"We must recognize divers degrees of truth," said Gideon Hibbs. "There
is the empirical, observational truth I mentioned. There is logical
truth, demonstrated by proceeding correctly from the premise. There is
ethical truth, not demonstrable by observation or logic, deriving from
an 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 common
life because man is the plaything of chance, a conclusion to which I am
forced, in defiance of prevailing theology, by contemplation of human
frailty and the vicissitudes of life." Mr. Hibbs drank and looked a
trifle happier. "Above all there is metaphysical truth, even further
beyond the reach of observation and logic. Here indeed the philosopher
may find consolation--by submission, if you like, to the
incomprehensible."
"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, as
though he might have lost interest in Socratic method, might even prefer
to be playing chess. He enjoyed it most with Ben, Reuben knew; when
Reuben himself entered the dry brilliant world of the chessboard he
found it nearly impossible to temper his own sharp skill, and victory
came with too much ease. He wondered if the doctor could be a
chess-player. Strange, the remoteness like a sadness that had come over
Mr. Welland there at the top of the rise. "If you run, Reuben, you can
meet them in front of the house." That had been like a mind reading. "I
don't run nowadays, Reuben." He recalled the doctor's brief mirthless
smile as they shook hands. "I think I'd admire to see you run. I'll take
the path through this other field--it'll bring me out back of my own
house.... Run, boy, run!"
He had missed a part of something Uncle John was saying concerning the
influence on the human spirit of every change suffered by the flesh. The
old 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 to
change by every new observation."
"But that is...."
"Terrifying? For my part I don't find it so. This may be a matter of
one's disposition, I suppose."
And so I ran from Mr. Welland, and because I knew my own speed and was
loving the wind around me, I did not look back....
"Beyond such partial truth," said John Kenny, "you enter the region of
faith; and by faith, Mr. Hibbs, I think men have moved no mountains. I
think in mine old age that men have moved mountains by art and by the
sweat of discontent, while faith never stirred one grain of sand."
And Ben had spurred the mare, running up the road to meet him, leaving
Uncle 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 flushed
face somehow surprised, as though Ben had never dreamed the world could
be 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 doorway
behind the bulk of a bothered Kate Dobson. He should have waited for
Kate to announce him. To Reuben he was a shadow of something not quite
acceptable, even dimly alarming, tall with his ancient hat held to his
breast, 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 was
entertaining guests----"
"But happy to have another, and if business, let it be pleasure too! Off
with your coat, man, and take a chair, and drink up!" As Daniel Shawn
was protesting but sitting down anyway, Mr. Kenny sent Kate flying for a
fresh decanter. "If a man hath an eye for my _Artemis_, shall I let him
go without drinking her health? Mr. Gideon Hibbs, Mr. Daniel Shawn. Ben
you've met, sir. And this is Mr. Reuben Cory, my other
grand-nephew--nay, my other son."
Standing to reach across the table for a handshake, Reuben thought: God
damn it, I don't like him. "I am honored, sir."
If Mr. Shawn was astonished that a pup of fifteen should have the
impudence to speak first and with high formality, he hid it well; his
hand was firm and kind, his murmured response neutral without amusement.
Very likely, Reuben thought, he supposes I know no better; and so I have
made a fool of myself once again. But he continued to feel that the
coming of Daniel Shawn on this evening of winy philosophy was the
approach of a wolf to a pack of harmless dogs.
Ben was pleased too, though Reuben had noticed shyness settling over him
like a mist. Kate Dobson was not pleased. As she brought in the wine,
her prominent mild eyes openly assessed Mr. Shawn's clothes, and her
soft-footed rush from the room was virtually a flounce. Uncle John was
asking: "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 of
candelabra 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 does
no good. I trust you met no inconvenience?"
