On his long walk out of town, Daniel had plenty of time to work out that GRUBENDOL was an anagram for Oldenburg.
By this it appears how necessary it is for any man that aspires to true knowledge, to examine the definitions of former authors; and either to correct them, where they are negligently set down, or to make them himself. For the errors of definitions multiply themselves according as the reckoning proceeds, and lead men into absurdities, which at last they see, but cannot avoid, without reckoning anew from the beginning.
-HOBBES,Leviathan
JOHNCOMSTOCK’S SEATwas at Epsom, a short journey from London. It was large. That largeness came in handy during the Plague, because it enabled his Lordship to stable a few Fellows of the Royal Society (which would enhance his already tremendous prestige) without having to be very close to them (which would disturb his household, and place his domestic animals in extreme peril). All of this was obvious enough to Daniel as one of Comstock’s servants met him at the gate and steered him well clear of the manor house and across a sort of defensive buffer zone of gardens and pastures to a remote cottage with an oddly dingy and crowded look to it.
To one side lay a spacious bone-yard, chalky with skulls of dogs, cats, rats, pigs, and horses. To the other, a pond cluttered with the wrecks of model ships, curiously rigged. Above the well, some sort of pulley arrangement, and a rope extending from the pulley, across a pasture, to a half-assembled chariot. On the roof of the cottage, diverse small windmills of outlandish design-one of them mounted over the mouth of the cottage’s chimney and turned by the rising of its smoke. Every high tree-limb in the vicinity had been exploited as a support for pendulums, and the pendulum-strings had all gotten twisted round each other by winds, and merged into a tattered philosophickal cobweb. The green space in front was a mechanical phant’sy of wheels and gears, broken or never finished. There was a giant wheel, apparently built so that a man could roll across the countryside by climbing inside it and driving it forward with his feet.
Ladders had been leaned against any wall or tree with the least ability to push back. Halfway up one of the ladders was a stout, fair-haired man who was not far from the end of his natural life span-though he apparently did not entertain any ambitions of actually reaching it. He was climbing the ladder one-handed in hard-soled leather shoes that were perfectly frictionless on the rungs, and as he swayed back and forth, planting one foot and then the next, the ladder’s feet, down below him, tiptoed backwards. Daniel rushed over and braced the ladder, then forced himself to look upwards at the shuddering battle-gammoned form of the Rev. Wilkins. The Rev. was carrying, in his free hand, some sort of winged object.
And speaking of winged objects, Daniel now felt himself being tickled, and glanced down to find half a dozen honeybees had alighted on each one of his hands. As Daniel watched in empirical horror, one of them drove its stinger into the fleshy place between his thumb and index finger. He bit his lip and looked up to see whether letting go the ladder would lead to the immediate death of Wilkins. The answer: yes. Bees were now swarming all round-nuzzling the fringes of Daniel’s hair, playing crack-the-whip through the ladder’s rungs, and orbiting round Wilkins’s body in a humming cloud.
Reaching the highest possible altitude-flagrantly tempting the LORD to strike him dead-Wilkins released the toy in his hand. Whirring and clicking noises indicated that some sort of spring-driven clockwork had gone into action-there was fluttering, and skidding through the air-some sort of interaction with the atmosphere, anyway, that went beyond mere falling-but fall it did, veering into the cottage’s stone wall and spraying parts over the yard.
“Never going to fly to the moon that way,” Wilkins grumbled.
“I thought you wanted to be shot out of a cannon to the Moon.”
Wilkins whacked himself on the stomach. “As you can see, I have far too much vis inertiae to be shot out of anything to anywhere. Before I come down there, are you feeling well, young man? No sweats, chills, swellings?”
“I anticipated your curiosity on that subject, Dr. Wilkins, and so the frogs and I lodged at an inn in Epsom for two nights. I have never felt healthier.”
“Splendid! Mr. Hooke has denuded the countryside of small animals-if you hadn’t brought him anything, he’d have cut you up.” Wilkins was coming down the ladder, the sureness of each footfall very much in doubt, massy buttocks approaching Daniel as a spectre of doom. Finally on terra firma, he waved a hundred bees off with an intrepid sweep of the arm. They wiped bees away from their palms, then exchanged a long, warm handshake. The bees were collectively losing interest and seeping away in the direction of a large glinting glass box. “It is Wren’s design, come and see!” Wilkins said, bumbling after them.
The glass structure was a model of a building, complete with a blown dome, and pillars carved of crystal. It was of a Gothickal design, and had the general look of some Government office in London, or a University college. The doors and windows were open to let bees fly in and out. They had built a hive inside-a cathedral of honeycombs.
“With all respect to Mr. Wren, I see a clash of architectural styles here-”
“What! Where?” Wilkins exclaimed, searching the roofline for aesthetic contaminants. “I shall cane the boy!”
“It’s not the builder, but the tenants who’re responsible. All those little waxy hexagons-doesn’t fit with Mr. Wren’s scheme, does it?”
“Which style do you prefer?” Wilkins asked, wickedly.
“Err-”
“Before you answer, know that Mr. Hooke approaches,” the Rev. whispered, glancing sidelong. Daniel looked over toward the house to see Hooke coming their way, bent and gray and transparent, like one of those curious figments that occasionally floats across one’s eyeball.
“Is he all right?” Daniel asked.
“The usual bouts of melancholy-a certain peevishness over the scarcity of adventuresome females-”
“I meant is he sick.”
Hooke had stopped near Daniel’s luggage, attracted by the croaking of frogs. He stepped in and seized the basket.
“Oh, he ever looks as if he’s been bleeding to death for several hours-fear for the frogs, not for Hooke!” Wilkins said. He had a perpetual knowing, amused look that enabled him to get away with saying almost anything. This, combined with the occasional tactical master-stroke (e.g., marrying Cromwell’s sister during the Interregnum), probably accounted for his ability to ride out civil wars and revolutions as if they were mere theatrical performances. He bent down in front of the glass apiary, pantomiming a bad back; reached underneath; and, after some dramatic rummaging, drew out a glass jar with an inch or so of cloudy brown honey in the bottom. “Mr. Wren provided sewerage, as you can see,” he said, giving the jar to Daniel. It was blood-warm. The Rev. now headed in the direction of the house, and Daniel followed.
“You say you quarantined yourself at Epsom town-you must have paid for lodgings there-that means you have pocket-money. Drake must’ve given it you. What on earth did you tell him you were coming here to do? I need to know,” Wilkins added apologetically, “only so that I can write him the occasional letter claiming that you are doing it.”
“Keeping abreast of the very latest, from the Continent or whatever. I’m to provide him with advance warning of any events that are plainly part of the Apocalypse.”
Wilkins stroked an invisible beard and nodded profoundly, standing back so that Daniel could dart forward and haul open the cottage door. They went into the front room, where a fire was decaying in a vast hearth. Two or three rooms away, Hooke was crucifying a frog on a plank, occasionally swearing as he struck his thumb. “Perhaps you can help me with my book…”