The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  Susan dabbed immodestly at her eyes with the hem of her threadbare dress. “Thou’rt not the only person injured by your day in court.”

  “Ha! Your father birched you, did he, for taking the stand against him?”

  Susan shook her head sadly. “Things are not as they seem, Mister Cooke—”

  “I’God!” Ebenezer clasped his head. “The old refrain! My estate and Anna’s dowry is lost, my best friend hath betrayed me and left me to starve, the woman I love hath either met foul play or scorned me for a pauper, I am as good as disowned by my father and near dead of the seasoning, and in my final hours on earth I must abide the wisdom of a thankless strumpet!”

  “Haply yell understand one day,” Susan said. “I have no wish to do ye farther hurt than ye’ve done yourself already!”

  With this remark the woman fled weeping from the room,

  “Nay, wait!” the Laureate begged, and despite his illness he set out after her to apologize for his unkind words. He was, however, unable to move with any haste or efficiency, and soon lost her. He wandered through a number of empty rooms, uncertain of his objective, until at last he found himself in what appeared to be the kitchen. Three women, all in the dress of servants, were playing a game of cards around a table; they regarded him uncordially.

  “I beg your pardon, ladies,” he said, leaning against the doorframe; “I am looking for Mrs. Susan Warren.”

  “Then thou’rt seeking an early grave,” the dealer quipped, and the others laughed merrily. “Get along with ye, now; ’tis too early in the day to bother Susie or any o’ the rest of us.”

  “Forgive me,” Ebenezer said hastily. “I had no mind to intrude upon your game.”

  “ ’Tis but a simple hand of lanterloo,” said the woman with the cards.

  “Simple to misdeal!” cried another, who spoke with a French accent. “What is it that you do? Cheat me?”

  “Ye dare call me a cheat!” the first replied. “Thou’rt something brave for one not a fortnight loose o’ your serving-papers!”

  “Hold thy tongue, boîte sèche!” growled the French woman. “I know Captain Scurry swived you for your freight, what time he fetched you off the streets and shipped you hither!”

  “No more than Slye did you,” cried the dealer, “though God alone knows why a man would swive a sow!”

  “I beg your pardon,” Ebenezer interrupted. “If you are servants of the house—”

  “Non, certainement, I am no servant!”

  “The truth is,” said the dealer, “Grace here’s a hooker.”

  “A what?” asked the poet.

  “A hooker,” the woman repeated with a wink. “A quail, don’t ye know.”

  “A quail!” the woman named Grace shrieked. “You call me a quail, you— gaullefretière!”

  “Whore!” shouted the first.

  “Bas-cul!” retorted the other.

  “Frisker!”

  “Consoeur!”

  “Trull!”

  “Friquenelle!”

  “Sow!”

  “Usagère!”

  “Bawd!”

  “Viagère!”

  “Strawgirl!”

  “Sérane!”

  “Tumbler!”

  “Poupinette!”

  “Mattressback!”

  “Brimballeuse!”

  “Nannygoat!”

  “Chouette!”

  “Windowgirl!”

  “Wauve!”

  “Lowgap!”

  “Peaultre!”

  “Galleywench!”

  “Baque!”

  “Drab!”

  “Fastfanny!”

  “Gaure!”

  “Ringer!”

  “Bringue!”

  “Capercock!”

  “Ancelle!”

  “Nellie!”

  “Gallière!”

  “Chubcheeker!”

  “Chèvre!”

  “Nightbird!”

  “Paillasse!”

  “Rawhide!”

  “Capre!”

  “Shortheels!”

  “Paillarde!”

  “Bumbessie!”

  “Image!”

  “Furrowbutt!”

  “Voyagère!”

  “Pinkpot!”

  “Femme de vie!”

  “Rum-and-rut!”

  “Fellatrice!”

  “Ladies! Ladies!” the Laureate cried, but by this time the cardplayers, including the two disputants, were possessed with mirth, and paid him no heed.

  “Coxswain!” shouted the one whose turn it was to play.

  “Trottière!” Grace replied.

  “Conycatcher!”

  “Gourgandine!”

  “Tart!”

  “Coquatrice!”

  “Fluter!”

