So we pursued our duties and pleasures while the end of May came. While in Boston, the Redcoats marched the streets and mustered on the Common; and washerwomen listened at doors for British plans; and boys bruited in the streets the names of those who consorted with the Crown officials; and merchants who sold British goods found their shops deserted of custom, or molested with rocks; while that hot summer first warmed the lakes and prompted the activities of flies, we reclined and disported ourselves by Lake Champlain.

It was a happy day when Lord Cheldthorpe, as if in answer to my unspoken wish, approached me and inquired whether I would like to learn how to swim. I agreed, and, as the days went on, delighted in the lessons. My mother watched, smiling, from shore.

I recall the thought: He knows the way to her heart is through me. And this, rather than causing me distress, that I might be used for the man’s amorous ends, filled me with great pleasure and pride. He knows well the way to her heart is through her son. Her son is the thing that makes her happier than any other thing. I entertained the thought again and again; I broke the surface smiling, and gasped for air.

Bono watched the swimming lessons from on shore, too, and now there was no jest about him.

One night, as I prepared for bed, I said to him, “You wish to learn how to swim?”

He said nothing, but straightened the queue on my wig where it hung upon its stand.

“I have seen you watching,” I said.

“You can’t tell when a man will need to swim.” He ceased with the wig; he looked at me, perplexed. “Do you understand none of this?”

Now it was I who did not respond.

He simply said, “D’you see? There are channels.”

I did not see, for which I now sometimes curse myself.

I grew to find Lord Cheldthorpe’s company more agreeable. His attentions elevated me to a position of unusual importance. I went with him on the hunt, even, and watched him bring down a doe. I lay by her body, sensible still of the shock of the gun’s report. I remarked to him upon the prominence of the veins that crossed her cheeks, which I followed with a finger.

Sitting once on the rocks as we dried from swimming, he asked me, “Do you not find it somewhat strange to have your fæces weighed and recorded?”

“No, Your Lordship,” I answered meekly.

He rolled his hand in the air. “Proceed,” he invited.

I said, “It was stranger when I discovered others didn’t have theirs weighed. I thought they must be very uncertain.”

“Uncertain.”

“They should never know how much they consumed, and how much they wasted.”

“You are not the usual biscuit, are you?” he said, lying back and drawing his shirt across his loins.

Though day, the crickets called in the grass; my mother’s singing rose from the camp. I lifted my arms; I could not help it. The breeze itself was warm; the islands soft with moss; the loons calling melancholy in forgotten bays; and Life in all its operations seemed unspeakably generous.