Peter Loon

by Van Reid

  “THIS DOESN’T LOOK TO BE STOPPING VERY SOON,” SAID MANASSEH Cutts, as he considered the rain. He might have thought the storm’s intentions immaterial if not for the shivering young woman among them. Her pale shift was flimsy enough, and her undergarments were in such short supply, that the severe soaking she had undergone rendered her appearance slighter still, adhering her clothes to her in such a manner as to be considered indecent. She seemed unaware of her pitiable state beyond the obvious fear for the consequences of her recent flight, and it was yet difficult to know the division of physical and emotional effects that caused her to shake so. She clung to Peter without motive, besides the desire to stay upright. Peter himself held her with less motive than he might have credited; he was greatly unnerved by the confrontation with Barlow and his followers.

  “God bless you for standing with us,” said Parson Leach to Manasseh Cutts and Crispin Moss. The rain ran off the tip of the preacher’s long nose like water off an eaves. “Peter,” he said, brushing the slick from his face before raising his hood again, “you acted admirably. And Nora Tillage, I could have wished it happened under more clement circumstances and with less distress to yourself, but it was a brave deed coming after us and fleeing that man.” He considered Peter with an interested expression, as if the young man might have known something about her flight beforehand.

  The parson went to a large leather sack that hung behind one of Mars’s saddlebags, and from this he eventually wrestled his blue greatcoat. Nora seemed hardly big enough to carry it on her shoulders, and when he wrapped her in it, she all but disappeared with her small face and bedraggled russet hair peering out from between the collars; but she clasped it around herself thankfully and seemed almost to leave off her shivering.

  Then the preacher found a beautiful red apple in one of his bags and gave it to Mars, apologizing to the animal for using him so dangerously and stroking the horse’s nose as he held the soft brown muzzle to his cheek. Mars appeared to forgive him, and he nudged the parson’s head with his own while he made quick work of the offering. The preacher walked Mars off the granite shelf and called to Nora. “Now, Miss, let me help you up and Mars will warm you as well as rest your feet.” In her shift, Nora could sit none too gracefully upon Mars’s back, but the parson’s great coat covered her like a quilt, and she was so exhausted that it was an obvious pleasure for her to lie forward and hug the horse’s neck.

  “We’ll be heading south,” said Parson Leach, who had already made his decisions. All his motions and words had the same innate sense of deliberate haste that Peter had perceive when they left the tavern. “I won’t bring this young woman to New Milford, where trouble brews,” the preacher was saying, “and I know of someone in Newcastle who will take her in for a time. Peter, you will come with us?” he asked, though the force of the sentence gave it the sound of a statement.

  “Yes, Parson.”

  “We’ll go with you, if you like,” said the older woodsman, and Crispin agreed.

  “I think it unnecessary,” said the clergyman. “The sooner cool heads arrive in New Milford, the better. Certainly you’re welcome, but. . .”

  “We’ll head west, then,” said Manasseh Cutts. “And if someone does follow, it’ll be less clear which direction you went. They don’t know who we are, but you made it pretty plain, it seems, that your interests lay west of here.”

  They followed the shore road, which rose up to a bank above the lake where it was bordered by a thickening forest and here they found the track west, which was hardly more than a deer path.

  “We’ll wait here some,” said the old woodsman, “and be sure Barrow doesn’t change his mind.”

  “If he does,” said Crispin Moss, “I’d wager he does so alone.”

  “They didn’t seem too happy with themselves, his fellows,” agreed Manasseh.

  “I’m none too happy with land agents and proprietors, just now,” pronounced Crispin, “but if Barrow’s the sort of man I’m siding with, I’ll not need to be so particular which direction I point and fire.”

  “Come,” said Parson Leach to Nora and Peter. “We have only half as far to go now as we have already traveled, and you, Miss, need not walk a step. Peter?”

  “Yes, Parson.”

  “Are you fit to go?”

