Milton in America, page 10
“Absolutely fearful!”
“Then at the beginning of the summer, when the Indians removed from the thick woods to the open fields, this Englishman’s wolf was gone very suddenly. It had followed the other wolves, you see, which had accompanied the natives to their new home. But he had loved that animal, his only companion in the wilderness, and determined to take it back by any means within his power. He found the trail left by the Indians, and discovered that they were encamped a mile eastwards on plain ground near to the shore. But of course they had seen him long before he came upon them, and all at once he found himself surrounded by their warriors brandishing bows and long staves. He called out to them in his own language “Peace! Peace!” and then he tried to convey to them that his wolf had gone. “Anum!” he said, which was their term for dog. “Anum!” And then he added, “Nnishishem” which means “I am alone.” At this their whole manner changed, since there is no race more hospitable to strangers who do not prove themselves to be enemies. That is why they are known to entertain the English in their houses, providing the best victuals they can.”
“I can believe that,” I said. “They are good fellows.” Mr. Milton silenced me with a gesture.
“So very merrily, and with great good will, they took the Englishman back to their wigwams, where indeed he was joyfully reunited with his wolf. The natives may make grave utterances, sir—” he looked up from his shoes, and gazed at our master. “But they are by nature a cheerful people. And so it fell out that this Englishman, without company for so long, determined to live among them and free himself from the havoc of enemies or wild beasts. He went near naked amongst them and used their manners until, in time, he became a proper savage.”
“This is terrible beyond words.” Mr. Milton shifted uncomfortably on the wooden bench. “Did he commit uncleanness with any young Indian women?”
“Oh no. Not that. Yet he fished with them, and ate with them, and slept with them. He sailed with them in their canoes.”
“I have heard of those,” I said. “They are somewhat like our fishing boats, are they?”
“They make them out of birch rinds sewn together with the roots of white cedar trees—”
Of course our master was not interested in any such matter. “You seem to have great knowledge of these savage things, Mr. Lusher.”
“Yes indeed. I was the one who lived among the Indians.”
Our master rose from his seat at once and motioned me to be gone. “A narrative of great interest, sir. But we must bid farewell to you now.”
Eleazer must have been surprised, because he stared at me for a moment without saying anything. I just rolled my eyes.
Stop, Goose. You look like a corn dolly.
So then Eleazer asked us if he could guide us homeward. “No, sir. We know our path. Come, boy.” Mr. Milton took my arm, and we marched out of the wooden cabin onto the forest path. Eleazer hovered by the door, I waved, and then he went back in again. As soon as we entered the forest, we were grazed on by flies. “This wilderness is a foul contagion,” he said, “when it breed monsters such as these.”
“What monsters, sir?”
“You know well enough.” We walked on in silence for a while, while I made sure that we followed the right path. “Virgil informs us that a race of men came from the trunks of trees, Goosequill. Unspeakable changes. Noah’s descendants lived in forests after the Flood.” I led him firmly forward but, still, he loved to wander in his words. “Who lingered in woods but lepers and vagabonds and hermits? Then Dionysus took the frenzied citizens of Thebes into a forest, did he not? Velut silvis, ubi passim palantis error—oh!” He had slipped upon a fallen branch, and toppled into swampy ground. He was soon sunk to his ankles in the mud but, as nimble as a link-boy with his light, I stepped upon two stones and pulled him free. He was now in a thoroughly bad humor. “I hate a plashy fen!” he muttered as I hauled him onto dry ground. “We must purge ourselves of these sloughs and quagmires.” Then he added, after we had found the right path, “I must explain to our brethren the necessity of discipline and good order. We cannot allow ourselves to be entangled in rank weeds or environed with pestilent vapors.”
“So what do you propose, sir?”
“We must remedy the soil. We must build bridges. We must create roads across these rotten bogs. We must recover this terrible wasteland. We must make maps!”
I led him by the hand, until I could see clear sky above us. “Mr. Lusher told us a strange story indeed.”
