Part 10 (1/2)
”My surname is Hoxton. My father christened me Peter. Hereabouts, I am called Saturn.”
”The Roman G.o.d of time.”
”And of surly dispositions, Doctor.”
”I have inspected your shop, Mr. Hoxton, quite a bit more closely than I should have liked.”
”Yes, I was just inside the window, smoking my pipe, and observing you in return.”
”You have told me in your own words that you have gone bad. You operate under an alias that is a byword for foul temper. I think I know the nature of your business. Yet you ask me to believe that you are returning me my watch, without any...complications...and you expect me to approach within your reach...” Daniel here trailed off, keeping an eye on the watch, trying not to seem as interested in getting it back as he really was.
”You're one of those coves f'r whom everything has to make sense sense? Then you and I are fellow-sufferers.”
”You say that because you are a horologist?”
”Mechanic since I was a lad, clock-maker since I came to my senses,” said Saturn. ”The piece of information you are wanting, Doctor, is this: this here is an old Hooke balance-spring watch, this is. When the Master made it, why, it might've been the best time-piece ever fas.h.i.+oned by human hands. But now there's a score of proper horologists round Clerkenwell who can make ones that'll keep better time. Technology ages, dunnit?”
Daniel pursed his lips to keep from laughing at the spectacle of this new, five-guinea word, Technology, Technology, emerging from that head. emerging from that head.
”It ages faster'n we do. It can be difficult for a bloke to keep up.”
”Is that your story, Saturn? You could not keep up, and so you went bad?”
”I grew weary grew weary of keeping up, Doctor. of keeping up, Doctor. That That is my story, if you must know. I grew weary of is my story, if you must know. I grew weary of transitory transitory knowledge, and decided to seek knowledge of a more knowledge, and decided to seek knowledge of a more aeternal aeternal nature.” nature.”
”Do you claim to have found it?”
”No.”
”Good. I was afraid this was going to turn into a homily.”
Daniel now felt safe in advancing two more steps. Then a question occurred to him, and he stopped. ”How did you know my name?”
”It's inscribed on the back of the watch.”
”No, it's not.”
”Very clever,” said Saturn. Daniel could not tell which of them was the target of the sarcasm. Saturn continued, ”Very well, sir. A certain flash cull of my acquaintance, a file-cly with a specialization in tatlers, who had run afoul of a Harmon in Fleet Street, and been condemned to shove the tumbler from Newgate to Leadenhall, came by my ken of an afternoon, desiring employment of a sedentary nature while his stripes healed. And after taking sensible precautions, which is to say, making sure that he was not running a type of service-lay to slum my ken, I said to this buz, my business here has fallen on hard times because I cannot run it without transitory knowledge. And yet my brain has had its fill of the same, and all I wish to do is to sit in my shop reading books, to acquire knowledge aeternal, which benefits me in ways intangible, but in no way helps me to receive and sell stolen property of a horologickal nature, which is the raison d'etre raison d'etre of the shop. Therefore, go ye out into the Rumbo, the Spinning-Ken, to Old Na.s.s, go to the Boozing-kens of Hockley-in-the-Hole and the Cases at the low end of the Mount, go to the Goat in Long-lane, the Dogg in Fleet Street, and the Black-boy in Newtenhouse- of the shop. Therefore, go ye out into the Rumbo, the Spinning-Ken, to Old Na.s.s, go to the Boozing-kens of Hockley-in-the-Hole and the Cases at the low end of the Mount, go to the Goat in Long-lane, the Dogg in Fleet Street, and the Black-boy in Newtenhouse- Lane, and drink-but not too much-and buy drinks-but never too many-for any flash culls you spy there, and acquire transitory knowledge, and return to my ken and relate to me what you have learnt. And back he comes, a week later, and informs me that a certain old Gager has lately been making the rounds, trying to recover some lost property. 'What has he lost?' I inquired. 'Not a thing,' came the answer, 'he is after another cull's lost property-some gager who was Phinneyed ten years since.' 'Go and learn that dead cove's name,' says I, 'and the quick one's, too.' Come the answers: Robert Hooke, and Daniel Waterhouse, respectively. Why, he even pointed you out to me once, when you walked past my shop on your way to visit your swine-yard. That's how I knew you.”
Peter Hoxton now extended his arms. His left hand held the chain of the Hooke-watch, swinging it like a pendulum, and his right offered a handshake. Daniel accepted the watch greedily, and the handshake with reluctance.
”I have a question for you, Doctor,” said Saturn, as he was shaking Daniel's hand.
”Yes?”
”I've made a study of you, and know you are a bit of a Natural Philosopher. Been meaning to invite you into my ken.”
”Did you-sir, did you cause my watch to be stolen!?” Daniel demanded, trying to draw back; but Saturn's hand had engulfed his, like a python swallowing a gerbil.
