The Other Nineteenth Century (7 page)

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Authors: Avram Davidson

BOOK: The Other Nineteenth Century
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Davidson was not the first to treat the history of English literature as the setting for crime fiction (Lillian de la Torre’s stories of Sam: Johnson,
detector,
are probably the earliest sustained series). The suggestion
Davidson makes about the death of Shelley is novel. The letter from Davidson to his agent, Robert Mills, printed here, identifies the actors in this thinly veiled account of the death of Shelley at sea in 1822. Perhaps the most accurate portrait is that of the unsavory Trelawney (“Tregareth”), who is notorious as the designer of Shelley’s sailboat and the man who found Byron a doctor in his final illness. Few men have had the distinction of causing the deaths of two poets of such stature: Trelawney dined out on his fame for the rest of his long life.
—
Henry Wessells
The story is short, and quickly told.
There was a man of the people called Quakers whose name was Ezra Simmons, and he and his wife had a farm in the hills behind Harpervill. Esther Simmons was a woman who never rested during the hours she was awake, and the hours of her slumbers were few. It is recalled that she did once go down to the main road and sit on the stone fence there to see John Q. Adams go by, the year he became President. It is also recalled that she took her spinning along to keep her hands busy. “Waste not, want not,” was a common word with her, and another such was, “Whatsoever thy hands find to do, do it with thy might.”
In short, she was one of those of whom the Scriptures speak, saying, “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her … .” There was good reason for Ezra Simmons to trust in her, for had he trusted in himself the cattle often as not would have gone unfed, the sheep unshorn, and the meadow unmowed. It was not that Friend Simmons was a lazy man. The summer of Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death, as some light-tongued folk called it (it would have been the year Sixteen, give or take a year or two), he toiled late and early on an engine he intended should make shoe-pegs. It never did make
enough to fit his own shoes, and meanwhile his kine and his swine alike should have laid stark and cold, had not his good wife Esther tended to them. Snow and hail in July! Truly, a heavy judgment upon a nation overgiven to vanities; but that is neither here nor there.
Simmons Farm was neat and trim enough, and so was Ezra Simmons’s grey coat, but his grey eyes looked beyond his farm. They looked beyond his native hills, and, as he confessed, beyond his native country as well.
“Suppose,” he said once to his wife, “suppose a Friend had a concern. He might go and preach unto those lost in darkness, and even now groaning beneath the spiritual tyranny of the Muscovite Caesar or the Grand Bashaw of High Barbary.”
“Suppose a Friend had a concern,” Esther answered, tartly, “he might pick up his scythe and commence on the home acre.”
Too, Ezra had a great interest in curious and foreign beasts, and this too, he voiced to his wife, from whom he concealed nothing.
“Does thee suppose, Esther,” he would ask her, “that the Bengal tiger, for an instance, is striped merely as our Tabby, in grey and darker grey? Or is it indeed striped in yellow-gold and black, as Captain Piggott says?”
Esther, for her whole answer would hand him the milk-bucket—and point to the barn. In truth, she was not over fond of Captain Piggott, considering him and his tales an unsettling influence on Ezra. “How large would thee say the whale-fish is, Captain Piggott?” her husband asked him once, when he came a-visiting. “As large as this farmhouse?”
“As large as the meeting house!” the old mariner declared.
Ezra exclaimed in wonder, but Esther was unimpressed. “It is no affair of ours, John Piggott,” she said, “if the whale-fish is as large as the meeting house or as large as two meeting houses. When was the last time thee was inside the meeting house, John Piggott?”
John Piggott coughed behind his hand, and shortly afterwards he took his leave.
It was, accordingly, with no great surprise—and, for that matter,
with no great attention—that Esther heard Ezra say to her one afternoon, after returning in the shay from Harpervill, “There was a broadside given out in the town, Esther, telling of a travelling show which will make a visitation to the county seat come next Second Day.”
Esther was at her churn, and the day was hot, and she spoke in a sharp voice without much heeding her words.
“Must thee be forever a-gadding after vanities, Ezra Simmons?”
He stood a moment, silent and taken aback, then turned and took up his axe. She heard him splitting firewood for a good long while, and then, scarcely giving time for the echo to die away, he was in the springhouse before her, as she paddled the roll of new-made butter. “Does thee do well to rebuke me, Esther?” he asked.
