The Pilgrim Read online

  THE PILGRIM

  THE PILGRIM

  BOOK FOUR of the ALFORD SAGA

  PAUL ALMOND

  Copyright © 2012 by Paul Almond

  All rights reserved.

  The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise

  stored in a retrieval system, without the express written consent

  of the publisher, is an infringement of the copyright law.

  First published in Canada in 2012 by McArthur & Company

  eBook edition © 2013 by Red Deer Press

  eBook ISBN 9781552443224

  Red Deer Press acknowledges with thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.

  Cover design by Devon Pool

  Cover photograph by Linda Rutenberg

  Interior design by Tania Craan

  Printed and bound in Canada by Trigraphik

  eBook development by Wild Element.ca

  eBook revisions © Red Deer Press

  To

  my lovely wife

  Joan

  who makes everything possible

  Chapter One

  SEPTEMBER 1896

  I just loved facing this east wind — my favourite spot on the schooner these past two days. Leaning in the prow against the wooden breast hook, I got time away from the passengers for a good think about my days ahead in the mission of St. Clement’s, the largest church territory in all Quebec. My first posting: four hundred and fifty miles of barren coastline on the Canadian Labrador.

  What had his Lordship the Bishop been thinking? Only a month ago, in August, I had been summoned to his office at the cathedral in Quebec City. Bishop Andrew Hunter Dunn had been selected from among the British clergy in London five years previously. A man who knew what he wanted, they all told me, not one to be argued with, not one who took his duties lightly, but a good, godly man. If I were lucky enough to get a parish, where would he assign me? Somewhere on the Gaspé, I expected. After all, only a few weeks before I had graduated from Bishop’s University with my B.A. and then taken Holy Orders as deacon.

  The ship gave a lurch as she went about on another tack and I grasped the breast hook firmly. Against the fearful cold I had wrapped myself well, for although it was only September, we were already several hundred miles northeast of the Gaspé Peninsula heading down the St. Lawrence River, though surely well beyond its mighty flow, sailing now through the rough salt currents of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

  I must’ve seemed a lonely figure in my dark coat, wrapped with my scarf and fur hat, every inch, I supposed, the lone clergyman going off into the unknown. I did see myself as rather heroic. Or perhaps I was thinking this way to quash the fears that kept washing over me. How on earth would I ever fulfill those enormous expectations? A parish so large! Settlements so scattered! And everyone so poor...

  That final meeting with the bishop had given me heart, but also some solid misgivings: “Young man, I am sending you into one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Never have I been to the jungles of South America nor have I travelled in the deserts of the Sahara and the Gobi. But I have been to the Labrador, and I can tell you that nothing on earth compares to its hostile and forbidding environment. You will find almost no forests — nothing but barren rock on which their houses perch, haphazard, unprotected from the elements, with little affinity for their landscape.

  “Their inhabitants are hard, tough, and unyielding like the very rocks on which they live. Mind you, they need to be, just to survive.”

  “My Lord Bishop —” I began, but Bishop Dunn dismissed my interjection with a wave of his hand. “I know what you will ask: why not send a more experienced clergyman? Well, I shall tell you. None but the fittest could survive in that largely forgotten land. I have been looking over your records at that fine university and have been corresponding with your able professors. They tell me you are of an athletic bent and that physical undertakings cause no hardship. So while I would agree that it is a daunting prospect for one so young, I have no doubt, from what I’ve heard, that you’ll rise to the challenge magnificently.”

  I dropped my eyes. “If you say so, my Lord Bishop.” I just hoped he would not be disappointed.

  “I myself was there just a short time ago, last summer in fact, when I consecrated the tiny church in Mutton Bay, your future headquarters. I also selected a site for another church in Harrington Harbour. It was summer,” he seemed to relax at the memory, “and the weather was kind, the people most generous of spirit.” He paused and then looked at me with an almost sorrowful gaze. “But imagine those long winter nights of darkness! How that isolation must weigh upon their souls! It defies my imagination how any man cares for his family in such conditions, where few venture and even fewer survive.”

