by Linda Little
“Watch this now.” Merton flipped the second fish head into the air but the cat never looked up from her first prize. “Ah well. Never mind. How’s this for a grand dinner? Loaves and fishes for yer Sabbath, eh?”
Ewan’s eyes settled on the ravenous cat. Inside the skull the pink tongue worked and worked until Ewan could almost feel its rough scraping on the insides of his own ribs. Completely hollowed out.
Merton grinned as he fried up the trout, which they ate with the fresh bread and butter. When they finished Merton pushed his chair back and tamped tobacco into his pipe, as happy and satisfied as he could remember. Despite the day of rest his new housemate looked as rigid and troubled as ever. Merton fetched two tin cups and poured a shot of rum into each.
“Here, this’ll make you smile at yer troubles.”
Ewan stared at the cup.
“It’s good for what ails ye.”
Ewan looked up at Merton’s crooked-teeth smile. Rum. Fishing on the Sabbath. “You’re not a papist, are you?” Ewan said.
Merton laughed. “Of all the things I am not, papist is first amongst ’em. Ye’re a man with troubles, I can see. Have a dram for your comfort after a good week’s work.”
Merton sighed and took a great gulp of rum. “I suppose I got to get those millstones set up. I been trying to get at it these two years now. People been at me for it. I guess I could make a start on it now.”
The lazy fool. “Have you got bearings built for that, or a stone nut? You’d need a spindle, a gimble bar, a bridging box. I’ve seen no signs of the trade around here. Have you ever dressed a stone or balanced one? Ever milled a sack of grist?”
Merton tried to look indignant but ended up with more of a grimace on his face. “Now, now. Ye’re a good man to help, I suppose. If ye can stay on it’d be a help.” Merton gauged his labourer’s reaction. Careful that his flattery did not to stray too far and tip his hand. “Ye’re a clever sort, I know,” he added, mumbling and fixing his eyes on the corner of the floor as though it were not an admission he made lightly.
Instantly Ewan was thrown back into confusion. Angry, proud, resentful, relieved. All these feelings made him dizzy, ill. If he stayed with Merton he would have lodgings and board. He’d be hidden from home yet not irretrievably far from it. More importantly he would have work for his back and his brain to keep him from losing his mind.
“I got a shaft. A couple of pulleys,” Merton said.
Ewan reckoned he could set those stones into the power train of the sawmill. It would not be such a great puzzle. “We’ll look at it tomorrow.”
“Good man.” Merton splashed another ounce or two of rum into his cup.
Ewan stood and turned away leaving his mug untouched. He climbed the ladder to his loft with his candle. At the bottom of his pack, wrapped in a rag of cloth, lay his late father’s entire library: a copy of the King James Bible and The Young MillWright and Miller’s Guide. He set these on the little stand he had made to hold his lamp. Perched like a gargoyle at the edge of his bunk he hunched over the manual and began to plan out the best way to set the grindstones into the sawmill.
That night his nightmare softened to a disturbing dream. Although water swirled up all around him it never submerged him as he clung to the stone on the bank. When he rose in the blackness before dawn and revived the fire in the stove, he found a new energy in his anticipation of the project.
AMID EWAN’S JUMBLED AND CRAZY BAGGAGE WERE A PEN AND NIBS but no ink, a bouquet of pencils from long-stemmed to stubs but no paper. He rummaged around and did the best he could. In the evening he sat at the table with the lamp at his elbow and the Miller’s Guide open before him, beginning his calculations. Multiply the revolutions of the waterwheel per minute by the number of cogs in all driving wheels successively and note the product. Multiply the number of cogs or rounds in all leading wheels successively, and note the product. Merton sat in the dim corner of the cabin watching Ewan completely entranced in his figuring. Divide the first product by the last and the quotient is the number of revolutions of the stone per minute. Ewan checked back and forth between his notes and the text, tapped the end of his pencil absently on his teeth, made his calculations and altered the sketch in front of him. When he looked up from his work he was amazed to find it deep night. Merton’s breath rustled the dark with a raspy half-snore.
