“Aye,” Dixon replies, “you’d’ve pre-ferr’d the Moonlight, I guess, and an Owl or two.” Down by the creek they fall in with the Path Shelby means to follow,— the North-Mountain rears above them, soon to catch the first light at its crest. Trees fill with whistling. Squadrons of cloud go rushing in the sky. The breeze has a cold edge. Dead leaves are everywhere. Soon all odor of woodsmoke has faded behind them. That of Ripeness, come and gone, enfolds them. And then something else.
“There’s a new barrel-mill in the neighborhood,— smell it?” They are coming near the bank of a creek. Shelby, Eyebrows wrinkling together, takes hold of his Shot-Bag and begins to toss it lightly in his Hand. He seems eager to begin firing at any target that may present itself.
“Grist-millers,” he declares, “discover there is more money in grinding out cheap barrels for rifles for the Savages. Philadelphia money. Here, up this way.”
Mist is gather’d in the hollows, thick and cohering, blinding whilst carrying to each the Breaths and Mutterings of the others. Ev’rywhere between these white Episodes, the clarity of the Dawn slowly, piercingly, emerges. “This Ridge, another Valley,” the Captain exhorts them, “and we are there.” Over the crest and down to ford and then follow the creek through a gap in the hills to another Stream, where, in the angle of Confluence, its tip just catching the first rays of the Sun, stands Capt. Shelby’s “Mound.”
“Eeh!” cries Dixon. “Why, ’tis a great Cone!”
“Reg’lar as Silbury Hill,” Capt. Shelby’s head at an admiring angle. Mason, slow to enthusiasm, sniffs the air. “No fermented Maize fumes about, but then, ’tis Still, so to speak, early in the Day.”
“My Sacred Word,” the Welshman rolling his eyes Heavenward, producing, however, an effect more of Madness than of Piety. “Come, Boys. Come.” They are Boys. They approach the giant Solid, alone upon its Promontory, as light slowly envelopes it, dyeing it a cold, crystalline Rose. Mason’s first question, though he refrains from asking it aloud, is, Might it be under invisible Guard,— and how zealous are they? Shelby, watching his face, knows gleefully enough his Apprehensions.
“How do the Indians here about fancy Spectators like huz?” Dixon asks.
“They laugh. They but appear a solemn People,— worshiping Laughter, rather, as a serious, indeed holy, Force in Nature, never to be invok’d idly. This Mound is something they understand perfectly,— that white people do not, and show no signs of ever doing so, is a source of deep Amusement for them.”
“Is there a way inside?”
“There shouldn’t be, but there is.” The Welshman’s eyes tighten. “It was broken into years ago, perhaps by some larcenous Fool who had it confus’d with a Pyramid. His disappointment was the only good to come of it, for he found nothing,— no ancient corpses, nor even Copper bracelets or Tobacco-Pipes, for Indians never built it.”
“Eeh!” cries Dixon, who’s been peering into the opening. “D’yese see this, how these Layers are set in?— Mason! That Device Mr. Franklin show’d us,— his Leyden Jar! Remember thee all that Fancy Layering inside it . . . ?”
“Yes,” impatiently, “but those were Gold-leaf, Silver foil, Glass,— Philosophickal Materials,” a quick glance toward Shelby, “whilst these,—” having a Squint, “— seem but different kinds of Refuse,— dirt . . . ashes . . . crush’d seashells . . . not likely to be an ancient Leyden Battery, Dixon, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“A Marvel no one taught you this, Mr. Mason, for there is lengthy Knowledge of such things,— according to which, alternating Layers of different Substances are ever a Sign of the intention to Accumulate Force,— not necessarily Electrical, neither,— perhaps, Captain, these Substances Mr. Mason so disrespects may yet be suited to Forces more Tellurick in nature, more attun’d, that is, to Death and the slower Phenomena.”
Mason is shaking his head, having no idea how to control Ranting like this, genial though it be. He’s long known that Leadership is not his best Quality. Captain Shelby is staring at them both, with apprehension more than curiosity, for he has seen the Deep Woods and its mysteries quite derange more than one visitor from the Sea-coast and beyond. Deciding to place his faith in Reason, “Ye’ll note, how the Sun-light has been creeping down the Cone. A Progressive warming of the Structure. The Diameters of each infinitesimal Ring, at each moment, being the crucial values. Did either of you bring a Compass?”
