Milton in America, page 8
“I have been stung! All over!”
“In ancient times, bees were supposed to guard places of oracle and divination.” I noticed, even through my pain, that his hands were covering his private parts. “Have you become a seer?”
“I see nothing, sir.”
“Then we are alike.” He turned his back to me as modestly as a maiden. “Yet even if we cannot see, we can think. Is that not right?”
I was very sore, and not prepared for his philosophy at that particular moment. “I suppose that is so.”
“Tell me what you think, then, of this river.”
“It is very beautiful.”
“I can only dream of beauty. Think again.”
“It will provide food and drink for us.”
“Good. Now tell me where it will lead.”
“Inland, sir.”
“You have it. It will lead us, in time, to a mill or house or village. All the chronicles of ancient Britain tell us that rivers are the natural place of settlement. You will remember, of course, that a second Troy rose beside the Thames.”
“I do not recall it precisely, sir. But I was young then.”
“And a fool still. Come. Turn your back upon me as I leave the water. We will march forward presently.” I helped to dress him, and then brought some of the sweet berries I had found. “I can hear,” he said, “the murmuring of flies and the splash of the fish as they leap from the water.” He finished his fruit, and wiped the juice from his chin with the sleeve of his cloak. “But do you know what I see?”
“What do you see?”
“I see lines of words murmuring and calling to one another.”
I did not understand him then and I do not understand him now, but I was diverted. “Oh Lord, sir! Here is something you have not heard as yet,” I said. “Swans have just turned the bend in the river. They come towards us.”
“Is it so?”
“Just like our swans in England. We used to stone them by the old London Bridge.” He frowned at that. “But we never caught any of them.”
“You are as bad as the swan-eating and canary-sucking prelates who rule us now.”
“I used to see them eating by the Fleet ditch. I wondered how so fair a bird could touch anything so foul.”
“It is the nature of a beast. Do they drift?”
“They drift.”
“And they do not fear us. Ambulate.”
“Sir?”
“You have gawped enough. Lead me on to further wonders.”
So we started our journey inland, by way of the riverbank itself, which curled and twisted among the rocks and grasses. It was exceedingly warm, but we walked beneath the shade of many trees that grew there. We had traveled for a mile or so when I came to a sudden halt. “Hush, sir. There is something monstrous in the water near us.”
He clutched my shoulder and whispered, “What finny beast is it?”
“He is like some dog or cat in the water. He paddles. Oh no. He comes ashore.” My master held on to me more tightly. “He is like a mole before, and like a goose behind. Oh Lord, sir, he has a tail like the sole of a shoe. What is he?”
“Ah, now I know.” He took his hand from me. “No need to fear. I have read of it.”
“I wish that were a comfort. You have read of many things.”
“It is something like an otter mixed with a rabbit. I have read that it builds houses with the boughs of trees. Somewhat like our English emmets. It will not harm us.”
It was then I noticed, as we turned another bend in the river, that some logs were laid across the water. This was no animal’s home, Kate. It was a bridge. And what did I see now but a man, in shirt and breeches, walking across it with a pole in his hand!
Will you cut this thread for me, Goose? I am listening.
“Huzzah!” I screamed. “Hoorah! Here!”
I am still listening, but you are hurting my ears.
“What is it now?” Mr. Milton asked me with a trembling in his voice.
“A man, sir! A living Englishman! Huzzah!” I stood on tiptoe, and took my master’s hat from his head, and waved it in the air. The gentleman on the bridge waved back, in as familiar a manner as if we were just passing down Old Jewry.
What is Old Jewry, Goose?
The Hebrews used to live there once, but now it is all merchants and tailors. May I be permitted to reach the end of this history? “We are from London!” I called out. “We have come from London!”
We hastened up to him, my hand upon my master’s arm, and the stranger still did not seem at all surprised. “You have come a long way, then,” he said.
“Yes indeed.” It seemed that Mr. Milton now wished to speak for us. “I thought we had trespassed beyond the bounds of our pilgrim people. But from your voice, sir, I know your origin. God be praised!”
