Chapter 9

Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Plymouth

17 Nov  ESCAPE

Oft in the years since I left the Manor House, I am troubled by what Mary might have thought as she read my letter. How she must have suffered! How I have grieved over my action! It was cowardly. Of all my life regrets, and there are many, abandoning Mary without warning, without true explanation, has been my most enduring anguish.

Leaving the Manor House in the quiet of night, in my best working dress, a small, black felt hat instead of a bonnet, and wearing newly purchased shoes, I carried my few belongings in a sack. These were my trifling savings of seven years, my doeskin smock, some dried fruit, the shell necklace, my cornhusk doll and a red ribbon retrieved from a trash pile. I then set out for London, hoping to arrive by dawn and from there, find my way to a magical and faraway place called Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne. Scraps of meat kept the dogs hushed as I stole away from the house, never looking back.

18 Nov  COAL SHIP

Once in London I inquired of a dozen persons as to where I would find a coach for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. All agreed, the journey would require five or six days in good weather, traveling thirty to forty miles in a day. In rain the tyme would slow to eight or nine days. Imagine my shock on discovering that the cost was more than I had saved in employment all these years. Making my way on foot was the only other way. Then, in a flash came another thought.

Straightaway, I hastened to the fish market at Billingsgate. An old fishmonger told me that ships bearing sea coal from Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne came regularly to Gravesend and would return with cloth and many sundries. Perhaps I could find work helping to transfer the coal onto river boats for the short voyage to London.

Well do I remember the long trek along the river. Noted with compassion but no longer amazement were all the travelers carrying heavy burdens and pulling carts. By nightfall, I had found a place to sleep, a hideaway beneath an overpass. During the night a tapping on my leg awakened me. Greatly frightened, I peered out in the darkness to see a figure outlined by moonlight. It was a shawled woman carrying a baby in one arm, the other extended palm up. I tried to turn away, half in feare and half in pity, but she persisted. Sleep resumed only after I handed her a coin worth a month’s work.

By late sunne on the following day I had arrived at the wharves of Gravesend. The air was heavy with the sharp smell of tar. A swarm of men were a’work already carrying great bundles from ships and loading them onto lighters. I learnt which coal ship would be returning to Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne. So now wearing some discarded rags as clothes and with a charcoal‐smudged face, I straightaway found work as a carrier of coal. My attempt to lower my voice to a man’s level was feeble. The shipmen, wanting workers, cared less for talkers and not at all whether faces were unshorn or plain, nor of the state of clothing.

Oh, how my shoulders and back ached after hefting the bags of coal down one ramp, across the wharf, and up another ramp to a lighter! What relief it was to come to the last of the bundles—only to find that a load of goods also needed to be taken aboard. Then, to my surprise, the carriers also had to load bags of sand onto the ship. Trading coal for sand? I understood then not the purpose.

Another day was needed to ready the ship. It finally dropped its sayles, raised anchor, and was assoon a’bounding in the North Sea. The sea air was a welcome gift, a change from the stench of the city. Greater than that was knowing that every roll of the ship brought me one wave closer to Lionel. Though aching, hungry, and seasick, I was happy.

The ship had no name. It was much shorter and wider than the ocean‐going Black Swan. Once under full sail in fair weather, even this ship charged through the water. A steady breeze from the southwest prevailed until the third night a’sea. Then, heavy wind and high waves tossed the ship as if it were a toy. Only during that long and fitful night, did I realize that those bags of sand, wearily hauled onto the ship and stacked along the keel, kept the ship seaworthy, replacing the weight of the coal.

19 Nov  NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE

Winter nears. Jacob should be here by now. My worry increases with every passing day. Yet, I tell myself, “Be patient. Jacob will come before heavy snowefall. He always does.”

By dawn of the third day a’sea we arrived at the opening to the River Tyne. Rising at the headland stood a white tower from which glowed an immense, deep-red flame. Here, fast‐shouted commands to saylors brought the ship safely up the winding river. We carriers of coal merely sat a’deck out of the way and watched the saylors working high in the rigging. My heart jumped wildly with ever‐growing excitement on nearing the city. Somewhere here awaited Lionel.

The bridge of Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne was smaller than the London Bridge, but it, too, had arches and buildings along its length. The ship tethered along a wharf just beyond a score or so of barges and keels. Each of these was piled high with coal meant for loading onto greater ships bound for London.

