Milton in America, page 16
Such stories seemed to Goosequill to be more genuine and more interesting than any words preached by Hallelujah Deakin or Preserved Cotton. With their grave air, with their formal manner, with their dark coats and faded neck-bands, the brethren had no real affinity with this place. Goosequill sensed that they would either die here or somehow manage to subdue it to their will. Only his marriage to Katherine Jervis could reconcile him to life in New Milton—they owned a small wooden house close to Milton’s dwelling, and now they worked together as servants and companions to the blind man. So when Ralph Kempis and his followers rode into New Milton, Goosequill felt genuinely elated: here at last were Englishmen who seemed to revel in the wilderness, who wore clothes as bright as the Indians, who sang among the streams and trees. “We hardly need to fear them, sir,” he had said to Milton, before he left for the inauguration of Mary Mount. “They may make more noise than the brethren, but there is no harm in them.”
“No harm? They are serpents armed with a mortal sting, and you say no harm? They commit the abominations of the beastly whore who sits in Rome. No harm? They spread a universal rottenness and gangrene, wherever they wander. And you say there is no harm.”
Goosequill was accustomed to his master’s violent outbursts, and he looked at him impassively. “I expect, then, sir, that you cheerfully would burn them all. We love our roasted meats here.”
Then Milton smiled. “No, Goose, you are too rash. We must not burn them yet. They may be persuaded to renounce their superstition. I shall instruct them.”
Goosequill was smiling, too. “How shall you do that, sir?”
“There is a printer newly come from Weymouth with all the implements of his trade. I shall write them a true and useful treatise.”
“Well, master, let us hope they are good enough readers to be worthy of you.”
“That is a consideration. They are a rabble, I believe, of papists, fugitives and savages. Could I tune my speech to such mixed auditors?”
“You could send Mr. Deakin to preach at them. Such a sober gentleman would surely prove an example. They would repent at once.”
“You are very forward this morning.” Milton reached out to cuff his ear, but Goosequill dodged the blow. “So go forward. Go to that most horrid and damnable place. Witness all the vomited paganism of their sensual idolatry.”
“And bring it back to you?”
“Go. Now. You will see incense in the evening, and candles at noon.”
Goosequill seemed delighted at the prospect, but said nothing beyond his farewell. The next morning he set out for Mary Mount; he rode by the side of the river and by midday reached a wooden bridge which must have been hastily erected by the new arrivals themselves; it was no more than some planks laid across the large stones on the riverbed, but there was a path on the other side. He followed it, and within half an hour he had reached the settlement. He had not known what to expect, but certainly he had not expected this: on an area of open ground, a tall pole had been erected. It was richly decorated, festooned with garlands and with ribbons, and draped with small bells which sounded in the breeze. As he rode closer he could see that it had also been painted with various faces and human figures, depicted in red against a deep blue background. A man came over to him, with his arms outstretched in greeting. “Welcome,” he said. “Our first visitor. An Englishman, I see.”
“London, sir. Tallboy Rents in Smithfield. A sweet part of town.”
The man took a step back, put his hands upon his hips, and whistled. “I was born in Duncan Lane!”
“Known as Drunken Lane?”
“The very same.”
“Otherwise known as Roll Again Lane?”
“Of course.” He laughed, and shook his head. “What a fine thing it is to meet an old neighbor!” He had noticed that Goosequill kept glancing at the pole. “Have you not seen one of these before?”
“Not in London. No.” Yet he had the most fugitive and elusive memory of having glimpsed something of the same kind in his earliest childhood; yes, it had been erected in some fields beyond the city walls. “I do know it,” he said. “It is called a maypole.”
“A rare sight in London.”
“Unknown. As rare as a stage play.”
“But now all is changed again. I hope, too, that all may change here.”
“And make the brethren merry? I doubt it.”
“So do I. Give me your hand, please. My name is Percival Alsop. To my friends and neighbors, Percy.”
