On this the 21st day of June in the Year of Our Lord 1841, I, Thomas William Gowan, find myself on board the good ship Horsely Hill asail on the ocean of the great Atlantic. It is a big ship, three-masted, with a crew of eighteen hands, over three hundred steerage passengers and several families with cabins of their own amongst whom mine is included. We have come with lock, stock and barrel, my parents, my two brothers and sister, our maid-servant and myself, the firstborn at eighteen years of age.
It has been two weeks since we departed from the port of New Ross bound for Montreal in the land of Quebec. I stood on deck as we left the harbor and bade farewell to my native country that I shall see no more. Others stood with me weeping copiously as they cast last lingering looks at the beloved green shores of the Emerald Isle. I did not weep. I was too filled with the glorious joy of adventure. Here was I off to the New World to a new life and new freedom, to try my fortune in a land of promise where dreams might prove true.
I have yet to tell Father or Mother that I do not intend to settle on a farm in the backwoods of Canada. I am no hewer of wood or tiller of soil. Such is not the destiny I envisage for myself. There is a vast land to be explored from coast to coast. How could I be content to bide in one small part of it when the whole cries out to enrich my knowledge and experience?
The voyage out has been long and arduous. This ocean crossing will not be speedily made. There is much sea sickness amongst our fellow cabin passengers as we plough the heavy swell of the great Atlantic. Many stay indoors, lying abed, moaning and sickly. The steerage passengers fare much worse. Some were already weak and ill from the trials and hardships of their life before they boarded. Fever and typhus rage amongst them. The majority are in bare feet and rags. Many are destitute and have only the most meager of provisions. If the journey takes longer than predicted, I fear they will suffer gravely from hunger and malnourishment. The very young and the very old are the most ill-affected. Only this morning we buried a small babe at sea still swaddled in her blanket. She was dropped most gently overboard while the Captain said prayers. The poor bereft mother had to be restrained from following her child into the Deep. It was a dreadful and piteous scene.
That was the moment when I decided to take pen and paper in hand and write this journal. Observing the crowd of unhappy humanity so sorely distressed without minister or priest to assuage their pain, I saw the truth. Against the vagaries of Fate and suffering in this life, we have only our hopes and dreams to bolster us. It is they which keep us from drowning in the black mire of despair. It is they which fortify us with the assurety that we are God’s children blessed with the gift of immortal souls. Thus I shall record here, for my own good and that of posterity, all the hopes and dreams that I shall so encounter on this journey of my life.
June 23, 1841. It is but two days since I last wrote in these pages. I have ventured below into steerage. The stench of unwashed bodies and sickness is most suffocating. I wonder why the Captain does not open more hatches to allow in fresh airs. Some of the more fastidious women have done their best to keep their quarters clean, constantly washing with buckets of sea water. However, they lack fresh straw to make new bedding. They tell me the crew mistreat them most cruelly often playing tricks on them and stealing their food. There are a few musicians amongst them who endeavor to keep up their spirits, a tin whistler, a fiddler and a lad with a skin drum. The three are of a most peculiar appearance, which in itself brings laughter along with the merry jigs and reels. They sing a sweet ballad concerning the land we are bound for.
Oh the green fields of Canada,
They daily are blooming,
To my misery and strife.
The creaking and groaning of wood is more cacophonous in the bowels of the ship and the violence of movement more severe. One fears at times that the ocean might break us asunder. The rolling and rocking makes me quite sick. I can rarely stay long below decks and soon find myself yearning for the comfort of my cabin. How much worse off are these wretches who have no other refuge!
Here let me record some of the dreams of my fellow pilgrims on this voyage to a brave new world:
Josephina McAtamney, 16 years, from Newry, County Antrim: I wish to find good employment in a nice house with a kindly mistress. Then later to marry a good man and have healthy children and my own wee home.
Seamus mac Mathuna, 25 years, from Bundoran, County Donegal: I shall work as a laborer and save the money to buy my own land. They say land comes cheap in the wilds of Canada. I will build my own cabin and raise horses and cattle.
Mrs Maggie Teed, Spanish Arch, 57 years, Galway Town, County Galway: I just want to survive this voyage in one piece, lad! That would be a dream come true!