In the early mornings before Merton managed to haul himself down the hill to the mill Ewan stood with his hands on his hips staring at the space he had chosen for the stones, imagining measurements and ratios. In the evenings after dark the plan took shape in front of him on paper. Then there was Merton’s pile of shafts and pulleys and gears and scrap iron to be sifted through. He was transported so completely by the enterprise that when sadness found him in cracks of time between chores Ewan felt the shock of it like he had just fallen out of a tree.
THE FIRST TIME MERTON HAULED A LOAD OF LUMBER DOWN TO SCOTCH River he was gone for days. When he finally managed to crawl home he had nothing to show for it but a headache. Ewan stared in disbelief. Merton had squandered not only his own wages but Ewan’s as well. Ewan split half a cord of firewood then found the contrite-looking Merton slumped at the table with his head in his hands.
“How much land you got here, Merton?”
“Oh, you know…” He waved his hand ineffectually in the air.
Ewan did not repeat his question, he simply leaned back, folded his arms across his chest and waited.
“I’m not a wealthy man, if that’s what you mean.”
“No. I don’t see how you could be unless there’s a wage for lying in bed or swaying between public houses.” Ewan felt his mother by his side, setting out the plans as she always had. Imagine this, she would say, and there would be no imagining about it. “Imagine this, Merton. You spend your money however you want. Just give me a dollar a week and my room and board. Then you credit me sixteen additional dollars every month towards that piece of woods that you’re doing nothing with—that lot that runs down to the brook. Once the stones are operational we’ll grind or saw depending on the business. Lumber and shingles sales are yours but two days a week I have use of the mill to saw my own lumber. When I’m grinding, half the milling fees are mine on top of my wages.”
“What!” Merton winced as though he’d been struck, but a dollar a week in cash was a pittance to pay for labour like this. Any idiot could see that. With Ewan he’d sawn more logs in the last week than he would ordinarily in a month. And Ewan would add a grist mill and run it too, leaving him to rake in the profits. The plan was better than Merton could have hoped for. If Ewan wanted land he must be meaning to stay. The golden goose building a nest right under his roof. “That’s an awful pretty deal for you, I’d say. A big fat wage and milling fees too! And good, deep farm land all lovely with trees.”
“Feeling yourself short of trees, are you?”
“Ach, never mind. I’ll take the deal. But you buy that land acre by acre, starting at the back of the farm. The world’s done enough to kick an old man around—ye might as well have yer go as well.”
“Next time you head to town for a tub of rum, you fetch us back a proper ledger book and a pot of ink so we can keep this all good and square. Maybe bring us a hunk of fresh meat and a bit of tea before we catch the ship fever.”
Ewan began piecing the new stone together. Once ready he made his way to the blacksmith’s forge with his bill of iron. He endured the curiosity of the smithy and the gathered men. Ewan MacLaughlin, he said. Miller by trade. Fittings for Merton’s new stone, he said. He concentrated on his work. He did the best he could with Merton’s millstones although they were not high quality stones and the mill had not been designed to accommodate them. Despite this, it was not long before Ewan had jury-rigged a reasonable system and had the first flour running through the stones.
As Ewan surmised, Merton proved unable to distinguish between the improvement of his living conditions and the gradual disintegration of his real wealth in the fo
rm of land. In the ledger book Merton’s wealth trickled into Ewan’s account. The more Merton enjoyed cash money through Ewan’s labours the less inclined he was to work himself. “I’m not as young as I was,” he would complain in the early mornings, trying to rub the rum headache away. “When my back was young I could tote a tree this big around,” he would say to Ewan, his hands cupped in the air to demonstrate a mast-sized pole. Merton hired a younger man for canting and Ewan sawed while Merton warmed his bones and tended to his rheumatism in the mornings. Ewan took down the trees, yarded the logs, sawed them, sold them. In the spring he harnessed his horse to the plough and sowed his first patch of oats. There were moments when Ewan saw his life with great clarity. The Lord had led him out of bondage. His blessings came in such cruel guises he had railed against them: against his brother, his expulsion and his aimless wandering. Now, like Jacob in the Bible, he had contracted his labour in order to achieve his destiny. He would have a mill of his own.