“Here’s one . . . eeh!” Dixon, regarding his Needle, feels himself begin to drift somewhere else, off at an angle to the serial curve of his Life. . . . Mason peers over his shoulder,— “Hum!” right into Dixon’s Ear.
“Aagghh!” leaping away. “Mason, don’t do that.” He struggles to refocus,— in fact, to remember where he is. The Needle is swinging wildly and without pause, rocking about like a Weather-Vane in a storm, Dixon pretending to gaze at it knowingly.
Mason a-squint, “— Well, thank you for allowing us to witness your Experience, aye very helpful indeed. . . .”
Shelby would have preferr’d the slow chatter of three Men, in the early morning, with nought more to discuss than the Day ahead. “This Structure happens to be quite in the projected path of your Line,” he informs them, “— When at length your Visto is arriv’d here, the Mound will become active, as an important staging-house, for . . . whatever it may be,” with an attempt at a Chuckle, tho’ it comes out too loud, and imperfectly controll’d. “To quote Mr. Tox, in his famous Pennsylvaniad,—
‘A “Force Intensifier,” as ’tis styl’d,
A geomantic Engine in the Wild,
Whose Task is sending on what comes along,
As brisk as e’er, and sev’ral Times as strong.’
— Welsh in origin, it goes without saying.”
“How so? Welsh Indians?”
“Oh! Absolutely. Only a few days west and south of here. . . .’Twas in The Turkish Spy but a few years since . . . ?” The Cymry, Capt. Shelby explains, having first come to Britain from far to the East,— some say Babylon, some Nineveh,— their Fate ever to be Westering,— America but one of their dwelling-places, the Ocean nearly irrelevant. “Hugh Crawfford believes they are the Tuscaroras. Come along.”
He leads them uphill again, to what seems the Ruin of a Wall, encircling part of the hill-top,— where he stoops and brushes away some Dirt. Here, inscrib’d in a roughly dress’d Stone, they see a Line of brief Strokes, some pointing up, some down, some both ways. “These are all over the British Isles,— ’tis a Writing call’d Ogham, invented by Hu Gadarn the Mighty, who led the first Cymrick Settlers into Britain. As ye’ll note, ’tis useful for those who must move on quickly, yet do wish to scribble down something to commemorate their presence.”
“What does it say?”
“Well . . . as nearly as I can make out,— ‘Astronomers Beware. Surveyors too. This means you.’ Of course I haven’t read any of this for Centuries . . . yet ’tis indisputably Old Welsh.”
“As you describe this Line,” opines the Professor, back at Camp, “— the Marker Stones set at regular intervals,— a cascaded Array of Units each capable of producing a Force,— I do suspect we have the same structure as a Leyden Battery,— and, need I add, of a Torpedo.”
“With the head aim’d close by New Castle?”
“Or the other way, were the Cascade reversible,— the emitted Blast, being as easily directed Westward as East? Either direction, ’twould be a Pip of a Weapon, even with your Marker Stones placed no further than Sideling Hill.”
“Why fire at Sideling Hill?” Dixon all innocence.
“Not at the Hill,” chuckles Capt. Shelby, “— at what’s coming over the Hill.”
“Pontiack? The French?”
“Too late for them. One day, one of you’ll risk a Peep over the Ridge-line, and then you’ll see.”
“More mountains,” says Mason.
&
nbsp; “Exactly,— Mountains such as these, which may be liv’d among the year ’round. Therein ever rocks the cradle of Rebellion. Sooner or later, something up here will grow hungry or hopeless enough to want to descend to the plain, to stoop like Hawks upon rich Chesapeake, aye the Metropolis itself. . . . If the Black Boys so easily had their way with the British Regulars at Shippensburg, who knows what Wonders are yet possible out here, over the North-Mountain. . . .”
Yet removing Trees to create a pair of perfectly straight Edges, is to invite Sha, as Captain Zhang, ever eager upon the Topick of the Line and its Visible expression upon the Landscape, with its star-dictated indifference to the true inner shape, or Dragon, of the Land, will be happy to indicate to them.
“They came from the Sky, they prepar’d to emplace these Webs of right lines upon the Earth, then without explanation they went away again. Their work is being continued by the Jesuits, inscribers of Meridians, whether in blind obedience to some ancient Coercion, long expir’d, or in witting Complicity with it, who can say?” Captain Zhang can of course imagine Jesuits guilty of anything, including conspiring with Extra-terrestrial Visitors, to mark the living Planet with certain Signs, for motives of their own, motives they do not discuss, especially not with their Jesuit hirelings.