  Peter nodded. He hardly looked fit, drenched to the bone and as pale as Nora. Parson Leach may have been conscious that he looked little better himself. He took Mars’s reins and led him off; they left the woodsmen by the trail west to New Milford, where the forest crowded the traveler with fern and root and sagging wet limbs; and so parted company with little ceremony beyond “God speed.” Peter was glad to know that Manasseh Cutts and Crispin Moss lingered behind them.

  Parson Leach, for his part, was not lingering. For all his manner, they might have been on a walk from church on Sunday, but his pace was quick and his stride was long, and Peter caught the parson stealing more than one glimpse over his shoulder at the road behind them. Sometimes the gaunt man turned about-face and walked backwards for a moment, concealing his true motives by speaking to Peter, and always in the most genial tone, but he never slacked off the sharp pace he set for them at the start, and Peter, who was long-legged himself, half-ran to keep up.

  The road south followed the length of Damariscotta Pond; and as the water narrowed, the further shore grew clearer through the wet atmosphere. The forest to their right hovered close by, a dour presence on the slopes of the river valley. They heard crows jarring under cover of the trees.

  Peter trudged along, to one side of the horse, glancing occasionally at Nora, whose face was turned away from him. She had pulled the collars of the parson’s greatcoat over her head, but her wet tangle of hair fell from beneath the cover and he was mesmerized by the color of it; that dark red brown belonged to fall, it seemed, and shared something melancholy with the oak leaves and maple and elm that fell, stripped from the trees in the rain. And yet again her hair was almost the color of Mars’s coat, which was strong and supple and glad. One thin hand reached from beneath the blue coat and pressed against the horse’s neck, looking as white as bone.

  Above, the caps of the forest surged in the rain, and that broken foliage, consonant with Nora’s wet darkened hair, fell about the road and their muddy feet and hooves in an eddy of wind.

  Peter stumbled in the mud and recovered himself by clutching at the tail of Parson Leach’s coat. It seemed to him that the man on the other side of the horse said, “Watch where you walk, now,” but Peter had heard nothing. He glanced over the horse’s back and Parson Leach was facing forward and had not broken his stride. Nora readjusted the great coat and turned, her head still resting upon the neck of the horse; she watched Peter with the candid stare of a child. Soon her eyes closed and Peter wondered if she had fallen asleep.

  Peter himself imagined the remainder of their journey through the rain as in a dream. They had not walked so very far, and the weather was not what it would be in another month or so, but he was not used to walking distances at all, and less used to the knowledge of new places and new people and dangerous men. It occurred to him, as it had now and again these last two days, that his father was gone, and his heart plunged a little and his head spun to consider what it meant that someone, anyone was no longer in the world. Are they burying him today? he wondered, and What has my mother sent me to?

  At some point the parson began to sing softly.

  Oh, my Lord God, young Jesus dear,

  Prepare Thy gracious cradle near,

  And I shall rock Thee in my heart,

  And never more from Thee depart.

  After a while, Peter thought he heard Nora humming along with the clergyman, and how much more potent her small contribution seemed than all the broad tones of his male companions, who sang in the shank of the morning.

  Several other songs, each with several verses, brought them around the southern extremity of Damariscotta Pond, where they reached the Mills and the lengthy spillway that empt
ied into Great Salt Bay and the Damariscotta River. Here the houses came more frequently and Parson Leach was recognized by one or two individuals braving the weather. One invited him and his companions to dry by their fire, but he graciously declined with the excuse of pressing matters.

  Peter could have done with a fire; even the exertion of walking seemed to have lost its warming effect, and a chill had soaked through his skin to his bones so that he hardly believed he would ever be rid of it. Nora sat atop Mars in relative comfort, not so much soaked with rain anymore as damp with steam.

  Parson Leach’s cape and hood had long since ceased to ward off the rain. “It’s not much further,” he insisted. “Were we to stop and dry off, the last leg through this rain would seem twice as cruel.”

  So they trudged on, and it was not more than half a mile further on before they were atop a low hill and Parson Leach pointed south and east to a head of land jutting into the river. Perhaps a quarter of a mile away stood a magnificent house and several barns and outbuildings. Smoke rose from the chimneys and in the dim atmosphere and through the rain they could see cheerful lights at the windows.

