John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Marry sir, do I have't aright?" he asked incredulously. "Ye must deliver Cohunkowprets or the other wight to Bloodsworth Island within the month, or else the salvages will burn the two hostages?"

"They'll burn the three of us," Ebenezer affirmed. " 'Tis my fault they're on Bloodsworth Island."

Both his listeners glanced questioningly at McEvoy, who lowered his eyes to the food and said — in a voice surely too low for the trapper to catch — "I owe Mister Cooke my life; that's true enough. God knows whether I'm hero enough not to renege on the debt."

"The fact is," Ebenezer concluded, "we're all of us like to lose our scalps anon, when the war commences, and there's reason to think 'twill commence when this same month of mine expires. They seemed quite indifferent whether I spread the news of their plot; 'tis as if they feel our militia's not a match for them."

"They're right enough there," declared their host. "Copley and Nicholson both refused help to New York, e'en when the Schenectady folk were murthered, and 'tis folly to look for help from Andros in Virginia or the Quaker William Penn: they'd like naught better than to see us butchered by the salvages and Negroes, for all they might be next at the block themselves." He shook his head. "The worst of't is, an honest man can't hate the wretches for't. When a poor wight's driven from his rightful place, and pushed, and pushed — to say naught o' being clapped in hobbles and sold off the block like a dray-horse — i'faith, 'tis only natural he'll fight the man that's pushing him, if he hath any spirit left in him. I've no great wish to lose my scalp, sirs, but I swear I'm half on the Indians' side o' the question."

"As am I," Mary agreed.

"And I," said Ebenezer; "not alone because there's justice in their cause, but because there's a deal of the salvage in all of us. But as you say, 'twere better to keep one's scalp than lose it. 'Tis for that reason I must find Chicamec's sons: Burlingame I know is a very Siren for persuasion, and this Cohunkowprets, if he hath in sooth embraced the English cause. . my plan is to apply to his new loyalties, if I can contrive it; send him back to the Ahatchwhoops as a penitent prodigal; let him assume his place as prince of the bloody realm, where he can do his best to influence Quassapelagh and Drepacca, and haply forestall the massacre. 'Tis a chancy gambit, but desperate cases want desperate physic; and until Mary, or the twain of you, tell your tales, I know naught of Cohunkowprets save that he deserted his people to woo some English woman, just as his brother Mattassin before him — "

He stopped and blushed. "Forgive me, Mary."

The woman waved his apology away and sighed a corpulent sigh. "Naught to forgive, Mister Cooke. I feel no shame at loving Charley Mattassin, nor any regret nor anger at his end. If I could believe his brother was like him — Nay no matter! We'll learn soon enough, and in any case — " She paused, and a little tremor shook her. "I'm minded of some old scoundrels Charley read about in his Homer and his Virgil, and the two of us were wont to chuckle at — their names are gone, but one was the father of Achilles and the other of Aeneas — "

Ebenezer supplied the names Peleus and Anchises; he was surprised anew at the extent, not only of the Indian's late forays into Western culture but also of Mary's pertinent recollections, and McEvoy, who knew nothing of the curious relationship, was flabbergast.

"Those were the wights," Mary affirmed. "Each had bumped his bacon with a goddess, and the twain of 'em were ruined for life by't. No doubt 'twas a bargain at the price, but there are bargains a soul can't afford but once. D'ye see my point?"

They did — Ebenezer and the trapper in any case — and Mary went on.

"Now mind, I'm not saying this Billy Rumbly is Mattassin's brother: I've ne'er laid eyes on him, as Harvey hath, and Charley ne'er spoke overmuch about his family. But what I've heard o' the wretch and his English woman I can fathom to the core. There's something in't of what Mister Cooke declared just now — that there's a piece o' the salvage in us all. 'Tis that and more: the dark of 'em hath somewhat to do with't, I know. What drives so many planters' ladies to raise their skirts for some great buck of a slave, like the Queen in The Thousand and One Nights? Methinks 'tis an itch for all we lose as proper citizens — something in us pines for the black and lawless Pit."

She had been looking at the pine logs on the fire; now she straightened her shoulders, rubbed her nose vigorously as if it itched, and sniffed self-consciously. "But that's no tale, is it, Harvey?"

"Not a bit of't," Harvey replied. " 'Tis a great mistake for a taleteller to philosophize and tell us what his story means; haply it doth not mean what he thinks at all." But the trapper was clearly impressed by Mary's analysis, as were Ebenezer and McEvoy.

" 'Tis what I thought of, in any case," she said good-naturedly, "when Roxie Russecks told me about Billy Rumbly and the Church Creek Virgin."

Ebenezer bit his lip, and Mary hurried into the story.

"Just a fortnight ago or thereabouts this woman came to Church Creek, all alone, with no baggage or chattels save what little she could carry, and went from house to house looking for lodgings. She was a spinster of thirty or so, so I hear't, and declared she was new out of England; gave her name as Miss Bromly of London."

"Dear Heav'n!" Ebenezer cried. "I know that girl! She was our neighbor when we lived on Plumtree Street!" He laughed aloud with sharp relief. "Aye, there's the answer! She spoke of me, and ye took her for my sister! What business hath Miss Bromly in Maryland?"

"Hear me out," Mary answered darkly. "As I say, she gave her name as Miss Meg Bromly, but when folk asked her what her business was in Church Creek, and how long she meant to hire lodgings, she had no ready reply. Some took her for a runaway redemptioner; others thought she was the mistress o' some planter, that meant to keep her in Church Creek; others yet believed she was got in the family way and either turned out by her father or sent to the country for her confinement — albeit she showed no signs of't in the waist. 'Tis rare to find a maiden lady of thirty years anywhere, but especially in the Plantations, and rarer yet to find one traveling alone, without servants or proper baggage, and not e'en able to state her business plainly. Add to this, she was nowise ugly or deformed, and spoke as civil as any lady — she could have had her choice o' husbands for the asking, I daresay — 'tis small wonder the ladies she applied to, whate'er their views, all took her for a bad woman, either a whore already or a whore-to-be, and had naught to do with her. As for the men, they slavered and drooled after her like boars to a salt young sow, and if any doubted she was a whore, they doubted no more when she took rooms at Russecks's inn: 'tis no inn, really, but a common store and tavern that blackguard of a miller owns — Harvey's brother. There's an upstairs to't, no more than a loft walled off into stalls with pallets; 'tis where my girls set up shop when we're in the neighborhood, ere we go on to Cambridge and Cooke's Point.

"Well, she stood them off as haughty as ye please, but they reckoned she was holding out for a higher price. Finally they asked her to name her hire, whereupon she drew a little pistol from her coat and replied, she'd charge a man his life just to lay hands on her, and King William himself couldn't buy her maidenhead. With that she went up into the loft, and no man in the room durst follow her. Thenceforth they called her the Virgin o' Church Creek, merely for a tease, inasmuch as they all believed she was the mistress of Governor Nicholson, or John Coode, or some other important man. She came and went whene'er she pleased, and no man touched her. Now and again she'd make enquiries of 'em, whether they knew aught of the state o' things at Malden, on Cooke's Point, and o' course they knew Malden to be the fleshpot o' Dorset County, so they took her all the more surely for a fashionable whore.