Mason is certain he saw at least one of them at the first Meeting with the Commissioners, the week previous,— tho’, that being largely ceremonial, all the Faces then had been fram’d in more or less identical Wigs. Yet if he recognizes me, Mason asks himself now, why doesn’t he speak? groping within for the Gentleman’s Name, as the enigmatic Phiz continues, in the weak light, to sharpen toward Revelation.
As it will prove, all the Effigies in the back room bear Faces of Commissioners for the Boundary Line, tho’ Mason, anxiously upon the lookout wherever in town they have to go, won’t fully appreciate it till the second Meeting, on 1 December. The calm oval room has been furnish’d hastily, but minutes before their arrival, with a perfect Row of black comb-back’d Chairs for the Commissioners, set upon one side of a long Table, facing a Window revealing a late autumnal Garden,— white statues of uncertain Gender leaning in sinuous Poses,— and across the Table, two Chairs of ordinary Second Street origin and faux-Chippendale carving, unmatch’d, intended for the Astronomers, who will have little to look at but the Commissioners.
Luckily for Mason, the Gentlemen enter, not all in a Troop, but in ones and pairs, so giving him a few extra moments in which to work upon his Composure, which needs it. Those waxen Faces that gaz’d at him with such midnight Intent,— here are their daytime counterparts to greet him, with the same, O God in Thy Mercy, the same look . . . as if deliberately to recall the other night. But how could they, could anyone, know? has he been under Surveillance ever since landing here? And,— the Figures in that far back room, were they not Effigies at all, but real people, only pretending to be Effigies, yes these very faces,— ahrrhh! (What did he interrupt them at, then, in the lampless chamber, what Gathering he wasn’t supposed to know about? And why couldn’t he remember more clearly what had happen’d to him after he went into the Room? Was his Brain, in Mercy, withholding the memory?)
. . . As the Progress of Wax automata, by ones and twos, approaches, provoking, daring Mason to bring any of it up, the Possibility never presents itself to him, that all the Line Commissioners, from both Provinces, being political allies of the Proprietors, are natural and obvious Effigy Fodder to a Mobility of Rent-payers,— as will be later pointed out by Dixon, who now has begun casting him curious, offended looks. Neither has slept well for a Fortnight, amid the house-rocking Ponderosities of commercial Drayage, the Barrels and Sledges rumbling at all Hours over the paving-Stones, the Town on a-hammering and brick-laying itself together about them, the street-sellers’ cries, the unforeseen coalescences of Sailors and Citizens anywhere in the neighboring night to sing Liberty and wreak Mischief, hoofbeats in large numbers passing beneath the Window, the cries of Beasts from the city Shambles,— Philadelphia in the Dark, in an all-night Din Residents may have got accustom’d to, but which seems to the Astronomers, not yet detach’d from the liquid, dutiful lurches of the Packet thro’ th’ October seas, the very Mill of Hell.
“Worse than London by far,” Mason brushing away Bugs, rolling over and over, four sides at five minutes per side, a Goose upon Insomnia’s Spit, uncontrollably humming to himself an idiotic Galop from The Rebel Weaver, which he attended in London just before Departure, instead of Mr. Arne’s Love in a Cottage, which would have been wiser. Smells of wood-smoke, horses, and human sewage blow in the windows, along with the noise. Somewhere down the Street a midnight Church congregation sings with a fervency unknown in Sapperton, or in Bisley, for that matter. He keeps waking with his heart racing, fear in his Bowels, something loud having just occurr’d . . . waiting for it to repeat. And as he relaxes, never knowing the precise moment it begins, the infernal deedle ee, deedle ee, deedle-eedle-eedle-dee again.
The Rebel Weaver was set in the Golden Valley, being a light-hearted account of the late battles there between Weavers and Clothiers, with interludes of music, juggling, and tricksome Animal Life. “Strangely,” Mason has reported to Dixon, “I was not appall’d,— tho’ I’ve every reason to be.” The plot, about a Weaver’s son who loves the Daughter of a Clothier, and the conflict of loyalties resulting, presents nothing more troubling sentimentally, than the comick misunderstandings of an Italian Opera. One or two of the slower tunes, lugubrious to some Ears, he even yet fancies, tho’ this damn’d Galop is another matter.