  “There is Clayden farm,” explained Parson Leach. “And as snug and satisfactory a hearth as exists from here to General Knox’s, not to mention as lively and gracious a family as you are likely to bear in your time. You will not regret our refusing previous offers.” He looked to his young companions, but could not extract any enthusiasm from them. He smiled, though he must have been weary and chilled himself. “Let’s leave the road, and cut through the fields,” he suggested. “We can’t be any wetter than we are now.”

  So he turned them off the road, and led them through ankle high grass that squirted and squelched as wetly as Peter’s moccasins. They descended a small knoll, crossed a busy rill and came up level with the cluster of buildings. The rain seemed to increase, as if to add drama to their arrival. A dog barked, then two. There was the sound of a horse neighing in the barn as they passed it and Mars answered with an impatient snort. A small face peered from one of the rear windows of the house and disappeared again.

  They were rounding the broad back of the estate, and coming into view of the yard when a kitchen door was thrown open and a large woman in bonnet and apron leaned out to take stock of the travelers. Some exclamation rose from her and she swatted at the air as if she would drive the rain away like gnats. “Lands and living!” she declared. “It’s unfit to be about. Who is it and what could drive them out on a day like this?”

  Three faces peered out from behind the woman’s wide hips, clinging to her apron and skirts. She swatted at one of these, but without conviction. A young man ran out with a coat thrown over his head and met the three wayfarers in the muddy yard. He peered into the parson’s hood and knew him immediately. “Mr. Leach!” he cried, as much to identify the man to those in the doorway as to address him.

  “Ebulon,” returned Parson Leach. “How are you, lad.”

  “My mother has made apple pandowdy!” declared the boy, who was not more than nine or ten and didn’t seem to mind sharing such a treat with new arrivals.

  “I’m half-filled just hearing about it!” declared the parson.

  “Is that Mr. Leach?” called the woman at the door. “What ever brings you out on a day like this?”

  “Surely to see you, Mrs. Magnamous, and to taste your apple pandowdy.”

  “Ebulon, take his horse,” called the woman. “Get under cover and by a fire, Mr. Leach–you and your friends.”

  Ebulon was already in the process of taking Mars from his master, but happily shouted his agreement to the woman, who was his mother. Parson Leach lifted Nora down from Mars’s back and caught her when she stumbled on her own legs. Peter hesitated beside them, but the parson nodded to the door and told him to hurry inside.

  Peter wondered what greater pleasures heaven could supply than that kitchen, for he stepped in from the driving rain and encountered warmth and dryness and the snap and light of a crackling fire and the smells of cooking and herb brooms hanging from the beams and the faces of three young people, peering from the pantry door.

  One girl in a beautiful dress, her dark hair done up in curls and bows, stepped up to Peter boldly and said, “I saw you first, you know. I saw you through the window in the nursery.” She was only fourteen or fifteen years old, but regarded Peter as if she were accustomed to being heard. Peter was not sure of a response, nor did his confusion lessen when she looked at him and said, “Were you in a fight?”

  After a moment, Peter touched the fresh scar on his forehead. “No,” he said.

  The girl’s frown indicated that more information was needed, but when he added nothing to the simple denial, she looked him up and down and exclaimed, “What happened to your shoes?”

  “They got wet,” was all he could think to say, but he realized that she was amazed by the slits he had made to accommodate his feet.

  “Father’s things will fit you,” she pronounced. “Father is at sea.”

  By this time, Parson Leach had half carried Nora to the hearthside, and thrown off his cape and hood with a splash. Mrs. Magnamous began to lift the blue greatcoat from Nora’s shoulders, when she realized the state of the young woman’s dress. The woman let out a cry of dismay and pulled the coat around Nora again. “However can she be traveling like this?” said the woman to no certain person. “Shoo! Shoo!” she said to two young boys who attempted to gape past her substantial midsection. She swatted at them and drove them back a yard or so. “She must have dry things!” declared the woman.

  “She has none, I fear,” said the parson.