I no longer note the day or hour of our passage as we are caught in a limbo of time and season. We were detained for weeks on the Banks of Newfoundland by heavy fog, stiff winds, and the foulest of weathers. We are short of fresh water and provisions. What we have left must be meted out with the greatest of restraint. The steerage passengers are deathly ill and starving. I have heard that the Captain, a decent God-fearing Scotsman, has released food from the stores to feed those below deck. Alas there is little to go around. It must be said there are stories of other Captains who have let their passengers die without raising a hand to aid them.
We have had our share of deaths, all in steerage. Many men, women and children have gone into the sea. There were times when I wondered sadly would it not have been best that they stayed in their homeland? Yet they were driven from the misery of their lives to seek new hope and better their condition. They died for their dreams.
Landfall. Never shall I forget that first glimpse of this magnificent country. I waited long and impatiently for the sight. The shores were shrouded by a fog of inclement weather and there was nothing to be seen for many hours though the scent of pine traveled on the air. Then the gray haze lifted and there they were, like giants stalking towards us, the high rugged mountains of breathtaking beauty! Cloud-capped and rocky, they were cloaked with the foliage of a dark green forest. I could only gaze with awe and reflection upon the scene of an ancient paradise untouched by man.
At last we have traversed the great gulf of the Saint Lawrence to begin our journey up this mighty river. We are accompanied by ships of all nations flying their different flags. Many move under sail while others are steamers that shower the clear air with smoke and flame from their funnels. The waters are broken in many places with islands of all shapes and sizes. The shores to the south are low and rolling, while those to the north rise to lofty mountains. Along both shores are neat white-washed farmhouses, churches with tall spires and leafy orchards. This is country long settled by the French.
Our ship has cast anchor off Grosse Isle and we have been boarded by health officers. They will determine who may continue the journey to Montreal and who must remain at the quarantine station on the island to await their death. There is no doubt that many will stay here, for the steerage passengers are rife with disease. We can only pray that there is no cholera-plague aboard. Clothes and bedding must be taken ashore to be scrubbed and washed. All of steerage have been ordered from the vessel to complete this task. The cabin passengers are not required to do so and we need only send our servants to clean what linen we have used. Apparently there are thousands of emigrants crowded onto the island. They say the sick are kept in sheds, like cattle. God have mercy on them all. Though the island looks picturesque from this distance with its wooded shores and towering bluffs overhung with evergreen, I am glad not to visit.
It is a great discomfort to write in the failing light while suffering the jarring and jostling of the coach. However, I have asked my brother to hold the ink pot. For both of us this provides a diversion from the monotony and misery of our journey. We are closely packed into a narrow carriage. The wind whistles through the windows where design would have glass though it is lacking. The road is rough and plagued with a succession of mud-holes and corduroy bridges. This latter term is used to describe patches of ground on which logs are laid down over the boggy earth. Our teeth and our bones rattle as we traverse these dread patches.
The woods grow thick and dark on either side of the road. Giant pines rise to heights of over a hundred feet or more. Their trunks are surely six feet wide. This is bush country, gloomy with cedar and tamarack swamps, and infested with mosquitoes that would try the patience of Job. We seldom see signs of habitation now.
When first we traveled northwards from Toronto we passed many stone and wood frame houses with little gardens of vegetables and flowers. They stood near inns, mills or smithy forges. Such comfortable homesteads are long left behind us even as the number of clearings has lessened. The few dwellings we spy through the dense growth of trees are no more than crude shanties befitting the occupation of cattle or pigs, not men. We have entered the backwoods of Ontario, the wilderness of Canada.
September 28, 1841. There has been no time to write these past several weeks. Each night I have fallen into my bed with a tiredness beyond any of my experience. I have done my part as a dutiful son and stayed with my family to help them settle on the land. The work is hard and constant, clearing the trees to farm. The worst part of our labor is surely the stumps. What effort must be expended to remove each infernal one from its deep-rooted abode! I am more than proud to record that our cabin is built at last. It is a fine dwelling overlooking a lonely lake and a dark belt of pine. Summer has come to an end and while the days are still balmy, there is a chill of frost in the air at night. The rain is unlike that of Ireland where it falls soft and damp upon the green hills. Here it pours down in fierce torrents like the hammers of hell.
