Sarah Bishop (7 page)

"Don't come out until they leave in the morning," she said.

T
HE CANDLE BURNED
itself out. I sat in the dark until the ship's clock struck midnight.

Then I slid back the trap door and gathered up my oddments Mrs. Pennywell had brought down and wrapped them in the blanket. Mr. Pennywell gave me a coin. I put the money, silver and paper, which was less than two pounds, in my dress and I climbed the stairs to the kitchen. I took a loaf of bread from the hearth and left sixpence to pay for it.

I waited in the hickory grove until dawn. Then I set off for Mrs. Jessop's to return her Bible. I walked fast, among the trees most of the time.

Mrs. Jessop saw me on the road and came running out to meet me. All the early morning clouds had rolled in from westward. Now it was raining and I was wet through.

She took me into the house, built up a fire, and helped me dry off. I told her as best I could what had happened during the time I had been away, some of the things. I thought she might want to get rid of me, the way things were, but she said she had a place for me to sleep and I could stay as long as I wanted to.

"You can't go back to the farm. People are squatting in the ruins. The Sullivans. Three brothers, black-haired and black-hearted. You'd best not go near them."

I didn't want to go back to the farm. I wanted to go as far away from the sounds of battle, the hatred and the killings, as my feet would take me. Everything was mixed up in my mind, but this I knew for certain.

I untied the bundle and took out her Bible.

"Keep it," she begged me. "Hold it close. It'll guide your steps in the paths of righteousness. It'll comfort you. It'll protect you from evil."

Her words angered me. "It did not protect my father," I burst out. "Nor did it protect my brother."

Mrs. Jessop stared at me as if I had suddenly sprouted the devil's horns. She snatched the Bible from my hands, opened it, and marked a place with a finger.

"Job Five, eighteen," she said. "'He woundeth, and his hands make whole.'"

"I am not whole. I am sick and alone."

Mrs. Jessop frowned, but went on. "Job Five, seventeen. 'Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth.'" "I am not happy," I said. "And why should God correct me by killing my father and my brother? What of them? Why should they die for me? I don't understand."

Mrs. Jessop said, "You will understand, later, when you grow older. As Job understood." She turned several pages of the Bible, but spoke from memory, fixing her gaze upon me. "'Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind ... Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?... When the morning stars sang together?... Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?... Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?... Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven?... Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?'"

Her eyes bored in upon me, two sparks of fire under her dark brows. "Like Job, you do not know all there is to know," she said. "Therefore, despise not the chastening of the Almighty."

I bit my lip, but answered her in a clear voice. "I do despise the chastening."

My words were barely spoken when lightning streaked across the lowering sky and a thunderclap shook the house.

Mrs. Jessop threw up her hands in horror. She plucked at the air. The Bible fell to the floor and lay there, its leaves fluttering.

"God has spoken," she cried.

A second flash of lightning flashed across the heavens. Thunder rolled, louder this time and closer. The smell of burning entered the room.

"Repent!" Mrs. Jessop croaked.

A yellow cat that was dozing on the hearth arched its back and showed its teeth. Mrs. Jessop's aunt, who had been sitting quietly near the fire, tried to rise from her chair, but slipped and fell.

"Repent thy words ere God destroys us," Mrs. Jessop cried. "Repent!"

I did not answer. Her aunt lay groaning on the floor. I gathered up my bundle and the Bible. I do not know why I took it, except that the Bible, my father's Bible, had been a part of me all the days of my life. I thanked Mrs. Jessop and fled out the door. It had stopped raining.

There was another roll of thunder. I walked fast along the road toward the farm, but when I neared it I cut off through the stubble field and came back at the stream so that I wouldn't see where our house had been.

Quarme was standing in the doorway of Purdy's mill. He was looking up at the stormy sky, his scrawny neck stretched out and his bony head raised up. He glanced at me with his wild, forest-cat eyes, but didn't let on that he saw me. Nor did I let on that I saw him.

