Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon)

by William Martin

  “Good morning, Tutor Wedge!” she said, levering herself back into her seat. “Are there any books you’d like from Boston?”

  “I have all I need, thank you.” Caleb lifted his tricorne. Unlike his grandfather, he wore no wig and tied his hair simply, though similarities were more common between them than contrasts. They reminded Lydia of two fence posts: tall, straight, skinny; one weathered, the other new-planted.

  “Would you care to come along?” asked Reverend Abraham. “Show General Gage that some in the college have the interests of the colony at heart. He’s seen too many Harvard men riding off to that Continental Congress in Philadelphia.”

  “Caleb would go to Philadelphia, too,” said Lydia.

  “He’d what?” The old man almost fell out of the chaise.

  Caleb scowled at his sister, then admitted, “I’ve discussed it with Professor Winthrop.”

  “A scientific expedition?” demanded the reverend. “Or political?”

  “Not political. Politics bores me,” said Caleb. “Medical. The Pennsylvania Hospital offers a course of study for any who would become doctors.”

  “You don’t study to be a doctor. You apprentice,” said Abraham. “Brattle didn’t study, and he doctored for years. Doctored the people of Cambridge and—”

  “Killed a few, too,” said Lydia.

  “Times are changing, Grandfather.” Caleb raised his tricorne again. “I must be off to hear recitations. If you see Miss Cowgill in Boston, give her my best.”

  Abraham snapped the reins and headed toward the Great Bridge. “Study to be a doctor,” he muttered. “He may study his life away.”

  “I encouraged him,” said Lydia. “I even observe his dissections in the barn.”

  “Dissections?” The chaise lurched to another stop. “In our barn? Of what?”

  “Cats and dogs,” said Lydia. “There’s a group of students. They call themselves the Anatomical Society. They seek to learn more about the way bodies work by—”

  “Cutting up cats and dogs? What can he learn from that?”

  “More than he can from teaching mathematics and natural philosophy for another eight years. He’s twenty-seven. Time for him to grow up and leave.”

  “Time for him to marry and start a family. Let him apprentice right here. Then he can still teach at the college and stay in Cambridge.”

  “There’s a young lady in Boston who’ll not marry him till she has brighter prospects than a life lived in proximity to two hundred unruly Harvard boys.”

  Reverend Wedge clucked at the horse, and the chaise clattered onto the Great Bridge. “So many things to agitate an old man. So many things to vex him.”

  The good reverend must have been vexed indeed, and agitated, too, because in Boston, somewhere between the Orange Street barn and the Province House, he lost Brattle’s letter. It may have happened when he pulled out his handkerchief to mop his brow, or perhaps when he gave a penny to a beggar. But when he sat before General Gage and reached into his pocket, the letter was gone. He patted his right pocket, then his left, then he noticed Gage eyeing him quizzically, as if to ask whether the reverend suffered from some strange itch.

  And he decided that the embarrassment of losing the letter would not be compounded by further fumbling. He told the general of all that Brattle had put into the letter, and he conveyed the spoken message as well as Brattle might have delivered it, had he spent all day polishing his sentences.

  ii

  Most mornings, Lydia was awakened by a dream . . . a dream of her husband.

  Charles Townsend had come from England in 1771 to survey the forests for his family’s shipbuilding business. He had soon fallen under the spell of the New England landscape and, at a dinner in Boston, under the spell of a young woman whose eyes, he had said, “glittered in the candlelight and whose wit glimmered in the conversation.”

  Unfortunately, Lydia’s waking image was less often of their joyous courtship than of Charles Townsend’s death. He had been marking trees in the New Hampshire woods—tall pines for masts, large-limbed oaks for ships’ knees—when his axe glanced off a knot and struck his leg. He died a week later in the agony of lockjaw. Lydia never allowed herself to lie abed and contemplate that horror. Instead, she rose to empty her mind by emptying an inkwell in poetry.

  So it was that at dawn on the first day of September, she was in the writing chair in her bedroom when she glanced over the orchard and saw thirty redcoats march up to the home of William Brattle.

