Harvard Yard (Peter Fallon)

by William Martin

  The prospect of a Latin disputation should have been enough to cause Isaac’s own hands to shake, his mouth to turn dry, his stomach to clench. But there was another reason for all that: the specter of Nathaniel Eaton had returned. . . .

  That morning, Isaac had gone to the print shop in Crooked Lane to collect the sheets of Quaestiones, which he had hung to dry the night before. As usual, he had found Stephen Day, master printer, bent over a box of type.

  “So, Isaac,” Day had said, squinting up from his work, “commencement at last.”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  “Master Dunster be a fine gentleman. We could have done much worse.”

  “We did . . . at the beginning,” Isaac had answered.

  “Eaton?”

  “Aye . . . You knew him, did you not?”

  “Enough to dislike him, though not so much as the Lord disliked him.”

  The story of God’s retribution upon Eaton was well known: After he fled, it was discovered that he had left enormous debts and a college treasury emptied of hard money. So three constables had pursued him to Piscataqua, but by ruse and bluster, he eluded them and fled to Virginia, where he established himself as rector of a small parish. Then he sent for wife and children, but God sent holy punishment in the form of winds that roiled the sea and sank the vessel carrying Eaton’s whole family.

  “I hear that he’s gone back to London,” Stephen Day had said, “gone back to find a new wife. Maybe a printer, too, eh?”

  “A printer?”

  “A printer, aye.” Stephen Day had again turned to his galley. “For a play.”

  “Play?” The word had caused Isaac Wedge to drop the sheet.

  “Aye. Before he fled, he asked if I knew a printer in London who would print a play, and what profit he could expect.”

  “Did he name this play?”

  “He spake only what I needed to know and swore me to speak none of it. But . . . since he’s gone, the Lord won’t mind if I tell you what I told him: there be half a dozen London printers who’d pay ten pounds for a play. I give him a list of them and wished him luck. . . .”

  And now, Isaac sat in the new hall, thinking not of his disputation but of the play that had haunted him so long, part of the library that was the legacy of his greatest friend. The play had not been burned, as Eaton had said, but stolen, as Isaac had long suspected.

  Nevertheless, Isaac delivered his disputation, withstood the pro forma arguments from the other candidates and the learned gentlemen, and sat to the approbation of the assemblage.

  After all the disputations had been completed, President Dunster rose before the candidates and proclaimed, in Latin, “I admit thee to the First Degree in Arts. . . . And I hand thee this book, together with the power to lecture publicly in any one of the arts which thou hast studied, whenever thou shalt have been called to that office.”

  They recorded their names in Dunster’s book, and it was done. Harvard College had made its first graduates.

  And whither now, Isaac Wedge? He had been asking himself this question for weeks. Knowledge of the play would make an answer even more difficult to come by.

  ii

  “And whither us, Isaac Wedge?” Katharine Nicholson had been asking this question for months, and still Isaac could not answer to satisfy her. She asked again that night as they strolled Fort Hill, within the grass-covered redoubt that overlooked marsh and river and afforded them a most delicious privacy.

  “Had I the money,” said Isaac, “I would go to England to study for a master’s, as Woodridge intends, or perhaps to Padua, like Harry Saltonstall, to study medicine.”

  “But you have not the money,” she said. “So you must stay here. Ask my father for permission to court. Then may we go about more open. And my father will offer you work in the mercantile trade, or perhaps support you as a printer.”

  “You know that my mind is bent to the ministry, Katharine.”

  “An honorable life,” she said, “but a poor one.”

  “’Tis one of the promises I made to Master Harvard.”

  “There were others?”

  “Aye . . . that I would see to his library . . . keep his books together for the future . . .”

  She gave him a look that suggested he was mad.

  He realized how strange his words must have sounded. So he said, “A man will be known by his books.”