A great wall wrapped around the city on a hill. It was not like one that protected a Mohawk village. There, the wall was made of standing saplings and thickly woven with branches. Here, the wall was of stone and mortar. Towers with gates stood in places along the wall.

Upon arriving at the wharf, I slung my small bundle across my shoulder and slipped off the ship with only Number 28 Mulberry Quay on my mind, caring not for any meager earnings from coal and sand carrying. Instead, I passed straightaway through the tower gate at bridge-end.

I found the bathhouse only a few footsteps from the tower gate. For a tuppence, I soaked in steaming soapy water. A scrub maid, well along in years, brushed my hair to gleaming. She knew not of a street named Mulberry Quay. “It is not in Sandhill. All my life here along this river, I would know a street named Mulberry Quay. Go to the town center to inquire further. But,” she added with a foreboding voice, “be careful.

“’Tis a woeful tyme to come to Newcastle, my child,” she said. Covering her face with both hands, she added, “A great sickness hath broken out fearfully. Many are stricken. Some already have died. People of the upper sort have fled for the fresh air of their country homes. Others of the poorer sort can only stay. Families, the sick and the well, suffer shut up behind boarded‐up doors to await an unkind fate.”

Yet, my thoughts were elsewhere. I pulled on my deerskin tunic and braided my hair into two strands. The red ribbon made a headband. Oh, how the scrub maid looked on me with wonder. Then, barefooted, I set out to find that person who had become such a huge part of my life. Now Lionel would see me as a true Mohawk woman.

My first close view of the city was astonishing. I looked uphill onto a broad and handsome street of sand and gravel. Trees along the way gave good shade. Clean water ran freely down wooden troughs along the roadside. Spouting fountains along the troughs reminded me of the fast‐running mountain streames of my first home.

Along the way, the call of gulls was replaced by tolling bells from churches. The agreeable fragrance of the air at riverside soon gave way to an eye-tearing scent of burning pitch. I soon came upon the cause, curious as it was: barrels with tar afire placed all along the street.

The street was sparsely filled. Here ’twas not the horde of people, cattle, poultry, and carts that oozed through the streets of London. Here rather was a town of orderly and natural beauty. No dogs barked at my feet, but doors draped in black were plentiful. Painted signs on some said, “Lord, have mercy upon this house.”

As I continued, I was not mindful of the annoyances: of wanting breath on ascending a street of great steepness or of the sharp gravel playing on tender feet. I soon came to another wall within which, on top of a high knoll, stood a castle. I marveled for a moment at this massive structure, so like those described in books for children where a handsome prince lives. The moat around it was not filled with water as it would be for a proper castle, but rather with rubbish, and scampering over it was a swarm of grey rodents.

Elsewhere, great houses of uncommon elegance lined both sides of a street. Lofty they were, some of brick and stone but most of rich, dark wood of the timbered style, rising three or four levels with no scarcity of glassed windows. Shoppes filled the spaces between. All were tidy.

Farther on, standing alone, another eye‐popping sight: a church of great size. Rising high above the church was a tower of great immensity. Four slender spires topped the corners of the tower. Smaller spires stood between them. Centered amid the big towers were two crossing arches upon which another tower, gigantic it was, rose ever much higher. Atop this tower, another spire reached skyward ready to touch a passing cloud. Here was Cloud-Splitter of Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne. For a moment, I felt home once again.

I would like to draw this great church with its stunning steeple but my memory lacks details. Impressive and grand it was!

20 Nov  WARNINGS

The splendor of the city aside, I had to move on. I inquired again for directions to Mulberry Quay. The first person I stopped had no knowledge of this street; nor the second man. Instead, he warned me of the plague. “Beware the ring‐around‐the‐rosie,” said he in an ill‐boding tone. Puzzled, I asked a third. He, too, knew not of Mulberry Quay but saw fit to speak of a curse upon the city. Another directed me to Quayside along the river where affaires of trade are conducted. There I might find the place of my search. “Be wary,” said he with solemn gravity in his voice, “Plague has fallen with particular ferocity on Quayside.”

There, I repeated my query about Mulberry Quay, always getting the same answer and like words of warning. More certain it came to me, there was no such place as Mulberry Quay in Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne. More and more confused, I asked about a theatre group. No, there had been no recent troupe of players in the city and none expected. As I drifted aimlessly through the streets, I grew ever more frantic. There was no play, and there had been no troop of actors passing through. What had happened? Where was Lionel? Had he deceived me? How was that possible? My breath tightened more as I continued to inquire.