Do I regret this migration? Let me speak from the deep of my heart. I have been bewitched by this land. What words can describe its stern solitudes and beauties? How can I write of the dark forest, the deep lake, the somber mountains? When I hear the call of the wild creatures, the loon and the owl, the deer and the wolf, I swear I am hearing the voices of mine own soul. As for the peoples native to this country who come to trade and converse with us, they are most courteous and kind. Indeed they are more decent than many a settler we have crossed in our travels. The affection shown to their children by both men and women is a lesson to us all as is the respect they grant to their aged. They are honest and truthful in their dealings and they never forget a kindness done to them. Alas, they are too often ill-used and cheated by the Christians who have come to settle in their land. How much they have lost by our arrival! Will they survive this meeting of the races, I wonder?
“I like this guy,” Jean said.
“Me too,” said Dana, proudly.
They took a break from reading the journal when their brunch arrived. The waitress set down plates of pancakes with maple syrup, along with a side order of peameal bacon for Jean. The two attacked their food hungrily.
Though Dana had dipped into the Book of Dreams the previous night, she had decided to wait for Jean before reading it properly. Tucking the prize safely under her pillow, she had fallen asleep satisfied. The next morning, she woke late to an empty house. A note to “sleepyhead” beside the box of cereal told her that her grandmother was visiting friends. There was no time for breakfast. With the book in hand, Dana grabbed her coat and raced out the door. The bus had already arrived. The door swung open just as she reached the stop.
Jean disembarked to find her breathless from her run, hair wild, face flushed.
“Très jolie!” he said, putting his arm around her.
He leaned forward to kiss her, but she pulled back, panicked.
“Small town!” she said quickly. “It’s just like Ireland. Someone will see us and tell my gran!”
“Okay, okay,” he said with amusement, putting his hands in the air. Then he plunged them deep into his pockets, as if to keep them restrained. “See? I am good.”
Dana laughed at his antics. That was the wonderful thing about being apart; the excitement of meeting up again. She was thrilled to see him standing there, in his jeans and jacket, dark hair falling over his forehead, green eyes flashing. That he, in turn, looked so happy to see her made it all the more wonderful.
“Have you had lunch?” she asked him. “I’m starving. I got up late. I had a dream last night …”
• • •
By the time they were settled in the restaurant and their food was ordered, Dana had told him the story of her great-great-grandfather’s book. Together they began to read the entries.
Everything Gran Gowan had mentioned was there, and more besides. Not long after Thomas arrived in Canada, he had grown restless, yearning to wander. He couldn’t stay for long in the backwoods of Ontario. He was a dreamer, not a homesteader. Once he saw his family settled, he set off on his own to explore.
The journal was sporadic, skipping months and even years at times. Often the entries lacked a date. But it was a fascinating jumble of adventures, dreams, poems, and reflections interspersed with descriptions of the countryside and the people he met. Thomas described his various jobs with the Hudson’s Bay Company that took him as far north as York Factory on Hudson Bay, and as far west as Fort Garry, near the Red River Valley, and then west again to Fort Edmonton.
Though I hold these hunters and trappers in great esteem, for their bravery and resourcefulness knows no bounds, at the same time I cannot but be horrified at the ceaseless slaughter of wild animals. All summer long, brigades of boats and canoes arrive deep-laden with the skins and pelts of countless creatures. Surely this is greed beyond all necessity and comprehension.
“Oh I do like him so much,” Dana murmured. “My dear great-great-granddaddy.”
After their meal, the two walked to the outskirts of Creemore and stopped on a bridge that spanned the Mad River. The water was shallow, trickling slowly over a stony bottom. Trees lined the shore.
“The river got its name from one of the earliest settlers,” she told him, remembering a story of her grand-mother’s. “Bridget Dowling was one of those tough Irish pioneers. She settled north of here with her husband and loads of kids. One day she was coming back from the mill with a sack of flour on her back and a baby in her arms and she had to ford the river. It was wild and rushing. She said later she almost drowned in ‘that mad river,’ and that’s what everyone has called it ever since.”