  “When we marry, we’ll keep a room for your books, though I’ll need no books to know you.” And she stood so close to him that he could smell the sweetness of her skin, so close that, were he not a young man of strong will, he might have reached out and touched the tops of her breasts, offered up by a tight bodice. As it was, he could not keep from kissing her. And she kissed back, but never before had she opened her mouth against his and touched her tongue enticingly to his lips, as if inviting him into her.

  But Cambridge was a town founded to deny the darkness, whether it was the darkness of spirit confronted at the meetinghouse; or of ignorance confronted at the college; or of night itself, confronted by Diggory Venn, village lamplighter. Each evening, he moved through the town with a cartload of rushes, which he would pile into cressets—tall wrought-iron stands—which then he would light. The tallow-soaked rushes would burn two or three hours, just long enough, as he said, “to light honest men to their homes.” And his last stop was atop Fort Hill.

  “A pleasant evenin’ to you, young’ns,” said Diggory. “Hardly noticed you in the shadows, me torch be so bright. Hope you be doin’ the Lord’s work.” He gave them a grin, lit the cresset, and said, “Let me lead thee home.”

  Isaac looked at Katharine, and she shook her head, as if to say that they had business yet to finish.

  But it was incumbent upon all members of a Puritan community to see that sin did not break forth, for any sin—public or private—might bring God’s displeasure upon all. So Master Venn went a few paces, then turned and said, “Come along. Evil vapors be risin’ off the marsh. ’Tis no night to be abroad.”

  And they followed, like chastened children, with Venn’s torch bobbing and sputtering ahead of them. And Isaac felt a deep coldness radiating from Katharine, as though she expected a profession of love that he could not yet give.

  At her garden gate, she turned and looked into his eyes. Her black brows, which by day offered such fine contrast to her pale skin, served only to heighten her anger in the moonlight. “We have known each other near four years, Isaac. ’Tis time to look to a future together.”

  “And so we shall,” he said. But in truth he was not looking further than the next morning and a meeting with President Dunster.

  No man who gazed upon the new college hall would ever doubt that the School of the Prophets had a future.

  It was the largest structure yet erected in New England, presenting an expanse of clapboard a hundred feet in width and two full stories in height, with a steep sloping roof and a cupola from which one might see the hills of Boston. The back, however, by which door Isaac entered, reflected less austere majesty and far more utility. There were dormered wings at each end and a tower in the middle supporting the cupola. There were privies, woodshed, well, brewhouse, barn, and cow yards on either side. This was to be a college in the best English style, a place for students to live, eat, and learn together, immersed in their studies and in the company of other scholars.

  President Dunster met Isaac in the library, directly above the Great Hall, where they had commenced the day before. Dressed in a simple collar and brown doublet, Dunster was a man of no great presence in public or private, yet his eyes did not stray when one spoke to him, and most students understood the message in his gaze: here was a man who listened and cared.

  “How do you feel on your first day as Ars Bacheloris?” he asked, inviting Isaac to sit at the library table, the finest piece of furniture in the building.

  “Inadequate, sir.” Isaac looked at the books around him. “I once made it my task to read all four hundred volumes in John Harva
rd’s bequest. I have barely begun.”

  “The wise man knows that the more knowledge he gains, the more there is to get. So . . . you would now take a master of arts?”

  “Under your direction, sir.”

  “And how would you pay for it?”

  “It has been my hope to serve as a tutor, sir.”

  “I can offer a tutor no more than four pounds a year,” said Dunster. “And he cannot marry, for you know well that a tutor is expected to live in chambers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So”—Dunster ran his hands over the tabletop—“if the temptations of the flesh that bring you to Fort Hill are too great . . .”

  Isaac tried to hide his surprise, but his was not a face made for subtlety.

  Dunster gave a gentle laugh. “’Tis a small place, this Cambridge, but I have a proposal that will take you far from here, all the way to the largest city on earth.”

  “London?” This was more than Isaac could have hoped for.

