_Chapter Two_
"Yet the manifold desires of man," said Mr. Gideon Hibbs, biting awalnut--"and note that within this category I would subsume theconcupiscent;"--his long right hand held down a finger of the left--"thenatural, wherein I include the need of daily provender and nature'sother common demands;"--another finger--"the intellectual, that is thedesires of mind operating as it were in _vacuo_; the spiritual, wherebyI understand the desire of man unto God;"--his left thumb waved, notincluded, and this troubled Mr. Hibbs because he was slightlydrunk--"all these desires, I say, are subject to the ineluctabledomination of _chance_, gentlemen, pure chance." He sighed at anotherwalnut, a grayish man not old, in fact rather young by arithmeticalmeasure. He could never have been young in spirit; Reuben supposed thatMr. Hibbs would have admitted this himself, with stern pride, holdingthat flesh is corruption, that truth can be illuminated only by the coldflame of philosophy.
From threadbare sleeves jutted his hands, pale and bony, clumsy withanything but a goose quill, stained by ink and tobacco, the nails alwaysblack--a corruption of the flesh that did not trouble him.
Reuben wondered occasionally if anything did. Mr. Hibbs' pedagogic rageswere just that, put on for discipline and academic show. Reuben hadsensed this, ever since his and Ben's first sweaty encounters with_amo_, _amas_, _amat_. The rages were as artificial as the lancinatingstare of Mr. Hibbs' dark eyes, the stare intended to pin a student tothe mat confessing all sins, especially those of omission. He knew Benfelt less secure under the _furor academicus_. The eyes of Mr. Hibbsmight glare bitterly, the large red lips squirm anguished above thespade-shaped jaw, the hands clench as if itching to claw the answer outof a boy like a loose tooth, but Reuben knew the soul of Mr. Hibbs wasaway from all that on the other side of the moon, disputing withDemocritus, Aristotle, Cicero, the Schoolmen, Comenius, even JohnCalvin, who might have been a sad sort of freshman in that crowd. Livingat John Kenny's house with no duty but teaching, Mr. Hibbs had all thetime in the world for the boys but not an undivided spirit. The blackstare was further softened by his wig, a mousy thing carelesslypowdered. The powder grayed his poor clothes, puffing off in a sneezycloud if anyone patted his back--no one ever did except John Kenny.
"And yet," said Mr. Kenny, "if I understand you, sir, you believe inGod. Shall God rule by chance? I am not well grounded in philosophy."
"Oh, the Prime Mover set the wheel a-spinning, and needeth not toobserve it, I dare say--heresy of course, for the which I could spend aweek or two in the stocks."
"And I with you," John Kenny chuckled, "for at least two thirds of whatI say every day within mine own house. God then is synonymous with firstcause?"
Ben was gazing into the purple country of a wineglass, and Reuben sawthat he had not drunk much, which was proper--or was that his secondglass? This was the first time the boys had been invited to linger thusafter dinner. Perhaps Uncle John wished to give them an initiatory tasteof manhood, or else supposed them too full of roast goose to move.
"Not synonymous, sir, for that would imply that God is only first cause,no more. We must assume he hath many more attributes."
"We may assume it. We can hardly know it," Mr. Kenny suggested, andreached across the table to refresh the tutor's Madeira and splash a bitmore in Reuben's glass. "But what is knowledge?"
A sidelong glance told Reuben that black caterpillars had gone crawlingup toward Mr. Hibbs' wig; the big red mouth was pursed; the eyessquinted at the borders of philosophy. "We must recognize divers degreesof knowledge. There is mere factual knowledge: I know I hold this glassin my hand; if I drop it the wine will stain the cloth. Knowledge of theattributes, eternal presence of God is a higher knowledge."
"In what manner higher, Mr. Hibbs? More difficult? More important? Morefull of earthly significance?--if so, to whom?"
"I mean such knowledge cometh to the mind and soul direct, not by way ofmere tangible evidence."
"And yet, Mr. Hibbs--this is simply mine own ignorance finding avoice--I don't understand why knowledge becomes higher because tangibleevidence is lacking, nor indeed why tangible evidence should bedespised. But may we return to the matter of definition?" John Kennyglanced at Reuben while the tutor's head was bowed for the inspection ofanother walnut; Reuben decided it was not merely possible, it was afact: Uncle John's eyelid _had_ flickered down and up. "What _is_knowledge?"
"Knowledge is the perception of truth."
Reuben drank a little, remembering the afternoon. He had spent at leasttwo hours by the pond with Mr. Welland--listening mostly, for oncelaunched the doctor spoke well, like one whose talk had been dammed up along time: Harvey, Sydenham, a surgeon named Pare, Signor Malpighi againand his little frog, something of a book named _Micrographia_ by aRobert Hooke of England. The time had gone quickly; Mr. Welland wasstill talking as they crossed the south pasture and climbed the slope,and from the top of it Reuben could see the tiny figures of Ben andUncle John returning, but the doctor at first was not able to make themout. "My eyes are not what they were," he said, "though maybe I can peera little way through a stone wall." With that remark Mr. Welland hadbecome somewhat remote, like a man interrupted in conversation by adistant call, though all he did was stand there, his ugly, kindly faceturned away from the path of the late lowering sun.
