The Sot-Weed Factor (82 page)

"But Miss Bromly. . ." said the poet.

"That's the end o' my tale," Mary said firmly, "till Harvey tells his part of't: when Roxie learned the nature of her husband's prank she flew upstairs to look after Miss Bromly and found her lying like a lass well-ravished upon the pallet, with the pistol still a-smoking in her hand. And for all her erstwhile lordly airs, she ran to Roxie like a child to its mother, weeping and a-hollowing enough for two, and declared that albeit she was virgin as ever, the salvage had taken a host of liberties with her person, insomuch that she was like to perish of shame. 'Tis not surprising Roxie disbelieved her -- as did I when I heard of't anon -- and said, 'Now, now, Miss Bromly, what's done is done, and feigning shan't undo it; thou'rt no virgin now, if in sooth ye were before, but I'm convinced thou'rt no trollop either. Come live with me and my daughter at the mill,' she said, 'and we'll teach ye how a woman can have sport at no cost whate'er to her purse, her pride, or her precious reputation.' "

"Ah, Mary," cautioned their host, who must have been reading her lips, "don't tell tales, now."

Mary replied that Mr. Cooke she knew to be a perfect gentleman, and since McEvoy knew none of the parties involved, she saw no harm in quoting Mrs. Russecks's speech. "Ye know full well she's
my
dearest friend as well as yours, Harvey, and I love Henrietta like a daughter. These gentlemen have heard already what a beast Sir Harry is; 'twere as well they knew this much more to go with't -- that Roxie and Henrietta have the spirit and wit to pull the wool o'er the great swine's eyes at every turn."

The trapper was still not entirely pacified, but Ebenezer, though the mixed metaphor made him wince, acknowledged the unknown women's right to their peccadilloes, in order to bring Mary back to her story.

"Aye, Miss Bromly," Mary sighed, "that Roxie tells me I might persuade now to learn my trade."

Ebenezer could not restrain his bitterness. "Is that your notion of a grand and charitable woman, that takes a poor girl in to make a whore of her? Unhappy Miss Bromly! Methinks your Mrs. Russecks is no better than her husband!"

"Gently, gently, Mr. Cooke," Mary said calmly. "Ye forget 'tis not to Sir Harry's mill I'm bound to fetch her, but to the house of her English husband, Mr. Rumbly . . ."

"I'God!"

"Let me finish, now. The girl was that distracted by her rape, or whate'er ye choose to call it, she commenced to gibber like a bedlamite. Her name was not
Meg Bromly
at all, she declared, but
Anna Cooke o' Cooke's Point,
the sister o' the Laureate Poet, and the salvage that attacked her was no salvage at all, but her childhood tutor --"

"Marry, I see it!" cried the poet. "She hath been Anna's friend and mine since we were children in Plumtree Street; some business hath brought her to Maryland, and she had planned to call on me at Malden until she heard of my disgrace and Father's wrath. Aye, 'tis clear! She durst not go near the infamous place, but took lodgings in Church Creek while she made enquiries about me. I'faith, another lost soul upon my conscience! Poor, poor Miss Bromly; how Anna would fly to aid you if she knew!"

As a matter of fact, Ebenezer's feelings were mixed: he was unspeakably relieved to think that the Church Creek Virgin had not been his sister, but distressed at the same time, not only because it had been his sister's friend but also because this fact rendered Anna lost as ever. Now he blanched, for a new thought struck him.

"Nay, 'tis worse yet! Why would Miss Bromly be in Maryland at all, if not as Anna's companion? Aye, 'sheart, they traveled together -- what could be more likely? -- and when they heard how things fared at Malden, or when my father caught up with Anna and made her stay with him, Miss Bromly took it upon herself to seek me out. That's it, I'm certain: either Joan Toast made no mention of me, or they disbelieved her! 'Sheart, 'sheart, miserable girl! How many more will be brought low on my account? And now, whether 'tis that she seeks pity by desperate subterfuge or that the shock of rape hath deranged her, she calls herself by her best friend's name, and thinks 'tis Henry Burlingame hath undone her!"