  He had lain awake all the night before, tossing right and left. When he lay on his right, his mind had filled with images of Katharine, angry in the moonlight. When he rolled left, he had heard the voice of John Harvard, charging Isaac to keep his books . . . including one stolen by Nathaniel Eaton. And here was Dunster, offering Isaac the chance to consider Katharine and her moods at leisure while voyaging to the city where Eaton had fled.

  Dunster slid a copy of the Quaestiones across the table. “This is to be delivered to Thomas Weld. He went over last year to raise funds for us. He has written a pamphlet called New England’s First Fruits to describe our work. He would print the Quaestiones with the pamphlet, to prove that we’ve graduated a class and are holding to our purpose. Would you care to deliver your handiwork?”

  “Gladly, sir. But might it not be carried as a dispatch?”

  “They’ve asked that we send over a student, too. A certain Lady Mowlson of London is considering a contribution. ’Twould produce an annual stipend for ‘some poor scholar,’ as she puts it. Weld believes that seeing a poor scholar—poor in purse, but rich in learning—will inspire her generosity.”

  Though Isaac believed in the beneficence of Henry Dunster, he was not naive. To make such a journey, there had to be some gain. He sought a polite way to word it, could find none, and so said, “May I count on a position as a tutor here when I return?”

  “If Lady Mowlson offers a sum, I shall argue that you deserve the first stipend.”

  “Then I go gladly.”

  “But what of Mistress Nicholson? Do you love her?”

  “I believe so, sir.”

  “You believe so? And what do you believe she will say to all this?”

  “I believe she will be happy for me.”

  That evening, Isaac took a copy of the Quaestiones, rolled it, tied it with a strip of colored fabric, and went to the home of the Nicholsons. A small gift might smooth the way for his bad news . . . if not with Katharine, at least with her father.

  Charles Nicholson answered the door. He was a big man with fleshy features that always brightened at the appearance of Isaac, who had grown into a tall, square-jawed young man of the sort that any father would be proud to call a son-in-law. “Congratulations, my boy. A graduate at last. Would that my Jamie had stayed till Dunster arrived. But he preferred to learn the family business in Boston.”

  “I brought a remembrance of commencement, sir.” Isaac offered him the Quaestiones.

  Nicholson unrolled the paper, studied it, and announced, “History is writ here, son. A hundred years hence, men will look to this and feel the spirit of their ancestors.”

  “Printed by my own hand,” said Isaac proudly.

  “And a fine job you’ve made of it, too.” With great ceremony, Nicholson took the Quaestiones to his Bible, a large and magnificent volume in a gilt-edged leather binding, opened it to the back, and slid the sheet into the endpapers. “This will I keep in my safest place, next to the oath I swore when I became a freeman of the colony.”

  “A sacred place, sir.”

  “Now, then, what can I do for you?”

  “I’ve come, sir, hoping for permission to court your daughter . . . formally.”

  The request was met with a shout, a warm embrace, and a promise of employment as soon as the date was set.

  The shout brought Mother Nicholson and Katharine rushing from the next room, and a scene of great joy began, only to end abruptly when Isaac extricated himself from Master Nicholson’s grasp and said, “Thank you, sir, but it would be premature to set a date, as I’ve been engaged by President Dunster to go to London—”

  “London!” cried Katharine, and she stalked out, with her mother following in her wake.

  After a moment, Nicholson said, “Saw that sight myself, once, some twenty-five years ago. My wife wanted marriage and I wanted a business. ’Tis like livin’ my own life over to see them go runnin’ off like that.”

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry, sir.”

  Nicholson pointed a finger at Isaac. “Play not with my daughter’s affections, boy, or I’ll have you in the stocks. But remember that women are creatures who see only the ground in front of them. We men must keep our eyes on the horizon. Now then, we shall call her back, and you can tell her your reasons for goin’ so far.”

  After some coaxing, Katharine returned. And while her parents took a stroll in the September night, she and Isaac had their talk.

  “You cannot love me too well,” said Katharine, “that you would prefer to be message carrier for the college than my husband.”