"None, sir." Good white teeth flashed in a light dangerous smile. "No
man troubles me," said Mr. Shawn, and patted his left hip, where he
carried a short knife something like Ben's. "And I easy found your
house, sir, the way everyone knows of Mr. John Kenny." The flattery was
gross. Shawn clearly meant it to be recognized as such, using it to
intimate a deeper flattery, a suggestion that he and John Kenny knew how
to value the coinage of light conversation and enjoy it as a comic work
of art.
"To _Artemis_!" said Mr. Kenny. "May she venture far!"
"Amen!" Shawn jumped up to drink that toast standing, in one draft, and
Ben, Reuben saw, could do no less. He took one swallow himself for
courtesy, and sat down, shifting his chair until the delicate flame of a
silver wall lamp was behind Ben's head and created around him a golden
nimbus that no one but Reuben would see, or seeing, remember.
"I'm happy we spoke at once of the bright lady, Mr. Kenny, for that
allows me to state my business and so have done, and not be outstaying a
welcome that's more than kind." But once settled in the chair at Ben's
right, Mr. Shawn appeared to be in no haste at all. Reuben observed an
old scar running in a gray-white thread from the black hair behind Mr.
Shawn's left ear, winding through the smallpox scars and losing itself
under his collar. Mr. Shawn wore no stock, no wig; simple, clean and
neat in a brown jacket and gray shirt and patched breeches, he made
Reuben feel foppishly overdressed in his fine silk stock, dabs of lace
and other impedimenta of a gentleman that Uncle John liked to see him
wear. Mr. Shawn's green coat, tossed on a chair, nakedly displayed its
own patches. His large-knuckled hands were clean, his face slick-shaven
and scrubbed, a moderate tan combining with natural pallor to give him a
look of pitted old ivory, the only grooves two deep ones framing his
proud nose and three faint permanent frown-tracks between his heavy
black 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 head
for it, now that's no lie."
"In _vino veritas_," said Gideon Hibbs, and giggled. Reuben squirmed
inwardly as usual at that degeneration of Mr. Hibbs' conversation into
Latin snippets, the eroded currency of scholarship. With the sometimes
dispassionate malevolence of youth, Reuben had spoken of it to Ben as
the _harrumphitas hemanhorum Hibbsiana_.
Daniel Shawn threw a light, tight smile to the room at large. "Legend
says truth is a naked lady dwelling in the bottom of a well, and so up
we must drag her and cast a rag upon her lest her beauty be a-dazzling
us, or will it be that she's a Gorgon and no beauty?--I can't say. Turn
our 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 lay
with her and lived to tell of it, let alone having any get of her at
all."
To the stained crystal of his suddenly empty glass, Reuben said: "Unless
it 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 its
impudence (if anyone was a-mind to) Daniel Shawn was tranquilly
continuing: "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's
face like cold. "I must tell you, sir, the way I've fallen enamored of
the little sea-witch, I'd count it better than a berth on any
full-rigged ship I know. Call it a seaman's fancy. I have mate's
papers--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 I
offered a command at present I think I'd refuse, now that's no lie. I
think I'm not of a mind for it, though I have captained a vessel twice
in the past and done well enough as the world judges. But if any lesser
berth be available with _Artemis_, I'm ready, sir--ready to offer twenty
years' experience of the sea and the best devotion a man can give at
all."
John Kenny said with care: "But if you have captain's papers, I can't
suppose you'd wish to sign on for small pay and scant authority."
Shawn sighed, smiling again with tight upper lip and steady eyes. "I
think, sir, if the vessel were the _Artemis_, the position of mate would
find me content as any man on salt water, now that's no lie. Truth is I
love 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 I
too young to follow! I'm a Sligo man, Mr. Kenny, born in Dromore
forty-one years ago and can't bear the life on the bloody beach. Steady
as 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 mate
with Mr. Jenks a long time now. I can't imagine Mr. Jenks considering
any other in the room of him."
"Still," said Shawn, his head on one side, his smile perhaps no more
than a flicker of the candles--"still, sir, you are the owner."