Yet seeing him there in the doorway brought back all the bitter memories of my father's death. I couldn't get them out of my mind. Even after the mill was far behind,
I kept thinking of the night that Ben Birdsall had descended upon us.

The sky cleared toward dusk. I came to some oak trees and went far back in the grove and made a small fire, using the tinder Mrs. Jessop, unbeknownst to me, had put in my bundle. I was well off the traveled road to the ferry, so I didn't worry about being seen. I ate the last of the loaf I had taken from the tavern.

Afterward I got out the Bible. By firelight I read from Matthew. I came to Chapter 5, verse 44, and read, "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you."

I read aloud. The words sounded strange in the darkening grove. They hung above me and drifted away. I heard an owl speak softly. I read the verse again, leaning down to see by the dying fire.

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you," I read.

The words sounded strange to my ears, stranger than they had before. I looked at the fire and saw my father standing at the doorway. Birdsall was holding a light, and his mob behind him was tossing a flaming torch into the dry hayloft. I saw Quarme standing beside me, tying my hands behind me.

Through the trees the stars were shining now. They looked cold and far away. I threw a stick on the fire. I said aloud from memory, "And pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you." But I saw before me David Whitlock leaning over the rail of the
Scorpion,
calling down to me the word of my brother's death. I heard the shot from the Hessian's musket and Sergeant McCall shouting, and his footsteps above me as I crouched in the cellar.

I got to my feet. I felt like screaming, but I read the verse again. The words were dead, cold as the stars in the heavens above.

I held the book open and carefully ripped the page from Matthew and laid it in the fire. The words stood out for a moment, black against the embers. The paper was thin. It made a small blue flame. The flame flickered and died away.

I
N THE MORNING
I took to the road again and reached the Connecticut ferry as the sun came up. The ferryman was a knobby little man with a broad smile and few teeth, dressed in a cast-off British jacket. He remembered me from the year before, when Chad and Father and I had gone across the sound to buy a brood sow. He wanted to know how my folk were. I told him that they
were dead and how they had died. It made me feel better to talk. Not much, but some.

"Where're you going?" he asked as he pushed the boat away from the shore. "To White Plains?"

"Beyond."

"Beyond's a big place."

"Beyond," I said.

He glanced at me as if he thought I was not right in the head.

"Well," he said, "wherever you go, you shouldn't go alone. These are bad times." He brought me a cup of tea and a bun and disappeared, leaving me to tend the rudder. When he came back he carried a musket. "Of course, a girl like you shouldn't be traveling at all, but since you are, here's a good companion to take along."

He held out the musket.

"I got this off a British deserter. She's a little old; had her barrel trimmed off a bit at the muzzle where she wore thin. But she shoots straight. I've tried her. Good up to eighty paces and better, depending on who's shooting. Please note the butt and stock; made of the purest maple heartwood. And the wooden ramrod tipped with brass. Pretty as a plum. She's called a Brown Bess. All the British soldiers carry her into battle."

He took aim at a seagull that was hovering overhead.

"Comes with a nice brass chain, prickers, and brush for cleaning touchhole and pan."

He handed the musket over. "Take care she's primed."

I held the gun to my shoulder and sighted away at nothing. It felt heavy at first. Then I thought of how if I pressed the curled-up trigger a ball would go flying out faster than ever the eye could see. Suddenly the musket felt light in my hands.

"Everything," the ferryman said. "Brown Bess, prickers and brush, flint and patches, all for the small sum of two pounds, six. And I'll throw in a bag of powder to boot."

"I have one pound and five shillings in English money. The rest's in Continental paper."

"Let's see the paper."

I took it out and laid it in his hand.

"This five-dollar certificate for the support of the Continental troops issued in Georgia is worthless. I have a pailful of them. But I'll take the one printed in August of this year by the convention of New York, to be paid in ten Spanish-milled dollars. At some discount, of course. If you'll kindly give over the English pound, we have struck a bargain."