" 'Tis a fact she sometimes calls her husband
Henry,"
Mary allowed. "Roxie said as much."

"Stay, now," McEvoy said. "Ye left the wench in her loft-room, a-babbling to the Russecks woman, and now she's wife to the wight that leaped her, and that she pistoled! Ye've o'er-skipped some piece o' the tale, lass, have ye not?"

"That I have, sir," Mary nodded, "for 'tis Harvey's to tell. When the girl had done a-gibbering she fell a-swoon in Roxie's arms and was fetched senseless to Henrietta's chamber in the millhouse. For three days Roxie nursed her like an ailing child, and on the fourth she disappeared. No man hath laid eyes on her from that day to this save Harvey here . . ."

The Tale of Billy Rumbly Is Concluded by

an EyeWitness to His Englishing. Mary

Mungummory Poses the Question, Does

Essential Savagery Lurk Beneath the Skin of

Civilization, or Does Essential Civilization

Lurk Beneath the Skin of Savagery? -- but

Does Not Answer It

M
ary finished speaking
and looked expectantly at Harvey Russecks, as did Ebenezer and John McEvoy. But because her last remark had been delivered in a voice lower than that with which she had told the story and had been directed specifically to McEvoy, the trapper missed it and smiled vacantly back at them.

"Tell 'em, Harvey," she prompted. "What happened whilst the Church Creek Virgin was a-swoon at Roxie's, and the rest of it?"

"Aye, that's true," Harvey laughed, not yet conceiving exactly what she said. Ebenezer concluded that the older man's mind must have been wandering, for he had caught up the earlier remark about Mrs. Russecks at once. " 'Twas when I went out on the trap line in the morning -- ice all over the marsh, don't ye know, and muskrats frozen in the snares -- I spied a campfire down the line and walked over to't to thaw my finger-joints; there lay this salvage with the bloody breeches, his head all shaved and his body cold as death. 'Twas my first thought he was dead, and another two hours had proved me right; but I felt some life in his veins beat yet and resolved to fetch him here and do what I could for him. The wound I found no great matter, for all the blood; I washed and bound it, and forced some hot broth on the fellow directly he could open his mouth. B'm'faith, what a stout wretch he proved! As nigh as the very latch-string to death's doorway, and an hour later he had his senses again, if not his strength. When I'd won his trust he told me his tale as best he grasped it, and inasmuch as I'd heard o' the Church Creek Virgin and knew my brother's humor besides, it wanted small philosophy to guess the rest.

"I told him he'd been the butt of a low prank (the which he saw plainly when I explained it) and offered to ask for the five pounds sterling Harry had robbed him of; he thanked me kindly, in the plainest English I e'er heard salvage speak, and declared the whole of't was mine for rescuing him, if I could get it. Now ye dare not refuse a salvage's gift, lest he think thou'rt insulting him, and so I declared I'd take two shillings for my trouble and deliver the rest to him. All the while we spoke he had been casting his eyes about the room, and anon he asked me, Would I sell him my house? and Would five pounds purchase it? I replied 'twas not worth it by half, but I'd no mind to sell, and as he showed such eagerness to live in an English cabin I told him of an old one I owned near Tobacco Stick Bay, not far from Church Creek, that was falling to ruin for lack o' tenants, and declared he could live in't without rent if he'd trouble himself to repair it. Ye might think that an odd piece o' charity on such short acquaintance, but this half-breed had an air about him -- I've not the words for't, sirs. 'Twas as if. . . d'ye know those stories o' kings and princes that prowl the streets in Scotch cloth? Or Old Nick posing as a mortal man to bargain for souls? He was uncommon quick in his mind, was this salvage, and gave me to feel that had he been reared English from the cradle he'd have been another Cromwell, or what ye will. 'Tis no mystery to me Miss Bromly took him for her tutor in disguise; with a fortnight's practice he could pass for a don of Oxford, I am sure of't, and two years hence for a sunburnt Aristotle! There's many a man I have no use for, gentlemen, and it struck me from the first this salvage would play me false if need be, to gain his ends; but he had that power of attraction -- how doth a man speak of it? Will-ye, nill-ye, ye felt that if his purpose and yours weren't one, ye had your own shortsightedness to blame for't, and if he sold ye short, 'twas that your stuff was the stuff o' pawns and not o' heroes. To this hour he hath done me no injury, but that day I was driven to forgive him in advance, in my heart, for aught he might do me!"