  “Coignée!”

  “Cockeye!”

  “Pelerine!”

  “Crane!”

  “Drôllesse!”

  “Trotter!”

  “Pellice!”

  “Fleecer!”

  “Toupie!”

  “Fatback!”

  “Saffrette!”

  “Nightbag!”

  “Reveleuse!”

  “Vagrant!”

  “Postiqueuse!”

  “Arsebender!”

  “Tireuse de vinaigre!”

  “Sally-dally!”

  “Rigobette!”

  “Bitch!”

  “Prêtresse du membre!”

  “Saltflitch!”

  “Sourdite!”

  “Canvasback!”

  “Redresseuse!”

  “Hipflipper!”

  “Personnière!”

  “Hardtonguer!”

  “Ribaulde!”

  “Bedbug!”

  “Posoera!”

  “Hamhocker!”

  “Ricaldex!”

  “Bullseye!”

  “Sac-de-nuit!”

  “Breechdropper!”

  “Roussecaigne!”

  “Giftbox!”

  “Scaldrine!”

  “Craterbutt!”

  “Tendrière de reins!”

  “Pisspallet!”

  “Presentière!”

  “Narycherry!”

  “Femme de mal recapte!”

  “Poxbox!”

  “Tousel”

  “Flapgap!”

  “Rafatière!”

  “Codhopper!”

  “Courieuse!”

  “Bellylass!”

  “Gondinette!”

  “Trollop!”

  “Esquoceresse!”

  “Peddlesnatch!”

  “Folieuse!”

  “Backgammon!”

  “Gondine!”

  “Joygirl!”

  “Drue!”

  “Prickpocket!”

  “Galloise!”

  “Dear God in Heav’n, cease!” Ebenezer commanded.

  “Nay, by Christ, ’tis a war to the end!” cried the dealer. “Would ye surrender to the French? Why, she’s naught but a common meatcooker!”

  “And you a janneton!” the other replied gleefully.

  “Arsievarsie!”

  “Fillette de pis!”

  “Backscratcher!”

  “Demoiselle de morals!”

  “Bumpbacon!”

  “Gaultière!”

  “Full-o’-tricks!”

  “Ensaignante!”

  “Pesthole!”

  “Gast!”

  “Romp!”

  “Court talon!”

  “Pigpoke!”

  “Folle de corps!”

  “Scabber!”

  “Gouine!”

  “Strumpet!”

  “Fille de joie!”

  “Gullybum!”

  “Drouine!”

  “Tess Tuppence!”

  “Gaupe!”

  “Slattern!”

  “Entaille d’amour!”

  “Doxy!”

  “Accrocheuse!”

  “Chippie!”

&nbs
p; “Cloistrière!”

  “Puddletrotter!”

  “Bagasser!”

  “Hetaera!”

  “Caignardière!”

  “Pipecleaner!”

  “Barathre!”

  “Rumper!”

  “Cambrouse!”

  “Hotpot!”

  “Alicaire!”

  “Backbender!”

  “Champisse!”

  “Sink-o’-perdition!”

  “Cantonnière!”

  “Leasepiece!”

  “Ambubaye!”

  “Spreadeagle!”

  “Bassara!”

  “Gutterflopper!”

  “Bezoche!”

  “Cockatrice!”

  “Caille!”

  “Sausage-grinder!”

  “Bourbeteuse!”

  “Cornergirl!”

  “Braydone!”

  “Codwinker!”

  “Bonsoir!”

  “Nutcracker!”

  “Balances de boucher!”

  “Meat-vendor!”

  “Femme de péché!”

  “Hedgewhore!”

  “Lecheresse!”

  “Ventrenter!”

  “Hollière!”

  “Lightheels!”

  “Pantonière!”

  “Gadder!”

  “Grue!”

  “Ragbag!”

  “Musequine!”

  “Fleshpot!”

  “Louve!”

  “Lecheress!”

  “Martingale!”

  “Tollhole!”

  “Harrebane!”

  “Pillowgut!”

  “Marane!”

  “Chamberpot!”

  “Levrière d’amour!”

  “Swilltrough!”

  “Pannanesse!”

  “Potlicker!”

  “Linatte coiffée!”

