Changes

Peter tries to find a way to persuade God to forgive him.

Chapter Fourteen

Changes

        The late autumn had settled over Kilmarnock. In mid- October the wind had chilled. A few stray snowflakes drifted down but the earth, still warmed by the memory of summer, could not hold them. Within a day the snow had passed barely allowing children the excitement of a snowball fight. In the weeks that followed the ground froze to a black, stony hardness. Frost settled over the land.   The gold of poplars had faded.  The reds of maples had flared and then had shrivelled.  Only the green of the pines remained untouched.  Throughout the village could be heard the heavy thunk of chopping. Piles of cordwood mounted, barricades thrown up against the approaching cold.Peter helped both the doctor and the hired man, Jacob with the wood chopping.  Good, clean work he thought, work that he had known since Maminka’s time.

      When he had been not quite eight, he had been given a hatchet by Maminka and saplings to chop.  He remembered how grownup and important he had felt.  Within a year he handled a full length axe.  Often he would go deep into the forest with Maminka.  They would pull a small sled throwing onto it any fallen branches.  Back at the hut they would chop them up for the fire.  A good memory thought Peter. With Milos he had done the same work now gloveless, his thin half-frozen hands protected only by dirty strips of cloth wrapped around the palms. Milos’ club smacked against his back, the pig keeper cursing him for his clumsiness with the axe.  Peter turned his mind away from Milos.  He thought about how that in some ways Moravia and Canada were the same.  The wooded hills, the streams and the sound of church bells pealing through the cold all reminded him of Jablunka.  Winter he assumed would be much the same as in Moravia.

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   In November Father Byrne asked him if he wanted to serve as an altar boy. Peter agreed seeing it as a way of demonstrating both to the church and to himself that God had forgiven him. Even as he agreed he feared that God would punish such vanity.  For days Peter studied his missal memorising  all the ritual responses. He knew how important it was to do everything just right. Yet when the day came and he stood in front of the altar  All Peter could think of was that he was unworthy.  He stumbled over the first response.  Twice Father Byrne had to remind him when to ring the small bells during the serving of the host.  Whitefaced,  Peter had stared down at the floor trying not to think of the eyes staring at him. When the mass ended Peter hurried out to the privy and vomited.

Father Byrne had told him that many new altar boys had felt the same. Peter had not disagreed but the night that followed proved to him that he was unworthy.  He had risen from his bed and had gone to the water closet to urinate.  Standing in front of the bowl  he had felt his penis hardening between his fingers. A warm flush of pleasure spread up from his belly.   Peter closed his eyes.  He remembered  Milos, Frederick and Franz. After he flushed he knelt in front of the bowl.  He had to stop it. He could never could he allow himself to become like them. Resting his penis on the edge of the bowl, he clutched the heavy oak lid.  Closing his eyes, he held his breath and slammed the lid down.  A searing pain knocked him back.  He writhed upon the floor smothering his moans with his clenched teeth.  His penis having shriveled, he staggered back to bed. By the morning his organ had blackened and swollen. The incident and the pain he mentioned to no one.   He thanked God for the pain. Through it God had saved him from damnation. Later, long after the pain had ended, the same, invidious warmth had returned. Unable to resist Peter had surrendered to it. Afterwards, ashamed, he had wept. The next night when the same feeling had returned, he had slipped out of the house. and walked towards the river. He had walked until he was too tired to think of anything but sleep.

�-��-��-�

Father Byrne looked at Peter. "Have you discussed this with the McKays?" 

"They're Protestants. They wouldn't understand."

 "Why do you want to become a priest?"

 "To find God."

 "You don't find God in a seminary. You find him in yourself.  Go home and think about it.  Pray for guidance. Then let me know in another month or so."

 Peter knew what the priest meant.  Although too polite to say so, he  believed that Josef the w***e's son  was not the type the church wanted for the priesthood. He would have to prove his worthiness.  That day he penned a letter to Maggie He prized their friendship. If she would renounce the Protestant heresy he would welcome her as his dearest friend. Protestantism endangered her immortal soul.  God would bless her for turning to the true church.

