doubt it will come to that,” Lewis said, but the carpenter had a point. Milford lay in the southern part of the peninsular Prince Edward District, which jutted well out into Lake Ontario. Milford-built ships crossed the water to New York State with regularity, island-hopping across the eastern end. And if ships could go one way, they could certainly come the other.
To his surprise, the carpenter also confirmed what Simms had said about the state of business in the colony. “There’s no doubt things are slowed right down. I’m not near as busy as I was. Oh, there’s still people building, and I get good hours from the shipyard, but unless things settle down real soon, everything’s going to grind right to a halt and then I don’t know what’ll become of us. Oh, well. God’ll send what he sends, won’t he? And there isn’t anything we can do but abide it.”
Used to an early rising, his host family made motions to retire as soon as their supper dishes were cleared away, but Lewis knew that if he followed suit, the heavy fare he had just eaten would settle uncomfortably into gas.
“I think I’ll take a stroll through the village and look at the night,” he said. “If I try to go down now, I’ll just toss and turn. I’ll let myself back in, and don’t worry, I’ll be quiet about it.”
The carpenter offered to send his eldest boy for company. Lewis had no need for company, and besides, the eldest boy was already half-asleep in his chair at the end of the table.
“No, I’m fine alone,” he said. “I like to look up at the sky and marvel at God’s creation. It’s a clear night. I’m in no danger of stumbling.”
It was a pastime that he often indulged in, this watching of the skies. He wished he knew what more of the stars were called, and why they seemed to change position with the season. Although he was, by Upper Canadian standards, a reasonably well-educated man — he had been a schoolteacher before he was called to God, and had read a great deal more than most people, even many ministers — he often felt a hankering to educate himself further. With each piece of information he learned, he felt more in awe of what God had created. He promised himself that the next time he had a few pennies extra, he would look for a book about the stars and learn more of their names. Or perhaps he could see what was available at the new public reading-room that had opened in Picton.
He walked along the street to the bridge, where he decided to lean his back up against the rail to steady himself while he tried to locate the trio of stars that formed Orion’s belt. As he turned to settle his position, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A figure had just appeared around the corner of the mill building that nestled by the edge of the river. He shifted himself a little, making it look as though he was merely making himself more comfortable. This allowed him to glance over to where the figure stood watching him in turn, and from that angle he could more clearly see the man’s face. It was Francis Renwell — he was sure of it!
He felt the bile rise in his throat as he glimpsed the face of his son-in-law, the man he was convinced was responsible for his daughter’s death.
He moved toward the figure as fast as he dared in the darkness, but by the time he reached the corner of the mill, the man had disappeared. He searched in vain, his anger growing. He wanted his say … he wanted to tell Renwell that he knew he had killed Sarah, and that he would do everything in his power to bring him to account, but he was denied the opportunity. The man had vanished into the anonymity of the night.
Lewis trudged back to the carpenter’s house, the stars now forgotten.
The next morning, Lewis approached his host and asked after the man, hoping he sounded casual.
“Oh, that fellow?” said the carpenter, making it clear what he thought of laziness. “Came here a few weeks ago as a hired hand for old man Scott. Not much good. Drinks too much.”
IV
It was Saturday night by the time Lewis returned home again, and he was there just long enough to get a dry pair of socks and cut a little firewood, which the boys had neglected to do again. Betsy was feeling better, and insisted she was well enough to pack Martha up and bring her along to his regular preaching in Demorestville.
“If I don’t make an appearance soon, they’ll start thinking you have no wife at all,” she said. “Then you’ll be at the mercy of all the old widows and spinsters, and we can’t have that.”
This mild banter convinced him that she was indeed feeling better, and under normal circumstances he would have welcomed her company, but he worried about what they would find in Demorestville, for Varney had warned him that trouble was brewing.
The service was to take place in the plain chapel that Demorest had built. The building had always been shared by several denominations, but because of the church union engineered by Egerton Ryerson, the Wesleyans maintained that they now represented the only Methodist Church in Canada, and that all properties and arrangements had been transferred to them. A number of Methodist Episcopals, himself included, had repudiated this union and continued in the old ways. They saw no reason why they shouldn’t carry on using the buildings they had always worshipped in, and in some cases built with their own hands.
Lewis understood Ryerson’s reasons for promoting the uneasy alliance. It was a calculated move to counteract the ill will of Bishop Strachan and the Family Compact. The Methodist Episcopals had sprung up as an offshoot of the Methodist Church in the United States. From the earliest days of settlement in Upper Canada, its itinerant ministers had roamed the colony, preaching wherever they could find someone to listen. Eventually there were enough of them to form a separate Canadian Church, but this independence was not fully recognized by the ruling elite. Anglican to a man, and alarmed at the popularity of the Methodists, they used the Church’s origins as an excuse for continuous harassment.
“American” was the charge usually levelled, with the implication that its adherents were somehow treasonous by virtue of their church membership alone. Lewis privately thought that the Methodist habit of speaking out against Anglican privilege was the main source of the problem, and that “too worldly and political” was a label to be worn with pride.
The newly arrived Wesleyan Methodists, on the other hand, operated under a British-based authority, and were therefore more acceptable and probably more controllable as far as the government was concerned. But as a recently introduced denomination in Upper Canada, they had far fewer converts. So, the two churches had joined: the one in the hopes of gaining legitimacy; the other to expand its congregation. For the Episcopals, this came at the cost of adopting Wesleyan strictures and — to Lewis’s mind the chief objection — without consulting the body of Methodist Episcopal members.
Now there were constant squabbles between the two groups, a situation Lewis found tiresome and undignified. Sometimes he wondered if he was being unnecessarily stubborn. Perhaps he should give in and support the union, help put an end to the controversy, but something in him resisted. He had been ordained in the old M.E. Church, and leaving it felt too much like an act of disloyalty.
His stomach was in a knot as they rode up the Broadway toward the church, for he could see two distinct clusters of people flanking the wooden walkway that led to the front door. He stopped at the gate.
“You’re not wanted here, Preacher,” one of the men on the right side of the walkway said, stepping forward and flushing a little as he spoke.
“On the contrary,” Lewis replied. “I see a great want of the Word in this yard today.”
Several of the people sniggered at this, but the man who had spoken turned redder. He did not like being shown up.