  That morning, Tutor Caleb Wedge heard the usual recitations in geometry, Euclid being more important to him than any rumor of soldiers in Cambridge.

  Afterward, he noticed that several hundred local men had gathered on Cambridge Common, but he gave them little thought, either, because two hundred students had gathered in Harvard Hall commons, and tutors were expected to dine with students, thereby raising the level of mealtime discourse and reducing the incidence of food fights.

  A puffy, red-faced tutor named Isaac Smith plunked himself down opposite Caleb and, without a word of greeting, said, “Did you see that gang of ruffians out there?”

  “A political display of some sort.” Caleb picked at the agglomeration of salt cod, rice, and peas before him.

  “They dislike a governor with decision.” Smith was a proudly unapologetic Tory.

  “Decision?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Gage is moving to protect the king’s munitions. His men woke Brattle at dawn and demanded the keys to courthouse and powder house both. They hauled the cannon out of the courthouse, then they marched to Quarry Hill and seized the gunpowder. Two hundred and seventy half barrels, now safe in Castle William.”

  Caleb nodded, as though he agreed or at least understood. In truth, he did not know what to think. He lamented that tea was no longer served in commons, and like his grandfather, he feared the coming of chaos. On a given day, he was as likely to agree with Tutor Smith, the Tory, as with Professor Winthrop, a firm opponent of what New Englanders now called the Intolerable Acts.

  “We pray that Gage’s decision is firm,” he said, and he quickly finished his meal.

  When he stepped into the sunshine, he saw that the men on the Common did not lack for decision, either. A mob of them were now striding past the college.

  Caleb heard them cursing as they went, cursing Gage and the king and William Brattle, too. Gage and the king could worry for themselves, but Brattle was a friend, practically an uncle, so Caleb stepped into the mob and began to march along with them. Then he asked a tradesman, “Why do we speak ill of Brattle?”

  “Because he wrote the letter what told Gage to seize the gunpowder. ’Twas dropped in the street and picked up by patriots.”

  “Aye,” said a blacksmith. “’Tis to be published in the next Boston Gazette. Maybe they’ll publish his obituary, too.”

  And the men around gave out with great beer-smelling guffaws.

  Caleb let the mob flow past him. Then he turned and ran down the alley beside the courthouse, jumped a fence, and scrambled through Palmer’s orchard. He could hear the mob surging through the village and swinging along the curve of Creek Lane, but he was well ahead of them, and in a dozen long-legged strides, he was across the Watertown Road and up Brattle’s steps. He did not bother with knocking. He threw open the door and rushed into the dining room, where he found William Brattle deeply involved in a tureen of duck liver.

  From her writing chair Lydia had been watching the mob move along the street while her brother took the shortcut through Palmer’s orchard.

  Now Reverend Abraham came into her room. “What’s happening?”

  As if in answer, the back door of Brattle’s house swung open. Brigadier Paunch came stumbling out and scurried into his barn. Caleb came out right after, took to the orchard path, and began to heel-toe home, walking far too quickly to look casual.

  “Hurry, Caleb,” whispered Lydia.

  The mob was now piling up in front of Brattle’s house, and angry mal
e voices were hammering the air. Then there came the sound of shattering glass—a rock flying through one of Brattle’s windows, which drew a deep-throated roar from the crowd.

  Unbeknownst to them, the enormous figure of William Brattle was emerging from his barn on a slender-legged mare and moving cautiously across the garden. Finally someone saw him and cried out. Brattle dug his spurs into his horse, and a hundred men went running after him.

  “Ride hard, Willie,” whispered Reverend Abraham.

  “Walk fast, Caleb,” whispered Lydia.

  Then came the sound of pistol shots, small pops and loud bangs.

  “Good God!” cried Abraham. “They’re shooting!” And he ran from the room.

  Down in the orchard, Caleb flinched at the sound, but the mob was paying him no mind. They had not even seen him approaching his own back door.