What of this plague? “A fierce illness,” they said, “striking down dead a brawny farmer or a collier in a day, sparing not his wife nor his children.” The sickness came from crowds, some said, accounting for the bare streets. Others spoke of ships bringing the plague from Holland. Heard oft that dogs spread it. There were those who believed that the plague was punishment from God.

People fended against the plague by keeping flowers around themselves. “Against the red bubo, a pocketful of posies is the best shield,” they said. “Death dances nearby when the sickness enters the lungs and causes cough, the dreaded ash-shu, ash-shu.” In my state of feverish agitation, I heard only a sliver of these warnings.

My muddled head led me back up the hill to the church with the cloud-splitting tower. It, too, was called the Church of Saint Nicholas. I stood in the widely gaping door and stared inside. I saw a stone font that was decorated with family arms. It appeared much larger in width and height than the font at Shepperton’s Saint Nicholas where the baby Anna was baptized. Beyond the font there stretched a vast interior with many high arches held up with massive columns, all leading to an altar in the far distance. At the end was an immense window of many colours. It somehow reminded me of home: of the sky flower at the Place of the Falling Canoe.

Suddenly arising from somewhere in the church was a person who put an end to my wandering thoughts: a thick-bodied preacher with a trim-cut beard and dressed in a long, black gown. Said he, “Do you come to this place of worship to seek a pardon for sins?”

I tried to sputter my story. He interrupted, asking me if I read the Bible. I shook my head one way or another, though I remember not which way. He asked if I had come to free my soul. “No, I came to find a dear friend.”

“First,” said he, “you must cleanse yourself from your wrongdoings.” He then went on about a need for forgiveness of my sins and the price to me of his indulgence.

“Piffle,” thought I. His voice trailed off as I turned to continue my quest, wandering, passing gravediggers bent to their task in the churchyard, out into the empty space that, to me for the moment, had become the whole world.

21 Nov  REBIRTH

Little else of that day do I remember. I no longer heard the clatter of the street. The ordinary smells of a city made no impression on me. People, animals, and carts had become only a moving blur. What did come to my mindless mind was the face of the woman fetched out of the River Thames on that last day when Lionel and I were together. That was the day when we avowed to meet again.

In a state of crushing despair, I wandered about without direction, knowing naught, caring not where my feet took me. But take me somewhere they did. By nightfall, they brought me to the wharf and slowly down steps that led into the water. Calm was the water where a streak of moonlight crossed its width. I was alone. Ships, slowly rocking in the distance, made the only sound. The world now seemed only to be water. Deeper and deeper my feet carried me out to where the water covered my shoulders. The water was warm and comforting.

Deeper still I waded until air and water seemed one. I felt my shoes slipping off. No matter because I was now ready for that last breath. Yet gulping and gasping, I could draw not that final breath of river. My head tried. My heart fought against it. The choice tore at my whole being.

Grandmother Moon peeked from behind a cloud to watch her struggling child. Across the shimmering ripples of the river, images of my sisters appeared in silent voices. “Is this your way, Sky Flower?” they asked. The eyes of Tail Feather, like those eyes in the painting in Great Hall of the Manor House, followed me into the water, willing me to go on living as a plain Mohawk woman. ’Twas at that moment, I knew the feeling of being born once again. I would return to the village of my first birth.

I write no more of that terrible day. For all its glorious beauty, Newcastle‐upon‐Tyne, to this day, looms deepe inside me as a painful, dark, and foreboding place.

22 Nov  SHEEP

During that long night of wandering in the city a cutpurse boy filched my meager savings. Before I realized it, he had melted into the darkness. The little scallywag brought about my complete undoing.

By the coming of dawn, I knew that I should depart from this land rather than tarry in it. But where was I to go? I durst not return to Shepperton. At the waterfront, I learned from coalers that ships carrying Puritans to the New World departed from London. That was a place I cared never to see again. On further inquiry, an old coaler told me that before ships crossed the ocean, they stopped at Plymouth Sound, a port on the southern coast of England. Determined anew, I must somehow get there. My only transport: my feet. My clothes: a tattered deerskin. My shoes: none.

With directions that pointed me toward Plymouth Sound, I set out afoot, trudging along cobblestone, begging for food, sleeping on the streets and fields, and allowing my soul to die little by little, hoping to reach a tiny village on the other side of the world. The world of white dresses, curtsies, and minuets was left as a far distant memory.

