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Man in North Bank
XWord
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p32
It came to pass like this: stopping with my retinue in the
sheepshiten and stinking village of Stoke Newington, a daye’s ride from Westminster,
I chanced upon a Traveller resting in the Inn. This man, his hair sans wig and long in the
manner of sailors, his face burnt almost black from the Sunne and eyes most strangely
pink, did with much ceremonie entreat me to grant him an audience. Being
of
curious mind and surfeited with windie meats yet not yet ready for sleepe, I did suffer
him to come forward though did ensure that trustie MacWilliam was standing close with his
claymore.
‘My liege,’ said the Traveller, ‘it behooves us as men of Reason to put to
probation that which we would condemn as foolish affectation of noveltie before the court
of our owne discreet judgement. Therefore, I beseech you, try this,’ - and here he
drew a pipe from his cloake – ‘for it hath a wondrous facultie against the
cholicke and the suffumigation of it is most pleasing to the mind. It is nothing but
Tobacco, that most loathsome weed I do grant, and the resin of another plant that I have
carried with me from my many voyages in the East. Upon my soul I swear that no harm will
fall to your royal person. Yon fearsome Scot may take my head as forfeit if I tell you
false.’
Now as to the corrupted baseness of the barbarous custome of Tobacco no sane person
springing from no matter how low a ground can dispute. Divers Aphorisms in the
Physickes may attest that the braines of men are moyst and cool so that all things dry and
hote should be good for them, yet of this argument the beste that can be said is that both
the proposition and the logicke are false. Men, being compounded of the foure complexions,
must be inclined, according to their many Natures, some to one complexion and some to
another, and never to a preponderance of just One. All, from their discords and
diversities, must needs make a perfect harmonie for the maintenance of the whole.
Yet what greater Absurditee can there be to say that a thing of contrary virtue, the
venomous Tobacco that hath always hurtful consequence to the bodie, might yet be rendered
good by smoakie vapours from an exoticke plant from the empires of the East?
For this to be grounded upon at least a shew of reason, I warrant that the poison of the
filthy smoak in Tobacco, like some Faction fought to standstill by another of equal
puissance, be somehow checked and that the two plants working together hath not the double
power to kill and maim, but by some subtletee do purge the head and stomacke of rhewmes
and thus voyd their harm.
So offering his head as guarantee, the Traveller set a flame from the candle to the bowl
of the pipe and courteously did pass it to me. Of all the senses, the nose is the proper
organ and convoy of a sense of corruption to the braine and smell the infallible witness
to the devil’s work, so I did inhale deeply of the odour from the pipe. Yet to my
surprise the exhalations caused no distemper. In truth, there was a remembrance of spice
and some distillation that I had not meet before. So emboldened, I sucked upon the pipe
and drew the vapours well into my lungs, and finding no malice in it, did so again. Then I
returned the pipe to the Traveller who did suck mightily upon it, before with much
deference entreating me to try further on the grounds, said he, that it took a little
while for the efficacious Vital Essence of the smoak to work its magick.
So an evening passed, and the pipe was replenished many times from a pouch that the
Traveller kept within the folds of his strange Apparell. Happy Felicitee had bought into
my company a man of rare learning. On many things he was as sound and wise as any of the
great Masters of Mathematicks in our universities, and even on those subjects over which
his minde was not sovereign he could speke with wit. Our discourse was ocean-wide and
greatly full of conceits and jestes whereby we each did exhort our fantasie ever to outdo
the other. When the Traveller did name the insolent Puritans as the Impossible Sons of
Onan, I did laugh until hote teares did roll down my face though, in faith, I know not now
why it did seeme so funny.
In the morning I found that the Traveller had risen like some Apparition before dawn and
departed. In verito I was sorrie for he was a man of spirit and I had taken a good liking
to him, and as the Great Affairs of State did weigh more heavily upon me with every yarde
we did ride nearer to Westminster, I pondered why God had sent him. If every king and
emperor could only sit in an Inn and smoak that pipe, I thought, then warres would soon
pass into antic history. That was surely His purpose. My minde was clere: I must make
peace with the Spaniard. The escort assembled, and MacWilliam woken from his brutish
slumbers, we hastened on into London...
Nick Webb is author of Wish You Were Here: The Authorised Biography of Douglas
Adams published by Headline in October. He lives in Stoke Newington.