Astray (15 page)
Authors: Emma Donoghue
CAPE COD
1639
I
n this world we are as seed scattered from God’s hand. Some fall on the fat soil and thrive. Some fall among thorns and are choked as they grow. Some fall on hard ground, and their roots get no purchase, for the bitter rocks lie all around.
I, Richard Berry, make this record in the margins of the Good Book for those who come after, lest our plantation fail and all trace of our endeavors be wiped from the earth. Shielded by the Lord’s arm, our ship has traveled safe across the ocean through all travails, to make landfall at the colony of Plymouth. Today we stretched our legs on land again. The snow reaches our knees. We never saw stuff like this before. It is bright as children’s teeth and squeaks underfoot.
On the first day of June came the quake. So powerful is the mighty hand of the Lord, it makes both the earth and the sea to shake. Many of our thatched huts fell down.
But we and the settlers who came before us keep faith with our Maker and our mission. We go on hacking ourselves a space in the wilderness of Cape Cod: our settlement is to be called Yarmouth. The mosquitoes bite us till we are striped with blood. May we cast off the old sins of England like dust from our boots.
I have written nothing in this book for a time, being much occupied with laboring for the good of the Lord and this plantation. We have made new laws, and set down on paper the liberties of all freemen. The Indians have shown us how to bury dead fish with our seeds to sweeten the soil. We have sold them guns.
I am still unmarried. I thought on Sarah White but she laughs overmuch.
Of late I have been troubled by a weakness of spirit. I dwell on my mother and father and come near to weeping, for I will never see them again in this life. But I must remember that those who till the soil beside me are my brethren.
There are few enough of our congregation aboveground. Edward Preston lost his wife this past month, and so did Teague Joanes, a godly man whose field lies next to mine. For ye know not the hour. There are others in Yarmouth who seek to stir up division like mud in a creek. At Meeting they grasp at privilege and make much of themselves. But our dissensions must be thrust aside. If we do not help each other, who will help us? We are all sojourners in a strange land: we must lend aid, and stand guard against attack, and carry our faith like a precious stone. We hear of other plantations where there is not a Christian left alive.
Our court sentenced Seb Mitchel to be fined three pounds for his unseemly and blasphemous speeches. He spoke against his Maker for taking all three of Seb’s children. He will have to give his hog to pay the fine.
Our numbers in Yarmouth are increased with the coming of ships, yet I dislike these incomers, who are all puffed up
and never think of our sweat that built this town. I pray they be not like the seed that springs up quick and eager but is soon parched and blasted by the noonday sun.
Sarah White is married to Hugh Norman these two months past. She is lightsome of countenance and speech. She forgets the saying of the Apostle, that wives should submit. If she does not take care, her behavior will be spoken of at Meeting. I went by her house the other day, and she was singing a song. I could not make out the words, but it was no hymn.
These days some play while others work. Things that are lawful in moderation, whether archery or foot-racing, tobacco or ale, are become traps for the weak. Each man goes his own way, it seems; there is little concord or meekness of spirit. I remind my brethren that we are not separate, one from the other. Another bad winter could extinguish us. In this rough country we stand together or we fall.
God has not yet granted me a helpmeet. I look about me diligently at the sisters in our plantation, but some are shrewish, and others have a barren look about them, or a limp, or a cast in the eye.
In the first days, I remember, we were all one family in the Lord. But now each household shuts its doors at night. Every man looks to his own wife and his own children. I think on the first days, when there was great fellowship, through all trials.
Last night there was a snow so heavy that the whole plantation was made one white. I stood in my door and saw some flakes as wide as my hand, that came down faster than the
others. Every flake falls alone, and yet on the ground they are all one.
Twice in these last months a woman has come big-bellied to be married, and she and the man put a shame-face on and paid their fine to the court, but it is clear think little of their sin.
Our court sentenced Joan Younge’s master to pay her fine of two pounds, for she was rude to her mistress on the Lord’s day and blocked her ears when the Bible was read, and the master should have kept her under firm governance. I would have had the girl whipped down to the bone.