I passed by many wretched, it is charitable to say, huts. Some tymes, a family offered me a bowl of porridge and some bread and let me sleep in the shed, all for a day’s labor: hoeing a garden, or butchering chickens, tasks once abhorred but no longer. Most days, I searched piles of household refuse for a crust of dark bread. Oft was I turned away from sleeping in a barn for lack of a penny for the night. How many nights I shivered, gathering what warmth I could from a heap of straw.

Not all was gloomy. As I trudged on, I heard the loud baa-baa voices of sheep ahead. Rounding the bend in the road I came upon a meadow with sheep and, what seemed to be, a shepherd’s cottage. A friendly woman ushered me in. In an instant my nose drew attention to a pot of savory stew steaming on the hearth, whilst my stomach lurched in anticipation. To my delight she had me take a seat at the table. The stewed mutton and bread tasted as good as any Sunday feast at the Manor House. The woman said her name was Elizabeth. She bade me help her husband tend the sheep in return for two meals a day and a soft bed. “Wild dogs,” said she, “kill our lambs at night.” When I agreed to her proposal, she gave me an old pair of thick‐heeled shoes that she called “stompers” and a long pole for fending off dogs, saying “These will do.”

And so, I found myself now a herder in my deerskin and stompers, spending the nights under the stars among the sheep, cuddling a lamb, and chasing away any menacing dogs with my long pole. Best of all, I followed the Great Hunter as he pursued the Great Bear from one end of the sky to the other. I wondered if Laughing Rain or Awakens Corn, too, were following the chase along with me.

23 Nov  WOOL TO MARKET

All through those nights that seemed without end, the long reach of my people tugged at my heart. After many days, my restlessness knew no bounds. The kind woman saw this in me. “I see you are not happy here,” said she. “A young man, a carpenter is he, builds a small house not a stone’s throw from here,” she said. “He is eager to find a wife. Indeed, you would find him a good man. Not handsome, you understand, but reliable and in sound health.”

With these words, my insides seized up. I told of my needing to find my way to Plymouth Sound. “Oh, so far away,” said the woman. She then went about stoking the fire, mumbling under breath before saying, “My husband will be shearing the sheep soon, then hauling the wool to market in the City of York. It is a journey of three days in the direction of Plymouth. If you wish, you may join him. I need not remind you, there is yet a long distance to go.”

“And what of the sheep?” I asked. “Who will watch them at night?” She spoke of their son coming from a village not far to help while her husband is away.

During the shearing I learnt quickly how to hold a wiggling sheep. Within seven days everything was ready for the journey to the City of York. The horse was hitched to the wagon, the shepherd had taken his seat in front and was holding the reins, and I, to my astonishment, was seated a’top the deep bed of wool. I had nothing to do all day but watch the slowly changing clouds move across the sky. Were it not for the sadness deep within my soul, I would have, at last, felt myself to be the Queen of England.

The horse plodded its way through wooded hills. I listened to the music of the wagon as it rattled over bumps and splashed through deep puddles. With great interest I noticed that a long, slender branch stood upright alongside the wagon seat. Yet, it was not taken in hand even once during our journey, not like the switches I had seen used without mercy on the rump of a bone‐weary horse. Instead, my driver spurred his horse along with a clicking mouth sound that I thought at first was a squeaking wheel.

We stopped by a brook to let the horse rest, drink, and nibble on grass. All the while, the husband spoke in hushed but gentle words to the horse. For us, it was bread and cheese along with the brook water.

Each nightfall the shepherd hobbled the horse, but not before stroking it along the neck in unashamed affection. He whispered in the horse’s ear, sometimes running his whiskered cheek slowly along its jowls. He slept on the grass beneath a single blanket and a’top his coat of homespun russet. Tucked between sheepskins I slept well in my bed of woolen clouds.

Little was said during those days of plodding to the city of York. My travel mate was not a man of many words. There was an occasional, “Bump coming up,” followed by a jarring lurch. “A cloud yonder, rain perhaps,” or “Mind the branch,” before it came hurtling past my head.

I asked a string of questions, all answered in one or just a few words, if answered at all. To my amusement our conversations went something like this:

“What is your name?”

“Adam.”

What do you call your wife?”

“Lizzy.”

“Does your horse have a name?”

“Yes. Sweet Bess.” There was a long wait until he offered, “Both named after our old Queen.”

There was in Adam a strong affection for his horse. Here was a man who spoke little to me but spoke oft and easily to his horse. Naturally, silent Bertha and her way with cows came to mind.

