Cape Breton Post 01/02/09 Edith Archibald penned a novel set in Port Morien late in her life LEROY PEACH The Cape Breton Post I've written before of the legacy of Edith Jesse Archibald (1854-1936), the wife of Charles Archibald, manager of the Gowrie Mine, Port Morien (1861-1893). She was involved in every important national cause, from temperance to the vote for women and to the Victorian Order of Nurses. Only recently I learned that near the end of her life, in 1931, she wrote a novel called "The Token." Set in Port Morien and Homeville, its real value today lies in the insight it gives into Cape Breton culture in the 1870s. As far as the plot goes, it's a bit of a potboiler, one which requires a willing suspension of disbelief. In the novel, Port Morien becomes Grandport. It is winter and the mines are working half-time. The coal-loading wharf, with its mechanized trolley system, is in place and "great steamers are moored awaiting their cargoes." The weather is very cold and the ice clampers are in. Archibald describes the rows of poorly-insulated miners' houses. Several of these houses exist today. Former teacher Alan Carmichael, is a weighman at the mine. He is enamoured of a young widow, Sheila Morrison, a bit too flighty for her staunch Presbyterian grandfather, Angus MacRory. The inexperienced Norton Tyler, from Boston, is mine manager only because his father owns the mine. Alan and Tyler come in conflict over the dismissal of a boy worker, Tyler's possible implication in the disappearance of a French captain's sister, Madelon, and Tyler's interest in Sheila Morrison. They fight during a blizzard after a milling frolic, they fall over a cliff in Morien and are presumed dead. Unknown to the citizens, they are discovered on a ledge by the very French captain who has a grievance against Tyler and whose schooner happens to arrive at the right time. The captain is a rum runner and a cave in the cliff is the place that he hides his rum. He takes both men to St. Pierre Miquelon and he places Tyler in a nunnery to be cared for by the nuns but keeps Alan on board. They eventually recover. Tyler is taken to France on a steamer. The hot-tempered Alan, who thinks he has murdered Tyler, stays with the French captain and returns to Morien and meets secretly with his love, Sheila Morrison. Here's how the token factors in. In the Presbyterian Church at that time, one needed to possess a token in order to participate in communion. To obtain a token, one had to appear before the elders and be questioned on the Shorter Catechism. Sheila, a frivolous soul, fails the test. But the minister feels sorry for her and gives her the prized token of his ancestor. Sheila, to show her love for Alan, gives the token to him during their rendezvous. Meanwhile, Alan and Tyler join the seal hunt on different vessels and Alan rescues Tyler. They become reconciled. When a communion is later held in Grandport, Sheila cannot attend because she has no token and cannot reveal why. Eventually, Alan returns to Grandport, everything is sorted out and Sheila and Alan live happily ever after. That's the bare bones of the implausible plot. Next week, I'll discuss the cultural implications of the novel. LeRoy Peach lives in Port Morien and may be reached at leroy_peach@yahoo.ca. His column appears every week in the Cape Breton Post