  Not a very encouraging send-off.

  But now, as Julius Caesar said, the die had been cast. Here I was on the schooner La Canadienne heading for my first assignment, letting the wind tear fitfully at my face and its gusts threaten my footing on the pitching deck. I even felt certain that now, in this next year, I would finally achieve that long-hidden yearning to meet — in some curious way — actually meet, my Saviour. Walking beside me, or face to face in a vision, who knew? But I had nurtured this secret longing within myself for as long as I could remember (developed I suppose from some forgotten children’s tale). I had often dismissed it as a foolish dream, but still it had grown in those crevices at the back of my mind. Indeed, a wild dream, possibly to be fulfilled on these granite shores.

  How the past three years of university had flown! Coming home that first Christmas in 1983 after three months in university, arriving at Matapedia, I had been filled with foreboding. How would my family take my decision? Because I was the first from the Coast to go to university, it had been silently presumed I’d become a doctor and return to the Coast. We had left Montreal late in the afternoon, and my companion in the train carriage was still fast asleep; we had gossiped long into the night.

  “Matapedia, next stop, five minutes.” Matapedia was the junction point for all the Gaspé. There had been some talk of a railway branch line coming our way, and beyond, as far as Gaspé town, but so far nothing. After all, it was only fifteen years ago that they had completed this line from Montreal to Halifax.

  The burly conductor stomped past and my travelling companion awakened. With freckles and sandy hair, Frank was three or four years younger than me. He had accompanied his father to Montreal to check into some shipping affiliations and now was going back to Halifax to continue his studies for a second mate’s ticket. In the spring, he planned to sign onto one of his father’s schooners sailing from Nova Scotia.

  Not the life I would lead, I had told him: I wasn’t at all keen on the bounding main. But what kind of a life did I expect? Had my decision about the future been taken rather too hastily? Had I just been bamboozled by my companions? Carried away by youthful exuberance?

  “Getting off here, John, are ya?” Frank leaned close to the window and cupped his hand around his eyes to see out. “Pretty heavy snowfall.”

  I mumbled an affirmative to disguise my nervousness. If Old Poppa came with Lively, our fine but now rather aged horse, how would we make it all the way home, a good hundred miles? Out the window, those big fluffy flakes seemed likely to continue all this day.

  I felt the train slowing down. Not a bad ride, I thought: nice spacious carriage, red leather seats, and rather attractive lighting under the curved cream-coloured ceiling. When I had left that first September in �
�83, all the family had gathered: six brothers and sisters, from Mac and Molly down to little Earle, two years old, and of course my dear mother. As I had looked down out of the buggy, ready to set off, I could see her blue eyes bright with tears. She rarely showed any emotion, understandably, having raised seven children. Of medium height but thin to the point of being skinny, she had always worked hard from morning till night, as do most mothers hereabouts. Old Poppa too, even though he must have been sixty, had the wiry frame of a young worker, though his long drooping mustache, turning grey, made him seem more of a paterfamilias. Still bounding with energy though, no doubt about that.

  When the train had jolted to a stop, I wrapped round the wool scarf Momma had knitted me, tugged on my hat, and put my hand out to shake Frank’s vigorously. “I’ve sure enjoyed talking with you, Frank. I expect we’ll meet again, you travelling on that schooner and such.”

  “Oh for sure. If we call in at Paspébiac or somewheres near, I’ll make sure to find you. Have a good Christmas, now. And good luck with them studies.”

  “You too.” I had grabbed my leather suitcase and joined the other three or four travellers descending from our carriage.

  Lord, that snow was coming down! I got off at the far end of the platform and, without pausing, made straight for the huddle of men stamping their feet by the naked lantern underneath the station overhang.