After two days out, I asked with growing impatience, “When will we arrive in the City of York?”

“Tomorrow.” Then, after a long pause, he added, “Perhaps.”

At last I asked the one question that had always brought others to a lively response. “Do you have faith in God?”

“Yes,” was the reply. “I am a simple man.” He spoke slowly and with strong voice, “I know naught of great churches and robed bishops. But I know my God is here and all around me. God is everywhere.”

Surprised was I at his wordiness. Without further prompting, he went on, “God looks after my wife and me, my sheep, and my horse. I pray every night for his blessing.”

24 Nov  YORK

The end of the third day of travel brought us to the City of York. ’Twas another town ringed by a great wall that had collapsed in many places. Adam guided our wagon through the opened gate of a huge tower, bringing us anon to a crumbling castle. What may have defended the city in ancient tymes against fierce warriors could keep a gaggle of children out no longer.

In the village proper we came to a broad street with rows of stalls, very much like the ones that Kinshasa and I had seen in London. The number of items for sale overwhelmed the eye. I heard a continuous call, “Come buy of me” or “What need you?” There were many carts loaded heavy with wool or leather, pots, tiles, and other articles for barter. Beyond the stalls crowded together were animals of all kind. Horses, too, were plentiful. A horse with a ribbon tied to its tail, Adam explained, was meant for selling or trade. And beyond the animals something immense in breadth and height caused me to doubt my eyes. And what saw I there? A church of astonishing dimensions.

Upon stepping down from the wagon, Adam saw my eyes agape in wonderment at the church. “It is called the Minster,” he said, without my asking. “Many people go there to pray to God.” He proceeded to brush down his sweating horse, continuing, “Me and my Lizzie need not a great church. We pray in our humble home. My outer clothes are rags, but my inner clothes are the Holy Spirit. Yes, I have faith in God and in Jesus Christ, my true Lord, who came to earth to tell us of this God. That, for us, is enough.” His words were said a’midst the bustle of a street fair where all around were peddlers hawking their wares.

I have tried to write most carefully the words of Adam. Despite their plainness they were stirring. Is it not the way a Mohawk thinks of the Great Spirit? And is his Jesus not like Deganawidah, the Peacemaker from the North, sent as a messenger by the Great Spirit to lead the Iroquois in a rightful way? And is not the Spirit of the Maker of All in every living thing? I do verily believe that all matters of the spirit are in their unadorned nature alike.

At the market area I looked on as Adam dealt with the wool buyers. He looked serious. The talking lasted not long. He turned back assoon to me with a trace of a smile, whilst pocketing some coins in his vest. Perhaps in celebration of the sale or perhaps not, he led me to a stall where baked goods were sold. There, for two pence each, he purchased two dolls of gingerbread, handing me the larger. Adam smiled at my childlike indecision of which part of the doll to bite first: the head or an arm or leg. To this day, I can remember. It was a leg. And how tasty it was! Then, having brought me to York as agreed upon, the shepherd bade me goodbye. Wishes of good fortune followed.

I wandered through the streets. One amusing sight among the bustle of buying and selling was a hobbyhorse. The rider with painted face stood inside a blanket‐covered frame of a horse. Fake legs flopped over the horse’s flanks and a pair of human feet stuck out below. How people howled when the horse suddenly pressed its nose into the crowd or when the tail swished across the face of an unsuspecting trader! Whenever a coin dropped into the rider’s outstretched hat, the horse dipped in exaggerated curtsy.

There, too, were dancers—four of them in rag‐tag clothing with scarves and ribbons flying wildly and bells tied to legs. They wove in and out of each other with dazzling skill, all to the melody of a fiddler and a piper, and to the beat of a tabor. As if the show were not delight enough for the spectators, a bearded man costumed as a scrubwoman threaded between the dancers in such a way as not to disturb a single step. Onlookers showed their approval by throwing a coin or two into a nearby bucket.

The strangest of all was what I thought at first to be a tiny man with long arms and legs and hair all over. A real man held a cord that was attached to the creature’s collar. As a crowd swarmed around for a better look, the animal suddenly sprang with an astonishing leap up onto the shoulder of an onlooker, knocking off a hat and pulling on a lock of hair. Its huge eyes looked back at the crowd. Either out of delight or terror, the startled victim offered a coin that brought the creature back to ground by one good yank of the cord.

