The Sot-Weed Factor (5 page)

"So, then, no love was lost 'twixt Newton and More; they had in fact been quietly hostile for some years. And when I became the focus of't, their antagonism boiled over."

"You?
But you were a simple student, were you not? Surely two such giants ne'er would stoop to fight their battles with their students."

"Must I draw a picture, Eben?" Burlingame said. "I was out to learn the nature of the universe from Newton, but knowing I was More's proté
g
é
, he was cold and incommunicative with me. I employed every strategy I knew to remove this barrier, and, alas, won more than I'd fought for -- in plain English, Eben, Newton grew as enamored of me as had More, with this difference only, that there was naught Platonical in his passion."

"I know not what to think!" cried Ebenezer.

"Nor did I," said Burlingame, "albeit one thing I knew well, which was that save for the impersonal respect I bare the twain of 'em, I cared not a fart for either. 'Tis a wise thing, Eben, not to confuse one affection with another. Well, sir, as the months passed, each of my swains came to realize the passions of the other, and both grew as jealous as Cervantes'
Celoso Extreme
ñ
o.
They carried on shamefully, and each threatened my ruination in the University should I not give o'er the other. As for me, I paid no more heed than necessary to either, but wallowed in the libraries of the colleges like a dolphin in the surf. 'Twas job enough for me to remember to eat and sleep, much less fulfill the million little obligations they thought I owed 'em. I'faith, a handsome pair!"

"Prithee, what was the end of it?"

Burlingame sighed. "I played the one against the other for above two years, till at last Newton could endure it no longer. The Royal Society had by this time published his experiments with prisms and reflecting telescopes, and he was under fire from Robert Hooke, who had light theories of his own; from the Dutchman Christian Huygens, who was committed to the lens telescope; from the French monk Pardies; and from the Belgian Linus. So disturbed was he by the conjunction of this criticism and his jealousy, that in one and the same day he swore ne'er to publish another of his discoveries, and confronted More in the latter's chambers with the intent of challenging him to settle their rivalry for good and all by means of a duel to the death!"

"Ah, what a loss to the world, whate'er the issue of't," observed Ebenezer.

"As't happened, no blood was let," Burlingame said: "the tale ends happily for them both, if not for the teller. After much discourse Newton discovered that his rival's position was uncertain as his own, and that I seemed equally indifferent to both -- which conclusion, insofar as't touches the particular matters they had in mind, is as sound as any in the
Principia.
In addition More showed to Newton his
Enchiridion Metaphysicum,
wherein he plainly expressed a growing disaffection for Descartes; and Newton assured More that albeit 'twas universal gravitation, and not angels or vortices, that steered the planets in their orbits, there yet remained employment enough for the Deity as a first cause to set the cosmic wheels a-spin, e'en as old Renatus had declared. In fine, so far from dueling to the death, they so convinced each other that at the end of some hours of colloquy -- all which I missed, being then engrossed in the library -- they fell to tearful embraces, and decided to cut me off without a penny, arrange my dismissal from the College, and move into the same lodgings, where, so they declared, they would couple the splendors of the physical world to the glories of the ideal, and listen ravished to the music of the spheres! This last they never did in fact, but their connection endures to this day, and from all I hear, More hath washed his hands entirely of old Descartes, while Newton hath caught a foolish infatuation with theology, and seeks to explain the Apocalypse by application of his laws of series and fluxions. As for the first two of their resolves, they fulfilled 'em to the letter -- turned me out to starve, and so influenced all and sundry against me that not a shilling could I beg, nor eat one meal on credit. 'Twas off to London I went, with not a year 'twixt me and the baccalaureate. Thus was it, in 1676, your father found me; and playing fickle to the scholar's muse, I turned to you and your dear sister all the zeal I'd erst reserved for my researches. Your instruction became my First Good, my Primary Cause, which lent all else its form and order. And my fickleness is thorough and entire: not for an instant have I regretted the way of my life, or thought wistfully of Cambridge."

"Dear, dear Henry!" Ebenezer cried. "How thy tale moves me, and shames me, that I let slip through idleness what you strove so hard in vain to reach! Would God I had another chance!"

"Nay, Eben, thou'rt no scholar, I fear. You have perchance the schoolman's love of lore, but not the patience, not the address, not I fear that certain nose for relevance, that grasp of the world, which sets apart the thinker from the crank. There is a thing in you, a set of the grain as 'twere, that would keep you ingenuous even if all the books in all the libraries of Europe were distilled in your brain. Nay, let the baccalaureate go; I came here not to exhort you to try again, or to chide you for failing, but to take you with me to London for a time, until you see your way clearly. 'Twas Anna's idea, who loves you more than herself, and I think it wise."

"Precious Anna! How came she to know thy whereabouts?"

