The Pilgrim by Hugh Nissenson

spake together. Ben told me that his father had burned his childish body with ratsbane, spearwort, and crowfoot. He earned two pounds a year together with livery and an additional amount for meat and drink. He hoped the maid servant named Catherine would tend his garden after his death, and once cried out in his sleep, “Runcible peas!”
    Awake, he said, “I am saved!”
    And I said, “I am damned.”
    The long and the short of it is that Ben died and I survived, disfigured. I did not have the courage to gaze upon his face nor to look upon the reflection of mine own in the mirror. I wore a black-and-white enamel mourning ring upon the little finger of my left hand. My grief stole my faith. I wrote a little poem:
    My grief stole my faith
    And sneaked away.
    I cannot trace the thief.
    His track of tears
    Hath faded from my pitted cheek.
    By the grace of God, my aunt Eliza went unscathed. I gave her the carved, oaken chest she coveted; not from gratitude, but out of apathy. Uncle Roger told me that I owed him two pounds and four shillings for the sufficiency of firewood, victuals, drink, and Doctor Troth’s ministrations and medicines during the last weeks. I promised to repay him upon the settlement of my father’s estate in the Ecclesiastical Courts, which would be four months hence.
    We went through my father’s effects—his feather bed, pewter plate, candle sticks, &c., which Roger considered were worth some thirty pounds. Together with ready money and the debts owed to him, I would inherit over fifty pounds. Roger was grateful that I had given my aunt Eliza the oaken chest and offered to remove its estimated value from the money I owed him, but I refused. I did not care about the above. I did not care about anything.
    I impassively thought of the multitudes of us predestined damned souls who, since before time began, wait upon God to be born unto this earth, only to live a while, then die and burn in eternal hellfire.
    A week thereafter, I bade farewell to my father’s former servants and returned with thirteen pounds to Cambridge to complete the Michaelmas term.
    I wept when I walked through Cambridge’s Trumpington Gate. The Head Porter of Emmanuel lowered his eyes from my pitted face. I wept when I stepped into Robin’s bare chamber—his father had preceded me—and again, when I saw the leafless walnut tree in the Quadrangle. I could not walk the streets wherein Robin and I had strolled without weeping. A soldier, bearing a pike upon his shoulder, stared at me upon the corner of the High Wand and Penny Farthing Lane.
    In the end, I gathered all my possessions and returned to the Hempstead. I told my uncle Roger that I had left Cambridge for good, and he said, “Play the man, Charles! Play the man! Resume your studies and become a Minister, as was our design.”
    â€œI cannot. If you will have me, I am here to stay until I come into my inheritance.”
    â€œYou may, but you have much disappointed me. Though, I confess, I am glad to save the forty-five pounds a year you were costing me at Cambridge to make something of yourself. Well, you may live here, as you will, for as long as you like. I will feed you from my own table and give you a feather bed to sleep in. All I ask in return is that you keep my accounts, like your father did. Will you do that for me?”
    â€œI am interested in earning money. And my father taught me well how to reckon your accounts. Pay me three pounds a year—and I will see to them for you.”
    He said, “I will pay you two. You are after all a novice, and a mistake on your part can cost me much.”
    â€œPay me two pounds, ten shillings.”
    â€œDone!” he said. “But I will not pay you in addition as my servant in husbandry. Will you serve me as a common servant of husbandry for no fee?”
    â€œI will not. You will pay me what you pay Jacob and Esau.”
    â€œCharles, my lad, we are