“Goosequill.”
“Oh, so you are a scholar?”
“I speak English like a native, and can count on all ten fingers.”
“You have too much wit for the wilderness, sir. You should be at home shelling peas and fighting the watch.”
“I would give everything I possess, which is nothing, to see the old city again.”
“So what brought you so far from Tallboy Rents? The delicious climate?”
“Oh no.” He hesitated. “I was taken up.”
“Impressed?”
“I traveled of my own will.” He hesitated again, unwilling or embarrassed to mention his association with the brethren. “I come from across the river. Over there yonder. New Milton.”
“Indeed? You hardly look like one of the elect, if I may say so.”
“You may.” He was relieved to be able to express his feelings without any concealment. “I am not elected. I am not precise. I am not separate. I am not godly at all.”
“Thanks be to God.”
“Precisely.”
“And so?”
Goosequill understood the question. “I am secretary to Mr. Milton.”
“Truly?” Alsop whistled once more. “I believe that he is a very solemn gentleman.”
“Very solemn indeed.”
They were silent for a moment, then both of them burst out laughing. “I suppose,” Alsop said, “that we must continue this conversation on some other occasion. If you have come from the very reverend Mr. Milton, then I must lead you to the very merry Mr. Kempis. Dismount, neighbor, and follow.”
He took Goosequill towards one of the canvas tents which had been erected near the maypole; it had been painted with bright blue and yellow stripes, with a large “K” daubed in red across a mat which hung over the entrance. Goose could hear someone speaking and, just as Alsop led him within, there was a sudden loud burst of laughter. “So we shall have jugglers, and mummers, and gymnic artists.” It was Ralph Kempis who spoke; he raised a hand to salute Goosequill, and carried on talking. “We shall have antics and mimics and fortune casters and conjurors. No. We already have our conjuror. Is that not so, Maquisa?” He had addressed an Indian, who was sitting on a wooden stool at the other side of the tent. He looked nothing like the natives who worked in New Milton; his head was entirely shaved, except for a narrow crest of hair, and the preserved body of a small bird hung from his left ear. He did not reply to Kempis’s question, but he grinned and shook a bag of jewels or powder. Goosequill smelt the strangest scent, like the perfume of a lily flower, which suddenly seemed to pervade the air. Kempis looked over to him, and smiled. “It keeps away the flies, sir. Now sit down and tell us your business.”
“I really have no business, Mr. Kempis. I have come from Mr. Milton.” He had rehearsed his words on the journey by horseback, but here they seemed improvised and wretched. “He salutes you and sends you greetings, but his leg is highly inflamed and he cannot travel as yet. And so—” He paused for a moment, embarrassed. “Here I am.”
“You come as his legate to our little ceremony?”
“I am to be his eyes and ears.”
“But not his mouth, I hope. He has said and written much—” Kempis broke off, and stood up to shake the visitor’s hand. “Well, you are welcome. But I must say that I had hoped to see Mr. Milton dance around our maypole.”
Goosequill smiled at the sudden vision of his master kicking his legs into the air. “I think, sir, that he would rather dance in hell.”
“Oh, but this would be hell for him. I have seen some of his tracts and pamphlets on behalf of the Puritans. He can be a very rough and decided man.”
“Now there, Mr. Kempis, I fully agree with you. Very decided indeed.”
If Milton had attended the next day’s ceremonies, he might well have considered himself to be in some infernal region. The baptism of Mary Mount, as Ralph Kempis had described it, was ordained as a day of revel. At first light a pair of antlers were brought forth from the forest with drums, guns and pistols being sounded for their arrival; they were carried in state by Ralph Kempis to the maypole, whereupon a native boy took the horns and climbed with them to the top of the pole. He bound them there with a rope, to the accompaniment of loud shouts from the crowd below, and at once the inhabitants of this new town began to drink each other’s health with bottles of wine and flagons of brewed beer. From the band around his waist, Ralph Kempis took a rolled paper. “I have composed a merry song for us,” he shouted over the noise of the revelers, “fitting for the present occasion.” He unrolled the paper and, in a deep steady voice, he began to sing:
“Drink and be merry, merry, merry boys
Let all your delight be in Hymen’s joys
Joy to Hymen now that the dance is come,
About the merry maypole take a run.