“Hearken, Gentlemen,— Someone wants your Visto. Not your Line, nor the Boundary it defines. Those are but a Pretext for the actual clear’d straight Track. In the Domain of very slow Undulations we’re discussing here, Wood is as much an Element as Air or Water,— living Trees in particular producing a Force that might interfere in too costly a way with whatever is to be sent up and down this Line.
“Earth, withal, is a Body, like our own, with its network of Points, dispos’d along its Meridians,— much as our medicine in China has identified, upon the Human body, a like set of Lines invisible, upon which, beadwise, are strung Points, where the Flow of Chee may be beneficially strengthen’d by insertions of Gold Needles. So, this arrangement of Oölite Shafts, at least partly inserted into the Earth,— you see, it is suggestive.”
“Do we want to hear this?” Capt. Shelby inquires, plaintively.
“Hold, ’twill be legal evidence of his insanity, allow him to— ah, yes then Captain you were saying and how fascinating that you believe the Planet Earth to be a . . . living Creature? Hum?”
“Exactly as the creatures Microscopic upon your skin believe you to be a Planet. They may be arguing even now about whether or not you are a form of Life. Each time you step into a Tub, there comes upon them another universal Flood, with its Animalcular Noah, and another Re-inhabiting, another Chain of Generations, to them how timeless, till the next Wash.”
“Some reason that Bottle isn’t moving more briskly?” Dixon wishes to know. “Thankye,— now Mason, don’t ta’e the Hoomp, but the Captain’s right,— ”
“ ‘Right’?”
“Consider. We’ve an outer and an inner surface, haven’t we, which mathematickally, ’tis easy, using Fluxions, to warp and smooth, by small, continuous changes, into a Toroid, with openings at either end, leading to— ”
“Hold,” cries Mason, “— An Inner Surface? Are you by chance seeking analogy between the Human Body and the planet Earth? The Earth has no inner Surface, Dixon.”
“Have you been to its End, to see?”
“Tho’ I come from pret-ty far North,” Stig puts in, “yet there’s a lot more North, North of even that,— out of which, now and then, a Sail will appear upon the Horizon, a Snow-craft approach, all the day long, and at Evening at last put in at our little Village,— Ev’ryone crowds into the Inn, by the light of bear-fat Candles, to drink Cloud-berry Flip, and listen to the Visitor’s tales of a great dark Cavity up there, mirror’d overhead, as by a Water-sky,— Funnel-shap’d, leading inside the Earth . . . to another World.”
“Grant me Patience O Lord,” Mason with a bleak Expression, holding his head. “When ’tis not the Eleven Days missing from the New Style, or the Cock Lane Ghost, yet abides the Hollow Earth, as a proven Lure and Sanctuary to all, that too lightly bestow their Faith.”
“Why,” snorts Dixon, “half of all the Philosophers in Durham are Hollow-Earthers.”
“That accounts for Emerson,” hisses Mason. “Who was the other, again?”
“Lud Oafery,” glowers Dixon, “marvelous chap, and he ever spoke highly of thee,— ”
“Dixon,— pray you. Think. If Newton’s figure is correct,— if the density of the Earth, on average, is between five and six times that of water, then the shell of this Hollow Earth of yours, be it hundreds of miles thick, would have to possess some quite impossibly high density to make up for the empty interior,— at least, say, twelve times that of water, maybe more. Where is the evidence of this? Solid Rock is but two and a half times as dense as water. What more could be down there?”
“Precisely what the Royal Society would wish to know.”
“You’ve not, ehm that is, mention’d this to,—” pausing to consider how not to give offense.
“Some believ’d me, some didn’t. Some took me for a Jes-uit Agent, angling for a Northern Expedition of some kind. Mr. Birch, bless him, immediately went off to make converts. Others asked questions tha’d have to term more or less rude . . . ? My mining background, and so forth . . . ? A Geordie descends into the Earth just once, and right away everyone starts to get ideas.” Dixon on now like a tree-ful of ravens, with his Hollow Earth, an enthusiasm, Mason judges, too developed to be argued away without investing more time and patience than he possesses. Withal, he is too open himself to the seductions of Melancholy and its own comfortless phantoms, to call anything even as remotely hopeful as this into question,— no more Doubts for Mason just at the moment, thank you,— considering how ever less serviceable to him, as his days spin onward, they are proving to be.
