“Slow, ’tis certain.” Mason has long dropp’d all pretense at Patience. There are days when the Routine has him livid with boredom. “As Lady Montague said of Bath, the only thing one can do upon this Engagement, that one did not do the Day before— ”
“Bad Luck, don’t say it!” shouts Dixon thro’ his Speaking-Trumpet, tho’ they are close enough not to require any, causing Mason to wince.
“Never mind when,— shall it end? Set a Mark before, set a Mark behind, swing the Instrument, do it again the other Way,’s fucking Body and Blood, Dixon, I am beside myself.”
Dixon, approaching a few steps, gazes intently a foot and a half to Mason’s right. “Eeh,— why, so yese are. How does thah’ feel, I wonder . . . ?” Switching his eyes to Mason, then back to the Spot beside Mason, “Well, why don’t one of thee go ahead, and the other behind me, makes it much easier to line up the Marks . . . ?”
“Ahrrh! Like a giant Eye! ever a-stare!” He is referring to the Target, a Board about a Foot Square, with Concentrick Circles drawn on both sides, rigg’d to be slid in two grooves, at the distant gesturing of the man at the Telescope, till it should line up precisely upon the central Wire, previously brought into the Meridian,— whereupon the other Surveyor hammers in his Stake immediately below, drops his Plummet-String along the center-line of the Target, and marks with a Notch exactly where, atop the Stake, the Bob-Point touches. Then the Transit Instrument leap-frogs the Target and goes ahead of it, its operator sets up, and takes a Back-sight at the Eye upon the Board’s Reverse. Then they do it all again.
“I find little serious Astronomy in any of this,” Mason complains.
It may be the level’d and selfless Pulse of it that enables them, at the end of June, the Measurement done, at last to travel South together, across the West Line, into Peril however differently constru’d, leading to Baltimore and the moment when Dixon will accost the Slave-Driver in the Street, and originate the family story whose material Focus, for years among the bric-a-brac in Hull, will be the Driver’s Lash, that Uncle Jeremiah took away from the Scoundrel. . . .
“No proof,” declares Ives. “No entries for Days, allow’d,— but yet no proof.”
“Alas,” beams the Revd, “must we place our unqualified Faith in the Implement, as the Tale accompting for its Presence,— these Family stories have been perfected in the hellish Forge of Domestick Recension, generation ’pon generation, till what survives is the pure truth, anneal’d to Mercilessness, about each Figure, no matter how stretch’d, nor how influenced over the years by all Sentiments from unreflective love to inflexible Dislike.”
“Don’t leave out Irresponsible Embellishment.”
“Rather, part of the common Duty of Remembering,— surely our Sentiments,— how we dream’d of, and were mistaken in, each other,— count for at least as much as our poor cold Chronologies.”
The Driver’s Whip is an evil thing, an expression of ill feeling worse than any between Master and Slave,— the contempt of the monger of perishable goods for his Merchandise,— in its tatter’d braiding, darken’d to its Lash-Tips with the sweat and blood of Drove after Drove of human targets, the metal Wires work’d in to each Lash, its purpose purely to express hate with, and Hate’s Corollary,— to beg for the same denial of Mercy, should, one day, the rôles be revers’d. Gambling that they may not be. Or, that they may.
Dixon has spoken with him already, the night before, in the Publick Room of his Inn. The Slave-Driver is announcing a Vendue at the Dock, twenty Africans, Men and Women, each a flower of the Tribe they had been taken from. Yet he is calling them by names more appropriate to Animals one has come to dislike. Several times Dixon feels the need, strong as thirst, to get up, walk over to the fellow and strike him.
“And so I hope ev’ryone will come down and have a look, dusky children of the Forest, useful in any number o’ ways, cook and eat ’em, fuck ’em or throw ’em to the Dogs, as we say in the Trade, imagine Gents, your very own Darky, to order about as you please. You, Sir, in the interesting Hat,” beckoning to Dixon, who raises his Brows amiably, at the same time freezing with the certainty that once again he is about to see a face he knows. Someone from the recent past, whose name he cannot remember. “A fine young Mulatto gal’d be just your pint of Ale I’d wager, well tonight you’re in luck, damme ’f you’re not.”
“Not in the Market,” replies Dixon, as he imagines, kindly.