She looked up, surprised, for she had clean forgotten the matter. “In what way have I rebuked thee, Ezra?”
“Is it a vanity to look upon the great beast which the Lord hath made? Can it be that He hath made it for nought? I doubt not that the showman is one of the world’s people, but can the great beast be less a marvel for that?”
Esther dabbled her fingers in the shallow pool fed by the spring, and touched them, absently, to her face. “I do not understand thee,” she said. “What marvel and what great beast is it of which thee speaks?”
“The elephant, Esther Simmons! The elephant!”
There was buttermilk to be put in crocks, and the crocks to be put in the well; potatoes to be peeled and the peels fed to the hogs and the potatoes to be put up for supper. There was a dried-apple pie to be baked and linen to be spread in the sun against yellowing and mildew. There was a labor of work, and scarce daylight to do it in, and Esther said, “I have lived in this world five-and-forty years, Friend Husband, and I have never seen the elephant, nor have I ever been moved by the Spirit to see him yet.”
Ezra stood before her, his head bowed, his broadbrim dusty from the wood he had been splitting, his hands folded on the handle of the axe. He stood there, thus, for quite some moments, and then,
in a low voice, he said, “I have lived in this world for nine-and-forty years, Friend Wife, I have lived in this world for a jubilee of years, thee can reckon. I have never seen the elephant either, but I tell thee, Friend Wife, that I feel moved by the Spirit to see him now, for I truly believe that else I do I shall never have chance to see him again.”
There was hay in the meadow, ripe for the mowing, and shingle-trees in the yard needing to be split for the roof of the barn. A cartload of corn stood as it had stood for two days—unloaded. Esther did not hesitate.
“Thee feels moved by the Spirit to see this elephant?”
“They say it is the great beast Behemoth of the Scriptures.”
“Thee feels moved by the Spirit to see this elephant?”
“I do.”
“Thee has a concern to see this elephant?”
“I have.”
“Then thee must see him,” she said.
She rose before dawn on Second Day and baked fresh bread and put it in his wallet. She put in a roll of butter wrapped in green ferns, and sliced meat, and three apples and a jug of water and one of buttermilk. She paused to reflect if she had forgotten anything. It occurred to her that the world’s people took money for preaching the Word of the Lord, and, this being the case, might also require to take money for showing the Lord’s creatures. She took a brick out of the fireplace and, reaching in her hand, pulled out a sock. From the sock’s scanty store she selected a Spanish milled dollar, and she put this in her husband’s wallet, too.
He led out the horse and harnessed it. “Will thee not come with me, Esther Simmons?” he asked.
Again, she shook her head, and again she made the same reply.
“I have not been moved by the Spirit to see the elephant, nor am I moved to see him now.”
The old shay rolled down the lane, and she turned her work. And, to his work, too.
Ezra drove down the white, dusty country roads. He rode past fields ripe with grain and past orchards heavy with fruit. People called out to him, but he did not pause to talk. He rode over rattling bridges and beside mudflats covered with eelgrass and salt hay, and turned inland again, through granite hills. He stopped at times to water the horse, and then he drove on again. The sun was on the decline when he arrived at the county seat, and he drew up and called out to a man afoot, “Friend, can thee tell me where the showman is, who has the foreign beast to see?”
“Showman? There bain’t no showman here.”
Ezra lifted his hat slightly. The evening breeze cooled his head. “There was a broadside given out to Harpervill,” he said, “which related that such a person was to be here, come Second Day.”
“Showbill, ah. I recollect, now. Someone did arrive in a caravan, all painted in outlandish colors, yes. A foreign-looking man, as you say. But the Selectman wouldn’t give him leave to stay, so he went on. Who knows what mischief he might be up to?”
Ezra set his hat down. “How old of a man would thee say he was, Friend?” he asked.
The townfellow scratched his head. “Hard to say. Might ‘a’ been thirty. Might ‘a’ been forty. Why?”
“Thirty or forty. The Lord has given him leave to tarry in this world for thirty or forty years, and thee would not give him leave to tarry in this town for so much as a day.” He shook up the reins and drove on, leaving the townsman with mouth agape.
