He looked for the girl with the chestnut hair, but she wasn’t there — only the woman who had spoken in his defence. She sat beside Betsy, helping to distract Martha at several points during the service.
She introduced herself afterward. “I’m Minta Jessup. My sister-in-law was going to come with me, but she’s not feeling well today. She’ll be sorry that she missed all the excitement.”
“Thank you for stepping forward,” he said. “That took real courage. The crowd could have got ugly.”
“Oh, that bunch,” she said scornfully. “They like the sound of their own voices, but don’t ever ask them to do anything useful. They wouldn’t know how.”
Lewis often marvelled at the force of some of these women he met; how they could appear so meek and submissive when, in fact, their demeanour masked a determination that sometimes took their menfolk aback. Some would say this strength was unbecoming, but he approved of it. He had married one of these women himself, and wouldn’t trade her good sense for all the subservience in the world.
“I dare say Rachel will be sure to attend every one of your meetings from now on, if only because then she’ll have something to talk about.”
He laughed. “I sincerely hope it’s my sermon she’ll discuss with the neighbours, and not another performance in the dooryard.”
So the girl with the chestnut hair was her sister-in-law. That explained the lack of family resemblance, although that didn’t always hold true. There was no mention of the hulking fellow who had been with them on the street and Lewis was left to wonder where he fit into the family. Husband? Brother? Sometimes these family units were so convoluted that there was little to gain in speculation. Like his own family — all those great burly boys, then little Martha, who could easily be mistaken for one of those “gifts from God” that sometimes occur late in a couple’s life.
Just then, the man in question came out of Stickle’s Tavern and headed toward the church. He stopped just outside the gate and stood, obviously waiting for Minta.
“Will he not come in?” Lewis asked her.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “He doesn’t hold much with meetings like this. He thinks it’s a waste of time.”
The man glared at Lewis as Minta walked down the path to join him.
Lewis usually held a class meeting after services so that those who wished to do so could study the Bible together. But he wouldn’t today. His household was still unorganized from the move, and Betsy still fragile and easily tired. Besides, Martha was an energetic child, a fact that kept Betsy on the hop most days, and now she was fussy from the long period of sitting. Lewis judged that the meeting would be better left for Varney who, as a local preacher, was perfectly capable of directing it. After all, he had been acting in this capacity before Lewis had arrived in the area, and would probably appreciate confirmation that not all of his duties were to be usurped. The authority assigned to these lay preachers was one of the points of contention with the Wesleyans, and it was as well to reinforce the Episcopal position from the start.
“I’m sorry to decamp, Mr. Varney, but I know that the meeting will be in good hands.”
“Aye, don’t you worry, I’ll manage.” Varney looked pleased. “Is the little one your daughter?”
“My granddaughter. The only girl in the household now.” Martha had fallen on the step and was wailing. Lewis smiled. “But do you know something? I think she makes more noise than all the boys put together.”
Lewis scooped the little girl up and bundled her onto the horse, putting her in the saddle in front of him. Her sobbing hiccoughs eventually subsided as she surveyed the passing countryside.
“Cow!” she shrieked, pointing at a herd pastured in a field along the road. Lewis agreed that, yes, it was indeed a cow.
“You were very lucky today,” Betsy remarked as they jogged along.
“What do you mean?”
“You were lucky that you weren’t called to account there in the churchyard. You don’t know enough Latin to debate a frog, and you don’t know Greek at all.”
“Yes, but no one else knows that. Besides, I didn’t claim to know anything at all. I merely offered the opinion that Latin or Greek would be more entertaining. And it would have been, too, I expect.”
“That’s a mighty fine line you’re walking there, Thaddeus. The way you’re twisting words around, you’re beginning to sound like an Anglican.”
“Oh.” He knew she was right, and that he had deliberately uttered a misleading statement. “Yes, dear, perhaps you’re right.”
“You know I am. Sometimes you’re too clever for your own good.”
“Wait a moment, Betsy. I’ve just thought of some Greek words. Alpha, for one — and Omega.” He kicked his horse into a fast trot that bounced them up and down, making it harder for her to answer. But just as he was looking back to laugh at her, he caught a glimpse of a female form slipping around the side of a barn that stood at the edge of the road. Her cap had fallen down her back, revealing a mass of chestnut hair.
“That’s odd,” he said, as he slowed the horse.
“What’s odd?”
“I think that was the sister-in-law of the small woman you sat with at the service.”
“The pregnant woman who helped with Martha, you mean? Minta?”
Lewis looked at his wife, astounded. “Now how do you know she’s pregnant?”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Thaddeus. After all the children I’ve had, do you think I can’t tell? She’s expecting all right, and it’s making her sickly.”
He shrugged. “Oh, well. None of it matters, I guess, except that Minta gave me to understand that her sister-in-law was ill at home.”
He craned his head around, but he couldn’t see whether there was anyone else there or not.
V
The following week there was a camp meeting called at Gatrey’s farm in Adolphustown, just across the Bay of Quinte, with William Case as the featured speaker. Lewis had not been invited to preach. He was not a member of church union, and therefore could not officially take part in the events of the day. Besides, a great deal of the allure of this sort of meeting was that people got to hear someone different. As a rule, these camp meetings made Lewis a little uneasy anyway. He had never been sure whether they actually accomplished anything or not. It was all too easy for people to get caught up in the frenzy of the moment and profess to something they didn’t genuinely feel. Sometimes, he suspected, the young men came forward and fell on their knees simply to impress the young women present.
Betsy laughed, as she always did, when Lewis grumpily presented this last part of his argument. “It’s hard enough to bring people to the Lord without questioning their motives,” she said. “Just rejoice that they’re sincere at the moment and work hard to make it stick.”
The meeting was to be held in one of Gatrey’s back fields. There was no building large enough to accommodate the number of people who were expected, and even if there were, they would probably not be allowed to use it. Camp meetings were a specialty of the Episcopal Methodists, and sat uneasily with the more sedate British Church. They instead preferred the protracted meeting, held inside over a number of days. It took less trouble to stage, and offered less opportunity for trouble-makers to disrupt the proceedings. It also helped establish their ownership of the buildings being used. The Wesleyans may have frowned at the Episcopals’ exuberant approach to saving souls, but camp meetings