The Pilgrim

by Hugh Nissenson

  Late on a subsequent August afternoon, after I had returned from working in town, I happened upon Patch gazing lovingly at a ewe. Because I was behind him, he did not see me. He fingered the dried ram’s pizzle about his neck and thrice, in a loud voice, quoted from the first verse of the Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd.” Of a sudden, he looked about, saw me and into my eyes, and started away, hobbling upon his forked staff.

  Then, on a rainy April day, Esau caught Patch buggering a ewe upon one of the hill pastures and bade him drive the flock down to the farmhouse. There Esau cried out, “To the gallows with you, and after that, hell!”

  Then he said to uncle Roger, “Master, bid him kill the unclean beast,” but Roger said, “If you buy me another, I will.”

  Patch said to me, “You warned me, sir, but I paid you no heed. Satan, by his wicked Ministers in the form of ewes—darling ewes!—drew me unto him. There’s no hope for me, save an easier death than strangling at the end of a rope. Sir, I charge you once again: break my neck upon the gallows tree. Will you promise me?”

  I did not answer him.

  He said, “Give me leave to bid farewell to Hal,” and called the wet, stinking dog after him into the tool crib. The dog’s fur smelled like wet wool. We heard a yelp and ran within. Patch had slashed Hal’s throat with a pair of shears. Patch said, “I do not have the courage to kill myself. Hal, you died an easier death than your master will. All for my love of ewes with long, thick, curly fleece. Ah, me! Alas that I was not born a ram.”

  Patch was indicted, tried for buggery, and condemned to be hanged at the latter part of May. After the trial, at which Esau was a witness, he asked me if I was disposed to breaking Patch’s neck, and I rejoined that I was not.

  “Good,” said he. “Let him strangle slowly.”

  My uncle hired another shepherd, a youth named John Cuttler. His dog’s name was Pru. I imagined Patch, leaning upon his forked staff, hobbling to the cart that would take him to Gallows Hill. I could no longer go for solitary walks about the Downs and the meadows. I avoided the honey tree. The whole of Hempstead troubled my heart. Almost everything there brought Patch—my disgust and my cowardice—to mind: the hovels and lambing pens, the steading next to the barn, the farmhouse itself wherein we had reared the lambs.

  I repaired alone to The Sign of the Bull and guzzled sack. The folk there questioned me about Patch. Jane Fuller, averting her eyes from my pitted face, asked me about him. I drunkenly turned away from them all. The Reverend Doctor Styles took as his subject of a sermon, Leviticus 18:23, but from the new translation of Scripture that smacks of popery. We at New Plymouth know the verse from the Great Bible, which is truly holy writ: “Thou shalt not also lie with any beast to be defiled therewith.”

  The day appointed for Patch’s hanging drew nigh. Throngs from nearby towns and the country round about gathered in Winterbourne. A woman from Dorset was delivered before her time; her babe died. The inns were full. The poor slept on straw pallets in the streets. My aunt Eliza sold cheese, butter, chickens, and eggs to the crowd.

  The day before the hanging, I packed my knapsack and two bundles, including my mother’s gloves, then bid farewell to my aunt and uncle. They tried hard to dissuade me from leaving, but I was inflexible in my resolve. I knew my conscience would compel me to try to break Patch’s neck as he hung on the gibbet. I was terrified that I would bungle the task and prolong his suffering.

  I contrived with Wells to continue payments due me on my investment.

  He asked, “Whither shall I send you the money?”

  I said, “To London. I will write you my place of residence when I am settled there.”

  I bade farewell to my attorney, Mr. Dashwood, who, by the grace of Providence, was a good friend of Mr. Henry Appletree, a London attorney, whose chambers were hard by The Sign of the Bear and Ragged Staff, at Charing Cross, in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields.

  Dashwood said, “Appletree and I studied law together at Gray’s Inn. He owes me many a favor. I will write him a letter today commending you for a position as one of his clerks, for which your education—especially your skill in Latin—well qualifies you. If you are diligent at the tasks he assigns you, you may, in time, do more than just copy out legal papers for him. He advises his clients on business matters, family negotiations, wills, and criminal concerns. He is likewise a money lender who negotiates transactions between merchants and goldsmiths.”