  I was so pleased to see my father, I don’t know what came over me. My initial impulse was to give him a big hug, though of course we never did that. So when he hauled off his mitt and stretched out his hand, I hauled off mine and grabbed his in both my hands. We stood for a moment looking at each other in a silent moment. Then we turned and headed over to the sleigh where Lively stood waiting.

  A couple of older men said they thought I looked like Old Poppa when he was a young man, but I just don’t see that. Except, perhaps, for my bushy eyebrows. But whereas he was fairly tall, certainly thin and wiry, I myself am more chunky, more solidly built, and by no means could I be considered fearsome. My sturdy build, and the fact that I’m pretty fit, did allow me to make the first rugby team at Bishop’s. I’m pretty proud of that. And I might even do well in the spring, I had thought, when we got to racing. But my hair is thin and my head set squarely and firmly on my body. And I’m even a bit short.

  “You came alone, Poppa? Not sure I like the look of all this!” I hurried to throw my bag in the back and pull a covering over to keep it dry. I climbed up, but we couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead.

  “She’s been coming down terble,” Old Poppa said. “We had a job to find our way these last few miles. Decided to come the whole way last night afore it got too bad. Slep’ in the station. But Lively’s done this twice, so I reckon he’ll know his way back. If it don’t turn too cold and freeze up, like they been saying at the station.” He leapt up next to me, spry as ever, and grabbed the reins. “Giddap,” he called and off we went.

  Dawn seemed to be lifting. Across our knees, the sheepskin blanket that we call a “buffalo” was covered in snow, and Lively had slowed to a crawl. “Why not try the bay?” I asked. “Might be fewer snowdrifts.” I don’t know what possessed me, but I felt a little panic creeping in.

  “That ice, she’s not solid enough. Last night I saw a lot of slush. Lively’s had a long hard run the last two days. I don’t blame him for tiring none.”

  “Time we got a new horse,” I mumbled through my scarf. What a time to find myself on the road home with Old Poppa frozen to death!

  “Been thinking that way myself. But he’s a terble fine stud. Hardly a farmer don’t ask for him to service their mares in the fall of the year when I pass with the mail.” Poppa delivered the mail from New Richmond down to Shigawake and then beyond to Pabos, where it was taken by another fella on to Gaspé.

  In the silence that ensued, I turned my thoughts from these approaching dangers to my big career decision. How would I ever break the news?

  After a couple of hours of heavy slogging through snowy woods, in which I despaired of ever making it, I noticed Lively take on a bit of speed. The next village of Restigouche, I wondered? No, instead, a sturdy, square, stone building. Poppa gave an exclamation of satisfaction. “Never thought he’d find it. Trust Lively to know where there’s a house!”

  Lively turned in: he’d had enough. Poppa got down, walked over and banged on the door.

  It was opened by a young man in his thirties who looked at us with some suspicion. “Lost your way?”

  “No, but… Ah... Is Mr. Robert Busteed in?”

  The man shook his head. “We lost my uncle last summer.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Poppa seemed nonplussed. “Well, I’d sure appreciate it if we could stop in for a few minutes while my horse gets his breath.”

  Almost grudgingly, I thought, the man opened the door and we stepped through into the hall. Poppa stuck out his hand. “I’m Jim Alford, and this here is my son John, a student up at Bishop’s University.”

  “Thomas Busteed. I’m Robert’s nephew.” They shook hands and Thomas reached for Poppa’s coat. “You knew him?”

  “Yes, but one whale of a long time ago. When I was nineteen, I came through here heading to Montreal. In the 1850s.” We began to shed our snowy garments.

  From upstairs came a woman’s voice. “What is it, Thomas?”

  “Two travellers, one b’the name of Jim Alford.”

  I happened to be looking up the stairs and saw the woman, probably in her seventies or eighties, drop the towel she was carrying and hold onto the banister.

  “Are you all right, Aunt Elizabeth?” Thomas asked

  “Yes, yes. I’ll get Helen, and we’ll be right down.” She turned, and hurried off.

  Well, I thought, this indeed meant something. But what?

