Peter Loon

by Van Reid

Peter wondered where all the men at the tavern last night were this morning. Had they trudged home already, slogging to their backcountry farms through the rain? Or were they watching the parson and his companions leaving the hamlet? Had the angry men gone to New Milford before them? He stood in the muddy road and watched as the parson and the woodsmen went ahead. He was trying to number the days. Would they be burying his father today? Would they be burying him in this rain? The children shouldn’t be out in it, Peter thought. He looked over his shoulder in the direction he and the parson had come from the day before. He wanted to go back and see his little brother Amos and his sisters Hannah and Sally Ann. It felt like he had been gone a month.

  He had left in the night and slept part of yesterday morning, so it was difficult, strange as things were, and befuddled as he was, to figure just how long he had been gone.

  “Are you coming to find your uncle, Peter Loon?” called Parson Leach from down the road. The woodsmen, too, had stopped to look back at him.

  Peter gave them a nod, and hurried after. He shook open the blanket, as he ran, and wrapped it over his head and shoulders. His moccasins were filled with water before he reached the end of the street, and had he not felt so suddenly lost, and otherwise so friendless in this foreign hamlet, he might have changed his mind and turned around. He looked back at the settlement and the Ale Wife’s Tavern when they reached the field where he had crossed to the lake shore the day before.

  A pale figure stood at the back of the tavern, watching them, seemingly unheeding of the weather. She still carried the bucket in one hand, looking small and finally indeterminate through the rain. Peter tired his neck looking back as they moved parallel to the northern extremity of Great Bay.

  The track south along the western shore of the lake was well worn and at times the parson elected to ride the grassy bank above the road and avoid the mud. It was Manasseh Cutts, perhaps inspired by the harvested fields along the lakeside, who sang up a hymn.

  Fields of corn, give up your ears,

  Now your stalks are heavy,

  Wheat and oats and barley-spears,

  All your harvest levy.

  It was not long before Parson Leach joined him, singing in a rumbling baritone.

  Where your sheaves of plenty lean,

  Men once more the grain shall glean

  Of the Ever-Living,

  God the Lord will bless the field,

  Bringing in its Autumn yield

  Gladly to Thanksgiving.

  And on they sang, growing a little bolder with their voices as they went–“Vines, send in your bunch of grapes,” and “Gardens, give your gayest flowers.” On the second verse, Crispin took up counterpoint. Peter did not know the words, but he quickly caught up the tune and hummed it. When they were finished, Mars let out a snort, spraying rain from his muzzle. A distant rumble in the west caught their interest, but it was not repeated.

  They followed a ridge above the water for a mile or so, the horses walking slowly for the sake of the men on foot. It was not frigid, for a rainy day in October, and Peter got rather used to being wet, as if he were bathing in the lake. Their exertions kept them warm. The water to their left was brown and roughened by the rain and runoff, and crows were the only birds with voices in the broad gray expanse of the morning. Some distance away, a treefull of black-winged wags bawled and laughed at one another, or–as Parson Leach suggested–at the foolishness of men who didn’t know enough to take shelter from the downpour.

  Manasseh began to sing “The Ladle Song,” which Peter did know. Halfway through the first verse, however, Peter found himself falling off the tune. The subject of the song, which concerned the marriage between an old man and a young girl, saddened him. Then he worried that Parson Leach might notice his reticence and make something of it, and Peter picked up the next verse with more enthusiasm, however feigned. His scalp ached.

  They passed the narrows, where Great Bay gave over to Damariscotta Pond, and after the second mile or so, they began to climb away from the water, toward the height that had lately been called Bunker Hill, after the more famous eminence in Charlestown. The banks became steeper and the way forced them to walk the muddy road and soon enough they were covered, foot to fardel, with sprays of wet earth. Peter and Crispin in particular wore the road as the horses had a tendency to kick up clods of mud and splash in every puddle.