  How delicate the white pistol smoke looked floating over the crowd, thought Lydia. And how frightened the lone rider looked, galloping onto the Great Bridge. It seemed as though she were seeing it all unfold in her mind’s eye, as though she were reading it in a novel. Then the reality of a pistol appeared on her little writing desk.

  “One for you, two for me,” said Abraham. “They’ll not chase me from my house.”

  When the mob could not catch Brattle, they came back and ransacked his wine cellar. The Cambridge Committee of Safety kept them from ransacking the rest of the house, but the street was soon littered with empty bottles of every shape, a fortune in French Burgundy, Madeira, and port, guzzled by a crowd growing larger all the time.

  Meanwhile, Lydia had drawn the drapes of the reverend’s study, so that none of the troublemakers would see an old man brandishing pistols in his window.

  But Abraham’s brandishing mood soon faded. As Caleb told him of the impact of the lost letter, the old man dropped his pistols, then dropped into his chair. “It was I who lost the letter. It was I who caused this. I should use my gun on myself.”

  “None of that,” said Caleb. “We must make reasoned decisions, in case the mob turns on the members of the Mandamus Council.”

  “I should be punished. I should be forced to confess publicly.”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Caleb. “Simply let this rabble dissipate.”

  “This rabble,” said Lydia, “may not dissipate. And the best of them are no rabble.”

  The mob did nothing more than finish Brattle’s liquor; then they straggled back to the Common, while Caleb went back to the college and climbed into the cupola of the new Harvard Hall. What he saw from there reminded him of a commencement pilgrimage, but these pilgrims came armed and called themselves minutemen.

  They came from every station of life, from minister to merchant, blacksmith to barrister, and they spread rumors that flew faster than the truth could ever travel: Gage had ordered the disarming of everyone in Boston . . . there had been fighting in Cambridge and six killed . . . the Royal Navy had fired on the city . . .

  Caleb watched their campfires flicker to life, and he waited the night through for more trouble. By morning, four thousand men had gathered, a quarter of them armed militia under the command of elected officers. But the truth had made its mark: Gage had removed only the king’s powder and the Cambridge cannon. But that was reason enough to make protest. Word was passed about ten o’clock. Then the men at the north edge of the Common turned, and like a migrating herd, all four thousand began to move toward Elmwood, the riverfront manor of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Oliver.

  Caleb followed, impressed and frightened by the sense of purpose that now invested these men. This was no window-breaking mob. With officers to lead them, they were orderly and disciplined and careful not to step on the flower beds as they surrounded Elmwood in a series of concentric circles.

  Caleb had seen enough. Before Oliver came to his door, Caleb was hurrying back down the Watertown Road, past the handsome houses of one frightened Loyalist after another, so many houses that the road was now called Tory Row.

  He was glad to see that the chaise was hitched and waiting in front of his grandfather’s house. Then Lydia came to the door. “Grandfather said he’d shoot the horse if we tried to load the chaise.”

  Caleb found the old man sitting in the study with two pistols on his lap. It seemed that he had regained his spirit, for as soon as he saw Caleb, he picked up a pistol and said, “No one will put me out of my house.”

  While Lydia and Mrs. Beale rushed around collecting piles of clothes and books, Caleb tried a bit of reason. “They’re makingThomas Oliver resign from the Mandamus Council, Grandfather. If you resign, you won’t have to flee . . . or fight.”

  Lydia said, “He refuses to resign and refuses to flee.”

  “I’ll tell them the truth.” The old man rose, took his wig from its stand, and placed it on his head. “I’ll admit that it was I who told Gage to seize the powder.”

  “Tell them that,” said Caleb, “they may tar and feather you.”

  Abraham took a powder horn from the desk and primed a pistol.

  Lydia looked at her brother and gestured to a lap blanket on the chair by the fireplace. Caleb gave her a nod, so Lydia lifted the blanket, as if to shake it out, and with a quick motion threw it over the old man’s head. At the same time, Caleb pulled a tieback from one of the drapes and wrapped it around the blanket, right at his waist.