Make green garlands, take bottles out,
And pass sweet nectar freely about.
Uncover your head, and fear no harm,
For here’s good liquor to keep it warm!”
Goosequill doubted whether Milton would approve of the cadence or the false rhymes of this song; somehow it seemed to lack, for example, the gravity of his master’s verse translations of the Psalms. But he was soon distracted. He was given some cordial of wine and honey in a clay pot, and he drank it down eagerly. Then his hand was taken by an Indian woman, and he found himself following the settlers and natives as they formed a large circle around their maypole, skipping and leaping in the spring morning. Then they broke off, and watched as the Indian men began their own separate dances; they danced alone, one beginning after another had ended, and Goosequill was delighted by the gestures they employed during the performance. One kept one arm behind his back, while another whirled on one leg, and a third jumped up and somehow danced in the air. Suddenly there was a strong smell of spice, or incense, which seemed to rouse them to even greater efforts. But then the loud ringing of a bell stopped the entertainment. From a canvas tent, painted light blue, two priests emerged carrying a statue of Mary between them. Everyone, English and Indian alike, knelt before the image. Even Goosequill fell upon his knees. But he watched with interest as the statue, painted in white and pale blue, was carefully placed in front of the maypole. The priests implored its aid in this vale of tears, and the boy heard that it was blessed among women. There was something about fruit, and then the priests carried the Virgin slowly around the pole before returning to their blue tent. The revelry began again and, all that day, there was dancing and drinking and gaming.
At dusk, Ralph Kempis called Goosequill into his tent. “So what do you make of us?” he asked him. “Do we bob and jump as gaily as the banded Puritans?”
“As different as magpie and mutton, sir. I have never laughed so much since the draymen secretly pissed into the Clerks Well before the French ambassador tasted its waters.”
“I wonder that you can endure New Milton, then. I hear that they are not addicted to laughing there.”
“You have heard right. The children sometimes laugh, of course. And Mr. Milton.”
“John Milton laughs?”
“Oh yes, he has a very nice sense of humor. There are days when he is something of a spark. ‘Precise?’ he said to me last week about some of the brethren. ‘They are as precise as the wooden teeth of an old maid.’ ”
“Indeed?”
Goosequill stopped, afraid that he had already said too much; he had come, after all, as an observer rather than as an informer. So he quickly changed the subject. “But why travel from Virginia, Mr. Kempis, if you do not care for the brethren here?”
“Necessity. Hard necessity. The climate there is as hot as Persia, and there was a season of drought just passed when the rivers themselves were dry. We dug into the ground, but all we found were oyster shells and fish bones. We would have been reduced to the same condition, except that we agreed among ourselves to move north into more healthful climes and softer air.”
“When did you lead them out of the desert?”
“We are Catholics, Goosequill, not Israelites.” He pretended to frown, but could not help laughing. “And I am not their leader. I am only their master of ceremonies.”
The Indian conjuror, whom Goosequill had seen before, came into the tent. “Uppowock?” Kempis asked him, and passed him a pouch of tobacco.
Goosequill was intrigued. “We have no such word among our Indians. It signifies this stuff?”
“Oh yes. They venerate their tobacco. They worship it. They cast it into the fire and produce a strange incense. They throw it upon troubled seas in order to calm them. They toss it into the air, chanting, when they have escaped from danger. We all used to dance when we brought it from the fields.”
“So you danced one with another?”