Jean smiled at the tale. “You are part of here, n’estce pas?” he commented. “You know all the story. This is what the Old Man say, I think.”
She gazed into the waters below. “Funny thing. I always thought of myself as Irish, and I used to think of my family here as Irish too. But the Book of Dreams makes me see I really am part of Canada as well.”
They were standing close together, leaning over the bridge. Well out of sight of anyone, Jean put his arm around her and gave her a long kiss.
“That’s the hello I don’t get at the bus.”
She laughed. Everything around her seemed suddenly brighter.
“I missed you,” she said, “even though it was only a day.”
“Do you tell your grand-mère I come?”
“I didn’t get the chance. I …,” she winced at the steady look he gave her and was driven to confess, “I chickened out.”
“C’est okay,” he laughed. “I go home as wolf.”
They found a place to sit by the river and returned to Thomas’s journal.
July 2, 1850. Eight years have passed since I last saw my family and today I am restored to them. It is to my shame and sorrow that I have not returned until this sad occasion, the untimely death of my beloved mother. Father is broken-hearted and so too are my brothers and my dear sister. Despite Mother’s goodly forbearance, I fear the hardship of life on a bush farm was too much for that brave woman. Father knew this too and I believe that is the reason he moved the family earlier in the year to the new settlement of Creemore. Alas, the move came too late for Mother’s health. I shall bide here a while to help comfort the bereaved, though it is not my nature or inclination to linger long in one place.
I will write something of the settlement, for it is worthy of mention. Though it has not long been established, only five or a little more years, it is already a very promising village. A flour and saw mill have been built on the south side of the river, making good use of its strength. A school and church have also been erected; there has been an Orange Hall since early days. The street names demarcating the allotments are that of Edward Webster’s family, he being the distinguished founder. Though only a few houses have been constructed as of yet, there are many families on outlying farms who feel themselves to be members of the community. Most hail from either Ireland or Scotland, in this generation or the one preceding.
Father and I had a mild but unhappy disagreement today. He was not pleased when I introduced the notion of my departure. While it grieves me to add to his pain, it is not in my temperament to settle. I am thinking of going east to Nova Scotia or Cape Breton. Or perhaps I shall visit the lands of French Canada. I know something of their language from my time in the Red River.
“That’s odd.” Dana stopped reading for a moment. “Gran said he settled down after his mother’s death. It doesn’t sound like he planned to.”
“Something happen to make him stay?” Jean suggested. “Do we come near to the secret?”
“I hope so,” she said, flipping through the last pages. “There’s not much left.”
• • •
July 12, 1850. This is the day so esteemed and respected by all Orangemen everywhere no matter their station. In truth I do not count myself amongst their number, for I am not of like mind with certain aspects of the society that would despise Roman Catholics. I have made many friends amongst Romish people in this country especially the Canadiens as the French settlers do call themselves. Still, I would not like to offend my father or my brothers by disdaining their celebrations, and I agreed to join them.
There being not much of a main street in Creemore to make a parade, the good members of the Purple Hill Lodge determined that we should walk to the home of one of their group, Mr. Edward Galloway. The Galloway farm is some distance outside of Creemore, thereby providing us with a worthy challenge. Both the Bowmore and Tory Hill Lodges joined the walk.
When we reached out destination, we were well rewarded for our efforts. What a feast awaited us! The fatted calf had duly been slain. Such well-laden tables as ever I saw stood amidst the trees. For our pleasure and consumption were dishes of venison, eel, legs of pork, roast chickens and ducks, fish of several kinds and plentiful potatoes or “pritters” as they call them here. Most delicious and varied were the pies of pumpkin, raspberry, cherry, huckleberry, gooseberry and blackberry currant. Fresh loaves of bread were served with new butter and green cheese, maple molasses, preserves and pickled cucumbers. As is customary at these gatherings, a great deal of whiskey was provided along with the sober beverages of tea and coffee. The latter is a favourite drink in this part of the world and some say it will replace tea one day. I do not think so. It has a bitter taste and is only palatable when generously sweetened with sugar.
What trifles do I write here! It is done to calm the riotous state of my mind and emotions. Of all that happened on this day, I cannot bring myself to speak of the one event which lies at the heart of it.
