John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"There is sense in all ye say," mused William Smith. "Yet I can starve a glutton and flog a troublemaker, at no expense whatever, whilst a sick man — "

"Dear God!" groaned the poet. "Must I beg you to make me a servant on my own estate? Very well, then — " He knelt in supplication on the floor. "I beseech you to bond me as a servant, for any term you choose! If you refuse, 'tis as much as murthering me outright!"

Smith sucked at his pipe and, finding it cold, relit it with an ember from the fire.

"I am nor poet nor gentleman," he said at last, "but only a simple cooper that hath no wish to lose his goods. Yet I please myself to think I am no fool, nor any child in the ways o' the world, and I know well thou'rt moved by no great virtuous cause to be my servant, but merely to be nursed through your seasoning and then to seek out ways and means to work my ruin. ."

"I swear to you — "

"Stay, I am not done. I'll not indent you, but I will see ye nursed past your seasoning, on one condition."

"Name your terms," Ebenezer said. "I am sick past haggling."

"The fact is, I am looking to make a fit match for my daughter Susan, whose husband died some years past in London. If ye'll contract to wed her this very night, I'll give for her dowry a half-year's board at Malden, with all the care ye need from Dick Sowter, the best physician in Dorset. If ye choose to wed her tomorrow, 'twill be five months' board, and a month less for each day thereafter. Done?"

" 'Sheart, man!" gasped the Laureate. " 'Tis preposterous!"

Smith bowed slightly. "Our business is done, then, and good day t'ye."

"Don't go! 'Tis just — i'God, I must have time to ponder the thing!"

"Take the while I finish this pipe," the cooper smiled. "After that I withdraw my offer."

"You'll drive me mad with choices!" Ebenezer wailed, but as Smith made no reply other than puffing on his pipe, he began to weigh frantically the alternatives, wincing at both.

"What is your choice?" Smith inquired presently, tapping out his pipe on an andiron.

"I have none," Ebenezer sighed. "I shall marry your ruined harlot of a daughter to save my life, and God save me from her pox and her perfidy! But I must see your bargain writ into a contract, and both our names appended."

" 'Tis only fair," the cooper agreed, and set before the Laureate a small table on which were quills, a pot of ink, and a sheaf of documents very like those with which Richard Sowter had pointed out Malden from the sloop. "Here are two copies of a marriage contract that I had Dick Sowter draw against the time I made a match for Susan; I'll risk a fine for not publishing the banns. Sign both, and the thing is sealed: Reverend Sowter can tie the knot at once and fetch ye a pill."

"A preacher as well!" Ebenezer marveled, and was so amused in his near-delirium by this news that he had signed one copy of the contract and was halfway through the second before it occurred to him to wonder how it was that Smith could produce, with such readiness, documents not only contracting the marriage but also providing, on the very terms proposed a few moments before by the cooper, for the bridegroom's convalescence. Even as he raised his pen, struck by the plot this fact implied, Richard Sowter, Susan Warren, and Thomas Tayloe entered from outside, accompanied by no other soul than Henry Burlingame.

"Stop!" cried Susan, when she saw what was in progress. "Don't sign that paper!" She ran toward the table, but Smith snatched up the papers before she got there.

"Too late, my dear, he is three fourths signed already, and 'twill be no chore for Timothy here to forge the rest."

Ebenezer looked from one to the other, his features twitching. "Henry! What plot is this? Have you returned to steal these Indian rags, or haply to sport me with more rhymes?"

"There was a weakness in your court order, Mister Cooke," said Sowter, and took one of the several papers from Smith. "Here where't says That the same William Smith shall see to his daughter's marriage at the earliest opportunity, and the rest. St. Winifred's cherry, sir! No man in his senses would marry a whore berid with pox and opium, and belike some rogue of a judge would've hung the order on that clause!"

"But," added Smith, brandishing the contract in his hand, "this paper here mends that hole, I think."

" 'Tis a finer clout than e'er St. Wilfred sewed," Sowter agreed.

"I humbly beg your pardon, Mister Cooke," said Thomas Tayloe. " 'Twas Sowter's notion from the first I should ask ye to take my place. He said 'twas the only price he'd take for me."

"Thou'rt forgiven," Ebenezer said, smiling wildly. "McEvoy sacrified you for his liberty, and you me for your own — whom shall I trade for mine? But dear fellow, they have swived you twice o'er: thou'rt not a freeman yet."

"How is that?" Tayloe demanded.

" 'Twas not necessary to indenture Mr. Cooke," Smith said coolly. "Susan, you and Timothy fetch out the witnesses from the kitchen and get the bridegroom ready; Reverend Sowter will marry ye directly we've shown McEvoy to the servants' quarters."

Tayloe at once set up a furious protest, but the two men led him off. Throughout the conversation Burlingame had remained silent, and his face had been impassive when Ebenezer had addressed him as Henry instead of Timothy; as soon as Smith and Sowter were out of sight, however, his manner changed entirely. He rushed to the chair where Ebenezer sat as if a-swoon and gripped his shoulders.

"Eben! Eben! Dear God, wake up and hear me!"

Ebenezer squinted and turned away. "I cannot bear the sight of you."

"Nay, Eben, listen! I've little time to speak ere they return, and must speak fast: Smith is no common cooper, but an agent of Captain Mitchell's, that is in turn Coode's chief lieutenant! There is a wondrous wicked plot afoot to ruin the Province with pox and opium, the better to overthrow it. Great brothels and opium dens have been established, and Malden's to be the chiefest in this county. All this I learned by posing as Tim Mitchell, whose job it is on some pretext to journey through the counties with fresh stores of opium and to supervise the brothels." Since Ebenezer displayed no apparent interest or belief, Burlingame went on to explain, in an urgent voice, that for some time Captain Mitchell had been scheming with Smith to ruin Ben Spurdance (who had been loyal both to the government and to his employer) in order to gain access to the strategically situated Cooke's Point estate. He, Burlingame, on the other hand, had been seeking ways to subvert their scheme, although it was not until the occasion of Susan's escape (which was, to be sure, designed by Captain Mitchell) that he had known for certain the location of the proposed new brothel and the identity of Mitchell's Dorchester agent.

"And 'twas not till we arrived in Cambridge, and Spurdance sought me out whilst you were strolling elsewhere, that I learned Susan was not loyal to the cause she served. They came to me together, in answer to a secret sign I made whereby our agents know one another, and whilst the Salter case was a-hearing, they told me they had found a way to undo Smith by the terms of his indenture, and had influenced Judge Hammaker to their end. We had the wretch near scotched, by Heav'n, with Susan's testimony — but your judgment, of course, foiled our plan."

Ebenezer still made no reply, but tears ran from his squinted eyes and down the gaunt reaches of his face.

" 'Twas thus I dared show little sympathy for your loss," Henry went on. "I befriended Smith at once and left you stranded in the corncrib to keep you out of danger till I'd left with him for Malden and learnt more of his plans and temper. I thought he'd beat poor Susan to a powder for betraying him, but instead he showed her every courtesy; 'twas not till some minutes past, when Susan told me you were here and I heard from Sowter the tale of John McEvoy and Tom Tayloe, that I saw the scoundrel's plot, and for all my haste we arrived too late to stop you."