Table Of ContentSWEAR BY APOLLO
BY
SHIRLEY BARKER
R,l N D O M 1-1 0 U S E
(I) (‘opyr,glit, TgsS7, by Silirlev Barker AII riglZts reserved under
Inter7Zatio7Znl a7?d Pan-~177!e7-ican (copyright (‘onventions. I’ul7lislzed in
Mew York I7y T~ando7n Tl07rse, Inc., and sirnulta77eo~fsly in Toronto,
(Canada, by Random House of C’anada, Limited. MANUFACTUlihD IN THE
tlNITED STAThS OF A~lElilCA Fur El iota S I IANNON IlOWLES Froin her
“second daughter! C O N T E N T S
I Past and Prologue 3 II A Kiss and a Drink of Water T6 III A Handsome B?~cko
24 IV A Good Evening 36 v A Man’s Errand 49 Vl Ugly Goes to the Bonc 60
Vll A Matter for Women 70 VIII It Was Not 1 84 IX MacNeill of Barra 95 x The
Darker Mystery I08 XI No Law of Nature 12I XII Two and the l ire I30 Xlll No
Death in Scotland I39 XIV What’s between Taischers 149 xv If Ye Wait at the
Ferrv I58 XVI A Fair-haired Man to a Darkhaired W01~ZailI63 XVII Brittle
Bail I 76 XVIII The Strcmge Ways of (god I 89 XIX By Health and All-hea1 I99
xx A Bitter Bad Judge o’ lt01~len 2I2 XXI War, Red War 220 XXII When tire
Pot Boils 229 XXIII This I Learned in Scotland 237
I sw7~ar2 b7:y ApoLlo, the ph)siciatz, and AesculapiZ’s, anc Health, am?? Illl-
heal, and all thc gods an/l goddesses, that, ac cording to 1ny a17i!ity a ?vZ
jz/ag1r/cnt’ I ZVi1i keep this Oath and t1zis
stipalatiort.
I will,follow tl7at systerr7 of r~‘girilc?l whicil, accordi1?g to 7ny a77ility ar2d
jud,~1nent, I consiacr for the l7enefit of 1ny patie1?ts, and al7stain from
u7h.atever is deleterioZ’s anl7 1nisc77ievo~rs. I frill give no deadly medicine to
a11y o17e if a iked, nor s’ggest any such cou?tsel…. With pZ~rity and with
holiness 7 uill pass rny life arzd practice Vly Art….
Into whatel7er houses I enter, 1 will g 7 into the?rz tor the l7enefit of the sicle,
and uill a7i7stai?? fro!/? every vo1fir1tary act ot 1t1ischief and corruption; ar?d.
fZ’rthe1, f70r1t tl?c sedZ`ctio11 of fe1nates…. While I continZi:e to 1~cep tllis
O`-~tl~l ?~/?vi›:;latcl, n~ay it 77e granted to 1ne to e/:ljoy life a1?d tile practi’ e
of the art, respected 77y all 1r?en, in all ti1nes! l~ut stlofild I trespass an~i7
viahrtc this oat7?’ 1nay t1’e reverse 77e Mty lot!
‘; W E A R B Y A P O L L O
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s ‘ I A conpCSice of se7’e,2al He?bzi2~‘an . f l islant‘5_:e~ a fypical oneI
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Na~nes cl,2e ,yiven witJ~ (laelic mea,~in,qs (.albun~ was fon sheep
Lon~owan/culfil~ffe2~ Lan?>
A~bmoR~fo-~caffle.Bal5/~hinn,~evilia~e
Past and PnoLo,~ae
THE LAST green afternoon of his boyhood, Randall Woodbury went out with
his gun and his dog to walk the bounds of his father’s land, just where the salt
marsh meets the alder swamp below Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. A man
aged twenty-one and two years married would have little claim to being a boy if
he had to prove the case in court, Randall was thinking, and yet, what else had
he been so far? For he was still a son in his father’s house and not uncontent to
be so, working with his father to give pills and purges and set broken bones,
hoping in time to know as much about the profession of medicine as his father
knew. Not even when he married Sally Anne Ingle, a neighbor’s daughter, had
he set up for himself. Instead he brought his wife home to the great square house
his grandfather had built, and his mother and sisters made her welcome there,
and it had been big enough for all of them.