“Ho!” drawing back in feign’d Surprize, “what’s this, not in the market, how then may I even begin to educate you, Sir, or should I say, Friend, upon this Topick? The news, Friend, being that all are in the Market,— however regrettably,— for ev’ryone wants a slave, at least one, to call his own. . . .”
“Sooner or later,” Dixon far too brightly, “— a Slave must kill his Master. It is one of the Laws of Springs.” The Herdsman of Humans, who has been staring at Dixon, now looks about for a line of Withdrawal. “Give me Engines, for they have no feelings of injustice,— sometimes they don’t exist, either, so I have to invent what I need . . . ,” at which point the Enterpriser has edg’d his way as far as the door.
“Remember, tomorrow, midday at the Pier!” and he is off like a shot.
Attention shifts to Dixon, whose insane demeanor has vanish’d with the Dealer’s Departure.
“Will you be there, Sir?” inquires a neighboring Drinker, more sociably teasing, than wishing to sting. “Being one of our Sights down here, of interest to a Visitor,— you might find it diverting. Not quite as much as a Horse Auction, o’ course.”
Dixon vibrated his Eye-balls for a while. “That’s it? Slaves and Horses?”
“Why, and Tobacco! Ye’ve never been to a Tobacco Auction? Say, ye’ll never listen to an Italian Tenor the same way again.”
In ’55, at the grim news of Braddock’s Fate, Pennsylvanians had come flying Eastward before the Indians, over Susquehanna, in a panic,— here in the Chesapeake Slave country, rather stretch’d long nights of Apprehension, the counting of Kitchen Knives, Fears conceal’d, Fears detected, Fears betray’d, of poisons in the food, stranglings at midnight, Women violated, Horses and Cash, House and Home, gone,— as their Spoliators into the boundless Continent,— and everywhere the soft Weight of the nocturnal Breath, above that water-riddl’d Country.
In his heart, Mason has grown accustom’d to the impossibility, between Dixon and himself, of Affection beyond a certain Enclosure. They have spent years together inside one drawn Perimeter and another. They also know how it is out in the Forest, over the Coastal ranges, out of metropolitan Control. Only now, far too late, does Mason develop a passion for his co-adjutor, comparable to that occurring between Public-School Students in England.—
(“Oh, please Wicks spare us, far too romantick really,” mutter several voices at once.)
Say then, that Mason at last came to admire Dixon for his Bravery,— a different sort than they’d shown each other years before, on the Seahorse, where they’d had no choice. Nor quite the same as they’d both exhibited by the Warrior Path. Here in Maryland, they had a choice at last, and Dixon chose to act, and Mason not to,— unless he had to,— what each of us wishes he might have the unthinking Grace to do, yet fails to do. To act for all those of us who have so fail’d. For the Sheep. Yet Mason offer’d his Admiration, so long and unreasonably withheld, only to provide Dixon fodder for more Rustick Joakery.
“All . . . ? Pray thee, Mason, shall I have a special U-niform for thah’? Something with a Cloak to it,— Mantua-length would be better, wouldn’t it, than all the way down, for I would need access to my Pistol,— ”
There unavoidable in the Street is the Slave Driver. And he’s driving about half his Drove, who thro’ some inconvenient behavior, remain unsold. He is screaming, having abandon’d all control, and Striking ev’rywhere with the Whip, mostly encountering the Air, even with the movements of the Africans limited by th
e Chains, having fail’d to inflict much Injury. “You fuck’d up my Sale, you fuck’d up my day, you fuck’d up my business,— Now I owe money, plus another night’s Lodging, plus another night’s Victualling,— ”
“I’ll just seek Assistance, then, shall I?” Mason making as if to flee.
“Mason, thou’re the only one nearby who knows how to watch my Back,— would tha mind, frightfully?” And before Mason can stir, Dixon is down the Steps, and into the Street.
“That’s enough.” He stands between the Whip and the Slaves, with his Hat back and his hand out. Later he won’t remember how. “I’ll have that.”
“You’ll have it to your Head, Friend, if you don’t step out of my Way. These are mine,— I’ll do as I damn’d please with my Property.” Townsfolk pause to observe.