  “What would I earn as his clerk?”

  “I should say seven pounds a year, together with bed and board.”

  “Seven pounds!” said I. “With my three pounds per annum from my investment with Wells, I will live very well indeed.”

  “You are dressed like a husbandman, in your breeches and jerkin. Do you own a suit?”

  “A black one, with silver buttons on the doublet.”

  “Good! And a cloak? What about a cloak and a hat?”

  “I have two worn cloaks, and a black hat with a torn brim.”

  He said, “You will need a new plain black cloak. Perhaps with a feather. Inquire of Appletree if you can wear a feather in your hat. Spend money on your apparel; ’tis a good business investment. Put yourself in the hands of a goodly London tailor and a haberdasher.”

  I said, “I’ll put myself in the hands of God, a goodly tailor, and a haberdasher, in that order.”

  He said, “Appletree’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, Sarah, had smallpox as a girl of ten. Smallpox! There, you will have something in common—something to talk about! Appletree is seeking a husband for her. Play your cards skillfully, and who knows? Be assured, she will have an ample dowry.”

  At dawn upon the morning following, at the foot of Gallows Hill, I climbed into the wagon carriage bound for the metropolis.

  My uncle Roger said to me, “I have asked Mr. Wells to keep my accounts in your stead.”

  I said, “I am responsible for my father’s death.”

  “His death was God’s will. Blame not yourself. Here is a farewell gift for you. Twenty pounds. Invest it wisely. The goldsmiths in London will give you a return of four or five percent for your money. Look to it! Fare thee well, my dear boy. Send me a simile from London. Oh, I almost forgot. Here’s a fine pair of kid gloves from my shop that will keep thy hands warm.”

  “Thank you. I shall think of you when I wear them.”

  The wagon pulled away. For an instant, I thought I saw Mary amidst the crowd climbing Gallows Hill.

  Part II

  On the morning of the eleventh of May in the year of Christ 1618, I alighted from my wagon at the inn named The Sign of the Bear and Ragged Staff in Charing Cross, which is in the City of Westminster, a suburb without the walls of London. The inn was crowded with plump, muddy whores, boy prostitutes, and cutthroats armed with daggers. The press of rowdy maltbugs lugged ale, even as little pigs lug at their dam’s teats.

  I hastened back into the street and found Appletree’s chambers on the right hand.

  He said, “I was expecting you. My old friend Dashwood recommends you highly. My business is good, and I have thought for some time past of hiring another clerk. You come at the opportune moment. I favor the fortunate. They bring good luck. Dashwood writes that you studied Divinity at Cambridge but went down because of the death of your father.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hence your mourning ring.”

  “Hence my mourning ring. Yes, sir.”

  “This gold and coral ring of mine, which cost me five pounds, is inscribed with magic signs that prevail against witchcraft, possession by the Devil, thunder, lightning, storm, and tempest. It hath overcome my enemies and made me famous in my profession. But it prevailed not against the smallpox. My daughter, Sarah, was stricken with the smallpox at the age of eleven. What about you?”

  “I was stricken less than a year ago, sir.”

  “You will enjoy Sarah
’s company. I had her well educated. ’Twas the least I could do. She sayeth with Virgil, ‘Nimium ne crede colori!’”

  “I agree, sir. Trust not too much in your color; that is, your complexion. I took my complexion for granted. I never gave it a thought. God taught me otherwise.”

  He said, “So my friend Dashwood was correct. You have a command of Latin.”

  “I do, sir.”

  “Show me a sample of your handwriting. Copy this out.”

  I copied out some items of an inventory postmortem of the furnishings of Elizabeth, Lady Berkeley’s London house, viz.: “Item, five pieces of tapestry hangings of imagery; Item, a crimson rug, &c &c.,” and Appletree said, “You write a fair hand.”

  Then he said, “I will pay you six pounds per annum, together with room and board, to be my clerk. I have working for me another clerk and seven scriveners. I represent many London merchants who hire out their ships. You will be required to copy out their contracts, as well as others, along with various and sundry deeds, wills, inventories postmortem, and business letters. Some will be in English and some in Latin. Do you accept the position I am now offering you?”

