Russell Banks - Outer Banks

Because my friend loved me, he wished, however, to do more than merely to warn me of my impending arrest and trial and imprisonment. He attempted as well to persuade me to close the doors of my shop immediately and, upon the eventual arrival at my shop by the officers of the chief of civil prosecution in the town, to deny that I was engaged now in any such activity as had become so recently a heretical activity, for, as my friend pointed out to me, I was an esteemed member of the community, welcomed among them for my comportment and orderliness and the consistent charity of my mind, and therefore the officers of the community would be reluctant to scourge me from them. My skills as a maker of coffins, my friend showed me, could easily be applied to the manufacture of items which the community felt it needed, rather than items which it had deemed not only unnecessary but dangerous to the public weal. He then told me of a growing desire among the better-off families for high wooden cabinets with glass doors for the purpose of exhibiting fragile and expensive possessions.

Having delivered himself both of his warning, which I received with gratitude, and his suggestion regarding my future activities, which I received with the thought that my friend was perhaps putting his timorous self in my place (out of his love and fear for me, however, not of love or fear for himself), he began to gather up my drawings and figures and contracts for the several coffins I then had underway, wrinkling and folding them as if to toss them into the fire.

No, I said to him. This seems not to be our only recourse. Let us think a moment and look into our hearts before we decide what is the proper action. How would it seem to others of our persuasion, with regard to the matter of the dead, if their coffin-maker were to run and hide and, if found, lie outright? Come, I said to him, be of good cheer, let us not be so easily daunted, our case, to care for the dead, is good, so good that we will be well rewarded, finally, if we suffer for that cause. If, however, we deny our cause, and others like us, seeing our example, also deny the cause, then we will suffer ten hundred and infinitely more times over for the denial. For if we will not remember the dead, who among the living will remember us when we join the dead ourselves, as all men must? ( I Craig., xiv, 12.)

My friend persisted and pleaded with me none the less, until I begged leave finally to closet myself briefly for prayer and guidance in this question and proceeded to close myself into the coffin that my father had employed his brother, the revered master to my apprenticeship many years ago, to build for me. And as so often has occurred in times of woe or quandary, the face of a beloved ancestor, in this case the wise face of my mother’s great aunt, passed before me and gave me these words: Your guide in life can proceed from no other source than the mercy you tender the dead. To suffer for such tenderness is to receive mercy back from the dead when no others will show it to you.

Whereupon I arose from my coffin and confronted my good friend with these words: Leave me, if you wish, and tend your fields, and turn your coffin into a sideboard, if fear is what determines your actions. But as your fellow man who loves you, I am compelled to go on as before. I further stated that since coming to know myself, I had showed myself hearty and courageous in my coffin-making and had made it my business to encourage and teach others the skills and the meanings of the skills I now possessed, and therefore, thought I, if I should now run and make an escape, it would be of a very ill savour in the land. For what would my weak and newly converted brethren think of it? Nothing but that I was not so strong in deed as I had been privately in word. Also I feared that if I should run now when there may well be a warrant out for my arrest, I might by so doing make them afraid to stand forth some time after when but great words only should be spoken to them. And still further, I thought the world thereby would take occasion at my cowardliness, to have thus blasphemed the dead, to have then some ground amongst themselves to suspect the worst of me and my profession.

Sadly, but with freshened understanding, my friend clasped me to his bosom and departed for his fields, and I retrieved my wrinkled and folded drawings and figures and continued as before to lay out the day’s work. And at a quarter past ten in the morning, while I was planing a mahogany headboard for the coffin of a young woman living in a village seven miles from ours, three officers of the chief of civil prosecution in our town entered my shop and read to me the orders issued by the chief of civil prosecution in the parish and by that perogative ordered me to cease and desist my activities as a maker of coffins. I carefully restated all the arguments above, and I continued with my planing as before. The officer in charge, a decent man I have known since we were schoolmates together, then placed me under arrest, and after having released me into my own custody on my own recognizance, wrote out a summons, that I was to appear the following morning at the court of the chief of civil prosecution in the town, there to be heard for indictment and if indicted to be remanded to the parish jail to stand trial at some future date for the crime of heresy. He escorted me outside my shop to where my wife anxiously awaited me and closed and sealed the door to my shop and posted the summons thereon. He was a peaceable and methodical man, as were the junior officers with him, and I believe that they persecuted me only with grave reluctance. May they be remembered, therefore, at least for their inclinations to mercy, even if it happened that they were too weak to enact said mercy. ( II Vis., xxx, 4.)

Upon the following day, at a quarter of nine in the morning, I presented myself, in the company of my good wife, who had fearfully dispatched our five children to the home of her cousin in an adjacent parish, at the court of the chief of civil prosecution in our town. Here follows the sum of my examination by His Honor Mister Dome.

Dome: What is the work that you practice in the wooden structure attached to your dwelling place and facing the roadway? And how long have you been at that work?

Self: I am a builder of coffins for the express purpose of tendering mercy to the dead. And I have been such since boyhood, when it became imperfectly known to me that any skills I might obtain while among the living would be without meaning unless bent wholly to that purpose.

Dome: You admit, thereby, that you have all your adult life participated in an activity that the larger community has now declared illegal. Do you also admit that you have consistently and diligently enjoined others to do likewise?

Self: Only those others who give evidence of possessing such gifts as I possess and who, with long instruction and example, can acquire the necessary skills for coffin-building. To those who give no evidence of possessing these gifts, and who therefore ought not to be encouraged to acquire these skills, I merely encourage in a general way to know themselves, so that they may pursue a more truly characteristic way of tendering mercy to the dead. For while there are many paths homeward, there is but a single calling. ( Trib., vii, 38.)

Dome: Do you admit that you meet together privately for the purposes of giving and receiving instruction?

Self: It has always been customary to do so in this land, and more efficient also.

Dome: You have before me this day confessed to acts which, though in the past have merely been heinous in the eyes of the community, are henceforth regarded as illegal and, therefore, punishable by law. As is my sworn duty, then, unless you first swear before me at this table that all such activities will no longer be tolerated by you or by those under your care, I will be compelled to indict you for persisting in heresy and to remand you to stand trial in the court of the chief of civil prosecution in the parish. Do you so swear?