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   Maureen received a letter from Elizabeth Ferguson. Elizabeth’s daughter Maggie was the only child in Kilmarnock that Peter had formed a friendship with. Rumour had it that Elizabeth was planning a party to celebrate the girl’s tenth birthday. An invitation for Peter would be a great step in bringing him into Kilmarnock society. Inside had been placed a message from Peter; a suggestion to Maggie to become a catholic as the price for her friendship. The note touched a chord within Maureen that dated back three centuries.  When she had been a young student, Foxes Book of Martyrs complete with illustrations of burnings at the stake had been required reading.  Catholicism the painted w***e of Babylon damned Protestant souls to eternal punishment. Behind Father Byrne blazed the fires of the inquisition.

  Much of this she conceded was outdated but the essential truth remained. Catholicism was a heresy. For the sake of communal peace she was prepared to tolerate its presence.  There were however boundaries that had to be respected. “You wrote this” she asked Peter, showing him his letter to Maggie.​ Peter looked up from his book. 

   “Yes.”

   “Why?"

   “The road to Salvation lies through our holy mother the church,” Peter replied as if reciting from a catechism.

    “Does it? So what we believe is a heresy?”

    Peter replied with a clear, confident voice. “Yes.”

   Maureen resisted the impulse to slap him.  Tight lipped she continued. “And Maggie?  Do you truly believe that she would ever agree to this.”

   “If she is my friend."

    “And if she doesn’t?”

    “Then she is not serious about our friendship.”

     For a moment Maureen was speechless.  Then she muttered. “You are a fool.”  She turned and left.  She knew what would happen next. News of the letter would ripple through the township; confirming in many both Peter’s instability of mind and the Papist threat to Protestantism.   She would have to minimize its effect as quickly as possible. 

�-��-

      In the late afternoon a message arrived from the priest asking Peter to meet with him in his house.

    Father Byrne placed the offending letter on his desk. “Did you write this?”

   “Yes father.”

   “Why?”

    Peter knew what the priest wanted him to say. “Protestantism is a heresy. Maggie is my friend. I want to help her to understand that.”

“Do you know why Protestantism is a heresy?”

“It is disobedience to the word of God.”

“Any act of disobedience is a sin, is it not?”

“Yes father.”

“Who has the right to interpret the teachings of the church?”

 “His holy father, the pope.”

 “Just so. Not you, Peter.”

 “But father, I only told her what we know is true. Our church is the one true church. It is the only way to salvation.”

 Father Byrne tapped the top of his desk. “You know this as a fact, Peter?”

 “It is what the church teaches us.” “Yes. It is. So you decided to save Miss Ferguson's soul.” “Yes father.” The priest sat back in his chair. The boy seemed so … certain. He recalled another young man he had known who had also once been confident in his own beliefs until he had come to Kilmarnock and met an old man called Alex.

  “The teachings of the church show us God's will. We try to interpret that as best as we can. It tells us through obedience to God's will lies salvation, isn't that so?”

   “Yes father.”

   “So tell me what God's will is. I would like to know.”

    Peter frowned. Priests did not usually ask such questions. Perhaps he was testing his catechism.  “The church ….”

   “The road to salvation lies through the portals of the church and all non-believers are utterly damned, is that what you are going to say?”

   “Well  . . . ” 

Father Byrne smiled. “I used to think that. Then I met your father. I wanted so much to help him, to bring him within the fold of the church, to offer him eternal salvation and peace. I couldn't do it. No one could. In all the years that I knew him, he never once stepped inside a church. He never attended mass, never took the sacraments.  Intellectual arrogance I thought. In his heart of hearts, Alex just did not believe that he was good enough to belong to a church.”

   "Yet if someone were ill, needed food, clothing, shelter, Alex provided what he could, doing it quietly, asking for nothing. He gave his life to save you. When he stood before God do you truly believe that the only basis upon which God judged his life was whether or not he was a Catholic?”

   Peter stared down at the pine floor. “No father” he whispered.

 “You know nothing, boy. You spoke and you judged without knowing what the words meant. Bullying does not change a wrong belief. Nor is it changed by an assumption of superiority. The church made that mistake centuries ago. Protestantism was God's punishment of the vanity and pride of a church grown corrupt. I will not have that mistake made in my parish. You will write a letter of apology to Mrs. Ferguson for any insult that you may have given to her or to her family. You will express your regret and request their forgiveness. For penance you will recite the Apostolic Creed five times.”

 He tapped the letter. “This is not to happen again.”

  “Yes father.”

“If you are to be a priest or anything else you will find that respect and compassion will win more hearts then ranting about the superiority of your own beliefs.”