John Kenny asked: "And what is truth?"
"We must recognize divers degrees of truth," said Gideon Hibbs. "Thereis the empirical, observational truth I mentioned. There is logicaltruth, demonstrated by proceeding correctly from the premise. There isethical truth, not demonstrable by observation or logic, deriving froman ideal harmony between the human will and the will of God."
"There I begin to lose you," said John Kenny.
"Ideal, sir, attainable in perfection only by the mind, not in commonlife because man is the plaything of chance, a conclusion to which I amforced, in defiance of prevailing theology, by contemplation of humanfrailty and the vicissitudes of life." Mr. Hibbs drank and looked atrifle happier. "Above all there is metaphysical truth, even furtherbeyond the reach of observation and logic. Here indeed the philosophermay find consolation--by submission, if you like, to theincomprehensible."
"But in what manner is mind not a part of common life?"
"Oh? Sir, do you doubt the separateness of soul and body?"
"I confess that sometimes I do." Uncle John looked tired, Reuben saw, asthough he might have lost interest in Socratic method, might even preferto be playing chess. He enjoyed it most with Ben, Reuben knew; whenReuben himself entered the dry brilliant world of the chessboard hefound it nearly impossible to temper his own sharp skill, and victorycame with too much ease. He wondered if the doctor could be achess-player. Strange, the remoteness like a sadness that had come overMr. Welland there at the top of the rise. "If you run, Reuben, you canmeet them in front of the house." That had been like a mind reading. "Idon't run nowadays, Reuben." He recalled the doctor's brief mirthlesssmile as they shook hands. "I think I'd admire to see you run. I'll takethe path through this other field--it'll bring me out back of my ownhouse.... Run, boy, run!"
He had missed a part of something Uncle John was saying concerning theinfluence on the human spirit of every change suffered by the flesh. Theold man was speaking of youth and age. It was all reasonable and wise,Reuben thought. Uncle John was seldom anything but reasonable and wise."I think truth may be both a humbler and a sterner thing. I think, Mr.Hibbs, there can never be any truth but a partial truth, subject tochange by every new observation."
"But that is...."
"Terrifying? For my part I don't find it so. This may be a matter ofone's disposition, I suppose."
And so I ran from Mr. Welland, and because I knew my own speed and wasloving the wind around me, I did not look back....
"Beyond such partial truth," said John Kenny, "you enter the region offaith; and by faith, Mr. Hibbs, I think men have moved no mountains. Ithink in mine old age that men have moved mountains by art and by thesweat of discontent, while faith never stirred one grai
n of sand."
And Ben had spurred the mare, running up the road to meet him, leavingUncle John far behind, sweeping off his hat to let the wind at his hair.Reuben recalled his gray eyes wide and curious and sweet, his flushedface somehow surprised, as though Ben had never dreamed the world couldbe as good to him as it was....
John Kenny was saying something more, about the arrogance of certainty;it was not completed, for someone was knocking.
The man in the green coat stood ghostlike in the dining-room doorwaybehind the bulk of a bothered Kate Dobson. He should have waited forKate to announce him. To Reuben he was a shadow of something not quiteacceptable, even dimly alarming, tall with his ancient hat held to hisbreast, sweeping them all in a blue stare. But Uncle John was pleased."Only a poor matter of business, Mr. Kenny, and had I known you wasentertaining guests----"
"But happy to have another, and if business, let it be pleasure too! Offwith your coat, man, and take a chair, and drink up!" As Daniel Shawnwas protesting but sitting down anyway, Mr. Kenny sent Kate flying for afresh decanter. "If a man hath an eye for my _Artemis_, shall I let himgo without drinking her health? Mr. Gideon Hibbs, Mr. Daniel Shawn. Benyou've met, sir. And this is Mr. Reuben Cory, my othergrand-nephew--nay, my other son."
Standing to reach across the table for a handshake, Reuben thought: Goddamn it, I don't like him. "I am honored, sir."
If Mr. Shawn was astonished that a pup of fifteen should have theimpudence to speak first and with high formality, he hid it well; hishand was firm and kind, his murmured response neutral without amusement.Very likely, Reuben thought, he supposes I know no better; and so I havemade a fool of myself once again. But he continued to feel that thecoming of Daniel Shawn on this evening of winy philosophy was theapproach of a wolf to a pack of harmless dogs.
Ben was pleased too, though Reuben had noticed shyness settling over himlike a mist. Kate Dobson was not pleased. As she brought in the wine,her prominent mild eyes openly assessed Mr. Shawn's clothes, and hersoft-footed rush from the room was virtually a flounce. Uncle John wasasking: "Did you come afoot, sir, all the way to Roxbury, and at night?"
"Oh, I did that, Mr. Kenny, an easy walk."
"I'm pleased you had moonlight." In the windows, reflections ofcandelabra were steady golden fires. "The dem'd road's a caution,noticed it a thousand times and said so in high places too, but it doesno good. I trust you met no inconvenience?"