“Vile. Loathsome beyond all measure. I cannot dwell on it.” At that moment he was stung upon the hand by a large fly, and he yelled out in pain. “When we come to divide the territory of New Milton,” he continued, after sucking his palm, “we must build stone walls and mighty trenches to protect ourselves against the inroads of the pagan enemy.” I did not know what particular enemy he meant, Kate, but I knew better than to question him about it. They say that a burned child dreads the fire. “We must be fenced about and armed!”
By the time we arrived back at the settlement, he was already planning and calculating. We were lodged in that tent made of canvas cloth. Do you remember it?
Oh yes, Goose, it was a scandal. You had draped it with the prettiest and brightest flowers, without ever Mr. Milton knowing of it.
Oh, he knew. Alice Seacoal told him.
She is an old gossip, I grant you.
An old shrew. An old— So, Kate, we returned to our tent, and I made him stand outside as I brushed the leaves, dried mud and forest mess from his clothes. “To govern well,” he said, as I began to unlace his boots, “is to train up a nation in wisdom and virtue. That is the true nourishment of a land, Goosequill. Godliness.”
“Yes, sir. Will you please to lift up your leg a little?”
“I see a mighty and puissant nation arising here. I am no prophet. That would be too high a title for me to claim.”
“A little higher still. I cannot remove your boot.”
“In this land there are no false charters and tenures, no ancient and unrepealable statutes. We have no lordships or privy counsels clothed in the exterior luster of pomp and glory. All is to be made new. All is to be invented.”
“I wish I could invent a boot that came off without labor. There we go. Now the other leg.”
“I shall sow the seeds of virtue and public civility amongst this scattered flock, and they shall be ruled by that piety and justice which are the true causes of political happiness. In our fallen state—” I tugged upon his boot too earnestly, and he reached for the canvas to steady himself. “In our fallen state all human society must proceed from the mind.” Once he sets sail upon his words, as you know, he can never be persuaded to change his course.
I have heard him talk in chapters, Goose. In whole books. He is a library all to himself.
You might as well try and stop the wind. “We will create a society sufficient of itself,” he said, “in all things conducible to well-being and commodious life. Ours will be the household and city of God.”
“But what of the Indians, sir?”
“What of them?”
“What do you propose for them?”
“Oh, that heathen rabble can be dispersed in time. Think nothing of it.”
“Are we to benefit them with our learning?” I was smiling, as I borrowed his words, but I kept up a grave voice.
“We cannot slacken the reins at the beginning of our race. The law is our touchstone of sin and conscience, Goosequill, and it cannot be tainted by corrupt indulgence. Lead me within. I must prepare my thoughts.”
I stayed outside, and was just starting to clean his boots with some bindweed, when, Kate, I saw you again. You were holding Jane in your arms and singing to her softly under the shade of a tall tree.
It was a sycamore. It was a temperate day, and I was happy.
I came up to you, do you remember? “That’s a very shrewd child, to get itself in that position.”
“Mr. Goosequill. You scared me.”
“I believe that this little thing will turn into a real New Englander.” I started playing with Jane’s fingers, then, so that I would not have to look at you directly. “Do you think you might be having any yourself?
“Mr. Goosequill!”
“Well, my master says that the brethren will have to people the wilderness.”
“I don’t think you are one of the brethren at all. I have never seen you at your prayers.”
“Oh yes. They pray for a spreading vine, and I pray for a vineyard. And I pray for something else, Katherine Jervis. May I tell you what it is?” You said nothing.
I was too surprised by your rudeness, Goose. I was struck dumb.
So I ventured a little more. “I pray to God that my spiritual ardors will be scattered in one particular direction.”
“Go to, Mr. Goosequill, you are a wicked blasphemer.”
But you were smiling at me, Kate, so I knew that you were not terribly offended.
I was not smiling. The sun was in my eyes.
I was in your eyes, I think. Then you started whispering nonsense words to Jane. Dada. Lala. Tala. And suchlike. It reminded me of the words Mummeecheess had taught me.
