Peter Loon

by Van Reid

  This last statement generated a fairly particular silence. Peter had never heard Parson Leach preach, and this taste of it and this sight of the man standing before the tavern crowd moved him to wonder if he had, until this moment, been looking at the wrong person.

  Parson Leach did not fill the room as might an overwhelming personality, but drew all eyes and ears, and even hearts in his direction with a force of magnetism that had hitherto in Peter’s experience lain not entirely dormant, but had rested beneath a deceiving and amiable surface. Peter could never look at his new friend so simply again.

  “How shall we prove moderate,” said someone nearby, “when men of force covet so immoderately the very land we have labored into small success?”

  Some gave wordless agreement to this, but others were a little shocked that anyone would argue with the clergyman. For his part, Parson Leach showed no vexation; this was not a church, after all, and he had not delivered of a formal sermon.

  “It is easy enough,” said another man by the door, perhaps emboldened by the first man’s words, “easy enough for you to preach moderation, sir, traveling from place to place on your horse, gaining your suppers by sermons and the clothes on your back by your books; but what of we who live in hovels while we clear the land and watch our children half starve for all the rocky ground can flourish and be half eaten by swarms of bugs and gnats in the fields and burned in the summer and chilled in the winter for lack of clothes? And we who bring down the wilderness with our bare hands are supposed to approach moderately the enemy who wields unjust power in the courts, and with his wealth, raised perhaps in the service of King George himself with whom so many of us have fought, and with this wealth buys what friends he needs and purposes he desires?”

  The man by the door was standing before he was finished, and those around him cheered when he sat down again. He may have been unused to speaking up among so many, however, for he appeared embarrassed and exhausted by the effort.

  All eyes turned back to Parson Leach, and he said, “I am not in great sympathy with the so-called Great Proprietors of Maine, but as long as the law, by whatever influence, takes their part, I would not see any of you become outlaws. I hear men beside me advising that Henry Knox’s mansion be burned, or that land agents and surveyors be hung at the crossroads; and I ask: What reply will Boston send but the State Militia in an attitude of war?”

  The parson now leaned, with his fingertips upon the table before him. “My friends, I believe that a man who carves the wilderness of his own main strength has greater claim than does a grant countenanced by a king who never set foot upon it or rightly understood the size and weight of the gift, or yet had the moral right to give it at all; but since England was expelled, revolutions in other parts of the land have been duly crushed, and it is only the distance between yourselves and the seats of power that keeps your cause balanced with that of your adversaries.”

  Another man spoke up, then. “Preacher Barrow says it is our duty to rid the nation of evil men.”

  “I know what Mr. Barrow says,” said Parson Leach. “And he will drive you up to desperate acts, but will he lead you?” Some low pools of discussion were raised by this question, but Parson Leach added, “This will be a hard fought war, won by time and generation as much as by design and plan. I warrant, some action is justified, but for the love of God, your neighbors, and yourselves, it is enough to take the land agent’s and the surveyor’s labor and not their lives. Rather stake your claim by good work, than destroy another man’s by fire and ruin. This is the moderation I argue, my friends.”

  It was not a speech to quell anyone’s spirit but to make a man think, and by the faces before Parson Leach, it was, in this office, successful. He was himself, it seemed, a man of moderation, which in this instance meant knowing when he had said enough on one subject. He picked up his pipe and before sitting down he turned to Peter and indicating him with a nod, said, “This young fellow, by the way, is looking for his uncle.”

  Peter’s head came up. It was a moment, however, before the crowd could take in this sudden digression. Some were amused by the parson’s new tack, some relieved, but some were for the moment nettled that their own thoughts on the matter had not been expressed.

  “What’s his name, young fellow?” asked one of the men at the parson’s table.

  “Winslow,” said Peter. “Obed Winslow, I’m told, though I’ve never met the man, and know almost nothing of him.”

  “And what is that?” asked Mr. Flint.

  “What?” Peter gaped.

  “What is it you know of him? If it’s little, it should be quick to tell.”

