man said, pointing to the end of a substantial brick building. “As soon as you round the corner, you’ll see the steeple.”
Luke touched the brim of his hat in thanks, and headed in the direction the man had pointed.
He found a bit of luck when he reached the meeting house. A class meeting had evidently just finished, and a group of soberly clad women were filing out the front door, the minister just behind them.
“Excuse me, sir,” Luke said when he saw the man. “I wonder if I might trouble you for a moment?”
All of the women stopped, eager to overhear what this young stranger might have to say.
The minister looked startled, but friendly enough. “Of course, of course, what could I do for you? If it’s a private affair, we could go back inside.” But he was already securing the lock on the door as he said it.
“Oh no, that’s all right,” Luke said, smiling. “I have no secrets.” His purposes would be better met with the women there to overhear. “My father is a Methodist minister, and I thought that, as I was nearby, I would stop and pay my respects. I know he would want me to.”
He had the minister’s full attention, and that of the group of women as well.
“Now, that’s fine.” The minister beamed. “And what is your father’s name then? I probably know him. There aren’t so many of us that we’re strangers to each other.”
“He’s retired now, of course, but he spent many years as an itinerant preacher. His name is Thaddeus Lewis.” And then Luke held his breath. He had not been able to ascertain if this church was Wesleyan Methodist or Methodist Episcopal, and hard feelings over the failed union of the two denominations had yet to settle entirely.
He hadn’t taken into account his father’s notoriety.
“Oh, my goodness, Thaddeus Lewis. I haven’t met him personally, of course, since we’re a Wesleyan congregation, but everyone knows of your father, after all that unpleasantness a few years ago. Retired, you say? That’s a shame. The church has lost a good man. Awfully good of you to pass on his respects. But tell me, what brings you to these parts?”
Luke was a little taken aback. He was perfectly willing to trade on his father’s good name as a preacher. He hadn’t expected to be welcomed on the strength of Thaddeus’s reputation as a solver of crimes. He hoped that if he were indeed offered a bed for the night, he wouldn’t be expected to regale his host with details of the infamous Simms killings, or his father’s role in the discovery of a murderous wild boy in the sand hills of Wellington. Such lurid tales were novelties, he supposed, and apparently people had little else to talk about, but he had recounted what little detail he knew far too many times.
“I’m on my way to visit my father,” he said in reply to the preacher’s question. “Unfortunately, I seem to have missed the last stage. I could walk it, but I don’t fancy navigating the way by moonlight.”
“Very wise, very wise,” the preacher said. “There’s a rough crowd on the roads these days. All the emigrants coming in — they all say they’re looking for work, but when they don’t find it, they have no compunction about taking what they need.”
Luke wondered if the brother of the man from the Irish settlement was one of these, and if the want of a few coppers was enough to turn him into a thief. He resolved to make every effort to find Charley Gallagher.
One of the women stepped forward then. She had had time to get a close look at Luke’s cheap and travel-worn apparel. “Have you a place for tonight?” she asked.
“I thought I’d just ask the local livery if I could bed down in the straw,” he said. “But from what you tell me, strangers aren’t exactly welcome these days.”
The woman turned to the preacher. “This boy can stay with us if he likes. It would be an honour to have the son of such a famous preacher.” She turned back to Luke. “I’m afraid our little house is quite full, but you’re welcome to a meal and the kitchen bed if you can find no better.”
The other women looked quite put out. They hadn’t spoken up soon enough and now they’d been trumped.
“I’d be much obliged, ma’am,” Luke said. It might cost him a few tales about his father, and perhaps a prayer or two, but the Methodists had not failed him, bless their hearts.
Luke found not only a bed and a meal, but a ride. The Methodist woman, whose name was Mrs. Howard, was married to a book merchant who, as it happened, had business in the town of Guelph the next day. Mr. Howard was perfectly happy to accommodate a travelling companion, and they set off the next morning after what seemed to Luke a rather late breakfast. It was fully eight o’clock by the time Howard collected a horse and trap from the nearby stable.
The Guelph Road was very busy in comparison to the Huron Road, where he and Rumball had sometimes driven for miles without encountering another soul. Now Luke saw everything from coaches to smart traps, farm wagons, single horsemen, and pedestrians heading west toward Galt.
Mr. Howard obligingly deposited him at the coach inn, where he had only a short wait before he climbed aboard a stage for the final leg of the journey to Toronto. He found himself sharing the coach with a well-dressed man and an older woman. The woman snatched her skirts away from Luke’s dusty boots when he climbed in to sit beside her, but the man seemed friendly enough and inclined to chat.
He was a lawyer, he said, on his way back to Toronto after trying a case in Guelph. “A nasty case of aggravated assault. It’s a wonder the victim survived at all, and I’m sure he won’t be quite right as the result of it. Culprit safely locked away now, of course.”
“One of the Irish, I suppose,” sniffed the woman. “They’re causing trouble everywhere.”
“On the contrary,” the lawyer replied. “Boy from quite a good family, in fact. Just goes to show that you can never tell.”
As they continued east, they were passed by a great number of wagons, carts, and drays piled high with luggage and household goods.
“Where is everyone going?” Luke asked. “It looks like the whole world is moving house.”
“They are,” the woman said. “Everyone who has somewhere else to go is getting away from the ports, because of the malignant fever. My daughter lives just on the outskirts of Toronto, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m on my way to collect her now. She and the children will stay with me until the contagion passes. It’s the emigrants, you see. They’ve brought it with them and now it’s spreading everywhere.”
“Malignant fever?” Luke had heard of it, but only in passing. Cholera was the usual companion of emigration, and even in his short life there had been a number of epidemics that had raged through Upper Canada.
“That and ship’s fever,” the lawyer said, “although I’m not sure if they’re one and the same. Any emigrant who looks ill is supposed to be held in quarantine, but it seems as though a dreadful number of them are slipping through.”
As they passed the long miles, the traffic increased, although it began to change in nature. Those who were walking were, for the most part, respectable-looking enough — farmwives or labourers — but here and there they would pass knots of sullen-looking men who could have done duty as scarecrows placed in a field of grain to chase the birds away. These