“Come on, Thomas,” Dana murmured, turning the page.
July 13, 1851. There is a belief in the Old Country that “a year and a day” is the spell of time necessary for the working of a “cure” or the lifting of a curse. A year and a day have passed since that fateful occurrence in the forest near Galloway’s farm. Still I tarry in this place, unwilling to leave. What happened has marked me. I am a changed man. I cannot but look back on that day with awe and wonder. Was it a dream? A madness or delusion brought on by too much sunshine and whiskey? Though doubt assails me, in my heart I choose to believe that the events were real. For if they were, then all hopes and dreams are real and to know this is to be the most fortunate of men.
• • •
Dana and Jean stared at the next entry in disbelief. Holding their breaths, heads bent so close to the page they might have dived in, they found themselves reading a series of poems. The rhyming couplets were short and sentimental, conveying old-fashioned notions of romance.
“Câlisse! What this is?” said Jean, exasperated.
The poems were followed by an entry dated in the year 1876.
“There is no fool like an old fool,” my dear sister said to me today in a teasing but not unkind manner. I do not feel old, though perhaps I do feel a little foolish. A suitor cannot help but feel so, especially when he is courting a lady much younger than himself. Miss Harriet Steed has let me know that she is more than happy to encourage my attentions. I expect we shall be married before the year is out. I may be fifty-three years old, but truth to tell I feel as young as I did at thirty. I wonder sometimes if this youthfulness might not have been a gift that was bestowed upon me for the part I played that day.
Many years have passed since the Galloway picnic and I have lived a life of quiet and contentment. It seems to me, and I do not believe I am being too fanciful, that whatever once drove me in my ceaseless search for I-know-not-what was satisfied that day in the Canadian woods. Peace of mind and heart was granted to me. I have been blessed with good friends and neighbors as well as my family and I have helped to build this settlement into a thriving village. Whether big or small, we each have our part to play in the history of this nation as it unfolds in time. While I had thought to be a bachelor to my dying day, leaving the preservation of the Gowan name to my brothers, it seems not to be. I look forward to raising a family with my beloved Harriet.
Another poem followed called “Our Wedding Day.” Dana thought it was sweet and the best of the lot, but Jean snorted with impatience. They continued to read.
The shivaree for my beloved Harriet and me went not as badly as I had feared. The usual ruffians were strangely absent. Those who sang so sweetly beyond our window had the voices of angels. While it may have been my own imagining, I thought I also heard the sound of silver bells, like those one hears on sleighs in the wintertime. Truly we both felt blessed that night.
“What’s a shivaree?” Dana wondered.
“Charivari,” Jean told her. “They make the word English. When the peoples marry, their friends come outside the house on that night and they make a lot noise. It can be not so good if they drink too much. They do it still now in Québec in the countryside. It’s an old thing, a tradition.”
• • •
“This is it,” said Dana. “We’re coming to the last page.”
Born March 17, 1878 William Patrick Gowan.
“That’s Gran Gowan’s dad,” said Dana. “My great-grandfather.”
Born April 1, 1880 Harriet Frances Gowan.
Born June 23, 1882 Caroline Maisy Gowan.
Born February 16, 1885 Thomas Robert Gowan.
“ What?” Dana cried. She turned the page over and stared at the blank sheet. “There’s got to be more! Where’s the secret? What happened in the woods?”
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream or cry. How could they come so close and find nothing at all?
“Is this some joke?” said Jean, stunned. “This is the Book of Dreams we look for, non?”
“It must be,” Dana said, trying to calm down. “Look, something happened to him that day in the forest. It made him stay in Creemore. Maybe even gave him youth and long life, as he said himself. The secret’s here. Somewhere in this book. It’s got to be!”
Frantically she rifled through the pages of the journal.
Then she noticed that the endpaper at the back was thicker than that at the front.
“Hey, wait a minute, what’s this? Under the lining!”
“There is something there,” said Jean, excited.
He took a penknife out of his pocket. At Dana’s raised eyebrows, he shrugged. “In the bush it’s good. In the city maybe too.”
He slit the lining of the back cover and there they were, tucked away as if in an envelope, several sheets of folded paper.