  This old stone house had fine furniture, no doubt, and a separate dining room. On the thick walls hung pictures, some portraits, indicating a refined taste. Over a hundred years old, I was told, to which I replied, so’s ours! But ours had been built onto, rooms added, and was made of wood, with little to speak of on the walls. During our nourishing breakfast, I kept watching my father and Elizabeth. Even at her age, probably in her seventies or eighties, she seemed unusually shy in his presence, and almost, if I may use the word for an elderly lady, coquettish. My father, for his part, seemed to be disguising an emotion that lurked just beneath the surface. What was it between the two of them?

  The answer was not easily forthcoming.

  While trying to figure out this curious relationship, I was prodded for details of my first three months at Bishop’s University. “It’s such a fine place,” I waxed enthusiastically, “with all that red brick, some ivy starting to climb up, those pointed towers like really old buildings; they say it’s neo-Gothic. Our comfortable dormitory, you just really feel like studying, like reading everything you can get your hands on.”

  “And they keep you at it?” Helen asked. She was shrunken, but clearly had been graceful and ladylike, but was now struggling against the onslaught of age.

  “They sure do, Miss Busteed, though it’s not necessary. We’re all doing our best to learn as much as we can, and as quickly. This opportunity my family has given me will not be wasted, I can assure you.”

  I noticed a look of appreciation in Poppa’s eye. “He’s sure gonna be the best doctor in all Canada.”

  That took me aback! “A doctor, Poppa? We’ve never discussed —”

  “Of course we did. You said many times —”

  “Well, I admit you mentioned it, but surely there was no definite thought of me pursuing that career.”

  “Why else did we send you? Why, it was here in this very house I met Daniel Busteed, who was, I presume,” Poppa said, turning to Thomas, “your uncle?” Thomas nodded, and Poppa went on, “He was good enough to take me for a drive to show me his hospital across the bay in Campbellton.”

  “It was hardly his hospital, Mr. Alford,” Thomas said. “But it is true that he bro
ught back what little knowledge — and I’m afraid I must emphasize little — that he had acquired on his one trip to London. He worked here with it all his life, caring for his good neighbour.”

  “Yep, told me all that. We drove in his fine sleigh, I remember, and his horse really impressed me.” I hadn’t often heard Poppa being quite so fulsome. But he was young at the time and the recollection must have been important to him. “When I got home a year later, first thing I did was persuade my own father to get us a horse like that.” He turned to me. “Our first Lively. I was about your age, John, in fact, younger.”

  With that he glanced at Elizabeth, who I swear seemed to blush. A light shone in her eyes, though her gnarled fingers, crippled with arthritis, were hard to ignore as she tried to grip her spoon and raise the porridge to her mouth.

  I hoped this discussion of my future would not go any further. I hadn’t realized how important my being a doctor was to Poppa. I had decided upon a career that was quite contrary to his wishes, but one that focussed all my thinking and drove me even more conscientiously to books and learning. I changed the subject. “So, Poppa, you stayed here overnight?”

  “Three days, I think. On the way to Montreal.”

  Montreal? I’d never heard him mention that. “Really? You went to Montreal?”

  “Yes, but we aren’t going into all that now. It’s long gone. The only thing I learned was, nothing is nowheres as good as our old homestead. I’ve stayed ever since.”

  He’d closed that line of questioning, but it certainly opened another avenue of thought. I adjudged from their present ages that Elizabeth had been older than father, and the two sisters had remained spinsters. When their brother had died earlier this year, they had written to this nephew, Thomas, who had left here at nineteen, crossed the continent, adventured down the Columbia River, and then lived in Spokane. They had offered to leave him this house if he were to return. And return he had, three months ago.

  “Well,” Poppa said, “I thank you ladies for the finest breakfast I’ve had for a long time.” He rose. “And Elizabeth,” he paused, seeming to control some hidden feelings, “it’s real good to see you again, looking so very fine.”