Crane Pond (7 page)

They have their feast to celebrate not celebrating Christmas in the kitchen since the hall is so smoky. While he eats Sewall reflects on the sign that has been sent him. The fire was like a picture of hell, though small while hell is limitless, and extinguishable while hell is eternal. Perhaps God is telling him that his sin in reprieving those pirates is not as great as he imagines.

‘I bought the pork this morning,' he tells the children, wanting to remind them that purchases can be made on Christmas Day. ‘It's from Westfield.'

‘Is that a good place for it to be from, father?' young Hannah asks.

‘The very best place,' Sewall assures her. He has no idea whether Westfield is indeed known for its pork, though the carter seemed to think so. ‘Let's hope that our dear Sam is eating so well, over in Newton.'

Yes, yes, agree the children, let us hope.

‘It's excellent pork,' says wife Hannah, ‘though it tastes a little of chimneys.'

 

‘Our little black cow is dead,' says Bastian.

‘What?' Sewall exclaims. It seems he has only to blink and someone or something dies: a child or an animal, or one of his white-oak trees on Hogg Island, the property he and Hannah own in the middle of Boston harbour. Last night he slept a restless sleep and at one point dreamed of moans and howlings that he thought (in his dream) must be coming from the damned in hell.

He follows Bastian out of the back door and through thick snow to the cow's stable. It's late January and has been snowing since Christmas. In fact he had worried whether the cow was warm enough at night, though as she still produced their milk every morning he'd convinced himself she wasn't coming to harm. That assumption must have been his blink.

But the cow hasn't died of cold. She is lying on her side with her throat torn. Her teeth are bared and the mirthless smile coupled with the smell of blood reminds Sewall of the grinning head on top of that cartload of pork on Christmas Day. ‘I had to hit her on the head with my big hammer,' Bastian says. ‘She was in such distress.'

‘Who did this to her?' Sewall imagines Indians creeping round the house, as he had that time when little Joseph made his prophecy. Only yesterday came news of an attack on York, a few miles north of Sewall's home town of Newbury. The minister there was shot from his horse and killed along with fifty or so others, and about ninety people were captured, often a worse fate than dying outright.

‘A dog.'

‘A dog?'

‘A big dog. Its tracks are still in the snow.'

Those moans and howls of his dream had been despairing moos and the triumphant baying of a hound!

‘I seen a big black dog around the place these last few days.'

‘It was black? Are you sure?'

Bastian laughed. ‘Black as me, Mr. Sewall.'

Many dogs are black; nothing extraordinary in that. But Sewall shivers.

At breakfast, everyone is subdued—indeed tears roll down young Hannah's cheeks, since she is the most softhearted of them all. Wife Hannah gives Sewall a meaningful glance. ‘I think, husband, that we need to draw a lesson from this sad event.' For a moment Sewall's heart pounds. Has she guessed his weakness? Perhaps he should confess it here and now, in front of his children, so that they know their father is a compromiser who sent pirates back to plague the seas. He looks at them in turn (though baby Mary is upstairs in her cradle, and Sam is oblivious over in Newton). Joseph would not understand. Betty is pale and tense already, no doubt worrying whether cows go to heaven or hell and which one she will find
her
self in in due course. Hannah clumsily wipes her eyes with the back of her hand—she would be frightened at the thought of bloodthirsty pirates on the loose.

Confession will simply give the children an anxiety which by rights belongs to him. So instead he makes his prayer a general one, but concludes with an image appropriate to the fate of a dairy animal: ‘And may we trust in God, who will nourish our spirit and provide the breast of our supplies.'

Hannah raises an eyebrow at the incongruity of God offering us His breast, but of course the deity is beyond, or rather inclusive of, gender difference. That must be so since men and women are both made in His image. This was explained to Sewall once by Cotton Mather, with much clearing of the throat and rolling of the eyes. He is interested in matters scientific as well as theological and is particularly happy when those two spheres come together. The vagina (Mr. Mather muttered) is a kind of penis in reverse; the ovaries are inward testicles. He was less certain about the womb, but there is a gland in the man's body where the fertilising element is stored: perhaps that is a kind of womb. And of course both sexes have breasts, though the male kind is not made use of (but Thomas Bartolinus, in his
Historiarum Anatomicarum Rariorum
, writes of a Danish man whose breasts did contain milk).