Ewan cleared the land as he bought it. The fifty-acre tract he meant to own crossed the road and ended in a lovely sweep down to the brook where the gorge formed an ideal plot for a new mill. Here he would build a proper establishment—not a clunky and awkward combination mill like Merton’s Old Nag—but a brand new modern grist mill. He wasn’t worried about Merton. Without him, Merton’s business would simply shrivel up and blow away.
But over the years Merton found one excuse after another to sell land only down as far as the road. Ewan built fields first and then began to build the kind of house that befits a miller and his family, like the house he had left in Breton Crag.
“I know ye want to build a new mill in the fine pocket downstream. Go ahead. I’ll sell you the land once yer done. It would do ye as much good as it would me. Ye’d have a fine mill to work in.”
“Do you think I’m daft? Sell me the land first.”
“Start yer mill. I’ll sell you the lot next year.”
Ewan wasn’t going to build on another man’s land. He worked and waited. Inevitably Merton had nothing left except the tiny plot where his cabin stood and the waterfront land below the road.
“I’ll take that plot of land now,” Ewan said.
“I can’t sell that. I’m an old man. It’s all I’ve got left. I’ll die in the poorhouse!”
Negotiations swirled around in a fury, Merton determined not to give up his excellent position and Ewan determined to get the land he had worked towards for so long. Finally, one exhausted evening, they settled, the answer oddly simple. Ewan would become Merton’s sole heir. On Merton’s death all would pass to Ewan—the coveted land along the brook would be his. And everything else as well: the Old Nag, Merton’s cabin, tools, horse and tack. Everything. Both their futures were assured. They saddled their horses and set out to have the Scotch River lawyer draw up the documents. All signed, sealed and delivered.
THREE WEEKS PASSED. THE DEVIL PROVIDED THE DRINK THAT BROUGHT Merton home barely sensate. The Lord provided the industry that had kept Ewan milling shingles late into the night. The Lord called Ewan down along the brook to stretch his legs before heading to bed, to settle after a hard day, before sleep. Despite the faint moon and skiffing cloud lingering from the day’s rain, despite the gusty wind, God called him along the brook. The path along the bank was slick and he nearly slipped. He picked up a sturdy stick from the bank to help steady himself. The Lord led him to the rock shelf just above the north trout pool. It was not the best trout pool but a popular one because of the way the rock jutted out like a balcony a couple of feet above the water’s surface. Boys more interested in lazing and boasting and smoking tobacco than in catching fish idled endless hours stretched out on this rock with lines dangling in the water. Ewan stood there breathing in the night air, watching the swift-moving shadows—clouds revealing then obscuring colonies of stars. Ewan remembered thinking, I must go home to bed. Yet he did not move. Another minute or so passed before he heard the traveller. Above him on the road he could make out the shape of Merton heading home from Scotch River, barely clinging to the saddle. Stinking drunk. The mare made her way by moonlight and horse sense—the only sense between the two of them. The verge would have been slippery with mud from the evening’s rain. Ewan did not see what spooked the mare, perhaps a rabbit, or a bobcat, sudden from the bushes. Or perhaps the Lord had sent an angel to startle the horse. Ewan only saw the mare balk, her precarious load topple out of the saddle and over the bank where it tumbled a short way and came to rest. Perhaps if Merton had been just a little drunker, he would have passed out where he fell. Or if he had been a little closer to sober, if he had taken just a couple fewer drinks, he may have been able to crawl back up to the road. But as it was he kept clawing at the earth, struggling upwards but falling back, the steep slope drawing him farther and farther down towards the brook. Ewan lost sight of him for a moment but could hear his slurred cussing and stumbling, branches snapping and leaves shifting underfoot. And then there he was again, slipping backwards, grabbing at a tree that grew crooked, elbowing out from the slope. His grasp slowed his descent but did not stop it. Finally he came to rest on the rock balcony, his head bouncing drunkenly. Blood, yes, but not enough. The man flopped back splayed out on the stone at Ewan’s feet, arms thrown wide. He sprawled so close to the rock’s edge that one leg dangled over, the sole of his boot nearly skimming the surface of the water.