Dixon, moving directly, seizes the Whip,— the owner comes after it,— Dixon places his Fist in the way of the oncoming Face,— the Driver cries out and stumbles away. Dixon follows, raising the Whip. “Turn around. I’ll guess you’ve never felt this.”
“You broke my Tooth!”
“In a short while thah’s not going to matter much, because in addition, I’m going to kill you . . . ? Now be a man, face me, and make it easier, or must I rather work upon you from the Back, like a Beast, which will take longer, and certainly mean more discomfort for you.”
“No! Please! My little ones! O Tiffany! Jason!”
“Any more?”
“— Soames!”
Dixon reaches down and tears, from the man’s Belt, a ring of keys. “Who knows where these go?”
“We know them by heart, Sir,” replies one tall woman in a brightly strip’d Head-Cloth. With the Driver protesting the usefulness of his Life, the Africans unchain themselves.
“Now then!” cries Dixon merrily.
A not at all friendly crowd by now having form’d,— “And as we’re in the middle of Town, here,” the Africans advise him, “Sheriffs men’ll be here any moment,— don’t worry about us,— some will stay, some’ll get away,— but you’d better go, right now.”
Despite this sound Counsel, Dixon still greatly desires to kill the Driver, cringing there among the Waggon-Ruts. What’s a man of Conscience to do? It is frustrating. His Voice breaks. “If I see you again, you are a dead man.” He shakes the Whip at him. “And dead you’ll be, ere you see again this Instrument of Shame. For it will lie in a Quaker Home, and never more be us’d.”
“Don’t bet the Meeting-House on that,” snarls the Driver, scuttling away.
“Go back to Philadelphia,” someone shouts at Dixon.
“Good Withdrawal-Line or two here, yet,” reports Mason.
Thrusting the Whip into his red Coat, Dixon steps away, Mason following. At the first brick Prow of a house to block them from View, they take to their Heels, returning by a roundabout and not altogether witting route to the Stable where their Horses wait. “Eeh, Rebel, old gal, Ah’m pleas’d to see your Face . . . ?” Dixon has brought a small apple from a fruitmonger’s barrow, but the Horse dives anyway beneath the giant flaps over his Coat Pockets and goes in to inspect, lest something should have been overlook’d. At that moment of Equine curiosity, with Mason occupied in saddling up, Dixon understands what Christopher Maire must have meant long ago by “instrument of God,”— and his Obligation, henceforward, to keep Silence upon the Topick.
They are very conscious of leaving Town,— with Luck, for the last time,— observing ev’rything as thro’ some marvellous “Specs,” that make all come sharp, and near. Sailors sit upon curb-stones outside the front doors of the Taverns that have intoxicated them, vomiting the Surveyors on, with a strange elation. Traffick in the Street brings and takes its own Light, Lanthorns upon carriages projecting, in swooping Shadows upon the crooked Meridians and Parallels of the brick walls, ev’ry leafless Tree, ev’ry desire-driven Pedestrian and Street-wary Dog. In low-ceiling’d Rooms at right angles to the street, Waggon-drivers stand in glum rows, drinking as if out of Duty, protected from the snow that promises at any moment to begin, tho’ from little else, least of all the Road, and its Chances. Women pull their shawls in against the Night. Young people singly and pair’d, bound for twilight Assignations, sweep up and down the steps of Row-Houses, and along the curb-sides, from which the Steps rise, in all the traceless Promise of first Lanthorn-Light. Now that the Surveyors must leave, they wish to stay. In an onset of Turning-Evil, Mason imagines the Streets full of Row-Houses multiplying like loaves and fishes, whirling past like Spokes of a Giant Wheel, whose Convergence or Hub, beyond some disputable Prelude to Radiance, he cannot make out.
They are soon enough upon the York Road, the deeply magnetiz’d Fields to either side, in the Dark, tugging at Bits, Buckles, Pen-Nibs, Compass-Needles, and the steel strands of the Driver’s Whip. They feel cover’d with small beings crawling and plucking ev’rywhere, neither kindly Remembrancers, nor wicked Spirits. “Do you feel that?” calls Mason in the Dark. “You’re the Needle-Master,— what is it?”
“Mysteries of the Magnetick . . . ?”
After a bit, “Aye? Instances of those being . . . ?”
“Ah don’t know, Mason, ’tis why I say ‘Mysteries’ . . . ?”