"I am the owner," said Mr. Kenny stiffly, "and merely that. With such a
captain 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 ready
for a command himself, in one of your other vessels--thus an advancement
for 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 sturdy
vessel, but she won't be homeward-bound for some months--Captain Foster
is intending a triangle course, Barbados and then home. Further, I fear
Jan 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 his
ambition flies no higher. 'Tis true"--John Kenny's head slanted back and
he was looking down his nose--"'tis true _Artemis_ will carry a second
mate with her usual complement."
"What is that complement, sir, may I ask?"
"She put out last August with fourteen hands. Came home with
ten--smallpox and tropic fever. Three of the ten were new men Mr. Jenks
signed on at Kingston. Worked her on the homeward passage with three men
and a boy to a watch. I dare say the cook was obliged to turn a hand in
dirty 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 of
nature. 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 pleasant
passage, the most of it. Rot my liver if this cook didn't go overboard
off Malta--in a moderate gale, mind you--crying that a pack of Sirens
was corrupting the ship's boys and he'd have 'em flayed for it, and all
the time wasn't it only the wind in the stays? A Yorkshireman, and broad
in the beam with a list to la'board from a broken leg that'd healed
somewhat crook. No Sirens that day, and didn't I put about to fish him
out of the drink?--the more fool me, for he was na' but a bundle of
disaster ever after. His fancy, d'you see, took another turn--O the
child he was, the great smiling angry child!--and he'd have it he must
train the weevils in our biscuit to be the like of some educated fleas
he'd seen, I think it was at the Cambridge Fair, and he all in a frenzy
when they wouldn't answer to the names he gave 'em but continued
weevils, nothing more. Mother of God, had he wished he could've had
fleas a-plenty, Bristol fleas, the best in the world. Well, there was
Jemima, Hannibal, Simon, Jasper--many more I forget. His time passed in
shaking more of 'em out of the biscuit and bidding 'em increase and
multiply in the bottom of a stewpot, the way he saw his fortune made the
day we'd raise Land's End once more, but it did so happen, Mr. Kenny, on
a brisk golden afternoon, that a cross-wind caught us for a moment, and
no blame to vessel or man, over went the stewpot, and someone stepped on
Jemima, and here was fourteen stone of redheaded Yorkshireman coming at
me with a knife, for he declared the fault was mine. We were obliged to
tie him below. For the rest of the voyage the cooking was done by a
highland Scot from Inverness, 'tis a mystery of God we didn't all
die--no Scottishmen present, I hope?... Well, I think I would not
despise the place of second mate if the vessel was your _Artemis_, now
that's no lie. Nowadays a berth is hard to find."
Uncle John had laughed too much, and was wiping his eyes. Ben had hooted
unrestrained. Behind his own laughter, Reuben was reflecting that what
Mr. Shawn said of maritime employment was quite simply not true. As the
war dragged on, one heard that Her Majesty's Navy was only too hungry
for 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 present
in prosperity. Perhaps before now I have aimed too high, rejecting
opportunities that I ought to have considered."
"Have you a family, sir?"
"A widower, sir, of modest habit, with never no stomach for riot or
extravagance. I married young in the old country (God comfort her!) and
when my wife died in childbirth thanks to a certain damned English
midwife who probably--Oh, I can see it now----" Mr. Shawn stopped, and
lifted frowning eyes as if startled by some remote vision beyond the
walls; he finished his wine at a gulp. "Your pardon, sir--my wits were
wandering. When my wife died and the little one with her--it was long
ago--I took to the sea at last, and since then the ships have been wife
and 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 you
wish. I can make no promise at all, Mr. Shawn."
"I understand that, sir, and I thank you." Daniel Shawn's neck was
flushed, the old scar throbbing, a lightly breathing snake. "You're the
fair 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 this
man with the doctor Amadeus Welland. They were nothing alike. Why?
"Mr. Shawn, let me fill your glass. Will you stay the night? I'd be
pleased to save you the walking home in the dark."
