to the Far Blue Mountains (1976) (2 page)

No more ... my father was gone, buried these several years. A wave of sadness swept over me. I started to turn for another look ...

"Quick! Barnabas, into the boat! They come!"

It was no common boat, but a scow, and I took my horse quickly across the plank, and we shoved off upon the dark, glistening water. We could hear the hoofbeats of horses.

Looking back, I felt warm tears welling into my eyes. It had been my home, this cottage on the edge of the fen. Here I had grown to manhood, and here my father had died.

And where, in my time, would my body lie?

Chapter
2

We of the fens knew every twist and turn of the waterways that formed an intricate maze where a stranger might soon become lost. A man might believe the fens, seen from West Keal, utterly flat and without a hiding place. But there were many islets, hidden coves, willow-sheltered channels, and occasional fields.

Over the years the fens had changed much, while seeming not to change at all.

Roman efforts to drain them had largely failed, due to changes in the sea level and long periods when no effort had been made to continue the work. Now Elizabeth was considering a new effort at drainage, for once drained the fens became the richest of farmland.

We who lived in the fens had small concept of their actual area, and no doubt felt them larger than they were, for they seemed vast, extending into several shires, although boundaries meant little.

The Romans had come, even, it was said, to the place where we now went. It was an islet of no more than three acres cut by several narrow, winding waterways.

There were few low-growing oaks, gnarled of trunk and thick of branch, but not tall, and some birch trees. Backed against a limestone shoulder was the hut, a place already ancient when my father played there as a child, and how ancient no man knew. Many times had the thatch been renewed, and long ago I had watched my father replace the door. I had come here before first sailing for America, but now, almost a year later, nothing had changed.

Even Black Tom, who knew the fens, had not known of this place. William knew, and I. Black Tom looked around, admiringly. "A tidy place! A man could live here on the eeling alone."

"Aye, but I am for America, Tom, love it though I do. It is a good place, with the cries of the marsh birds and the glow of the last light on the yellow water lilies. Nor shall I forget the sound of oars as a boat moves through the fens, or the way the morning mist lies close above the grass."

"You were born here?"

"In the cottage we just left My father was a soldier home from the wars, given this land in respect of things done. It was what he wanted, I think, land of his own and a free, honest life. He had lived by the blade and bow in many a land.

He taught me much the schools teach, and much that no school could teach, and I honor him for it. He wanted a better life for me, and I shall have it, in America." Black Tom nodded.

"My father finished his life," I continued, "and made a better foothold for me.

And I in my time shall do the same for my sons. Yet it is honor I wish for them, honor and pride of person, not wealth. Nor do I wish for titles, or a place near a Queen or a King, for pride of title or family is an empty thing, b'ke dry leaves that blow in the cold winds of autumn."

"You have a wife?"

"Nay ... but soon, if all goes well. A bonny lass who will go with me to America." I considered, and smiled. "It is not so much that I wish to take her to that wild land, but that she will not be left behind. She's a lovely lass, and we sail well together. I've a fine ship waiting, a cargo loaded, and she waits upon the wind ... and me."

"She must be a strong lass, to risk a wild land."

"Aye, and I've thought much upon that, Tom. It is well for men to risk dangers, for we have broad backs to bear the blows, but I marvel at the courage of women who go with us, and must think of bearing children alone, and in a far place.

"I wonder sometimes. Why do I go, Tom, when I have this? If Queen Bess drains the fens I would be a man of wealth, for much of this about us is mine. But I will not stay for it."

"With me it is different, lad. There's the noose at Tyburn waiting for my neck," said Tom.

"Perhaps, Tom. But think you: others like you stay. How many men in Britain today would sail for America? How many do you know that have lurked in the towns, hiding or moving from place to place rather than try a new land? They hide from change. They fear it. We do not."

"What of the savages there?"

"I have known but few, and as their lives need strength, they respect strength.

As they must fight with their enemies, they respect a fighter. As a coward is a danger to them, they despise a coward.

"There are honest men among them, and dishonest, even as with us. One must deal fairly, and watch himself against weakness, for they despise that. Give no gift without reason or they will think it an offering from fear, and kill you out of hand.

"In the forest they are masters, craftsmen as sure and true as men can be, and there's much to learn from them. Vast areas of the land seem to be uninhabited, for they are few in proportion to its size. They are a different people, of different backgrounds, and you cannot expect them to react like Christians. They have not heard of turning the other cheek-"

"And well enough they haven't. I never got far with that myself."

We came upon William. He and I had much of which to talk, of plantings and harvests and what to do with the money earned from the produce of my land, little though it was. In all I owned but some small pieces of tillable land, and some from which rushes might be cut-enough for a man's living and a bit over.

William was a solid man, and I'd promised him half. When there was sufficient earned, he was to buy another small piece of land.

"And what if you come not back, Barnabas?"

"Leave it in the trust of a good man. For if I come not back, a son of mine surely will."

William and I had known each other from boyhood, although he was the older by some seven years, a strong, resolute man who had land and crops, and worked hard with his hands.

I said to him, "And if the time comes you wish to cross the sea, come to me and I shall find a place for you."

"I am an Englishman, Barnabas. I want no more than England."

Was he wiser than I? My father had lived through wars and troubles, and it left him with a sense that nothing lasted but what a man made of himself. "Be wary," he advised me, "of trusting too much. Men change and times change, but wars and revolutions are always with us.