"Ah," Ebenezer said.

"In any case, he slept here that night, and next morning I found him gone. My first thought was, he had set out to revenge himself on my brother --" The trapper blushed, but his eyes narrowed. "God forgive me or not, as't please Him: I made no move to warn Harry of his danger, but went out to my line o' traps as usual. There was a frost that morning, I remember, and over by Raccoon Creek, on a stretch o' high ground betwixt the fresh marsh and the salt, I commenced to see bear tracks along the path, and even a bear stool so fresh 'twas not e'en froze, but lay a-steaming in the path. Not long after, near the end o' the line, I saw moccasin-prints with the bear tracks, and inasmuch as they were not half an hour old, I took the trouble to follow 'em out.

"Anon the trail led me to a little stand o' hardwoods, and I could hear Mr. Bear a-grumbling up ahead. I had no weapon on me save my skinning-knife, and so I crept toward the sound as quiet as I could manage. 'Twas no great trick to find him, he was growling so; I came on a little clearing and there he was, a fat black rascal that hadn't bedded down for the winter. He was a male, not quite full-grown -- on his hind legs he would've stood as high as your shoulder -- and he was worrying a rotten piece o' log to get the grubs on't. I'd just commenced to wonder where the salvage had got to, when a hand came down on my shoulder, and there stood Billy Rumbly himself, looking wise and cheerful as ye please. He led me farther down wind and out of earshot and told me he meant to kill the bear unless I laid a claim on't.

" 'Why, Billy,' says I, ' 'tis not likely I'll take on a bear with a skinning-knife so long as I'm sober, and I'd urge no fellow man to try such tricks.' For I saw he had no weapons on him save his two hands. But he only smiled and declared he'd show me a trick he'd learnt from some western salvages, that were said to use it as a test o' courage when two men quarreled o'er some squaw's favors. I judged 'twould be worth the watching, nor was I mistaken -- nay, i'Christ, 'twas the oddest piece o' hunting I'll behold in my life!

"The first thing he did was find two straight saplings, one no thicker than your thumb and the other twice as thick, and snapped 'em off low in a certain way so that the break was a hand'sbreadth long. I offered him my knife to point 'em, but he declared 'twas a breach o' the rules to use a knife or any weapon thrown from the hands, and made the best of't by peeling back splinters from the break. One sapling he made a rough spear from by stripping off the branches, and the other he broke off short for a kind of dagger; then we crept to the clearing, where Mr. Bear was scratching his back against a tree, and for all the frost had scarce commenced to melt, Billy fetched off all his clothes, picked up his sticks, and stepped into the clearing dressed in naught but the rag-strip bandage on his thigh."

Ebenezer observed that Mary had set her jaw and closed her eyes.

"The bear left off scratching and watched him make some salvage sort o' prayer. But when Billy moved toward him he ambled off round the edge of the clearing. Billy set out at a run, hollowing some gibberish or other, but instead o' turning on him or running down the path, the bear made for a stout young oak near the middle o' the clearing and commenced to climb. I stepped out and called 'Bad luck, Billy,' for I never doubted the chase was done; but the bear was scarce off the ground ere Billy was climbing after him, pole in hand and dagger 'twixt his teeth, and never a care how the rough bark flayed him as he climbed! At the first branches, twice your height, the bear stopped to look down, and grumbled and waved his forepaw. Billy shinnied up close and poked as best as he could without a proper purchase, but he got no more than a growl for his pains. I offered to fetch him a longer pole, and learned 'twas a breach o' his murtherous rules to take help from any wight soever or change weapons once ye've touched the bear -- I'll own I felt then, and feel yet, he was hatching these customs as he went along, but he followed 'em like Holy Orders.

