John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Yet for all their ingenuity and the wiles of a score of would-be lovers, Sir Harry hath managed to keep his eye on 'em day and night. When he's at the inn, they are his barmaids, more often than not; when he's at the mill, they are his grist-girls. They even sleep all in a room, with Sir Harry's cutlass hanging ready at the bedpost. Only once in all these years have the pair of 'em got free of him — and marry, 'twas a fortnight folk still talk about!"

When they were still a hundred feet from the mill — which from the look of it served also as the family house — Harry Russecks stepped outside and glared at them, arms akimbo. At the same time they saw in an upstairs window the figures of two women regarding them with interest. Mary Mungummory returned their wave, but Ebenezer shivered.

"And ye say he fears these mill commissioners like the plague?" McEvoy mused. Suddenly he laid his hand on Mary's arm. "I say, thou'rt a good sort, Mary; will ye aid me in a little lark? And you as well, Eben? I owe ye my life already; will ye stand me farther credit?" All he wished to do, he explained to his skeptical companions, was give the boorish miller a draught of his own prescription; if he failed, none would be the worse for it, and if he succeeded —

"I'Christ, but let's put it to the test!" he said hurriedly, for they were almost within earshot of the miller. "State thy own affairs as always, Mary, and say ye know no more of us than that ye picked us up along the road after the storm. Nay, more: ye suspect there is more to us than meets the eye, inasmuch as we've been uncommon secretive from the first, and chary o' stating our names and business."

" Twill ne'er succeed, lad," Mary warned, but her eyes twinkled already at prospect of a prank.

"Prithee, John," Ebenezer whispered, "we've no time for frivolous adventures! Think of Bertrand and Captain Cairn — "

He could protest no more for fear of being overheard, and McEvoy's expression was resolute. The Irishman's sudden interest in the miller's daughter struck him not only as a conventional impropriety and a breach of their solemn trust, but also as a sort of infidelity to Joan Toast, despite the fact that Joan had clearly abandoned McEvoy for himself, and that he himself had been unfaithful to her in a sense by far less honorable than the sexual. He held his peace and waited miserably to see what would develop.

"Afternoon, Sir Harry!" Mary called, and clambered down from the wagon. "Just passing through, and came to pay my respect to Roxie."

The miller ignored her. "Who are they?"

"Them?" Mary glanced back in surprise, as if just noticing her passengers. "Ah, them ye mean! They're two wights I found near Limbo Straits after the storm." In a voice just audible to the poet she added, "Said they had business in Church Creek, but they'd not say what. Is Roxie in?"

"Aye, but ye'll not see her," the miller declared, still glaring at the two men. "Thou'rt no fit company for a lady, e'en though she be a bitch o' perdition. Get on with ye!"

"Just as ye say." She waited as McEvoy climbed down, followed by Ebenezer. "If ye have any business farther north," she told them with a wink, " 'twould be no chore for me to ferry ye. I'll be yonder by the inn till tomorrow or next day."

"Most charitable of ye, madame," said McEvoy with a short bow. "And I thank ye for service both to ourselves and to His Majesty. 'Twill not be long till we reward ye more tangibly."

"Who are ye?" Russecks demanded. "What's your business in Church Creek?"

McEvoy turned, and so far from being intimidated, he surveyed the miller from head to toe with exaggerated suspicion.

"Speak up, dammee!"

Ebenezer saw the black beard commence to twitch in anger and was tempted to end the hoax before it was irrevocably launched, but before he could muster his courage McEvoy spoke.

"Did I hear this lady address you as Sir Harry?"

"Ye did, save ye be deef as well as cock-proud."

McEvoy looked accusingly at Mary. "Is't some strange humor of thine, madame, or a prank betwixt the twain o' ye, to pretend this glowering oaf is Sir Harry Russecks?"

From above, where the ladies had opened the casement to listen, came a gasp and a titter; even staunch Mary was taken aback by the Irishman's daring.

"How?" shouted the miller. "Doth he say I'm not Sir Harry?" His hand flew to the hilt of his cutlass.

"Nay, Ben, don't draw!" McEvoy cried to Ebenezer, who trembled nearby. "What, ye left your short-sword in the wagon?" He threw back his head and laughed; everyone, the miller and his women included, stood dumfounded.

" 'Tis well for thee, little miller," McEvoy said grimly, and went so far as to tweak the fellow's beard. "My friend Sir Benjamin had pricked thy gizzard in a trice, as he hath pricked two hundred like ye in the service of His Majesty. Now take us to Sir Harry, and no more impertinence, else I'll bid him flog the flour out o' thy hide."

"If ye please, sir," Mary broke in, plainly relishing the miller's discomfiture: "This is Sir Harry Russecks, on my life, sir, flour or no — yonder's his wife and daughter, sir, that will swear to't."

The ladies at the window merrily confirmed the fact, but McEvoy feigned some lingering doubt.

"If thou'rt Sir Harry Russecks, how is't thou'rt got up as a clownish laborer in the mill?"

"What's that ye say? Why, don't ye know, sirs — " He appealed to Mary for aid.

"Why, 'tis Sir Harry's little whim, sir," Mary declared. " 'Tis the mill first earned his bread, ere he married Mrs. Russecks, and he's not one to forget his humble birth, is good Sir Harry."

"Aye, aye, that's it; she hath hit the mark fair." For all his relief at the explanation, Russecks appeared not entirely happy with the reference to his birth. "Did ye — did I hear ye say thou'rt in the King's employ, sirs?"

"In a manner o' speaking, aye," McEvoy declared. "But I'd as well tell ye plainly at the outset, our commission went down with crew and pinnace in the storm, and till a new one comes from St. Mary's ye have the right to bar us from the premises an it please ye."

The miller's eyes widened. "Thou'rt Nicholson's commissioners?"

McEvoy refused either to affirm or deny the identification, declaring that until his authority was legal he thought the wisest course would be to speak no further of it.

"In any case," he said in a tone less stern, " 'tis not alone on Nicholson's business I travel. My name's McEvoy — Trade and Plantations when I'm home in London — Sir Jonathan at Whitehall is my father."

"Ye don't tell me!" marveled the miller, not yet entirely free of suspicion. "I can't say I have the pleasure o' knowing a Sir Jonathan McEvoy at Whitehall."

"To our discredit, I'm sure." McEvoy made a slight bow. "But I shan't lose hope that Mrs. Russecks may redeem us by acquaintance with the name."

This thrust evoked another response from the upstairs window; when McEvoy raised his eyes to the ladies, Mrs. Russecks (who Ebenezer saw was indeed the full-blown beauty Mary claimed her to be) nodded archly, and smiling Henrietta made an eager curtsy.

McEvoy gestured towards Ebenezer. "This formidable fellow is my friend Sir Benjamin Oliver, that thanks to his wondrous eye and stout right arm is belike the youngest member o' the peerage. Ladies, I give ye Sir Benjamin: a lion on the battlefield and a lambkin in the drawing-room!"

Ebenezer blushed both at the imposture and the characterization, but bowed automatically to the ladies.

"The fact is," McEvoy went on, "Sir Benjamin's father is visiting the plantations on business of his own, and I'm showing my bashful friend here the countryside. Needless to say, he hath heard of Mrs. Russecks's family in England."

"Ye do not say!" The miller wiped his nose proudly with a forefinger. "Heard o' Mrs. Russecks's family in England! Oh Roxie, did ye hear what the gentleman said? Our family's the talk o' the English peerage! Come down here!"