"Oh, I must be going, but a thousand thanks for the thought, and I'm
happy the glass is full so I may drink your health, Mr. Kenny, and the
continuance 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's
face is surrounded by that golden light, so Mr. Welland carries about
him--honesty. That man Welland could never plot and contrive, never; he
could never show a false face, no more than Ben could. But I think
friend Shawn is doing exactly that, and I have drunk far too much
wine....
No doubt of it: the sweet purple sorcery was stealing away all natural
alertness. A certain Irish magic was filling the room and swelling,
Reuben himself yielding to enjoyment of it, until it possessed not only
the mournful mighty sound of a sea wind but all the driving power of a
wind crossing the dark places, the lonely places, the foam-drenched
wilderness.
Daniel Shawn was explaining--had been for a long time, Reuben
realized--that the tales of mermaids were mythical fancies; that certain
profounder mysteries had nothing to do with such froth of dreams. Uncle
John appeared unwilling to abandon the fishtail wenches, and countered
with classical texts. Some of these, Reuben knew from a glint in Uncle
John's eye and a squirming discomfort in Mr. Hibbs, had been invented on
the spot for the occasion--John Kenny could be a rough man with a
spontaneous Latin hexameter. But Shawn insisted, and was now launched
on the story of a supposed mermaid seen by himself and another of his
watch on a voyage among the hot somnolent West Indian isles. "Truly the
crayter had the like of a woman's bubbies, and nursed a little one at
them, and wasn't it meself was thinking I beheld the mermaid, for all
she was that mortal ugly and her mouth ran up and down like a
caterpillar's?"
"Now," said Gideon Hibbs--"now, after all!"
"I give you my word, sir, do I not?" Daniel Shawn's flare of wrath was
swiftly veiled. "Will a man be inventing such a thing? Wasn't it meself
that saw that mouth munching a huge great gob of sea grass, the kind
that groweth in brackish waters, and saw the lips churning from side to
side? That other man started for a harpoon. I stayed him. Ochone!--how
could a man be looking on the ugly thing, the mother she was, and not
have pity?"
"Pity's a rare uneasy thing," said John Kenny.
"A bald black head round like a cannon ball, devil a bit of nose but
only a pair of slits like a common seal." Shawn laughed abruptly. "And
now I must ruin my tale, Mr. Kenny, for when I went below one of the
crew who'd often sailed those parts told me the thing was called a
manatee or sea cow, and had been well known for many years, the way the
folk at Campeachy and elsewhere do fancy the meat highly and use the
hide of the gentle beast for making whips. Thus I was spared the folly
of telling abroad the marvel I had seen. But you understand me, sir?--in
this manner, from such particulars glimpsed in a poor light, come many
inventions." 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, or
say east if you like, for it's the other side of the world. Beside that
these fancies of storytellers are pap for children. I have never beheld
the sea serpent, though I've heard of him times enough, and spoke with
those who'd seen him, honest men owning no more imagination than a block
of holystone. The Kraken too, perhaps. Yet those mysteries, and all
others, are nothing beside the sea's own self, the sea of the west, the
Pacific."
Ben turned to Shawn, rapt and flushed, and Reuben knew he was asking for
the 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 all
aboard the way a cat will take her a nestful of little birds. It may be
so. 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, the
Pacific. The fat Spanish ships travel it, but I tell you the route they
follow 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 I
young with no wisdom in me but with open eyes--and I was, say, like an
insect crossing the continent of Europe, but I'm a wise insect,
sir--Mother of God, I know the meaning of horizons! Pacific nights--deep
as any night of the soul, and will you be telling me of a deeper dark
than that? Out there only the sea is truth, only the sea, and this is a
part of the truth: there be many islands."
"Continents perhaps," said John Kenny, agreeing but somehow without
enthusiasm, and Shawn sat back to study him, the blue eyes clouded
windows closing away some of the lightning of inner storm.