  “Bedpan!”

  “Hourieuse!”

  “Cotwarmer!”

  “Moché!”

  “Stumpthumper!”

  “Maxima!”

  “Messalina!”

  “Loudière!”

  “Slopjar!”

  “Manafle!”

  “Hussy!”

  “Lesbine!”

  “Priest-layer!”

  “Hore!”

  “Harpy!”

  “Mandrauna!”

  “Diddler!”

  “Maraude!”

  “Foul-mouthed harridans!” Ebenezer cried, and fled through the first door he encountered. It led him by a shorter route back to his starting place, where William Smith now sat alone, smoking a pipe by the fire. “To what evil state hath Malden sunk, to house such a circle of harpies!”

  Smith shook his head sympathetically. “Things are in a sorry pass, thanks to Ben Spurdance. ’Twill take some doing to put my business in order.”

  “Thy business! Don’t you see my plight, man? I am ruined, a pauper, and ill to the death of fever. ’Twas mere mischance I granted you Cooke’s Point: a sorry accident made with every generous intent! Let me give you twenty acres—that’s your due. Nay, thirty acres—after all, I saved your skin! Now return me Malden, I pray you humbly, and so save mine!”

  “Stay, stay,” Smith interrupted. “Yell not have back your Malden, and there’s an end on’t. What, shall I make me a poor man again, from a rich?”

  “Forty acres, then!” begged Ebenezer. “Take twice your legal due, or ’tis the river for me!”

  “The entire point’s my legal due: our conveyance says so plainly.”

  Ebenezer fell back in his chair. “Ah God, were I only well, or could I take this swindle to an English court of law!”

  “Ye’d get the selfsame answer,” Smith retorted. “I beg your pardon, now, friend Cooke; I must inspect a man Dick Sowter hath indented me.” He made to leave through the front entrance.

  “Wait!” the Laureate cried. “That man was falsely indentured—betrayed, like myself, by’s trust in his fellow man! His name is not McEvoy at all, but Thomas Tayloe of Talbot!”

  Smith shrugged. “I care not if he calls himself the Pope o’ Rome, so he hath a willing back and a small appetite.”

  “He hath not either,” Ebenezer declared, and very briefly explained the circumstance of Tayloe’s indenture.

  “If what ye say be true, ’tis a great misfortune,” Smith allowed. “Howbeit, ’tis his to moan, not mine. And now excuse me—”

  “One moment!” Ebenezer managed to walk across the room to face the cooper. “If you will not do justice at your own expense, haply you’ll see fit to do’t at mine. Turn Tayloe free, and bond me in his stead.”

  “What folly is this?” exclaimed the cooper.

  Ebenezer pointed out, as coherently as he could manage, that he was ill and in need of some days’ rest and recuperation, in return wherefore, and his keep, he would be a willing and ready servant in whatever capacity Smith saw fit to employ him—especially clerking and the posting of ledgers, with which he had a good deal of experience. Tayloe, on the other hand, was not only in truth a freeman; he was also a gluttonous sluggard who would surely bear a dangerous, if justifiable resentment towards his master.

  “There is sense in all ye say,” mused William Smith. “Yet I can starve a glutton and flog a troublemaker, at no expense whatever, whilst a sick man—”

  “Dear God!” groaned the poet. “Must I beg you to make me a servant on my own estate? Very well, then—” He knelt in supplication on the floor. “I beseech you to bond me as a servant, for any term you choose! If you refuse, ’tis as much as murthering me outright!”

  Smith sucked at his pipe and, finding it cold, relit it with an ember from the fire.

  “I am nor poet nor gentleman,” he said at last, “but only a simple cooper that hath no wish to lose his goods. Yet I please myself to think I am no fool, nor any child in the ways o’ the world, and I know well thou’rt moved by no great virtuous cause to be my servant, but merely to be nursed through your seasoning and then to seek out ways and means to work my ruin…”

  “I swear to you—”

  “Stay, I am not done. I’ll not indent you, but I will see ye nursed past your seasoning, on one condition.”

  “Name your terms,” Ebenezer said. “I am sick past haggling.”

