After his elation wore off, he realized that he was very tired. First there had been the journey from Cobourg to Cold Springs before his day had even really started, and then the three hours of standing on his feet, preaching. And now another long ride. When he’d first started the itinerant life so many years ago he had ridden for hours every day, and had sometimes been offered nothing more than a pile of straw as a bed at the end of it. Many a morning had begun with nothing more than a bowl of thin porridge. Soft in my old age, he thought, and yet he couldn’t help but look forward to completing his round and returning to his comfortable manse in Cobourg.
He had moments when he felt a little guilty about claiming such a large house when his assistant shared a modest cottage with his parents and four siblings. But as the senior man, Thaddeus was entitled to the benefit, and he intended to make full use of it. After years of making do in tiny houses and furnished rooms in other people’s homes, he found that he appreciated the space. He would make a start on his memoirs. He would pore through the many years of notes and records he had kept and put them in some kind of order. He would take over one upstairs room entirely as his office, so he could leave his papers and notebooks spread out over a table. And on those nights when sleep eluded him, he could rise, light a lamp, and write the story of his life.
He shifted in his saddle again to ease the ache in his knee. He carried a supply of willow tea with him now, which he brewed up on a regular basis. His son Luke had told him that it seemed to work best when used regularly and not just when his bones were rattled from the long rides. Luke had also given him a small bottle of laudanum for the really bad times, but Thaddeus didn’t like to use it unless he absolutely had to. It dulled his wits and made him careless. He needed to stay alert. One mistake with his horse and they would both be out of action. He was fortunate that the good weather had lasted this far into the year, for when the fall rains came, the ride would be muddy and treacherous.
Even so, he much preferred riding alone with no sound but that of the wind and the birds to keep him company. He was relieved to be done with the first difficult week with his assistant. Small felt obliged to supply conversation as they rode, and it had taken only a few hours for Thaddeus to tire of it. Now he could let his thoughts wander without interruption.
He found that they were wandering far too often in the direction of the Howell woman. He wasn’t sure why she unsettled him so. It was the dress, he guessed: a token of a lost time, a happier time. A memory he thought had been lost.
He wondered if he should have a word with the husband about the bruise he had seen on her arm. That could be tricky. The Howells were not members of his church. Mr. Howell was, if not an important man, at least a self-important one. He might not take kindly to an admonition from a Methodist saddlebag preacher, someone who, Thaddeus was sure, Howell regarded as a lower order of being. Besides, sometimes confrontation made things worse. But Thaddeus was sure the bruising had not been inflicted by a cow’s hoof as the woman claimed. Someone had grabbed her wrist and wrenched it, leaving the unmistakable outline of fingers in a rainbow of nasty marks. For the sake of his own conscience, he needed to try to set things right. In fact, it was his duty to do so.
Perhaps he should ask Leland Gordon about it first. Gordon said he rented land from the Howells. Maybe he would know if there had been other bruises. Or better yet, he would ask Old Mrs. Gordon, who might be more sympathetic to his inquiry. That resolved, he felt easier in his mind, if not in his body.
As he reached each meeting on his western circuit, he found that reports of The Great Baptism Debate had already spread, and that his arrival was eagerly anticipated in every instance. All of his meetings attracted new people. His services were full. Everyone wanted to hear the preacher who had acquitted himself so well, who had marshalled his knowledge of scripture and commanded a large crowd. He allowed himself to bask a little in the notoriety. His only other encounter with fame had been as a result of the apprehension of murderers. This time, people wanted to know him because of the heavenly message he delivered, and not because of some earthly derring-do. This kind of admiration was much more welcome and he allowed himself to savour it.
He scheduled extra meetings for the coming month. Small would have to pick up some of them. He hoped the junior minister could consolidate the gains he’d made, and that the people didn’t wander away again when they discovered that they wouldn’t be hearing the preacher who had verbally wrestled a Baptist to the ground.
Second only to the talk of his exploits on the speaking platform was news of the local railways. In the western part of his circuit, the conversation was all about the proposed Port Hope Railway that was intended to snake past the western end of Rice Lake to Lindsay and Peterborough. A company had been formed and a charter applied for, with construction slated to begin sometime in the next two years. Even if it was completed, the Port Hope line would face stiff competition from the Cobourg to Peterborough Railway. They both hoped to draw from the same market, and Cobourg had a head start.
Even so, Port Hope was the far more sensible proposal, as far as Thaddeus could tell. The Cobourg railway seemed to be almost entirely dependent on the integrity of the bridge across the lake, and although the contractor, a man named Zimmerman, claimed to have extensive experience with things like bridge-building and had landed contracts for an enormous number of these small railways as a result, Thaddeus couldn’t rid himself of the notion that the project was ill-fated, and that the railway mania that gripped the country would all come to naught in the end. No one had been terribly successful at building reliable roads, and he failed to see how iron rails would fare any better. Still, the province was buzzing with plans for small local railways, and a major trunk line was even now slated to inch its way from Montreal to Toronto.
As Thaddeus reached the limit of his circuit and headed east again, the conversation subtly changed. Although he was still welcomed wherever he went, he began to realize that his exploits were rather a nine-day wonder, and more of the discussions he overheard were about the difficulties that the Cobourg railway now found itself in. The problem was not with the bridge, however, but with a tract of land at the village of Sully.
“The railway company’s already started building sheds on the land and now it looks like they may not own it after all,” one man in Port Britain said. “Jack Plews is taking them to court.”
“But I thought Plews was behind in the mortgage and that’s why he sold it,” Thaddeus said. That was what the men at the camp meeting had thought.
“People say there was some sharp dealing and that D’Arcy Boulton tipped George Howell off about the plans for the land. Stands to reason, given Boulton is a director of the railway company. Anyhow, Plews intends to get some satisfaction.”
“Could be Plews didn’t really own it either,” said one toothless old man who had hobbled into the meeting on the arm of his neighbour and now sat on the bench closest to the window. “Nor Boulton neither, if it comes to that.”
“What are you talking about, Walter?” his neighbour said.
“My uncle farmed that land on shares maybe fifty, sixty years ago, but he couldn’t never get clear title for it. There was some problem.” The old man stopped and mumbled his gums while he thought about this. “Now, I just can’t quite remember the ins and outs of it, but any road, he moved on. Nice piece of property, though, right there by the lake.”
“Are you sure, Walter? I didn’t know your Uncle Albert ever farmed back at the lake.” The neighbour was obviously skeptical about the story.
“No, no, t’wasn’t Uncle Albert. It was Uncle Lem Palmer. Or maybe it was Uncle Syl. No, it musta been Uncle Lem, ’cause he was married to Aunt Harriet …”
The old man embarked on a long, complicated explanation of his family tree. The others chuckled indulgently, but Thaddeus figured the