“Who are you?”
He drew himself up, and put his hand upon my shoulder in a highly dignified manner. “I am John Milton. I am the good old cause.”
SIX
Dearly beloved brother in Christ, Reginald Pole, I, John Milton, greet you in the name of the good old cause. In your last letter, full of civility, good will, and singular affection for us and our new Republic, you requested another profitable and fruitful chapter from our own divinely inspired history. How could I refuse so heartfelt and devoted a plea? In my last epistle I informed you of my desperate journey after the shipwreck, both of goods and hopes; wherein I was accompanied by a poor and credulous boy, with whom it was God’s will I should be further burdened. Nevertheless I was led by my inner sight to an Englishman dwelling in the wilderness, and it was he who, like the disciple of Edom, first brought news of my arrival to the godly people of the region. They were waiting patiently for me when I came, with sure and steady pace, into their settlement. The name of John Milton was not unknown to them, and indeed some of my tracts against the episcopacy had been urgently distributed among the towns of New England many months before. The news of my sudden but not unpropitious arrival was soon widely known, and it became the common report that I had fled the wrath of an unjust and impious king. I had left Egypt in order to find another Israel, and the grave brethren of New Tiverton were gathered in readiness to greet me. They had assembled in their small wooden meetinghouse, a humble dwelling humbly consecrated to God, and from far off I heard them chanting hymns. But, first, may I go back a little? You have also asked me for homilies and fables from Christ’s new land. I have so much to impart to you, good fellow laborer in the vineyard, that I am not undisposed to mix the poetry of history with its plain prose. I have never condemned the employment of mild and agreeable matter, as long as it be not wanton, among high and tragic stuff; there is no harm to be taken from jocose interludes within our epic theme, so long as they are not inclined to gratify a corrupt and idle taste. Such is not your case, dear Pole, and so most willingly do I grant your request.
It was the man named Eleazer Lusher who carried the news of our strange coming. He had discovered my poor companion and myself beside a river, and had at once taken us to his cabin at the further end of that valley through which we had wandered with many sighs and tears. I soon knew it to be a roughly built wooden cottage plastered with clay, though, to the credulous and ignorant child who accompanied me, it was “as grand as Whitehall Palace” after our long journey. Mr. Lusher lived in solitude, and obtained milk and cheese and other such items by bartering the skins of beavers which he hunted. Yet he seemed content with his seclusion and, as I narrated the events of our storm and shipwreck (with many asides from the boy), he listened quietly and solemnly. No doubt he once suffered from some impediment of the tongue, because he replied with great hesitation and deliberation; I knew from his voice that he was looking down at the ground as he spoke to me. “That is why I found you by the Sakonnet,” he said after I had completed the account of my inland journey. “You were shipwrecked on the rocks past Sakonnet Point. It is a hard coast for those unaccustomed to it.”
He fed us with baked fish and corn meal, in the manner of the earliest Christians, and pressed us to imbibe copious quantities of milk which were not unwelcome. The distracting child with me, known as Goosequill, guzzled it mightily and I was moved to rebuke him. I wished to learn more of this region to which we had come. “Can you tell me, Mr. Lusher, about the principalities and powers of this place?”
“You mean?”
“Who rules?”
So then, with many difficulties and silences as he strove to compose his halting speech, he informed me of the nature and extent of the territories to which I had come. We were in the land of the Wampanoags (in this barbarous and heathen world, Mr. Pole, the very words themselves seem to be demons), whose sachem or chief, Wamsutta, had been most unaptly renamed “Alexander” by the English; he now resided in Wachuset, which had been more piously called “Mount Hope” by our settlers. This land was in turn surrounded by other tribes of unholy name. The Pokanokets to the southeast, with the Nausets beyond them; to our west were the Narragansetts, and beyond them the savage Pequots who, by God’s loving grace, had been all but extirpated by the brethren ten years ago. Our whole land was now known as New Plymouth, named after that wonder-working settlement which had been established by the admirable providence of Christ on a site known to the Indians as Pocasset or Patuxet.