"In lieu of changing weapons, he changed his plan o' battle and commenced to jab at the bear's face, taking care the brute didn't catch the pole in his teeth or strike it out o' his hand. I guessed 'twas his object to drive the bear farther up the trunk and gain the branches for himself, where he could do more damage with his spear, but instead the animal moved around the trunk to protect his face, and hung his great hindquarters over Billy's head. Yet so far from giving o'er the bout or scrambling away, Billy seemed as pleased as if 'twas just what he'd designed: he gave a whoop and thrust his pole as far as ever, where I need not mention! The bear gave a squeal and tried to get at the spear with his forepaws, but Billy thrust deeper; he climbed a little distance up the trunk and was undone the more by slipping back, and at length he fell, with such a hollowing as ye never heard. In that same instant Billy was on him; he drove the short stake in his throat and sprang away ere I myself had grasped the fact that the bear was down.

"By the time I found a tree o' my own to hide behind, the bear was on his feet and thrashing after the pole, that stuck out behind. All the while, Billy stood empty-handed in plain view, not three yards off, and goaded the bear to attack him; when he did, Billy led him five times round the oak tree, and the poor brute fell down dead."

"Marry!" said McEvoy. " 'Tis as brave a trick as I've heard of!"

"And as gory," Ebenezer added, speaking loudly for the trapper's benefit. " 'Tis a wondrous tale, Mr. Russecks, and yet -- you must pardon my rudeness -- I cannot but wonder what this feat hath to do with my poor friend Miss Bromly."

"Nay, friend, there's naught to pardon," Harvey replied. "I wondered the same myself, the while I watched, why it was he had set out half mended to match his strength with a bear's, when all the evening past he had talked o' naught save the laws and customs o' the English. He had been that eager and quick a scholar, ye'd have thought he was training for a place in Court -- but look at him now, astride o' his kill to drink the hot blood ere the beast's fair dead! The very type and essence of the salvage!

"But I had not long to wonder. When Billy had drunk his fill he went to the creek and washed his body from top to toe, for the tree-bark had cut him as raw as a keelhauled sailor, and he was dirty and a-sweat besides. E'en now the rules he'd set himself were in force; he would have none o' my skinning-knife, but commenced to flay the carcass with an oystershell from the creek, and albeit he allowed me to make a fire, he stayed naked as Adam till his work was done. 'Twere a half-day's labor to flay out such a beast with a wretched shell, and I feared he'd catch his death ere the chore was done; but he made me a gift o' both hide and meat, declaring he craved nor the one nor the other, and flayed no more o' the carcass than was required to lay back a deal o' fat. This he gouged by the gobbet onto a foot-square piece o' the pelt, the which he had reserved for himself, and then skewered o'er the fire till it commenced to render. His object, I saw, was to lard himself with bear-grease from heel to hair, as is the wont of salvages from time to time, and as he worked I began to fear that betwixt this bear-hunt and the happenings of the day before, there was a certain dark connection. Nor was I wide o' the mark, for when he was greased as a griskin and reeking like Old Ned's lamp, he gorged himself on the balance o' the fat and then took up his oystershell and gelded the bear --"

Ebenezer and McEvoy expressed their bewilderment, but Mary, who had been so withdrawn throughout that one wondered whether she was entranced or asleep, now opened her eyes and sighed a knowing, compassionate sigh. " 'Twas what I expected, and less than I hoped for, Harvey. And Roxie is mistaken -- 'twere a waste o' time for me to see her, don't ye think? Ah well, in any case the story's clear."

"Haply 'tis clear to you," complained the poet, "but I grasp naught of't."