  “Unhand me!” demanded Abraham. And he kept demanding and kicking and struggling all the way down the hall and out of the house, but a second tieback secured his arms, and once they had him in the chaise, another was wrapped round his ankles.

  “Keep him tied up till you’re on Boston Neck.” Caleb helped his sister into the driver’s seat. “I’ll face the mob.”

  He watched them gallop away, then went inside and stood for a moment, wondering what to hide. The Turkish carpets? Too large. The wines in the cellar? Four pipes of Madeira and a dozen cases of port—too much to move.

  But the books? Those that mattered most—a quarto of Love’s Labours Lost, the last evidence of Burton Bones, and a far more valuable manuscript of Love’s Labours Won—were hidden behind a panel in the library, where a brother and sister had put them on the morning after Harvard Hall burned. There was no reason to seek a safer hiding place, and no time, because there came a mighty pounding on the door.

  Mrs. Beale said, “Oh, Good Lord.”

  Caleb tugged at his waistcoat and said, “Open the door, Mrs. Beale.”

  And four men from the Committee of Correspondence stepped into the foyer while four thousand more surrounded the house. The leader said, “We seek Mandamus Councillor the Reverend Mr. Abraham Wedge.”

  “He leaves his compliments,” said Caleb, “but he has gone to Boston.”

  “To see Gage?” asked another one. “We know he’s gone to see Gage before.”

  “He’s gone to Boston to apprise the governor of your anger,” said Caleb politely.

  “When he returns”—the leader pulled out a sheet of paper—“he’s to sign this.”

  Caleb took it. “A resignation from the Mandamus Council. I’ll see that he gets it.”

  “If he don’t sign, he’d best stay in Boston with Brigadier Paunch.”

  iii

  “I would not sign in September or November. Why would I sign in January?”

  “Because,” answered Caleb. “’Tis time for you and Lydia to go home.”

  “Lydia may go home anytime she wishes.” Abraham bundled his scarf around his neck and pulled his hard-backed chair into the shaft of sunlight by the window. “Brattle’s daughter lives in his house unmolested.”

  “But Brattle lives under the Crown’s protection, in Castle William.” Lydia measured three spoons of tea into a strainer, held it over the pot, and poured hot water from a kettle hanging in the fireplace. “Considering the looks we get in the Boston streets, we may be joining Brattle soon.”

  “We will stay here,” said Abraham. “This is our property.”

  The r
oom smelled of leather and vibrated with the tapping of small hammers striking small nails. This was the house where John Wedge had lived out his days and Reverend Abraham Wedge had grown up. The first floor was rented to a cobbler who had stored supplies in the upper rooms until the arrival of Abraham and his granddaughter.

  Caleb told Lydia, “The Committee of Safety says you may go back at any time.”

  As Lydia filled the three cups on the little tea-stained table, she shifted her eyes to her grandfather and shook her head.

  Abraham said, “I am perfectly capable of living on my own.”

  “Grandfather”—Lydia pressed a cup into his hand—“your legs are not strong, and neither is your memory.”

  “My memory is better than yours. I remember my responsibilities. So keep your Committee of Safety. I’ll keep my seat on the council.”

  “There are others who can take care of these things,” said Caleb.

  “Who?” demanded the old man. “You? Your only interests are in solving mathematical problems and torturing cats.”

  Caleb looked at his sister. “What have you been telling him?”

  The old man got up and came close to his grandson. “’Tis time that you took a stand, Caleb Wedge, either for the government or against it.”

  “I take my stand, Grandfather. I teach young men.”

  “But what do you teach them? What do you stand for? Or do you simply lower your head and let others lead, as you did when they used to taunt me in chapel?”

  “You’re right, Grandfather.” Caleb gulped his tea and put on his surtout. “There’s nothing wrong with your memory.”

  Lydia followed her brother down the stairs and out into the cold afternoon.

  A few inches of snow had fallen, giving Hanover Street the look of a clean country lane. A pung went by carrying firewood, but there was little other commerce in a city whose port had been closed for more than seven months.

  Lydia asked, “All is in order at the house? The books are safe?”