Teague Joanes is the only man now who says more to me than yea or nay.
At sunset most evenings I meet him where our cornfields join. He tells me that though marriage be our duty, it brings much grief, and from the hour a child is born his father is never without fear.
Hugh Norman’s daughter was found in the well, five years old. I went by their house and offered a word of succor to the mother, Sarah, but she would not leave off howling like a beast. One of John Vincent’s daughters was there.
Good news on the last ship. King Charles has been cast down for his Popish wickedness. Men of conscience govern England. Heathenish festivities no longer defile the name of the Lord, and there is no more Christmas.
Here we work till the light fails. We have indentured men, some blacks among them, to hoe the land, but still too much of the crop is lost in the weeds, and strangled in rankness.
Mary Vincent is fifteen, and comely, but not overmuch.
Our court found Nathaniel Hatch and his sister Lydia Hatch guilty of unclean practices. They have strayed so far from the path, they are sheep who cannot be brought home. He is to be banished to the south and she to the north. We are not to break bread with them, or so much as throw them a crust. If we happen to pass either of them in the road, we are to turn our faces away. If either tries to speak to any of our community, we are to stop up our ears. No other town in Plymouth, or any other Christian plantation, will take in a cast-out.
I gave my view in Meeting that the pair should have been put to death for their incest, as a sign to waverers. (And after all, to be cast out is itself a sort of death, for who would wish to roam this wilderness alone?) It has seemed to me for some time that our laws are too soft. If any man go after strange flesh, or children, or fowl or other beasts, even if the deed be not accomplished, it should be death. If any man act upon himself so as to spill his seed on the ground, it should be exile, at least. For the seed is most precious in these times and must not be lost.
I spoke to Mary Vincent’s father, and he was not opposed, but the girl would not have me.
I am a fruitless man. My grievous sins of pride and hardheartedness have made me to bury my coin in the ground, like the bad servant in the parable. I have begot no children to increase our plantation. All I can do is work.
There is talk of making a law against the single life, so that every unmarried man or woman would have to go and live in some godly family. But what house would take me in?
Nathaniel Hatch is rumored to be living still in the woods to the south of Yarmouth. I wonder if he has repented of his filth. Even if the wolves have spared him, he has no people now. As for his sister, no one has set eyes on her.
Mary Vincent is to marry Benjamin Hammon.
My face is furrowed like a cornfield. The ice leaves its mark, and the burning summer turns all things brown. But I will cast off vanity. The body is but the husk that is tossed aside in the end.
Benjamin Hammon said to Teague Joanes that Sarah Norman told his wife I was an old killjoy.
It matters not.
Sin creeps around like a fog in the night. Too many of us forget to be watchful. Too many have left their doors open for the Tempter to slip in. I puzzle over it as I lie on my bed in the darkness, but I cannot tell why stinking lusts and things fearful to name should arise so commonly among us. It may be that our strict laws stop up the channel of wickedness, but it searches everywhere and at last breaks out worse than before.
I consider it my pressing business to stand sentry. Where vice crawls out of the shadows, I shine a light on it. Death still seizes so many of our flock each winter, we cannot spare a single soul among the survivors. Better I should anger my neighbor than stand by and watch the Tempter pluck up his soul as the eagle fastens on the lamb. Better I should be spurned and despised, and feel myself to be entirely alone on this earth, than that I should relinquish my holy labor. They call me killjoy, but let them tell me this, what business have
we with joy? What time have we to spare for joy, and what have we done to deserve it?
The Lord has entered into the Temple and the cleansing has begun. Let the godless tremble, but the clean of heart rejoice.
This day by my information charges were laid against Sarah Norman, together with Mary Hammon, fifteen years old and newly a wife, the more her shame. I testified to what I witnessed. With my own eyes I saw them, as I stood by Hugh Norman’s window in the heat of the day. His wife and Benjamin Hammon’s were lying on the one bed together. They were naked as demons, and there was not a hand-span between their bodies.
