John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Ebenezer shuddered, turned from the window, and drew the curtains fast. His stomach was extremely uneasy. He lay down on the bed and tried to sleep, but with no success: the daring of his interview with Charles Calvert, and all that followed on it, kept him tossing and turning long after his muscles had begun to ache and his eyes to burn for sleep. The specters of William Claiborne, Richard Ingle, William Penn, Josias Fendall, and John Coode — their strange and terrible energy, their intrigues and insurrections — chilled and sickened him but refused to be driven from his awareness; and he could not give over remembering and pronouncing his title even after repetition had taken pleasure and sense from the epithet and left it a nightmare string of sounds. His saliva ran freely; he was going to be ill. Poet and Laureate of the Province of Maryland! There was no turning back. Out under the night, Maryland and his single mortal destiny awaited him.

"Ah, God!" he wept at last, and sprang from the bed in an icy sweat. Running to the chamber pot he flung off the lid and with a retch heaved into it the wine of his triumph. Once delivered of it, he felt somewhat calmer: he returned to the bed, clasped his knees against his chest to quiet the agitation of his stomach, and so contrived, after countless fretful sighs, a sort of sleep.

Whatever trepidations or dank night doubts had lately plagued the Laureate's repose, when the sun rose next morning over London they were burned off with the mist of the Thames. He woke at nine refreshed in body and spirit, and, when he remembered the happenings of the day before and his new office, it was with delight.

"Bertrand! You, Bertrand!" he called, springing from the bed. "Are you there, fellow?"

His man appeared at once from the next room.

"Did you sleep well, sir?"

"Like a silly babe. What a morning! It ravishes me!"

"Methought I heard ye taken with the heaves last night."

" 'Sheart, a sour pint, belike, at Locket's," Ebenezer replied lightly, "or a stein of green ale. Fetch my shirt there, will you? There's a good fellow. Egad, what smells as fresh as new-pressed linen or feels as clean?"

" 'Tis a marvel ye threw it off so. Such a groaning and a hollowing!"

"Indeed?" Ebenezer laughed and began to dress with leisurely care. "Nay, not those; my knit cottons today. Hollowing, you say? Some passing nightmare, I doubt not; I've no memory of't. Nothing to fetch surgeon or priest about."

"Priest, sir!" Bertrand exclaimed with a measure of alarm. " 'Tis true, then, what they say?"

"It may be, or it may not. Who are they, and what is their story?"

"Some have it, sir," Bertrand replied glibly, "thou'rt in Lord Baltimore's employ, who all the world knows is a famous Papist, and that 'twas only on your conversion to Rome he gave ye your post."

" 'Dslife!" Ebenezer turned to his man incredulously. "What scurrilous libel! How came you to hear it?"

Bertrand blushed. "Begging your pardon, sir, ye may have marked ere now that albeit I am a bachelor, I am not without interest in the ladies, and that, to speak plainly, I and a certain young serving maid belowstairs have what ye might call — "

"An understanding," Ebenezer suggested impatiently. "Do I know it, you scoundrel? D'you think I've not heard the twain of you clipping and tumbling the nights away in your room, when you thought me asleep? I'faith, 'tis enough to wake the dead! If my poor puking cost you an hour's sleep last night, 'tis not the hundredth part of what I owe you! Is't she told you this tale of a cock and a bull?"

"Aye," admitted Bertrand, "but 'twas not of her making."

"Whence came it, then? Get to the point, man! 'Tis a sorry matter when a poet cannot accept an honor without suffering on the instant the slanders of the envious, or make a harmless trope without his man's crying Popery!"

"I crave your pardon, sir," said Bertrand. " 'Twas no accusation, only concern; I thought it my duty to tell ye what your enemies are saying. The fact is, sir, my Betsy, who is a hot-blooded, affectionate lass, hath the bad luck to be married, and that to a lackluster chilly fellow whose only passions are ambition and miserliness, and who, though he'd like a sturdy son to bring home extra wages, is as sparing with caresses as with coins. Such a money-grubber is he that, after a day's work as a clerk's apprentice in the Customs-House, he labors half the night as a fiddler in Locket's to put by an extra crown, with the excuse 'tis a nest egg against the day she finds herself with child. But 'sblood, 'tis such a tax on his time that he scarce sees her from one day to the next and on his strength that he hath not the wherewithal to roger what time he's with her! It seemed a sinful waste to me to see, on the one hand, poor Betsy alone and all a-fidget for want of husbanding, and on the other her husband Ralph a-hoarding money to no purpose, and so like a proper Samaritan I did what I could for the both of 'em: Ralph fiddled and I diddled."

"How's that, you rascal? The both of 'em! Small favor to the husband, to bless him with horns! What a villainy!"

"Ah, on the contrary, sir, if I may say so, 'twas a double boon I did him, for not only did I plough his field, which else had lain fallow, but seeded it as well, and from every sign 'twill be a bumper crop come fall. Look ye, sir, ere ye judge me a monster; the lad knew naught but toil and thankless drudgery before and took no pleasure in't, save the satisfaction of drawing his wage. He came home to a wife who carped and quarreled for lack o' love and was set to leave him for good, which would've been the death of him. Now he works harder than ever, proud as a peacock he's got a son a-building, and his clerking and fiddling have changed from mere labor to royal sport. As for Betsy, that was wont to nag and bark at him before, she's turned sweet as a sugar-tit and jumps to his every whim and fancy; she would not leave him for the Duke o' York. Man and wife are both the happier for't."

"And thou'rt the richer by a mistress that costs you not a farthing to keep," Ebenezer added, "and on whom you may get a household of bastards with impunity!"

Bertrand shrugged, adjusting his master's cravat.

"As't happens, yes," he admitted, "though I hear't said that virtue is its own reward."

"Then 'twas this cuckold of a fiddler started the story?" demanded Ebenezer. "I'll take the wretch to court!"

"Nay, 'twas but gossip he passed on to Betsy last night, who passed it on to me this morning. He had it from the drinkers at Locket's, after all the toasting was done and you were gone."

"Unconscionable envy and malice!" Ebenezer cried. "Do you believe it?"

"Marry, sir, 'tis no concern o' mine what persuasion ye follow. I'll confess I wondered, after Betsy told me, whether all thy hollowing and pitching last night was not a free-for-all 'twixt you and your conscience, or some strange Papish ceremony, for I know they've a bag of 'em for every time o' day. B'm'faith, 'twere mere good business, methinks, to take his superstitious vows for him, if that's the condition for the post. Soon or late, we all must strike our bargains with the world. Everything hath its price, and yours was no dear one, inasmuch as neither milord Baltimore nor any other Jesuit can see what's in your heart. All ye need do is say him his hey-nonny-nonnies whenever he's there to hear 'em; as for the rest of the world, 'tis none o' their concern what office ye hold, or what it cost ye, or who got it for ye. Keep mum on't, draw your pay, and let the Pope and the world go hang."

"Lord, hear the cynic!" said Ebenezer. "My word on't, Bertrand, I struck no bargain with Lord Baltimore, nor dickered and haggled any quid pro quos, I'm no more Papist this morning than I was last week, and as for salary, my office pays me not a shilling."