didactic earnestness, the importance of their recent success in getting the Report on Grievances a fair hearing in the British cabinet, of their unequivocal victory in the alien question, of their current control of the Assembly and its bills of supply, and, no mean feat, of the Family Compact’s acute embarrassment over the abrupt reassignment of the meddling John Colborne. Indeed, a new governor—a man with no military experience to hobble him, a man of letters who penned travel books and poems—was en route from Montreal to Toronto at this very moment. Now was not the time for precipitate or thoughtless action. The recent and sterling example provided by Jacksonian democracy in the republic to the south proved that, with patience and unceasing pressure and petition, the voice of the people even in remote regions would be heard and would prevail.