"What's the Atlantic?--a gray mad stormy puddle. Sea of the
Caribbees?--a small hot lagoon, green lumps of land like a lady's
emerald necklace on a blue gown--oh, steady as she goes! I'll grant you
her breast can heave and toss. If the wind's coming dark and fast down
there in the Caribbees I'll strip canvas quick as any man and remember I
was brought up religious, for men and ships are small things. But out
there on the far side of the world, have I not seen an empty island open
to the west, where the high rollers came down and down forever with all
the blind leagues of the sea behind them, down and down as heavy and
slow and sure as the years beating on a man's youth? Have I not seen
Pacific moonrise where no land is, and the gray and silver piled higher
than the North Star Polaris?"
* * * * *
Ben woke on Thursday before dawn, disoriented in time, noticing how the
days and nights of being in love run together like those disquieted by
simpler fevers. He recalled it was a Monday afternoon when he watched
_Artemis_ sail home, therefore a Monday evening when he went to bed
undeniably drunk, therefore a gray Tuesday morning when Mr. Hibbs,
red-eyed and taciturn, gave him and Reuben an assignment of one hundred
and twenty lines of the _Tristia_ of Ovid, to be absorbed by Wednesday
afternoon, plus (as atonement for Tuesday morning's inattention and
general sinfulness) a demand for five copies per boy, in a fair firm
hand with no nonsense, no margin of error, of the entire conjugation of
the verb [Greek: kephalalgeo], which means _to have a headache_. So
Tuesday and Wednesday coalesced to one inky-dark billow of time, and now
before dawn the young apple tree out there that Reuben had spoken of was
stirring in a new pale softness. As Ben watched, the sky awoke beyond
Dorchester 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 the
window, a breeze on his shoulders mild as a woman's fingers. She was
sleeping--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 forehead
above the flush of damask rose. The blue vague garment betrayed her in
sleep--no, rather his own daring hand drew it down, leaving bare one
breast and the red flower of it. From that, the fantasy moved with
reluctance, 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 his
hand and hiding the dark desired triangle, the other flower of red. But
then she was no longer Faith; she was any woman, with a face unknown.
Reuben stirred and yawned. "Behold the nympholept! Benjamin, what of the
night?"
"It a'n't night, Muttonhead."
"Do you attempt to assert that the difference between night and dawn can
be 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_ all
those twice five copies. Well, sir, in one of 'em, taking not even you
into my confidence, I inserted one error, a miserable crawling misplaced
accent--a wee louse, do you see, nibbling the fair white integument of a
Greek verb. Did he discover, percontate and make manifest this
crapulent, this obscene and overweening impudicity? Damn, I forgot
concupiscent. Did he find this adventitious louse to be a concupiscent
intrusion upon the fulgurant purity of grammatical impeccancy, and crack
the hereinbeforementioned louse upon that sable thumbnail? Nah. By the
way, where'd the bloody pot get to this time?"
"Under _your_ bed," said Ben, exasperated, for the Cyprian fantasy had
not completely dissolved, and it did seem too bad that the last of it
must be dismissed by the unequivocal din of urination.
"There!" Reuben sighed. "I have subsumed the concupiscent." He stooped
to pat the floor a few times with the flat of his hands, and sprawled
back on his bed. "With reference, sir, to that Cicero whose lank shadow
falleth across our afternoon: _Sunt autem qui dicant foedus esse quoddam
sapientius ut ne minos amicos quam se ipsos diligant._ Do you
understumble me, sir?"
"Please, sir, no, sir."
"I freely render: Some say there's a kind of compact of the wise, to
love 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 his
hand 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 to
force Reuben's hand back, though the boy did possess uncommon strength
in his thin arms. Ben recalled he had won last time; not wishing to win
twice running, he allowed his hand to sink slowly, as their eyes locked
too, Reuben's grave and dilated. Ben drove the smaller hand up once or
twice, catching then a glimpse of panic in Reuben, but Reuben clamped
his mouth tight and heaved, the power of his knotting arm increased
unreasonably, and Ben was startled to find his own arm wavering down. No
need after all to simulate defeat; it was fairly done. Ben slumped on
the floor laughing and rubbing his shoulder. He thought of telling
Reuben 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 with
his toes, to frown at it horribly. "But seeing you're about to throw me
a clean shirt like a good Christian, be careful how you come within
reach, for I'd be happy to try my powers on a small calf." Ben threw a
pillow at him and then the shirt. "Snuff the air, little Benjamin! What
hath Kate wrought, do you know? _I_ know."