Upon his own side of the Bed, Dixon snores in a versatility of Tone that Mason, were he less anxious about getting to sleep, might be taking Notes upon, perhaps to be written up and submitted to the Philosophical Transactions, so unexpectedly polyphonic do some passages emerge, all at the same unhurried, yet presently infuriating, Andante. Both men lie in the Clothing they have worn all day, Dixon as faithful to field-Surveyor’s custom, as Mason to that of the Star-Gazer,— his quotidian dress, at Greenwich, having ever doubl’d as his Observing Suit. To sleep, one simply took off the Coat,— tho’ Dixon has advis’d against this here. He is of course right. The Bugs run free,— American bugs, who so much resent being brush’d off Human Surfaces, that they will bite anyone for even approaching.
That’s it, then. Himself a giant Bug, he rolls quietly from under the Counterpane and crawls from the Room,— dresses in the Hallway and upon the Stairs, and is soon insensibly translated into The Orchid Tavern, by Dock Creek, Hat beside him, Queue a-snarl, buying too many Rounds, enjoying viciously as any recreational Traveler the quaint Stridencies of a Politics not his own, yet, before Intoxication sets in, continuing to seek, somewhere in the perilous Text of Faction, Insult, and Threat, a Line or two of worth, to take home with him.
“Pennsylvania Politics? Its name is Simplicity. Religious bodies here cannot be distinguish’d from Political Factions. These are Quaker, Anglican, Presbyterian, German Pietist. Each prevails in its own area of the Province. Till about five years ago, the Presbyterians fought among themselves so fiercely, that despite their great Numbers, they remain’d without much Political Effect,— lately, since the Old and New Lights reach’d their Accommodation, all the other Parties have hasten’d to strike bargains with them as they may,— not least of these the Penns, who tho’ Quaker by ancestry are Anglican in Praxis,— some even say, Tools of Rome. Mr. Shippen, upon whom you must wait for each penny you’ll spend, is a Presbyterian, the City Variety, quite at ease as a member of the Governor’s Council. As for the Anglicans of Philadelphia, the periodick arrival in Town of traveling ministries such as the Reverend MacClenaghan’s have now split those Folk between traditional Pennites, and Reborns a-dazzle with the New Light, who are more than ready to throw in with the Presbyterians, against the Quakers,— tho’ so far Quakers have been able to act in the Assembly as a body, and prevail,— ”
“. . . Not sure I’m following this,” Mason says.
“May you never have the need, Sir. ’Tis useful nonetheless, now and then, to regard Politics here, as the greater American Question in Miniature,— in the way that Chess represents war,— with Governor Penn a game-piece in the form of the King.”
“Who’d be the Rockingham Whigs, I wonder?— ”
At a short Arpeggio from the Clavier, a Voice thro’ the Vapors announces, “The Moment now ye’ve all been waiting for . . . the Saloon of The Orchid Tavern is pleas’d to Present, the fam’d Leyden-Jar Danse Macabre! with that Euclid of the Elecktrick, Philadelphia’s own Poor Richard, in the part of Death.”
Eager Applause, as into the Lanthorn-Light comes a hooded, Scythe-bearing Figure in Skeleton’s Disguise,— tho’ the Instant it begins to speak, all sinister Impression is compromis’d. “Ah . . . ? ex-cellent. . . . Now, if I might have a few Volunteers . . . from what obviously, here tonight, is the Flower of Philadelphian Youth. . . . Behold, Pilgrims of Prodigy, my new Battery,— twenty-four Jars crackling and ready.” Dr. Franklin now throwing back his hood, to reveal Lenses tonight of a curious shade of Aquamarine, allowing his eyes to be view’d, yet conveying a bleak Contentment that discourages lengthy Gazing. “Come, Gentlemen,— who’ll be next,— that’s it, go-o-od, Line of Fop
s, all hold hands, Line of Fops, how many have we now,— dear me, not enough, come, one more, ever room for one more. . . .” Thus briskly collecting into Line a dozen or so heedless Continentals, placing into the hands of the hindmost a Copper Cable from one Terminal of the Battery, and grasping the hand of the frontmost, Franklin reaches with the Blade of his Scythe to touch the other Terminal,— the Landlord at the same Instant dousing the Glim,— so that the resulting Tableau is lit by terrifying stark Flashes of Blue-white Light, amid the harsh Sputter of the Fulminous Fluid, and the giggling, and indeed Screaming, of the Participants, Snuff flying ev’rywhere and now and then igniting in Billows of green Flame, amid infernal Columns of Smoak.