“Get up, Merton,” Ewan said, calm and clear. The wretch opened his eyes. A smirk. The man drunk to helplessness on rum that Ewan’s labour had paid for. Ewan advanced, held out his walking stick towards the prone man and nudged him. He nudged him again, pushing him a few inches closer to the edge of the rock. Ewan watched as the man struggled through his fog to focus on Ewan’s face, to recognize, finally to understand. In panic he flopped around a moment like a seal before a final nudge from the stick sent him over the edge of the rock, splashing into the water.
The pool was no more than waist deep, the water cold but not frigid, the rocks slick but not impossibly so. Any man ought to have been able to stand and wade to shore. The cold ought to have sobered anyone. Merton scrabbled to find footing, slipped, thrashed, went under. He resurfaced, gasping, fell again. Ewan stood back away from the edge. Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne. The Lord would choose to take or leave him. The thrashing slowed. Nothing further broke the surface to catch the scant moonlight. Ewan turned and walked home to bed. In the night it rained again washing away all traces of the comings and goings of men. In the morning Ewan found Pride with her empty saddle askew, cropping grass by the roadside. But Merton did not come home.
THIS WAS ALL LONG PAST, OVER THREE YEARS AGO. Now Ewan lay in the house he had built on the land he had earned and cleared with his own labour. He ran his hands up and down his broken leg. His blessings had always come in such deep, perverse disguises, but labour always brought forth reward. Always. He would work. Ewan felt his resolve awaken with such strength and clarity he knew God had stretched out His hand to him. His own mortal weakness had pulled him to despair and nearly beaten him but now he could see the way. Of course he would work. Had the Lord not provided for him so far? Had he not suffered his seven years of servitude to be rewarded? Did he not own land and a house and stable and a brand new mill worthy of his trade? In need of sons, had he not prayed for a wife only to have the woman placed before him? Where were his sons? The Lord asked only for faith and labour. How ludicrous to imagine this was not possible. His mind raced, tumbled, somersaulted over itself, his blood, pumping through his body, alive with resolve. He would work.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
PENELOPE
THE NIGHT BROUGHT ME LITTLE REST. In the cracks between fretting when I escaped into sleep, dreams hunted me down, hauling me to Ewan’s body, his casket, his graveside. And there was Nettle stretching out her withered hand towards me. We’re sisters now, she said and when I tried to speak and explain how this was not so, my words were snared in my throat. At first light, e
xhausted from struggle, I dressed and braced for the day. Normally, no matter how quiet my tread, Ewan began his bellowing as soon as I set my foot on the first stair. But today silence met me. This was another dream surely. But no, the stairs beneath my feet, the kitchen floor, the stove and table and porridge pot all carried the unchanging solidity of wakefulness. My heart hammered. As I approached his door I heard a single word. “Penelope.” I had not heard him speak my name in—it seemed like years. There was no tenderness in his voice (tenderness would have terrified me) but neither was there rancour or frustration. His voice was clear, steady and pointed.
When I opened the door I barely recognized the invalid I had left the night before. His eyes, snapping clear, met mine.
“I need my measuring rule and pencils. Bring me paper. And your breadboard. Be quick.”
He ate several thick slabs of bread and jam with his tea and porridge. I fried up a pan of sausage and made him a pumpkin pie. Whenever I peeked in he was scrawling lines and equations with his pencil, or holding his measuring rule out in front of him as though it were a rare species to be studied, or staring intently into space. He used up all my correspondence paper then called for sheets torn from the back of his ledger book, then more—he did not care where from. He produced drawings, crossed them out and made new ones. The next afternoon he intercepted me as I passed his door on the way to the cellar with a bushel of parsnips.
“Have that Cunningham brat carry this bill of iron to the smith. Tell him to make me these parts. The specifications are clear. I don’t want any of his usual slipshod business. I want this done properly, so help me God.”
He called me ten times a day to fetch him tools and wood and bolts and Lord knows what else. I gave his linens and blankets up for lost the first time he dumped out a box of bolts and screws and fanned them over his lap. Before he was done he sent young Donny to the forge three times and to the harness-maker and all the way to the foundry. I felt badly for the boy, cowering under Ewan’s glare, but really he was the least of my worries. As for myself, so long as Ewan was occupied I was content to see him one day sawing and sanding and spewing sawdust over the room, the next riveting leather, then metal work, then back at paper and ink.