Harvard Yard (11 page)

Dunster slid a copy of the
Quaestiones
across the table. “This is to be delivered to Thomas Weld. He went over last year to raise funds for us. He has written a pamphlet called
New England’s First Fruits
to describe our work. He would print the
Quaestiones
with the pamphlet, to prove that we’ve graduated a class and are holding to our purpose. Would you care to deliver your handiwork?”

“Gladly, sir. But might it not be carried as a dispatch?”

“They’ve asked that we send over a student, too. A certain Lady Mowlson of London is considering a contribution. ’Twould produce an annual stipend for ‘some poor scholar,’ as she puts it. Weld believes that seeing a poor scholar—poor in purse, but rich in learning—will inspire her generosity.”

Though Isaac believed in the beneficence of Henry Dunster, he was not naive. To make such a journey, there had to be some gain. He sought a polite way to word it, could find none, and so said, “May I count on a position as a tutor here when I return?”

“If Lady Mowlson offers a sum, I shall argue that you deserve the first stipend.”

“Then I go gladly.”

“But what of Mistress Nicholson? Do you love her?”

“I believe so, sir.”

“You believe so? And what do you believe she will say to all this?”

“I believe she will be happy for me.”

That evening, Isaac took a copy of the
Quaestiones,
rolled it, tied it with a strip of colored fabric, and went to the home of the Nicholsons. A small gift might smooth the way for his bad news . . . if not with Katharine, at least with her father.

Charles Nicholson answered the door. He was a big man with fleshy features that always brightened at the appearance of Isaac, who had grown into a tall, square-jawed young man of the sort that any father would be proud to call a son-in-law. “Congratulations, my boy. A graduate at last. Would that my Jamie had stayed till Dunster arrived. But he preferred to learn the family business in Boston.”

“I brought a remembrance of commencement, sir.” Isaac offered him the
Quaestiones.

Nicholson unrolled the paper, studied it, and announced, “History is writ here, son. A hundred years hence, men will look to this and feel the spirit of their ancestors.”

“Printed by my own hand,” said Isaac proudly.

“And a fine job you’ve made of it, too.” With great ceremony, Nicholson took the
Quaestiones
to his Bible, a large and magnificent volume in a gilt-edged leather binding, opened it to the back, and slid the sheet into the endpapers. “This will I keep in my safest place, next to the oath I swore when I became a freeman of the colony.”

“A sacred place, sir.”

“Now, then, what can I do for you?”

“I’ve come, sir, hoping for permission to court your daughter . . . formally.”

The request was met with a shout, a warm embrace, and a promise of employment as soon as the date was set.

The shout brought Mother Nicholson and Katharine rushing from the next room, and a scene of great joy began, only to end abruptly when Isaac extricated himself from Master Nicholson’s grasp and said, “Thank you, sir, but it would be premature to set a date, as I’ve been engaged by President Dunster to go to London—”

“London!” cried Katharine, and she stalked out, with her mother following in her wake.

After a moment, Nicholson said, “Saw that sight myself, once, some twenty-five years ago. My wife wanted marriage and I wanted a business. ’Tis like livin’ my own life over to see them go runnin’ off like that.”

“I’m . . . I’m sorry, sir.”

Nicholson pointed a finger at Isaac. “Play not with my daughter’s affections, boy, or I’ll have you in the stocks. But remember that women are creatures who see only the ground in front of them. We men must keep our eyes on the horizon. Now then, we shall call her back, and you can tell her your reasons for goin’ so far.”

After some coaxing, Katharine returned. And while her parents took a stroll in the September night, she and Isaac had their talk.

“You cannot love me too well,” said Katharine, “that you would prefer to be message carrier for the college than my husband.”

“Katharine . . . were it only for the carrying of a message, I would stay and marry you and make a dozen children—”

“A dozen? I’m no brood mare, Isaac.”

“Then a half dozen.”

“You think me incapable of mothering a large family, then?”

“No, my dear.” He thought to tell her that she was incapable only of listening to logic, but he would not venture into such places.

She said, “Simply tell me why you are leaving me to go to London when my father has offered you a position.”

“For the stipend. And . . . other reasons.”

