Rum, Blood and Treasure by Edward Butts

Author:Edward Butts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lorimer
Published: 2016-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

9

Thomas Collins: The Stranger Did It

Nobody in the little community of New Ireland in Albert County, New Brunswick, knew anything about Thomas Francis Collins. He arrived in mid-August 1906, claiming to be a twenty-one-year-old sailor from a poor Irish neighbourhood in Liverpool, England. He said he’d only recently arrived in Canada.

Collins stood just five foot four, but his small frame was solid. He had a boyish face, a winning smile, and a friendly personality. That might have been why the parish priest, Father Edward J. MacAulay, took pity on him, a lad who was alone and penniless in a strange country. MacAulay offered Collins a job at the rectory for which he would receive room and board and seven dollars a month. Collins cheerfully accepted.

As pastor of the rural parish of St. Agatha, MacAulay didn’t have much money to spare for hired help. His live-in housekeeper, Mary Ann MacAulay, was a second cousin who had never married. She had been with him for twenty-five years. Father MacAulay paid her one hundred and twenty dollars a year plus room and board for which she did the cooking, laundry, and other chores. It had been a practical and satisfactory arrangement for them both. Mary Ann was frugal and kept a sharp eye on the rectory’s finances. She also spent little money on herself. Her one indulgence was a lady’s gold watch.

But Mary Ann was now fifty-two years old. Father MacAulay was sixty-two, and feeling his age more every day. He thought it was about time he hired someone to help with the chores. A cheerful lad like Collins would be good company for Mary Ann during times when the priest did the rounds of his extensive parish and was away for days. She didn’t like being in the rectory alone and would stay with neighbours. In addition, three weeks earlier, while they were both out of the house, a burglar had broken in and stolen some bottles of whiskey and sacramental wine.

But it soon became obvious that Collins was unfamiliar with the kind of work required of him. He didn’t know anything about horses and had never handled any of the kind of tools in the rectory woodshed. Nonetheless, Father MacAulay had faith in him and told a parishioner, “He doesn’t seem to know how to do anything, but after he learns, he’ll be quite a smart boy.”

Mary Ann didn’t share MacAulay’s optimism. She didn’t think they could afford a hired man in the first place, let alone one who didn’t even know how to hitch up a horse. Mary Ann had been running the house for years, and now there was a stranger living in it.

Mary Ann treated Collins civilly in Father MacAulay’s presence, but in the priest’s absence she browbeat him and called him a fool. She refused to serve him meals until he had performed tasks precisely to her satisfaction. If he didn’t do a job right, she scolded him. On one occasion, Mary Ann sent Collins fishing with some local men so he could bring back some trout for her to prepare for supper.

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