Crane Pond (2 page)

‘Hannah,' Sewall tells his daughter, ‘
you
may serve the pie.'

Hannah gives a sigh of pleasure. This she can do. But his pie is compromised. He can't enjoy it with Betty so full of woe. He remembers, fourteen months before, standing on the deck of the ship
America
on his way to England and eating the pasty his wife had prepared—without assistance on that occasion from Sarah, talking to no one as she baked except (silently) to him, as if composing an intimate message out of pastry and mutton. Pie is meant to be a happy dish. He sighs.

Wife Hannah comes back in. ‘She's in the cupboard again,' she tells Sewall. He nods, dabs his mouth, and rises to his feet. The cupboard is in fact a little cloakroom off the vestibule. Betty has turned it into an occasional chapel for her most despairing devotions. Sewall knocks on the door. ‘Can I come in?' he asks, and is answered by a little snuffle. He enters anyway. He's still wearing his coverlet and is almost too wide for the doorway.

Betty is crouched in the corner, sobbing. Sewall closes the door on the two of them. ‘Is it as before?' he whispers. The room is now completely dark. Perhaps Betty hopes God can't find her here. He gropes for her himself, locates her thin shoulder, lowers himself beside her. ‘Dearest child,' he says, ‘tell me.'

As she tries to speak, her sobs turn into hiccups like a baby's do. ‘I'm so frightened—,' she says.

‘What are you frightened of?'

‘You know.'

‘It's good to say it aloud.'

‘That I am not saved,' Betty says.

‘The passage concerned the people of God. It wasn't about you in particular.'

‘But we
are
the people of God. Perhaps we have broken the cov—covenant.'

These words send a chill down Sewall's spine. Everywhere you look, in Boston, in Massachusetts Bay, you can find examples of backsliding, of loss of faith. Of course you can find examples of piety and virtue too, but who knows how good and evil balance out? And Indians allied with the French attack the settlements at regular intervals, as if they wish to reclaim the land for their pagan deities, turning the earth upside down and scattering the inhabitants thereof. ‘What I mean is, we each have a separate soul,' Sewall says. ‘You can only be responsible for your own.'

‘But that's what frightens me, my own. I'm so afraid.' She hiccups again then suddenly she is crying loudly, and Sewall feels a sympathetic sob rise up in his own chest. ‘I am afraid that you, and mother,' she finally manages to gasp out, ‘and my brothers and sister will go to heaven, and I will go to hell all alone. I will never see any of you again, and the torments will torment so much I won't be able to bear them.'

‘If that should happen, do you know what I would do? I would ask God if very kindly He would let me go to hell myself, so that I could be with you again.'

‘That's silly, father.'

‘In heaven you can have what you wish. And that would be what I would wish, so that you would never be alone. For all eternity.' His voice wobbles at the solemnity of the thought.

Her hand, like a small animal, seeks his out. ‘Shall we pray together?' he asks. Her knees thud softly on to the planks as she kneels, and he manoeuvres himself into prayer beside her.

 

On go his breeches, his shirt, his waistcoat, his cravat. Then his coat and finally a special bonnet of his own design.

He's not yet forty but his hair is thinning (even though he frequently washes it with rum). He fears a cold in the head but abominates wigs, which nowadays are everywhere.

Sewall's bonnet is black, with flaps to go over his ears, and it fastens under his chin to prevent it from being blown off in a high wind. He cut out the cloth and stitched it himself, peering at the work by candlelight through a succession of winter evenings. Hannah asked him why he didn't commission their neighbour John Hurd, who is a tailor, to make him one and Sewall told her that the man's eyesight had deteriorated with age and his expertise could no longer be relied on, which was true enough but not the complete reason. He felt strangely obstinate about completing his own design but at the same time was nervous that a craftsman would laugh at it.

He first wore his home-made bonnet two weeks before to the meeting house. He was uneasy about his reception not simply because of possible imperfections but also because he was well-known amongst the congregation of the South Church for his stance on the topic of wigs. Perhaps the wig-wearers would have their revenge?