They were good Devonian words. Hert. Zlape. Gurden. Luve.
I know it now, Kate. I know that your heart slept in the garden of love. But I did not know it then. And what was that ditty you were singing to the babe? I can hear it in my head, but I cannot recall the words exactly.
About the maypole, Goose, we dance all around,
And with garlands of pinks or of roses crowned,
While to each pretty lass we give a green gown—
That was the point you had reached when Mr. Milton called for me from the tent. I took my chance then, and gave you a little kiss upon the cheek.
I don’t remember anything of the kind, Goose. I am sure I would have blushed. I might even have slapped you.
You did blush, and I kissed you again. Then I hurried back to our master. He wanted to compose some mighty speech before we all made our journey to the site of New Milton, so I took up my charcoal pencil and my scrap of paper. We rehearsed it while he strode up and down. “Do you think, Goose, that I should bring in the moral fable of Hercules?”
“The strong man?”
“Undoubtedly. Have you not heard of his labors?”
“I had a friend in the Hercules Tavern who said he was worked very hard.”
“None of your absurdities. Yet you remind me that it will seem to these good people a pagan analogy. I must find a more pious example.”
It was the day before our journey and so his words, Kate, were fresh from the oven. Everyone had to be gathered together in a circle, before he would begin. “It is not known what wise and eloquent man first persuaded his race into civil society, but my own task is little different. Mine is a high enterprise, and a hard, which I can perform only with temperance and incessant prayer, with continual watchings and labors in your cause. But I am content.” He made one of his dramatic pauses. “I am content to be your judge, your magistrate and your shepherd.”
“God be praised!” Do you remember how Humility Tilly was always breaking out into praises and rejoicings?
Sometimes I wish she would break out in plague-spots. Is it uncharitable to hate someone, Goose?
Highly. I don’t believe our master was overjoyed by her either, but he never showed it. “I know your voice, dear Humility,” he said, “and I thank you. I shall guide my inward sight towards the good of family, church and commonwealth. No man shall be more patient in hearing causes, more inquisitive in examining, more exact in doing justice. But I am only an instrument—”
“No! No!” Humility was doing it again.
“—under some power and counsel higher and better than can be human, working to a general good in this fallen world.”
“A sanctified vehicle is being poured upon our heads!”
That sounds like one of Alice Seacoal’s sayings.
It was. “There may be some,” he went on, “who incline to think that I undertake a task too great or difficult for my years and lowly state.”
“Woe to them all!” Humility was never to be outdone by Dame Alice. Oh no.
“These are not inconsequent opinions. The Grecians and the Romans, the Italians and the Carthaginians, impious though they were, did of their own accord reject a sovereign sway. That is why I utterly abhor any arbitrary rule or government. You have not traveled so far to have another king set up before you. So, after we have journeyed in faith to New Milton, we shall establish a free and general assembly. If it is pleasing to you all.”
“It is, good sir!”
“Who speaks?”
“Phineas Sanctified Coffin, sir.”
“Sanctified, God bless you.”
That evening he called your brother to sit with him.
Seaborn loves to talk.
But not as much as Mr. Milton. “Take notes,” he said to me. “Item. We must have an ingenious carpenter.”
“We have, sir,” your brother said. “Master Hubbard has already turned a beech into three godly chairs for my own family.”
“Good. We also require someone that is skilled in the trade of fishing. And a fowler. We must have meat. Rich meat.” There was a rustling in the trees behind us, and our blind friend turned around quickly.
“Only a wild cat, sir,” I whispered. “Looking for food.”
“Please be so good to remember, too, that we must have a brickmaker and a tiler to improve our dwellings.” He turned around again, and listened for a moment. “We will need a cunning joiner. And a cooper.”
“The Lord Jesus has provided us with men and tools, sir. We have come armed for our wilderness work.”
“The only true tools, Mr. Jervis, are discipline and orderly proceeding. We must be as eager to discipline ourselves as some are to tutor their horses or their hawks.” The smell of the forest was so rank in the evening, Kate, that I almost fainted away.
