because the roads would still be a muddy morass from the spring rains. The planting was done, but then Moses had pleaded for help with one task after another, so that the year rolled around to the first week of July and Luke still hadn’t left.
He had been in one of their back fields helping Moses remove a stump when he was hailed by a man standing by the fencerow. Glad enough of an excuse to stop working for a few minutes, Luke had ambled over to the man. It was no one he recognized.
“Good day to ye,” the man said, tipping his hat, and Luke knew from his speech that he must be from the Irish settlement some miles away. “The name’s Henry Gallagher,” the man went on. “I don’t believe we’ve met, but they tell me you’re headed down to the front.”
Luke nodded, his heart sinking, for he knew this man must have something he wanted him to do “since he was going anyway.”
“I’m wonderin’ if you might do me a wee favour. You see, my brother is on his way across to join me here. I paid for his passage on a ship named The Syria, and he should have arrived long since, but I haven’t heard a word. You wouldn’t mind asking around, just to see if he’s there at one of the ports? And if he is, to give him this?”
Gallagher unfolded a greasy piece of paper, part of a letter long since received and memorized, for Luke could see cramped and blotted writing and the remnants of a seal. Inside this was part of a pound note, in Halifax currency. The bill had been sliced, not torn, and on a diagonal that slashed through the printing and the engraving in the middle.
“You see,” Gallagher continued, “I don’t know if Charley has the wherewithal to get hisself all the way up here. I’m hearing that things are terrible in the old country just now. He may have run out of money by the time he got to Toronto.”
“I don’t understand,” Luke said. “What is he to do with a half-note?”
“That’s so you know you have the right man,” Gallagher replied. “After all, anybody could say his name was Gallagher and take the money, couldn’t he?”
“But why?” Luke asked. “It’s still just half a note and no good for anything.”
The man beamed. “But he’ll have the other one, you see. If he can produce the other half, you’ll know it’s Charley.”
Luke had to admit that it was a brilliant means of identification. No two notes would be exactly the same — now that he looked closely, he could see that the cut had gone right through one of the numbers at the bottom. If Charley could provide the matching half, he could paste them back together and spend the money.
“How did you know that someone would be travelling all the way to the front?”
“I didn’t really,” the man admitted. “I’d clipped the bill in two and sent the other half to him last fall. I meant to send the other, but we had that early snow and I couldn’t get to Clinton to mail it. But now that you’re going anyway, the problem is solved, isn’t it?”
“How do you know he was on The Syria?”
“I did that part of it through the Canada Company. They arranged to book him on the ship and get the ticket and the directions to him. They’ve been good about that, if not so much about other things.”
Luke hadn’t realized that the company that was responsible for selling land in the Huron Tract was willing to provide this service for their settlers. It only stood to reason, he supposed. It seemed that as soon as settlers had some success, they urged their friends and relatives back home to follow suit and come to Canada, and, like this man, often provided the wherewithal to make it happen.
“I didn’t trust them with the cash money part of it though. I sent some English money through the church. But now that he’s here in Canada, the Halifax will do.”
“I’ll certainly ask about him,” Luke said. “But they say there’s a heavy emigration this year. Shouldn’t I just leave it for him at one of the shipping offices?”
The man thought about this for a moment. “No. One Irishman is just like another as far as they’re concerned. They’re apt to forget. I realize it’s not likely you’ll find Charley, but if you try, then at least I can tell myself that I’ve done what I could.”
It seemed like a hopeless mission, but Luke didn’t have the heart to turn the man down. “I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise anything.”
The man nodded. “I know you will. And if something’s happened to him, or you can’t find him, maybe you could just drop a line to that effect if you happen to be writing to your brothers?”
“I’ll do my best,” was all that Luke could say. “And if I don’t find him, I’ll get the note back to you, just in case he turns up with the other half.”
Satisfied with Luke’s promise, the man had tipped his hat and gone on his way. It was no more irksome a request than any of the others that had been made, but the encounter finally galvanized him into action. That night after supper, Luke told Moses that it was time for him to go.
And having promised everyone to do his best, he now attempted to do precisely that. At every stop along the way, Luke left news that the innkeeper or storeowner or farmer could pass along, not only to the intended recipients, but to anyone else who cared to listen. It was hard to keep a secret on the Huron Road.
Chapter 3
Rumball kept them to a strict schedule, and each time they stopped it seemed to Luke that he was out of the cart for only a minute or two before he had to climb back up and continue their bumpy journey. The road had at one point been cleared to a width of sixty feet or so, but, except in the places where the settlers themselves kept the brush cleared back, bushy growth and spindly saplings had gained a toehold and threatened to reclaim the trail. The spring rains had left deep ruts wherever a vehicle had passed, and Luke feared for their wagon’s axle every time a wheel slid into one of these.
After many hours on the road, however, they drove into Galt and across the bridge that spanned the Grand River. It seemed a very built-up and crowded place to Luke, after his years in the sparsely settled area to the north. The town boasted three-storey buildings, a towering mill, and a number of fine stone houses, odd contrasts to the log shanties and cabins he had become used to.
He parted company with Rumball at Shade’s Inn, where he discovered that he had two options for continuing his journey. He could board the stage that left daily for Guelph, and go by land from there to Toronto, or he could find his way to Burlington Bay and catch a steamer from there.
He had arrived in Galt too late to catch the connection to either Guelph or to Dundas, where he needed to get in order to board a steamer. It was already late afternoon. Whichever he chose, he needed to find some place to spend the night. He was loathe to spend money on an inn. He had counted his money up carefully and calculated his costs as far as he was able, but wasting money now could result in hardship later on. He debated asking the local livery stable if he could bed down in their hayloft, but then he had another thought.
He stopped the first respectable-looking gentleman he met on the street.
“Excuse me, sir, can you tell me whether or not there might be a Methodist meeting house nearby?”
The man looked startled at the question, as though he had expected to be asked the location of the nearest