  Once they climbed the hill, they rested, though there was little comfort, hunkering in the weather. It had been raining all the night before, so even the trees were adrip and offered little refuge. Some large gray and white birds lit down upon a stretch of field below them and Peter watched them with interest, shielding his eyes from the immediate rain.

  “This weather came from the opposite quarter,” said Parson Leach, and when Peter asked how he knew, the man said, “Seagulls. They’ve been driven inland. The storm came in from the sea. That thunder we heard was it rubbing shoulder with the hills west.”

  Peter had never seen seagulls. They were extraordinary to him–graceful in flight, ungainly on their broad feet; they were bright figures in the dismal air, arguing noisily over something that one of them had discovered in the field.

  The four men sat and watched the gulls for such a long time that their bones creaked a little when they finally stood. Parson Leach, in particular, hobbled around for a bit, warming his joints with some movement, and he elected to walk for a while “to keep,” as he said, “from rusting up like an old hinge.”

  A little further on, the trail fell alongside the tree-lined perimeter of a cleared field. Walking through the wet heavy grass was the next thing to wading in water and they left a dark line behind them at the edge of the forest. Some of the ground had grown up in recent years and Manasseh wasn’t sure how far they were from the path that would take them west. Once they reached the shore of Damariscotta Pond, they considered the way before them. Through a narrow gut, south upon the water, they could see a small island near the opposite shore, though it wavered in and out of view with the shifting persistence of the weather.

  “There’s another island, but we can’t see it from here,” said Manasseh, “just off this shore. The path we’re looking for is near to it.”

  They moved south, toward the narrows, and crossed a brook, which was wide and rushing from the accumulating rainfall. Peter slipped on a mossy rock and Parson Leach somehow caught him before he fell in. At the narrows, it was natural to step out on the little point of land and consider where they had been, and where they were going. They could see the second island now, and Peter looked for some sign of the path.

  They had not gone very much further, when they heard a sound that Peter thought was the bark of an animal. Manasseh lifted his head and looked behind them.

  “There’s your path,” Crispin Moss was saying, pointing south to a dark cut in the forest; then a second sound reached them which was most definitely the shout of a man.

  Manasseh stepped out on the little swell of bank to look back through the foliage and over the low point of land that formed one side of the narrows. The others crowded round him, and indeterminate noises reached their ears, screened by the sound of rain shushing the pond and rattling on the brims of their hats. Parson Leach did, in fact, throw his hood back and cock his head to one side.

  “Look,” said Crispin, pointing. Several figures, two or three of them mounted, were suddenly visible at the point where the parson and his companions had first reached the pond. They heard more shouting, which was distinctly angry, and Peter had the brief and unpleasant sensation that they were being pursued.

  Parson Leach felt around beneath his cloak and produced a spyglass on the end of a leather braid. He put the instrument to his eye and telescoped the lens till he could see the group of men. “Barrow!” he said, with a note of question in his voice.

  “What?” said Manasseh.

  The distant figures halted at the edge of the water and appeared to be taking stock of their situation. More shouts followed and
Peter thought he saw some of the men pointing at something.

  The clergyman fiddled with the length of the glass, and said “Barrow!” again.

  “What does he want?” said Crispin Moss, and quite unconsciously, he swung his covered musket off his shoulder.

  “They’re pursuing something, or someone,” said Parson Leach, still peering through the glass. “But I dare say, it can’t be us.”

  Just beyond the point of land between the two parties, Peter caught the glimpse of something pale that flashed between the scrubby pines. “It’s Nora Tillage!” he exclaimed with instant conviction.

  “What?” Parson Leach shot a perturbed expression at Peter.

  “It’s Mr. Tillage’s daughter!” said Peter again, and the parson let out a snort of disgust.

  “What’s that?” said Manasseh.

  Parson Leach had no more than put the glass to his eye again, when the. others were just able to discern a person’s head and shoulders over the next point of land. Someone was hurrying along the shore, but disappeared, perhaps in a stumble, then returned to view and continued more slowly. The men, further on, scrambled after, closing the gap between themselves and the bit of pale figure.

