Read Online Crow Hollow by Michael Wallace - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Wallace
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wife, she now realized. Instead, she found fault with his lax ways and too often tried to correct him, attempting to make him as devout as her own father.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Benjamin had thawed her, little by little, but more so, the birth of her daughter taught Prudence that not all things could be planned. You couldn’t perfect another, make him or her free from error. You couldn’t even do the same to yourself. And God, she was convinced, didn’t expect it.
Her blood was pumping, her heart pounding by the time she reached the top of the hill to High Street. The movement warmed her, inside and out. She’d shed her guilt and was now filled only with purpose.
Beacon Hill rose to her right, filled with a growing number of houses clustered around narrow streets. To her left, Fort Field, and the Great Cove below it, crowded with swaying ships. More houses lined High Street, but they thinned as she continued west toward the Common. She was high enough to see the Neck and the town gate, a couple of miles distant through the gloom.
A bell chimed and lanterns moved along the gate as it swung shut. Within the past two years the gate had been fortified with iron bars and a watchtower of cut stone. During the low point of the war, there had been talk of the entire population of the Bay Colony taking refuge on the peninsula until the militias could put down the Indian insurrection. An incident over guns and the death of a Praying Indian had led to war between Plymouth and King Philip of the Wampanoag, and then the conflict had quickly spread from tribe to tribe, colony to colony, until all of New England was in flames. Only by the grace of God had the English been preserved in this land.
Prudence soon reached the Common, which stretched from High Street toward the bay on the north side. It was a flat plain, studded with the rotting stumps of trees, still standing as mute witness to the forest cut down more than forty years earlier. Given the lateness of the season, the Common lay empty of animals, save for a lone hog, a big boar rooting in the snow along the rail fence. It came grunting toward her when she approached.
“Get along, you filthy thing, or I’ll call the hog reeve and you’ll end up in someone’s pot.” She kicked at it until it went away.
The last light was fading, and the moon wasn’t up yet. Lights twinkled from the town at her rear, and, more faintly, from Cambridge and Charlestown, north across the mouth of the Charles River, which twisted like an inky ribbon as it thrust westward into the interior. There wasn’t enough light to see clearly across the Common, but perhaps James was crouched at one of the stumps, waiting.
She watched for the pig, then climbed the fence and trudged through the snow. It was only an inch deep, but a fair bit ended up inside her shoes, melting through her woolen stockings. The wind pulled her hair from her head rail and whipped it around her face.
“Is anyone there?” she called. “Hello?”
She inspected the stumps one by one. Nothing. She’d almost crossed the field to the farmhouses on the opposite side when the clop of hooves reached her ears. A team of four horses came down High Street from the direction of town. They pulled a coach that jerked and bounced as it hit the frozen ruts in the mud surface. A driver sat on the perch, flicking a whip to drive them on. Two lanterns hung on long poles over the team. Their flames cast flickering cones of light that cut the gloom ahead.
Prudence’s first thought was to duck behind a stump and hide. By now they would be looking for her back at the house and probably organizing a search. But that would bring people on foot or horse, not a coach. This was someone hurrying to the gates to leave Boston at dark. Who had reason to sneak out? Who would break the Sabbath to hire a team?
James and Peter. It must be. But
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Benjamin had thawed her, little by little, but more so, the birth of her daughter taught Prudence that not all things could be planned. You couldn’t perfect another, make him or her free from error. You couldn’t even do the same to yourself. And God, she was convinced, didn’t expect it.
Her blood was pumping, her heart pounding by the time she reached the top of the hill to High Street. The movement warmed her, inside and out. She’d shed her guilt and was now filled only with purpose.
Beacon Hill rose to her right, filled with a growing number of houses clustered around narrow streets. To her left, Fort Field, and the Great Cove below it, crowded with swaying ships. More houses lined High Street, but they thinned as she continued west toward the Common. She was high enough to see the Neck and the town gate, a couple of miles distant through the gloom.
A bell chimed and lanterns moved along the gate as it swung shut. Within the past two years the gate had been fortified with iron bars and a watchtower of cut stone. During the low point of the war, there had been talk of the entire population of the Bay Colony taking refuge on the peninsula until the militias could put down the Indian insurrection. An incident over guns and the death of a Praying Indian had led to war between Plymouth and King Philip of the Wampanoag, and then the conflict had quickly spread from tribe to tribe, colony to colony, until all of New England was in flames. Only by the grace of God had the English been preserved in this land.
Prudence soon reached the Common, which stretched from High Street toward the bay on the north side. It was a flat plain, studded with the rotting stumps of trees, still standing as mute witness to the forest cut down more than forty years earlier. Given the lateness of the season, the Common lay empty of animals, save for a lone hog, a big boar rooting in the snow along the rail fence. It came grunting toward her when she approached.
“Get along, you filthy thing, or I’ll call the hog reeve and you’ll end up in someone’s pot.” She kicked at it until it went away.
The last light was fading, and the moon wasn’t up yet. Lights twinkled from the town at her rear, and, more faintly, from Cambridge and Charlestown, north across the mouth of the Charles River, which twisted like an inky ribbon as it thrust westward into the interior. There wasn’t enough light to see clearly across the Common, but perhaps James was crouched at one of the stumps, waiting.
She watched for the pig, then climbed the fence and trudged through the snow. It was only an inch deep, but a fair bit ended up inside her shoes, melting through her woolen stockings. The wind pulled her hair from her head rail and whipped it around her face.
“Is anyone there?” she called. “Hello?”
She inspected the stumps one by one. Nothing. She’d almost crossed the field to the farmhouses on the opposite side when the clop of hooves reached her ears. A team of four horses came down High Street from the direction of town. They pulled a coach that jerked and bounced as it hit the frozen ruts in the mud surface. A driver sat on the perch, flicking a whip to drive them on. Two lanterns hung on long poles over the team. Their flames cast flickering cones of light that cut the gloom ahead.
Prudence’s first thought was to duck behind a stump and hide. By now they would be looking for her back at the house and probably organizing a search. But that would bring people on foot or horse, not a coach. This was someone hurrying to the gates to leave Boston at dark. Who had reason to sneak out? Who would break the Sabbath to hire a team?
James and Peter. It must be. But
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