Lanthorn-Lights ahead. Soon they can hear a night-Congregation singing. Reaching a small wood Moon-color’d Chapel, as if by earlier arrangement, the Surveyors pause to listen.
Oh God in thy Mercy forever uncertain,
Upon Whom continue Thy Sheep to Rely . . .
Pray keep us till Dawn,
Be the Night e’er so long—
All Thy helpless Creation,
Who sleep ’neath the Sky . . .
For the chances of Night are too many to reckon,
And the Bridge to the Day-light, is ever too frail . . .
When the Hour of Departure shall strike to the second,
Who will tend to the Journey? who will find us the Trail?
As once were we Lambs, in a Spring-tide abiding,
As once were we Children, eternal and free,
So shepherd us through,
Where the Dangers be few,—
From Darkness preserve us, returning to Thee.—
For the chances of Night &c . . .
Having acknowledg’d at the Warpath the Justice of the Indians’ Desires, after the two deaths, Mason and Dixon understand as well that the Line is exactly what Capt. Zhang and a number of others have been styling it all along— a conduit for Evil. So the year in Delaware with the Degree of Latitude is an Atonement, an immersion in “real” Science, a Baptism of the Cypress swamp, and even a Rebirth,— not some hir’d Cadastral Survey by its nature corrupt, of use at Trail’s End only to those who would profit from the sale and division and resale of Lands. “Guineas, Mason, Pistoles, and Spanish Dollars, splendorously Vomited from Pluto’s own Gut! Without End! All generated from thah’ one Line . . . ? Yet has any of it so much as splash’d or dribbl’d in our Direction?
“The one thing we do know how to do, is Vistoes. Let’s give ’em something they’ll journey from other Provinces, down Rivers and Pikes in Streams ever-wid’ning, to gaze upon,—” as the Visto soon is lin’d with Inns and Shops, Stables, Games of Skill, Theatrickals, Pleasure-Gardens . . . a Promenade,— nay, Mall,— eighty Miles long. At twilight you could mount to a Platform, and watch the lamps coming on, watch the Visto tapering, in perfect Projection, to its ever-unreachable Point. Pure Latitude and Longitude.
“I am a student of ‘Blind Jack’ Metcalf, if it please you,” declares one of the Axmen, overhearing them.
“West Riding Lad! Blind Surveyor! he was famous in Staindrop even when I was a Lad.”
“Applying the methods I learn’d whilst a member of his Crew, we could build a Modern Road here, straight up this Visto, the eighty Miles well drain’d its entire length, self-compactin
g, impervious to all weather, immovable ’neath Laden Wheels be they broad or narrow,— true there’s nothing much at the Middle Point, not today as we speak, but with the much improv’d Carriage from the other end, itself convenient to Philadelphia, New Castle, the entire heart of Chesapeake, why a Metropolis could blossom here among the Fens of Nanticoke that might rival any to the North.”
“Sha!” warns the Chinaman. “Think about it!”
“Very well,— yet Right Lines, by minimizing Distance, are highly valu’d by some,— Commanding Officers, Merchants, Express-Riders? Must these all be Creatures of Sha?”
“Without Question. Officers kill men in large numbers. Merchants concentrate wealth by beggaring uncounted others. Express-riders distort and injure the very stuff of Time.”
“Then why not consider Light itself as equally noxious,” inquires Dixon, “for doth it not move ever straight ahead?”
“Ah!” a gleam as likely Madness as Merriment appearing in his Eye. “And if it moves in some other way?”
“Ev’ry Survey would have to be re-run,” cries Dixon. “Eeh,— marvellous,— work for all the poor Dodmen till Doomsday!”
“Excuse me, Sir,” Mason addresses the Geomancer. “Is this an article of common Faith among the Chinese, which I must remedy my ignorance of,— or but a Crotchet of your own I assume I may safely disregard? no wonder the Jesuits find you Folk inconvenient.”
“What’s that you’re writing? Looks like Verse . . . ?”
“My Epitaph. Like to hear it?
‘He wish’d but for a middling Life,
Forever in betwixt
The claims of Lust and Duty,
So intricately mix’d,—
To reach some happy Medium,
Fleet as a golden Beam,
Uncharted as St. Brendan’s Isle,
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