  “What is it? What is it?” came an elderly, if commanding, voice and a large gray-haired gentleman shuffled into view at the pantry door. He had spectacles lifted unto his brow and he squinted into the kitchen till he laid eyes on Parson Leach. “Zachariah!” he said, with evident pleasure in the discovery.

  “Captain Clayden!” returned the parson. He strode dripping across the kitchen to shake hands with the old man.

  “What commotion!” said Captain Clayden. “What have you brought me today? I asked for Robert Burton when I saw you last.”

  “He’s brought you half-drowned children!” asserted Mrs. Magnamous.

  “What? You look half-drowned yourself,” said the Captain to Parson Leach. “Get out of those things! Have you dry clothes to wear? I don’t know that any of us are tall enough to supply you.”

  “I see Ebulon charging from the barn now,” said Parson Leach, peering through one of the kitchen windows, “and the good fellow is bringing my bags and kit.”

  One of the younger boys rushed to let Ebulon in, and the sound of the rain was, for the moment, a loud and chilling presence in the warm kitchen.

  “Emily, Sussanah!” said Mrs. Maganamous, unable to abide dawdling any longer. “Take this poor child and change her clothes! No, don’t take her to your rooms, she’s soaking to the bone! Set her by the fire in the nursery and drive the children out. Then bring her something decent and warm. Sussanah, something of yours will answer.” Mrs. Magnamous hugged Nora Tillage to her all this time, as if she were her own daughter. “Lands and living!” she said again. “Mr. Leach, what are you about, hauling these children through storm and water? Are you trying to kill them?”

  “It is, as they say, Mrs. Magnamous, a long story.” Parson Leach smiled, though he looked a little wary, lest she swat at him as she had the little boys.

  The young woman who must have been Sussanah, since she was more of a height with Nora, came up and took Nora’s arm. There was great sympathy in her dark blue eyes, and curiosity as well. The other young woman, Emily, left Peter less readily, and watched Nora with something next to suspicion. Her eyes were pale and striking against the dark frame of hair that hung past her shoulders.

  Mrs. Magnamous took stock of Peter then and similar cries of maternal anguish and concern filed the air. “And I suppose he is without wardrobe, as well!” she said, and upon the parson’s
affirmative, she answered, “Captain James’s things will fit him–”

  “I’ll get them,” said Emily, already bustling away from Nora to this office.

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind! James!” she shouted. “James!”

  A fellow of about ten or eleven years showed himself in the pantry door.

  “Take this young man–up the back stairs, you had better–and fetch him some of your father’s things.”

  James never said a word, but nodded once, and went to a closeted stairway on the other end of the kitchen. Peter threw a worried look at the parson, but that man only smiled and shrugged; this was no more than he had expected. James opened the door to the back steps and waited for Peter, who dripped across the kitchen floor and up the steep stairwell behind him. Peter looked over his shoulder, before he disappeared, and saw Mrs. Magnamous press Nora’s face with both her hands and kiss the young woman fiercely on the top of the head.

  12

  Concerning an Interview with Captain Clayden

  PETER LOON HAD NEVER SEEN SUCH A HOUSE AS CAPTAIN CLAYDEN’s before this day, and certainly he had never seen the inside of such a magnificent home. The back stairs, leading to the humblest quarters, might have been marble steps, and the unfinished chamber above–filled with chests and old furniture–a palace room. The chamber was colder and darker than the kitchen, but enough light came through the gable window, and enough heat rose from the hearth below, that Peter could look about him and not quite see his breath. Rain pounded noisily on the roof above and streaked the small panes of the single window; the weather was almost pleasant, seen and heard from inside. Peter sneezed.

  “Devil behind,” invoked James, then considering Peter’s dripping state, he said, “Perhaps you had better stay here. I’ll bring you some of my father’s things.”

  While James was gone, Peter listened to the sounds of conversation and laughter belowstairs, muffled beneath the rain. He tried to recall the welter of circumstance that had led him from the little cabin his grandfather had built–a splendid enough affair by their neighbors’ standards–to this extraordinary manse with its lively people and handsome children. He had been particularly taken–puzzled really–by Emily’s insistent stare, and quite glad that Mrs. Magnamous had not let the girl retrieve clothes for him.