”Did you-Doctor, did you fling yourself against my shop-window on purpose!?” Saturn answered, perfectly mocking Daniel's tone.
Daniel was too indignant to speak, which the other took as permission to go on: ”Now philosophy is the study of wisdom-truths aeternal. Yet, long ago you went over the sea, didn't you, to set up an Inst.i.tute of Technologickal Arts. And here you are back in London, aren't you, on some similar errand. Why, Doctor? You had the life I dream of: to sit on your a.r.s.e and read of truths aeternal. And yet I cannot make my way through a chapter of Plato without glancing up to see you sprawled against my shop-window like an enormous spate of bird-s.h.i.+te. Why turn away from the study of truths aeternal, to traffick in transitory knowledge?”
Somewhat to his own surprise, Daniel had a ready answer, which came out of his mouth before he had had time to consider it. ”Why does the minister tell mundane stories during his homily? Why not simply quote direct from sublime works of theology?”
”Anecdotes serve to ill.u.s.trate the ideas he's getting at,” Saturn surmised, ”and anyway, if those ideas have no relation to mundane things, why, they're probably rubbish.”
”Then if Newton and Leibniz are sublime theologians, sir, I am an humble vicar. Technology is a sort of religious practice to me, a way of getting at the aeternal by way of the mundane. Does that answer your question, and may I have my hand back?”
”Yes,” said Saturn. ”You have your watch, sir; you have your hand; and you have a paris.h.i.+oner.”
”But I do not want a paris.h.i.+oner,” said Daniel, turning on his heel and walking west into Liquor-pond Street.
”Then you ought to give up preaching, and those religious observances you just spoke of,” said Peter Hoxton, falling into step beside Daniel. ”You are a Cambridge man?”
”I am.”
”And is not the ancient purpose of Cambridge to turn out clerics, and send them out into England to minister to the unwashed?”
”You know that perfectly well! But I'll not minister to you or any other man, Peter Hoxton, for if ever I was a vicar, I am a fallen one now, and not fit to minister to a dog. I went astray early, and have strayed far. The only way I can think of to find my way closer to G.o.d is through the strange ministry I spoke of earlier, whereof Hooke and Spinoza were prophets. It is not a way I recommend to any man, for I am as 'stranged from the main line of religion as a stylite monk, sitting on a pillar in a waste.”
”I have strayed further and grown more 'stranged than you, Doc. I have been wandering in that same waste without any pillar to sit upon-therefore, you, perched on your post, are like a Pharos to me.”
”I say to you one more time-”
”There's that word again! Time. Let me speak of time, Doc, and say to you this: if you continue to walk through Hockley-in-the-Hole unaccompanied, and to wander about the city as you've been doing, your time may be measured in days, or hours. You are not leery enough. This fact has been made note of by certain coves who make unleery gagers their prey. Every foot-scamperer and bridle-cull on the upper Fleet p.r.i.c.ks up his ears when you trudge out to your swine-yard and disappear into your hole in the ground. Your time will be up very soon, and you will wind up as a scragg'd, naked corpse, floating down Fleet Ditch to Bridewell, if you do not make some large friends soon.”
”Are you nominating yourself my bodyguard, Saturn?”
”I am nominating myself your paris.h.i.+oner, Doc. As you lack a church, we shall have to wors.h.i.+p peripatetically, ambling about the streets, as now, and making Hockley-in-the-Hole our Agora. As I am half as old, and twice as big, as you, why, many an idle cove, who does not wot the true nature of our relations.h.i.+p, may ignorantly a.s.sume a.s.sume that I am your bodyguard, and, on account of that foolish misapprehension, refrain from stabbing you or bludgeoning you to death.” that I am your bodyguard, and, on account of that foolish misapprehension, refrain from stabbing you or bludgeoning you to death.”
They had reached Gray's Inn Lane. The lawyer-infested gardens and walks behind Gray's Inn lay to either side of the road here, and beyond them were the settled confines of various Squares: Red Lyon, Waterhouse, Bloomsbury. Roger's estate was on the far corner of Bloomsbury, where London gave way again to open countryside. Daniel did not want to lead Saturn directly to it. He stopped.
”I am dafter e'en than you guess, Saturn.”
”Why, impossible!”
”Have you heard of a pirate in America, called Edward Teach?”
”Blackbeard? Of course, sir, he is legendary.”
”I say that not so long ago, I heard Blackbeard standing on the p.o.o.p of Queen Anne's Revenge, Queen Anne's Revenge, calling for me by name.” calling for me by name.”
For the first time, Peter Hoxton was taken a-back.
”As you see, I am insane-best leave me alone,” Daniel said, and turned his back on Saturn yet again, looking for an opening in traffic on Gray's Inn Lane.
”Concerning Mr. Teach, I shall make inquiries among the Black-guard,” said Peter Hoxton.