  “I will, sir, gladly.”

  “Do you own a black cloak and hat?”

  “I have two worn black cloaks and a torn hat, sir. I need you to recommend to me a good tailor and haberdasher.”

  He told me where to find them nearby and said, “Buy yourself a simple cloak and hat. We should wear attire everyone to his degree, for it is very hard nowadays to know who is noble, who is worshipful, who is a gentleman, and who is not. You are not a nobleman, a cleric, nor a gentleman, but my clerk. Dress like one.”

  “I will, sir. May I wear a feather in my hat?”

  He said, “That you may. A white feather in a black hat. My daughter, Sarah, wears a white lace veil.”

  I inquired of him the name and whereabouts of an honest goldsmith with whom I could invest my twenty pounds. He gave me a letter for John Loop by The Sign of the Rook on Goldsmith’s Row.

  Then he said I was to eat with him, his other clerk, and his family in his chambers in the fair tenement, south of Charing Cross, on the left hand. He bade the other clerk, Michael Hendy, to take me to our chamber on the left hand of The Sign of the Bear and Ragged Staff. We repaired thence, wherein I found a decent bed that we would share, clean bedclothes, a cupboard, a chest, and a table, but only one stool.

  Behold an act of Providence! Hendy said to me that a local joiner named Zachariah Rigdale, on Suffolk Street, had recently replaced the rusty iron hinges on the chest. Hendy said, “Rigdale will make us a goodly stool,” and we went round to see him.

  Thus, for want of a stool, God willed that I meet Zachariah Rigdale, a man of about thirty years of age, who said, “I will make you a joint stool for one pound. Come back for it in a week, as my apprentice and I are presently busy making a table and two chairs.”

  Then Rigdale said to me, “I see you wear a mourning ring, sir. For whom do you mourn?”

  I said, “My father, who is lately dead.”

  He said, “I mourn my dear wife, Ann, who died two years ago on Mid-Summer Eve. Our babe followed soon thereafter. A cough took her. Her name was Joan. She had the daintiest hands and feet you ever saw!”

  Hendy and I later dined in our master’s large, well-appointed chambers. Mistress Appletree bore a pretty little spaniel in her bosom. She nourished the dog with meat at the table. The Appletrees used Hendy and me as friends, not servants. They not only allowed us to sit with them, above the salt, but shared the dishes served by their butler. We shared a leg of mutton, a loin of veal, and a chicken.

  Appletree said to me, “Shall I be your carver? Will you have this hen’s wing?”

  “I will, sir, thank you.”

  “And wine? Some sack? Here, wash your liver with a cup of sack.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  He bade me greet his daughter, Sarah, who indeed wore a white lace veil. I glimpsed her large dark eyes behind her veil. She gazed at my pitted face. Then she said to me, “Master Michael, here, went to Oxford for two years. Are you an Oxford man, Master Charles?”

  “I studied Divinity at Cambridge, Mistress, but did not take a degree.”

  “How so?”

  “My father died, and I did not feel myself fit to be a Minister of God.”

  She said, “I have wrestled with Him for some years now.”

  “Indeed!” said I. “You are very young, Mistress, to wrestle with God.”

  “Our common affliction roused me to it as a child.”

  “I can well understand that.”

  She said, “Then, sir, we understand each other.”

  The morning following, my master said to me, “Well, what do you think of my dear Sarah?”

  “I think she is a goodly maiden, sir.”

  “I am pleased to hear it. You are a big, tall man. She favors big, tall men. Tell me, Wentworth, do you keep the Sabbath?”

  “I do, sir.”

  “All the day?”

  “The whole day, yes sir.”

  “Would you bowl with me in St. James Park this coming Sabbath after church?”

  “Oh no, sir. By my faith, I could not.”

  “By your faith,” said he. “And what faith is that? Are you a Puritan?”

  “Yes, sir, I am, sir, though I do not like that word. I am not pure, but just one of God’s people.”

  He said, “You are very sure of yourself.”