"There, now," laughed Burlingame, "that is another tale entirely, and 'twill do for another time. Come with me to London, and I'll tell it thee in the carriage."

Ebenezer hesitated. " 'Tis a great step."

" 'Tis a great world," replied Burlingame.

"I fear me what Father would say, did he hear of't."

"My dear fellow," Burlingame said, "we sit here on a blind rock careening through space; we are all of us rushing headlong to the grave. Think you the worms will care, when anon they make a meal of you, whether you spent your moment sighing wigless in your chamber, or sacked the golden towns of Montezuma? Lookee, the day's nigh spent; 'tis gone careering into time forever. Not a tale's length past we lined our bowels with dinner, and already they growl for more. We are dying men, Ebenezer: i'faith, there's time for naught but bold resolves!"

"You lend me courage, Henry," Ebenezer said, rising from the table. "Let us begone."

Ebenezer's First Sojourn in London, and

the Issue of It

B
urlingame slept that night
in Ebenezer's room, and the next day they left Cambridge for London by carriage.

"I think you've not yet told me," the young man said en route, "how it is you left St. Giles so suddenly, and how Anna came to know your whereabouts."

Burlingame sighed. " 'Tis a simple mystery, if a sad one. The fact is, Eben, your father fancies I have designs upon your sister."

"Nay! Incredible!"

"Ah, now, as for that, 'tis not so incredible; Anna is a sweet and clever girl, and uncommon lovely."

"Yet think of your ages!" Ebenezer said. " 'Tis absurd of Father!"

"Think you 'tis absurd?" Burlingame asked. "Thou'rt a candid fellow."

"Ah, forgive me," Ebenezer laughed; " 'twas a rude remark. Nay, 'tis not absurd at all: thou'rt but thirty-odd, and Anna twenty-one. I daresay 'tis that you were our teacher made me think of you as older."

" 'Twere no absurd suspicion, methinks, that
any
man might look with love on Anna," Burlingame declared, "and I did indeed love the both of you for years, and love you yet; nor did I ever try to hide the fact. 'Tis not that which distresses me; 'tis Andrew's notion that I had vicious designs on the girl. 'Sheart, if anything be improbable, 'tis that so marvelous a creature as Anna could look with favor on a penniless pedagogue!"

"Nay, Henry, I have oft heard her protest, that by comparison to you, none of her acquaintances was worth the labor of being civil to."

"Anna said that?"

"Aye, in a letter not two months past."

"Ah well, whate'er the case, Andrew took my regard for her as lewd intent, and threatened me one afternoon that should I not begone ere morning he'd shoot me like a dog and horsewhip dear Anna into the bargain. I had no fear for myself, but not to risk bringing injury to her I left at once, albeit it tore my heart to go."

Ebenezer sat amazed at this revelation. "How she wept that morning! and yet neither she nor Father told me aught of't!"

"Nor must you speak of it to either," Burlingame warned, "for 'twould but embarrass Anna, would it not? And anger Andrew afresh, for there's no statute of limitations within a family. Think not you'll reason him out of his notion: he is convinced of it."

"I suppose so," Ebenezer said doubtfully. "Then Anna has been in correspondence with you since?"

"Not so regularly as I could wish. Egad, how I've yearned for news of you! I took lodgings on Thames Street, between Billingsgate and the Customs-House -- far cry from the summer-pavilion at St. Giles, you'll see! -- and hired myself as tutor whenever I could. For two years and more I was unable to communicate with Anna, for fear your father would hear of't, but some months ago I chanced to be engaged as a tutor in French to a Miss Bromly from Plumtree Street, that remembered you and Anna as playmates ere you removed to St. Giles. Through her I was able to tell Anna where I live, and though I dare not write to her, she hath contrived on two or three occasions to send me letters. 'Twas thus I learned the state of your affairs, and I was but too pleased to act on her suggestion that I fetch you out of Cambridge. She is a dear girl, Eben!"

"I long to see her again!" Ebenezer said.

"And I," said Burlingame, "for I esteem her as highly as thee, and 'tis three years since I've seen her."

"Think you she might visit us in London?"

"Nay, I fear 'tis out of the question. Andrew would have none of it."

"Yet surely I cannot resign myself to never seeing her again! Can you, Henry?"

" 'Tis not my wont to look that far ahead," Burlingame said. "Let us consider rather how you'll occupy yourself in London. You must not sit idle, lest you slip again into languishment and stupor."

"Alas," said Ebenezer, "I have no long-term goals toward which to labor."

"Then follow my example," advised Burlingame, "and set as your long-term goal the successful completion of all your short-term goals."

"Yet neither have I any short-term goal."

"Ah, but you will ere long, when your belly growls for dinner and your money's gone."

