Sisters in the Wilderness - Charlotte Gray [132]
Wherever the Prince went, he passed under massive temporary arches of spruce branches: this one welcomed him to Sparks Street, Ottawa.
The result was a stand-off. The Prince refused to disembark from the steamer on which he was travelling down the St. Lawrence River; the Orangemen refused to back down. So the royal steamer weighed anchor and set off towards the Bay of Quinte and the next stop on the royal itinerary: Belleville. But the infuriated Kingston Orangemen got there first, by train. They persuaded their zealous colleagues in Belleville to insist that the loyal Order of Orangemen be allowed to make their demonstration there.
As sheriff of Victoria County, John Dunbar Moodie was part of Belleville’s welcoming committee, and Susanna, now one of the best-known writers in the colony, was at his side amongst the other civic dignitaries. Early that bright September morning, the Moodies had walked from their house down to the wharf, admiring as they went all the decorations in the centre of town. Belleville had gone overboard with preparations: the streets were lined with sheaves of wheat, cornstalks, bunting, Chinese lanterns and glowing bunches of orange day-lilies. Ten triumphal arches were positioned along the Prince’s scheduled route. Farmers from the surrounding countryside had loaded their wives and families onto their wagons and converged on the town to see the show. A bevy of fifty young ladies on horseback were scheduled to meet the Prince when he set foot on firm ground.
But once again, the Prince of Wales never stepped ashore. In the face of yet more Orange intransigence, the steamer bearing the royal party simply chuffed away. It wasn’t until Edward reached Cobourg that he and his retinue were finally able to enjoy one of the balls organized in his honour—and that was largely because the train in which Kingston’s Orange troublemakers were pursuing him had broken down ten miles from the town. Back in Belleville, the townspeople “chaffed with suppressed rage,” according to The Daily Globe’s correspondent: “Though the gilded crowns, many coloured flowers and flags give an air of gaiety to the place, yet such a quantity of sullen, discontented faces I have never before witnessed.”
The Moodies were outraged by the discourtesy to the royal party. But it would have been foolish for John to have tried to stop the Orange Order’s demonstration—too many of the most prominent townsfolk, and all his political enemies, were involved. George Benjamin, publisher of the Belleville Intelligencer (whom Susanna had caricatured so viciously in her writings), was one of those who organized the pugnacious defence of Orange Order rights in Belleville. Benjamin’s role came as no surprise to John and Susanna, since John’s old adversary was still pursuing the sheriff with equal zeal: Benjamin told Premier John A. Macdonald that John Dunbar Moodie’s dismissal from office was “the most important” of all the issues in his riding.
The uncertainty of the court case, the belligerence of the Orange-men, the hostility of George Benjamin—the sheriff was under a lot of stress. In July 1861, John Moodie suffered a stroke that paralysed his left side. A hysterical Susanna quickly called in Dr. Lister, the well-known Belleville physician, and watched aghast as he applied the favourite all-purpose remedy of the nineteenth-century: cutting open a vein to bleed the patient.
Twelve days after his stroke, John wrote a cheerful letter to his favourite daughter, Katie