  “No, sir, I live in doubt.”

  He gave me leave, and I went to buy me a black cloak and a black hat, with a French block and a white feather, for five pounds. That left me fourteen pounds to invest with John Loop, goldsmith, by The Sign of the Rook on Goldsmith’s Row, the fairest frame of houses and shops that I ever saw within the walls of London. Loop said that I could expect a return of five percent per annum. I put my money with him.

  Passing London Bridge, I counted the heads of twelve traitors stuck on spikes on the gatehouse at the south end of the bridge. Five other rotting heads had been blown off their spikes onto the street. One lay hard by my right foot. I looked away.

  Upon my return to Charing Cross, I spied a dog carrying a hand between its jaws. I saw the coach of his lordship, the Earl of Warwick. It took up almost the whole width of a narrow cobbled street. The coach’s wheels squeaked and clattered upon the stones. I glimpsed the splendors of Whitehall and went into Westminster Abbey, wherein for a penny, I gazed upon the tombs and monuments of the kings and queens of England, covered all over with gilding and carved in a most beautiful manner.

  In the crowded streets, I wondered about the people: the porters, the beggars, the gentlemen and ladies, the fish wives, apprentices, merchants, a constable, a vendor of hot oat cakes, the chimney sweeps, the whores, and above all, myself. Who amongst us, if any, was predestined to be saved?

  I bought a broadsheet of a ballad called “The Rat Catcher’s Song,” which I copied out in a letter for my uncle Roger and sent to my attorney, informing the former of my new position and place of residence and of my investment. Then I wrote, “I have not come upon a simile, but here for your enjoyment, dear uncle, is a verse sold on the streets of London town. It is an authentic voice of the City. The line, ‘And peepeth into holes’ is vivid, is it not?”

  I still have the broadsheet; the ballad follows:

  Rats or mice, ha’ ye any rats, mice, polecats, or weasels,

  Or ha’ ye any old sows sick of the measles?

  I can kill them and I can kill moles

  And I can kill vermins that creepeth up or creepeth down

  And peepeth into holes.

  I began my labours early Friday morning, the fifteenth of May. It was tedious. From that day on, I never ceased to contrive how to escape the tediousness of copying out inventories postmortem &c. in Engli
sh and Latin.

  Mr. Appletree, his family, and servants were parishioners of St. Martin in the Fields. The Reverend Doctor Alexander Sommer was our pastor. He wore a gorgeous surplice. The Rev. Sommer was the favorite of the noblemen in the vicinity of Charing Cross. They filled his Sunday services, wearing great ruffs made of cambric, holland, lawn, or the finest other cloth that could be got for money. And their hats! Sometimes they were sharp on the crown, perking up like the shaft of a steeple, standing a quarter of a yard above the crown of their wearers’ heads. Others were flat and broad on the crown, like the battlement of a castle. Another sort had round crowns, sometimes with one kind of band, sometimes with another, now black, now white, now russet, now red, now green, now yellow. They held these fantastical plumed monstrosities in their laps during a service, while the Rev. Doctor Sommer took as the subject of his sermon, Mark.14:7 in the new translation of Scripture: “For ye have the poor with you always.”

  The Rev. Doctor spake four hours. I remember but one thing that he said, “God made some rich and some poor so that two excellent virtues might flourish in the world: charity in the rich and patience in the poor.”

  After the service, Mistress Sarah said to me, “Why do the streets swarm with beggars? You cannot stand still but ten or twelve of the poor wretches come breathe in your face. Many of them have plague sores! What is the cause that so many pretty little boys and girls wander up and down in the streets, loiter in the churches, and lie under stalls in the cold nights? Can this be God’s design? I refuse to believe it!”

  Her lace veil stirred with her every breath. I wanted to see her pitted face and yet was repelled by the prospect. I was much moved by her compassion for the poor. Yet I felt nothing towards her as befits a man towards a maid.

  I went to an apothecary and asked him for an herb that could encourage me to procreate. He prescribed saffron boiled in sweet wine, saying “Drink but one cup every day, lest more drive you unto a frenzy.” I drank one cup every day for two weeks to no avail.