A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [476]
“Where did you pick that up?” I dropped it on the desk, using two fingers.
“In Campbelton. Someone sent it to Farquard, as Justice of the Peace. He gave it to me, because my name is on it.”
“It is?” I squinted at the straggling letters. “Oh, so it is. J. Frayzer. You’re sure it’s you? There are quite a few Frasers, after all, and not a few named John, James, Jacob, or Joseph.”
“Relatively few who could be described as a Red-haired dejenerate Pox-ridden Usuring Son of a Bitch who skulks in Brothels when not drunk and comitting Riot in the Street, I imagine.”
“Oh, I missed that part.”
“It’s in the exposition at the bottom.” He gave the paper a brief, indifferent glance. “I think Buchan the butcher wrote it, myself.”
“Always assuming that ‘usuring’ is a word, I don’t see where he gets that bit; you haven’t any money to lend.”
“I wouldna suppose a basis in truth is strictly required, under the circumstances, Sassenach,” he said very dryly. “And thanks to MacDonald and wee Bobby, there are a good many folk who think I do have money—and if I am not inclined to lend it to them, why then, plainly it’s a matter of my having put my fortune all in the hands of Jews and Whig speculators, as I am intent upon ruining trade for my own profit.”
“What?”
“That was a somewhat more literary effort,” he said, shuffling through the pile and pulling out an elegant parchment sheet, done in a copperplate hand. This one had been sent to a newspaper in Hillsboro, and was signed, A Friend to Justice; and while it didn’t name Jamie, it was clear who the subject of the denunciation was.
“It’s the hair,” I said, looking critically at him. “If you wore a wig, they’d have a much harder time of it.”
He lifted one shoulder in a sardonic shrug. The commonly held view of red hair as an indicator of low character and moral coarseness, if not outright demonic possession, was by no means limited to anonymous ill-wishers. The knowledge of that view—together with personal disinclination—had quite a bit to do with the fact that he never did wear either wig or powder, even in situations where a proper gentleman would.
Without asking, I reached for a stack of the papers and began to leaf through them. He made no move to stop me, but sat quietly watching, listening to the thrum of the rain.
A heavy spring storm was washing down outside, and the air was cold and damp, thick with the green scents of the forest insinuating themselves through the crevices of door and window. I sometimes had the sudden feeling, hearing the wind coming through the trees, that the wilderness outside meant to come in, march through the house, and obliterate it, erasing all trace of us.
The letters were a mixed bag. Some were from the members of the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence, with bits of news, most of it from the north. Continental Association Committees had sprung up in New Hampshire and New Jersey, these bodies now beginning to virtually take over the functions of government, as the royal governors lost their grip on assemblies, courts, and Customs, the remnants of organization falling ever deeper into disarray.
Boston was still occupied by Gage’s troops, and some of the letters continued the appeals for food and supplies to be sent to the succor of her citizens—we had sent two hundredweight of barley during the winter, which one of the Woolams had undertaken to get into the city, along with three wagonloads of other foodstuffs contributed by the inhabitants of the Ridge.
Jamie had picked up his quill, and was writing something, slowly, to accommodate the stiffness of his hand.
Next up was a note from Daniel Putnam, circulated through Massachusetts, noting the rising of militia companies in the countryside, and asking for arms and powder. It was signed by a dozen other men, each one bearing witness to the truth of the situation in his own township.
A Second Continental Congress was proposed, to meet in