The writing was still that of Thomas Gowan but it was scrawled and shaky; the hand of an old man.
In the Year of Our Lord 1901, I enclose this addendum to my Book of Dreams for the sake of posterity, and the one in the future who will come to read this.
“Oh.” Dana shivered. “A goose just walked over my grave.”
Before I set to paper the record of events which did happen on that day, I must duly confess. There have been times these past many years when I have doubted the substance and reality of that extraordinary day. Indeed I have often wondered if such fancies were not the inevitable result of plenteous sunshine and the imbibition of homemade liquor. The sun did shine gloriously upon that day and it must be said I had taken more than my usual glass of strong whiskey. Perhaps it was these doubts which stayed my hand from putting pen to paper till now. What then do I credit for the peculiar reluctance I have suffered at each attempt to broach the matter with my dearest Harriet? For not one small part of my life save this have I kept privy from my beloved helpmeet. In truth I am more inclined to believe that the thing itself has commanded my silence through the years, even as now it insists that I write.
I remember that day as if it were but yesterday. It has a place in my memory as rich and as vivid as anything that has happened to me before or since. I have called my journal the Book of Dreams in honor of that which has brightened my life. Herein lies the tale of the brightest dream of all.
It was the 12th day of July in the Year of Our Lord 1850, that day when Orangemen everywhere celebrate the Battle of the Boyne. I was not a member of the Purple Hill Lodge nor had I any interest in it, but I was happy to walk through the forest with my father and brothers to the Galloway farm. There we feasted and drank well into the day.
What was it that called me away from my companions and into the woods? There was something in the quality of the light that I remember. It was not yet twilight but I had noticed a change, a faint glimmering in the trees that impressed my eye. Then I heard the drumming, low and quick like a heartbeat. I turned to my brother seated beside me and asked him, “Do you hear the drums?” He laughed and did accuse me of consuming too much whiskey. I had taken a few glasses but not as many as the others. It was soon apparent to me that no one could hear the drums but I.
Here I will explain why it was with no great surprise or difficulty that I answered the call from the woods. In my childhood back home in Ireland, there were times when I heard a sweet music rise from the old spinney behind our house. I would follow the high piping sounds into the tangle of trees and there I would see swift darting shapes dance amongst the leaves. I knew better than to remark upon these strange occurrences. I accepted them as part of my own converse with Nature. Such moments came to me also in my new land. One time I stood on the shore of a dark lake far in the northern woods of Ontario, and I heard a loon cry my name. No matter where I have traveled, wherever I have gone, be it deep in the forests or high on the mountain tops or alone on the windy plains, I have heard the Voice which speaks in a tongue above that of mortal men.
So it was on this day that I recognized the call and I left the picnic and walked into the woods. The talk and laughter of my companions faded behind me and then disappeared. I was soon lost in the forest of ancient white pine. The trees were like pillars in a great cathedral. The surge of wind in the branches was like the blast of an organ. I saw a deer leap ahead of me through the trees. Ravens cawed in the boughs overhead. When I heard the cry of wolves I grew anxious but still I continued on my way, following the drums.
It was not a wolf that awaited me on the forest path but an old Indian. He was a Chief, I knew, for he wore a fine blanket over his shoulders. At that time the Ojibway tribe still made their summer camp on the ridge south of Cashtown Corners. His blanket was a crimson red with various designs in black, depicting wolf and raven. His countenance was noble, but I knew by his pallor and the dullness of his eyes that a sickness was upon him. I sensed that he had not long to live.
Unlike many of my race, I am not repelled or frightened by the natives of this land. They are a proud and decent people, laid low by their encounter with us. It is the tragedy of human history that whenever two races meet, it must inevitably mean the downfall of one. The curse of Cain and Abel. Will we never meet as brothers and share the Earth?
I bowed my head to honor him, for he was a leader amongst his people and deserving of my respect.
“I do not speak your language,” I told him, with regret. “I know words of some of the northern and western tongues, but I have not dwelled long in these parts.”
The Chief raised his hand to end my apologia and replied in perfect and mellifluous English.
“I know your language. I have traveled a long way to meet you. You must do something for one of your family who is to come.”