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  Elizabeth Ferguson accepted Peter’s letter and mumbled apology.  She replied by offering a fresh pot of tea and a tepid smile.  Peter kept his eyes fastened to the carpet as he spoke words he did not believe in.  To Maureen’s suggestion that Maggie could resume her visit to Kilmarnock Hill, Mrs. Ferguson’s smile frosted.   Later, alone with Zedekiah, she muttered, “I won’t have our daughter near that damn Jesuit.”

  Maureen and Peter had made their way halfway home when a sudden howling and gust of wind caused the doctor to look up.  He peered out across the lake.  Above the hills a great black mass of cloud swept towards them preceded by a swirling screen of white. They made it back into the house just before the storm hit.

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  The first coming of fall had been a gentle one that year; a colder wind blowing down from the north, rains soaking the ground ushering the end of the summer heat.  Clumps of sodden leaves had littered the ground.  A fringe of ice now edged the shore. The weather had then warmed becoming almost summerlike during the next two weeks.  If this is winter thought Peter it did not seem to be so bad. Indian summer the doctor told him, a respite before the cold sets in. Peter helped George to drag the dinghy out of the water.   From Kingston to Ottawa boats were being put into their winter berths.  No more steamboats would come into Kilmarnock until spring. Only the stagecoach maintained a link between the village and the larger world.

  “You don’t know this town” George said as Peter and he strapped a sheet of canvas down over the boat “unless you’ve spent a winter here.  We’re all prisoners of winter here.  Even on the warmest, longest, mid-summer day we are never free of the knowledge that soon the land will freeze.  Half the year here is winter.  The other half is either spent recovering from it or preparing for it.” 

    Peter, unimpressed, thought about the winters he had known in Jablunka, in Marienburg, in London and in New York How could the winter here be any worse than the one in Moravia that had claimed the lives of his mother, brother and sister? “You sound proud of that?”

“Do I?” George thought for a moment.  “I suppose I am.”

   Peter frowned.  Winter meant cold, hunger and death.​ How could anyone be proud of that?  Anyway he had seen winters before.  How bad could it be? He had been impressed with the flaming colours that had marked the autumn.  The sugar in the maple trees George had told him.  That had been different   Still, winter would still be winter.  How could it be different? He knew better though than to ask.             

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    Kilmarnock did not hibernate during the winter but it did move at a slower pace; less traffic on the roads, less mail, less news.  The village drew in on itself during the winter maintaining tenuous links with Perth and Kingston but almost none with the world beyond. Three days into November came the first heavy snowfall.  Doctor McKay looked out at the white drifts scuttling over the frozen crust covering the lake.  He sipped at his mug of tea.  The ice being too thin to walk on yet he would still have to follow the road into the village.  Peter and he warmed themselves with a mug of tea before going out to clear the path to the stable.  They donned knee high boots; moose hide mitts, woollen scarves, and heavy woollen parkas.  

   The doctor preferred the winter cold to the summer heat. Even so there were times, especially in the frigid, early mornings, when the cold seemed almost unbearable. Lifting up a boulder of snow George imagined shovels working at the hill and in the village.  He felt himself part of a ritual binding the community together.  The doctor on the hill, the blacksmith at his forge, the carpenter and baker, all bearing shovels to do battle against the silent implacable foe.  The community, closed in upon itself, depended upon each member to help it through to the spring. McKay looked over at Peter. Clearing the right side of the path Peter did not look up from his shoveling.

A good worker thought  George.  Methodical.   Uncomplaining.   Yet beneath that silent mask of compliance the doctor wished that he could see a flicker of spontaneity. The courage that had saved his wife, the faith and yes even love that had helped sustain Alex in his last days all remained preserved beneath a frozen exterior. Other things also lay preserved beneath it as well, fear and rage seeping through late at night in feverish dreams.

   In an age when few families had calendars important events in individual lives were often linked to important political events or natural occurrences; the queen’s coronation or a great fire.  So it was in Kilmarnock with the blizzard of fifty.  It swept out of the north a torrent of wind and snow.  Too strong to be resisted, animals and humans alike cowered before it. Unable to fight it, they could only hope to seek shelter where they could wait for it to pass. Sitting at the dining room table over his bacon and eggs Peter listened to the wind howling outside.

   “How long does this go on?”