She furrowed her brow. “What other reasons?”

“To fulfill my promise to John Harvard.” He paused, hoping he had said enough.

She looked at him, her brows a single hard line across her forehead.

So he said, “I must bring back a book that Eaton carried off.”

“A book? What book? What book could be so important?”

“’Tisn’t the book but the promise. The book be mere trifle. But as I told you, a . . . a man will be known by his books.”

“A man will be known by his trifles, you mean. You go to London to pursue a trifle. A book of poems? Love sonnets, perhaps? If so, be sure to read them. For you have need of tutoring in the ways of love. . . . Now, what is the book?”

He might have dissembled, but he decided on the truth, in hopes of drawing her into his pursuit. “I’ll tell you, if you agree to keep it secret.”

“If you do
not
tell me, I shall agree never to speak to you again. And if you go, you’ll be gone months, and John Howell makes warm eyes at me every Sabbath.”

So Isaac took a deep breath and said, “The book is a play.”

“A play!” she cried. “What kind of play? A modern play?”

And he decided that he had told enough truth. Mention of Shakespeare would only bring more anger from a good Puritan girl. So he told her it was by Aeschylus, to serve in teaching students their Greek. “The title,” he said, “is not important.”

“And by the look of things,” she answered, “neither am I.”

All summer, Isaac had been preparing for membership in the Cambridge church. Sabbath attendance was required of all, but to join the church as a full member, one had to study Reverend Shepard’s Theology of Conversion, learn all the steps from Election to Illumination of the Spirit, appear before the elders, then confess conversion before the congregation. With a long voyage ahead, Isaac wished to take the final step, and Reverend Shepard agreed, despite Isaac’s youth.

So, on the Sabbath before his leaving, Isaac walked through a heavy rain, down Water Street to the meetinghouse, all the while rehearsing his confession.

At the appropriate moment, he was summoned to stand before the congregation. With the sound of the rain and the smell of wet wool so strong that they seemed to bear weight, he looked out on the familiar faces of his world—Reverend Shepard, President Dunster, Diggory Venn and Samuel Day, Master Nicholson and his wife, and finally, Katharine, her expression set hard in a gray mortar of disappointment.

“As I go to England,” he began, “I will carry the Lord with me. He is my strength and my shield. But I confess that it was not always thus, for the Lord saw fit to cast my father into the deep, and I didst cry out with all the despair of Job, all the anger of one who sees not the Lord’s grander designs but only his earthly outcomes.”

All were listening closely, and Reverend Shepard was writing furiously, for he copied down the words of every confession.

“My anger remained until my mother and I reached these shores, like the Jews of Exodus. And then, when my soul didst sink to its lowest ebb, the Lord held forth testimony of His love in the person of John Harvard, who showed me that God’s ways are not always to be understood but are always to be accepted. Now my chiefest desire is that I may live to honor Him.” His speech, which continued in this vein for some time more, brought murmuring approval and nodding heads, and he sat, confident of his acceptance.

“Thank you, Isaac,” said Reverend Shepard. “We beseech the Lord’s blessing as you sail to serve our School of the Prophets. Now then, my brethren, Isaac Wedge has been propounded to you, desiring to enter church fellowship. If any of you know anything against him, why he may not be admitted, you may speak.”

For a few moments, the drumming of the rain on the roof was the only sound. Then, the slender figure of Katharine Nicholson rose. “I would speak, Reverend.”

“The daughter of Master Nicholson has not yet confessed herself,” said Shepard, “but as her father has been admitted to membership, we shall exempt her.”

Isaac sat on his hands so that no one would see them shaking. He could not know what she was about to say, for she had not spoken to him in a week. But the look that she shot at him made plain her intention to skewer him like a leg of lamb.

She began softly, her eyes cast downward in deference to those before her. “I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my strength and my protection. That I would be subject, without Him, to the most wicked of impulses is a truth I freely admit. Indeed, I might have submitted already to the temptations offered by a certain young man.”

Isaac felt a change in the room, sidelong glances, eyes shifting in his direction.

“And worst of all,” said Katharine, her voice rising, “I might have been inspired to read what this young man promises to bring back from England. A play!”

