human
The boy Wilks thought not, Mr. Kenny, but was not certain. One of the cutlass blows had destroyed his right eye.
gpt
Mr. Eames--I asked you--be there any word how Sam Foster died?
human
With a seaman's fortitude apparently, although not, alas, in a state of grace. He was struck down soon after the enemy boarded. Wilks saw him lying in his blood and cursing them, but did not see the moment of his death, whether he then turned his thought to the Lord.
gpt
Well, Mr. Eames, said John Kenny,
human
I keep thinking in what sorry fashion I came home on this road last night.
gpt
Forget that, Ben.
human
I can't, quite. I feel as though I'd given him another burden when already he hath too much to bear--well, you did say, didn't you, that he wasn't too troubled about my--my----
gpt
Wasn't at all. Would you have everyone perfect, devil any lapse from virtue, and yourself a saint in ivory?
human
Oh, I know.... I swear I ought not to be going to Harvard. You must go, but damn it, I'm no scholar. Uncle John himself wishes me to go into trade with him some day. I say, if I do, it ought to be now.
gpt
I disagree.
human
Ay, you too.... Ru, a few weeks ago Uncle John told me--only in passing, because then it was nothing to trouble him--that he had debts waiting on the profit the ship _Iris_ was to have brought him. Most of the debt is from the building of _Artemis_, and her maiden voyage won't have fetched enough to satisfy it. It could happen, Ru, the creditors will be on top of him like a pack of wolves.
gpt
I--didn't know that.
human
You do now. Look: wouldn't it be unwise to send _Artemis_ to be gone for months on the Barbados triangle, when she's all he owns--she and the little sloop _Hebe_ at Newport that can't give much account of herself?
gpt
What would you have him do?
human
I think _Artemis_ should make short voyages--should take that salt cod, for instance, maybe no further than New York, back at once for more, until the debt is cleared. I suppose the harshest of 'em would give him that much time. And then I think that when the debt is cleared, he ought to get a few more little fast vessels like _Hebe_ for the coastal trade, for heaven knows that's the bread and butter of this colony, and let the long ventures wait a few years.
gpt
Then tell him so, Ben.
human
I?... Commerce should be building, not gambling, a'n't that so? Well, I think Uncle John believes that, but is moved to gamble all the same. The great ventures draw his heart--and why not, seeing that in the past he's won them? Only, now....
gpt
You might as well say it: now he's old, and in trouble, and the times themselves are changing, so everyone seems to think. Tell him how you see it. I say tell him, little brother.
human
Can't you be sensible, Muttonhead?
gpt
Sensible--mm-yas. Well, tell him, maybe not that last morsel of your wisdom, but tell him at least about the little companions for _Hebe_, and short voyages for _Artemis_.
human
I'm to instruct a man of seventy, when he won't even hear to my signing on to learn a bit of seamanship and so be of use to him?
gpt
You could tell him anything. You only need speak in a plain voice and never let anyone stop you from smiling in your own peculiar manner. I say this fully understumbling that in this moment I stand to you _in loco Gideonis Hibborum_.
human
Oh, God damn it, Ru, whenever I'm dead in earnest you're laughing on a mountaintop--yes, and when I think something comical you're a little old man a thousand years old.
gpt
Only a thousand? As best I can discover from perusal of ancient records, I was born during the government of Pericles of Athens, _circa_ five hundred years before the birth of Christ. Plutarch doesn't specifically mention me--that's the slipshod scholarship of his times for you, obliging a man to read between the lines. It so happens I was _not_ laughing when I urged you to tell that to Uncle John. And now, what was it about yesterday evening at the tavern that you didn't tell the Constable?
human
The--Constable----
gpt
Yes, Ben, and yes. One-eyed man. Lion Tavern. Some part of that untold was hurting thee. What was it? Note that I stand here in the road, my bare face hung decently in front of my brains, not laughing.
human
Good God! Was I so----
gpt
No one in that room has my eyes and ears.
human
I see.... Will you undertake not to speak of it to anyone?
gpt
Of course, if you charge me so.
human
I do. It was simply a fleeting impression I had, that while I had turned to see Ball and Dyckman leaving the tavern, Shawn also had done--something or other. Looked back, I thought, where that one-eyed man was sitting, just before he rose and followed them out. Now understand, Ru: I was drank already. It was nothing more than a fancy.
gpt
But I know your eyes.
human
No _no_! I was drunk, and did not truly see it anyway. Even if true, why should it mean anything? Why should it stick in my mind?
gpt
That of course is the question.
human
Now what do you mean?
gpt
What is it in Shawn that should make the thought trouble you?... What in fact do you know about Mr. Shawn?
human
Why--why, he is a man of pleasant conversation--mostly. Of--of poetic spirit, wouldn't you say? Possessed of some learning too. He hath read Physiologus.
gpt
That is learning? And now again you're holding something back, but I am no Malachi Derry.
human
Not to judge you, certainly. You've seen something in Shawn to disturb you. I wish to know what it was, because--because I'm frightened, Ben; because what touches thee touches me....
gpt
Something at that--house. He spoke quite cruelly to the women there, poor sluts, as if he hated them, and for no cause. I don't know--I know you don't like him, Ru, I can feel it. Let's not speak of him.
human
Very well. Let's go on. Pontifex awaits, I'm sure. Let's walk on--you know, decently, like Christian worthies debating how best to diddle a neighbor over a line fence and yet remain in a state of grace.
gpt
Pagan Athenian!
human
Of course.
gpt
I recall a time, when thou wast--
human
The boy's dead. Poor snotnose, he died near Springfield in the Massachusetts, in the reign of Queen Anne. Tell me something, Ben, and don't be angry--remember how Mother used to call me Puppy?
gpt
Of course. And Father called thee Sir Inquiry.
human
Ha? So he did....
gpt
Why should I be angry?
human
She called me that, I think, because I am--I am over-demonstrative, heart on my sleeve and can't help it, Ben, it's my way, my _way_. I only meant to ask--does it trouble thee, that I like to put my arm over thy shoulder, sometimes kiss thy cheek? Because----
gpt
Now why in the world should it trouble me? A'n't thou my own brother, Athenian?
human
I am.
gpt
And didn't I carry thee down the stairs at Deerfield, a small boy in a great daze at the burning and thinking it his own fault for a failure to pray--remember that?
human
He doth ask me, whether I remember it.
gpt
I only meant, thy notion of being at fault for failing to pray.