But as he strode through the sedge and juniper, close followed by Rocky, the
ancient black and white hound, named for her habit of chewing small stones in a
long forgotten puppyhood, he knew that he was his own man and would always
be so after today. September I, 1773, it was, his life’s dividing line, and he
vowed that he would always mark the return of it. For they were certain now. All
through August they had wondered, and this morning they had agreed that it
must be so, he from a doctor’s knowledge, and she from a woman’s. Sally Anne
would bear him a child in the spring. That meant that his place in the generations
was changing now; that some day he would have to show a younger lad the
blazed trees that marked these outlying wood lots, just as his father had shown
them to him, not too many years ago. A man must know his property lines, just
as he knows his name or what town he was born in, and perhaps the best thing he
can do is to hold these lines intact, or widen them if he can, and keep the old
knowledge of them alive always, from father to son.
It was this thought. too close to his heart for him to put into words,
4 S W Lo A ret 13 Y A P O L L O
even to Sally Annc, that had drawn him out in the hot sunshine of the late
summer aftc~rnooll so that he could be alone and exult in his new knowledge
and think thereon. A waste optima, probably, so for his C011science’s sake he
wotlld Ice a sharp lookout to see that nobody had been chopping his trees down,
and maybe drum up a partridge or two to bring home, as yesterday he had gone
fishing in Blackwater Brook and so tonight they would have frill d eels for
supper.
He wandered loll”, and it must have been near five o’clock, he judged, by the
way the shadows fell, when he reached the dead ash tree at the corner of Ben
Tilton’s land, turned sharp left, and headed out of the woods, uphill, across the
pasture. But he was not ready to go home vet, for all the thinking he had done.
And what thinking had he done? Why none at all, really. He threw himself down
on the deep green moss under the spread of a blue-green cedar tree shaped like a
candle flame, enjoying the good feel of the grouml, the warmth of the mild air.
Rocky settled down beside him, making a low sound of companionship in her
throat that was neither wheeze, nor bark, nor whimper something like a cat’s
purr, only that it did not repeat itself. He reached out and felt between the ears
for the curve of the neat black head. Off to the left a cricket chirped at the roots
of a mnllein stalk, and small busy wings whirred in the tangle of goldenrod and
blackberry vines above him on the hill. He lay there and smiled happily tip at the
blue sky growing just a littl
shadowy with the lateness of the day, and he was pleased with himself as never
so.
Ever since their wedding he had expected to have a child with Sally Anne, had
even been a little surprised that it had not happened the first year. There had been
no lack of love between them all those winter nights in the great fourpostl r bed
in the east chamber, nor in the summer nights either. She had always responded
to him, close and eager and warm. And it was she who had begun their first
courting. He himself had been riding over after the Portsmouth girls: Mary
Sheafe, and Beth Brackett and half a dozen more. I-le had not thought so soon to
settle on one. But Sally Anne had settled on him, and she was close by, and
laughing and winsome, a somewhat spoiled only daughter. With him as with
everything else, she had h;ld her way. I-Ie wasn’t really sure he would have
chosen Sally Anne, but she had chosen him, and it had turned out well enough
especially now and he could not complain.‘He had not thought for a long time of
Mary Sheafe and Beth Brackett and the rest.
Bells rangr, in the white steeple a dozen fields away, and he did not count them.
Rolling over, he turned his head to the west where the sun still rode high, and
yet, he could almost see it move, like a wagon going down a hill. He sat tip and
reached for his gun. Never a bird or a squirrel
I’astand Prologue 5
to carry home with him! TilC twirls would mock and call him “Nimrod, the
Mighty llunter,” he supposed. Never mind. He had a word that would keep them
stir] tonight. For tonight he and Sally Anne would tell the family how they were
going to be lucky at last. “How would you like to be ‘Aunt Betty’ and ‘Aunt
Sue?”’ he would ask his sisters. And then they would walk over to tell Sally
Anne’s mother and come home together in the starlight and the warm dark.
He sprang to his feet, ran a hand backward through his blond hair neatly
clubbed above the collar of his rough woolen shirt, and whistled to Rocky,
though she was already astir, only waiting to learn their direction. John
Woodbury, he thought Dr. John Woodbury. And his son, Dr. Randall Woodbury.
And his son another Randall? Another John? Oh, the child might well enough be
a girl, he knew. Unaccountably, they often were. He had seen it happen to other
men, and it could happen to him. But at least he knew his wife was not barren
now, and if this was a daughter, there would be a son later on. He had much to
hope for from ‘Sally Anne.
He started up the rough slope of the cleared land with the tops of the orchard
trees lifting green beyond it, then turned again for one last look at the swamp and
woodland, already a fiery leaf of autumn showing here and there. In the
foreground stood the cedar tree he had rested under. Maybe he would cut down
that cedar tree, he thought, and drag it home, and hew and shape it in the long
evenings when there were apples and chestnuts roasting, and corn parching, and
snow Iying white on all the field, outside; hew and shape it into a cradle for his
son. Cradles of pine and oak and hickory he had seen, but never a cedar cradle.