I had little left now of the money I'd saved at the Lion and Lamb, but I would be able to earn more as I went along. The ferryman had called the Brown Bess a "good companion." That was the way I looked at the musket now—as a companion.

"Have you ever shot a gun?" the ferryman asked.

"No."

"I'll teach you. I'll set the tiller. The breeze is light.
We still have an hour before we reach shore. I'll empty her and we'll start from the beginning, one step at a time."

He glanced around for the gull. It was out of sight, so he fired into the air. He showed me how to hold the musket under my arm, pour the powder into the barrel and tamp it down.

"Gently but firm," he cautioned me. "Now you put in a patch, like this. Now place the butt against your foot. Press down with the ramrod. Now comes the ball. Good. Now a little powder in the pan. Good. You're ready to shoot."

I aimed at another log we were passing.

"Squint," he said. "You see better if you squint. And hold your breath as you pull the trigger."

To my surprise the powder exploded. It set me back on my heels. My ears rang. I had missed the log by a mile, but the ferryman patted me on the shoulder anyway.

"You'll be a sharpshooter before the year's out," he said.

We nosed up to the Connecticut shore at noon. We had passed boats going over to Long Island, but I had seen none sailing in our direction.

"If anyone comes asking for me," I said. "If they come here or over on Long Island, will you tell them that you haven't seen me?"

"Who would this be?"

"Two men. A sergeant named McCall and a Hessian.
Two King's men. Sergeant McCall is wearing a green uniform."

I told him what had happened to me.

"I wouldn't worry," he said. "The British have a bloody war on their hands. They're far too busy to be running around looking for a girl."

"But you'll say you haven't seen me, if they do come?"

"I'll watch for them," the ferryman said. "Where will you be, in case?"

"I don't know where," I said and took the road that led northward in the direction of White Plains. The musket I carried on my shoulder.

T
HE
G
OLDEN
A
RROW
was about fifteen miles north of the ferry. There was a lot of travel on the road, especially from Long Island and the Sound. Whenever I heard horsemen approaching from that direction, I got off the road and hid in the trees until they passed.

The tavern was owned by a Mr. Cochran. I looked for him to turn me down when I walked into the tavern and asked for work. He was playing billiards with a man in a brown wig.

"I've had experience," I told Mr. Cochran. "Over on Long Island at the Lion and Lamb."

"What kind?"

"In the kitchen. I make bread and other things."

"How are you as a table wench?"

"I do that, too. But I'd prefer to work in the kitchen."

Mr. Cochran examined me from head to toe.

"Do you wish to live on the premises?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Do you plan to stay? The last serving wench was here but a week."

"Longer," I said, but I didn't say how much longer because I didn't know.

Mr. Cochran picked up a cue and rubbed chalk on the end of it. "You can start now. Bring my friend a punch, strong on the rum. You'll find the wherewithal in the bar, which is out the door and down the hall."

I made his friend a rum punch. In fact, I made him four. Thereupon he got red in the face. He put his cue away and sat down to do a good bit of talking about how the British had driven the rebels out of New York City.

"Now they're getting ready to drive them clean out of Connecticut," he said.

He was drinking from a tall glass. In the bottom was an image of a fish. When his glass was empty, he would shout, "Fish out of water." Then I was supposed to run and fetch him another drink. I fetched him six altogether.

"I saw General Washington riding around this morning over in White Plains," he said. "The general's getting ready to defend the town. He's got a lot of troops over there, but they're green as grass and poorly armed. The British will run them and the general out across the North River, those of them they don't kill."

White Plains was less than three miles from the tavern. That night I couldn't go to sleep, thinking about the coming battle, hearing the sounds of cannon fire and musketry and men dying. The next day I left. Mr. Cochran wanted me to stay, but I left anyway, even though he refused to give me all of what he owed.

It was now late in October. Winter was not far off. I didn't have enough money to keep me for long.