Crane Pond (41 page)

‘No, father. It's just my old knee.'

Sewall ponders on this. Yes, he can remember her complaining about her knee when she was younger but he thought nothing of it at the time, assuming she was suffering from the bumps and bruises of childhood, or imagining things like her brother Sam. He hasn't noticed anything untoward since those days, perhaps because Hannah isn't a very active person. But of course that might be precisely
because
of the problem with her knee. ‘Does it cause you much pain?' he asks.

‘No, father. It's nothing.' She repeats what she said before: ‘Just my old knee.'

He decides not to press her further. It will only worry her. He will ask wife Hannah about it on their return—she will be aware of it. But his girl's limping has made him self-conscious about his own gait and the way that he has to shift his weight from one hip to the other as he takes each step forward. For the first time he realises that a sort of waddle has intruded itself into the way he walks.

So here they are, father and daughter, limping and waddling their way to the viewpoint on the top of the hill.

It's as if he is looking at the years of his childhood in this place all at once. Far off on the horizon is the sea, gleaming like the scales of the very fish that swim beneath its surface. Then the sand dunes of Plum Island, acting as a breakwater for the estuary of the Merrimack River. And on the river's banks, a mile or so inland, are huddled the little wooden houses of his home town of Newbury, and a little closer the sinuous stretch of the River Parker as it winds towards confluence with its bigger brother.

‘What can you see, Hannah?' He turns to his daughter and her spectacles flash briefly as she surveys the landscape that stretches out before her.

‘I can see a pond, over there,' she says. Sure enough a pond lies just to one side of Newbury like a small disc of polished silver in this brilliant light.

‘That's Crane Pond,' Sewall tells her. ‘I used to fish in it as a boy.'

‘Did you, father? What did you catch?'

‘Oh, this and that. Perch mostly. And sometimes a big pike would come up and gobble the bait.'

‘And a herd of cows,' she says. ‘A lot more than cousin William has.' The cows are grazing in a field that lies at the base of the next rise of the ground, known as Turkey Hill. Hannah sighs. ‘I love cows,' she says dreamily.

Sewall recalls her complaints about the way the cows mooed at her and for a moment this pleasant experience is threatened by a pang of resentment. But no, she didn't mislead him then, and she isn't telling untruths now. As the past makes its pilgrimage to the future it must transform itself or there would be no heaven to look forward to.

 

Back home Sewall begins to write a little book. He wants to explain to his fellow colonists why they have all been so harried (himself included) by fears they betrayed and destroyed the great enterprise of America; why they all succumbed to such an acute fear of failure they allowed themselves to fall into the witchcraft delusion. It's because they believed that their forefathers, in coming to these shores on the
Mayflower
and the
Arbella
, were setting up God's Kingdom in its final form. But nothing is immune from history save God himself.

So he begins:
Not to begin to be, and so not to be limited by the concernments of Time and Place, is the prerogative of God alone
.

Most countries have existed for time out of mind, so are reconciled to being historical, but Massachusetts Bay has come upon the scene so recently it's not comfortable in making the step from present to future, and creaks and groans as it shifts its bulk, like a laden galleon bellying through difficult waters. When it began it was the creation of its founders, but now it is more than a lifetime old its people belong to
it
, and have to accept that diminished status.

The first settlers were not escaping from history (any more than he, Sewall, can escape his own past). They were simply renewing it. And after every setback and injustice it must be renewed again and again. We have to live in time; though time's ultimate destination is eternity.

Five years ago Sewall delivered twenty sentences on people who had done no wrong. His apology was a different sentence from those, one that sentenced the past. Now he writes a different one again, addressing the future. The previous sentences were uttered inside meeting-house walls but this one must step out of doors, into America itself:

 

As long as
Plum-Island
shall faithfully keep the commanded Post; Nothwithstanding all the hectoring Words, and hard Blows of the proud and boisterous Ocean; As long as any Salmon, or Sturgeon shall swim in the streams of
Merrimack
; or any Perch, or Pickeril, in
Crane Pond
; As long as any Cattel shall be fed with the Grass growing in the Medows, which do humbly bow down themselves before Turkie-Hill; As long as any Sheep shall walk upon
Old Town Hills
, and shall from thence pleasantly look down upon the River
Parker
, and the fruitfull Marishes lying beneath; As long as any free and harmless Doves shall find a White Oak, or other Tree within the Township, to perch, or feed, or build a careless Nest upon; and shall voluntarily present themselves to perform the office of Gleaners after Barley-Harvest; As long as Nature shall not grow Old and dote; but shall constantly remember to give the rows of Indian Corn their education, by Pairs: So long shall Christians be born there; and being first made meet, shall from thence be Translated, to be made partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light.

 

—S
AMUEL
S
EWALL
,
Phaenomena quaedam Apocalyptica ad aspectum novi orbis configurata: Some Few Lines Towards a Description of the New Heaven as It Makes to Those Who Stand upon the New Earth
(Boston, 1697)

Samuel Sewall's
Diary
, edited by M. Halsey Thomas in two volumes (1973), gives more insight than any other work into the day-by-day experiences of a colonial New Englander, though Sewall devotes little space to the Salem trials. A list of other primary and secondary sources can be found in my biography,
Judge Sewall's Apology
(2005), where I also acknowledge the individuals and institutions who provided assistance with research for that nonfictional encounter with the man and his times.

The writing of the present novel was aided by a Hodson-Brown Fellowship, which provided access to the John Carter Brown Library's collection of early American material for two months during the fall of 2013, and gave my wife Jo and me the use of a wonderful colonial house in Chestertown, Maryland, for a further two months in the summer of 2014. During that time I was able to work on the novel in my office at the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington College, situated in the Custom House on the banks of the Chester River. I would like to express my gratitude to Neil Safier and his colleagues at the JCB Library, and to Adam Goodheart and all at the Starr Center for their support; also to Ellen and Frank Hurst, our neighbours in Chestertown, for their friendship and hospitality (which included visiting membership of the local bocce league).

Thanks also to Tracy Brain, Julia Green, Tessa Hadley, Richard Kerridge, and Boyd and Elizabeth Schlenther, all of whom read an early draft of this novel and offered encouragement and suggestions. I had expert advice and help from my son Will and daughter Helen, while Jo has been involved all along, as always. Lastly I'm grateful to those concerned in bringing the novel to publication: Caroline Dawnay and Sophie Scard of United Agents in London, Alice Whitwham of the Zoe Pagnamenta Agency in New York, and my Europa editors on both sides of the Atlantic, Kent Carroll and Daniela Petracco.

Richard Francis was educated at Cambridge and Harvard. He has written 16 books, both fiction and nonfiction, including a number of books on American history and thought. His award-winning novels and books of nonfiction have been published by leading houses in London and New York, including Fourth Estate, Simon & Schuster, Harper-Collins, W. W. Norton, Faber & Faber, and Pantheon. He and his wife live in Bath.

 

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