It is time now to put our feet to the spades to dig up evil and all its roots.
But already there is weakening. Our court was prevailed upon to let the girl go, with only an admonition, on account of her youth. The woman’s case has been held over until the weight of business allows it to be heard. But I have faith she will be brought to judgment at last after all these years of giddiness. In the meantime, Hugh Norman has sworn he will put her and her children out of his house. I gave my belief that she should be cast out of Yarmouth.
Teague Joanes came to my house last night after dark, a thing he has never done before. He said, was it not likely the woman and the girl were only comforting each other when I saw them through the window, and what soul did not need some consolation in these hard times? I reminded him that consolation was not to be sought nor found in this life, but
the next. He would have prevailed upon me to show mercy, as the Father did to his Prodigal. But I gave my belief that by their transgression Sarah Norman and Mary Hammon have strayed far beyond the reach of mercy.
Then he asked me a curious thing, did I never feel lonely? In the depth of winter, say, when the snow fills up all the pathways.
I told him I never did. But this was akin to a lie.
Teague said he could not believe I was such a hard man. I gave him no answer, for my thoughts were all confounded. Then he said at any rate he would not part with me on bad terms, and came up to me and held on to me, and his leg lay against my leg.
All that was last night. And today charges were laid by my information against Teague Joanes for an attempt at sodomy.
These are bitter times. The wind of opposition blows full in my face, but I must not turn aside, for fear of my soul.
At last our court found Sarah Norman guilty of lewd behavior with Mary Hammon, but sentenced her merely to make a public acknowledgment on the Lord’s day following. She lives now in a mud hut on the edge of our plantation, and her children with her, as Hugh Norman has taken ship back to England. With my own eyes I have seen some of the brethren stop to speak with her on the road. I ask why she has not been exiled, and there is none will answer me.
The case against Teague Joanes has not yet been heard. He is well liked among those who are deceived by a show of friendliness and the Tempter’s own sweet smile. Many whisper
that the charges should be struck out as unfounded. No one says a word to me these days. But I know what I know.
Our paths crossed on the Lord’s day, and he spat on my back.
I am not a dreaming man, but last night the most dreadful sight was shown to me. I saw Teague Joanes and Sarah Norman consorting uncleanly on a bed, the man behind the woman, turning the natural use to that which is against nature, and laughing all the while.
And when I woke I knew this was no fancy but a true vision, granted me by the Lord, so that with the eyes of sleep I could witness what is hidden in the light of day. So I walked to the court and laid charges against them both for sodomy.
The clerk did not want to write down my dream. So I took him by the collar and I asked, would he wrestle with God’s own angel?
In the whole town there is none who will greet me. I hear the slurs they cast upon me as I go down the street.
I work in my own field, though these days my bones creak like dead trees. I keep my head down if ever someone passes by. I wait for the court to hear my evidence. I must stand fast.
Today I was called to the court. I stepped out my door, and over my head were hanging icicles as thick as my fist and sharp like swords of glass.
There in the court were Teague Jones and Sarah Norman and Benjamin Hammon and his wife Mary together with many others, the whole people of Plymouth. And I read on their faces that they were my enemies and God’s.
At first I spoke up stoutly and told of the wickedness that
is spreading through this plantation, and of the secrets that hide in the folds of men’s hearts. And then Teague Joanes stood up and shouted out that I was a madman and that I had no heart.
It was quiet for a moment, a quietness I have never heard before.
Then I was asked over and over again about what I had seen, and what I had imagined, and what I knew for sure. But I could not answer. I felt a terrible spinning. All I could think on was the evening Teague Joanes walked in my door. Not of the words he spoke, but the way he stood there, looking in my eyes as few know how to in these times. The way he laid his arms around me, fearless, and pressed me to him, as one brother to another. And all of a sudden I remembered the treacherous stirring between us, the swelling of evil, and I knew whose body began it.