The Battery having discharg’d, Light is restor’d,— the Company presently regaining enough Composure to note the Arrival of a Thunder-Gust, as Windows begin to rattle and Trees to creak, and the Landlord rushes about trying to Draw the Curtains,— as, thereby, the hearty Opposition of these Electrophiles, whose wish is ever to observe their admir’d Fluid in its least mediated form.
“So much for Harlequin,” cries Dr. Franklin, “Let us get out into the Night’s Main Drama!— There’s Weather-Gear for all, this Scythe here is the perfect Shape to catch us a Bolt, perhaps a good many,— better than a Key upon a Kite, indeed,— think of it as Death’s Picklock,— come, form your Line . . . all here?” pulling his Hood up again, “— felonious Entry, into the Anterooms of the Cre-a-torr. . . . Not joining us tonight, Mr. Mason?” Lowering his Lenses and staring for an Instant. Before Mason, from whom all comfort has flown, can quite reply, the Figure has turn’d and taken a Hand at the end of the Line,— the Door opens and the Wind and Rain blow in, Thunder crashes, and with odd strangl’d cries of Amusement, the Party of Seekers are plung’d out into the Storm, and vanish’d.
30
Upon the day appointed, pursuant to the Chancery Decision, the Commissioners of both Provinces, with Remembrancers and Correspondents, attended by a Thronglet of Children out of School, Sailors, Irishmen, and other Citizens exempt from or disobedient to the humorless rule of Clock-Time here, all go trooping down to Cedar Street and the House in Question, to establish its north Wall officially as the southernmost Point of Philadelphia. Fifteen Miles South of this, to the width of a Red Pubick Hair or R.P.H., will the West Line run.
The neighbors gather and mutter. “Well ye would think they’d wait a bit.” “Eighty years, that isn’t enough?” “Way this Town’s growing, that South Point’ll be across the street and down the Block before the Week’s out.” “Aye, moving even as we speak, hard to detain as a greas’d Pig.” The Sector is borne in a padded Waggon, like some mechanickal Odalisque. Children jump, flapping their Arms in unconscious memory of when they had wings, to see inside. “Why not use the south Wall?” inquire several of them, far too ’pert for their sizes and ages. “The south Wall lies within private property,” replies the Mayor’s Assistant, “— so, as the southernmost Publick Surface, the Parties have agreed upon this north Wall here, facing the Street.”
Mr. Benjamin Loxley and his Crew have been busily erecting an Observatory in a vacant Piece, nearby, mid the mix’d rhythms of Hammers, each Framer at his own slightly different Tempo, and blurted phrases of songs. “Done many of these, Ben?”
“First one,— but don’t tell anybody. Pretty straightforward, regular Joists and Scantlings, nothing too exotick, beyond this Cone Roof, trying to accommodate the tall one, spacing the Collar-beams so he won’t thump his Head when he stands up,— tho’ they’ll be spending most of their time either sitting, or ’pon their Backs,— ”
“Hmm.”
“Oh now, Clovis, your Bride is safe,— ’tis the only way for them to look straight up at the Stars that pass high overhead, these being the Best for the Latitude, as they say.”
“Aye? and that great Telescope Tube thing ever pointing straight up? Heh, heh. Why’s it got to be that big?”
“Don’t break your rhythm, Hobab, I was quite enjoying it. The Gents wish to measure this quite closely,— find and keep the Latitude of their Line, to fractions of a second of Arc,— the Tube being the Radius of the Limb, see, a longer Tube will swing you a bigger Arc, longer Limb, longer Divisions, more room between the Markings, easier reading, nicer reading.”
Mr. Chew appears to be making a Speech. “Shall we stop hammering till he’s done?” Hobab inquires.
“Other Questions arise,” Mr. Loxley gazing into the Distance. “Your notion of Futurity. Shall we continue to need Contracts with these people? How soon do you expect our Savior’s Return may render them void? Considerations like that.”
“I say whenever you can, give ’m all a Twenty-one-Hammer Salute,” growls Clovis.
“I say take their Money, we don’t have to love ’m,” says Hobab.
“Or even marry ’m,” adds young Elijah, the Swamper.
“Here are the Astronomers,” Mr. Loxley notes, “perhaps you’d like to share some of your Analysis with them,— God grant ye clear Skies, Gentlemen,” shouting over the newly percussive Activity of his Crew.
Dixon, removing his hat, tries out the Door-way, goes in, and lies supine upon the fresh-sawn Planking. Looking up, he sees Clovis, spread still as a Spider among the radial Rafters, watching him.