  “Katharine . . . were it only for the carrying of a message, I would stay and marry you and make a dozen children—”

  “A dozen? I’m no brood mare, Isaac.”

  “Then a half dozen.”

  “You think me incapable of mothering a large family, then?”

  “No, my dear.” He thought to tell her that she was incapable only of listening to logic, but he would not venture into such places.

  She said, “Simply tell me why you are leaving me to go to London when my father has offered you a position.”

  “For the stipend. And . . . other reasons.”

  She furrowed her brow. “What other reasons?”

  “To fulfill my promise to John Harvard.” He paused, hoping he had said enough.

  She looked at him, her brows a single hard line across her forehead.

  So he said, “I must bring back a book that Eaton carried off.”

  “A book? What book? What book could be so important?”

  “’Tisn’t the book but the promise. The book be mere trifle. But as I told you, a . . . a man will be known by his books.”

  “A man will be known by his trifles, you mean. You go to London to pursue a trifle. A book of poems? Love sonnets, perhaps? If so, be sure to read them. For you have need of tutoring in the ways of love. . . . Now, what is the book?”

  He might have dissembled, but he decided on the truth, in hopes of drawing her into his pursuit. “I’ll tell you, if you agree to keep it secret.”

  “If you do not tell me, I shall agree never to speak to you again. And if you go, you’ll be gone months, and John Howell makes warm eyes at me every Sabbath.”

  So Isaac took a deep breath and said, “The book is a play.”

  “A play!” she cried. “What kind of play? A modern play?”

  And he decided that he had told enough truth. Mention of Shakespeare would only bring more anger from a good Puritan girl. So he told her it was by Aeschylus, to serve in teaching students their Greek. “The title,” he said, “is not important.”

  “And by the look of things,” she answered, “neither am I.”

  All summer, Isaac had been preparing for membership in the Cambridge church. Sabbath attendance was required of all, but to join the church as a full member, one had to study Reverend Shepard’s Theology of Conversion, learn all the steps from Election to Illumination of the Spirit, appear before the elders, then confess conversi
on before the congregation. With a long voyage ahead, Isaac wished to take the final step, and Reverend Shepard agreed, despite Isaac’s youth.

  So, on the Sabbath before his leaving, Isaac walked through a heavy rain, down Water Street to the meetinghouse, all the while rehearsing his confession.

  At the appropriate moment, he was summoned to stand before the congregation. With the sound of the rain and the smell of wet wool so strong that they seemed to bear weight, he looked out on the familiar faces of his world—Reverend Shepard, President Dunster, Diggory Venn and Samuel Day, Master Nicholson and his wife, and finally, Katharine, her expression set hard in a gray mortar of disappointment.

  “As I go to England,” he began, “I will carry the Lord with me. He is my strength and my shield. But I confess that it was not always thus, for the Lord saw fit to cast my father into the deep, and I didst cry out with all the despair of Job, all the anger of one who sees not the Lord’s grander designs but only his earthly outcomes.”

  All were listening closely, and Reverend Shepard was writing furiously, for he copied down the words of every confession.

  “My anger remained until my mother and I reached these shores, like the Jews of Exodus. And then, when my soul didst sink to its lowest ebb, the Lord held forth testimony of His love in the person of John Harvard, who showed me that God’s ways are not always to be understood but are always to be accepted. Now my chiefest desire is that I may live to honor Him.” His speech, which continued in this vein for some time more, brought murmuring approval and nodding heads, and he sat, confident of his acceptance.

  “Thank you, Isaac,” said Reverend Shepard. “We beseech the Lord’s blessing as you sail to serve our School of the Prophets. Now then, my brethren, Isaac Wedge has been propounded to you, desiring to enter church fellowship. If any of you know anything against him, why he may not be admitted, you may speak.”

  For a few moments, the drumming of the rain on the roof was the only sound. Then, the slender figure of Katharine Nicholson rose. “I would speak, Reverend.”