And yet, cedar was the wood women always chose for the chests they kept their
treasures in. Yes, he would come back and cut down that cedar tree.
When he came round the corner of the barn, his father was washing his hands
and face in a bucket by the well. He had taken off the fullskirted coat of the
claret suit that he always wore for his afternoon visits and flung it own the grass,
and Randall noticed sweat and dust stains on his white ruffled shirt. Dr. John was
a tall man like his son, but leaner, with the same wheat-sheaf-colored hair and
steady grey eyes. They looked very like. He had taken off his Boston wig, too,
and laid it carefully on his coat. He was rubbing soft soap on his hands and
scouring them with a rough bit of sandstone. He grinned and nodded at the
younger man.
“Not a goocL afternoon for Latin, I take it,” he said, eyeing the flintlock and
the deerskin Indian shoes on Randall’s feet, shoes that vrere no good at all save
to prowl the woodlands in.
6 SW ~ An BY AP OL LO
Randall grinned back. ‘1 would say it vitas a damned bad afternoon lor Latin,
sir,” }1C answered. “I never read a word of it.”
His father’s grin faded. “Well, if you have not the taste but you will need it if
you go–as we hoped as we always talked of to the medical school in
Philadelphia or t!le new one in New York. To Edinburgh even. I’ve been selfish
to keep you here with me this long. But it’s about time. You’re not getting any
younger. None of us are.”
Randall looked down anti kicked a large pebble, glad that it was there for the
diversion.
“I can’t go to school now, sir. I got Sally Anne. Where I go I have to talkie her
too. You want to pay for all that?”
I Ie lifted his head, and the two men looked straight into each other’s eyes.
“Yes,” said Dr. John, his jaw thrust slightly upward, “I’m willing tO pay for
all that. I want you to go, since I never went myself. You’re a good doctor. I
taught you all I know. But you can learn more, lad.”
In his mind Randall say himself and Sally Anne walking down the streets of a
strange city, l~iggcr shall Boston, with tall houses on both sides of the street. In
his mind Sally Anne svas carrying the baby on her back, like a squaw with a
papoose which of course she would never do. I Ie thought of the fields sloping
down to the salt marsh and Ben Tilton’s pine lot. This was Woodburyst lantl and
had been, ever since they came tip here from Massacllusctts in his grandfather’s
time. This was where they belonged, not in Ncw York or Philadelphia. But then,
his father did not know what he and Sally Anne knew. If he had gone when he
was younger shell he had wanted to go. I\laybe he would want to go still, if it
hadn’t been for this other thing. Sometimes when he and his father looked at
each other across a deathbed in the night, knowing that their skill and
km~wletlge had not been enough, that another loved and valuable tile was
slipping out and there was nothing they could do to save it, he had wondered
with more hope than bitterness if there were not some other, newer pram tices of
medicine known to more skillful men. He had thought there must be such, and
that he would go out into the world and learn about thl m. But he had not gone.
He had stayed here, following his father in the old ways. He had married Sally
Anne.
He heard his father saying, “Well, think about it, son.”
I le mumbled an answer, filled a small stone trough with drinking watcr for
Rocky, and hurriedly washed himself. Dr. John had put on his claret coat and
tucked his wig under his arm. Together they walked toward the house, but the
ol,ler man stopped just by the bed of tall, swaying golden glo~vv.
i’Oh, Randall, I was talking to Nehcmiall C:~,ram?‘he said.
Past and Prologue 7
“That so?” asked Rantiall indifferently. “How was Nehemiah? I hear he’s bought
a new chaise to travel in, now he’s a Selectman.”
Through the open kitchen windows came the murmur of women’s voices and the
smell of eels frying.
“He was afoot when I saw him,” said Dr. John, “just this side of the new meeting
house. He’d been to Portsmouth.”
Randall looked up quickly. “I le bring home any tea with him?” he asked.
“Tea? Nehemiah? Why, he wouldn’t buy tea no more’n we w ould ourselves. He
says some is on sale though.”
“That was what I wondered about. Was it smuggled or East India?”
“Not East India! The company can sell it cheaper since the new act, but we’d
rather pay more money and be free to trade where we please. Fact, it costs less
here than in London, but we don’t like to be told we’ve got to buy from them
and no’ from our own.”
Randall knew all this, of course, and his father knew that he knew. But the older
man was proud of these sentiments and liked to voice them over.
“How did Nehemiah feel about it?” asked the son.