The sun set, the sweet smell of the earth rose into the night air. The moon came up, broad and yellow. “Thee sees how it is, Friend Horse,” Ezra said, to the plodding animal. “It was not the Lord’s will, it seems, that I should look upon the countenance of His great beast Behemoth, which men call the elephant. So be it. I have dwelt all my days within the circle of these hills, and if at times I have felt it to be a somewhat smaller circle than I could wish, still, I have never wished to go against His will.”
The horse whinnied, and then it shied. Startled, but not so much as to forget the account of Balaam and the ass, Ezra Simmons peered
into the silvery road ahead. He saw no angel there, he saw a wagon painted over with strange devices, drawn over to the side of the road. Horses tethered to a tree raised their heads and nickered. A curtain at the back of the caravan parted and a man appeared. In his hand was a lamp. Rings glittered in his ears.
“Is thee the person called a showman?” asked Ezra.
“I am that very one, Reuben.”
“My name is not Reuben, Friend. It is Ezra. I have come to see your great beast.”
The man gestured Ezra inside. There was a bright quilt on the wagon bed, and a woman sat on it, with a child at her breast. Her legs and arms were bare, and so, though she smiled at him he turned aside his head. The man led him to a door in a partition, and held out his hand. “There was no money at all in the last town,” he said. “And no bread grows by the sides of the road.”
“What money is the fee?”
The showman shrugged. “I take any money that will pass muster. York shillings, United States gold and silver, fips and thrips and picayunes. I take paper notes of all New England states, as well as New York and Pennsylvany. Virginny and Caroliny, I take at a discount, but as for the wildcat currency of Tennessee and Missouri, them I do not take at all.”
Ezra felt in his wallet. “I have nought but one old piece of eight,” he said.
“I take them, too. Come along.”
It smelled musty in the large space beyond the partition. It smelled odd and wild, it smelled of strange places and strange things, and it smelled most of all of strange beasts. Shadows danced and something rustled in the soiled hay, something made an odd sound. The showman held out his lamp. “There he be,” he said. “Have you ever seen the like before?”
“Nay, Friend,” said Ezra. “I never have. And never will again. Hold the lamp steady.” He looked into the eyes of the strange beast, and the strange beast looked into his own eyes. There was silence. “Thee has a canny look about thy face,” Ezra observed. “I believe
that thee would laugh, if thee but could. So. And this is the Behemoth of the Scriptures.”
The showman took out a piece of pigtail tobacco and thrust it into his mouth. “Now, as to that, I cannot say. On that subject I am coy.”
“The elephant, then.”
The showman mumbled his chew. “Hmm,” he said. “Hmm, hmm.”
“This is the only foreign beast thee has? Thee has no other?”
After spitting a brown stream into the straw and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, the showman shook his head.
“Had
another one. It died. Over a week ago. A great loss, believe me.”
Ezra took another look at the beast, and the beast at him. Then, tentatively, he reached out his hand and touched it. The creature nuzzled at his hand, then sniffed his pockets. “Would thee eat an apple? I believe thee would.” He watched it eat the apple. Then it turned away. “Thee is right,” Ezra said. “It is time I was gone.”
At the door, foot on the step, he turned around. “If thee has by chance a likeness of the beast … ?” he asked. “But I have no more money with me.”
The showman waved his hand, rummaged in a box, produced a sheet of paper with a woodcut on it—the precise likeness of the beast. “No need to mention money. Take it. My compliments. You’re the only gent I met today.” He stooped, grunted, took out a demijohn, gurgled it. “Splice the mainbrace?”
“Nay, Friend. I thank thee. But I must be getting back to Esther Simmons.” He peered at the paper, lips moving slowly. “What is the meaning of this strange word?” he asked.
The jug gurgled again. The showman lowered it a bit. “Oh, that. Why, commodore, that there is the animal’s name in its native language.”
Ezra’s lips moved again. “The Hebrew is a sacred tongue. How full of awe its syllables be.
Kan-ga-roo.
There. I have it now.” He took the showman’s hand. “Friend, I thank thee,” he said. “With all
my heart. Thee little knows what thee has done for me. My soul is now at rest within me, like a weaned child.”

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