McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  'He was destroying the crops,' my friend replied.

  'Won't you speak for him, Jacob?' Harry persisted.

  'Me?'

  'We let you off Roger Rowly.'

  At last Botts came out of his hut, a bundle tied across one shoul­der. I hoped he would go straight off, but he came back towards us, searching our faces as he approached.

  'Farewell, Brothers and Sisters. Not one with a word to say for me?'

  The other colonists contemplated the grass, all save Harry who regarded the surgeon with frank sympathy. Botts went on, 'You've a strange notion of brotherhood, Mister Ferris.'

  My friend frowned; the two of them locked eyes and I saw a dogged nobility I had never before remarked in Botts, in the straight opposition of his ugly head to Ferris's fine one. Seconds passed, and he did not look away. Ferris glanced in my direction; I edged closer.

  Botts laughed and turned to me. 'Are you going to drive me off?'

  'Not unless you make me.'

  And who would you say was the stronger, me or you?'

  'Leave now,' I said, 'and you can go off believing 'tis you.'

  Ferris lowered his gaze, as if to say this was between me and Botts, and none of his choosing.

  'I'll go directly,’ the man replied. He bent forward to me, breathing foulness into my nostrils. 'Weak I may be, Brother Jacob, but no man masters me with a look.'

  Ferris's eyes flicked wide open.

  'Who'd look at you?' I asked Botts. He turned away. My throat stiffened, and the stab I had felt earlier, when he went into his hut, pierced me again. It was a familiar feeling, but not one I had ever felt for Botts; I could not quite place it. I stared at his thickset back, trying to read the answer there.

  'What did he mean, master him with a look?' asked Hepsibah.

  'Not to be stared down,' said Ferris.

  The others were silent, awkward; I kept my face turned away from Harry. We watched Botts diminish as he crossed the fields, and it was not until he disappeared altogether that I knew the stabbing in my guts for what it was: envy.

  I passed the next few hours degraded, wretched. Despite my re­peated warnings that the new growth was too fresh and the penny-grass still moist, Ferris had decreed that we should try for an early hay crop, so we were all of us slashing at that part of the meadow with the fewest buttercups, showing our skill, or lack of it. I tried to quieten myself by getting in more grass than anyone else, but my spirits were further oppressed by the fear that our hay would be damp. The rest glanced round at me from time to time and kept their distance.

  At noon Ferris brought me a piece of bread and some black-smeared cheese.

  'Here, thundercloud.'

  I looked up but did not cease working.

  'You look set to kill me. You don't regret Botts, surely?'

  'No.'

  He sat down by my side. 'Rest a while.'

  I went on with my sickle.

  'Jacob? Don't you want to eat?'

  'Not at your command.'

  He looked round hastily; none was near enough to hear us. 'That was no command! I thought you might be hungry.'

  'I'm thirsty.' I straightened and rubbed my shoulders. 'Get me some beer.'

  Ferris hesitated.

  'What keeps you?' I snapped. 'Must you always be the one to give orders?'

  He stood up, staring at me and wiping his hands on his shirt, then walked off. I continued to cut the grass. After several minutes he appeared again, jug in hand. This he held out to me without further speech.

  I laid down the sickle and sat down to drink. The beer was cool; I looked at him.

  'I put it in the spring,' he said, lowering himself to sit cross-legged opposite me. I drank again, and snorted, and choked.

  'You're—'

  'No.' I finished the beer. 'I've cried too much already.'

  'Are you so unhappy?'

  I looked at him, at his face formed for gentleness, and knew that should I speak, he would say, I am sorry for your suffering but, but, but.

  'This is to do with Botts,' Ferris said.

  There was a strickle in my bag. I pressed sand into it and then scoured my sickle, cleaning off the sap and setting a new edge.

  He watched the blade clear into brightness. 'Could you handle a scythe?'

  'Not on this uneven ground.' I took up the sickle again, held the coarse grass and cropped it in one move.

  Ferris smiled. 'You're a good reaper.'

  'I'm your dancing bear, that's what I am.' I cut again, more clum­sily. 'Botts knew it.'

  My friend waited while I got his harvest in for him.