Many were the sights of this village fair: some, excessively droll, or faintly menacing or dreadful in the extreme, but all were too numerous to write about. Indeed, they offered a distraction, though not enough to lighten my dreary thoughts.

25 Nov  SHILLING

I tried to find the joy in these wonderful amusements but my mournful humour was too heavy. Nothing excited my curiosity. Toward the end of that day, a woman of late years in hooded brown cloak approached me. “Your face and your leather dress tell me you come from another land. Is it not true?” She came up close, saying “I see in your eyes sadness. Am I not right?” Without a word from me, she took my hand, eyed it with much care and spoke, “These lines tell me of a great sorrow that has come upon you and, I see, you are poor as well.” She led me a few steps away from other bystanders and added, “How would you like to earn a pretty penny?”

The old woman told me that she had been watching a gentleman making his purchases from a silk pouch tucked away beneath his breeches. “On signal,” she instructed, “you will go to speak to the gentleman,” as she pointed out a man with flowing cape, a quaint periwig, and a white ruff around his neck. “But before you can say more than a word or two to the coney, you must fall into a deep swoon, collapsing at his feet. The great confusion will cause him to revive you. In the confusion and pressing closeness of others who try to help a stricken woman, I will take care of the rest. You need only to recover slowly, then most graciously thank the gentleman for his wonderful assistance. Then you will quietly take your leave. We will meet anon,” added she, now pointing, “by the tall pole with the red and white flag atop.”

I was led to carry out this absurd scheme, doing my part with an act of false swooning befit the players at the Rose Theatre. Straightaway, I slunk to the flagpole from which the woman led me to a hideaway, a comfortable hovel well away from the marketplace. There, inside, amidst all manner of goods strew’d about in higgledy‐piggledy fashion, was a table covered by tapestry. On it sat two silver goblets and four silver candlesticks. A stack of cards lay nearby along with some ribbons, a gold chain, some silk handkerchiefs, and diverse jewelry.

She removed her cloak. Underneath was a bright red scarf, an orange turban, and a long, flowing gown of sundry bright colours. She then pulled out a silk purse and jangled the coins inside with a grin, saying, “Look, foisted clean.” After counting, she handed me a shilling. “You see how easy it is to find a coney. Tomorrow, the gentleman will be gone, all the poorer for helping a maiden in distress. Surely in the morrow will be found another willing coney to take his place. We make a fine pair of coney‐catchers, do you not agree?”

After eating some meat stew and pretending to engage in idle chatter, I tried to sleep. But sleep was impossible. I had just done something of dishonour. It was not my way. It was not the way of my people. At first light of day, I tiptoed out onto the street, leaving behind the shilling on the table between the goblets and the candlesticks.

26 Nov  PLYMOUTH

My journey to the ships in Plymouth commenced. I remember, during a cold night, finding some warmth in a chicken coop. I remember another tyme, riding in the back of a creaking wagon, not on a bed of wool, but with a dozen honking, grunting pigs. With a little smile, I asked the pigs who the muckier was. Methinks, at that, the pigs smiled.

There was a tyme when a parish constable put me under arrest for vagrancy, not having a letter to prove that I belonged to a village or to a master. That night, spent in the wretched misery in gaol in company of fellow miscreants, I longed for the comfort of sleeping with chickens. Thought I in a moment of fancy, what if Awakens Corn and Laughing Rain could see their beautiful, dress‐up little sister now.

My release next morning was only because of a curious law overheard during that long night. Anyone who could read was considered a church person of worth and easily dismissed from imprisonment. Come break of day, I tried to charm the bailiff with some honeyed talk. The bailiff, as sleepy as he was stout (and he was stout) yawned. He handed me a Bible, opened to Psalm Number Fifty-One. “Read it,” he said tersely.

The passage was one that I had frequently read to the Walsingham children. I even remember a bit of it now, “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt, purify me ….” Before I could finish, the bailiff bade me off with the simplest and most beautiful words, “You may go now. God bless you.” I skipped away with barely a glance back.

So, in my endless days of trudging (trying to keep in mind the direction of the midday sun), I found myself sloshing over the wetlands of Dartmoor. Shepherds along the way warned me about the bogs ahead where mysterious pixies, a horseman without a head, and a hairy werewolf terrorized local farmers.