"None, sir." Good white teeth flashed in a light dangerous smile. "Noman troubles me," said Mr. Shawn, and patted his left hip, where hecarried a short knife something like Ben's. "And I easy found yourhouse, sir, the way everyone knows of Mr. John Kenny." The flattery wasgross. Shawn clearly meant it to be recognized as such, using it tointimate a deeper flattery, a suggestion that he and John Kenny knew howto value the coinage of light conversation and enjoy it as a comic workof art.
"To _Artemis_!" said Mr. Kenny. "May she venture far!"
"Amen!" Shawn jumped up to drink that toast standing, in one draft, andBen, Reuben saw, could do no less. He took one swallow himself forcourtesy, and sat down, shifting his chair until the delicate flame of asilver wall lamp was behind Ben's head and created around him a goldennimbus that no one but Reuben would see, or seeing, remember.
"I'm happy we spoke at once of the bright lady, Mr. Kenny, for thatallows me to state my business and so have done, and not be outstaying awelcome that's more than kind." But once settled in the chair at Ben'sright, Mr. Shawn appeared to be in no haste at all. Reuben observed anold scar running in a gray-white thread from the black hair behind Mr.Shawn's left ear, winding through the smallpox scars and losing itselfunder his collar. Mr. Shawn wore no stock, no wig; simple, clean andneat in a brown jacket and gray shirt and patched breeches, he madeReuben feel foppishly overdressed in his fine silk stock, dabs of laceand other impedimenta of a gentleman that Uncle John liked to see himwear. Mr. Shawn's green coat, tossed on a chair, nakedly displayed itsown patches. His large-knuckled hands were clean, his face slick-shavenand scrubbed, a moderate tan combining with natural pallor to give him alook of pitted old ivory, the only grooves two deep ones framing hisproud nose and three faint permanent frown-tracks between his heavyblack brows. Uncle John was replenishing his glass. "I thank you, sir,but I pray you don't press me to drink overmuch, it's I have a poor headfor it, now that's no lie."
"In _vino veritas_," said Gideon Hibbs, and giggled. Reuben squirmedinwardly as usual at that degeneration of Mr. Hibbs' conversation intoLatin snippets, the eroded currency of scholarship. With the sometimesdispassionate malevolence of youth, Reuben had spoken of it to Ben asthe _harrumphitas hemanhorum Hibbsiana_.
Daniel Shawn threw a light, tight smile to the room at large. "Legendsays truth is a naked lady dwelling in the bottom of a well, and so upwe must drag her and cast a rag upon her lest her beauty be a-dazzlingus, or will it be that she's a Gorgon and no beauty?--I can't say. Turnour heads, and faith, don't she go down again to the bottom of the well,the way we've had our labor for nothing? I've heard of no man ever laywith her and lived to tell of it, let alone having any get of her atall."
To the stained crystal of his suddenly empty glass, Reuben said: "Unlessit was Socrates, and 'tis very true he died."
Small silence ruled. Reuben heard Mr. Hibbs draw a deep stormy breath,but before anyone could set about demolishing green youth for itsimpudence (if anyone was a-mind to) Daniel Shawn was tranquillycontinuing: "To my business, Mr. Kenny, and I'll have done. I'm here,sir, to inquire if there be an opportunity for me to ship aboard your_Artemis_ on her next outward passage." Caution settled on Mr. Kenny'sface like cold. "I must tell you, sir, the way I've fallen enamored ofthe little sea-witch, I'd count it better than a berth on anyfull-rigged ship I know. Call it a seaman's fancy. I have mate'spapers--captain's for that matter, but no man could replace Mr. Jenks,there'd be never no such thought in me mind. Indeed, Mr. Kenny, were Ioffered a command at present I think I'd refuse, now that's no lie. Ithink I'm not of a mind for it, though I have captained a vessel twicein the past and done well enough as the world judges. But if any lesserberth be available with _Artemis_, I'm ready, sir--ready to offer twentyyears' experience of the sea and the best devotion a man can give atall."
John Kenny said with care: "But if you have captain's papers, I can'tsuppose you'd wish to sign on for small pay and scant authority."
Shawn sighed, smiling again with tight upper lip and steady eyes. "Ithink, sir, if the vessel were the _Artemis_, the position of mate wouldfind me content as any man on salt water, now that's no lie. Truth is Ilove ships, Mr. Kenny; I know a fair one when I see her. Mother of God,in the old days, the ships I'd see standing out from Sligo Bay, and Itoo young to follow! I'm a Sligo man, Mr. Kenny, born in Dromoreforty-one years ago and can't bear the life on the bloody beach. Steadyas she goes!--it's I need a deck under me feet or I'm not living."
Mr. Kenny shook his head unhappily. "Jan Dyckman hath sailed as matewith Mr. Jenks a long time now. I can't imagine Mr. Jenks consideringany other in the room of him."
"Still," said Shawn, his head on one side, his smile perhaps no morethan a flicker of the candles--"still, sir, you are the owner."
