Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction Read Online Free PDF Page A

Boston.
    He changed into a clean Holland shirt and neck cloth and put on his coat. He looked in the small glass he carried and retied his hair. It was a matter of pride to him that he wore his own abundant brown hair. And why should he—a young man of accomplishment—not be allowed a minor eccentricity? Moreover, he had learned gradually that top people seem to appreciate a plainness of presentation in clothing and hair, a simple elegance unlike their own operatic display. And then, too, they preferred a degree of cultivation. In short, a modest personal presentability seemed to earn their trust, assure their own sense of position, and smooth their delicacies of taste as to the acceptability of associates beneath them. He was, after all, to be entering their homes and spending hours in their company.
    Once upon the street he entered the first respectable-looking tavern he came to. He took a seat and began to feel pleased with himself again. Cod and potatoes, and plenty of cider. He would have to advertise, he was thinking. And he would send the Brownes his card with his new address written in, as he had promised. If he could find work within the week, or at most a fortnight, he could stay on. He might well continue the good fortune that had brought him here. And why not?
    The afternoon crowd was arriving in small groups; from his corner seat he enjoyed watching and speculating about these people in his newfound home. He was already beginning to think of Portsmouth that way. A good sign, he told himself. He finished his dinner, paid his bill, and went back out into the street bathed in afternoon sunshine. He decided to explore a bit. He would start with the port itself, the wharves and docks—the source of all this wealth. He would see just how it was being done here.
    Walking along the water on busy Dock Lane he crossed the swing bridge over the mill creek, noted well the gravid ships at anchor and others upon stocks, met the road from town entering Pickering’s Neck, and returned north on that highway past the pound and gallows toward the Parade and market. When he reached the main highway, Graffort’s Lane, he followed it back to the waterfront. He thereby discovered that the town’s four main streets met in a perfect cross. And that the town itself, situated on a rise of ground overlooking the great tidal river and harbor, afforded a prospect of the surrounding country on all sides. Radiating from these main roads of about thirty feet in width were many irregular and crooked byways, perhaps ten feet wide, with dwellings and with vacant lots used as gardens. He found shops and taverns and many large houses, well sashed and glazed, often of three stories—comforting signs of the wealth he hoped would support him. He had passed two independent meetinghouses and, finally, upon heading north along the waterfront, the Established Church. All these were built of wood and well spired, which spires he recalled observing as he had approached from the sea.
    Within an hour he found himself in a tavern again, but this one in a more shabby side street of slop shops and tippling houses. It was filled with seamen, common laborers, and, he suspected, jump-ship sailors and troopers—and even a servant or apprentice enjoying his illegal grog. But he had always been able to travel in all company, so the clientele didn’t trouble him. He took a seat at a table where a mild-looking older man nursed his mug of toddy, his dinner dish pushed aside. A pretty yet unkempt serving woman asked whether Sanborn would like dinner, but he asked only for a pitcher of flip, indicating he wished to share it with his table mate. She removed the man’s empty dishes.
    The man nodded to him when she left.
    â€œGood-day to you, sir,” Sanborn said. He smiled. “And a fine day it truly is,” he added. The man nodded again in agreement.
    They looked about the establishment for a moment without further exchange, as