Poor Goosey.
And then I heard some strange creature calling from the forest. I believe they call it a loon. It sounds like this.
Goose, that is the barking of a dog.
If it was a dog, it had been crossed with a seagull. But Mr. Milton just went on talking. “Nothing in this world is more urgent and important for the life of man than rigor and control. Have you and your brethren considered my proposal for a general assembly?”
“We have, sir, and we find no fault with it.”
“Then we must settle matters of wages and of hire, of revenue and taxes.” He turned around for a third time, although the cat was long gone. “A little English ordering, and we will tame all the wild things.”
EIGHT
My brother in Christ, Reginald, dear friend and confederate in the Lord, what else may I tell you of our pilgrimage? We began our journey on the morning after I had exhorted the brethren to train themselves in the discipline of good government. The site of New Milton was only five miles from our settlement of New Tiverton, but we were compelled to make our way through horrid woods and swamps; it was of course intended that I should lead the procession of our two hundred souls but, being blind by the will of God, I deemed it more fit to follow at a slower pace. Several times was I hindered by thickets, and by fallen or broken trees, so that, like Remaliah, King of Israel, I grew weary of the way. Then we came out upon a plain of scrubgrass, which seemed all the drier and hotter after the dankness of the woods. “It is not as plain a plain as the brethren would like,” the boy Goosequill told me. “Some of them have been very much cut and scratched by the bushes. Those without buskins are as bloody as a pig after Lent.” Yet it was not exhaustion alone that impeded our march. The sun’s heat beat down upon the sweet fern, the scent of it so strong upon the plain that, as I was informed later, many of the brethren were close to fainting away.
I was powerfully affected by the cloying odor, I admit it, yet it brought to my mind an analogy. “Nineveh,” I said to my foolish boy. “This is the very air of Nineveh.” For a moment I dwelled among the prophets of old, until his whistling brought me back to our present plight. “You know, Goosequill, I cannot be a king. Mine must be a temporary and elective sway.”
“I do know it. You have told them so.”
“I shall not like Brutus be forced to reign. Otherwise I shall be no better than the pharaoh who now sits upon London.” I leaned upon my boy’s shoulder, overcome for a moment by the warmth and dirt of the world. “No man should take up that scepter which many have found so hot. It is so hot.”
“We will be there shortly, sir. Mr. Jervis says that it is very close.”
“Hercules was not begot in one night or by a casual heat. Do you think I babble like a wanton? No indeed. I must shine openly under a clear sky. My own actions must be held up as a mirror before my face.”
“No need for a mirror now, sir. You will see your reflection in that river yonder, just behind the trees.” We had, praise God, come to the end of our journey.
At dawn on the next day the dear brethren began their labors. The weaker vessels among them pleaded weariness, but I informed them that they were engaged in sanctified work and that the fields now called them to toil—when a people slacken, I said, they might as well lay down their necks before some wily tyrant. Indeed, dear Reginald, I had started to devise schemes for building and farming. The site of our new town was upon meadowland, well watered by springs, and I soon marked it out for pasture and for orchards; the plain itself, over which we had traveled, was then partitioned as a plot where streets and buildings might presently arise. The younger men had already been instructed (in our sadly betrayed mother country where, as I know with much sorrow, you still reside among sighs and tears) how to lay down the stone for streets, how to dig ditches, how to hew and hack the wood for their houses; others were now at my request divided into small bands in order to fell trees or to plough the necessary planting ground. I exhorted the women to perform such tasks as burning brushwood, gathering up stones for the streets, and picking bog iron from the surrounding ponds. The brethren also began to erect fences and stake out boundaries; there were to be meadows for their cattle and gardens for their fruit, but I had reminded them of the urgent necessity of a prison to contain the evil seed and of a meetinghouse to protect the good. “What a Christian republic will be raised here,” I told Humility Tilly, a widowed woman of great piety and patience. “What a new tabernacle of saving grace!”