  “Heaven preserve!” said Parson Leach. He swung the glass beneath his cape and hurried to Mars. “Peter!” he called as he swung onto the great horse, and Peter was quick to be pulled up behind. “Hold tight!” declared the preacher, and then he shouted “Heeyaa!”whereupon Mars leapt forward at a near gallop through thickety cover. The animal lowered its head, Parson Leach put his own face against the creature’s neck, and Peter was almost swept off the horse’s back by a swatting branch. Then they broke into an open glade and Mars mounted a broad shelf of granite where the preacher skittered him to a short halt, sparks flying from the animal’s shoes. Peter all but fell off with the clergyman’s sudden vault from the saddle, and he slid without ceremony down Mars’s hindquarters.

  They were still some yards away from the person scrambling toward them, however; Peter saw the unmistakable figure and face of Nora Tillage, and he shouted, almost angrily, “Parson Leach! We must get her!”

  But the parson had pulled his musket from its sheath and he was loading and priming it, leaning over the firing mechanism to protect it from the rain. “She’ll reach us before they reach her, lad!” he shouted back. “And I need a moment to ready this!” It was true, had he gone the entire distance to the young woman, he might not have had time to load and prime.

  Peter ran across the granite projection and tumbled down the side of the rock, using his sudden momentum to propel himself toward the girl. He heard an angry bellow and perhaps the snap of flint against steel. No explosion followed, however, and he barely slowed himself in time to avoid knocking the young woman over when he reached her. Other angry shouts and curses raised a panic in Peter’s heart. He was aware of two horsemen closing the distance with them, but he turned about and half led, half carried Nora Tillage to the stand of granite.

  Parson Leach had his musket raised. He shouted a warning, waited several beats, which kept time with the sound of hooves, then pulled the trigger. The powder in the pan had fouled with the rain, however, and there was no resultant kick or flashing bang.

  But directly behind him Manasseh Cutts pulled his own musket to his shoulder and the gun roared with an alarming blast of flame. He was aiming at the muddy flat just before the oncoming horses and the ball kicked up a shower of mud and stone, which proved more impressive than harmful. The horsemen drew up; one animal slipped and fell back on its rear legs, and the other slued to a halt.

  Crispin Moss passed Manasseh his own loaded musket, then held out his arms and Peter lifted the slight young woman up to him, before scrambling after. Parson Leach had blown out his pan and was repriming, leaning over the firingpiece. Nora Tillage collapsed in a heap at their feet, shivering from fright and exertion as much as from her thin soaked garments. In a moment, Crispin had Manasseh’s musket loaded and primed; he nudged Peter behind him. Mars let out an angry sounding snort and shifted his shod feet loudly on the granite porch.

  “Leach!” came a shout from beyond the first horsemen.

  Nora let out a single sob at the sound of Barrow’s voice, and she clutched at Peter’s leg, almost like an animal that has ceased to know friend from foe, but scrambles at any cover near.

  Nathan Barrow glared from the back of his horse. “You give her over right now!” he declared, his face behind his bristling beard purple and puffy with rage. His mount danced nervously beneath him, as if sensing the danger in the man. Barrow seemed to be spitting when he bellowed, but it was the rain running down his mustache and into his beard, spraying out as he shook. He pushed his horse forward and broke past the two riders before him, but stopped short of the halfway point between the narrows and the granite shelf.

  There were almost a dozen men with Nathan Barrow, hunkering against the rain. Most were on horseback, but some stragglers bringing up the rear were on foot. Parson Leach was speechless for a moment; he and Peter recognized several faces from the tavern the night before. He looked behind him at the young woman, collapsed upon the gray rock, and glanced, as he turned back, at his companions.

  “Give her back!” roared Barrow again.

  “I would say she’s not overfond of you, Mr. Barrow.” Parson Leach had lowered his gun so that the pan might possibly remain dry beneath his arm, but the expression on his face was near to warlike.