  'We will not visit Cheapside,' I went on. 'Come the season, there'll be urgent business in hand. I begin to know you.'

  'You've known me some time,' said Ferris. 'We never agreed I would give up my life to you.'

  The others were all far away in the field.

  'I gave you mine,' I said. 'You will say, you never asked it.' He nod­ded, and I laid down the sickle. 'Ferris. You said you belonged to me.'

  'You know what that meant.' He touched my foot. 'It still holds, I want none other.’ Then, with a flash of anger, 'You talk as if it were me pulling away from you, and not the other way round. Be straight with me, Jacob. If you want to leave I'll give you half the money chest. Or you can stay with Aunt until—'

  'Until I marry Becs?' The grass stalks blurred beneath my eyes.

  'I might be her husband now, only you wrote to me begging — beg­ging—'

  I could not go on.

  'I did, I begged you to come to my bed,' he said gently. 'But not to direct my life.'

  'Once I came to you my life was — directed. Your aunt's offer was all I had.'

  'I don't wish you to leave!' he cried. 'All I say is, I will give you money if you wish. Should you want to go back and marry Becs, well, I would make it worth her while.'

  'You wouldn't care?' I stopped cutting and sat down the better to see his face.

  'I would suffer crucifixion, Jacob,' he said slowly and emphatically, 'but I wouldn't keep you from her if that was what you wanted.'

  We were silent a while. He took my hand, and after glancing round him bent his head to kiss the palm. I began to feel better.

  'Shall we go to the field tonight?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  He went on, more hesitantly, 'When we lie together - then - you know, then, how I love you?'

  'I know.' It was as he said, he belonged to me. I wished I could share his vision of the future, for it must be a dazzling one, to curb such hunger.

  Ferris chewed on a grass stalk. 'I would you were happy, Jacob. Without going back to London, I mean.'

  'But we will visit?' I asked anxiously.

  'Yes. As I said.'

  I smiled, thinking that the weather here being by that time most likely cold and foul, two weeks of coal fires, of roast meat, and wine, and me bedding him every night, might do much to persuade my friend to give up digging.

  'I'll build a house for the chickens,' I offered.

  "They are run away,' said Ferris.

  I woke stiff and aching the next day, having walked with him by moonlight right over the fields to a place where we could be heard by

  none, and there been sweetly, sweetly gratified. I stretched out, arching my back, remembering.

  The next minute there were shouts outside the hut.

  'Rise, friends! Here! Over here!'

  I recognised Jeremiah's voice. Dry earth trickled onto my head as I wrenched at the hut door.

  'Jacob! Put your shoes on.’ Jeremiah was hoarse: he gestured to­wards the field and I saw five horsemen galloping over the young crop. My belly began to churn: again I saw Botts's face thrust into mine. I had fled from a group of men once before, and it had done me little good; besides, here was no means of flight. There was a creaking and I saw Ferris's door jerk open; he stood rubbing his eyes and then, glanc­ing upwards, grew suddenly still. My fingers were thick and clumsy on the shoeties.

 
; 'Harry! Jonathan! Wisdom!’ bawled Jeremiah in his cracked voice. Ferris, coming back to life, banged on the Domremys' hut.

  The men were upon us. The three riding behind were sombrely clad and looked to be house servants, such as I had once been myself, but the first two, tricked out in satin and with a great deal of lace, seemed gentlemen. The horses, walking now, came up to the circle of huts and the men reined in, keeping on their hats; when I looked at the insolent plumes of the front riders, I wished I were not bare­headed. We stood before our turf homes, awaiting their pleasure, while the eldest of the five looked round at us as if committing us to memory. I returned the compliment: he had a handsome brownish face, marred by a broken nose, and grey hair beneath his black hat, where a tiny chestnut blossom was riding on the plume. Under the suit of maroon satin his body was heavy, tired looking; not so the fine Spanish sword on his hip. His horse's legs glowed with pollen from the meadow.

  The man's glance circled us all and lighted on me. 'Is your name Christopher Ferris?'

  'No.'

  The fellow behind him, rigid in green, coughed and waved his hand in Ferris's direction.

  'You are Christopher Ferris?'

