The guests sat down at a table of warm cherry wood, which worked on a scheme of folding and expanding sections that, when let out to its full length, was big enough to accommodate all the guests comfortably. The table was expanded that evening the entire length of the room and laid with hot dishes of venison, beef roast, ham, turkey, duck, partridge, potatoes, yams, green peas, and warm bread. For dessert there was pudding, apple pie, and cobbler.
Afterward the cider and wine continued to flow at the table, with everyone drinking and enjoying themselves tremendously. Tea and coffee were served at the end, after they sang in that most comfortable hall to Merian’s health and grand hospitality.
When everyone had satisfied himself with food and drink, and they had cheered their host sufficient enough for a king, they began to bestow gifts upon Merian to commemorate this day of joy and feasting, for he had been on the land then some twenty-odd years, and could say he was a man in old age. The exact number he knew not, but that it was around fifty. Stonehouses was known by then across the county, and his years and prosperity there had surpassed even his own expectations. True, he was frustrated in the desire to keep expanding his lands, but he had done well, bringing wealth enough to his house, and counted his time now in blocks and cycles of years instead of a single calendar turn. He was happy with what he had wrought and been blessed with.
His only living sorrow was in his son Purchase, who went steadily in his own direction, and that never closer to Stonehouses and the hearth but farther away.
First Content and Dorthea presented him with a cask of the best brandy sold in the colonies, and Merian was much pleased. Then there came a French hunting pistol from the chandler, who over the years he had grown, if not fond of, at least able to bear on friendly terms. “It’ll not backfire on me, will it, Pete?” he asked, to gales of laughter from all present who had ever had dealings with the man. He was then given a hat by Sanne, that was very dear, and he was a man at ease and good comfort.
When he thought he had received all his presents, he smiled and lifted his glass to the assembly. He did not begrudge his son not giving him anything, as such notions are not held in spite among members of the same family. No he was not sorrowed.
Purchase, however, came forth then with his present and placed it before Merian, who smiled with abundance and gratitude even before opening it.
When everyone saw the size of the package from Purchase, they all pressed near to watch as Merian undid the wrapping. After the cloth flew away the entire room held its breath as they looked on the scabbard, for it was beautiful in itself. Merian closed his hand around the sword’s hilt and drew it forth. Purchase himself was apprehensive, remembering that no man in the workshop could lift it, but Merian pulled it forth quite handsomely, as if he had been handling swords his entire life.
Everyone in the room looked at the metal when it came forth among them, and the wondrous flash that danced in the light, and each of them let out the breaths they had been holding, as if pining for something or someone. Jasper himself looked at it and saw his entire history written on the blade: first were two people he could not make out fully but knew instinctively to be his mother and father. He saw next the Sorels, and he saw Ruth, and he saw Ware, called Magnus, though both of them were, to his mind, abstractions. Even Ruth was not as he would have her be but much receded from his mind’s eye — so that he saw very little of her when he tried to look there, though he did try sometimes. On the sword she was bright and perfect, and he began thinking again of those lines that had nearly tied him down all those years ago on the road out from Virginia.
He saw the gods of a strange people, as well as the same Adam and Eve that Purchase had viewed. There was so much there that, as he read it all, he allowed himself a rare moment and wept, bedazzled both by the sword and that his son had thought so lovingly of him.
His chiefest pride was in knowing that Purchase had made it, for everyone could see it was of a craftsmanship hardly seen, either in the colonies or, said one present who had been there, in Europe. For the sword itself, he was a farmer and sometime carpenter and housewright, with no pretensions to anything else in the world, besides that he was lord of Stonehouses. He was a man of peace with no need of the blade. Nonetheless, this one did take on a place of utmost honor in his home, and he embraced Purchase again. For he was so happy his son could do such things and that it might mean he intended to do all right as a man in general.
All the men present then tried one by one to lift the sword and found they could but only stare at it, resting there on Merian’s table. This was well and good, for if anyone could have moved that magnificent gift, even the most honest among them would not have hesitated to steal it.
Sanne kissed Purchase for doing so grand a thing for his father, and she too beamed with pride at her son’s ability to turn rock into something so wondrous with nothing but his skill and the furnace.
After the gifts had been bestowed, they drank another toast as night grew real, and it was soon time for the guests to depart. When their friends had bidden good-bye and were safely on the road again, only the three Merians and Adelia were left in the house. There was then a knock at the door. As Adelia was in the kitchen, Purchase went to answer, to see whether it was one of the guests returning for some forgotten trifle, a latecomer, or one come for another reason entirely.
When he opened the door he saw there a very tall man who seemed vaguely familiar — for he had seen him in the sword — although he had never met him before in life.
”I’m looking for Jasper Merian,” the man said, holding his road-beaten hat down over his hands.
“Who should I tell him is calling?” Purchase asked, wondering that one who looked as lowly as the fellow at their door should have come to the front and not gone around to the rear of the house. “What is thy name?”
“Tell him it is someone from Sorel’s Hundred.”
Purchase nodded and went back inside to his father.
“There is someone at the door who says he’s from somewhere called Sorel’s Hundred and claims to have business with you,” Purchase announced to his father, after reentering the dining hall. “Didn’t seem to mind that it’s well past normal visiting time.”
Merian excused himself and stood to go to the door, as his wife and son milled there waiting to see who this late arrival could be. When Merian returned, he held the other man with great affection and introduced him to the two in the room. “I’d like both of you to meet someone very dear to me, who I have not seen in a great many years,” the old man said, presenting the stranger to his family. “His name is Ware, though he is also called Magnus, and he is my son. You can see that, because he is punctual.
“Purchase,” he said, leading Ware over, “this is your brother, even if you never knew you had one.”
This was not entirely true. Sanne had told him on a couple of occasions, late at night when the two happened to meet up in the kitchen or else were otherwise awake when the rest of the house was quiet, that his father had whole secret lives she knew but little of, and one of them included another wife and child. This, though, was first proof to Purchase of his father’s life before them. Still, he went to Magnus and embraced him as bidden, and the affection between them was very natural.
Ware, called Magnus, stood there in the center of the great room and received his brother’s embrace. He would have returned it but could not hug him back, because his hands they were still shackled.