In fact no one said a word (though he did hear some muttering behind his back as he went to his pew). And the bonnet has been a boon in the severe cold of this winter. Sewall tried to write an aide-mémoire to himself in his bedchamber this morning but despite a good fire in the room the ink was frozen in his inkwell. It was because of this that he decided to wear his coverlet (on top of his nightshirt) to breakfast.

The note was to have been about this morning's proceedings at the Court of Assistants, the body charged with administering governance and justice to the colony of Massachusetts Bay. He is one of the Assistants and therefore, ex officio, a part-time judge.

Pirates.

His wife comes to the door with him to bid farewell.

‘Betty is calmer now,' she tells him. She wants him not to worry.

‘See if you can persuade her to eat something,' he suggests. ‘She could have my pie. Or a portion of it.'

Hannah smiles up at him. He can read her smile. Or rather he knows that her smile means she can read
him
: he thinks (she thinks) that appetite is an index of spiritual recovery. Well, so it is, so he does. The body will be resurrected so it makes sense to build it up, like a squirrel preparing for winter. Also he thinks (she thinks) that though he wants Betty to be fed, he would nevertheless like some small piece of his pie, some insignificant morsel that would not deprive his daughter, to be reserved until he comes back. Well, so he does.

Hannah fastens his cloak for him then raises her hand and slides her finger and thumb under one of the flaps of his hat, clasps the lobe of his ear and gently tugs it, rather as you might tug the tongue of your shoe to straighten it. Since he started wearing his bonnet this has become a habit of hers. She smiles, then gives him a serious look. ‘Be careful,' she tells him

‘The pirates will be in shackles,' he points out. ‘They are no threat now.'

She nods. ‘Be careful anyhow,' she says.

T
he court chamber is in the Town House, down near the harbour. Sewall plods along a cart track through the snow, one foot placed exactly in front of the other to keep within the groove. The sky is low and dirty and a cold wind blows; from time to time a snowflake stings his cheek, hard like grit.

A good fire has been lit in the chamber, and he warms his backside at it while waiting for his fellow judges (selected for their experience from the roster of Assistants) to assemble. Jackson, the serving man, brings him a tankard of ale which has had a red-hot poker applied. Finally, he is one of seven judges to take their places on the bench and to be faced by an equal number of pirates, who shuffle into the room with shackles on their arms and legs. The court clerk reads out the names.

Thomas Pound, a dark-haired fellow, small but with an air of authority even now, even here. He inspects the judges one by one, not with impertinence but as to the manner born, as if
he
is the judge.

Next, Thomas Hawkins, bigger, almost shambling, with long pale hair in a pigtail, nautical fashion. These two Thomases are the ringleaders. Then yet another Thomas, one Johnson, the only one of the pirates to look the part, with an expression both scowling and hangdog at once. The others are rank and file, ordinary seadogs who will follow a captain wherever he takes them, spitting their tobacco juice on the polished floor of the council chamber.

Thomas Pound is, or was, pilot of the frigate
Rose
, a vessel assigned to Massachusetts Bay three years previously. Since then, his ship has sailed upon strange and uncharted waters, as has the whole of Massachusetts Bay colony, ever since King James ll cancelled the charter which gave its laws and government their legitimacy. Samuel Pepys, his secretary to the navy, commissioned the
Rose
to patrol the Massachusetts coast after the king installed the roundly hated Governor Andros to take charge of the colony's affairs while the constitutional niceties were sorted out.

Sewall tried to play his part. Furnished with Hannah's pasty, a barrel of beer, and many other necessities, though none of them as necessary as that pasty, he took ship to England to assist in negotiating a solution, though was soon elbowed aside by Increase Mather, one of the leading ministers of Massachusetts Bay, who became the colony's official delegate and is in London still, negotiating the new charter. (Thwarted in his hopes of courtly intrigue, Sewall filled his year in England by attending to family affairs and seeing the sights.)

Then King James was ousted in the Glorious Revolution of William and Mary, great news for New England (at least as was at first supposed, since King William was committed to the Puritan cause). The people of Boston rose up and put Governor Andros into prison.