"I am the owner," said Mr. Kenny stiffly, "and merely that. With such acaptain as Mr. Jenks, I say nothing about the manning of my craft."
"And very just, sir. I was but thinking this Mr. Dyckman might be readyfor a command himself, in one of your other vessels--thus an advancementfor him, an opportunity for me."
"I see.... At present I own but two others, Mr. Shawn, one a mere sloop.The other is a ship that should now be at Virginia, a fair sturdyvessel, but she won't be homeward-bound for some months--Captain Fosteris intending a triangle course, Barbados and then home. Further, I fearJan Dyckman himself hath no wish for a captain's place. Splendid fellow,but by his own estimation a natural second in command, who tells me hisambition flies no higher. 'Tis true"--John Kenny's head slanted back andhe was looking down his nose--"'tis true _Artemis_ will carry a secondmate with
her usual complement."
"What is that complement, sir, may I ask?"
"She put out last August with fourteen hands. Came home withten--smallpox and tropic fever. Three of the ten were new men Mr. Jenkssigned on at Kingston. Worked her on the homeward passage with three menand a boy to a watch. I dare say the cook was obliged to turn a hand indirty weather--he's a renegade Frenchman, by the way, and utterly mad."
"Sir, if a cook aboard ship be not mad he must become so, a law ofnature. Why, I recall one we had when I captained the sloop _Viceroy_,King William's time--she was for Naples out of Bristol and a pleasantpassage, the most of it. Rot my liver if this cook didn't go overboardoff Malta--in a moderate gale, mind you--crying that a pack of Sirenswas corrupting the ship's boys and he'd have 'em flayed for it, and allthe time wasn't it only the wind in the stays? A Yorkshireman, and broadin the beam with a list to la'board from a broken leg that'd healedsomewhat crook. No Sirens that day, and didn't I put about to fish himout of the drink?--the more fool me, for he was na' but a bundle ofdisaster ever after. His fancy, d'you see, took another turn--O thechild he was, the great smiling angry child!--and he'd have it he musttrain the weevils in our biscuit to be the like of some educated fleashe'd seen, I think it was at the Cambridge Fair, and he all in a frenzywhen they wouldn't answer to the names he gave 'em but continuedweevils, nothing more. Mother of God, had he wished he could've hadfleas a-plenty, Bristol fleas, the best in the world. Well, there wasJemima, Hannibal, Simon, Jasper--many more I forget. His time passed inshaking more of 'em out of the biscuit and bidding 'em increase andmultiply in the bottom of a stewpot, the way he saw his fortune made theday we'd raise Land's End once more, but it did so happen, Mr. Kenny, ona brisk golden afternoon, that a cross-wind caught us for a moment, andno blame to vessel or man, over went the stewpot, and someone stepped onJemima, and here was fourteen stone of redheaded Yorkshireman coming atme with a knife, for he declared the fault was mine. We were obliged totie him below. For the rest of the voyage the cooking was done by ahighland Scot from Inverness, 'tis a mystery of God we didn't alldie--no Scottishmen present, I hope?... Well, I think I would notdespise the place of second mate if the vessel was your _Artemis_, nowthat's no lie. Nowadays a berth is hard to find."
Uncle John had laughed too much, and was wiping his eyes. Ben had hootedunrestrained. Behind his own laughter, Reuben was reflecting that whatMr. Shawn said of maritime employment was quite simply not true. As thewar dragged on, one heard that Her Majesty's Navy was only too hungryfor any man who could remain upright and heave on a rope. "Sir, sir,"said Mr. Kenny, "was there no reviving Jemima?"
"Oh, there was not, seeing it was the cook himself who stepped on her,the blacker the day.... As you can see, Mr. Kenny, I am not at presentin prosperity. Perhaps before now I have aimed too high, rejectingopportunities that I ought to have considered."
"Have you a family, sir?"
"A widower, sir, of modest habit, with never no stomach for riot orextravagance. I married young in the old country (God comfort her!) andwhen my wife died in childbirth thanks to a certain damned Englishmidwife who probably--Oh, I can see it now----" Mr. Shawn stopped, andlifted frowning eyes as if startled by some remote vision beyond thewalls; he finished his wine at a gulp. "Your pardon, sir--my wits werewandering. When my wife died and the little one with her--it was longago--I took to the sea at last, and since then the ships have been wifeand child," said Mr. Shawn, and let the silence hang.
"It would be best," said Mr. Kenny, "if you approach Mr. Jenks direct.But since you've put it to me fairly, I'll speak to him also if youwish. I can make no promise at all, Mr. Shawn."
"I understand that, sir, and I thank you." Daniel Shawn's neck wasflushed, the old scar throbbing, a lightly breathing snake. "You're thefair man, Mr. Kenny, and if 'tis my good luck to serve in your employ,I'll give a man's best, more I can't say."
Reuben wondered why he should be finding it necessary to compare thisman with the doctor Amadeus Welland. They were nothing alike. Why?
"Mr. Shawn, let me fill your glass. Will you stay the night? I'd bepleased to save you the walking home in the dark."
