Milton in America, page 19
Garbrand Peters looked around at the other men. “Shall we ask the Goose to plead for us? Shall he treat for us with the papists?”
“Oh yes.” It was John Pethic who spoke out, but they were all anticipating an early departure from New Milton.
So Goosequill traveled to Mary Mount the following day; he said nothing to Milton about his journey, of course, and told the men of Bristol to be equally reticent. He found Ralph Kempis eating a dinner of fowl in the shade of some maple trees. “I am just eating you,” Kempis shouted. “You are delicious!”
“I am always happy to provide you with a meal, Mr. Kempis.”
“Hand me that squash, then. And sit down with me.”
“Shall I say grace before I begin?”
“Be sure to keep it a secret from your master. He would like to reserve all the grace for himself.”
They knew each other well enough to speak freely, and Goosequill explained to him the plight of the Bristol carpenters. “He was drunk, you say?” Kempis interrupted the story. “Why, he must come here at once!”
“They are willing to leave, Ralph, but if you will permit me to finish?” He explained that the settlers of Mary Mount would have to “buy out” the remaining six months of the Bristol men’s agreement with New Milton, at which time they would be able to work honorably and profitably for their new employers. They might decide to settle there, too, and with their skills in carpentry and joinery they would bring great benefits to the new colony. They might build up families as well as houses.
Kempis approved the plan as soon as Goosequill had finished. “But,” he said, “I cannot treat with Mr. Milton. You know him. You know how he would reply.”
“You shallow man, you dunce!” Goosequill imitated the voice very well. “You presumptuous worm!”
“Oh surely not as cruel as that, Goose?”
“You cock-brained lozel!”
“That is why I will neither speak nor write to him. I cannot endure the impudence of the man.”
“What is to be done, then?”
“I will send Bartholomew Gidney. He is a match for any madman.”
Two days later a young Englishman rode into New Milton. He was wearing a blue silk shirt, green velvet breeches and a large hat with plumes of feathers fastened upon its brim. “What is this?” asked Preserved Cotton, who was the first to see him. “What is this walking maypole?”
Gidney reined in his horse. “Forgive me, dear sir. Could you possibly show me the house of the very reverend and learned Mr. Milton? I believe he resides here?” Preserved was too surprised to do anything but point in the right direction. “Very much obliged indeed. I shall be forever in your debt.” He dismounted from his horse, and tied it to a post before strolling over to Milton’s door. “Mr. Milton? Mr. Milton, dear sir?”
“Enter.”
Bartholomew Gidney did enter, and saw John Milton sitting in a plain wooden chair by the window. “I am deeply sensitive to the honor—”
“I do not know your voice.”
“Alas, not an overwhelming surprise. I—”
“From where do you come, sir?”
“Formerly Westminster Square, but currently residing in the picturesque spot of Mary Mount.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know it by any chance? A most delightful situation. Very rural. It sometimes reminds me of Chelsea in summer, where the bank turns just so.” He made a serpentine movement with his hands, and did a little jump.
“I see that you may talk world without end, sir.”
“I have been known to. Yes.” He steadied himself. “But it is my nature to be highly amicable and confiding. My dear mother was the same. She had merely to pick up some sewing, and she gushed forth. Oh, how she reminisced! She could not be stopped.”
“What is it that you want from me?”
“I am not sure that I want anything, dear sir. It is a question of what others may want. It is all marvelously delicate.”
“I am not fowler good enough to catch you. Speak it out, Mr.—”
“Gidney. Bartholomew Gidney. Originally from the Gidneys of Cambridge, of course. Now intestate. I cannot begin to tell you how much land—”
“Do not begin, then. Tell me in plain words why you are here. Or leave.”
“You are forceful, sir, but I am fond of forceful men. In plain words, then, I have come here at the request of Mr. Ralph Kempis. Do you know him? Always cheerful. Really delightful person.” He saw the expression upon Milton’s face, and hurried on. “You have some men from Bristol who are not—how may I put it?—who are not utterly and completely at their ease here.”
“Those fools. What do they wish for? Ambrosial nectar and paradise fruit?”
“I am not sure if they have asked for those in particular, Mr. Milton, although I am sure that you would provide them.”