Whilst keeping these warnings in mind, I made slow progress and oft lost a footing in the mushy soil. Ahead, I came to a shallow, fast-running streame nearly hidden by fallen trees and low-hanging limbs. One step onto a wet and slippery rock brought me down into the icy water and gave me badly scuffed knees. To my good fortune, there was a narrow footpath along the bank. Approaching me was a kindly, old gentleman in torn clothing and a broad smile. On inquiring for directions to Plymouth, he pointed his cane, saying, “This is the River Plym. It will take you there. You are but a good day’s walk away.” The words lifted my spirit mightily and I plodded along.

Somehow after more than three months since leaving York—footsore, hungry, and scratched raw from fleas—I arrived in Plymouth Sound, a big, fish-smelly seaport with little heart for a wandering, chicken-smelly, pig-smelly beggar.

27 Nov  THE PEACHTREE

Ships in Plymouth Sound left for Northern Virginia almost every month, their destination, a coastal town called Shawmut. Blissful expectations of boarding the next one to depart were dashed by the humble matter of fare. I knew that on such a long voyage I could not pretend to playact as a saylor. Yet, I was determined to go to my people. Doing so meant earning my berth by whatever means. Caring for children came to mind. Yet, who would trust a scruffy vagrant with their children? I found no inn or tavern wanting of me. Even workers in public laundries and bathhouses were too plentiful, needing no new hires. In desperation, I found a keeper of an alehouse who offered me a small wage for hard work. My room above the alehouse was small but for me only, and this, for but a tuppence a night.

I need explain. An alehouse is where beer, not food or lodging, is provided. There is oft dancing and songs of a most bawdry sort. Only the lessers and middlings come to such a place, and what a quarrelsome, unruly lot they are. Not found there are the betters. No, there was no Master Aubrey Jones among the patrons to offer new worlds to aimless dreamers. So, I was back to serving grog, cleaning, scrubbing, stirring malt and, at great effort, keeping a proper distance from drunken scuffles, gambling, and peddlers of ill-gotten goods. But always I kept listening for talk of pirate raids, because the coastline around Plymouth, I was told many tymes, was never completely safe.

Within three months I had saved enough shillings, almost a crown, to pay for my place on a ship to Shawmut in the Bay Colony of Massachusetts. With what was left of my earnings, I procured a thick woolen blanket, pleasing to the eye by its patches of sundry colours, purchased only after hard bargaining with a grizzled old wool-trader.

The ship, The Peachtree, left the Plymouth harbor on seven and twenty of September in the year 1637. Upon boarding I was happy to learn that most of the passengers were Puritans seeking freedom to worship God in their own way. It meant, I thought, that my companions during those weeks in the belly of a ship would become friends, much like Harold. Such a wish was not fulfilled.

Tormented by muddled feelings, I climbed aboard the ship. Sad I was at abandoning those I much cared for, but happy at returning to my own world. I carried along only my tattered canvas sack and pretty blanket. Between the decks and among stacks of crates and bales squeezed nine and twenty passengers. At the hind end of the bilge were hogsheads of water and ale too weak to hurt the brain. Elsewhere were biscuits and cheese. Finally, the animals: caged or tethered was a score or more of hens and goats, also two pigs and a calf, all fated as fresh meat on the way.

The ship set forth, the weather being fair, the sea calm. We had been barely two days a’sea, when there arose a storm of wind and rain most tempestuous. Oft the agitated sea broke over the upper deck, showering all those below with cold, salty water. Passengers in the hold were queasy in the stomach, bruised, and shivering. Amid all the groaning I heard someone mutter: “better to suffer a belly ache in a storm than lose one’s head in a pirate attack.” When I was not throwing up, I thought a long tyme about that remark.

For me, the most difficult tymes in the bilge were the nights when I would cover myself with the new blanket and lie on the hard wood. The noise was ceaseless. The creaks and groans of the ship, and the bleating and cackling of animals allowed no one to rest properly, let alone sleep. Also heard were the occasional cries of “rat bite” and spells of coughing.

At daybreak during the third week one of the women with child gave birth. ’Twas an early birth. A mournful wail filled the bilge at the discovery of the baby born dead. The day ended with all on the weather deck in prayer, watching as the tiny body, wrapped in a white cloth, plunged into a watery grave. Never knowing life, never having a name, the baby was swallowed in an instant by the vast grey and melancholy ocean.

28 Nov  STEERAGE

Prayers below deck started at first daylight and went on throughout the day. Some tymes a preacher read from the Bible to all but mostly people prayed to themselves or read their Bibles aloud by candlelight. And so, a continuous murmur of prayers marked the voyage. Prayers asked God for deliverance, and for the strength to carve out a new life in the “Shining City on a Hill.” Here was Boston, they said, “A place marvelous and wholesome.”