Because of this spiritual unity of the sexes Sewall can express the hope of one day being married to Jesus, though he often feels sad at the thought that in heaven he will no longer be married to Hannah, death being a kind of divorce.

 

A few days later Mr. Cotton Mather comes to call.

He is wearing a large black cloak, the shoulders besprinkled with snowflakes, and big boots. Also a wig but a small one, perhaps as a concession to Sewall's feelings, with a little bow at the back. In fact diminutive wigs annoy Sewall even more than voluminous ones since they mimic more closely the hair the wearer would actually have possessed if he hadn't cut it off to make the wig fit snugly. ‘Mr. Sewall, how are you?' he asks.

‘Well enough, Mr. Mather. And you, I hope.'

‘I am very well indeed, thank you.' He gives a little bow of acknowledgement. Then springs it on Sewall. ‘Strange news from Salem.'

Sewall can't stop himself giving out a little groan. ‘Not those pirates?'

Mr. Mather is taken aback in turn. ‘Which pirates?'

‘Those reprieved pirates. Hawkins and the others.'

‘No, no, not those—oh, but here's another strange thing. Indeed I have it with me, I think.' He digs into the pockets of his coat. ‘Yes, here it is, sent to me from England by my father.' He takes out a sheet of paper and passes it to Sewall. ‘Take a look at that.'

Sewall inspects it. ‘It's a printed map of Boston harbour,' he says.

‘Yes, yes, of course. But look at the bottom to see who
fecit
.'

Sewall screws up his eyes to read the small print at the bottom. ‘It was made by Pound,' he says, ‘Thomas Pound.' Then, in a whisper: ‘Thomas Pound.'

‘The very one. He has been made a captain in the Royal Navy. And has drawn this very accurate map of Boston harbour. I had forgotten that you were concerned in that business of the reprieves.'

Sewall looks at the paper again, hoping that Cotton Mather won't notice his hand shaking. Certainly it's a meticulous map of the harbour. His own property, Hogg Island, is shown in exquisite detail, with the bulk of Noddle's Island just below it like a bat that is batting a little ball into the air. The hand that drew this would have been in the grave if Sewall had had his way. And now Pound has been promoted to a captaincy in the Royal Navy. Does that mean that the reprieves were the right decision after all? Or has he, Sewall, helped to turn the world upside down, so that pirates are now naval officers, and misrule is gathering momentum?

‘But what I meant,' Mather says, ‘was the other one.'

‘You mean Hawkins?' Sewall asks. Perhaps
he
is a captain in the Royal Navy too. Perhaps Thomas Johnson, if he hadn't been the sole pirate to go to the gallows, would have been an admiral by now.

‘No, no, the other
Salem
. Not Salem Town, but Salem Village.'

Salem Village is a tatty little rural community three or four miles inland from its prosperous namesake. Not a place for pirates, or seafarers of any sort. Sewall has passed through it from time to time when going overland to visit his brother Stephen (in good weather it's usually quicker to go by ferry). There are no shops, just a nearby inn and a meeting house that hasn't been up many years but is already the worse for wear. Sewall is acquainted with two of its former ministers, his friend James Bayley, an old man now, and in poor health, and a Harvard classmate, George Burroughs. Neither stayed long because the stipend was paltry. And it was only a year or two ago that the church there was grudgingly given permission to admit its congregation to the full covenant and administer communion.

‘What has happened there?' Sewall asks. His head is still awash with the pirates. And Salem Village is exactly the sort of place where nothing
can
ever happen. There are many townships and villages and hamlets like it in the remoter corners of New England, little communities that were set up by the early settlers in expectation that they would thrive but which have been passed by as the country has developed, places where America never quite arrived.

‘What has happened there,' says Cotton Mather, his voice rising to that sermonical piping note that underpins all his emphases, ‘what has happened there, Mr. Sewall, is witchcraft.'