  'Who wishes to know?' returned my friend.

  'What insolent reply is this?'

  'You have offered us no civil salutation.' Ferris's voice was calm. I hoped the rider could not see the sheen on his brow.

  'Are you Christopher Ferris?' Due. man's cheeks purpled.

  'I'm not ashamed to own it.'

  'Very well. This man,’ and he pointed at Ferris as if none of us had seen him before, 'is a false prophet, my friends. He has led you into the desert, into Egypt. Given time,' he stared round at the colonists, 'he will lead you to a worse place.'

  'We are here of our own free will,’ said Harry, whose nostrils flared with dislike of the newcomers. 'And who might you be, to come and talk so to us?'

  'I serve Sir George Byars,' the horseman replied, as if the very name were enough to strike us dead.

  'Sir George Byars does not own this common,’ Ferris said.

  'He owns the manor, and the village is under his authority. He will not have ruffians digging up the common. That is the law.’ The man's hand, big and veiny, strayed to the hilt of his sword. I watched Ferris's breast rise and fall beneath his grey shirt.

  'The laws of England are the chains of the poor,' my friend as­serted, once more the Friend to England's Freedom of his pamphleteer­ing days. 'Where is it written in the Bible that your Master may build a manor, aye and enclose, too, if he see fit, and yet we may not plant corn to feed ourselves?'

  The two men exchanged vexed looks. The one in green edged for­ward, so that his horse was almost on top of Ferris. He was hand­some also, but in a cool, indolent way, with that complexion which is sometimes called cream. I could smell the rose-water on his linen. His soft reddish curls flirted with the breeze; he smoothed them back with fingernails a full inch long as he pronounced, 'These bedlams have plunged the kingdom into war by corrupting the unlettered. It were good they were torn up by the roots.'

  The older one turned his eyes on the rest of our group, saying more softly, 'My friends, Sir George is a merciful man. Mindful that there are women and children among you, he bids you pack up and be gone

  within the fortnight. If, after that, you are found persisting in your folly,' he shrugged, 'rely no more on his patience. And, you women, he has a more tender care for you than you have for yourselves. You should learn to know your own good, for though you may whore your­selves to these, yet they—'

  Here a gasp rose from the company. 'Fie! Fie!' cried Hathersage.

  'Yet, I say, they will not—'

  'Whore on your own mother,' shouted Harry. "These are no such thing, but maids, wives and widows. But there,' he quieten into con­tempt, 'you know your own tricks best.'

  'Where there is unruliness there will be immoral living,' the elder one rapped out as if knocking a nail into wood. He glared at each of us in turn, seeming to scent the corruption within, and though I knew it for a trick, a chill struck through me as he caught my eye. He went on, 'It follows as the night the day. I have delivered my mes­sage and you have heard it. Summon up what wisdom you have, and profit thereby.'

  The last words were barked out. Elizabeth put her hand in Harry's. I studied the blank faces of the servants behind these messengers; the nearest to me held my eye and the flatness of his look melted to fur­tive pity. The man next to him turned in my direction and the kindly one at once looked away.

  'If Sir George chooses to commit rapine and murder we have not the means to stop him,' said Ferris. The man in green spat at him, just missing his face; I saw the spittle run down his neck and inside his shirt. Ferris did not move, but glanced anxiously at me. I showed him my arms hanging limp by my sides.

  The five of them turned and galloped over the cornfield, the pity­ing one hanging back a little until he could twist in the saddle and show his empty palm in a shrug of impotence. Dust rose from the furrows. My friend scrubbed his shirt against his skin.

  'You should not have sent Botts away,' said Harry.

  Ferris moved from one foot to the other, gazing at the departing men.

  'What will they do to us?' Catherine asked him. She was trem­bling, lips pale in her brown face. Ferris turned away from her.

  'They said we were whores,' whispered Hepsibah. 'That's what the soldiers do, they— they call the women whores, they—' she faltered into silence. As if by common consent we sank onto the grass.

  'They will destroy the crops,' Ferris said, fingering the scar on his cheek. 'And arm the villagers against us.'

