On the Head of a Pin (6 page)

Lewis had seen how effective women could be, how they could move a crowd and stir its conscience. Why not let them, in a country that spread its people across countless miles and scattered them thinly across its face? It wasn't as if there was a surfeit of male ministers.

By the time he realized that his reflections had caused him to lose track of what Case was saying, Lewis had missed the entire first part of the sermon. He chided himself for letting his mind wander.

Case was met with polite attention, but as the first speaker of the day, he failed to engender the wild enthusiasm that was the hallmark of the camp meeting. As the day wore on, however, each sermon would spur the frenzy of the crowd until, at the very end of the meeting, Case would speak again and claim the conversion of many.

But now it was the turn of the exhorter. James Simpson mounted the platform. It was the exhorter's job to encourage the crowd to shout and proclaim their faith, to “do what was right.” He began with “Hallelujah!”

“Hallelujah,” the crowd shouted in return.

“I should go back and make sure Minta is all right,” Rachel said and she darted away before he could say goodbye.

Most of the crowd was sitting well back, but there were a number, mostly young folks, who crowded in a ring around the platform.

“Hallelujah, brothers and sisters,” the exhorter called.

“Hallelujah,” came the reply of many voices, although there were a few catcalls from the back. These meetings attracted mostly the sincere, but there were always a few who came along just to see what trouble they could cause.

“Haven't you heard the news?” A voice came floating up to the platform.

Simpson ignored it.

“Hey, Preacher, haven't you heard the news?” the voice persisted, “The devil is dead!”

Although he had barely seemed to acknowledge the heckling, Simpson now seized on this statement. “If the devil is dead,” he shouted to the crowd, “then I see he's left a dreadful number of fatherless children!”

The crowd roared its approval, and he continued. “We are all fatherless children unless we acknowledge the true benevolence of the Lord Our God, who is truly our father. Like a father, he will forgive us. Like a father he will admit us to his House. Like a father he will love us, but only if we surrender ourselves to the Mercy of his Grace and give up our whole hearts to the joy of his Word.”

“Hallelujah!” the crowd shouted, and the heckler gave up. If there was anything a Methodist crowd admired, it was a ready wit, and Simpson had shown that he had it in abundance.

As the exhortation went on, Lewis realized that Rachel had worked her way through the throng of people and had rejoined him.

“Minta's fine,” she said. “She insisted I come back up.”

The young people at the front began to stir. They were nearly always the first to go forward and proclaim that they had been saved. He could see a couple of the girls swaying and knew that they would soon fall to their knees, caught up in the emotion of the day. Sure enough, a yellow-haired girl threw herself to the ground, crying, “I've got it! I've got it!”

This was what Simpson had been waiting for. “Got what?” he cried from the platform.

“I've got it! I've got it!” the girl shrieked.

“What have you got?” said Simpson in return, and the crowd joined him in asking, “What have you got?”

“I've got the Grace of the Lord!” she cried.

“Hallelujah!” called Simpson.

“Hallelujah!” the crowd echoed.

Right on cue, two more girls fell forward at this, and several young men followed. One of them in particular caught Lewis's eye. He was rather weedy-looking, with greasy hair, and dressed far more shabbily than those around him. He threw himself in front of the platform and began to moan. “I've got it! I've got it!” he shouted, in imitation of the first girl.

“What have you got, young man? What have you got?”

“I've got the spirit of Jesus Christ Our Lord,” he cried. He began to moan and writhe, but all the time Lewis could see that he was watching the girls out of the corner of one eye. He realized that Rachel had noticed this too, and she had a wary look on her face.

“That's that Morgan Spicer,” she said. “I can only hope the Lord improves his personality along with his soul.” Her hand flew up to her mouth as she realized what she had said and who she had said it to, but Lewis laughed.

“I take it you know him?”

“Yes, he's a pest,” she replied, but elaborated no further.

As Lewis himself had just been entertaining similar sentiments about William Case, he didn't feel he could rightly chastise the girl for being uncharitable.

One by one, worshippers went to the front of the platform and threw themselves to the ground, and with each one the crowd would yell out encouragement. The meeting was building to a gratifying level of frenzy when Simpson decided enough was enough for the time being and called for a hymn. Breaking off the frenetic pace now would make people all the more eager to come forward later to be a part of the grand awakening.

“All people that on earth do dwell,” Simpson sang out. As well as being a fine exhorter, he had a good ear and a deep baritone voice that carried well.

“All people that on earth do dwell,” three hundred voices sang back at him. Lewis noticed Rachel's was not one of them. She did, however, have rather a rapt expression on her face, and when the crowd began to clap their hands in time, she joined in.

“Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.”

“Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice,” came the response. Lewis was rather sorry that the crowd had started to clap, though, as it made the song sound like a march, and dragged the tempo down.

By the time the next speaker climbed the platform, Lewis was aware that the sun was beating down on his neck and he turned to find his way to a shadier spot. As he and Rachel threaded their way through to the back, he asked, “Why didn't you sing along with the hymn?”

“I've not sung enough to develop any kind of voice.” She laughed. “Truth be told, I can scarcely carry a tune. I've always liked that particular hymn, though. It's rather lovely, isn't it?”

She was right. It was lovely, and as much as he didn't much like these meetings, he did like to hear all those voices singing together, especially when it was “The Old Hundredth,” one of his favourites.

“You should sing anyway,” he said. “The Lord doesn't mind if it's not in tune.”

“But the people standing next to me might. It would certainly drive all the loveliness out of the hymn.” She giggled as she said this, and he could do nothing but smile back at her.

He left her with Minta, and was immediately claimed by Mr. Varney, who wanted to rehash the incident in the Demorestville churchyard, and Mrs. Varney, who wanted to fill him in on the shortcomings of those who had stepped forward during the morning.

