John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Thus we harassed old Copley, who scarce knew what was happening till the following February, when the Lords Commissioners charged Blackistone with graft. Then, too late, he saw our plot, and in the spring of last year arrested Carroll, Sir Thomas himself, Edward Randolph, and a host of others, among whom was Peter Sayer of Talbot, the man I was disguised as in Ben Bragg's bookshop. Sir Thomas was jailed, as was Carroll, and impeached into the bargain; Randolph was arrested on the Eastern Shore of Virginia by the Somerset County sheriff, but ere he could get him out of Accomac I sent word of't to Edmund Andros in Williamsburg, who'd been a drinking-friend of Randolph's since the old days in Boston, and Andros fetched him home for safety."

"E'en so, thy cause was damaged, was it not?" asked Ebenezer.

"My cause?" Burlingame smiled. " 'Tis thine as well, is't not, since we work for the same employer? Let us say instead our cause was discommoded for a time; we knew well old Copley couldn't hold such men for long, but we wanted them out of prison, not alone for their own comfort but for fear John Coode might turn up in their absence and gain ground with Copley. As't happened our fears were empty, for both the Governor and his wife died in September — methinks they ne'er acclimatized to Maryland. His death suggested to me a wondrous mischief — "

"Great Heavens, Henry, thou'rt a plotting Coode thyself!"

"You recall I said Lord Baltimore had made Andros commander-in-chief of the Province, and his commission gave him full authority in the event of Nicholson's death and Copley's absence. It struck me now that albeit 'twas Copley dead and Nicholson absent, I could work a grand confusion anyhow, and so I went posthaste to Williamsburg to take the news to Andros and persuade him his commission was in force. He was inclined to doubt it, but he knew me for an agent of Lord Baltimore; what's more, though he made no mention of't, he was not averse to stealing Nicholson's thunder, as't were, by rescuing law and order in Maryland, for he himself had felt the pricks of following Nicholson in Virginia. To be brief, he marched into St. Mary's City, demanded the government of Maryland, dissolved the Assembly, suspended Blackistone, turned Lawrence loose, and took him with his party back to Williamsburg, leaving the Province in the charge of an amiable nobody named Greenberry. 'Twas his design to return again this spring and make Lawrence president of the Council, but whether he hath done it I've yet to learn.

"I could see no immediate employment for myself in the Province after this, and so I crossed come January here to London. I arrived not two weeks past, and learned to my dismay that neither Nicholson nor Baltimore hath the Assembly Journal in his possession for fear of Coode's agents. Instead, Lord Baltimore declares, he hath broken it into three portions for safekeeping and deposited the several portions privily in Maryland, whence I had just come! I begged of him the trustees' names, but he was loath to discover them — not Nicholson himself, it seems, knew more than I on the matter. But a few days past he said he had a mission for me of such importance he could trust it to no other soul; and I replied, surely I was not worthy of such trust, if he dared not name me the keepers of the Journal. Whereat he smiled and said I had him fair; the pieces of the Journal, he confessed, were in the hands of sundry loyal persons of the surname Smith, for reasons I'd no need to ask, and he told me their names in greatest confidence. I thanked him and declared I was ready for whatever work he gave me, and he said a young man had called on him that afternoon that was a poet, and he had charged him to write a work in praise of Maryland and the proprietorship — the which, he believed, if nobly done, might profit more than ten intrigues to win him back the Province."

" 'Sheart, what a marvelous small world!" Ebenezer cried. "And how pleased I am to find he sets such store by poetry. But prithee what work was't in this connection, that warranted such concession on his part?"

"He enquired of me, whether I knew the poet Ebenezer Cooke? My heart leaped, for I'd had no word of you or Anna these seven years, but I answered merely I had heard mention of a poet by that name. Then he told me of your visit and proposal, and his commission, and said I should accompany you to Maryland — for that you'd ne'er before been out of England — and act both as your guide and your protector. I leave it to you to imagine with what readiness I took on the task, and straightway sought you out!"

Now the earlier portions of this long narrative had elicited from Ebenezer such a number of ah's, marry's, 'sheart's, and b'm'faith's that he had come during this last to sit for the most part wordlessly, mouth agape and brows a-pucker in a sort of permanent i'God! as one amazement tripped on another's heels. At the end he was moved enough to embrace Burlingame unashamedly — and had, he found, to add bad breath to the host of alterations worked on his friend by this seven-year adventure: it was no doubt a product of the teeth gone carious.

"Ah God," he cried, "if Anna but knew all you've told me! Wherefore this role as Peter Sayer, Henry? Why did you not at least reveal yourself in London ere we left, that she might share my joy at finding you?"

Burlingame sighed, and after a moment replied, "I am wont to go by names other than my own, either borrowed or invented, for sundry reasons stemming from my work. 'Twould do no good for Coode to know my name nor e'en that I exist. What's more, I can confound him and his agents: I posed as Sayer in Bragg's, for instance, and forged his name, merely because Coode thinks the man's in Plymouth with the fleet. In like manner I've pretended to be both friends and enemies of Baltimore, to advance his cause. Once, I shall confess, that time on Perry Browne's ship Bailey, I posed as Coode himself to the poor dolt Ben Ricaud, to intercept those letters. The truth is, Eben, no man save Richard Hill, Lord Baltimore, and yourself hath known my name since 1687, when first I commenced to play the game of governments; and the game itself hath made such changes in me, that none who knew me erst would know me now, nor do I mean them to. 'Tis better they think me lost."

"Yet surely Anna — "

" 'Tis but thy first enquiry I've replied to," Burlingame interrupted, raising his forefinger. "For the second, do not forget that many are bound from London for the fleet — Coode's men as well as ours, and haply Coode himself. 'Twould have been foolish, even perilous, to shed my mask in that place. Moreover, there was no time: I scarce caught up with you ere you left, and mark how long I've been discovering myself to you. The fleet had sailed without us."

"Aye, that's true," Ebenezer admitted.

"What's more" — Burlingame laughed — "I'd not yet made my own mind up, whether 'twere wise e'en you should know the truth."

"What! Think you I'd e'er betray thy trust? And could you thus callously deprive me of my only friend? You injure me!"

"As to the first, 'twas just to answer it I posed as Sayer and queried you — the years change any man. Ben Bragg had said thou'rt but an opportunist; nor was your servant more persuaded of your motive, for all he admired you. Again, how could I know your sentiments towards Burlingame? The tale you told to Peter Sayer was your bond; when I had heard it, I revealed myself at once, but had you sung a different tune, 'tis Peter Sayer had been your guide, not Burlingame."

"Enough. I am convinced and cannot tell my joy. Yet your relation shames me for my tearfulness and sloth, as doth your wisdom my poor talent. Thou'rt a Virgil worth a better Dante."

"Oh la," Burlingame scoffed, "you've wit enough, and ear. Besides, the Province is no Hell or Purgatorio, but just a piece o' the great world like England — with the difference, haply, that the soil is vast and new where the sot-weed hath not drained it. What's more, the reins and checks are few and weak; good plants and weeds alike grow tall. Do but recall, if the people there seem strange and rough: a man content with Europe scarce would cross the ocean. The plain fact is, the greatest part are castaways from Europe, or the sons of castaways: rebels, failures, jailbirds and adventurers. Cast such seed on such soil, 'twere fond to seek a crop of dons and courtiers!"