  Elizabeth said to Harry, 'We must take the children to my sister.' Hepsibah began to weep, noisy tearing sobs, and her husband drew her head down onto his breast, saying, 'He is better where he is, my love.' He rocked her to and fro. Ferris bowed his neck, uncomforted, and I ached to embrace him.

  'Come, let us talk.' I pulled my friend up by the arm and led him away. 'Into the wood,' I said when we were out of earshot.

  'Do you think I want that!’

  He came with me nonetheless, and we turned into the sweet green track leading past the spring, down to our usual place. I went in first and waited. He crawled under the bush and as he came through to my side I put my arms about him and kissed his neck where the horseman had spat on it.

  'Don't, Jacob! You'll unman me.' He struggled away. 'I have to think.'

  'Easy enough to understand,' I said. 'We go home, we let them ride over us, or we fight.'

  And fighting's your choice.' He smiled drearily.

  'No indeed. I'd sooner go.'

  Ferris sighed. 'In the army,' he began, then broke off. I again em­braced him and this time he laid his head on my shoulder. 'In the army I had courage for anything.'

  'You have.’ I stroked his arm, seeing his profile uplifted against the dark coat of the horse.

  He shook his head. 'Something is gone from me. Broken.'

  'You are weary, that is all.'

  'Do you think, Jacob, that what we do—?'

  I stared at him. 'What we do?'

  'Nothing. Nothing. Never mind.' He sighed again, and went on, 'I have drawn others along with me, promised miracles. They have laboured without cease. Now I see I cannot defend them.'

  'They must defend themselves. They know it,' I replied.

  'Then we all suffer.' He stared at me. 'But to give way— to submit to the likes of George Byars—'

  'He has a village fighting on his side,' I replied. 'Our friends came freely, you heard Harry say as much, and can go freely back.'

  'Harry can. What of the servants?'

  'You have money enough to help,' I said. 'Let's go home, back to pamphleteering. I'll be your printer's devil.'

  Ferris tried to smile. 'Incubus.'

  'Whatever you wish,' and I folded him to me, comforting him as I had been comforted long ago, by Izzy. 'Don't make this your Basing-House. I couldn't bear it.'


  We sat quietly and I soothed his back, my hand saddened by the bony feel of his spine.

  'This is foolish talk,' he said at last. 'I knew it must come to this. We have set ourselves up for freedom. If we run away as soon as Mam­mon looks big on us and stamps his feet, of what use was it to start the thing?'

  A bitter struggle was going on in me as we gazed at one another. I saw the shadows under his eyes; his lips were tight. A word from me now might break his courage and pull him back. Then we could go home; but he would despise himself ever after.

  At last I forced out, 'Very well. We will face it like men, only, only—'

  'Yes?'

  'Should they want to go, for God's sake let us go. Promise me, Fer­ris!'

  He squeezed my hand.

  We came out from the wood silent, dragging our feet, and were at once spied by Jonathan.

  'Brothers! Come here, see this!'

  I strolled towards him.

  'Nay, man, hurry!'

  This was a sheet of paper folded over and addressed to Mister Christopher Ferris. 'You can read it,' said Jonathan to me. 'We all have. Brother Christopher, come on!'

  I unfolded the paper and read:

  Sir,

  Though you will have some ado to guess at the writer of this epistle, yet your friend, he of the sallow complexion, may have an idea not so very far from the truth.

  Ferris came up beside me, jostling for a view.

  You have been cruelly used today and may expect further ill treat­ment. However, you should know that talk of a fortnight is but puffery, the plan being to let you go on, if you have a mind to do so, until the main crop is in, and then take it from you. Yours is not the first little commonwealth to have sprung up with the mushrooms hereabouts, and your enemies have found from experience that at­tacks too early in the year do not answer, while the loss of the corn, after a summer’s labour, invariably proves efficacious.

  If you are wise you will cease now; but if you must continue, your best hope is an appeal to Parliament, for Sir George is by no means a Parliament man, and not much loved by any party. He has a neighbour, one Sir Timothy Heys, who might be persuaded to uphold your cause for the mere hatred of Sir George, and who is now in London: write to him at the Palace of Westminster. Sir Tim. is a man of tender conscience and open-handed towards the poor.