"Oh, I must be going, but a thousand thanks for the thought, and I'mhappy the glass is full so I may drink your health, Mr. Kenny, and thecontinuance of all good fortune to you, sir!"
They all drank Mr. Kenny's health, and Mr. Shawn did not go.
Reuben thought: Well, it's because of what they _don't_ share. As Ben'sface is surrounded by that golden light, so Mr. Welland carries abouthim--honesty. That man Welland could never plot and contrive, never; hecould never show a false face, no more than Ben could. But I thinkfriend Shawn is doing exactly that, and I have drunk far too muchwine....
No doubt of it: the sweet purple sorcery was stealing away all naturalalertness. A certain Irish magic was filling the room and swelling,Reuben himself yielding to enjoyment of it, until it possessed not onlythe mournful mighty sound of a sea wind but all the driving power of awind crossing the dark places, the lonely places, the foam-drenchedwilderness.
Daniel Shawn was explaining--had been for a long time, Reubenrealized--that the tales of mermaids were mythical fancies; that certainprofounder mysteries had nothing to do with such froth of dreams. UncleJohn appeared unwilling to abandon the fishtail wenches, and counteredwith classical texts. Some of these, Reuben knew from a glint in UncleJohn's eye and a squirming discomfort in Mr. Hibbs, had been invented onthe spot for the occasion--John Kenny could be a rough man with aspontaneous Latin hexameter. But Shawn insisted, and was now launchedon the story of a supposed mermaid seen by himself and another of hiswatch on a voyage among the hot somnolent West Indian isles. "Truly thecrayter had the like of a woman's bubbies, and nursed a little one atthem, and wasn't it meself was thinking I beheld the mermaid, for allshe was that mortal ugly and her mouth ran up and down like acaterpillar's?"
"Now," said Gideon Hibbs--"now, after all!"
"I give you my word, sir, do I not?" Daniel Shawn's flare of wrath wasswiftly veiled. "Will a man be inventing such a thing? Wasn't it meselfthat saw that mouth munching a huge great gob of sea grass, the kindthat groweth in brackish waters, and saw the lips churning from side toside? That other man started for a harpoon. I stayed him. Ochone!--howcould a man be looking on the ugly thing, the mother she was, and nothave pity?"
"Pity's a rare uneasy thing," said John Kenny.
"A bald black head round like a cannon ball, devil a bit of nose butonly a pair of slits like a common seal." Shawn laughed abruptly. "Andnow I must ruin my tale, Mr. Kenny, for when I went below one of thecrew who'd often sailed those parts told me the thing was called amanatee or sea cow, and had been well known for many years, the way thefolk at Campeachy and elsewhere do fancy the meat highly and use thehide of the gentle beast for making whips. Thus I was spared the follyof telling abroad the marvel I had seen. But you understand me, sir?--inthis manner, from such particulars glimpsed in a poor light, come manyinventions." Reuben could smell Shawn, a muskiness not quite unpleasant;a wild smell. "In all waste places are wonders--in swamps, jungles,mountains, deserts. The greatest of all lies very far west of here, orsay east if you like, for it's the other side of the world. Beside thatthese fancies of storytellers are pap for children. I have never beheldthe sea serpent, though I've heard of him times enough, and spoke withthose who'd seen him, honest men owning no more imagination than a blockof holystone. The Kraken too, perhaps. Yet those mysteries, and allothers, are nothing beside the sea's own self, the sea of the west, thePacific."
Ben turned to Shawn, rapt and flushed, and Reuben knew he was asking forthe sake of hearing Shawn speak again: "The Kraken?"
"A titan of many arms, Mr. Cory, mightier than a right whale they say,who will drag down entire ships, or overturn them belike to feed on allaboard the way a cat will take her a nestful of little birds. It may beso. The sea is boundless. Anything might live therein."
"Even mermaids," said John Kenny, but Mr. Shawn was not listening.
"
No man knoweth the sea until he hath ventured the western sea, thePacific. The fat Spanish ships travel it, but I tell you the route theyfollow is a single thread stretched over a Sahara. I have sailed it too,a very little of it, above and below the Line, in a whaler, once, and Iyoung with no wisdom in me but with open eyes--and I was, say, like aninsect crossing the continent of Europe, but I'm a wise insect,sir--Mother of God, I know the meaning of horizons! Pacific nights--deepas any night of the soul, and will you be telling me of a deeper darkthan that? Out there only the sea is truth, only the sea, and this is apart of the truth: there be many islands."
"Continents perhaps," said John Kenny, agreeing but somehow withoutenthusiasm, and Shawn sat back to study him, the blue eyes cloudedwindows closing away some of the lightning of inner storm.
"What's the Atlantic?--a gray mad stormy puddle. Sea of theCaribbees?--a small hot lagoon, green lumps of land like a lady'semerald necklace on a blue gown--oh, steady as she goes! I'll grant youher breast can heave and toss. If the wind's coming dark and fast downthere in the Caribbees I'll strip canvas quick as any man and remember Iwas brought up religious, for men and ships are small things. But outthere on the far side of the world, have I not seen an empty island opento the west, where the high rollers came down and down forever with allthe blind leagues of the sea behind them, down and down as heavy andslow and sure as the years beating on a man's youth? Have I not seenPacific moonrise where no land is, and the gray and silver piled higherthan the North Star Polaris?"