On mature reflection, I remark with what readiness I accepted his words. No doubt or contest entered my mind, for deep in my heart I knew he spoke the truth. A profound silence had fallen over the woods, as if the moment were of such gravity it weighed upon the very trees. In that holy quiet there came to me a sudden and steadfast belief that it was not by chance or without purpose that I was born into the world. Whatever else I may have done or yet might do in the course of my life, this day would be the cornerstone. I had no doubt that it was ordained in that other Existence which I had experienced from time to time, that I was meant to meet this man and do his bidding.
I nodded my head to show my assent, for I seemed to have lost the power of speech. The Chief opened his arms wide, enfolding me in his blanket. To my utter astonishment and by some miracle or magic, his cloak had sprouted feathers to become the dark wings of a raven! How it came to be I cannot know, but we were then of a sudden transported from that place. Indeed we flew through the air as witches are said to do, and it took all my concentration not to swoon with terror.
Happily we did not traverse any great distance and soon alighted in a field. Despite my wonderment and the weak state of my mind, I recognized the place to which I was brought. I knew it at first glance to be one of Edward Webster’s allotments. On a low rise of land, it overlooked the hills that surrounded Creemore. Yet at the same time it was not Edward’s land. Upon it lay the shadow of something greater, a wide plain that shone with the lustrous light of the gloaming. At the heart of this plain stood the greatest marvel of all: a stone monument of stern grandeur. I had never seen its like in this country before, though they are numerous in my homeland. Yet not even the Old Country could boast one of this colossal stature. With its awesome pillars and capstone overhead, it looked for all the world like a giant’s doorway.
“I had a dream,” the old Chief said to me. “Listen, for this is sacred. With your blood you will seal the door today, so that only one of your kin may ever open it again.”
I do confess I was quite fearful when he produced a knife. I steeled myself for some dreadful sacrifice, but his eyes were mild and he looked kindly upon me. In the most gentlest of tones, he bade me make a cut in my finger and mark the stone.
This I did with little pain to myself.
There was a moment before I touched the stone doorway that I peered into its depths. What words could I use to describe what I saw? Only those from the Holy Book could do the scene justice. A fountain of gardens. A well of living waters. In that brightest of moments I stood at the threshold of a world so beauteous that it awoke in me the highest emotions of reverence and delight. Here was a Kingdom that revived the spirits and nourished the soul.
Alas, it was but a glimpse that I caught of that Land, for I had no sooner placed my injured finger upon the monument than the whole disappeared from sight.
Once more the old Chief wrapped his blanket around me and I was again engulfed in the softness of wings. When at last he set me back down in the Galloway woods, these were his parting words.
“There is one who will come many years from now, blood of your blood and blood of the Summer Country. She will follow your trail across the land. She will look in many places to find this secret and she will gain knowledge and power. If she proves true, the spirits will speak to her and they will give her many teachings. She will be a wind-walker, a dream-speaker, and the key to the door. All this you will tell her and a final message: ‘On the Plain of the Great Heart, where the living meet the dead, you will find the portal that will take you home.’”
Dazed and confounded, I made my way back to the picnic, but I soon left the festivities. At first I repeated in my mind all that I had seen and heard lest I forget. For no matter how often I attempted to record the events on paper, I proved unable to do so. As time passed my mind rested easy as I came to understand there was no fear of my forgetting. That day was burned upon my memory for all eternity.
And now here at last, as I sense permission and even persuasion, I do make my record for the one to come.
As a final note, I will add that before I took my leave of the Chief, I could not restrain myself from asking a question. He had come to meet me despite his grave illness. Why would he help those who were not of his tribe or people? Again I was struck by the kindness in his eyes, and I found his response most touching.
Thomas William Gowan
July 12, 1901
By the time they had finished reading, both Dana and Jean were dumbstruck.
Jean let out a low whistle.
“The Old Man! C’est certain!”
Dana nodded mutely. She couldn’t find her voice. Yet it wasn’t Grandfather’s presence in the past that left her speechless, but the meaning of his visit to her ancestor and the message he had left for her.
There was a portal that couldn’t be destroyed. A portal only she could open. And it was right here in Creemore!