Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

Marc decided to take the path that linked Beth’s property with the Hatch’s to the south of it. He and Beth had walked it more than once, deep in the conversation that began as friendly argument and ended in love’s banter. He would go past the mill, starkly visible up ahead in the waxing moonlight, and approach the miller’s house from the rear, as he had done so many times before. It imparted a sense of permanence and stability that he knew to be illusory but nonetheless necessary.

No lights greeted him. Surely they couldn’t all be abed at six-thirty in the evening? He came up to the door of the summer kitchen. It was open and swinging crookedly on one hinge. Snow had drifted into the big back room. With a pounding heart, he rushed through to the main house. It was cold and dark. He felt his way over to the stove. It had not been used in days. Beside the fireplace no kindling or split-logs were neatly piled, as they had always been. He looked in every room before stumbling out the front door, ignoring the protestations of his gimpy leg, and raced back up the sideroad to Durfees’ tavern. He felt as if a horse had kicked him.

James Durfee, tavern-keeper, postmaster, redoubtable Scot, sat back in his favourite chair in his favourite room, sipped at his brandy, and cast a concerned and avuncular eye upon the young lieutenant seated across from him. Emma, it turned out, had gone out with Doc Barnaby to an ailing woman five miles away on the far concession of the township, and neither was expected back before noon the next day. But Emma had left a pot of stew and fresh bread, which Durfee was happy to share with Marc. Over supper, Marc gave him an account of his adventures in Lower Canada. Later, the two men returned to the den. It was Durfee’s turn to provide explanations.

“I’m sorry you had to go over there and find the place like that, without any warnin’. I was hopin’ you’d come in here first,” Durfee began.

“But I still can’t believe Erastus would just pull up stakes and leave like that. It’s completely out of character. Why, he’s been miller here for a generation. He’s respected by every honest man in the district, Tory or otherwise. He always managed to keep his head above the fray, he had no enemies-”

“All that’s true, lad. But for the last year or more, as you know, it hasn’t been a question of makin’ enemies. Suddenly, you just become one.”

“The windows are all broken in Beth’s house, and there’s that ugly word plastered on the door.”

“Thomas Goddall became a wanted man. He lived in that house, owner or not. He had no place to hide. When Winnifred and him and the bairn packed up and took off for parts unknown, it damn near destroyed her father. Erastus was distraught. He’d put up with some of the farmers, men he’d helped and carried with credit over many a rough spot, when they threatened to take their business all the way to Port Hope just to spite him. He was philosophical about that, figurin’ time would heal those wounds. But when the warrant was issued for Thomas, it nearly broke him. His grown daughter and grandchild just fleeing, with an hour to say their good-byes. And bound for Iowa.”

“So you think he’s gone after them?”

“I do. The gathering point for the Iowa expedition is Pittsburgh. From what you’ve told me, Thomas has made it into New York State and will head straight there.”

“How do you know all this?”

“You been away for more’n two months, haven’t you? Well, two weeks ago a group of well-off Reform supporters-not rebels, mind you, but people like young Francis Hincks and Peter Perry-started up the Mississippi Emigration Society to help folks get out of this place.”

“My God. Matters are worse than I’d imagined.”

“They’re sayin’ up to ten thousand farmers might leave, sellin’ out at ruinous prices and headin’ west.”

“But why did Erastus take Beth’s brother? She’ll be devastated.”

“Emma and me offered to take Aaron in till we heard from Beth down in the States; we knew she’d be there a while. But the boy’s seventeen or more, a grown-up lad. The only life he knows is farming. He begged to be taken along, and in the end, Erastus agreed. They couldn’t keep young Susie Huggan from goin’ along either. ‘I’m Baby Eustace’s aunt!’ she said, and that was that.”

“And what of the other Huggan sister, Charlene? She wasn’t with Winnifred and Thomas.”

“Of course, there’s no house to keep over there any more, so Barnaby’s taken her on till we can find somethin’ permanent for her.”

Marc stared into his brandy glass. “Does Beth know all of this?”

“Yes,” Durfee assured him. “The mail is irregular, but we’ve written to give her any news.”

Marc looked up at his friend. “Why am I wearing this uniform, James? Can you tell me that? I was sent into Quebec to put down a revolt against the Crown. And I helped to do so. I acquitted myself as a soldier ought to. We were sent also to bring about order. And we did. But we did not re-establish the law. We walked away as soon as the smoke of battle had cleared and left thousands of innocent citizens to the ministrations of vigilantes and vengeance-seekers. We brought order but no real peace. And certainly no justice. Sir John issued decrees against looting and reprisals but refused to send troops to enforce them. The Queen’s writ is gall in the mouths of the people. And that is all they have to feed on. When a farmer burns out his neighbour, you know how deep the poison has penetrated.”

James reached over and placed a hand over one of Marc’s. “I don’t believe you would’ve actually set a torch to that house in St. Denis.”

“That is a question that’s been haunting me for seven weeks. I do not know what I would have done if I had managed to clear the inhabitants out of that house. But I didn’t. What I do know for sure is that I’m glad I was shot, for it prevented me from finding out how far my allegiance would’ve taken me from my own humanity.”

“Well, things are bad here but nothin’ like Quebec. After the first surge of reprisal and payback, a lot of the steam’s gone out of the vengeance game.”

“I’m happy to hear that. Revenge is a grim and self-defeating business.”

Durfee grunted. “Tell that to the extreme Tories and Orangemen. They’ve been callin’ for a hundred hangings. There’ve been a few down in London, but the trials that are goin’ on now are havin’ a hard time findin’ believable witnesses. The only ones likely to hang in Toronto are the two ringleaders, Peter Matthews and Samuel Lount. They were convicted last week and sentenced to hang on Saturday morning. Most responsible people now expect that’ll be the extent of the bloodlettin’.”

“But there’s still the threat of invasion.”

“True, but it’s mostly a bunch of Yankee freebooters and opportunists lookin’ to liberate the natives from despotism. Nothin’ to worry about really. All bluster and no muster, as we say up here.”

Marc was staring grim-faced at his untouched brandy once again. “Still, somebody’s got to do the actual scaring off, don’t they?”

“You thinkin’ seriously of takin’ off that uniform?”

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things, dear friend-and that’s one of them.”

Marc was caught by a wave of emotion as the cutter sped across Scaddings Bridge and curved southwest along King Street extension towards Toronto, his home-base for the past two and a half years. He had not seen it in three months, and for a time had been certain he would never see it again. It was the image of Beth and her plea that he survive and return to her that had propelled him through the maelstrom of battle and its squalid aftermath.