But it was the task of the ship
Rose
, pilot Mr. Pound, to uphold the king's authority. Since Andros was the appointed representative of that authority, the vessel duly entered Boston harbour bent on securing his release. The populace were perplexed as to what to do. It was the king's vessel and they didn't wish to be disloyal; only, of course, there was now a different king. A party from the harbour boarded the ship. Its captain suggested that to avoid the embarrassment (for both sides) of clear-cut capture, they should simply remove the sails.

Now, nine months later, it's clear that King William wishes to exert a tighter control over his colony's affairs than even his predecessor did. Precisely because he is sympathetic to their Puritanism he wants to ensure they continue to toe the line.

In the interval Thomas Pound, his ship not pilotable for want of sails, joined forces with a friend by the name of Thomas Hawkins, who happened to own a fishing boat. The two decided to go off in search of French vessels and try their luck at a little privateering (King William had gone to war with the French, who were therefore fair game). But instead of the enemy they came across a ketch out of Salem, the
Mary
, and captured that.

Wait Still Winthrop, a fellow judge, leans over to speak into Sewall's ear. ‘It could have been a simple mistake,' he suggests. ‘And then they were in too deep. In such an eventuality you can hardly say sorry and go on your way.' Mr. Winthrop's breath is a little sour. Sewall recoils as far as he dares. Too deep, yes: that's the whole tendency of the sea.

The pirates, as they now were (having missed the profession of privateering altogether), captured more ships. Soon there was a hue and cry. A Captain Pease was commissioned to go after them. As it happened he set sail in that same ketch
Mary
, by now relinquished by the pirates who had taken over a bigger vessel. There was a desperate battle. Captain Pease was killed, as were many of his men, and many of the pirates too. But seven were captured, the seven here in court today.

‘It's a muddle,' whispers Judge Winthrop.

Indeed it is. A king is deposed. His sailing ship becomes another king's sailing ship, and then is made into a sailing ship that doesn't sail. A naval officer and a fisherman are privateers, then pirates. The ship
Mary
is a commercial vessel, a pirate ship, an instrument of the law.

Sewall thinks about his own experience of the sea, just three months ago while returning from his mission to England. His ship the
America
had fallen behind its escort. Strange vessels were seen in the distance, flittering on the horizon. Perhaps French, possibly rogue—which would be even worse since they followed no rules of warfare except a cut throat to ensure tales were never told, that no hearings, like those taking place today in Boston's council chamber, would ever happen. In this emergency Sewall remembered that he had never made a will. At once he retired to his cabin and wrote it.

In the end there was no emergency. The ships proved to be Jerseymen, friendly enough. When he arrived home he showed his will to Hannah who said, But, husband, if the ship had sunk the will would have done too.

Sewall looked at her, amazed at his own stupidity.

Perhaps, suggested young Sam, a seagull could have fetched it in its beak and brought it home.

In the middle of the ocean there are no gulls, Sewall said.

Except you, my dear, Hannah told him.

He thought of that paper bobbing on the waves, slowly surrendering his intentions to the sea.

Anyhow, father, said daughter Hannah, you came home safely, and your will came too. She sighed with satisfaction at this outcome.

Now, in the Court of Assistants, Sewall thinks about the ocean's tendency to swallow up all order and legality, to wash the very words off the page.

The piracy is proved, the men are sentenced to hang. Only Wait Still Winthrop abstains. But in fact the court has no other sanction. Sewall looks at each condemned man in turn, just as Pound looked at the bench of judges at the beginning of the proceedings. Sewall does not believe in averting his gaze when sentence is passed.

Pound and Hawkins remain stoical. Thomas Johnson ignores the rest of the panel of judges to give Sewall a savage stare, as if the verdict is entirely his responsibility. One of the common sailors mutters something. The others follow their captains' example and show little emotion. Their shoulders sag a little in disappointment that their lives have come to this. One runs his finger round his collar as if he wants to do so while he still can, stretches his chin forward.

 

At supper Hannah passes Sewall his reserved piece of pie. The others are having Indian bread with cheese. Sewall inspects the helping. It looks as if Betty has taken none, or very little. He holds up the plate and offers it to her but she tells him, rather crossly, that she's content with what she has. They eat without conversation though Hannah keeps giving him significant looks. She wants to know about the outcome of the pirates' trial but won't discuss such events in front of the children.