John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"We must make haste!" McEvoy gasped. "We may freeze yet!"

As fast as they could manage, stumbling and panting, they moved up the shore towards their beacon, now plainly recognizable as the lighted windows of a good-sized house. Not far from it, where the beach met the lawn of the house, stood a tall loblolly pine, at the foot of which they saw a conspicuous white object, like a large vertical stone. Ebenezer's hackles tingled. "Ah God!" he cried and summoned the last of his strength to sprint forward and embrace the grave. The feeble moon sufficed to show the inscription:

Anne Bowyer Cooke

b. 1645 d. 1666

Thus Far Hath the Lord

Helped Us.

The others came up behind. "What is it?"

Ebenezer would not turn his head. "My journey's done," he wept. "I have come full circle. Yonder's Malden; go and save yourselves."

Astonished, they read the gravestone, and when entreaty proved vain, they lifted Ebenezer by main strength from the grave. Once upon his feet, he offered them no resistance, but the last of his spirit seemed gone.

"Had I ne'er been brought to birth," he said, pointing to the stone, "that woman were alive today, and my sister with her, and my father a gentleman sot-weed planter, and the three of them happy in yonder house."

Bertrand was too near freezing to offer a reply, if he had any, but McEvoy — who likewise shook from head to foot with cold — led the poet off by the arm and said, "Go to, 'tis like the sin o' Father Adam, that we all have on our heads; we ne'er asked for't, but there it is, and do we choose to live, why, we must needs live with't."

Ebenezer had been used to seeing Malden a-bustle with deplorable activity after dark, but now only the parlor appeared to be occupied; the rest of the house, as well as the grounds and outbuildings — he peered with awful shame in the direction of the curing-house — was dark and quiet. As they went up the empty lawn toward the front door, which faced south-westwards to the grave and the Bay beyond, McEvoy, as much to warm himself, no doubt, as to comfort Ebenezer, went on to declare through chattering teeth that the single light was a good sign: without question it meant that Andrew Cooke had put his house in order and was waiting with his daughter-in-law for news of his prodigal son. He would be overjoyed to see them; they would be clothed and fed, and alarms would be dispatched at once to Anne Arundel Town to intercept Long Ben Avery.

"Stay." Ebenezer shook his head. "Such fables hurt too much beside the truth."

McEvoy released his arm angrily. "Still the virgin," he cried, "with no thought for any wight's loss save his own! Run down and die on yonder grave!"

Ebenezer shook his head: he wanted to explain to his injured companion that he suffered not from his loss alone, but from McEvoy's as well, and Anna's, and Andrew's, and even Bertrand's — from the general condition of things, in sum, for which he saw himself answerable — and that the pain of loss, however great, was as nothing beside the pain of responsibility for it. The fallen suffer from Adam's fall, he wanted to explain; but in that knowledge — which the Fall itself vouchsafed him — how more must Adam have suffered! But he was too gripped by cold and despair to essay such philosophy.

They reached the house.

"We'd best have a look through the window ere we knock," Bertrand said. "I'Christ, what will Master Andrew say to me, that was sent to be your adviser!"

They went to the lighted window of the parlor, from which they heard the sounds of masculine laughter and conversation.

McEvoy got there first. "Some men at cards," he reported, and then a look of sudden pain came into his face. "Dear God! Can that be poor Joan?"

Bertrand hastened up beside him. "Aye, that's the swine-maid, and yonder's Master Andrew in the periwig, but — "

Now he too showed great distress. "God's blood and body, Master Eben! Tis Colonel Robotham!"

But Ebenezer was at the window sill by this time, and beheld for himself these wonders and others by far more marvelous. Joan Toast, so beridden and devoured by her afflictions that she looked a leprous Bedlamite, was hobbling with a pitcher of ale towards a green baize table in the center of the parlor, about whose circumference five gentlemen sat at cards: the lawyer, physician, and minister of the gospel Richard Sowter, who sucked on his pipe and called upon various saints to witness the wretched hand he was being dealt; the cooper (and dealer) William Smith, who smiled grandly at the table and with his pipestem directed Joan to fill Andrew Cooke's glass; Bertrand's portly, sanguine father-in-law from Talbot County, Colonel George Robotham, who seemed preoccupied with something quite other than lanterloo; Andrew Cooke himself, grown thinner and older-looking since Ebenezer had seen him last, but more sharp-eyed than ever, grasping his cards in his good left hand and glancing like an old eagle at the others, as if they were not his adversaries but his prey; and finally, most appalling of all, at Andrew's withered right arm, joking as merrily over his cards as if he were back in Locket's — Henry Burlingame, still in the character he called Nicholas Lowe of Talbot!

"Very well, gentlemen," the cooper declared, having dealt four hands. "I share the fortunes of Mr. Sowter, I believe."

"Put it the other way about," Burlingame remarked, "and there'll be more truth than poetry in't when we get to court."

Sowter shook his head in mock despair. "St. Dominic's sparrow, neighbors! If our case were half as feeble as this miscarriage, we'd get no farther than the courthouse jakes with't, I swear!"

"As we all know ye shan't in any case," Burlingame taunted amiably, "inasmuch as the only real case to argue is the size of your bribe."

"Ah, lads, go to," said Andrew Cooke. "This talk of bribes and miscarriages alarms the Colonel!" He smiled sardonically at Colonel Robotham. "Do forgive my son his over-earnestness, George: 'tis a famous failing of the lad's, as I daresay your daughter hath remarked."

Outside the window, Bertrand gasped. "D'ye hear that, Master Eben? He called that wight his son! An entire stranger!"

"There's something amiss," McEvoy agreed, "but they all seem peaceable enough." Without more ado he began to rap on the windowpanes. "Hallo! Hallo! Let us in or we're dead men!"

"Nay, i'Christ!" cried Bertrand, but he was too late; the startled players turned towards the window.

"Januarius's bubbling blood!"

"Look to't, Susan," the cooper ordered calmly, and Joan Toast set her pitcher on the sideboard.

"Ebenezer, my boy," said Andrew Cooke, "fetch thy pistol." Burlingame laid his cards face down on the baize and went to do as he was bid.

Joan Toast opened the door and thrust out a lantern. "Who is't?" she called listlessly.

"Run!" muttered Bertrand, and lit out across the lawn.

McEvoy drew back from the window and bit his underlip nervously. "What say ye, Eben?" he whispered. "Hadn't we best run for't?"

But the poet neither moved nor made reply, for the reason that at first sight of the strange assemblage in the parlor he had been dumfounded, brought back (or around, as the case may be) to that vulnerable condition of his youth which the cuisses of virginity, the cuirass of his laureateship, were donned to shield; and when in addition he had witnessed his father addressing Burlingame — incredibly! — as "my son" and "Ebenezer," he had been frozen on the instant where he stood, not by the Bay wind but by the same black breeze that thrice before — in Magdalene College, in Locket's, and in his room in Pudding Lane — had sighed from the Pit to ice his bones.

"Who is't?" Joan repeated.

McEvoy stepped from behind Ebenezer so that the light from the parlor window illumined his face.