“That girl with the yellow hair is no better than she should be,” she said. “I sincerely hope she's found the Lord and will mend her ways.”

“Well, be assured the Lord can work miracles,” he replied.

“I notice that Rachel Jessup was sticking pretty close to you. Is she thinking of joining the society?”

“I don't know. She's here with her sister-in-law and was only standing with me because Minta needed to sit down.”

“Poor Minta — married to that great hulk of a man. You can tell he's a brute just by the look of him. I suppose she's expecting and that's why she looks so tired.”

He didn't know what to say. He didn't know if he had been given that information in confidence or not and, after all, Betsy had already figured it out. He had just about decided that it didn't matter when Mrs. Varney went on.

“You can tell, with some of them. They start looking peaky as soon as the child starts. Some women just aren't cut out for easy childbirth. I suppose that's why Rachel is living with them, to help out.”

“Yes, that's my understanding.”

Mrs. Varney snorted. “I don't know how much help she is. Every time you look around there's a mob of boys around her. Not that I've ever heard anything against the girl, mind, but you have to wonder. They always say that where there's smoke, there's sure to be fire. You just really have to wonder.”

“Well, no, Mrs. Varney, you don't. You don't have to wonder at all.” He nodded his goodbyes and began to walk around the edge of the crowd, many of whom were lighting fires in preparation for the evening meal while giving half an ear to the preacher on the platform.

He stepped around old folks, mothers and babies, and small children playing at the edge of the field. As he picked his way through an entire encampment of what seemed to be one huge, extended family, he stumbled into the small weaselly boy that Rachel had commented on with disgust, who had been picking his way in the opposite direction.

“Isn't this wonderful,” he exclaimed when he realized that he had bumped into a minister. “It's incredible to see the spirit of the Lord at work. By the way, I saw that you were standing with Rachel Jessup. You don't happen to know which way she went, do you?”

So, he had been right. Morgan Spicer's mind had been on girls instead of on the Lord.

“I believe she's sitting with her sister-in-law at the other side of the field,” he said. “What did you want her for?”

He seemed a little taken aback at the directness of the question. “Why, to let her know that I'm saved, that I have seen the glory of the Lord. Besides, I have a present for her.”

He opened his hand to show Lewis one of the little pocket-sized books that were for sale all over the campground. This one had a cheap red leather cover, the colour from which was already smudging the boy's hands. The print inside was minute, so small that he had to squint to make any of it out. It consisted of the Book of Proverbs, an odd choice for a young man to give to a girl, he would have thought. Several sections of the Bible had been bound up separately, some in red covers, some in green, still others in brown, but all of them cheaply made and sure to fall apart with much use. He wondered why these miniature unreadable trinkets were so popular. The young man looked pleased with his purchase, though, so he kept his comments to himself. He shrugged. “Well, carry on then.”

He knew Spicer was expecting him to rejoice, to congratulate him on being saved, but the truth was that he wasn't at all sure that there was anything to rejoice about. It had happened too easily, in too mealy-mouthed a way to sit comfortably. He'd wait and see the depth of the boy's commitment before he offered any encouragement.

He kept an eye on the weedy little figure as he continued his journey to the other side of the field, and noted that he was probably far too late to grab much of Rachel's attention. She was already surrounded by a group of young men and was deep in conversation with one of the Caddick brothers.

VI

U
pon his return home the next day, Betsy informed Lewis that some men had come to the house, again asking why her husband had not yet reported to Kingston.

“I told them you're a minister now and won't fight. They said it didn't matter, everyone was to report, and that if you didn't, it would prove what everybody knows — that the Methodists are traitors. You won't have to go, will you?”

“I won't go to fight, but I will have to go to Kingston and straighten it out,” he said. He had put it off too long already. He made arrangements with the local preachers to cover his meetings for a couple of days, repacked his saddle bag, and set off.

As he picked his way along the road, he reflected that, conscience notwithstanding, he was happy of an excuse not to go to war again. He had been a young man when he fought the Americans in 1812, full of himself and ready to achieve glory. The reality of the thing had been quite different than he had imagined: smelly, noisy, chaotic, and at times terrifying. Blood, vomit, and lice had been everyday companions.

When he wasn't terrified, he had been bored. But it was those moments of terror that stuck with him most, those moments that still caused him to wake from the nightmares in a cold sweat. He had seen legs blown off, a man with half his face shot away, dead bodies stiffening in the winter wind.

He'd got off lucky, in a way. He had fallen ill — a malady that later proved to be typhus — and he had been invalided home. After he had recovered, he'd begun to drink and had been drunk for fifty days straight, he was told, though he could scarcely remember any of it. He could only recall not wanting to remember anything about the war. After he recovered from his binge, he'd found both Betsy and the Lord in the same week. He felt sure that the juxtaposition was no accident. Without Betsy, he would never have realized the depths he'd sunk to; without the Lord, he wasn't sure that Betsy would have given him the time of day.

He was perspiring by the time he reached the gates of the stone fort at Kingston, even though it was a brisk day and the wind was switching to the north. He asked the sentry if he could speak with the officer in charge.

“Why do you want him?” the sentry asked in that arrogant and challenging way that soldiers adopt when dealing with civilians.

“That's my business,” Lewis replied.

“Are you ex-militia? If you're militia that's been called, you have to wait in the ready room.”

“I'm ex-militia, but I have no intention of being called.”

“You'll have to wait in the ready room.”

Lewis shrugged and went in the direction the sentry pointed.

It was cold in the room; no one had made a fire for the soldiers being called in. The place was overflowing with grumbling farmers and tradesmen who were annoyed at the time that was being wasted while work waited for them at home. Lewis finally found a seat beside an old man who must have been seventy if he was a day.