I begged him for fewer heathen and savage names. Aggawam, Nanepashemet, Chobocco, Naumkeag—these were more strange to me, I said, than Gehenna, Vallombrosa, Tophet or Goshen where the devils of scripture had once made their home. The wayward and superstitious Goosequill was elated, however, and clapped with delight when he learned that the recently named Thames, to the west, had once been known as Pequot. When Mr. Lusher earnestly informed us that Englishmen were known as Wanux, the boy began excitedly walking around the cabin and chanting “I am Wanux!”
“You must forgive him, Mr. Lusher,” I said. “I fear that our sufferings have severely tried his wits.”
“Oh no, sir. He may refresh our own. We can be a sad sort here.”
So spoke the lonely hunter, withdrawn by choice from the company of the elect. But there was no sadness when I was led towards their meetinghouse, two days later, nothing but a general murmuring of “Praise be!” and “Praise the Lord!” from the assembled brethren. Of course I no longer wore the verminous garments foolishly given to me by the boy, but was instead dressed in a plain russet cloak with a white band around my neck. It was decent, and fitting, without being penitential. I had also acquired a wooden staff for this solemn occasion, and proceeded slowly along the central aisle with my hand upon Goosequill’s shoulder. I had hoped to do without his aid, sluggard as he was, but I could not be sure of my footing on these hastily constructed boards.
“This is he,” one of the elect whispered. “He enters like a prophet.”
I had intended no such resemblance, and bowed my head in humility before I turned to them. “Your presence, friends, revives me. You see me in pain and long-endured suffering, but tax not divine disposal. I thought myself changed, almost fallen, when I found myself cast upon a land so unlike the place from which I had come. But all was not lost. To be weak, good people, is to be miserable. My indomitable will maintained me. Yet you know that it was not my strength. No. It was not.”
I heard them echo my words satisfactorily with “Not at all!” and “No indeed!”
“Trusting in God who called me to this land, leaving friends and native soil far behind, I wandered willingly through boggy fens and swamps, through desert and morass—” I paused, and the silence reassured me that they were listening intently. “So with lonely steps I have made my way towards this place foretold, across the oceanic void immense. And now I see a goodly prospect. I see fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales.”
The boy had informed me, before my arrival, that the brethren were “sickly pale” and, if I recall his vulgar phrase, “looking as tired as a bottle-head on Sunday morning.” Horribile dictu! Yet oh, Mr. Pole, how revived they seemed as they called out “Hallelujah!” and “Praise be!” after my oration.
One of their number came forward. (I trust that you will be interested in the plain words of the brethren, simple fragments of a history that will inspire those left in my dear old forsaken country. Scatter this history, Reginald, over the land of England. Disseminate it without delay.) “Seaborn Jervis,” the pious man informed me.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Seaborn, sir. I was reborn on our crossing of the ocean. I issued through the navel of Christ.”
“It was excellently done.”
“And now by general consent I have been enrolled to plead with you.”
“Do not talk of pleading, Mr. Seaborn, when I come here as a poor errant soul myself.”
“Jervis, sir. Mr. Jervis. May I speak something of immediate and present concern to us all?”
“Indeed you may.”
“I have been entrusted with the news that this is no place for settlement.”
“Truly there is no abiding city upon this earth.”
“No, sir. I mean that we have always intended to build our godly town elsewhere. The air here is too rank with many vapors.”
“Is it pestilential?”
“I thought it smelled like Tothill Fields,” the boy by my side said.
I took the opportunity of squeezing his shoulder until he groaned. “Forgive my servant. He is prone to worldly allusions.”
“It is very swampy air here, sir,” continued Mr. Jervis with as pious an air as before. “At first we thought to establish ourselves by a spacious lake, which was reputed by our previous brethren to be clearer than the holy lake of Genezereth in Palestine.”
“Which was so clear it seemed another sky!”
“But then we learned that it was three hundred miles distant.”
“That would be a pilgrimage indeed.”