“A play!” came the cry from the back of the room.

“Blasphemy!” cried someone else. “The work of the devil.”

And suddenly, all eyes were boring holes into Isaac, and the sharpest bit of all was in the gaze of Master Nicholson himself.

“Aye,” said Katharine, “’tis a play he says belonged to John Harvard.”

And Master Nicholson growled, “A modern play, or so my daughter fears.”

Samuel Day whispered to Isaac, “Blasphemy be the word for this, lad. Plays be blasphemy for certain. Best explain yourself.”

So Isaac leapt to his feet, and if he had not committed blasphemy yet, he committed it now, for he lied to the congregation as he had to Katharine, telling them that he sought to bring back books to enrich the college library, and among them would be a play by the Greek Aeschylus, to help students learn one of the classical languages.

That night, Shepard transcribed Isaac’s confession, as he did all of them, because he believed that each person’s journey to the Lord might provide instruction for those who came after. He also set down notes on the words of Katharine Nicholson, which Isaac had answered to the reverend’s satisfaction but which had led the congregation to defer his acceptance until his return from England.

Shepard then recorded his observations on the parting of Isaac and Katharine outside the meetinghouse: “She spake harshly to him, that he had thrown over her love, and that should he return with all the books ever printed in London, he should not get her back. He pleaded that this journey would firm his future and hers, too, if only she would wait. Her answer was to turn and walk off into the rain. Then did Isaac spy me and say, ‘Reverend, should I bring back any book offensive to you, it shall be yours to destroy.’”

iii

Civil war had erupted in England by the time Isaac arrived. Suffice it to say that the Puritans stood on one side, the High Churchmen on the other, and the clash of politics was as significant as the clash of theologies, for Parliament was mostly Puritan and Anglicans supported the king.

London was a Puritan city and Parliamentarian stronghold, and in late October of 1642, a defense force was forming to resist the royal army. The beginning of a war may be a time of great excitement for a young man in search of adventure, but Isaac Wedge was not tempted to join his Puritan brethren. As Thomas Weld, college emissary, reminded him, “You’ve come here for one purpose—to serve your college by impressing an old woman.”

The next day, Weld presented Isaac at the home of Anne Radcliffe, Lady Mowlson, in the parish of St. Christopher’s. It was a large house, as befitted the lady’s late husband, once lord mayor of London. A large house for a small woman, thought Isaac, a small and slumped woman of sixty-two, toothless and wizened, her face squeezed into a wimple, gray hairs growing at the corners of her mouth, yet a woman who seemed in command of all around her, even the sunlight that fell obediently across the table where she sat.

“So this be one of the poor scholars,” she said, looking hard at Isaac Wedge.

“Yes, my lady,” said Weld.

“Has the boy a tongue?” she snapped.

“Yes, my lady,” said Weld, and he glanced at Isaac.

“A poor scholar,” said Isaac, “come across an ocean to meet you, and to bring you this.” Isaac handed her a copy of the
Quaestiones,
wrapped in a red silk ribbon. “To show you that our first class has been properly raised up and sent out into the world.”

She read a few of the
Quaestiones
and said, “So . . . is the soul part of the body,
Isaacus Wedgius?
”

“I believed that it is, my lady, whilst we live. But the afterlife does not await in the grave. ’Tis in a place that the Lord predestines. Whilst our corporeal being corrupts, our essential soul must seek that other place.”

She gave a grunt, as if he had given the right answer and it did not matter a great deal to her. Then she took the
Quaestiones
over to the window. “I did not know there was a printing press in New England. Or any printer who could set type so well.”

“You appreciate good printing, my lady?” asked Isaac.

“I am an old woman with failing eyes. When I see a well-printed sheet, one I that may read with ease, I know that God still loves me.”

“Then you will be pleased to know,” said Weld, “that it was Isaac himself who printed the sheet.”

And the rheumy eyes of Lady Mowlson brightened. “Did he? Did he indeed? A printer, then, as well as a scholar. Now I be impressed.”

After that, Lady Mowlson received Isaac every day for a week. She questioned him about his world, about his college, about his hopes and his love, which he found growing dimmer the farther he traveled.