For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord for ever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Seth’s brow darkened and he muttered something that might have been “Fool,” but might equally well have been a heavy sigh.
After the coffin was lowered into the grave, and the symbolic clods of earth thrown down on top, Lewis led them in a hymn. His choice was not one that was particularly appropriate to the occasion, but it had been the one that Rachel had liked so well when she heard it at the camp meeting. It had the added advantage of being one that nearly everyone knew:
“All people that on earth do dwell
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.”
At the end of the service the young men looked confused and finally just wandered away, leaving Seth alone with his head bowed.
As the Constable had indicated, Dr. Gordon believed there was enough question about Rachel’s death to justify an inquest. A group of citizens was selected by the sheriff to judge the case. It was hardly necessary; word had gone round the village that the coroner was unsure of the cause of death, and in spite of the somewhat strange characteristics of the way she was found, people quickly concluded that it was just another of those unexplained miseries with which God chose to punish them all.
There were not many at the inquest. The case was not particularly sensational and there was just not enough interest in it to attract anyone besides the layabouts and the chronically curious, but Lewis adjusted his round in order to be there.
Dr. Gordon presented the facts clearly enough: that the girl had been alone, that she had been fully clothed and was lying in her bed, the strange marks on her neck. But he didn’t mention the book or the little pin that marked the page.
Lewis was almost certain that it had been Morgan Spicer who had given her the Book of Proverbs, but since it had not been introduced as evidence, there had not been any point in mentioning it. He wasn’t sure himself that it had any bearing on the case. Had Spicer been successful in giving it to her on the day of the camp meeting, or had he gone to her house at some later time? But no, Lewis thought, he had been determined to find her that day, and she had been such a centre of attention he would have had no difficulty in the finding. Besides, what was the harm in giving a girl a present? The other boys had given her presents, too. It was only because it had been found at the time of her death that it seemed in any way relevant.
“And in your opinion, Dr. Gordon,” the justice of the peace asked when the doctor had outlined his findings, “what was the cause of death?”
“Impossible to determine definitively,” the doctor replied. “But I can only conclude that she expired from some sort of fit. There are no other explanations that I can offer.”
Lewis wanted to protest, to stand up and ask about the marks on her neck, to suggest that someone, somehow had had a hand in the death, but he knew if he did so that he would merely be put out of the courtroom. It was what had happened to him at Sarah’s inquest.
The jury ruled “death by natural causes.” It was the easiest thing to do, since there was no bringing her back anyway, no clear indication of any culprit’s hand, no speculation as to who might have wanted her dead or for what reason. Besides, everyone had more important things to worry about.
XI
Lewis’s next scheduled visit to Demorestville again coincided with Isaac Simms’s round and, as usual, the peddler was full of news. For weeks there had been rumours that an American force had crossed the border, or was about to, or had plans to. According to Simms, and he had newspaper accounts to back him up, a small group had in fact mounted a raid down near Niagara somewhere, abetted no doubt by William Lyon Mackenzie, who had somehow got himself off Navy Island and was living in Rochester, New York, just across the lake. The raiders were a motley bunch, consisting of Upper Canadian rebels who had escaped across the border and self-proclaimed American “patriots” who were determined to get rid of the British in British North America.
One of the newspaper articles had quoted Governor Arthur: “There are on the American frontier thousands of these lawless characters,” he thundered, “these atrocious banditti, they are the scum of the population.”
It appeared that the invading band was led by a certain James Morreau. No one was sure who exactly he was. Some said he was an Irishman, others that he was from Pennsylvania. One thing was clear: he had successfully infiltrated a place called Short Hills and was expecting the countryside to rise with him. He had issued a proclamation, complete with high-sounding flights of revolutionary rhetoric, calling on all Canadians to come to his assistance:
We have at last been successful in planting the standard of liberty in one part of our oppressed country. Canadians! Come to our assistance as you prize property, happiness and life! This is the hour of your redemption. Rally to the standard of the Free and the tyranny of England will cease to exist in our land.
Far from rising, the countryside received this proclamation with disdain.
The Niagara Reporter summed up the local reaction in an editorial that called the invaders “vagabonds without name or nation” and labelled the enterprise “madness.”
“We believe no individual dotard since the days of the first idiot ever exhibited such unutterable folly,” they wrote.
Folly or not, the vagabonds were in Canada for ten days before Governor Arthur finally sent a troop of Queen’s Lancers to deal with them. Surprised at Osterhout’s Inn, the Lancers were forced to surrender when the patriots set fire to the building, and were afterward relieved of their uniforms and equipment, much to the embarrassment of the governor.
No one was sure how many “patriots” were in Morreau’s band.
“I heard there were hundreds,” Mrs. Varney said. “Do you suppose they’ll march this way next?”
“Nay, mother,” Varney replied. “It won’t be that bunch, but some other.”
Frustrated by the Lancers’ lack of success, Governor Arthur finally set the militia and their Indian hunters loose on the area.
“That’s what he should have done in the first place,” Simms said. “If anybody can catch traitors, it’s the boys that know the country.” The militia had proved themselves in this sort of enterprise before. It had been militia and Indians, with red flannel strips sewn into their caps for identification, who had ruthlessly hunted down Mackenzie’s rebels. In any event, a mere rumour that the Indians were coming was enough to panic the patriots. They fled toward the border, strewing abandoned ammunition and equipment behind them. In spite of their haste, not all of them made it to safety, and now more than forty were in jail at Niagara or Toronto, Simms wasn’t sure which, since he had heard reports of both. Their trials were to be held immediately.
Lewis was irritated and depressed by this news. More trials, more punishment, and he was sure the government would use this latest incident as an excuse for another round of persecution against anyone with Reformer leanings. He sometimes wondered what would have happened had last year’s rebellion been led by someone other than the quixotic, impulsive Mackenzie, who was a dab hand with rhetoric but completely incapable of organizing a military expedition. It was a musing he dared not share with anyone but Betsy. He was sailing close enough to the wind as it was, just by being a Methodist.
Minta came to the next women’s class meeting with her infant in her arms. The other women made much of her, cooing over the baby and declaring it to be the finest boy anyone had ever produced. Again Lewis noticed that smugness about her whenever her child was discussed, and her evident joy would briefly light her pale, tired face.
In mid-flight, he decided to change the topic of his sermon. He had been intending to base it