"Own a bit of ground where you can plant enough to live, and be not far from fuel, for days and nights can be cold. Be friendly with all men and censure none, tell nobody too much of your affairs and remember in all dealings with men, or women, to keep one hand upon the doorlatch ... in your mind, at least.

"Men distrust strangers, so have a few places where you are known ... but not too well. Not even a marsh-rat will trust itself to one hole only, so always have an escape route, and more than one, if it can be."

So in the days of my growing up we had used more than one market town, to become somewhat known in each, and we went to church now here, now there. My father did no smuggling as many fen-men did, but we knew the smugglers. We of the fens were a close-mouthed lot, not given to talking to strangers, but with a strong loyalty for one another.

The mysterious swordsman, if such he was, might ask in vain and learn nothing to help, nor would he find me now, for a myriad of watery routes led to many towns and villages in several shires.

With a warm fire going William and I talked much, and at the last he said, "Do not worry about your fields. I shall handle them as I would my own, and will take one-third."

"One-half," I repeated.

He shook his head. "You give too much, Barnabas."

"One-half," I insisted. "I wish you to have the reward of your care, and with what you have and what you can make of mine you can become a man of consequence."

"You go to a far land, Barnabas. Are you not afraid?"

"The forest seems safer than the London streets, William, and there is land for the taking-forests, meadows, and lakes. And there is game."

"Poaching?"

I smiled. "There are no lords there to bespeak the deer or the hare, William.

There is enough for all. I shall take seed to be planted, William, and tools for working the land and cutting down the forest I shall build what I need. My hands are fanning with tools, and necessity will add to their skill."

He shook his head, slowly. "No, Barnabas, it is for you to do this. I have not the courage to risk all upon a chance. My own land is here. I shall plough my own acres, sleep in my own cot."

"I wonder what it is?" I said. "I wonder what chooses between us, that I go and you stay? Our situations are not too different, one from the other, nor is one less or more the man than the other, it is only that we are different."

He nodded. "I have thought much upon this, Barnabas, and asked of myself the reasons. I do not know. Perhaps it is something in the blood of each of us that you go out upon the sea and I cling to my small holding here.

"You will allow me to say I think it a foolish thing you do? What will you do for drink, Barnabas?"

"I will drink water."

"Water? But water is not fit for men to drink. For the cattle, for birds and beasts, but a man needs ale ... or wine, if you are a Frenchman."

"The water of the new world is wine to me, William. I ask no more. The water of the streams is cold and clear."

And so we parted, we two who were friends but strangers, we whose paths would diverge, yet cling. As he waved good-bye from the island, I thought there was a little of wistfulness in his face. Perhaps something deep within him longed to follow me to the far lands. But that may have been my own pride in what I was, and where I was going.

The route we took to London must be roundabout. I decided upon Thorney. It was a lovely fenland village, a place I'd loved since boyhood when my father had told me stories of Hereward the Wake, the last man to hold out against William the Conqueror. Thorney had been one of the last places he defended. From here I would ride on to Cambridge, and then London.

So easily made are the plans of men! We poled our clumsy craft down the watery lane, reeds and willows tall about us. The dawn light lay gray-gold with the sun and mist upon the fens, and around us there was no sound or movement but the ripples of water around our hull and the small, ultimate sounds of morning birds among the leaves. My horse had no liking for the scow, and the uncertain footing worried him, yet the craft was strong if not swift.

Seated in the stern, I turned my eyes ever and anon toward our wake, but there was no sign of pursuit. Nonetheless, I was uneasy. It disturbed me that I knew not my enemies, for these were no common thief-takers. There was motive here.

Well ... soon I would be abroad upon the seas, and if they wished they might follow me to Virginia and to those blue mountains that haunted my days and nights with their unfathomable promise and mystery.

Unfathomable? No. For I would go there. I would walk the dark aisles of their forests, drink from their streams, challenge their dangers.

The last shadows wilted away to conceal themselves shyly among the reeds and under the overhanging branches to wait the courage that night would bring them.

The sun arose, the fog lifted, sunlight lay gently upon the fens. Some distance off we saw men cutting reeds and grass for thatch, then they were blotted from view by a thick stand of saw-sedge, seven to ten feet tall, but giving the appearance of a simple meadow if looked upon from distance. Passing through it was quite another thing, and I recalled returning from those meadows as a boy with cuts upon arms and legs from their wicked edges.

What memories would my children have? Would they ever know England? They would be far away and in another land, without schools, without books. No. There must be books.

It was born then, this idea that I must have books, not only for our children but for Abigail and myself. We must not lose touch with what we were, with what we had been, nor must we allow the well of our history to dry up, for a child without tradition is a child crippled before the world. Tradition can also be an anchor of stability and a shield to guard one from irresponsibility and hasty decision.

What books then? They must be few, for the luggage of books is no easy thing when they must be carried in canoes, packs, and upon one's back.

Each book must be one worth rereading many times, each a book that has much to say, that can lend meaning to a life, help in decisions, comfort one during moments of loneliness. One needed a chance to listen to the words of other men who had lived their lives, to share with them trials and troubles by day and by night in home or in the markets of cities.

The Bible, of course, for aside from religion there is much to be learned of men and their ways in the Bible. It is also a source of comments made of references and figures of speech. No man could consider himself educated without some knowledge of it.