“They are impudent rogues. I see your drift, Mr. Gidney, beneath your flourishes. They wish to be relieved of their articles, and move on to Babylon.”
“Rather too far afield, I’m afraid. They were thinking of Mary Mount.”
“It is all one to me. They wish to join the horn of the Roman beast. Crafty turncoats.”
Bartholomew resented this allusion to his faith, and at once became more formal. “They intend to work, not to pray.”
“But I presume, sir, that you know how to milk such easy kine. Will you give them the reins a little, Mr. Gidney? Let them play and nibble the bait for a while?”
“There will be no nibbling, I can assure you.”
“Poor pitiful wretches. To be delivered up to papistical tyranny and superstition.”
“I think not. There is no slavery with us. No tyranny. Only the perpetual benefit of liberty.”
“License, you mean, not liberty. Well, well, go your own way to hell and take the men of Bristol with you. The silly fowl are caught in the net. Let them be plucked and eaten.”
“How bountiful. How noble.”
“The price of the articles is set. Ten pounds for each man.”
“I know it. I have arranged payment with Mr. Goosequill. Do feel free to condemn me if I have anticipated you.”
“Goosequill? What does he have to do with this?”
Gidney realized that he had said too much. “A charming young man, don’t you think? Many lovely curls. And a curious Houndsditch wit.” He did not wish to implicate him any further. “I met him by your delicious church. I was informed that he was your secretary. Is that not correct? Is he not, if I may mention the sad topic, your eyes?”
“I have an inward eye, sir, that sees through all flimflams, shows and devices.”
“I am glad to hear it. It must prove invaluable here.” He hesitated. “So I take it, then—”
“You take them, then, and you never return. No man can be an enemy of this settlement and remain a member of it. We do not need them.”
So the Bristol men left New Milton and, singing and carousing all the way, rode to Mary Mount in the company of Bartholomew Gidney. Goosequill watched them go, and then returned sighing to Katherine. “Do you know,” he said, as they sat together in the small arbor behind their cabin, “I long for us to join them.” He patted her swollen belly. “The new one would thrive and flourish there.”
“It is not to be thought of, Goose.” Her niece, and adopted child, was playing beside them. “I promised Seaborn that I would take care of Jane faithfully. He would never permit her to live among papists.” She leaned forward and whispered to him. “He would kill her first.”
“No doubt. And he would always be able to find some biblical piece of learning to justify himself.” He looked across at the wooden cabins and houses, scattered across the dry and dusty tracks of the settlement. “Do you think there will ever be a time, Kate, when we will all be at peace?”
She shook her head. “Seaborn says that light and darkness will always oppose each other.”
“Oh, Seaborn is very righteous. No one talks more of righteousness than Seaborn. But I tell you this, Kate. Seaborn is a vain deceiving hypocrite.” He lowered his voice, in case the child might hear. “I would willingly barter a thousand Seaborns for one Ralph Kempis.” She looked across at him, and smiled.
SEVEN
The affair of the Bristol men was followed, three weeks later, by a more serious episode. A Roman Catholic missal was found in New Milton. It was discovered in the house of one of the newer families—John Venn was a cow keeper from North Devon, who had arrived a year after the settlement had been established. He was a quiet man who “recreated himself,” as he put it, by collecting specimens of minerals; his wife, Sarah, was some years older but they lived together happily enough. She had been born, and educated, as a Catholic; they had agreed, at the time of their marriage during the “Commonwealth,” that she should perform private devotions in order to satisfy her conscience. Venn himself was one of the brethren, and had attended the chapel in Barnstaple with them, but he was in no sense a zealous man. That is why he allowed his wife the comfort of private prayer, and why they had maintained this arrangement after their arrival in New Milton.
But her missal was found—or, rather, it was observed by Humility Tilly. She had seen Sarah Venn falling to her knees one morning and, curious, crept back to the window for another look; there, on a small table, was a Catholic missal. She knew it at once because of the fish and bishop’s staff upon its black leather cover. She declared later that she had staggered back at the sight of the accursed thing, and would have promptly fainted away if a neighbor had not come to her rescue. It is true that she had whispered “Idolatry!” and then asked for a cup of water; but she had composed herself sufficiently to go at once to Milton’s house at the other end of the settlement. She found him pacing up and down the narrow path of his garden. “Mr. Milton! Mr. Milton!”