   George shrugged.  “Could be a few hours.  Could be a few days.  There’s no way of knowing.”

“Then we will not be going to the office?”

“Of course we will.  People don’t stop getting ill because of bad weather.”

 “But … how?”

George smiled. “You’ll see.”

�-��

 George pulled back the canvas sheeting covering the cutter. The sleigh’s red paint glistened by the light of the lantern. Peter caressed the curved end of a runner.   “It’s … beautiful.”

“It is nice” agreed George, pattering a curved runner. A one-horse cutter, Montreal made, it had a two-seater box frame low to the ground. “James MacTavish, Alex’s brother bought it almost twenty years ago. After he died Alex used it. I used it last winter, Now, technically, I suppose that it’s yours.”

 “Mine?” Peter looked up and smiled. For a moment a boy’s eyes shone up at the doctor.

 George nodded.   “It’ll get us into the village. You don’t mind my using it?”

 The boy’s expression of wonder faded becoming guarded and withdrawn. “No.”

  That evening Peter sat next to the fireplace in his room huddled over Smith’s Canadian Gazetteer.  He spread out the map and wondered at the white emptiness.  From Hudson’s Bay down to the Ottawa nothing but white space.  How can a country exist without people? Yes, he had envied Robinson Crusoe his isolation but Crusoe never had to survive a Canadian winter. He had lived on an island without winter. Someday Peter would go to a land like that.  For now he must endure Canada  According to the McKays,  the winter here could last five, perhaps even six months. He remembered the winters in Jablunka, especially the one three years before when Maminka, Holena and Janos had died.  No winter could be worse than that but all winters were bad. Dark, cold and hunger.  How would he live without warmth, without the sun, without Alex.

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 Curled up in Alex’s old chair Peter looked up from his book at the familiar sound of slow steps on the stairs. He jumped out of his seat and ran over to the door.  Herr Radek stood at the entrance.  The overseer pushed unto the room.  He looked down at the boy with the air of studying an irritating mosquito. “The dream is over, pig.  Time to wake up.”

 “How did you know?”

  “They gave you up, all your new friends.”

  “But I saved Mrs. McKay.” Radek shrugged.  “You could save her ten times over.  It wouldn’t change anything.  Once they knew what you were, they were only too glad to give you up. I have brought you your father, your true father.”

  “But … Alex …”

 Milos Krivanek reeled into the room.  He reeked of whiskey and the pigsty.  As the leering knife scarred face swam before him Alex’s room dissolved. “Wake up, pig.” The poking of the tip of Radek’s walking stick against his left side and a painful throbbing at the back of his head drags Peter out of unconsciousness.  Beneath him he could feel the floor moving.  He found himself on the floor of a coach, his mouth gagged, his arms trussed behind his back, his legs bound. He raised his head to see Radek sitting in front of him.  Through the coach window he saw the doctor’s office.  Doctor McKay was talking to Ian Campbell. 

  Radek gave Peter a sharp poke.    “You are too fond of looking out windows.” The coach dissolved “Peter?” The boy sat up panting, his right hand touching his throat.  Despite the cold of the winter night perspiration coated his nightshirt. 

  On the edge of his chair he could see a worried looking Maureen clad in night cap, dressing gown and robe.  At the door of his bedroom stood George holding a lamp. Aware that he had done something wrong Peter shrank back. “What….?” Maureen touched his right shoulder. “A dream…..  It was just a bad dream.  What was it about?”

  “I … I can’t remember.  Did I wake you?”

  “We have to be up soon anyway,” said George. “We’re to going to make some cocoa,” said Maureen.  “Would you like to join us?”

 Peter shook his head.

  “Well …. I’ll bring you some.”

 Maureen prepared three mugs of cocoa.  “I had hoped he was through with those dreams.”

 “So did I.”

 “Isn’t there anything that we can do for him?” George frowned.  His concern lay more with Maureen then with Peter.  She needed peace and quiet, not this .  

“A sleeping potion for now but that won’t solve anything.  There’s so much about himself that he’s never told us, that he keeps to himself.  Like a steam boiler about to burst.  Probably ever since he learned to walk he’s kept things inside him, guarded what he said, controlled his feelings, learned to mistrust. Perhaps the dreams are a means of releasing some of the pressure.  I don’t know. I had hoped that with time some of that pressure would dissipate and so it seemed to, for a while. Maybe it’s just the change of weather.  I don’t know.”

