Don Gutteridge - Dubious Allegiance

Now here it was: a city spread out before him with its snow-capped chimney-pots, its soaring church spires, its cozy homes tucked into rumpled drifts, and its audacious public buildings proclaiming a fragile dominion over the engulfing forest and the vast frozen lake at its feet. Welcome aromas from the lakeshore brewery and the nearby distillery wafted his way as Marc and his companions slipped into the city proper, and the familiar façades of the King Street thoroughfare rose up on either side.

Marc thanked his travelling companions when they let him out at the post office on George Street. They would be happy to inform Colonel Margison at the garrison of his safe arrival, recovering health, and a promise to report by tomorrow afternoon. They also agreed to take the bulk of his luggage to the fort. Marc sucked in lungfuls of Toronto air and strode, with the merest trace of a limp, into the post office. There was a substantial bundle of letters waiting for him. He sat inside on a bench and read steadily for almost an hour. It was three o’clock when he finished.

He had learned a number of things: Beth’s aunt was doing well and was wishing her away to Toronto where she belonged. Beth finally agreeing. Beth announcing her departure. Beth in Pittsburgh, but no sightings of the Hatches or Goodalls, whose departures she had learned of from Durfee. Beth on her way and predicting her arrival by January 26-tomorrow! Beth urging him to stay in the apartment over the shop. Beth grateful for his miraculous recovery. Beth.

Also, word from Uncle Frederick, via New York and the military post, that Uncle Jabez had left Marc a lifetime annuity of a thousand pounds a year. He was now a wealthy man. There was also news and earnest enquiry from Major Jenkin in Montreal, who hoped to be back in Toronto in time for any wedding. And finally a long, heartfelt letter from a lady in New York that made him at once happy and sad. The woman who had revealed herself to him as his mother was necessarily in the country to the south, and their tentative relationship was more surprise than familial comfort. Marc reflected that with Uncle Jabez’s death, his links to the old country were frayed, if not severed. It had taken some time and not a little resistance on his part, but he realized with a pleasant shock that Canada was now truly his home.

The sun was still shining when he left the post office. He walked down to Front Street so he could take in the vista of the snow-bound lake and the distant horizon. Moving westward, he passed the Parliament buildings, where so much had been said to so little effect. Their cut-stone and brick façade gleamed in the southerly sun. He turned north on Peter Street, crossed Market, now called Wellington, and stopped before his former boarding-house. The Widow Standish, never far from sentry duty, came bustling out onto the porch in her slippers to greet him.

Marc put the simple belongings from his valise in his old room, then sat down and had tea with Mrs. Standish and her maid, Maisie. The women were agog at his war stories (well sanitized) and urged him to stay on until supper. But Marc managed to excuse himself, explaining that his dear friend, Horatio Cobb, would be expecting him. Well, then, he must go: duty was duty.

Marc walked east along King Street, where all the elegant shops were located. Just past Bay, he came upon Beth’s millinery shop, which had once been part of Joshua Smallman’s dry-goods emporium. While braced for the worst, he was still saddened and angered to see the display-windows boarded up. Mr. Ormsby spotted him from the adjacent shop and came out. He apologized profusely for not having been able to protect Beth’s place from being vandalized. But for several weeks after the failed revolt, the city fathers-without regular troops-had been unable or unwilling to safeguard the property of perceived traitors or their sympathizers. Certainly Constable Cobb had done his best to help, but even he had not been successful. Things were quieter now, but the public hanging of Matthews and Lount, scheduled for Saturday morning, was likely to stir up passions yet again.

Marc thanked him, then walked slowly and disconsolately along King to Toronto Street, where the entire block from there to Church was taken up by the twin edifices of the Court House and jail. Constable Cobb was just leaving the police quarters and spied Marc in his distinctive uniform before Marc saw him.

“Well, now, Major, ain’t you a sight fer soarin’ eyes!”

“I’m glad to see you, too,” Marc said, laughing for the first time in a long while.

After a hearty supper prepared by Dora and served by the children, Marc sat spellbound as Delia and Fabian recited duet scenes from Shakespeare, after which they were applauded and cheerfully ordered to bed-or rather as far as the bedroom, for the door thereof squeaked open and shut several times during the next two hours, whenever young ears pressed too eagerly up against it. While Dora sat by the fire knitting, Marc and Cobb exchanged war stories, one set distinguished by understatement, the other by forgivable hyperbole and dramatic heightening. Cobb was particularly dramatic when narrating, with appropriate sound effects and mimicry, his day at Government House before the “infan-try in-sult” on the unguarded capital, the highlight of which was the near-capture, not of a would-be political assassin, but a failed piglet thief.

“It wasn’t exactly the gun-power plot,” Cobb chuckled.

“It’s the pig I feel sorry for,” Dora chimed in, “not the governor.”

“So you and two dozen armed citizens actually saved the city from falling?” Marc asked, amazed to hear that previous versions of the encounter relayed about Montreal were very near the truth.

“I was a regular Horatio at the bridge,” Cobb said with a twinkle. More seriously, he added, “But you know, Major, I pointed my musket at the man in the moon and fired. I’d be damned if I’d shoot some poor dumb bugger just to save the skinny neck of Francis Bone Head.”

“And one of them dumb buggers was my nephew, Jimmy Madden,” Dora said. “What was Mister Cobb supposed to do, shoot his own kin?”

“Luckily fer everybody, both sides skedaddlled like jackrabbits,” Cobb said.

“Don’t scourge-ilize yerself, Mister Cobb.”

“Well, it weren’t no Watered-loo, Missus Cobb.”

“But the militia arrived and completed the job properly two days later?” Marc asked.

“Yup. But that turned out even worse.” Cobb looked to his wife. “Can I tell him?”

“Marc’s a friend, ain’t he?”

With much relish Cobb proceeded to recite a tale that would in time become a family legend, to be told and retold down the Cobbian generations. It seems that foolish young Jimmy Madden had run away and joined Mackenzie’s rebels. He was present during that first unhappy encounter below Bloor Street, and had scampered away with his frightened cohorts. Scared to death but determined to remain steadfast in the cause, he stuck with Mackenzie and Lount at Montgomery’s tavern until the militia arrived on December 7 to scatter the rebel force and send its remnants into flight. Jimmy had been spotted and identified. And pursued. Cobb returned from work that evening to find Jimmy cowering beside the fireplace and Dora wringing her hands.

What could be done? If Cobb were found to be harbouring a rebel fugitive, he could lose his job and his sole livelihood. He had taken an oath to uphold the law and already was feeling guilty for taking a pot-shot at the moon. But blood was blood. This was Dora’s sister’s boy, foolish or not. No decision had yet been taken, however, when Fabian rushed in to say that a squad of militiamen was a block away and headed towards the house.

It was Dora, apparently, who devised the plan. She took Jimmy, a skinny and beardless youth, into her bedroom. The children were sent off to the neighbours out the back door, while Cobb waited alone for the troop to arrive. To his astonishment and dismay, it was led by the infamous Colonel MacNab himself. The colonel was polite but determined. The fugitive was known to be his wife’s relative and had been seen earlier in the afternoon in the eastern part of town. He asked if the lad was present and, if not, whether Cobb had seen him. Cobb gave a curt no to each question. Was Mrs. Cobb at home? Yes, but she was seriously ill and could not be disturbed. A young female cousin, her nurse, was sleeping with her.