“What is it, Humility?” He knew her voice well enough by now.
“Molten whores and abominations. That is what it is.” In her excitement she confused her biblical allusions. “Pestilence and famine!”
“You are all in a pudder. Please calm yourself.”
“I cannot be calm in the midst of desolation, good sir. Mistress Venn is infected.”
“What? With what?” He stepped back from her; he was always fearful for his health.
“I saw her with a poisoned book.”
“You are toying with me, Humility. Speak plain.”
“I saw Mistress Vane cradling a papistical book of prayer. Do the demons call it a missal?”
“Is it so? You are sure?” She nodded. “Did you nod?”
“I did.”
“Is Mistress Venn so brazen-faced?”
“She has always been brazen, sir. Ever since she came amongst us with her young husband.”
“And she goes whoring after idols, does she?” He contemplated the matter for a moment, as Humility looked eagerly into his face. “Bring three members of the watch. If this is proved to be true, then we have godly work ahead of us.”
Within the hour he and his watch were prepared. It was discovered that John Venn was working in the fields, some distance away, and so it was Sarah Venn who opened the door upon Milton’s restless pounding. She was astonished to see him on the threshold and, without saying anything at all, allowed him to enter. Humility Tilly noticed with some satisfaction, however, that she was trembling. “Well, Mistress Venn,” Milton began, “I hear that you carry a pope in your belly.”
“Sir?”
“I hear that you have a book of scarecrow images. Some whorish volume out of Rome. Is it so?” She said nothing, but seemed to look to Humility Tilly for some assistance or explanation; the godly woman shook her head and smiled. “Search this place,” Milton told the watch. “Smell out the running sore.” The missal was found a short time later, hidden in the compartment of a stove; beside it, too, a rosary had been concealed. They placed the beads in his hand. “What baubles and trinkets are these, mistress?”
“It may not please you, sir, but it is my faith.”
She seemed about to say something more, but he interrupted her. “Your faith is no better than a rush. Give me the book.” One member of the watch placed the missal in his hand, and he fingered its pages as he talked to her. “Catholics are rarely to be found except where there are jewels and silver. Mistress Venn, why did you wander to our settlement?”
“I came with my husband.”
“Ah. I feel the imprint of some scarlet letter.” He was stroking the introit with which the mass itself opened. “This book is filled with all the names of blasphemy.” He flung it to the floor. “Fit only to make winding sheets for pilchards.”
She was so dismayed by Milton’s rough handling of her missal and rosary that she became defiant. “It is the faith of my fathers. It is the communion of saints. It has been the truth these last sixteen hundred years—”
“Do not presume to teach me the history, mistress. I know it by heart.” He was still rolling the beads in his hand. “Does your husband share your devotions?” She hesitated, and he sensed her indecision. “So he may be another cracked cymbal?”
“He is one of the brethren, sir. He is not a Catholic”
“Then more shame and horror upon his head, for fostering the serpent within our bosom.”
She had endured enough of his ridicule. “You are the serpent, Mr. Milton, with all your blind orders and commands.”
“Listen to her. Did you hear her saucy impudence?” Humility Tilly groaned. “Oh, my lady magnificence, I see that you cast off all shame. Does she even blush?”
“No, Mr. Milton.” Humility was looking steadily at her pale, drawn face. “She would rather burst.”
“Well, then, we may see the color of her blood another way. Take hold of her.” Milton remained still. “Mistress Sarah Venn, against all the good laws and ordinances of this place, you have professed a heathenish superstition and worshiped false idols. Now carry her off.”
Her trial began three days later in the meeting house. Her husband sat in the front-row of benches, tearful and trembling as the charges were read against her. She said nothing, until Milton in a terrible voice called out, “Do you profess the Romish faith?”
“Yes. I do. It is the holy faith.”
“How she decks and magnifies her vice!” Seven brethren had been chosen to sit in judgment; they were separated from the rest of the court by a rope tied between two pillars, and now they began to murmur against her.