   Maureen placed two mugs on the table.  “I wish that he had joined us. He knows that he can trust us.”      

 “Trust? I don’t think he knows how to trust.”

“That’s not true.  He trusted Alex.  He trusted Katrina.”

 “Never completely.  Anyway, granted it’s not impossible for him to trust someone, it is difficult for him.  When we were very young we learned that we were loved and that we could love and trust those we loved.  Peter couldn’t. Things we assumed were natural to everyone, he is still learning.   Much of him still clings to his past.  When he fled from those men he ran with the belief that the only way he could be accepted anywhere was to never speak of what they did to him so he keeps it locked within himself. He must spend the rest of his life doing that.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We convince him that we do care for him.  Every time he tries to push us away we refuse to budge.  Every time that he assumes he doesn’t matter to us, we try to show him that he’s wrong.” 

 “This could take years.”

“Yes it could.  This is a war of attrition but we do have one advantage.  In his own, rather peculiar way, Peter does care for us.  That might show him how to care for himself.  We won time for Peter.  That doesn’t guarantee that we won the war.  That, he still has to fight, if need be, for the rest of his life.  We will fight it with him. Alex told you once that he could not save Peter.  He was right.  Only Peter can do that.  All that we can do is to give him time to allow him to do that.”

 Maureen sighed. “What about Mister Jessup? You said that he’s not returning?”

“He will in the spring   He’s just delayed due to business.  That doesn’t mean that he’s not returning.” Jessup’s letter had arrived three days ago He had written to say that his return would be delayed.  He had to travel south to Charleston on business.  George’s feelings concerning Jessup’s news were mixed.  The news concerning Godwin was good.  About Jessup’s trip south he was not so certain.  He was supposed to be returning to Kilmarnock, not going to Charleston.  How could he protect Peter while rambling through the southern states?  George had read it and reread it trying to discerning its meaning.  Had Jessup betrayed them?  In front of Maureen he had treated the news as being of little importance but he had failed to convince her and himself.

“The man never could be trusted,” Maureen sniffed.  “This just proves it.”

“No it doesn’t.  At least, not yet.  The best thing you can do now is to sleep.”  He took her right hand. “For your sake and our child’s.”

 Maureen nodded. “I’ll try.”

 After they retired George lay in bed listening to his wife’s breathing.  She had been through so much.  How much longer would this have to go on? Before she went to bed Maureen brought Peter a mug of cocoa.  

 “I don’t want it” he told her.

 “I’ll leave it here, just in case you change your mind.

 He thanked her but did not touch it.  In the morning Mary would find it cold and congealed.

�-��

That Sunday as he faced the congregation the host held up in his hands, Father Bryne found it difficult to keep from looking towards Peter.  What struck him about the boy was his unrelenting distrust of himself and of others..  Peter’s recent failure as an altar boy had served only to deepen that.  The priest had hoped that Peter would see it as a step towards admission in the congregation.  He had not accounted for the boy’s unrelenting distrust. Devotion was fine but devotion should be based on love of   God, not terror of eternal damnation.  Perhaps that terror, coupled with a desperate need for some divine sign of forgiveness, had precipitated the letter to Maggie asking her to accept Catholicism.

�-��

 George looked out at the swirling snowdrift blanketing the street. One good thing about this weather, he thought.  It was probably the best security that Peter could have. 

  Peter lifted up a clump of snow. A snowball struck him square between his shoulders.  He turned to be struck again in the face.  As he wiped the snow from his eyes he could see two small laughing boys running down a side street. “Dutchie!  Dutchie!” 

   He watched them disappear and then returned to his shovelling.  The screaming had not surprised him.  He had heard it enough times over the past two months. He had heard it when walking the streets shouted out at him from alleyways and from behind buildings. He would hear it while sometimes wandering through the woods or beside the river. One of the good things about living in Kilmarnock Hill he thought was that he did not have to see any of these children or hear any of the shouting. The bulk of jeering came from two different groups of village boys, one group Catholic and the other Protestant.   The two usually spent their time fighting each other.  On Peter they had found a rare point of agreement; Peter did not belong in Kilmarnock, a point with which Peter himself did not completely disagree. The harassment had begun on his first day at school.  His withdrawal had stopped it for a moment. Isolated in the security of Kilmarnock Hill he had remained beyond the reach of his tormenters. It resumed once he re-appeared on the streets of Kilmarnock.