  There was a long moment, during which the snap of the fireplace and the drawing on pipes took precedence. “I guess I do know nothing of him,” said Peter, turning red. There were some smiles and a few quiet chuckles.

  “Obed Winslow,” said Mr. Flint. He shook his head.

  “I seem to remember a Winslow,” said a man far enough away as to be hard to make out in the dark, smoke-filled room. “Not sure if he was Obed, though. Came through at harvest time, years ago, when I was still at my folks place. Worked there for a few days, before moving on. Don’t know where to.”

  Another fellow spoke up. “There’s the Winslow, over the other side of Balltown, who talks to his hens.” This did raise a good laugh. “Claims he gets two eggs a day from them. Gathers eggs in the morning, then goes back in the afternoon and talks his hens into believing they haven’t laid a thing since the day before.”

  “Perhaps he could come by tonight and have a talk with my wife,” called out someone from the far end of the room, and a great roar of laughter filled the tavern. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Leach,” came the voice.

  “If he’s such a fine talker,” said the clergyman, “you had better be careful what he says to her,” and this was spoken so offhandedly past the stem of his pipe that the laughter redoubled, and the man at the other end of the room half-choked on his ale he was so delighted. But when the hilarity subsided, the preacher took the pipe from his mouth and pointed to the back of the room with the stem. “Now you’ve gone and made me speak disrespectfully of a good woman, George Clary.” Peter thought that the preacher’s concern was not entirely feigned.

  “I’ll ask her pardon for the both of us, Mr. Leach.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Parson Leach stood. “Gentlemen, good night to you. Peter, you look ready to drop.” Peter nodded. “Come along. Then I shan’t embarrass them, and they won’t corrupt you.” There was laughter again, but Peter gratefully took the lantern handed him and followed the parson outside and up the stairs. His head ached again.

  The rooms upstairs were small and without fires, but each shared a portion of chimney and something like warmth emanated from the bricks next to the pinebox bed, which was covered with a thin down mattress and some wool blankets. There was a single window of nine tiny panes. Simple as it all was, it was more than Peter was accustomed to, and he stood by the door while Parson Leach sat down and hauled off his own boots. “Are we sleeping here?” asked the young man.

  “It puts a heap of oak leaves to shame, doesn’t it, lad. I’ll wake up and think I’ve a church and a congregation.”

  The jest put Peter in mind of an earlier conversation. “This morning,” he said, “Mr. Cutts said you couldn’t be a Congregationalist, because you preach from the saddle.”

  “Yes,” said Parson Leach.

  “But Mr. Barrow called you a Congregationalist, and Miss Tillage, this afternoon, said something like it and more.”

  “So you were down by the lake with the girl,” said the parson.

  “I didn’t know she was there,” said Peter, which was more or less the truth.

  “There’s no harm, in my experience, talking to a young woman. Yours is more seemly companionship than what she keeps, I’d guess.”

  “She said her father gave her up.”

  Parson Leach put his stockinged feet on the floor, lowered his head
and rubbed his brow. “Lord preserve us!” he said under his breath. As he drew his hand down over his face, he looked up at Peter, wondering perhaps what the young man understood. “We take more note of difference than similarity, Peter,” he said, choosing to answer the original problem.

  Peter frowned and shook his head.

  “We most of us walk on two legs, lad, and speak with our mouths, and breathe with our lungs, but ever since Cain and Abel, we ask each other, Which are you? Are you the hunter or the farmer? Are you Catholic or Greek? Are you Reform or Catholic? Are you Church of England or Puritan? Are you Puritan or anything but Puritan?” The clergyman leaned his sharp elbows on his bony knees and gazed, almost with longing, toward the wall. “And here we’ve asked, are you Patriot or Loyalist? Federalist or Jeffersonian? And now, are you Congregationalist or Evangelical? The words get longer, is all.”

  “Are you?”

