From within the region of illusion that he knew to be illusion, Reuben grew aware, and more comfortably, that old Jesse Plum was still rambling on, and singing.
"Brave Benbow lost his legs, by chain-shot, by chain-shot...."
Reuben no longer resented the croaking sound as a hateful intrusion. The old man meant no harm, and was drunk. Ben had refused to abandon him, and Ben always knew best.
"Says Kirby unto Wade: 'We will run, we will run.'
Says Kirby unto Wade: 'We will run.
For I value no disgrace, nor the losing of my place,
But the enemy I won't face, nor his gun, nor his gun....'"
Peacefully, almost unobserved, the boundary between the two regions dissolved. The snow was flat. For a few moments Reuben's mind was completely engaged in an effort to understand how they had got away from the house. The axe—came—down.... Then what? Out of this blank two remote voices spoke with needle sharpness: "Goodm'n Cory?" "They've shot him, Jesse." Maybe after that he had fainted. But now, to the deepest privacy of his mind, Reuben could state: That home was not; that he would be twelve in May; that his mother and father were dead; that he was walking on flat snow into the outskirts of the village of Hatfield with his brother and an old servant who was drunk and naked.
Hatfield buzzed. For a short way—questions from distracted citizens spattered from all sides—Reuben knew that Jesse was shambling between him and Ben, an arm on each, wobbling and protective; then under the guidance of a pink fat man they passed into the thick warmth of the ordinary's common room. In this hot haze and clatter of voices, Reuben's senses clouded, not in retreat but bodily exhaustion. A birdy, ancient woman hovered about them with noises of concern. Beside her face, Ben's appeared, and Reuben searched the strangeness of it in a fluctuating dark and brightness. They must be sitting near a fireplace, he reasoned, and Ben's arm was preventing him from toppling over. Ben was speaking, too. "What?"
"I said, rest thee a while, Ru."
The fat man had wrapped Jesse Plum in a huge brown horse-blanket; now someone brought the old man a pewter tankard. At the rim of it gleamed Jesse's little blue eyes, unfocused like those of a baby at the breast. At length Reuben heard someone drawl in unbelieving admiration: "Godso-o-o!" Jesse's grimy fingers fluttered; a frowzy-haired boy in a grubby apron giggled and snatched the tankard before it could hit the floor. Jesse collapsed into himself, a wired skeleton from which rose the bubble and rasp of a sudden snore.
The fat man was talking in lardy tones. "Hoy! Killed an Inj'an, he did say. He don't look it." Jowls shaking and puffy fingers gentle, he twitched away the blanket to examine Jesse's burnt side. "Bad. Gun blowed, he said. We'd ought to have goose-grease." The ragged boy was peeking at it. The fat man lifted him away by a greasy spreading ear. "Mind thy God-damned manners, pup—a'n't we all brothers in Christ? Go fetch cobwebs. Good as grease, they'll mend a burn."
Jesse Plum was carried away, his slumber undisturbed, and Ben was talking with the old woman.