* * * * *
Ben woke on Thursday before dawn, disoriented in time, noticing how thedays and nights of being in love run together like those disquieted bysimpler fevers. He recalled it was a Monday afternoon when he watched_Artemis_ sail home, therefore a Monday evening when he went to bedundeniably drunk, therefore a gray Tuesday morning when Mr. Hibbs,red-eyed and taciturn, gave him and Reuben an assignment of one hundredand twenty lines of the _Tristia_ of Ovid, to be absorbed by Wednesdayafternoon, plus (as atonement for Tuesday morning's inattention andgeneral sinfulness) a demand for five copies per boy, in a fair firmhand with no nonsense, no margin of error, of the entire conjugation ofthe verb [Greek: kephalalgeo], which means _to have a headache_. SoTuesday and Wednesday coalesced to one inky-dark billow of time, and nowbefore dawn the young apple tree out there that Reuben had spoken of wasstirring in a new pale softness. As Ben watched, the sky awoke beyondDorchester Neck, and the truth of full bloom was confirmed. He thought:I'll see her today.
She was lying touched by the pallor of the morning as he knelt at thewindow, a breeze on his shoulders mild as a woman's fingers. She wassleeping--in a garden maybe, or under that same apple tree's white foam,her gold-brown hair tumbled over the grass, a curl of it on her foreheadabove the flush of damask rose. The blue vague garment betrayed her insleep--no, rather his own daring hand drew it down, leaving bare onebreast and the red flower of it. From that, the fantasy moved withreluctance, sluggishly, oppressed by the sense of a thing contrived:sweet yet false. Nevertheless for a moment she shone quite naked,turning in her sleep away from him, a swell of flesh pliant under hishand and hiding the dark desired triangle, the other flower of red. Butthen she was no longer Faith; she was any woman, with a face unknown.
Reuben stirred and yawned. "Behold the nympholept! Benjamin, what of thenight?"
"It a'n't night, Muttonhead."
"Do you attempt to assert that the difference between night and dawn canbe detected by the dull besotted perception of the peasantry?"
"I love you too," said Ben.
"Ah! In lieu of morning prayers let us contemplate Pontifex."
"Law, why that, on a spring morning?"
"He hath been subjected to experiment and found wanting."
"How's that?"
"The verb, boy. Consider, it was the doom of Pontifex to _read_ allthose twice five copies. Well, sir, in one of 'em, taking not even youinto my confidence, I inserted one error, a miserable crawling misplacedaccent--a wee louse, do you see, nibbling the fair white integument of aGreek verb. Did he discover, percontate and make manifest thiscrapulent, this obscene and overweening impudicity? Damn, I forgotconcupiscent. Did he find this adventitious louse to be a concupiscentintrusion upon the fulgurant purity of grammatical impeccancy, and crackthe hereinbeforementioned louse upon that sable thumbnail? Nah. By theway, where'd the bloody pot get to this time?"
"Under _your_ bed," said Ben, exasperated, for the Cyprian fantasy hadnot completely dissolved, and it did seem too bad that the last of itmust be dismissed by the unequivocal din of urination.
"There!" Reuben sighed. "I have subsumed the concupiscent." He stoopedto pat the floor a few times with the flat of his hands, and sprawledback on his bed. "With reference, sir, to that Cicero whose lank shadowfalleth across our afternoon: _Sunt autem qui dicant foedus esse quoddamsapientius ut ne minos amicos quam se ipsos diligant._ Do youunderstumble me, sir?"
"Please, sir, no, sir."
"I freely render: Some say there's a kind of compact of the wise, tolove their friends no less than themselves. You may construe."
"Please, sir, no, sir, I won't, sir."
"You what or that which, sir?"
Ben snatched for his brother's sleep-tangled hair. Reuben caught hishand palm to palm and braced his elbow, stretching out wiry and tense."Wrastle then," he said, not smiling.
Ben knew that with his feet firm on the floor he could hardly fail toforce Reuben's hand back, though the boy did possess uncommon strengthin his thin arms. Ben recalled he had won last time; not wishing to wintwice running, he allowed his hand to sink slowly, as their eyes lockedtoo, Reuben's grave and dilated. Ben drove the smaller hand up once ortwice, catching then a glimpse of panic in Reuben, but Reuben clampedhis mouth tight and heaved, the power of his knotting arm increasedunreasonably, and Ben was startled to find his own arm wavering down. Noneed after all to simulate defeat; it was fairly done. Ben slumped onthe floor laughing and rubbing his shoulder. He thought of tellingReuben that he meant to go into Boston today, Hibbs or no Hibbs. "Ru,you could strangle a bull."