She ignored them, and spoke out again. “It is the ancient faith of our own dear country.”
Milton laughed. “You are one with the Druids, then. You must consult the oak and myrtle. Enough of this tittle-tattle. Do you know, Mistress Venn, what you have just proclaimed? You have blown a trumpet and lit a fire-cross that would begin a perpetual civil war. It cannot be endured.” She shook her head, but said nothing. “No civil society of good Protestants can admit you as a member. Do you understand that? You are a public enemy, Mistress Venn, and a plague sore to the commonwealth. Do you wish to say anything further?” Again she shook her head, and the elect shouted against her.
“Will you renounce your popish faith?”
“I will not.” She was looking at her husband, who sat and wept.
“You will not abjure your false worship?”
“No, sir.”
Milton turned to the seven brethren who were waiting to deliver their judgment. “How do you find her?”
“Unclean,” declared William Hallelujah Deakin. “Her guilt blackens her.”
“All are agreed?”
They raised their right hands, but then realized that Milton could not see them. “All assent!” shouted Job “Defiant in the Lord.”
Milton walked over to them and asked anxiously, “Is it your wish that punishment should be determined and decreed by me?”
This strangely excited them, and Preserved Cotton whispered in reply, “That is our holy demand, good sir.”
Milton was assisted back to the raised dais upon which he had been sitting, and faced Sarah Venn. “Well, mistress, it is meet and good that the punishment should follow the crime. Therefore”—and he smiled at this—“Therefore, I order you to be flogged with wax candles in some public resort. You will be expelled from your dwelling, and that place utterly burnt and destroyed so that it will no longer be a roof for such unclean birds to nest in. Then you will be banished from this settlement. No holy city can be built without the sweeping away of rubbish. Do you wish to speak?”
“No, Mr. Milton.” She remained calm. “What is there to say against such brute violence and injustice?”
“Therefore are you driven from this hallowed ground. I pronounce perpetual banishment.”
She was led away to the watch-house, her husband following in tears, while the brethren looked at one another in astonishment at the nature of the punishment. It was proper for her to be banished, of course, but was it wise to burn down one of the recently erected houses? And where were they to find Romish candles? Milton approached the brethren of the jury, and he was still smiling. “Your work was well done,” he said.
“Mr. Milton, sir.” It was Preserved Cotton who spoke for them all. “We have no wax candles. We have tallow for our lamps, of course, but those lights are no bigger than sticks. How could she be chastised?”
“Calm yourself, Preserved. Mr. Kempis has sent me two dozen of his votive candles. In part recompense for the men of Bristol, he said, except that he thought to laugh up his sleeve at me. He tried to make mock of me but I have turned the trick nicely, have I not?” They laughed.
“Are they thick and heavy enough for the whore’s back?” Job asked him.
“Oh, yes. Her bones will be well thrashed by those fools’ staffs. Come away now, and eat.”
EIGHT
His leg is still broken from the Indian trap. My leg will not be healed. My bones will not be knit together, yet everything else congeals. My journey among the Indians begins with sickness. The sachem looks at the open wound and sniffs the air. A time for the spirits. A time for the powwow. No. No wizardry or conjuring. The skill of medicinal plants will please me. I pick up a golden flower and put it upon my mouth. But I cannot endure enchantment. I gesture towards the sky, and then place my hand against my head. No enchantment. Then they show him how the powwow placed the skin of a snake upon the body of an ailing woman, and how it changed into a live serpent which cured her. They mime to him how the powwow came from a mist in the shape of a flaming man, and how he caused the rocks to move and the trees to dance. Can it be so? In midwinter he took the ashes of a leaf and, putting them in a bowl of water, made a fresh green leaf to flourish. Truly? I know that in London there are some who are reputed to possess the gift of healing. Mother Shipton. The hollow boy, whose bowels sounded like a harp. Yet rare cures in this wilderness must surely be the work of the devil. Squantum. No no. The sachem shakes his head. Mat enano. Not true. There is a good devil. Abbamocho. The good devil heals. Then must I allow the visitation of this wizard? There is no help for it in my present plight. What is his name, this noble conjuror? Wunettunik. But am I to be cured or blasted?