" 'Tis no deep mystery," the trapper declared. "What the bull hath always signed to civil folk, the male bear signifies to the salvage Indian. But not only do they look on him as the emblem o' virility; they hold farther that his carcass is great medicine in matters o' love. Hence the manner of his killing, that Billy had explained before, and hence that larding with his hibernation-fat, the which they say feeds the fires o' love as it warms the bear in winter months. As for the other, 'tis widely believed in the salvage nations that if a man lay hold of a buck-bear's privates, bind 'em up in a pouch o' the uncured pelt, and belt 'em so with a bearhide thong that they hang before his own, then his potency will be multiplied by the bear's, and Heav'n help the first poor wench that crosses his path! I asked him, 'Is't the Church Creek girl thou'rt bound for?' And albeit he would not answer me directly, he smiled a dev'lish smile and said 'twould please him if I'd pay him a call some day or two hence, when he and Mrs. Rumbly had found my cabin on Tobacco Stick Bay and set up housekeeping! By's speech ye'd take him for a merry English gentleman; yet there he stood like the living spirit o' salvage lust! Much as I feared for the poor girl's honor, I pled with Billy Rumbly to move with caution, inasmuch as I supposed she'd be on her guard to shoot him dead. But he said, 'No English pistol e'er killed a bear,' and went his way."

"Now 'tis plain," McEvoy said. "He carried her off and keeps her hid in the cabin ye spoke of! How is't the sheriff hath made no move to find her?"

" 'Tis also plain thou'rt innocent of provincial justice," Ebenezer put in bitterly. "Only the virtuous run afoul of Maryland law."

"Nay, now, ye put your case too strongly," said the trapper. "Our courts are sound as England's in principle; but 'tis a wild and lawless bailiwick they deal with -- frauds and pirates and whores and adventurers, jailbirds and the spawn of jailbirds. I don't wonder the courts go wrong, or a judge or two sells justice o'er the bar; at least the judges and courts are there, and we'll make their judgments honest when we've the power to make 'em stick -- which is to say, when the spirit o' the folk at large is curbed and snaffled."

Ebenezer's cheeks tingled, not alone because he felt that he had in fact overstated his indictment: his day in the Cambridge court still rankled in his memory, and the price of it drew sweat from all his pores; but his wholesale rancor had got to be something of a disposition, and he had been alarmed to recognize, as the trapper spoke, that he fell into it of late, on mention of certain subjects, more from habit than from honest wrath. So grossly had Maryland used him, he had vowed to smirch her name in verse to his children's children's children; could such outrages dwindle to the like of actors' cues? It was by no progress of reason that he reached this question, but by a kind of insight that glowed in his mind as the blush glowed in his face. By its troubled light, in no more time than was required for him to murmur, "I daresay" to Harvey Russecks, he beheld the homeless ghosts of a thousand joys and sorrows meant to live in the public heart till the end of time: feast days, fast days, monuments and rites, all dedicated to glories and disasters of a magnitude that dwarfed his own, and all forgotten, or rotely observed by a gentry numb to the emotions that established them. A disquieting vision, and no less so to the poet was his response to it. Not long since, he would have gnashed his spiritual teeth at the futility of endeavor in such a world. Not improbably he would have railed at human fickleness in allegorical couplets: the Heart, he would have declared, is a faithless Widow: at the deathbed of her noble Spouse (whether Triumph or Tragedy) she pledges herself forever to his memory, but scarcely has she donned her Weeds before some importuning Problem has his way with her; and in the years that follow, for all her ceremonious visits to the tomb, she shares her bed with a parade of mean Vicissitudes, not one of them worthy even of her notice. Now, however, though such fickleness still stung his sensibilities (which is to say his vanity, since he identified himself with the late Husband), he was not sure but what it had about it a double Tightness: "Time
passes
for the living," it seemed to say, "and alters things. Only for the dead do circumstances never change." And this observation implied a judgment on the past, its relation to and importance in the present; a judgment to which he currently half assented. But only half!