"Not yet." Reuben lay flat, lifting yesterday's shirt from a chair withhis toes, to frown at it horribly. "But seeing you're about to throw mea clean shirt like a good Christian, be careful how you come withinreach, for I'd be happy to try my powers on a small calf." Ben threw apillow at him and then the shirt. "Snuff the air, little Benjamin! Whathath Kate wrought, do you know? _I_ know."
"Sausage!"
"True," said Reuben, rising in a whirl of activity, "and though you mayseem more dressed than I"--he slipped behind Ben, snatched off hisneckcloth and darted away knotting it around his own neck--"I shall bein the land of the sausage before you."
They were late. Mr. Kenny had already breakfasted and gone to Boston.Mr. Hibbs lurked impatiently in the schoolroom, nursing one of the headcolds that tormented him with the onset of spring, and Kate Dobson wasmoving about in a large dreamy morning mood, soft-footed scamperingscarrying her billowing body from one to another of a dozen errands--therising of bread, the simmering of a kettle on the hearth, a speck ofdirt to be scrubbed, the demolition of a fly. She bounced everywhere, ahuge gray-headed silkworm ever hurrying at her generous spinning, andbegan talking as the boys entered, with some sentence begun obscurely inthe depths of her mind: "... so to myself I said, minute I see 'em I'llask, is it p-i-e-s or p-e-i-s or _what_ is it, with a pox?--I coulddeclare it had an a in it the way you showed it me, Master Reuben, ohdearie me, the letters all shaped out fair and plain."
"Ah, that," said Reuben. "P-e-a-c-e, Kate."
"Didn't I _say_ it had an _a_ into it? Think of that! Ah, well...."
Ben saw she was close to tears. Kate wept easily at many things triflingand great; this was no trifle. What she referred to was a labor ofyears, a sampler intended (some day) for the wall of Mr. Kenny's study.For all Ben knew it might have been started before he was born. Kateherself couldn't say when she began it, as she couldn't say for sure howold sh
e was, or what year it was she came as a redemptioner fromEngland. To Kate all the past telescoped in a half-reality, and memoriesoverflowing in her talk could seldom be closely tied to conventionalmileposts of time. Ben had seen the incomplete sampler, shyly unfoldedfrom a workbasket at times when Mr. Kenny was away in the city. Theborder was almost done, she said. From the bottom on either side rosebranches, ivy idealized, stitched in springtime greens with immensepains and skill; at the top the branches met, interlocking as leaves innature do, contending but sharing sunlight. That part, she claimed, waseasy--why, you just stitched it: so, and so. But the motto caused herendless grief, since she had never been taught to write or read. Sheknew the alphabet; with desperate trouble she could fit togetherelements of it indicating words. Ben wondered how she had found couragefor such a project before he and Reuben were present to aid her. But shewas still troubled even with their aid. No motto was ever quite goodenough on second thought. Occasionally she changed the lovely bordertoo. Once Ben had found her rocking in her sewing chair and weepingbecause, she said, a brown thread among the leaves was the _wrong_brown and must be picked out, every stitch, and that by candlelight. Hereyes hurt--weren't as good as they used to be.
"Woman dear," said Reuben, "you've gone and lost the paper."
She blinked in sorrow at the hominy and sausage she set before him."That I have, and I don't understand how a body _can_ be so heedless. Idid, I had it in my basket, and then I vow I must've wrapped somethingin it, maybe a skein, and put it away somewhere, _I_ don't knowwhere--why, my mind's light, light as a whore's promise, I just don't_think_ good."
Ben reached out to pat her fat floury hand, as Reuben said: "Then we'lldraw you a fresh one. A nothing for such scholars as me and my littlebrother--only, bruit it not abroad that ever I said such a thing. Youknow, Kate, the sin of vanity in us--sad, sad."
She chuckled, dashing a comfortable tear from a bulging cheek, andbounced away to deal with a fresh emergency. Fragments of yesterday'schicken sat on a side table waiting a destiny in soup, and the leanyellow tomcat, Mr. Eccles, had wandered in nursing a sordid plot, oneeasily detected and swiftly refuted by a whisk of Kate's apron. He cameover to rub Ben's leg rather grimly, knowing well enough that breakfastsausage is not cat-food. "Which motto was it, Kate?--believe I've losttrack."
"Oh--le' me think, Master Benjamin--'Let peace in this house beeverlasting as the sea'--it was real pretty." She wiped an eye andsighed. "Boys, I was thinking--maybe it's foolish, maybe it a'n't evenright I should try such a thing, but I was thinking, what if I was tomake that motto something in the _Latin_? He'd favor it so--wouldn'the?"
"The very thing!" Reuben exclaimed. "Hark 'ee: _Omnia vincit amor, etnos cedamus amori._ That's Virgil, Kate."
"Think of that! That's real Latin, Master Reuben? But--but a'n't itterrible short?"
"Oh, Kate!--greatest things said with fewest words."
"It do sound pretty. What's it mean?"
"Love conquereth all things, let us yield to love."
"You wouldn't play no jape on me, would you?"
"Save us!" Ben knew his brother was genuinely shocked. "Not about thesampler, Kate!"