“China may once have been another Planet,” Capt. Zhang is now speculating, “embedded into the Earth thro’ some very slow collision,— long ago, all populated, with its Language and Customs, arriving from the East Northeast, aiming for the Pacific,— over-shoots, plows into Asia, pushes up the Himalaya Range,— comes to rest intact, which is how, until the first Christian Travelers, it remains,— ”
Taking this courteously if not perhaps seriously, Dixon replies, “Yet, from all we know, from Newton onward, how could the mechanism of its approach have been other than swift and Cataclysmick?”
“Why, if, within the last few miles of mutual approach, a Repulsive Force were to come into play, between the Earth and the Chinese Planet, acting counter to, and thus slowing, the Collision,— by analogy, of course, to Father Boscovich’s Theory of Repulsion, at very close distance, among the primordial Atoms of Nature.”
Dixon shakes his head, as if to clear some Passage within. “This is Jesuit physics. Why are you telling us this? Why must you ever be ‘subtle’? Is this what Jesuits believe to be the origin of China?”
“Zarpazo does.” The Chinaman beams and nods, as if Dixon has just understood a Joke.
The night before they set out westward again, Captain Shelby, from behind a can of his own Ale, brewed in the Shed adjoining, his face compos’d, inquires of them, Where is the Third Surveyor?
Mason, mistrustful, looks about as if this Newcomer might be at hand. Dixon, understanding Shelby to be posing a Riddle, is pull’d between loyalty to Mason and despair at his slowness in these matters. “Pray, Captain,” he feels oblig’d to play in, “what Third Surveyor is that, for we are but two.”
“Why,” chuckles Shelby, “you are Wise Men from the East,— and ev’ryone knows they come in Threes!”
“Eeh, eeh! That’s a canny one, for fair!”
Mason is less amus’d. The Captain’s discourse verges upon Impiety.— Furthermore, it seems a bad Omen. “Well. It’s like the Thirteenth Guest, isn’t it.”
Yet, reported sightings of the Supernumera
ry Figure now begin to drift in. He is seen often in the Company of an Animal that most describe as a Dog, though a few are not so sure, for its Eyes glow as if all the Creature’s Interior be a miniature of Hell. The best time for a Sighting seems to be at around Sunset,— just as the Axmen are leaving off work and heading for the Mess Tent, the Wind changing, here in Pennsylvania, as between this World and the Next,— when one may catch him flitting across the Visto behind the Party, back at the edge of Visibility,— black Cloak, white Wig, black Hat, white Stock, black Breeches and so forth, on foot, carrying a three-leggèd Staff, with an Instrument of some kind affix’d. A rumor goes ’round that he is a Surveyor of Surveyors, independently hir’d by the Line Commissioners to keep an eye upon the first two. But where are the rest of his Party? Other interpretations are less Earthly. A Figure that might arouse no comment in Philadelphia, in these parts ’tis esteem’d a Wonder,— particularly as it shows no sign of having made the passage from there to here,— not, anyway, upon the Ground, nor through the Forest.
Presently, in camp, the phrase, “Resembles the old Gentleman,” spoken low, is being heard, in reference to the Third Surveyor,— it having been long understood out here, as Capt. Shelby explains, that if one wishes to convey a certain Item of Spiritual Property in consideration of a Sum to be paid in advance, why, such a Contract may be arrang’d. “The old Gentleman is always interested, always buying,”— even this long at the Trade, as Shelby relates it, still resentful about his exile from the Infinite, descended here among the harsh Gradients of Space, subject to the cruel flow of Time,— denied the Future and the Past and thus his Omniscience,— whilst, as to drafting Contracts, left slightly worse at it than the average Philadelphia Lawyer.
“So when Brother Pritchard,— lives just over the Ridge, there,— without the Gentleman’s noticing, decides to sneak in a force majeure clause that turns out to contain the phrase ‘Acts of God,’ why there’s a legal crisis, the Gentleman wishing to nullify the Contract and get his money back,— Pritchard seeking to keep the money, and his Soul as well. Very, very expensive lawyers, all from Philadelphia, are engag’d by both parties. The Journals and Broadsiders get hold of the story, and quite excessive indeed grows the Commentary that follows, in Prose, Verse, and Caricature. The Gentleman, having virtually invented Publick Sensationalism,— which is reckon’d, indeed, upon his own torrid shores, as Entertainment,— has no illusions about anyone’s motives, or the chances for great harm to his Case, yet naïvely, as others would say, disingenuously,— he clings to a belief in ‘Justice.’ ”
Mason & Dixon Page 67