This would show Nicholson the profundity of Harvard’s collection, and it would keep Isaac away from Nicholson’s daughter.

 

One June evening, while the other students spent a few hours out of doors, Isaac and the blackamoor dragged the two trunks of books to the recitation room. When Isaac opened the first trunk, he felt as if he were looking into the mind of John Harvard himself. For the rest of his life, whenever he smelled leather—a new boot, an old saddle—Isaac would think of the bindings of Harvard’s books. And he would remember the words that Harvard had said so often: “A man will be known by his books.”

As Latin was the language of learned discourse, there were books with titles such as Anglorum Praelia and De Habitu et Constitutione Corporis. Also in Latin was a seventeen-volume edition of Summa Theologica by the Roman Catholic Thomas Aquinas. Isaac read a few pages and found no “devil-worshiping Romanism,” as Eaton had phrased it, but a mind that was serious and supple and filled with the love of God. Aquinas, however, was flanked in the trunk by those plain thinkers of Protestantism, Martin Luther and John Calvin.

There was a Latin grammar and dictionary, likewise for Hebrew and Greek, the other languages an educated man should know.

However, Plutarch, Pliny, and Homer had arrived in English translations, and what wondrous worlds they must have shown John Harvard in any language.

The next evening, Isaac worked on the second trunk, and before he had dug far, he came across several items that surprised him even more than the Aquinas had. They were plays. Two were in Latin, comedies by the Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence.

Another was Koxana, by the English author William Alabaster.

But none of these was as shocking to find as the play in the red leather binding, about six inches by nine, ink-written on heavy paper about a hundred pages in length. The first page was blank but for the words ” ‘Love’s Labours Won’ by Will. Shakespeare.”

Isaac almost threw down the book. His father had oft railed against theater, and against no one more loudly than this Shakespeare, who had written of regicides bedding their brothers’ wives, of blackamoors wedding flaxen-haired women, of fairies running naked through summer nights, of men dressed as women and women as men, of blind love and magic potions and murder, of man’s—here were John Harvard’s words on his deathbed—man’s vanities, his passions, his appetites, all the things that lead us toward sin.

It was plain to Isaac that Master Harvard had been warning him that one day he would find this book and that he must respect it as he did the works of Martin Luther or John Calvin.

But why? Had they not planted this colony as a place where such sins as would be found in London could not survive? What greater public sin was there than the theater?

Still, Isaac could not deny his curiosity. How could reading a few pages damage his mind or his soul or his personal connection with God? And how much more would it teach him about John Harvard?

A friend in London had once shown him a handmade book— drawings of men with erect members penetrating women in every angle of copulation. And though he knew it was wrong, he had not been able to take his eyes from the images or control his physical response as he turned the pages. Opening this book, he felt a similar excitement, a tingling in the mind and, strangely, in the loins, at entering a forbidden world.

The second page contained the words dramatis personae and a list of characters. Then the play began: “Enter Ferdinand, King of Navarre, Berowne, and Costard, a clown.” And then came the words. Flowing, flying, all but leaping from the page. Furtively, Isaac read, and quickly, as quickly as ever he had. At times, he found himself laughing out loud. At other times, he gasped in surprise at the scenes playing, not on the page, but in his mind’s eye.

And he was absorbed so completely, he did not notice the gathering darkness until he heard doors opening, students returning… .

But there was one act of the play yet to read. And he had to see how it all ended, so he lit a candle. He should have known that while all lit candles attracted insects, lit candles in Peyntree House also attracted Eatons.

First came Mary, who could skulk like a cat despite her girth.

Drawn by the light, she peered into the recitation room, then went slipping away.

Moments later, the master appeared. “Who is wasting money on-“

Isaac came to his senses. He closed the book and stood, as embarrassed and frightened as he had been on the night that Eaton had found him strangling the eel.

“What is that?” Eaton stepped close to Isaac, as if to intimidate him with his bulk.

“A … a book, sir.” And for the first time, Isaac realized how much he had grown in a year, despite the bad diet, because he was now on eye level with the master.

“Most boys don’t light candles to keep reading. They quit at the comin’ of dark.”

“I do my job, sir. Sometimes I must read a bit to know the—”

“You need only to read the title and author.” Eaton snatched the book and glanced at it, and his eyes bulged. “A play? Shakespeare!

This be filth.”

“Twas one of Master Harvard’s books, sir. It can’t be filth.”

“Most certainly it can.” Eaton flipped to the back and read the words “‘Transcribed by the author.’ The very devil himself. How much have you read?”

“A … a few pages.”

Eaton whipped his rod across Isaac’s face. “Don’t play sly with me, boy.