But it was by the fruits of these pioneeringefforts in schooling and churching that their worth had to bemeasured. And for examples of these, those seated before him needonly look around them. Two graduates of this inspired system evennow sat amongst them, had indeed served them as pastor and moralguide for many years. (All those who could see the vicars alludedto – David Chalmers and Quentin Hungerford – strained to catch anyrevealing glance they might make to such public acknowledgement,while everyone else attempted to assess the significance ofChalmers being mentioned first and with slightly moreemphasis.)
Others, Strachan continued, now occupiedpositions of power and awesome responsibility in the Executive andLegislative Councils, superintended the banks that fuelled theeconomy, and operated the honourable businesses that had blossomedeverywhere in Upper Canada. And these were men of probity andhumility, charged with noblesse oblige, comfortable with aConstitutional Act whose wise makers in 1791 had set out theabiding traits that would govern the province’s Heaven-blessedfuture. Chief of these had been the setting aside of the ClergyReserves for the perpetual support of an Established, andProtestant, Church!
Several murmurs and mutterings stalled theRector’s rhetorical swoop at this point, but the intrepid pastorcarried on.
Like the plagues that had struck Egypt, heroared, the fruitfulness of this Heaven-blessed land had beeninsidiously and profanely corrupted. Profanely: because theprovince had prospered under its original charter, had pampered itsadherents, had welcomed the poor and the outcast – who could belikened to the meek inheriting the good earth. Thus, there hadbeen, and was now, no cause to poison the well! And insidious itwas, too, because those dissenting did so in the guise of reason,in the seductive sophistry so beloved of Lucifer and Beelzebub.Clothed in the tempting phraseology of democracy, in the Siren songof republicanism, in the false promise of social levelling – acabal of non-believers had insinuated the very field-and-fallow ofthis thriving domain. But it is by their fruits that ye shall knowthem, he iterated with a soft and bemused restraint, taking hisaudience by surprise and prepping them nicely for thedenouement.
What were the actions of thesemountebanks and apostates, he demanded to know. Why, they hadorganized secret meetings and subversive societies, had publiclycalled for the dismantling of Her Majesty’s Established Church, hadsweet-talked the Legislative Assembly into withholding supply, hadsent delegations to London to undermine the royal authority, and,finally, had conspired with Yankee freebooters to overthrow thegovernment in a coup d’état!
More murmurs here, some of them of adissenting tone. But they were drowned out as Pastor Strachanreached back for his full lamentative voice, and began to reel offthe names of those whose “fruits” had belied their words, includingWillie Mackenzie, John Rolph, Marshall Spring Bidwell – and, havinggot onto the American roster of villains, he tossed in the names ofthe half-dozen “patriots” whose invasion attempts had been foiledlast year and who had been summarily hanged for their folly.
Roused and re-roused to near exhaustion, thecongregation braced itself for the fine flourish that invariablyconcluded a Strachan sermon and brought it elegantly full circle.But the jeremiad was not finished. Hand in glove with the politicalinfestations from across the border had come moral decay and itshandmaiden, atheism. Were not most of the Methodist circuit riders,with their devious catechisms, former Yankee peddlers, who spreadtheir levelling nonsense along with their false doctrines? Had notthe common schools, founded by Anglicans and supported by theirefforts, fallen into the hands of Yankee schoolteachers preachingegalitarianism? And with democracy and godlessness, could moralcollapse be far behind? Why, one had only to look at the example ofan exiled Yankee lawyer living within blocks of this very pulpit,whose beguiling palaver and litigious shenanigans had given him adubious prestige among the ignorant classes, while the deeds- the fruits, if you will – of his personal life were so vile andabominable, so ripe with unnatural voluptuousness, that all thefires of Hell could not purge them!
The Reverend Strachan – bishop-surely-to-be -paused. Into the shocked silence, he spat with seething vehemence,“I say to all of that ilk: ‘If thine eye offend thee, pluck itout!’”
***
Nestor Peck, Cobb’s favourite snitch, was besidehimself. Here it was well past seven-thirty on a Monday morning,the sun having already risen into a cold, cloudless sky, and he hadjust reached the service lane that ran behind the shops on thesouth side of King Street between York and Bay. If others had gothere before him, the pickings would be pitifully slim.
Nestor was famished, in addition to beingsore and hung over. He regretted now the impulse that had takenhim, with four shillings in his pocket, to the bootlegger’s inIrishtown. The cheap, sweet wine had tasted good going down, buthad made him forget, for a fatal moment, the ingrained caution thathad kept him whole and productive as Constable Horatio Cobb’sprincipal snitch and the premier scrounger among the city’slowlife. He must have joined the dicers – his memory of the night’sevents was still hazy – for he had ended up penniless, coming hometo his own vomit with the second-last tooth in his lower jawhanging by its dead nerve. The moon had been down when he hadcrawled into his hovel on Brock Street behind the hatchery.
Usually, whenever he had no money for foodand drink, he got up before sunrise in order to be first on thescene in those service lanes where the garbage – especially fromthe weekend – was likely to be tasty and abundant. It was amazingwhat people tossed out, particularly the shopkeepers who lived onor above their premises. A perfectly wearable bowler hat, forexample, with a bit of reblocking and dusting, had fetched him thefour shillings he had just squandered. Unfortunately, he had had noinformation about criminal activity to sell to Cobb for over aweek. Crime had either taken a holiday or become moreclose-mouthed.
Nestor hurried past the jeweller’s – he wasnotorious miser – and stopped at the narrow alley between that shopand the grocer’s next to it. Old Southey usually cleaned houseafter the Saturday surge of business, ignoring the Sabbath andputting two drums of edible refuse out next to his side door – tobe picked up by one of several garbage wagons that plied theirtrade hereabouts (most ordinary folk burned or buried their trash).Yes, the drums were there, and from their position, they appearedto be untouched by greedier hands.
The alley itself was in shadow, and Nestorcould see his breath as he slipped soundlessly towards his prize.But something else caught his eye, a few yards beyond the drums andalmost at a spot where the alley met King Street. It appeared to bea large, lumpy bundle, covered by a wool blanket or tarpaulin. Evercurious and opportunistic, Nestor scuttled past Southey’s garbageand headed for the more intriguing cache. As he came up to it, hestopped abruptly. In the half-light now he could see that whateverit was had been covered with a gentleman’s cloak, one that, ifsalvaged, would bring a year’s food and a warm place to eat it. Butwhat lay under it? And who would be foolish enough to leave it hereunattended?
Caution now overtook curiosity. He checkedthe alley behind him and the tiny window high in the jeweller’swall. Nothing stirred. No sound, human or otherwise, came from thestreet three yards away. Nestor knelt down and slowly lifted up oneedge of the huge cloak. He spotted a boot. Christ! There wassomebody under the cloak! Somebody very large. It was then that abeam of sunlight struck the west wall of the jeweller’s house andrefracted into the alley, allowing Nestor to see the pool of bloodstill oozing from somewhere beneath the cloak. He felt himselftrembling all over. He had to force himself to keep his eyes open,for something terrible had happened here, and he must decidewhether he ought to run or stay. This bloodied creature could bealive, the victim of a vicious thief. The police would beclamouring for information, information they might pay for.