Crane Pond by Richard Francis Read Free Book Online Page A

character of some of the men, who are well-known in Salem.’
    â€˜Character isn’t the point. It’s
doings
that concern us as justices, not how a man might pass himself off in society, not a matter of who his friends and relations might be. As for Madam Winthrop, women have their affections, and often they pass them on to their menfolk. And to others.’
    He talks, Sewall realises, as if affections mean the same thing as
in
fections. His detachment must be lonely but no doubt it gives his judgement an impartial accuracy more tangled-up mortals cannot achieve. Mr. Stoughton is looking across at him still. Their road is passing though small fields with the occasional patch of woodland, and sometimes a glimpse of the sea to the left. The sky has a muffled gleam like pewter. Stoughton’s eyes are the same shade, and since he’s silhouetted against the sky there’s an odd sense of looking straight through his head, the perfect image of impartiality: suggesting no taint of the personal in judgements made therein.
    That’s what Sewall himself professed to believe in, in those arguments with his colleagues. He blushes with shame. He is pink and Stoughton is grey, which sums up the difference between them.
    Â 
    Ten days later Sewall arrives home. The congress has agreed to send a pan-colonial force to Albany. As he goes through his own gate a couple of chickens scuttle away from him and he stares at their retreating rear ends in surprise. When he set off on his journey they were ensconced in their new henhouse with a secure run of their own. Someone must have left the little door open.
    Before he reaches the front door the family spot him and Betty runs out and into his arms. Next comes his wife, her pregnant stomach preceding her, with Joseph holding her hand and looking up at him shyly as if he has already forgotten who he might be. Then Sam, careful not to hurry in childish enthusiasm, but pleased nevertheless. Stupidly, at this moment when Sewall should feel happy, those renegade chickens are roosting inside his head. ‘The hens have got free,’ he complains.
    Hannah laughs. ‘They must have wanted to greet you.’
    â€˜The fox might greet
them
.’
    â€˜Not with all of us standing here.’
    He becomes aware that something is not right. For a second he can’t work out what it is. Then it dawns. ‘Where’s young Hannah?’ An uncomfortable silence. His heart lurches. ‘What’s happened to her?’
    Sarah, Susan and Bastian are standing a little behind the family group and with them is a neighbour, Nurse Hurd. Sewall has been assuming that she was making a social visit, but of course she is also regularly summoned to help with sickness in the house.
    â€˜Indoors,’ Hannah says, looking guilty. ‘She’s a little droopy, that’s all.’
    Â 
    Daughter Hannah is slumped in Sewall’s own chair, her rear pushed up against its back so her feet don’t reach the floor. She looks even younger than her years. Her head is flopped forward limply over her chest but she raises it when she hears him approach and smiles weakly.
    â€˜How are you, my love?’ he asks. He knows the answer and hopes his fear doesn’t show in his voice.
    â€˜I don’t feel very well,’ she replies, too young to dissemble.
    â€˜I think you must go to bed. Then you’ll soon feel better.’ He turns towards Nurse Hurd, who has followed him in. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Nurse?’
    â€˜Yes, Mr. Sewall, bed rest is the best cure. And I will give her powdered fox lungs, as much as will cover a threepenny bit.’
    â€˜All right, father. I’m so glad you are home.’ She smiles again, though her smile manages to include a small grimace at the prospect of fox lungs. Something about her reaction upsets him, an acceptance of her fate, a kind of passivity. Here he is, a thirty-eight-year-old man in rude health,