Chapter Twenty-Eight:Spring 1863

Good Friday. After James had heard the family was ready to start on the building of a Shegouac church, he felt better. He knew that once his children got an idea in their heads, they were unstoppable. But tonight, the old fears came pouring over him like the torrents of water over the shingled roof of the Old Homestead.

All week long the house had been buffeted, first by a raging snowstorm on Palm Sunday, so severe that even though it was the beginning of April, the Rev. Milne could not get down to hold his service. Jim and Margie had come back from their long trek down to Port Daniel school, having only said a few prayers of their own, and more especially for their parents.

And now the temperature had risen, and rain beat about the house. Easter Sunday was coming up the day after tomorrow. Oh yes, oh yes, James said to himself, church definitely. Not getting out enough, lately. Couldn’t even make the Ash Wednesday service. Know that ye are dust, and to dust shall ye return. And as for Palm Sunday last week, well, no. But now that Easter was at hand, he would make a determined effort. So long confined. And confined in this tattered body, this ragged skeleton that must be dispensed with, so he could take on (and the Good Book promised) a body of light.

The Good Book, the Good Book. So what if it lasted two thousand years — hadn’t those pagan religions existed much longer? Wasn’t everyone now discussing those scientific discoveries refuting God’s existence? How dare they doubt? But doubt he did. Trapped there, too. The prison of doubt. How he longed for an escape. A blazing path into wisdom that he could be sure of.

Aha! So that was why, he decided, he had wandered these rooms and hallway at night. Impelled strangely to rise up from his bed and search.

He had moved out of Catherine’s bedroom so that she might be better cared for. How much they had shared together! But now, the time for sharing was ending. He shuffled across the room, opened another door, went in, then shuffled back again. The Old Homestead was wrestling with its own angels, the spring storm pelting melted snowflakes against the windows. His own struggles, James knew, were of an altogether different kind. He felt like howling again, howling, as he kept wandering, like a hundred wolves. How else to express his agony, his longing, to find, to know?

In the darkness he bumped into a chair, nearly fell, but fortunately didn’t wake Catherine. The collision prompted a paroxysm of anger, why must one bang into things like a village idiot! I can’t even stand up and walk straight, he growled as fury built. But something stopped him. Was it the wind whistling around the house? Just like those many nights in the spars of the Bellerophon? He was back in his cramped deck with its five feet of headroom, well below the waterline, bounced in his rocking hammock with the other Middies. And clear as a bell, his wondering thoughts came back, as he had pondered the desire to jump ship and to brave those icy waters so many years ago...

“Think of a farm on the cliffs, built from the very trees among which it stands. Think of a wife, broad skirt blowing in the wind, holding a child — your own son. Think of trudging behind sturdy oxen, ploughing furrows in the rich, red Gaspé soil. Think of the companionship of settlers, their pounding hammers erecting your barn, just as you’d help with theirs. Think of the warmth on a frosty night by your fireplace, built from stones picked on these very beaches, while your wife roasts one of the chickens you’ve both raised.”

Well, had he not achieved everything?

Stupid old idiot! What was he doing, how dare he be angry at bumping into a chair! Why was he not praising the Lord above, as would any sane man? Here he was, a true pioneer who had done it all: made his home, raised a fine large family, created a substantial working farm, was that not a life of success? Yes, by any standards, James thought, standing stock-still in his bare feet in his comfortable and warm bedroom...

And then, out of the thunder and the wind howling around the house, he heard from afar the whisper of his name: “James. James...”

He stopped and waited. After a time he found himself answering, “Here I am.”

He placed both palms on the windowsill, staring with unseeing eyes into the blackness of the great Chaleur Bay.

“James,” the voice came again, not only in the room, but all around, even reaching into his very being.

He opened his mouth to respond, but then the voice seemed to say, “Oh ye of little faith. Have not I told you, not a sparrow falls from the air but your Father in heaven knows. How much more does He care for you?”

James lifted his hands to cover his ears. It was terrifying: words from the Bible he’d read so often, now spoken as if all around him and in him, in tones that seemed made of the light itself, though darkness covered all.

“Lord, I hear you.”

“Peace I give you, my own peace I leave with you.”

James stared, clasped his hands.

“Have faith in God, have faith in me. In my father’s house are many mansions. I have gone to prepare a place for you...”

Prepare a place? In the silent room, he beheld a shifting of light as though a veil were lifting. He seemed, indeed, able to see so much more than ever before. His brain and being were filled with knowing, such a knowing that brought on a gentle, all-embracing peace.

He nodded to himself, and made his way back to his bed. Lifting the sheets, he eased himself under the blankets and lay back with his head on the pillow, looking up at the ceiling in darkness. Sweetness filled his taste buds; sound as of a lovely ringing claimed his ears like the chiming of a million silver bells. And the knowing, ah yes, the knowing, how glorious to know, once and for all, that as he went forward, it would not be into the dark unknown, but into the lighted Known, the Welcoming Known of: “I am what I am.”

The next day, Jim and Margie saw a whole different attitude, a newly transformed parent. For them now, they could see that he had taken on, at last, his raiment of light.