  Scooping up another clump of snow he thought of Alex.  Every day he would think of Alex. He would wonder if the life that he was living now was just a bad dream and that he would wake to find himself once again in Alex’s room.  Foolishness.  Father Byrne had told him that he would see Alex again, someday. Radek had told him once that death meant nothingness.  Peter knew who he should believe, who he wanted to believe.  He also wanted to believe what they had told him about his being Alex’s son, but the idea seemed so unfair to Alex. He tried not to think about the ache deep inside him concentrating instead upon moving the snow one scoop at a time.

   George watched Peter scraping the walk.  Infuriating as he could be, he was still the same boy who had saved his wife’s life.  He pulled on his coat and gloves.  As he passed Peter he told him, “Going over to the Royal Arms for a minute. I’ll be right back.” Five minutes later he came trotting back a shovel on his shoulder.  As he thrust at the snow George listened to Peter’s concentrated silence.  For years Peter had been taught that in silence lay safety.  The danger had receded but not the habit of keeping his thoughts to himself. The impact of Alex’s death had broken that for a moment but only for a moment.  He had not retreated back into complete silence, asking questions of George concerning slides or books that he was reading, of Maureen and Mary concerning his chores and even exchanging a phrase or two with Maggie when she came to visit.  Beyond that however he would not budge. Now, Maggie no longer came.  Peter glanced at the doctor as he began to shovel.  Somehow it did not seem proper, a physician shovelling snow.  Doctor McKay did not seem worried about it though so Peter surmised that it must be acceptable.   He concentrated on his shovelling.  As he bent down George noticed the circular smear of snow on his back.  He had seen enough snowball fights to know the cause.  “We’ll do the road next, our part of it.” A few minutes later he paused. “Maybe you should have a word with Mrs. McKay after we get home. Peter knew what was expected.

“You want me to say that I am wrong.” Peter asked George without looking up from his shovelling.

 “It’s not a question of who is wrong and who is right.”

“Then what is it?” George rested on the handle of his shovel.  Across the street they could see Anna Cleary clearing her walk.  Further down the street the Harrisons and the Campbells were busy scraping their parts of the street.  “It’s knowing that to live on this land we need each and every one of us. It doesn’t matter if you agree with them or not.  You have to respect their feelings.  Otherwise none of us will survive.  Needing people is a lot more important than always being right. We’ll have lunch at the hotel.”

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 On his way to the hotel Peter noticed a sleigh pulled up in front of Harrison’s.  Two men were loading supplies.  Peter paused to watch.  Something about the older of the two men seemed vaguely familiar.  “Who is that” he asked George.

George looked at the two me.  “Sam McDermott and his eldest, Rob.”

 Alex and the McKays had told Peter about his having been found by Sam McDermott.  The man himself however, Peter had never seen except as a blur in the darkness of Sam’s barn. Sam McDermott was just laying a sack of cornmeal down on the floor of the sleigh when his son nudged him.

   Sam turned to see a boy standing behind him.  Not just a boy though.  This was the one that he found in his barn. Sam had seen little of him since leaving him at McTavish’s and had not spoken to him.  He had spoken of him, repeatedly, but not to him.  At the last lodge meeting he had urged his fellow Orangemen to demand that the McKays send the boy somewhere where he would no longer threaten the peace of the village. His face framed by the wolverine edging of his parka Sam looked down at the child. “You want something, boy?”

“You are … Mister McDermott?”

“Aye.” Was the McTavish pup going to try to convert him?

“I am ….” “I know who you are.  What do you want?”

  Was he going to accuse him of trying to kill him that night in the barn? The boy glanced down at the snow-scraped street.

“I … should not have been in your barn.  I am sorry. I … I didn’t mean to steal anything.  I just wanted to sleep.”

Sam’s hostility wavered.  He remembered the nausea that had surged through him as he realized he might have killed a child, of the fear of what that would mean for himself and his family.  He remembered the pity he had felt for the child lying in the straw.   “I believe you boy.” Then McDermott added. “You know.  If you had asked I would have put you up. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t know you were there. Thought you were a fox.  I guess we both made mistakes that night.” The boy paused as if in thought, then nodded and turned away.  Sam watched him walk to the Royal Arms and then turned back to loading his sleigh.

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Author's Note

Canadian English