I looked at it for several moments, rubbing my thumb gently over the surface.
“You never know when it might come in handy, do you?” I said, under my breath, and tucked it into my bag.
“HOW MANY PEOPLE could the original building accommodate?” the captain asked, nodding at the fragile black skeleton of the door.
“About thirty, standing. We didn’t have benches to begin with. The Lodge brothers would each bring a stool—and often a bottle—from home, when we had meetings.” He smiled at the memory of Jamie, passing round one of the earliest bottles of his own distilling, eyeing the drinkers closely in case any of them should fall over or die suddenly.
“Oh,” he said. “That reminds me. You should know that Mr. Fraser is a brother. In fact, he’s the Worshipful Master; he established the Lodge here.”
Cunningham dropped his charcoal fragment, truly shocked.
“A Freemason? But surely Catholics are not allowed to take the oaths of freemasonry. The Pope forbids it …” His lip curled slightly at the word.
“Mr. Fraser became a Freemason while in prison in Scotland, following the Jacobite Rising. And as he would tell you himself, ‘The Pope wasna in Ardsmuir Prison and I was.’” Roger had so far always used his Oxford accent when speaking to the captain, but now he let Jamie’s Highland accent stand behind the statement, and was amused to see Cunningham blink, though whether it was the accent or the enormity of Jamie’s actions, he couldn’t tell.
“Perhaps that’s further illustration of the … flexibility … of Mr. Fraser’s principles,” the captain observed dryly. “Has he any he will stand by, pray?”
“I think it’s a wise man who knows how to be flexible in times such as these,” Roger countered, keeping his temper. “If he weren’t capable of walking between two fires, he’d have been ashes long since—and so would the people who depend on him.”
“You being one?” It wasn’t said with hostility, but the edge was there.
“Me being one.” He took a deep breath, sniffing, but the smell of lightning and the reek of fire were long gone; with a little work, the clearing might once more be ready for peace.
Roger went on, “As for whether there are principles Jamie Fraser will stand by, yes, there are, and God help anyone who stands between him and what he thinks he must do. Do you think we should expand the building? There are a lot more families on the Ridge now.”
Cunningham nodded, looking at the back of his hand, where he’d scrawled their paced-out measurements with a bit of charcoal.
“How many, do you know? And are you familiar with their religious dispositions? Mr. Higgins told me that Mr. Fraser does not discourage settlement by anyone, provided that they seem honest and willing to work. Still, it seems that the great preponderance of the tenants are Scottish.” This last was said with a rising inflection, and Roger nodded.
“They are. He began his settlement here with a number of Scots who were with him during the Rising, and with people who are kin to others he knows from the Piedmont; there are a lot of Scots there,” he added. “Most of the original settlers are Catholic—naturally—but there were a few Protestants among them, mostly Presbyterians—the Church of Scotland. A large party emigrated later from Thurso, and they’re all Presbyterians.” Virulently so … “I’ve only recently returned to the Ridge myself, though; I was told that we have some Methodist families as well. Do you mind if I ask, sir—what brought you to settle here?”
Cunningham gave a brief “hmp,” but one indicating pause for summation, rather than hesitance.
“Like a good many others, I came here because I had acquaintances here. Two of my seamen have settled in North Carolina, as has Lieutenant Ferrell, who served with me through three commissions before being wounded severely enough that he was obliged to leave the service with a naval pension. His wife is here as well.”
Roger wondered whether—and how—the pension might continue to be paid, but it luckily wasn’t his problem at the moment.
“So,” Cunningham continued, meeting Roger’s eye ironically, “that will give me a congregation of at least six souls.”
Roger smiled obligingly, but told the truth when he assured Cunningham that entertainment was sufficiently scarce as to ensure a full house for anyone who was willing to get up in public and provide it.
“Entertainment,” Cunningham said, rather bleakly. “Quite.” He coughed. “Might I ask just why you have proposed this arrangement, Mr. MacKenzie? You seem entirely capable of entertaining any number of people, all by yourself.”
Because Jamie wants to know whether you’re a Loyalist and what you might be inclined to do about it if you are—and luring you out to preach and talk to people in public will probably show him.
He wouldn’t lie to Cunningham, but didn’t mind offering him an alternative truth.
“As I said, more than half the settlers here are Catholic, and while they’ll come to listen to me if there’s nothing better on offer, I imagine they might also listen to you. And given my own unorthodox family situation”—he raised a deprecating shoulder—“I think people should be allowed to hear different points of view.”
“Indeed they should,” said a soft, amused voice behind him. “Including the voice of Christ that speaks within their own hearts.”
Cunningham dropped his charcoal again. “Mrs. Murray,” he said, and bowed. “Your servant, mum!”
Looking at Rachel Murray always lightened Roger’s heart, and seeing her here, now, made him want to laugh.
“Hallo, Rachel,” he said. “Where’s your wee man?”
“With Brianna and Jenny,” she said. “Amanda is trying to make him say ‘poop,’ by which I gather she means excrement.”
“Well, she won’t get far, trying to make him say ‘excrement.’”
“Very true.” She smiled at him, then at Cunningham. “Brianna said thee would be here with the captain, arranging matters for the new meetinghouse, so I thought I should join thy discussion.” She was wearing pale-gray calico with a dark-blue fichu, and the combination made her eyes go a deep, mysterious green.
Cunningham, while gallant, looked somewhat confused. Roger wasn’t, though he was surprised.
“You mean—you want to use the chapel, too? For … um … meeting?”
“Certainly.”
“Wait … do you mean a Quaker meeting?” The captain frowned. “How many Quakers are presently living on the Ridge?”
“Just one, so far as I’m aware,” Rachel said. “Though I suppose I might count Oggy; that’s two. But Friends have no notion of a quorum, and no Friend would exclude visitors from an ordinary meeting. Jenny and Ian—my husband and his mother, Captain—will surely join me, and Claire says she and Jamie will come as well. Naturally, thee and Brianna are invited, Roger, and thee, too, Friend Cunningham, with thy mother.”
She gave the captain one of her smiles, and he smiled back by reflex, then coughed, mildly embarrassed. He was quite flushed. Roger thought the man might be on the verge of ecumenical overdose, and stepped in.