I
t concerns two children. The whole matter is delicate because it happened in the Salem Village parsonage. In fact one of the girls involved, Betty Parris, is the nine-year-old daughter of the current minister, Samuel Parris, the other being her cousin, Abigail Williams, herself just eleven. They had been using a Venus glass, and then been overtaken by strange fits, paroxysms of the limbs, foaming at the mouth.

‘What's a Venus glass?' Sewall asks.

‘A piece of paganism, as the name implies,' Mather tells him, his neck reddening with indignation like a cockerel. Then, as the technicalities of the matter take over his attention, his voice becomes enthusiastic, expository. ‘You take a tumbler or a wine goblet, and pour in the white of an egg. Then you raise the glass to your eye, peer in, and try to discern in that foggy liquid the features of your future husband. Or wife, should the fortune-teller be male. In this case, husband. Indeed, husbands.'

‘And the shock of doing this was enough to prostrate the girls? Perhaps they turned out to be very ugly husbands.'

‘I'm sure they used other detestable conjurings,' says Mr. Mather, glaring at his levity. ‘I have experience of these matters. They may have performed tricks with nails, and horse-shoes, and peas—'

‘I myself once saw a trick performed with a pea.'

Mr. Mather gives him another withering look. ‘And sieves and keys, there's no end of household implements that can be used.'

‘But these are only children's games. Little Joseph plays with his farm toys for hours at a time. For him they are real. But no one else takes them seriously.'

‘To play at farms is to be a farmer in miniature. The order of things is left intact.
These
children were trying to subvert that order.'

‘But only in a childish way.'

‘The Devil is always waiting to come into our world. And what he wishes for most is a soft entrance.'

That word, Devil, gives Sewall a twinge of fear. He thinks of his own Betty. She too becomes prostrate when her imagination is fevered. She whispers in her dark cupboard of hell and damnation. She cries and rails and sobs. How readily could some outsider add up those clues and decide she is possessed? How terrible, to think of his little girl's soul as the Devil's soft entrance! ‘I find it hard to believe that the Devil can possess the soul of a child,' he says.

Just at this moment little Joseph enters the room, carrying his hornbook.

‘Father—'

‘Joseph, you know you should knock before entering my study.' The boy ponders this for a moment then meekly trots back to the open door and knocks on its far side. ‘Come in, Joseph.'

He trots back. ‘Father—'

‘Joseph, I have a visitor, as you can see. Say good morning to Mr. Mather.'

‘Good morning, Mr. Mather.'

Mr. Mather, hands clasped behind his back, gravely inclines both head and wig.

‘Father,' says Joseph once more, with an infant's patience (and persistence). He holds his little book up towards Sewall, who takes it.

‘What is it you want me to see?'

‘I've written my name.'

Sewall bought the boy this primer from Michael Perry's bookshop, near the Town House. Just last week he started attending dame school. It gave Sewall and Hannah a pang to see their little fellow, not yet four years old, with his hair brushed, his little frock crisp and clean, clutching his hornbook in one hand and his older sister Hannah's hand with the other as she took him off for his first morning at Mrs. Townsend's house. Both children exhibited a sort of diminutive self-importance, Joseph because of his first foray into the outside world, Hannah because of the responsibility of escorting her little brother.

On the flyleaf Mrs. Townsend has printed out JOSEPH, HIS BOOK, and underneath the child has attempted to copy what she has written. He has only managed two letters, as a matter of fact. The first is J, which is leaning strangely, like a tipsy reveller resting against a wall (Sewall saw enough of these during the time he acted as a constable), and the other is a snakelike S. In fact the letter S is pictured as a snake in the hornbook's alphabet, which suggests Joseph has conned his lesson.

‘That is fine work, Joseph. See, Mr. Mather, the excellent J and S.'

‘Very good indeed,' says Mr. Mather, passing the book back to Joseph. ‘You are a forward towardly scholar and I hope, young man, that this is the first small vanguard of a host and multitude of letters that will sweep down from the high places—' he raises an arm as if to point to a force of alphabetic Canaanites (or possibly Indians) gathered on the slopes, then lowers it in a grand sweeping motion— ‘and crowd your page.' Joseph has looked up in bafflement, then down at his book as if hoping to spot a host and multitude already in occupation. Meanwhile Mr. Mather takes a penny from his pocket and gives it to him.