  “What?” Parson Leach’s tone was sharp. Peter did not respond, and the preacher’s expression softened. “I read the Bible and distrust sudden conversions of bitter men, and that view, lad, would suspicion a backcountry evangelist. But I ride a horse and preach where I may, without benefit of established church or diocese, which makes me unwelcome among the Congregationalists. Neither worship claims me, yet I preach in similarity to both. We all claim Christ!”

  “But is there such difference between them?” asked Peter.

  “Twins will argue whose mother was prettiest,” said Parson Leach, almost with a laugh, and when Peter frowned again, the gaunt fellow said, “Men often fight most fiercely over the smallest differences.” The clergyman threw off his coat and crossed around to the other side of the bed. “Though I fear this difference in land and claim is not so slight.”

  “It seems strange, Mr. Tillage’s daughter with Mr. Barrow,” said Peter, proving that he was himself capable of digression.

  “I dare say it is,” said the parson, without having to think very long on the subject.

  “I thought they might be married, too.”

  “I thought they should be, perhaps.”

  Peter felt something tighten inside of him, and he had to clear his throat before he spoke. “They say Mr. Barrow is a preacher.”

  Parson Leach lay back on his side of the bed with a sigh. “He is an Antinomianist,” and he hardly gave Peter the chance to show his nescience before he let out a short laugh and explained, “He believes that once he has been covered by God’s Grace, he is no longer bound by moral law. His sins past and future are wiped clean, so since he has salvation, it matters not how he sins.”

  “But that would include murder!”

  “Well,” said the parson, one arm over his eyes, “he must still consider the law of the land, I suppose. But, yes, that would include any outrage.”

  “I can see how such a belief might draw folks,” said Peter, innocent of humor. The tap tap of rain at the window startled him.

  Parson Leach peeked from beneath his arm to see just how innocent a person could be, and the sight of Peter’s honest astonishment made him smile again.

  “I thought she was frightened of him,” said Peter, unnoticing. His head still throbbed.

  The preacher let out a wordless sound; the smile left his face and he covered his eyes once more. “He frightens me,” said Parson Leach.

  Peter lay down and tried to imagine what it would take to frighten Parson Leach, which was about as much as it would take to frighten his mother, he guessed.

  When Peter was only nine or ten, a wild-haired self-proclaimed prophet had come to Sheepscott Great Pond, but Rosemund Loon had kept her family from the fiery meetings the man held in the settlement. The man appeared, one afternoon, at Loon Farm, and standing before the front door he threatened the entire family with damnation and hellfire if they did not attend his next gathering. “Get him away, Silas,” said Rosemund Loon evenly to her husband, “or I will brain him with a kettle,” and she disappeared into the cabin.

  Peter’s father had done his best to reason with the man, but to no avail, and soon Rosemund flew out of the cabin with the promised article of cookery. She had very nearly proved as good as her word, and the prophet of Sheepscott Great Pond scurried off in the direction of Beaver Hill, jumping stumps and dodging brushpiles like a deer.

  Having only run about half a mile or so, Rosemund Loon had returned, calm as ever. Peter’s father had smiled just a little when she went back inside and he allowed how the matter had been “good for all involved.” Half asleep, Peter smiled just a little to recall his father’s face as he said this.

  Sometime in the night, Peter woke to find the shadows strange in the room. He peered out from beneath his half closed eyes and eventually located the parson, who was sitting on the floor with a single candle beside him, his spectacles on his nose and a book in his hands.

  10

  Of the Road to New Milford, Unexpected Meetings, and How a Peaceful Man Might Be Driven to Anger

  “ARE YOU COMING WITH ME?”

  Peter Loon came awake with Parson Leach shaking him by the shoulder.

  “With you?”

  “Are you coming with me, lad? You’ve time for some breakfast before we leave.”

  The quality of light through the single window was not encouraging; the sun, which would not be seen today, had hardly raised its head above the curve of the earth. Peter could hear rain rattling the isinglass panes.

  “Are you coming with me?” asked the parson again.

  “Yes,” said Peter, and the clergyman seemed satisfied. He tossed Peter’s coat at him, gathered his own kit and left the room.