"Sausage!"
"True," said Reuben, rising in a whirl of activity, "and though you may
seem more dressed than I"--he slipped behind Ben, snatched off his
neckcloth and darted away knotting it around his own neck--"I shall be
in 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 head
colds that tormented him with the onset of spring, and Kate Dobson was
moving about in a large dreamy morning mood, soft-footed scamperings
carrying her billowing body from one to another of a dozen errands--the
rising of bread, the simmering of a kettle on the hearth, a speck of
dirt to be scrubbed, the demolition of a fly. She bounced everywhere, a
huge gray-headed silkworm ever hurrying at her generous spinning, and
began talking as the boys entered, with some sentence begun obscurely in
the depths of her mind: "... so to myself I said, minute I see 'em I'll
ask, is it p-i-e-s or p-e-i-s or _what_ is it, with a pox?--I could
declare it had an a in it the way you showed it me, Master Reuben, oh
dearie 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 trifling
and great; this was no trifle. What she referred to was a labor of
years, 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. Kate
herself couldn't say when she began it, as she couldn't say for sure how
old she was, or what year it was she came as a redemptioner from
England. To Kate all the past telescoped in a half-reality, and memories
overflowing in her talk could seldom be closely tied to conventional
mileposts of time. Ben had seen the incomplete sampler, shyly unfolded
from a workbasket at times when Mr. Kenny was away in the city. The
border was almost done, she said. From the bottom on either side rose
branches, ivy idealized, stitched in springtime greens with immense
pains and skill; at the top the branches met, interlocking as leaves in
nature do, contending but sharing sunlight. That part, she claimed, was
easy--why, you just stitched it: so, and so. But the motto caused her
endless grief, since she had never been taught to write or read. She
knew the alphabet; with desperate trouble she could fit together
elements of it indicating words. Ben wondered how she had found courage
for such a project before he and Reuben were present to aid her. But she
was still troubled even with their aid. No motto was ever quite good
enough on second thought. Occasionally she changed the lovely border
too. Once Ben had found her rocking in her sewing chair and weeping
because, she said, a brown thread among the leaves was the _wrong_
brown and must be picked out, every stitch, and that by candlelight. Her
eyes 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. I
did, I had it in my basket, and then I vow I must've wrapped something
in it, maybe a skein, and put it away somewhere, _I_ don't know
where--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'll
draw you a fresh one. A nothing for such scholars as me and my little
brother--only, bruit it not abroad that ever I said such a thing. You
know, Kate, the sin of vanity in us--sad, sad."
She chuckled, dashing a comfortable tear from a bulging cheek, and
bounced away to deal with a fresh emergency. Fragments of yesterday's
chicken sat on a side table waiting a destiny in soup, and the lean
yellow tomcat, Mr. Eccles, had wandered in nursing a sordid plot, one
easily detected and swiftly refuted by a whisk of Kate's apron. He came
over to rub Ben's leg rather grimly, knowing well enough that breakfast
sausage is not cat-food. "Which motto was it, Kate?--believe I've lost
track."
"Oh--le' me think, Master Benjamin--'Let peace in this house be
everlasting as the sea'--it was real pretty." She wiped an eye and
sighed. "Boys, I was thinking--maybe it's foolish, maybe it a'n't even
right I should try such a thing, but I was thinking, what if I was to
make that motto something in the _Latin_? He'd favor it so--wouldn't
he?"
"The very thing!" Reuben exclaimed. "Hark 'ee: _Omnia vincit amor, et
nos cedamus amori._ That's Virgil, Kate."
"Think of that! That's real Latin, Master Reuben? But--but a'n't it
terrible 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 the
sampler, 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--"