Rebellion's Daughter by Judi Coburn

Author:Judi Coburn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

ICE PELLETS CLATTERED AGAINST the windows of the inn and Eunice’s hopes sank. The turn in the weather would surely mean no visit from Adam. But later in the evening, as she stood up from the milking stool and moved to cover the filled pails, she heard the jingle of horses, and she and Aloysius went out into the sleet. Adam’s team stood forlornly in the yard, covered in ice. Adam climbed stiffly down and through chattering teeth told how he had spent hours trying to get the wagon out of a hole of slush by finding branches to lodge under the wheels. “I’d be there still if the militia had not come to my rescue.”

Aloysius began unharnessing the team while Eunice led Adam into the kitchen, sat him in front of the fire and helped him off with his jacket and boots, his soaked woolen cap. Kate brought him a mug of hot whiskey punch and a bowl of stew, and she and Lucretia pulled up chairs to join him. As his clothes steamed, the talk drifted to Adam’s benefactor, Absolom Shade, member of Parliament, wealthy entrepreneur and founder of the town of Galt, formerly known as Shade’s Mills. Shade was known for loading up enormous, eighty-foot-long timber rafts with flour barrels and kegs of whiskey and sending them down the Grand River, swollen with spring melt. People gathered along the riverbank to watch as the arks, as they were called, passed by. “Shade’s ark was always in the lead,” Adam boasted.

But Eunice was remembering Benjamin Wait’s story about Absolom Shade and said, “Well, I know something about your great man that’s not so flattering.”

“Well, he’s no saint, I’ll grant you. What do you know about him?”

“He and his drunken friends terrified people last December when they barged into houses and pulled out men they suspected of voting Reform.”

“Or suspected of being rebels. You’re friends, then, with some of them rebels?”

Her anger spilled out. “The farmer I worked for was put in jail for six months just because he talked about injustices. He may lose his farm.”

“But when the rebels took up guns to overthrow the government, I canna’ really blame Shade for his position.”

“You think people should just turn the other cheek when they are beaten up for voting Reform, then?”

Eunice noticed that Kate had lowered her needlework to study her.

“Nay, but there are people working for change without blowing off heads,” Adam responded.

“I thought you said you didn’t know much about it,” Eunice said more quietly.

“I don’t. My father was all for the king, but he was prepared to hear out Mackenzie, a fellow Scot, after all. In fact, I heard Mack speak when he came to Galt. I was just a kid but I remember being taken to hear him. A big crowd listened to him preach about the evils of the Family Compact from the window of the second floor of the inn. When it grew dark, torches were lit and he carried on.”

“What did he say?” Eunice wanted to hear more about the much-admired, much-hated rebel leader.

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