  “The fact is, I am looking to make a fit match for my daughter Susan, whose husband died some years past in London. If ye’ll contract to wed her this very night, I’ll give for her dowry a half-year’s board at Malden, with all the care ye need from Dick Sowter, the best physician in Dorset. If ye choose to wed her tomorrow, ’twill be five months’ board, and a month less for each day thereafter. Done?”

  “ ’Sheart, man!” gasped the Laureate. “ ’Tis preposterous!”

  Smith bowed slightly. “Our business is done, then, and good day t’ye.”

  “Don’t go! ’Tis just—i’God, I must have time to ponder the thing!”

  “Take the while I finish this pipe,” the cooper smiled. “After that I withdraw my offer.”

  “You’ll drive me mad with choices!” Ebenezer wailed, but as Smith made no reply other than puffing on his pipe, he began to weigh frantically the alternatives, wincing at both.

  “What is your choice?” Smith inquired presently, tapping out his pipe on an andiron.

  “I have none,” Ebenezer sighed. “I shall marry your ruined harlot of a daughter to save my life, and God save me from her pox and her perfidy! But I must see your bargain writ into a contract, and both our names appended.”

  “ ’Tis only fair,” the cooper agreed, and set before the Laureate a small table on which were quills, a pot of ink, and a sheaf of documents very like those with which Richard Sowter had pointed out Malden from the sloop. “Here are two copies of a marriage contract that I had Dick Sowter draw against the time I made a match for Susan; I’ll risk a fine for not publishing the banns. Sign both, and the thing is sealed: Reverend Sowter can tie the knot at once and fetch ye a pill.”

  “A preacher as well
!” Ebenezer marveled, and was so amused in his near-delirium by this news that he had signed one copy of the contract and was halfway through the second before it occurred to him to wonder how it was that Smith could produce, with such readiness, documents not only contracting the marriage but also providing, on the very terms proposed a few moments before by the cooper, for the bridegroom’s convalescence. Even as he raised his pen, struck by the plot this fact implied, Richard Sowter, Susan Warren, and Thomas Tayloe entered from outside, accompanied by no other soul than Henry Burlingame.

  “Stop!” cried Susan, when she saw what was in progress. “Don’t sign that paper!” She ran toward the table, but Smith snatched up the papers before she got there.

  “Too late, my dear, he is three fourths signed already, and ’twill be no chore for Timothy here to forge the rest.”

  Ebenezer looked from one to the other, his features twitching. “Henry! What plot is this? Have you returned to steal these Indian rags, or haply to sport me with more rhymes?”

  “There was a weakness in your court order, Mister Cooke,” said Sowter, and took one of the several papers from Smith. “Here where’t says That the same William Smith shall see to his daughter’s marriage at the earliest opportunity, and the rest. St. Winifred’s cherry, sir! No man in his senses would marry a whore berid with pox and opium, and belike some rogue of a judge would’ve hung the order on that clause!”

  “But,” added Smith, brandishing the contract in his hand, “this paper here mends that hole, I think.”

  “ ’Tis a finer clout than e’er St. Wilfred sewed,” Sowter agreed.

  “I humbly beg your pardon, Mister Cooke,” said Thomas Tayloe. “ ’Twas Sowter’s notion from the first I should ask ye to take my place. He said ’twas the only price he’d take for me.”

  “Thou’rt forgiven,” Ebenezer said, smiling wildly. “McEvoy sacrified you for his liberty, and you me for your own—whom shall I trade for mine? But dear fellow, they have swived you twice o’er: thou’rt not a freeman yet.”

  “How is that?” Tayloe demanded.

  “ ’Twas not necessary to indenture Mr. Cooke,” Smith said coolly. “Susan, you and Timothy fetch out the witnesses from the kitchen and get the bridegroom ready; Reverend Sowter will marry ye directly we’ve shown McEvoy to the servants’ quarters.”

  Tayloe at once set up a furious protest, but the two men led him off. Throughout the conversation Burlingame had remained silent, and his face had been impassive when Ebenezer had addressed him as Henry instead of Timothy; as soon as Smith and Sowter were out of sight, however, his manner changed entirely. He rushed to the chair where Ebenezer sat as if a-swoon and gripped his shoulders.