Dr. John smiled. “He was so upset he wanted me to bleed him. Said he felt an
apoplexy coming on”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“No. I don’t know why. IJe was that red in the face he looked as though it would
be a real kindness to him.”
“I know why.” Randall smiled and slapped his father between the shoulders. “It’s
a midwife’s tale never bleed on September Ist but I’ve watched you six years,
and never known you to do it.”
His father looked thoughtful. “Truth, I don’t,” he said slowly. “As you say, it’s
only an old tale, but there may have been wisdom in it when it was made.
There’s wisdom sometimes in more places than a man is likely to go looking for
it. No, I didn’t bleed Nehemiah, and I couldn’t find it in my heart to complain
against the King the way he did. We’re a large family, we folk: with English
blood in us, and in large families there be always some quarreling. This Tea Act
is a family quarrel only that. Besides, as I told Nehemiah, I have enough to do to
earn my bread without trying to mind the King’s business for him, and
sometimes I think the way I earn mine is a damn discouraging one.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
They stood on the stone doorstep now. The door was open and he could see the
women moving about the table. His young sisters had mugs and tankards, Sally
Anne a w illow basket of roasting ears, his mother a large pewter tray.
8 SWEAR BY APOLLO
“You knew the throat-ail was about?”
Randall nodded. “Of course. I told you last night the Philbrick children had it.,
and you said you’d stop by there today. Did you?”
“Yes. The littlest one is gone.”
“That quick? I thought she seemed bad, but her mother said she only sickened
yesterday.”
“It’s quick with the young. I hope we can save the others. I haven’t seen it so bad
since ‘64. But the worst time was when I was a boy. Come out of Kingston,
some saicl, from a sick hog that was butchered up there. Twenty families lost all
their children Joe Batchelder buried twelve or thirteen. Mrs. B. couldn’t.
remember afterward just how many she did have, but they all went. f\Iust have
addled her wits temporarily. You were two when you had it, and I swear your
mother divas so scared she was sicker than you were. I only hope “
“John,” said his wife bt hind him, “will you stop tallying and come in and eat
your victuals!’
Randall reached out awl cuffed his mother lightly on the cheek as he passed her.
Martha Woodl~ury, at forty-four, had soft silver hair brushed back from a girl’s
smooth l ace, and her decent wool dress covered a girl’s slim figure. He guessed
tile had been good to his mother all her days so far, and he was glad of il. He
strode on, scarcely noticing his sisters sunburned, dimpled, roly-poly as puppies
and pulled out a chair beside Sally Anne, who had just sat down. Her face
looked rosy, he thought, but her brawn eyes were dull and lifeless. He held her
hand under the tablecloth while his father said grace. Then everyone began
talking and passing food.
“What did you do all afternoon?” he asked. “You look like it tired you.”
Sally Anne laughed nervously. “It did, a little. We were plucking geese. I
swallowed more leathers than I got in my bag, and they beat their wings and
raised so much dust, I’m still half choked with it.”
“Are we going to tell them tonight? What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to eat
anything?”
“You want milk or cider?” asked Betty at his elbow. “You want milk or cider,
Sally Anne?”
“(hider,” said Randall promptly, and held his mug while Betty filled it and Susan
poured milk for his wife. The food was hot and good, and he savored every
mouthful of it before he let it melt away.
“Randall,” said his mother, filling his plate for the third time, “a body’d think
you were eating for wages. Sally Anne, you’re not drinking your milk! You
haven’t taken a morsel of food either!”
Sally Anne played Fitly her napkin, creasing and uncreasing it.
Past and Prologue 9
“I’m still choking on those goose feathers,” she complained, clearing her throat
huskily.
“Oh, is that it! Well, I don t wonder. Take a swallow of Randall’s cider, and that
will clear your pipes out. Won’t it, John? Geese never like to be plucked I’m sure
I shouldn’t if I were a goose but I never saw a flock more contrary. It took the
four of us all afternoon. How were all the sick folks, John? The tin peddler came
by right after dinner, and he says everybody’s got the flux in Salisbury.”
Randall missed his father’s reply, for he was watching Sally Anne. She did not
seem able to swallow her milk. He smiled, thinking he knew the reason and that
it was a good one. He looked over her head, past the black, old fireplace hung
with drying herbs and ironware, to the western window sills where the setting
sun shone through the thick crimson jars of blackberry jam placed there in a
careful row. His father was talking about the flux in Salisbury. The girls were
teasing each other about the bound boy on the next farm.
“I don’t think, Randall we’d best tell them tonight,” faltered Sally Anne.
“Why not?”
The words leaped out before he had time to check them. Under the tablecloth he