“Ask you something, Sir? . . . What thought have you given to getting that great Tube in the Door?”
“Oh, Mr. Bird calculated the whole thing, years ago, over in England.
All on Paper.”
“Before there was ever a Scantling cut?”
“Before there was ever a Screw cut for the Instrument.”
“I’ll study on it. Thank ye, Sir.” He tips a nonexistent Hat and descends.
Mason looks in. “Will we get it in the Door, Dixon?”
Dixon stands up, carefully. “This is the very same Whimwham we had at the Cape . . . ?”
“No Trouble, Gents, we’ll make ye a Door it shall go in,” promises the cheery Hobab.
“And out, too!” adds Elijah, from beneath a Load of Weatherboarding.
Dixon, as a Needle man anxious to obtain the latest Magnetick Intelligence of the Region that awaits them, Rumors reaching him of a Coffee-House frequented by those with an interest in the Magnetick, however it be manifested, shows up one night at The Flower-de-Luce, in Locust-Street. There, over the Evening, he will find, among the Clientele, German Enthusiasts, Quack Physicians, Land-Surveyors, Iron-Prospectors, and Watch-Thieves who know how to draw a Half-Hunter from one Pocket into another with the swiftness of a Lodestone clapping a Needle to its Influence. Strangers greet him as they might a Friend of ancient standing, whilst others, obviously seeking to shun his Company, glare whenever the Fumes of Tobacco allow them mutual Visibility. He has no idea what any of it is about. Gently tacking among the crowd, he arrives at the Bar. “Evening, Sir, what’ll it be?”
“Half and Half please, Mount Kenya Double-A, with Java Highland,— perhaps a slug o’ boil’d Milk as well . . . ?”
“Planning on some elevated Discourse tonight?” jests the Coffee-Draper, swiftly and with little misdirection assembling Dixon’s order. His Wig shines with a Nimbus in the strange secondary light from the Mirror behind him.
“This may seem an odd question, Sir,— but . . . have I been in here before?”
“Goodness no, yet how many times a day do I get ask’d that very thing. Diff’rent Visitors with diff’rent Expectations. You strike me as the English Tavern sort, and so you’ll be noticing there’s less Reserve ’round here than you may be us’d to,— tho’ any who seek a Quarrel may readily find it, yea unto Dirks and Pistols, if that truly be your Preference. . . . Howbeit,— make yourself at home, and good Luck in America.”
Dixon beamingly adverts to the early Crowd, here, immediately noticing Dr. Franklin’s friend Dolly, tho’ she’s certainly not as eye-catchingly rigg’d out tonight as he’s seen he
r before,— nor can he immediately ’spy any of her Companions. Soberly consulting a large Map upon a Mahogany Desk-top, she holds a pair of Silver Dividers, multiply-jointed, tending to White Gold in the Candle-light,— and refers repeatedly to a Book of Numerickal Tables, now and then gracefully walking the Instrument up, down, and ’cross its paper Stage. When she looks up at last, he guesses from her eyes that she knows he’s been there, all the time. “Why Mr. Dixon. Well met.” Holding out her hand, and before Dixon can begin to incline to kiss it, shaking his, as men do. “These Data arriv’d but this Instant, by the German Packet,— the latest Declination Figures. Our easterly movement, in Pennsylvania, as it’s been doing in latter Years, decelerates yet,— here, ’tis four point five minutes east,” as Dixon attentively gazes over her shoulder, “when in the year ’sixty, ’twas four point six. If you head South, ’twill be three point nine at Baltimore.”
“Were these measur’d Heights,” he murmurs, “a very Precipice.”
“What could be causing it, do you imagine?”
“Something underground, moving Westward . . . ?”
“Hush.” Her Eyes rapidly sweep the Vicinity. “No one ever speaks of that aloud here,— what sort of incautious Lad are you, exactly?”
“Why, the usual sort, I guess.”
“Well.” She pulls him into an alcove. “Rather took you for an All-Nations Lad, myself.”
“Been there.” The serving-girls at The All-Nations Coffee-House are costumed in whimsical versions of the native dress of each of the coffee-producing countries,— an Arabian girl, a Mexican girl, a Javanese girl, and according to Dolly, a Sumatran girl as well,— a constantly shifting Pageant of allegorical Coffees of the World, to some ways of thinking, in fact, quite educational, tho’ attracting a core Clientele louder, beefier, and altogether less earnest than Dixon by now expects to find in Philadelphia.
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