  A few minutes later, Peter hurried down the outer staircase and into the tavern. He was surprised to find Manasseh Cutts and Crispin Moss sitting at the table nearest the fire. Peter greeted them and looked around for Parson Leach.

  “He’s gone for his horse,” said Manasseh. “He said, ask for some breakfast in the kitchen.”

  Peter stumbled at the threshold as he stepped into the room at the rear of the tavern. Something had been left to burn in the fireplace and Mr. Tillage was berating one of his children for the transgression. The taverner stood straight and looked at Peter.

  “Parson Leach said to get some breakfast,” said Peter.

  Mr. Tillage took a sausage out of a pot and wrapped some bread around it. He placed this in Peter’s one hand and pressed an apple into the other. The back door opened and Nora Tillage, damp from the rain and looking like a sleepless night, stepped inside with an armload of wood. She paused just long enough, at the sight of Peter, for her father to take note. “Leave it there,” he said, hooking a thumb at the kitchen fireplace. “Go see to the hogs.”

  The young woman tossed the wood on the pile by the hearth, then scooped up a bucket of slops and hurried out with only a quick glance at those behind her.

  “Can I help with the firewood?” asked Peter.

  “Lad,” said Mr. Tillage, “I want nothing disagreeable with Mr. Leach or any of his friends, but you’re not to be talking with Nora.”

  Peter just blinked. He wondered how many people had noticed him down on the shore the day before.

  “You’re leaving with Mr. Leach?” asked the taverner.

  Peter nodded.

  “Well, God speed, then,” said Mr. Tillage and he turned his back on the young man.

  “Mr. Cutts and Mr. Moss have elected to join us,” said Parson Leach, when Peter stepped out the front door. The clergyman had on a hooded cape against the rain and he was tying off his saddlebags and checking his gear and musket, which was wrapped now in a fringed leather sheath.

  “Where are we going?” asked Peter. He tugged on his father’s hat and joined the three men in the wet yard.

  “New Milford.” Parson Leach made no wasted motions, and in fact seemed to be in a hurry to leave, despite the weather, though nothing he did in particular could be called rushing.

  Peter went over to the trough, which was dancing with rain, and drank a handful or two of wa
ter to help down the sausage and bread. He was surprised when he looked up and discovered Nora Tillage standing a few feet away with the empty slop bucket. Peter hesitated between retreat and greeting. She hardly acknowledged his presence, at first, and only looked at him glancingly; but she said, before she turned and hurried off, “Are you with Parson Leach, then?”

  “Yes,” he answered, and would have said more, but she was gone.

  “What was that?” asked Parson Leach over Mars’s back, and when Peter told him, he said, “Your questions last night convicted me, lad. I spoke to her father this morning, first thing, but he is adamant that his own salvation rests on doing as Nathan Barrow deems fit. So Lot would give up his daughters to Sodom.” He tightened a strap with rather more firmness than he had intended, and needed to let it out. “But I did speak to him,” he added. “Sometimes a word does not have a straightforward effect.”

  Manasseh Cutts had a horse himself, this morning, and he was mounted and ready to go, hunching in the rain with the water dripping from his battered three-cornered hat. Again Peter looked curious, squinting up at the old woodsman. Manasseh said, “Crispin’s family was cleared out, and not a one of them left behind. A land agent came with the sheriff and demanded they pay or abandon their farm, so they packed up and headed for the backcountry to start again. Two or three weeks ago, this was. We doled most of the buck out to the neighbors.”

  “There’s been more news from New Milford since last night,” said Parson Leach to Peter. “Throw this over your shoulders,” he said, tossing a blanket at the young man. “It’ll keep the rain off you–for a bit.”

  “Is there going to be a fight?” asked Peter, hardly stirring. He held the blanket before him, as if he had not yet discerned its use.

  “Well, son, let’s hope not,” said Manasseh Cutts.

  Crispin Moss seemed less ready to speak on the matter.

  Parson Leach swung himself up on Mars and gave a little nudge and a click of the tongue. Without ceremony, he led the way.