John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Yet 'twas but across the street he went!" Ebenezer protested.

"I know naught of't," Dolly said stubbornly, and turned to go.

"Wait!" the poet called.

"Well?"

He blushed. " 'Tis something chill out here — might you fetch me a blanket from upstairs, or other covering, against my man's return?"

Dolly shook her head. " 'Tis not a service of the house, sir, save to them as stop the night. Your man paid me a shilling for the breeches, but naught was said of blankets."

"Plague take thee!" Ebenezer cried, in his wrath almost forgetting to conceal himself. "Was Midas e'er so greedy as a woman? You'll get thy filthy shilling anon, when my man appears!"

"No penny, no paternoster," the girl said pertly. "I have no warrant he'll appear."

"Thy master shall hear of this impertinence!"

She shrugged, Burlingame-like.

"A toddy, then, i'God, or coffee, ere I take ill! 'Sheart, girl, I am — " He checked himself, remembering the pirate captains. " 'Tis a gentleman that asks you, not a common sailor!"

"Were't King William himself he'd have not a sip on credit at the King o' the Seas."

Ebenezer gave over the attempt. "If I must catch my death in this foul stable," he sighed, "might you at least provide me ink and quill, or is that too no service of the house?"

"Ink and quill are free for all to use," Dolly allowed, and shortly brought them to the stable door.

"Ye must use your own book to scribble in," she declared. "Paper's too dear to throw away."

"And I threatened you with your master! Marry, thou'rt his fortune!"

Alone again, he set on the dog-eared page of his ledger book that aphoristic couplet which had so aided him, and would have tried his hand at further verses, but the discomfort of his situation made creation impossible. The passage of time alarmed him: the sun passed the meridian and began its fall toward the west; soon, surely, it would be time to board the shallop which was to ferry them to the Poseidon, and still there was no sign of Burlingame. The wind changed direction, blew more directly off the harbor and into the stable, and chilled the poet through. At length he was obliged to seek shelter in an empty stall nearby, where enough fresh hay was piled to cover his legs and hips when he sat in it. Indeed, after his initial distaste he found himself warm and comfortable enough, if still a trifle apprehensive — as much for Burlingame's welfare as for his own, for he readily imagined his friend's having fallen afoul of the pirate captains. Resolving to cheer himself with happier thoughts (and at the same time fight against the drowsiness that his relative comfort induced at once) he turned again to that page in his notebook which bore the Poseidon quatrain. And for all he'd never yet laid eyes upon that vessel, after some deliberation he joined to the first quatrain a second, which called her frankly

A noble Ship, from Deck to Peaks,

Akin to those that Homers Greeks

Sail'd east to Troy in Days of Yore,

As we sail'd now to MARYLANDS Shore.

From here it was small labor to extend the tribute to captain and crew as well, though in truth he'd met no seafaring men in his life save Burlingame and the fearsome pirate captains. Giving himself wholly to the muse, and rejecting quatrains for stanzas of a length befitting the epic, he wrote on:

Our Captain, like a briny God,

Beside the Helm did pace and plod,

And shouted Orders at the Sky,

Where doughty Seamen, Mast-top high,

Unfurl'd and furl'd our mighty Sails,

To catch the Winds but miss the Gales.

O noble, salty Tritons Race,

Who brave the wild Atlantics Face

And reckless best both Wind and Tide:

God bless thee, Lads, fair Albions Pride!

In a kind of reverie he saw himself actually aboard the Poseidon, dry-breeched and warm, his gear safely stowed below. The sky was brilliant. A fresh wind from the east raised whitecaps in the sparkling ocean, threatened to lift his hat and the hats of the cordial gentlemen with whom he stood in converse on the poop, and fanned from red to yellow the coals of good tobacco in their pipes. With what grace did the crewmen race aloft to make sail! To what a chorus did the anchor rise dripping from the bottom of the sea and the mighty ship make way! The gentlemen held their hats, peered down at the wave of foam beneath the sprit and up at the sea birds circling off the yards, squinted their eyes against sun and spray, and laughed in awe at the scrambling sailors. Anon a steward from below politely made a sign, and all the gay company retired to dinner in the Captain's quarters. Ebenezer sat at that worthy's right, and no wit was sharper than his, nor any hunger. But what a feast was laid before them! Dipping his quill again, he wrote:

Ye ask, What eat our merry Band

En Route to lovely MARYLAND?

I answer: Ne'er were such Delights

As met our Sea-sharp'd Appetites

E'er serv'd to Jove and Junos Breed

By Vulcan and by Ganymede.

There was more to be said, but no sweeter was the dream than its articulation, and so thorough his fatigue, he scarce could muster gumption to subscribe the usual E.C., G ent, P t& L tof M dbefore his eyes completely closed, his head nodded forward, and he knew no more.

It seemed but a moment that he slept; yet when roused by the noise of a groom leading a horse into the stable, he observed with alarm that the sun was well along in the western sky: the square of light from the doorway stretched almost to where he sat in the straw. He leaped up, remembered his semi-nudity, and snatched a double handful of straw to cover himself.

"The jakes is there across the yard, sir," the boy said, not visibly surprised, "though I grant 'tis little sweeter than this stable."

"Nay, you mistake me, lad — But no matter. See you those drawers and breeches on yonder line? 'Twill be a great service to me if you will feel of them, whether they be dry, and if so, fetch them hither with all haste, for I must catch a ferry to the Downs."

The young man did as instructed, and soon Ebenezer was able to leave the stable behind him at last and run with all possible speed to the wharf, searching as he ran for Burlingame or the two pirate captains into whose clutches he feared his friend had fallen. When he reached the wharf, breathless, he found to his dismay that the shallop was already gone and his trunk with it, though Burlingame's remained behind on the pier exactly where it had been placed that morning. His heart sank.

An old mariner sat nearby on a coil of rope belonging to the shallop, smoking a long clay pipe.

"I say, sir, when did the shallop sail?"

"Not half an hour past," the old man said, not troubling to turn his eyes. "Ye can spy her yet."

"Was there a short fellow among the passengers, that wore" — he was ready to describe Burlingame's port-purple coat, but remembered in time his friend's disguise — "that called himself Bertrand Burton, a servant of mine?"

"None that I saw. No servants at all, that I saw."

"But why did you leave this trunk ashore and freight its neighbor?" Ebenezer demanded. "They were to go together to the Poseidon."

" 'Twas none o' my doing," said the mariner with a shrug. "Mr. Cooke took his with him when he sailed; the other man sails tonight oh a different ship."

"Mr. Cooke!" cried Ebenezer. He was about to protest that he himself was Ebenezer Cooke, Laureate of Maryland, but thought better of it: in the first place, the pirates might still be searching for him — the old mariner, for all he knew, might be in their employ; Cooke, moreover, was a surname by no means rare, and the whole thing could well be no more than a temporary confusion.