"I know, dear."
"Only ask Mr. Hibbs whether my translation be right, if you doubt me."
"Nay nay, Reuben, love, I don't at all.... Love conquereth--"
Ben said: "Love conquereth all things."
"Ah me!" She came near, a soft hand on Ben's shoulder, her small sweetmouth like pink petals fallen in bread dough. "Ben, boy, you be a littlechanged. Something happen, Master Benjamin?--maybe Monday?"
"Monday? Why, Uncle John's _Artemis_ came home from her maiden voyagethat day, and a prettier vessel you never--"
"Oh, bother old _Artemis_! And ha' done with talk of the sea too--askMr. John, what's it ever done but make widows, and empty graves in theGod's acre?"
Reuben said to his empty plate: "The tale goes, it may have been filledby the tears of Chronos who was before all the gods."
* * * * *
"Ha?--oh, your talk, Master Reuben. But only look at Ben boy therea-blushing! Bound to happen--I knowed it, I knowed it, I know all thesigns of what makes the world go 'round, and who should know 'em better?O Ben, oh dearie me, soon you'll be a-moping about with a long face,there'll be a wringin' of hands, you'll go sighing with the springtimein your loins and no living with you at all. Ben dear! Tell Kate. Is shefair, Ben? Is she kind?"
"Now, Kate, truly!"
_He will go where I cannot go. Three years past he told me something ofhis dreams, but I dream never that way, never._
"Why, Ben, not a word! Mumchance. But I know, for a'n't I _alway_ saidit was love 't makes the world go 'round? Oh dearie me, they do grow tobe men before there's time a spider should build her web over the cradlewhere they was rocked."
"Can't help it, Kate, the way you stuff Reuben and me with sausage andkindness, we're bound to get big and bad and greasy."
_Where he goeth I cannot go, and he will be much loved, as he ought tobe, but I ... I think that I...._
"Phoo, didn't I marry for love me own self, the more fool me for notlistening to wiser heads, however and moreover I don't regret it norwon't to my dying day, though it was a whoreson hard thing to learn thecull was na' but a file, dearie."
"A file, Kate?"
_He said: A man of learning must often hide ... even more from thealmost-wise. He said: You and I ought to be friends._
"Nay, Ben, it's right you shouldn't know the word, it's only London-towncant and means a common cutpurse, that's all he was, him and his fairtalk to me about an inheritance, washed down you might say with thekissing and the sweet looks and the tumbling--marry, could I say no tothe likes of him, and meself as hot and limber as a March hare, could I?Well, rest him quiet, he danced for it at Tyburn."
"Oh, I remember. You've spoke of it before, but I'd forgotten the word.Kate, you shouldn't let those old memories rise up and trouble you--nothere, and the old country so far away."
_It's back from the Cambridge road (he said nothing about coming tovisit him), the cottage with green-painted shutters. Somethingdiscourteous the way I ran, but he did say...._
"Ay, it's far. Repent?--phoo! nor they wouldn't've got him, never, onlyhe drunk hisself blind in a tavern and talked, so you see, dearie, itwas the rum that ruint him, and never took a strap to me neither excepthe was in the drink, and that only once or twice. Repent?--why, didn'the spit on the foot of the gallows tree and cock his head at the sky tosee a shower coming, and didn't he say to the ordinary: 'Ha' donecanting and go to hanging, man, can't you see it's coming on to rain andmust I catch a quinsy for King Charles' sake, God bless him?'"
"Maybe he repented later, Kate--I mean in the last moment when there wasno way to say the words."
_How much he must know! Why not medicine? Nay, think of it, Ru Cory, whynot? WHY NOT?_
"Not him. Why, didn't he wave a purse that he'd h'isted from theordinary's own pocket, that he had--waved it and throwed it to the crowdand cried: 'Here, culls, drink me a remembrancer!' That he did, anywayso a friend told me that was there and seen it all, the which I couldn'tbe meself, being in childbed on his account--died, the little thing, andbest maybe seeing it'd've had no father, and then me for the colonies, Isuppose it was a long time ago."
"Well...."
_But if I am--if there be some evil, some mark of evil to make othersrecoil as from a leper--but it can't be so, it can't. Would that manknow (could I ask him?) why so often I--why--why----_
"But do you know, dearie, I had another friend in the crowd that day tosee him die, and she told me the tale different, I can't understand howit could be so different, how that my Jem was leaden-faced, and foughtthe rope, nor spoke nothing at all but some mumbling about former times,and how his life should be an example--example, with a pox! That wasn'tnever his way of talk, but--but maybe he did and all. No purse for thecrowd, she said, nothing like that."
"I don't think it happened that way, Kat
e."
_Could I kill a wolf again if there was need? I think I could._
"'Deed she said there was but few present to watch it, and the officersin haste to be done with it because the rain was already falling--Idon't know, I don't know."
"Kate, from what you say of him, I'm certain it was the way the otherfriend told you, that he met it bravely, and threw the purse too, notfor impudence but only so to hold himself a man to the end."
_How long it is now since I was child enough to cry out: God help me!_