"Unhappy day!" laughed Ebenezer. "I've no skill in any craft or trade whatever. I cannot even play
Flow My Tears
on the guitar."

"Then 'tis plain you'll be a teacher, like myself."

" 'Sheart! 'Twould be the blind leading the blind!"

"Aye," smiled Burlingame. "Who better grasps the trials of sightlessness than he whose eyes are gone?"

"But what teach? I know something of many things, and enough of naught."

"I'faith, then the field is open, and you may graze where you list."

"Teach a thing I know naught of?" exclaimed Ebenezer.

"And raise thy fee for't," replied Burlingame, "inasmuch as 'tis no chore to teach what you know, but to teach what you know naught of requires a certain application. Choose a thing you'd greatly like to learn, and straightway proclaim yourself professor of't."

Ebenezer shook his head. " 'Tis still impossible; I am curious about the world in general, and ne'er could choose."

"Very well, then: I dub thee Professor of the Nature of the World, and as such shall we advertise you. Whate'er your students wish to learn of't, that will you teach them."

"Thou'rt jesting, Henry!"

"If't be a jest," replied Burlingame, " 'tis a happy one, I swear, for just so have I lined my belly these three years. B'm'faith, the things I've taught! The great thing is always to be teaching something to someone -- a fig for
what
or
to whom.
'Tis no trick at all."

No matter what Ebenezer thought of this proposal, he had not the wherewithal to reject it: immediately on arriving in London he moved into Burlingame's chambers by the river and was established as a full partner. A few days after that, Burlingame brought him his first customer -- a lout of a tailor from Crutched Friars who happily desired to be taught nothing more intricate than his A B Cs -- and for the next few months Ebenezer earned his living as a pedagogue. He worked six or seven hours a day, both in his rooms and at the homes of his students, and spent most of his free time studying desperately for the following day's lessons. What leisure he had he spent in the taverns and coffeehouses with a small circle of Burlingame's acquaintances, mostly idle poets. Impressed by their apparent confidence in their talent, he too endeavored on several occasions to write poems, but abandoned the effort each time for want of anything to write about.

At his insistence a devious correspondence was established with his sister through Miss Bromly, Burlingame's pupil, and after two months Anna contrived to visit them in London, using as excuse the illness of a spinster aunt who lived near Leadenhall. The twins were, as may be imagined, overjoyed to see each other again, for although conversation did not come so readily since Ebenezer's departure from St. Giles three years before, each still bore, abstractly at least, the greatest affection and regard for the other. Burlingame, too, Anna expressed considerable but properly decorous pleasure in seeing again. She had changed somewhat since Ebenezer had seen her last: her brown hair had lost something of its shine, and her face, while still fair, was leaner and less girlish than he remembered it.

"My dear Anna!" he said for the fourth or fifth time. "How good it is to hear your voice! Tell me, how did you leave Father? Is he well?"

Anna shook her head. "Well on the way to Bedlam, I fear, or to driving me there. 'Tis your disappearance, Eben; it angers and frightens him at once. He knows not the cause of't, or whether to comb the realm for you or disown you. A dozen times daily he demands of me whether I know aught of your whereabouts, or else rails at me for keeping things from him. He is grown hugely suspicious of me, and yet sometimes asks of you so plaintively as to move my tears. He has aged much these past weeks, and though he blows and blusters no less than before, his heart is not in it, and it saps his strength."

"Ah, God, it pains me to hear that!"

"And me," said Burlingame, "for though old Andrew hath small love for me, I wish him no ill."

"I do think," Anna said to Ebenezer, "that you should strive to establish yourself in some calling, and communicate with him directly you find a place; for despite the abuse he'll surely heap on you, 'twill ease his soul to learn thou'rt well, and well established."

"And 'twould ease mine to ease his," Ebenezer said.

"Marry, and yet 'tis your own life!" Burlingame cried impatiently. "Filial love be damned, it galls me sore to see the pair of you o'erawed by the pompous rascal!"

"Henry!" Anna chided.

"You must pardon me," Burlingame said; "I mean no harm by't. But lookee, Anna, 'tis not alone Andrew's health that suffers. Thou'rt peaked thyself, and wan, and I mark a sobering of your spirits. You too should flee St. Giles for London, as your aunt's companion or the like."

"Am I wan and solemn?" Anna asked gently. "Haply 'tis mere age, Henry: one-and-twenty is no more a careless child. But prithee ask me not to leave St. Giles; 'tis to ask Father's death."

"Or belike she hath a suitor there," Ebenezer said to Burlingame. "Is't not so, Anna?" he teased. "Some rustic swain, perchance, that hath won your heart? One-and-twenty is no child, but 'twere a passing good wife, were't not? Say, Henry, see the girl blush! Methinks I've hit on't!"

" 'Twere a lucky bumpkin, b'm'faith," Burlingame remarked.