  “She’s been given over by her father himself!” shouted Barrow. He nudged his horse a little closer. One of the other riders came up along side of him, though with less certainty.

  “He wouldn’t be the first father do wrong by his child,” said the parson, hardly audible to Barrow over the rain.

  “It’s the letter of the law,” growled Barrow.

  “You’ve declared the law your enemy,” replied Parson Leach, his voice rising again. “And there’s no law leads a man to ruin his own.”

  “Give her over, Leach! She’s under my wing!”

  “Your wings are under the sites of two bores, which is a good deal more to the point.”

  The man behind Barrow squinted up at the rain with almost a smile, as if he thought those two bores would prove of little use. “Her father said to get her back, Mr. Leach,” he called as he edged his horse forward a pace or two.

  “I didn’t take anything,” said Nora, almost conquering the wail in her voice. “I never took so much as a coat, so they wouldn’t say I stole.”

  Peter shook himself from his daze and pulled her onto her feet where she tottered against him.

  “Her father wants her back, Mr. Leach,” said the other horseman again.

  “Her father doesn’t want her back, as far as I can tell,” said the preacher, “or he would’ve come for her himself.”

  This new spokesman looked to Barrow, then said, “We’ll see she comes to no harm.”

  “Not like you chased her down, then,” said Parson Leach evenly, “like dogs on a deer.”

  There was no answer to this, and in fact some of the men hung their heads.

  The rain increased between them, and Barrow stiffened on his horse as he stood in his stirrups. “There are only four of you and but three armed!” he bellowed. “We’ll storm over you like perdition!”

  “No gun out here,” said Manasseh, squinting into the rain, “will be good for anything but a club,” though he held his own firing piece as if he might get one more shot from it.

  “I can’t believe,” called out Parson Leach, and he nodded to Barrow’s mob, “that any of these men care to be a party to murder, and that’s what I promise it will fall to, before you wrest this woman from my protection. On the other hand, I may just be angry enough to pick you off that horse, Mr. Barrow; and looking at you, at this juncture, is not pacifying me in the least.”

  “You heard the threat!” declared Barrow, but the rider beside him leaned close to the man, rain dripping from his hat brim, and quietly reminded Mr
. Barrow that he had threatened first. Barrow shot an angry glance at his cohort, and the man straightened in his saddle, giving Barrow as good a look in return.

  “What’s it to be then, Mr. Leach,” said this second in command. He seemed a reasonable enough fellow, now that everyone but Barrow had calmed somewhat.

  “I don’t want you following us, sir,” said Parson Leach. “It might be too tempting for Mr. Barrow to try and take her from us, and it will end in tragedy, I promise you. You may be no happier than ourselves if one of us were to be killed in such circumstances, for the law would surely hunt you down.”

  “His law!” snarled Barrow. “His Great Men and his Congregational . . .” but the other man gave him such a look, that Barrow fell to muttering.

  “I am no kidnapper, you know that,” continued the parson, and when the man beside Barrow nodded, the parson said. “She fled her situation of her own accord, and it’s the law will determine things now. I am a law-abiding man, on the whole, and I will deliver her to decisive powers when we reach the next settlement.”

  “How are we to know, if we can’t follow you,” said the rider.

  “Word will be sent, but I am not sure Mr. Tillage will want to appear for his daughter, at any rate, Lot and Sodom notwithstanding.”

  This reference was so keen and so final, that several gasps rose from the mob of men. Some looked a little horrified, suddenly, to be a part of such a business. It was amazing to Peter, how one sentence from Parson Leach could reverse the view these men took of their own behavior. Without much further hesitation, the pursuers turned about and headed for the point along the shore where Manasseh first detected them. By association, Barrow was tugged along with his mob, but he craned his head back and looked over his shoulder at the parson and his companions, till his horse mounted the far bank and carried him into the field beyond the forest and out of sight.

  11

  Concerning a Change in Plans, a Parting of the Ways, as Well as an Introduction to the Busy Abode of Captain Clay den as Governed by Mrs. Magnamous