Prayers sought salvation from the wild savages, meaning, of course, the “Indians.” “But these are my people,” I protested.

“But you are different,” they said. “You have had the glory of a civilized world.” I attempted to explain the simple and comforting version of the Creator of All as I learned it in my childhood: how all people are connected through their ancestors, how animals have a spirit that must be respected, even as they provide food and skins for clothing and bones for tools. Such ideas, the Puritans scoffed at, which did vex me not a little.

“We can help the savages by saving them from worship of false images,” they said. “When they learn the lessons of the Bible, they will quit their warring with clubs and their man‐eating.” I did not feel much comfort with this talk, but knew enough to remain silent.

What the Puritans sought was freedom to follow a religion as they see it. Yet, their view of faith was narrow. I came to realize that there was no tolerance of other accounts of spiritual matters. I slowly became more and more withdrawn from the others, whiling away the days reflecting upon the events of the past seven years. I wondered if my soul had been damaged beyond repair and how I would muddle through the remainder of my days.

I write here once more that not one person ever asked me about my spiritual beliefs. Not anyone in the bilge, nor anyone before: not Bertrand, not Harold, not Lionel, not Adam. No one. Yet, this I must say in all fairness. My fellow travelers always saw that I received food, wretched as it was, and drink just as they did, and in like portions.

Mostly my thoughts in the belly of the ship strayed not far from Lionel. Why should he send me to a place that never was? Had I done or said some something to offend him? Had he been hurt by my silence on asking if I would accompany him? Was it my poem handed him at my departure, saying, “Read my heart,” a poem about love? Was it my “goodbye” said in the way of Mohawk hand talk? Did he really want me to abandon my life of servitude and join him? Did he know that the plague fell on Newcastle even as he wrote me the letter? Perhaps he was married, had children, and was unable to bear a life two‐faced any longer. Long have I thought on the matter, but of it I can expound no more.

I am obliged, too, to tell of the fate of a saylor, disobedient for an offense that remains beyond my imagination. Toward nightfall not a day or two before land-sight, we heard awful screams, each preceded by the crack of whip. Not long after, a limp body was thrust down upon us. He whimpered through the night. By morning, we saw as many red slashes on his back as were screams the night before. All tried to ignore the pitiful man. His situation vexed me in the extreme. I asked myself in silence, “Now, who is the savage?”

29 Nov  SEABIRD

I write now of what passengers ate throughout the voyage. Biscuits, stony hard, and cheese were given us to break the fast. We picked out the maggots one by one, but as the journey neared the end, there were more maggots than biscuit. In evening, we received salted beef, salted pork, salted fish along with peas and turnips, all boiled into a thick soup. When seas were stormy, there was no cookfire, and all was eaten cold.

Even small storms forced us to shut tight the ports and hatches and stay in the smelly, cold bilge. Whenever the seas were calm, though, the shipmaster allowed us in small groups to go up onto the weather deck. These exposures to air kept us from going mad. Some tymes, on the deck in bright sunne when the horizon appeared to extend to the end of the earth in every direction, I almost felt my spirit leaving my body and soar to that end.

Most memorable for me on The Peachtree was the day when, squinting into a cloudless sky with the sunne just about overhead, I spotted an immense, white seabird. It followed our ship in a wide‐sweeping flight across the stern. Once or twice the wings tilted ever so slightly from one side to the other, then to the extreme: one wing would point straight up into the sky, the other, toward the sea. No matter which way it turned its body, the great master of flight always kept its head level, looking at me directly with those black, piercing eyes.

I watched that bird for the whole tyme allowed me on the weather deck. Where did it come from? Where it was going? How did it feed? Was it lost? Where are the other birds? These questions were a mystery. Some people spoke of the ship-following bird as a favorable sign, perhaps signaling the approach of land. Others claimed that it was an omen of things to come, all bad. Regardless of who was right, I felt oneness with the bird. It was alone, somewhere in endless, empty space, sad but free and able to ride the winds of tyme no matter how fickle. The seabird and I were akin.

Toward the end of our voyage, we learned that, during a heaving sea, a monstrous wave had broken over the ship, washing away two saylors. Another saylor fell to his death onto the deck from a broken spar. Among passengers, there were no deaths aside from the infant, dead‐born.