John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

He singled out one of the oldest and wisest-looking, who was engaged in paring his toenails. "I say, sir, you'll think me ridiculous to ask, but might you tell me which mountain this is?"

"Ye have me there," the ancient replied. "Sometimes I think 'tis one, sometimes the other." He chuckled and added in a stage whisper: "What doth it matter?"

"How did you get here, if I'm not too bold?" Ebenezer asked further.

"That was no chore at all," the old man said. "I was here when the mountain grew, I and my cronies, and we went up with it. They'll never knock us down — but they might raise us so high they can't see us any more."

"They're applauding you down there, you know."

The old man shrugged his shoulders, Burlingame-like. "Ye can't hear 'em so well up here. 'Tis the altitude and the thinness of the air, I've always thought. But I care not a fart one way or the other."

"Well," said Ebenezer. "I surely envy you. What a view you have from here!"

" 'Tis in sooth a pleasant view," the old man admitted. "Ye can see well-nigh the entire picture, and it all looks much alike. Tell ye the truth, I get tired looking. 'Tis more comfortable to sit here than to climb, if comfort's what ye like. Climb if ye feel like climbing, says I, and don't if ye don't. There's really naught in the world up here but clever music; ye'll take pleasure in't if ye've been reared to like that sort of thing."

"Oh, I always did like music!"

"Really?" asked the old man without interest.

Ebenezer leaned down to look at the strugglers far below.

"Sbody, but aren't they silly-looking!" he exclaimed. "And how ill-mannered, pushing and breaking wind on one another!"

"They've little else to do," the old man observed.

"But there's naught here to climb for: you've said that yourself!"

"Aye, nor aught anywhere else, either. They'd as well climb as sit still and die."

"I'm going to jump!" Ebenezer declared suddenly. "I've no wish to see these things a moment more!"

"No reason why ye oughtn't, nor any why ye ought."

The Laureate made no further move to jump, but sat on the edge of the peak and sighed. " 'Tis all most frightfully empty, is't not?"

"Empty indeed," the old man said, "but there's naught o' good or bad in that. Why sigh?"

"Why not?" asked Ebenezer.

"Why not indeed?" the old man sighed, and Ebenezer found himself in a bed and Richard Sowter bending over him.

"St. Wilgefortis's beard, here is our bridegroom at long last! Doc Sowter's oil-o'-mallow ne'er yet let mortal die!"

"Marsh-mallow my arse," said one of the kitchen-women, who appeared beside the bed. " 'Twas St. Susie's thistle-physic brought him back."

Sowter counted Ebenezer's pulse briefly and then popped a spoonful of some syrup into his mouth.

"What room is this, and why am I in't?"

" 'Tis one o' Bill Smith's guest rooms," Sowter said.

"Opium!" the Laureate cried, and sat up angrily. "I recall it now!"

"Aye, by blear-eyed old St. Otilic, 'twas opium Tim Mitchell gave ye, so ye'd have your rest. But ye was that ill to begin with, it came nigh to fetching ye off."

"He'll be the death of me, by accident or design. Where is he now?"

"Timothy? Ah, he's long gone, back to his father's place in Calvert County."

"False friend!" the poet muttered. He paused a moment and then fell back in anguish on his pillow. "Ah God, it escaped me I was wed! Where is Susan, and what said she of my illness on our wedding night? For I take it 'tis another day. ."

The kitchen woman laughed. " 'Tis plus three weeks ye've languished 'twixt life and death!"

"As for Mrs. Cooke," Sowter said, "I can't say how she felt, for directly we fetched ye to bed she was gone for Captain Mitchell's in Timothy's keep. Haply he did your labors for ye."

"Back to Mitchell's!"

"Aye, she's legal-bound to drive his swine, ye know."

" 'Tis too much!" Ebenezer cried indignantly. "For all she's a hussy, the Laureate's lady shan't drive swine! Fetch her here!"

"Now, don't ye fret," the woman soothed. "Susie's run away twice already, to see for herself what health ye were in and make ye her wondrous thistle-physic. I doubt not she'll do the same again."

"Three weeks a-swoon! I scarce know what to think!"

"St. Christopher's nightmare, friend, think o' getting well," Sowter suggested cheerfully, "then ye can roger Mistress Susan from matins to vespers, if ye dare. I'll tell your father-in-law thou'rt back to life, but 'twill be some weeks yet ere ye have your health entire. Many a poor soul hath been seasoned to his grave." He gathered up his medical paraphernalia and prepared to leave. "Ah yes, here is a present Timmy Mitchell left ye."

"My notebook!" the Laureate exclaimed; Sowter handed him the familiar green-backed ledger, now warped, worn, and soiled from its peregrinations.

"Aye, ye lost it in the inn at Cambridge, and Tim brought it out when last he came for Susan. He said ye might have verses to write in't whilst ye rest your six months out."

"Ah God, I thought 'twas stolen with my clothes!" He clasped it with much emotion. " 'Tis an old and faithful friend, this ledger-book — my only one!"

When he was left alone he found himself still far too weak in body and spirit for artistic creation, and so he contented himself with reading the products of his past — all of which seemed remote to him now. He could, in fact, identify himself much more readily with the stained and battered notebook than with such couplets as:

"Ye ask, What eat our merry Band

En Route to lovely MARYLAND?

which seemed as foreign to him as if they were another man's work. Since he had happened to begin with the most recent entry and thence to work towards the front of the book, the last thing he read was a note for his projected Marylandiad, made while his audience with Lord Baltimore (that is to say, Burlingame) was still fresh in his memory: MARYLANDS Excellencies are peerless, it read; her Inhabitants are the most gracious, their Breeding unmatch'd; her Dwelling-places are the grandest; her Inns & Ordinaries the most courteous and comfortable; her Fields the richest; her Courts & Laws the most majestic; her Commerce the most prosperous, & cet., & cet. The note was subscribed, in Ebenezer's own hand, E.C., G ent, P t& L tof M d.

He lay back and closed his eyes; his head throbbed from the small exertion of perusing his work. "I'faith!" he said to himself. "What price this laureateship! Here's naught but scoundrels and perverts, hovels and brothels, corruption and poltroonery! What glory, to be singer of such a sewer!"

The more he reflected upon his vicissitudes, the more his anguish became infused with wrath, until at length, despite his weariness, he ripped from the ledger his entire stock of sea-verses, and using the quill and ink provided by his host he wrote on the virgin paper thus exposed:

Condemn'd by Fate, to wayward Curse,

Of Friends unkind, and empty Purse,

Plagues worse than fill'd Pandoras Box,

I took my Leave of Albions Rocks,

With heavy Heart, concern'd that I

Was forc'd my native Soil to fly,

And the old World must bid Good-b'ye.

No sooner were these lines set down than more came rushing unbidden to his fancy, and though he was not strong enough at the time to write them out, he conceived then and there a momentous project to occupy him during the weeks ahead — which, should he find no means of regaining his estate, might well be his last on earth. He would versify his voyage to Maryland from beginning to end, as he had planned before, but so far from writing a panegyric, he would scourge the Province with the lash of Hudibrastic as a harlot is scourged at the public post, catalogue her every wickedness, and expose her every trap laid for the trusting, the unwary, the innocent!