“We are not separate, Goosequill. We are together. We have suffered so much hardship, English and Indian alike, that we have become one body. Come. I will show you something which will anger Mr. Milton.” He led him towards the blue tent at the edge of the encampment, and pushed up the mat hanging over its entry. There, within, Goosequill could see the statue of the Virgin Mary which the priests had carried around the maypole. Two large candles were burning before it. “Our Lady is our guardian here,” Kempis whispered. “But now look upon this.” He led him over to an adjacent tent, and opened its entrance. Goosequill peered inside and could see a wooden idol, some four feet in height. It was that of a man or god squatting upon the ground; it had a chain of white beads about its neck, and was colored black and white except for its purple-dyed face. “This is Kiwasa,” Kempis told him. “It is the keeper of souls, and is much like our Holy Spirit in His efficacious actions.”
“So you have two of them?” Goosequill scratched his head and, in his surprise, began twirling his hair around his finger. “It is like our Gog and Magog in London, although I never heard that those gentlemen did any good.”
Kempis did not seem offended by the comparison. “It is not quite a similar case, Goosequill. We never worship Kiwasa for himself, but keep him for the Indians who wish to preserve the old religion without forgoing their new Catholic faith. There is more assurance for them in maintaining both, and, for my part, I see no harm in it.” Goosequill said nothing, principally because he could think of nothing to say. “How would your godly master respond?”
The boy shook his head. “He would not be at a loss for words, Mr. Kempis. I can tell you that. I don’t suppose that he would stop talking for weeks.”
On his arrival in New Milton the following morning, Goosequill did not go at once to his master’s house. He returned to his wife and Jane Jervis, the child whom they had unofficially “adopted” from Seaborn. “Well, Kate,” he said, after kissing her many times, “there is a new world after all.”
“Where is that, Goose?”
“Over the river, and far away. Mary Mount is like a boiling pot. It is like some painted stage all sprinkled and bedecked with jewels. Oh, Kate, it was wondrous!”
A little while later he attended Milton in his chambers. The blind man was standing by the window, facing out towards the garden, but Goosequill knew that his step had been recognized at once. “Well,” Milton said, “what will you tell me? How were those pimps of the Roman whore?”
“Very well, sir.”
“Have they already tainted the land with their poisoned breath?”
“Not as far as I could see. But Mr. Kempis does send his greetings.”
“Oh yes? That unswilled hog’s head. That brain worm.” He paused. “You have told me nothing as yet. Suspense in news is torture to me. Speak it out.”
“If you are asking me of my opinion, then I scarcely know where to begin. In Mary Mount there were so many sights—”
“May I please know without further jangle?”
“Well, sir.” He stared hard at Milton and poked out his tongue. “It would be true to say that they worship the image called Holy Mary.”
“I knew that already. It is an everlasting scandal to our new land that they should rake over the ignorance of dead ages. Did you see that painted garbage they call the mass?”
“There was some ceremony.”
“No doubt with gold and geegaws fetched from Aaron’s old wardrobe, all the Jewish beggary of cloaks and false beards and beads.”
Goosequill listened to him with some amusement. “There was also a maypole. With colored bands of cloth.”
“What?”
“A maypole, sir.”
“The Dark Ages are come again.” Milton put a hand up to his forehead. “The huge overshadowing train of error has swept away the sun and the stars!”
“It is only for dancing, Mr. Milton.”
“This Kempis has gone beyond all shame and impudence. To worship pillars?”
“No, sir. They do not adore it. As I said, they dance around it.”
“It is all one. All one. Get me some clear water, or I faint from the news of this impurity.” He sat down upon a small stool, and did not speak again until he had drunk from his bowl. “In past ages, Goosequill, this maypole, this spiritual Babel built to the height of abomination, was the subject of gloating adoration. Once, in our own towns and villages of England, it was pageanted about like some dreadful idol. Now it has returned.” And then, unexpectedly, he smiled. “I wonder what Preserved Cotton will say of this? Can you ask him to call upon me, at his leisure?”
