John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Supplicate, cajole, and threaten as he might, Ebenezer could not prevail upon Mary Mungummory to speak farther on the subject of Anna's whereabouts and circumstances. She saluted their host, a buck-skinned, thin-grinned, begrizzled old hermit of a fur-trapper, and would not hear the poet's desperate expostulations.

The old fellow held up his lantern and was clearly pleased at what its light disclosed, for he sprang about like a frog, croaking for joy.

"Mary Mungummory! I swear 'tis old Mary at that!"

Mary grunted. "Did ye look to see Helen o' Troy in the Dorset marsh this time of the night?" She talked over-loudly, as one would to a man partially deaf. Her voice was rough with affection, and whether he grasped the allusion or not, the old man hopped and snorted appreciatively. He climbed up onto the side of the wagon and peeked inside as Mary drove Aphrodite up to his cabin.

"Don't strain your eyes, ye old lecher," she shouted. "The cupboard's bare till I reach Church Creek." She changed the subject quickly. "These here are friends o' mine, Harvey, down on their luck. If ye'll stand dinner and lodging for the three of us, I'll make it up to ye next time around."

"What fiddle is this?" Harvey cried. "D'ye think I'd not ha' took after ye, had ye not turned in my lane? I looked at the moon three nights ago, and I thought: 'tis time Mary's wagon came by." He sprang off the wagon the instant it stopped at his cabin. "Come inside and thaw, now; there's partridge and duck a-plenty, and cider to drown the lot o' ye!"

"We thank ye," McEvoy said loudly. Ebenezer was too distraught to acknowledge the man's charity with more than a nod; when their host ran ahead to open the cabin door, the poet whispered a final fierce entreaty to Mary to relieve his tortured fancy with explanation.

"There's no more Christian man in Dorset than Harvey Russecks," she declared, ignoring him. "And few with less cause to feel kindness for his fellow creatures. He's a brother to Sir Harry Russecks in Church Creek."

Her tone implied that this last assertion was intended to be revealing, but to Ebenezer, yawning and shivering with frustration as they entered the rude log cabin, it meant nothing at all.

"I'll just spit us a brace o' partridge on the fire," Harvey declared. "Haply ye'll pass the cider-jug round, Mary; old Harvey's got no cups to offer ye gentlemen." He fussed about like a new bride, and soon two birds were roasting over the pine logs in the fireplace. There was only one chair in the cabin, but the wood floor boasted two black-bear pelts, as warm and easy a seat as one could ask.

"If ye don't know the miller Harry Russecks," Mary went on, "thou'rt among the blest." She addressed herself to Ebenezer; when the poet looked away, wincing at the irrelevancy of her discourse, she flared her nostrils and turned to McEvoy instead. "This Harry Russecks is the lyingest, cheatingest, braggingest bully ye'll e'er mischance upon; thinks he's a London peer, doth the wretch, and browbeats his neighbors to call him 'Sir Harry' all the while he gives 'em short weight on their flour and meal. Truth is, he's no more a nobleman than his brother Harvey here, that's the son of a common house-servant and not ashamed to own it. Tis Mrs. Russecks is an orphan child o' the peerage — the miller's wife, and as fine a woman as her husband is the contrary. The bitter part is, her father was the gentleman that the miller's father served, but fortune used her so ill their positions turned arsy-turvy: she was a starving orphan and Harry a prosperous miller, and he married her a-purpose to tickle his vanity."

"Ye don't say!" McEvoy shook his head in polite wonder and glanced uncomfortably from Ebenezer to their host, who pottered about, oblivious to the narrative.

"He can't hear me, never fear," Mary assured him. "Poor devil had both his ears boxed till the drums cracked, as I hear, and ye can lightly guess who boxed 'em."

"The miller?" McEvoy asked.

Mary pressed her lips and nodded. "Both brothers grew up with the lady I mentioned, and the story hath it they both were in love with her from the first, but Harvey was too shy and respectful o' place to do aught but wet-dream of her, e'en when she was a-beggaring, while Harry's lust was public as the moon. 'Twas when Harry wed her that Harvey took to living here in the marsh, and some years after, when he scolded Sir Harry for abusing the girl and putting on airs, the bully boxed his ears and well-nigh ground him into corn-meal."

The Irishman clucked his tongue.

"How she came to be orphaned is a story in itself," Mary went on doggedly. "She's a lady o' spirit, is Roxie Russecks, and don't think she comes fawning at the great lout's beck and call! Why, I could tell ye one or two things she had contrived — "

"No more!" Ebenezer cried, clutching his ears. Even the hard-of-hearing trapper turned round. "I thank you humbly for your hospitality!" Ebenezer shouted to him. "And I've no wish to appear ungracious or ungrateful for't! But Miss Mungummory here hath news of my long-lost sister, and I shall perish of anxiety if she keeps it from me any longer."

Harvey looked questioningly at Mary. "What is't ails the wight?"

"He's not the only poor wretch on tenterhooks," Mary snapped. "He hath news of his own close to my heart, but the tales are long and mazy, and here's no place to spin 'em out. Let him wait till we're on the road."

But the trapper joined his protests to Ebenezer's.

"No pleasure pleasures me as doth a well-spun tale, be't sad or merry, shallow or deep! If the subject's privy business, or unpleasant, who cares a fig? The road to Heaven's beset with thistles, and methinks there's many a cow-pat on't. As for length, fie, fie!" He raised a horny finger. "A bad tale's long though it want but an eyeblink for the telling, and a good tale short though it take from St. Swithin's to Michaelmas to have done with't. Ha! And the plot is tangled, d'ye say? Is't more knotful or bewildered than the skein o' life, that a good tale tangles the better to unsnarl? Nay, out with your story, now, and yours as well, sir, and shame on both o' ye thou'rt not commenced already! Spin and tangle till the Dogstar sets i' the Bay; a tale well wrought is the gossip o' the gods, that see the heart and point o' life on earth; the web o' the world; the Warp and the Woof. . I'Christ, I do love a story, sirs!"

Even Mary was plainly impressed by her old friend's eloquence, and though her scowl only darkened as he concluded, it was the scowl no longer of recalcitrance but of grudging assent, and she agreed that tales would be told when the partridge was finished.

"The fact of't is," she said loudly to Harvey, "you may have as much to say as any of us. 'Tis the half-breed Rumbly we're interested in, amongst other matters. Master Cooke here can start us off, that hath some mysterious business with the wight, and then we'll each add what we can. But not till the birds are done."

Harvey Russecks's face brightened at the name Billy Rumbly, and squinted a bit at the mention of Ebenezer's surname. "Thou'rt the poet chap that gave away his property?"

"The same," Ebenezer replied, no longer embarrassed by this identification. "You all may wait for your dinners if you wish; since I'm to start, I'll start right now, listen who will, and tell you why not only my life but the life of every white-skinned person in the Province may depend on my finding a salvage called Cohunkowprets, within the month, and persuading him to listen to humane reasoning." He proceeded to tell them about the capture of his party on Bloodsworth Island: the grand conspiracy of fugitive Negroes and disaffected Maryland Indians; his relationship with Drepacca and Quassapelagh, and the peculiar status of the Tayac Chicamec in the triumvirate. As briefly as the complexity of the subject permitted he described the history of Chicamec's antagonism towards the English, the ironic fates of his three sons, and the consequent insecurity of his present position in the conspiracy. Mary Mungummory and Harvey Russecks hung astonished on the tale; had not McEvoy been already familiar with the greater portion of it and thus able to devote his attention at times to other matters, the two partridges would have burned untended on the spit.