"Nay," said Anna, "twit me no more on't, Brother."

She was so plainly overwrought that Ebenezer at once begged her forgiveness for his tease.

Anna kissed his cheek. "How shall I marry, when the man I love best hath the bad sense to be my brother? What say the books at Cambridge, Eben? Was e'er a maid less lucky?"

"Nay, i'faith!" laughed Ebenezer. "You'll live and die a maiden ere you find my like! Yet I commend my friend here to your attention, who though something gone in years yet sings a creditable tenor, and is the devil's own good fellow!"

As soon as he spoke it Ebenezer realized the tactlessness of his remark in the light of what Burlingame had told him weeks before of Andrew's suspicions; both men blushed at once, but Anna saved the situation by kissing Burlingame lightly on the cheek as she had kissed her brother, and saying easily, " 'Twere no mean catch, if you speak truly. Doth he know his letters?"

"What matter?" Burlingame asked, joining the raillery. "Whate'er I lack, this fellow here can teach me, or so he vaunts."

" 'Swounds, that reminds me," Ebenezer said, jumping up, "I must run to Tower Hill this minute, to give young Farmsley his first recorder lesson!" He fetched an alto recorder from the mantelpiece. "Quickly, Henry, how doth one blow the thing?"

"Nay, not quickly: slowly," Burlingame said. " 'Twere a grievous error to learn an art too fast. On no account must thy Farmsley blow a note ere he's spent an hour fondling the instrument, holding it properly, taking it apart and fitting it together. And never,
never
should the master show off his own ability, lest the student grow discouraged at the distance he must travel. I'll teach you the left-hand notes tonight, and you can play
Les Bouffons
for him on the morrow."

"Must you go?" Anna asked.

"Aye, or 'tis stale bread come Sunday, for Henry hath no scholars of his own this week. I shall trust you to his care till I return."

Anna remained a week in London, slipping away from her aunt's bedside as often as possible to visit Ebenezer and Burlingame. At the end of that time, the aunt having recuperated sufficiently to manage for herself, she announced her intention to return to St. Giles, and to Burlingame's considerable surprise and distress, Ebenezer declared that he was going with her -- nor could any amount of expostulation change his mind.

" 'Tis no good," he would say, shaking his head. "I am not a teacher."

"Damn me," Burlingame cried, "if thou'rt not fleeing responsibility!"

"Nay. If I flee, I flee
to
it. 'Twas a coward's act to hide from Father's wrath. I shall ask his pardon and do whate'er he requires of me."

"A pox on his anger! 'Tis not responsibility to him I speak of at all, but responsibility to thyself. 'Twere a noble act, on the fact of't, to beg his pardon and take your birching like a man, but 'tis no more than an excuse for dropping the reins of your own life. 'Sheart, 'tis a manlier matter to set your goal and swallow the consequences!"

Ebenezer shook his head. "Put what face you will upon it, Henry, I must go. Can a son stand by and watch his father fret to an early grave?"

"Think no ill of't, Henry," Anna pleaded.

"Surely
you
don't believe it a wise move also?" Burlingame asked incredulously.

"I cannot judge the wisdom of't," Anna replied, "but certain 'twere not a
wrong
thing to do."

"Marry, I have done with the twain of you!" Burlingame cried. "Praise Heav'n I know not my own father, if this be how they shackle one!"

"I pray Heav'n rather you may someday find him," Anna said calmly, "or word of him, at least. A man's father is his link with the past: the bond 'twixt him and the world he's born to."

"Then again I thank Heav'n I'm quit of mine," said Burlingame. "It leaves me free and unencumbered."

"It doth in sooth, Henry," Anna said with some emotion, "for better or worse."

When the time came to leave, Ebenezer asked, "When shall we see you again, Henry? I shall miss you painfully."

But Burlingame only shrugged and said, "Stay here now, if't pain you so."

"I shall visit as often as I can."

"Nay, risk not your father's displeasure. Besides, I may be gone."

"Gone?" asked Anna, with mild alarm. "Gone whither, Henry?"

He shrugged again. "There's naught to keep me here. I care not a fig for any of my pupils, save to pass the time till something else absorbs me."

After making their goodbyes, which their friend's bitterness rendered awkward, Ebenezer and Anna hired a carriage to fetch them to St. Giles in the Fields. The little journey, though uneventful, they both enjoyed, for despite the fact that Anna was disturbed to the point of occasional tears over Burlingame's attitude, and Ebenezer grew more anxious by the mile at the prospect of confronting his father, the carriage-ride was the twins' first opportunity in some time to converse privately and at length. When finally they arrived at the Cooke estate they found to their alarm that Andrew had taken to his bed three days before, at the direction of his physician, and was being cared for by Mrs. Twigg, the housekeeper, like an invalid.