John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

But Ebenezer hesitated. " 'Twas a kind of gift," he said. "I am loath to part with't. ."

"Christ! Christ!" Susan wailed. "Ye will refuse me! Look ye hither, how that fiend abuses me! Will ye send me back for more?"

She raised her tattered skirt above her knees and displayed two legs which, wealed and welted though they were, had not been spoiled by the physic that had uglified the rest of her. Indeed, they were quite fetching legs, the first Ebenezer had seen since that day aboard the Cyprian.

"Ah, well, thou'rt still a woman," Bertrand said appreciatively, "and a good wench sits upon her own best argument."

This observation brought fresh tears from Susan and a scathing look from Ebenezer.

"I have seen harlotry enough," she declared, "and the boatman is a man too old to care."

"Indeed?" the valet smiled. "But my master and I are not."

"Hold thy tongue!" the poet commanded. Susan came up to him, and more than ever he was moved by her strange story and her resemblance to Joan Toast.

"Ye'd not see me beat again, would ye, sir?" They were in sight of a house by this time, whose lamplit windows shone across the tobacco-fields. "Yonder there is Captain Mitchell's house; he'll take you in right gladly as his guest, but me he will whip privily 'till he wearies of the sport."

Ebenezer had some difficulty with his voice. " 'Twere in sooth a pity," he croaked.

"I shan't allow it," the girl said softly. "If the man I loathe most in the world hath his will o' me whene'er it please him, shall I deny the man who delivers me from all my pain?" She fingered the fishbone ring and smiled. "Nay, 'twere a sin if my savior took not his entire pleasure this very night, ere I fly."

"Prithee, say no farther," Ebenezer answered. "My conscience would not rest were I to stand 'twixt you and your loving father. You shall have the ring." He slipped the rawhide thong over his head and presented her with the ring of Quassapelagh. To his mild annoyance the swine-maiden did not immediately melt with gratitude; indeed, her bearing stiffened as she took the gift, and her smile showed a certain bitterness.

"Done, then," she said, and stuffed the ring and lanyard into a pocket of her dress. They were at the edge of the woods, by a tobacco-field; the moon rising over the mouth of the river whitened their faces and the flanks of the hogs that rooted idly in the green tobacco. Susan stepped into the field, laid her staff on the ground between the rows, and turned to face them with arms akimbo.

"Now, Master Laureate of Maryland," she said, "come swive me in the sot-weed and have done with't."

The poet was shocked. " 'Sheart, Mrs. Warren, you misconstrue my gesture!"

"Oh?" She tossed her uncombed hair back from her face. "Anon, then, in the haymow by the barn? Surely thou'rt not the sort that wants a bed!"

Ebenezer stepped forward to protest. "I beg of you, madam — "

" 'Tis not your servant's presence puts ye off, now, is it?" she said mockingly. "Ye look the type that swives in broad daylight, let watch who will! Would it please ye better if I feign a rape?"

"God save us," Bertrand said, "the jade hath spirit! Plague take the hour I lost my fishbone ring!"

"Enough!" the Laureate cried. "I have no designs upon your person, Mrs. Warren, nor do I want reward of any sort, save that you join your father and throw off the vicious craving that hath whored you. To lay with women is contrary to my vows, and to set a price on charity is an insult to my principles."

This gave the swine-maid pause; she folded her arms, turned her head away, and dug a pensive toenail in the dirt.

"My master is a sort of rhyming priest," Bertrand explained quickly. "The bishop, don't you know, of all the poets. But 'tis a well-known fact the priest's vows are not binding on his sexton, nor do my master's principles extend to me — "

"Is't principle that makes your master scorn me?" Susan interrupted, and though her question was addressed to Bertrand it was Ebenezer she regarded. "Or is't my sorry state that makes him moral? He'd sing a lustier tune, methinks, were I free of whip-scars and the smell o' pigs, and young and sprightly as the girl Joan Toast."

"What name is thus?" cried the poet. "Dear God, I thought you said Joan Toast!"

Susan nodded affirmatively, once more dissolving into tears. "That is the girl I spoke of, that anon will be my master's newest sister, and the death of Susan Warren."

Ebenezer appealed to his valet. " 'Tis too fantastic, Bertrand!"

"I scarce can credit it myself, sir," Bertrand said. "Yet there is that passing likeness, that her tale explains."

" 'Tis not so strange," the girl said testily. "For all her sweet airs, this Joan Toast was a simple whore in London not long since, and many's the man hath known her."

"I forbid you to speak thus!" the Laureate ordered. "I hold a certain reverence for Joan Toast; she hath a strange deep home in me, for reasons known to none besides ourselves. Where is she, for the love of God? We must preserve her from this Mitchell!"

"How can we?" Bertrand asked. "We've neither weapons nor money."

Ebenezer grasped the swine-maiden's arm. "You must take her with you to your father's farm!" he said. "Tell her your tale and explain the peril she is in. Once I arrive at Malden I shall fetch her there — "

"And marry her?" asked Susan with some bitterness. "Or pimp for her instead, and keep your vows?"

The Laureate blushed. " 'Tis not the time for speculations and conjectures!"

"In any case I cannot take her," Susan said. "I've fare for but a single passage."

"We soon can alter that!" Bertrand laughed, and leaped to pinion both her arms. "Snatch back the ring, sir, while I hold her!"

"Pig!" she squealed. "I'll have your eyes out!"

"Nay, Bertrand," Ebenezer said, "let her go."

"This jade?" cried Bertrand, laughing at her attempts to wriggle free. "She's but a hedge-whore, sir! Snatch the ring!"

Ebenezer shook his head sadly. "Hedge-whore or no, I gave it to her in all good faith. Besides, we do not know this boatman, nor where Joan Toast may be. Release her."

Bertrand let go the swine-girl's arms and gave her a pinch. She squealed another curse, picked up her staff, and let fly at him a blow that, had he not jumped clear of it, would have cost him ribs.

"Ye'll call me a hedge-whore!" she said fiercely, and ran him off some way across the field. Ebenezer, much more concerned about Joan Toast than about either of them, set off with a thoughtful frown toward the house.

"Your servant is a lecherous swine," said Susan, catching up to him a moment later. She brushed her hair back with her hand and prodded the pigs. "I beg your pardon for running him off."

"He had it coming," the poet said distractedly.

"And I thank ye for respecting a gift, e'en though 'twas not all charity that moved ye. Ye must think highly of this wench Joan Toast."

"I will do anything to save her," Ebenezer said.

"I think I can arrange it with the boatman," Susan said. "He hath no use for me, but a fresh young tart like Joan hath ways to please the feeblest."

"Nay, I shan't allow it! I shall find some other way. Where is she?"

The swine-girl did not know where Joan Toast lived, but said she called on Captain Mitchell nightly. "This very night he plans to give her opium, with my help. I shall catch her ere she comes in, if ye wish, and send her to some privy place to meet ye."

Ebenezer agreed wholeheartedly to this plan, and though he quailed at the prospect of meeting Captain Mitchell, Susan persuaded him to join the planter at supper. "The Devil himself can play the gentleman," she said. "All men are welcome at the Captain's board, and belike he'll change your rags for something better when he hears your tale. I'll send ye word when Joan Toast is well hid, and lead ye to her ere I set out for my father's."