“But now we have found a fertile place near this river, which we hope to subdue to our will.”
“Is it a vacuum domicilium?”
“Sir?”
“Is it empty of people? Are there no claims upon it?”
I sensed that the congregation had been listening carefully to this exchange, and a woman at the back called out, “Only the barbarians! Only the pagan savages!”
“That is Humility Tilly, sir,” Mr. Jervis advised me in a low tone. “She is brimful of piety.”
“Who are these pagans of which she is so eloquent?”
“The heathen natives. They called the land Machapquake.” He hesitated, and I knew at once that he was to speak of purchase. “But they were easily parted from it.”
The interruption from Humility Tilly moved some of the congregation to intervene in the same pious spirit. I heard one of them cry, “Seven miles square got for seven coats!”
Seaborn Jervis was still very restrained in my presence, and I admired him for it. “Forgive their enthusiasm, sir.”
“Enthusiasm is a godly gift.”
“We obtained the land for seven coats, as they say, together with a few simple tools of our own making. The savages also wished for ten and a half yards of cotton cloth, which after deliberation we granted them. It was a fair bargain, and now the land is within our patent.”
“A good price indeed. Repeat to me its name, if you please?”
“Machapquake in the savage tongue. But—” The good Jervis hesitated once more. “But we would wish to call it New Milton.”
“Is it really so?” I stared ahead, and waited for him to speak again.
“We have agreed among us, sir, knowing full well of your godly work in our dear mother country, and being acquainted with your right noble mind in pursuit of the general good—well, sir, may we ask you to frame for us a little commonwealth and polity? Will you be our author and prime architect?”
I heard the mad boy by my side whisper “Oh Lord,” yet I chose not to admonish him in this bright hour of my life. “Yes,” I said. “I will.”
At once there was a general chorus of “God be praised!” and “God is present here,” which pleased me. I heard the good Jervis turn upon his heels and announce to his brethren that “Our yoke is lifted!”
There was a rustling among them, and from the air and movement I sensed that one had left his seat and was now approaching me. “Much has been done, good sir, to ease your task. We have conferred together and granted twenty acres of land to each of our families.”
“Who speaks to me now?”
“Preserved Cotton, sir.”
“A holy name, no doubt.”
“So our acreage is divided nicely. And, if I may use these names in this godly assembly, we have granted one cow and two goats to each family. As for the planting of corn—”
I took my arm from Goosequill’s shoulder, and raised it in the air. “Good Master Preserved Cotton, God will grant increase and prosperity to his own people. Have no doubt of that. Shall we advance into the healthful air?” I have always been of a reserved and fastidious temper, Mr. Pole, believing that cleanliness brings us closer to the pure spirit of God. In this assembly house it had already become uncomfortably warm and close, and I told the boy to lead me through the congregation, in slow and reverent steps, towards the open door. I heard the brethren sighing as I passed them, and then they followed me into the white light of New England.
While they gathered about me, I turned my face towards the sun. To my left hand I could smell all the odors from the lush vegetation of the forest: this godly settlement was by a wilderness indeed. But I took heart, and struck the earth three times with my staff. “This is no Sabbath assembly,” I told them. “I shall not make a lecture. You shall not need an hourglass, good people, to measure my exhortations. I say only this. The beginning of nations, those excepted of whom the sacred books have spoken, is to this day unknown or else obscured and blemished by fables. But we will need to spin no stories here. You poor wandering people, so beloved of God, have come into this vast recess only because you prefer hard liberty before the easy yoke of servile pomp. Though I see you not, I hear your grave and solemn words. I know you to be no less noble and well fitted to the liberty of a commonwealth than were the ancient Greeks and Romans.” An infant cried and, as it was soothed, I remained quiet and took the opportunity of composing my last words. “I share with you hopes of a glorious rising commonwealth. I see the prospect of another world, the happy seat of some new race, a bright isle and clime where one day, by policy and long process of time, will rise a mighty empire. Long has been the way, and hard, that from the hell of impiety and sacrilege has led you towards this dawn. But now let there be light indeed!”
