The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2

The Indigo Pheasant: Volume Two of Longing for Yount: 2 by Daniel A. Rabuzzi

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Authors: Daniel A. Rabuzzi
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part of the choir for the
abu oma
, our great psalm of healing, our
abu mmeli
of victory,” Maggie thought.
    Maggie nodded her head.
    “Yes,” she said. “Thank you . . . Uncle.”
    “Hurrah,” said Barnabas, jumping up, his vest a mesh of Tiepolo pink and Wedgewood cream. He rounded the table and embraced a startled Maggie.
    “Welcome home,” said Barnabas. “May the Old McDoon know of this and repent!”
    Sanford smiled a fleeting cutlass-smile. Maggie noticed that over Barnabas’s shoulder; she smiled a similar smile back.
    “Praise to
Chineke
,” she whispered. “God’s will be done.”



Interlude: Videnda
    [An extract from Thetford’s Monthly Mirror, Reflecting Men and Manners , vol. XXXI, nr. 10]
    A correspondent from Islington reports the following:

    Last Thursday sennight a most remarkable, large and vivacious meeting—third in a series—took place in the Spa Fields near Finsbury and Clerkenwell, led by an itinerant preacher of no established denomination but mixing the words of many together in a palette of his own devising, who goes by the extraordinary and uncouth name of Billy Sea-Hen.
    This Sea-Hen is, to judge by his accent and local knowledge, a Londoner by birth, though he has not been seen here until very recently, whereupon suddenly he is to be heard from and about on nearly every side. (Where might he have been until his recent eruption into our scope of vision?) He speaks of salvation and redemption in the usual ways but, by adding many unique flourishes and making a multitude of obscure references, he has caused a great stir. Indeed, it is fair to say, as Virgil has it in the Eclogues, he has put ‘the whole countryside in a state of turmoil.’
    Most notable are the crowds he draws to himself. The Spa Fields meeting was said on good authority to be upwards of three thousand souls. The week before, he spoke to at least as many on the lawns of Dame Annis le Clare in Old Street, and to perhaps only a few hundreds less the week before that, at Black Mary Well on the Farringdon Road. Prevalent in the gathering are a great many of the meanest poor, including many Irish and not a few sons and daughters of Africa (it is startling to see how many of these latter have made their way to Albion’s fair shores!). Here are to be found labourers in our breweries, brickyards and barge-shoots, dockers, porters, draymen, carters, coal-heavers, and—among the girls and women whose numbers are not inconsiderable at the Sea-Hen meetings—maids and other servants of the lesser sort. All are esurient for the meal he provides, and clamour for more as soon as he is done.
    Most alarming are their actions upon hearing Sea-Hen speak of righteous causes. The crowd, as it disperses back to the warrens and rookeries of greater London, has been seen to make rude gestures and to loudly interrupt the pastimes of gentlemen and ladies taking tea at Bagnigge Wells and similar locales in the more fashionable parts of the city. Sea-Hen must bear responsibility—in the same manner as the Wedderburns and Spences of the world—for any crimes against property and persons that he may incite amongst his auditors.

[Letter from Sanford in London to Barnabas in Edinburgh]
    Dear B.:
    I hope your efforts to raise funds in Edinburgh have been more fruitful than mine at home.
    Sad to report that the Project remains under-subscribed.
    Praeds and Rogers are in, but only for small capital, which is—to speak most candidly—a disappointment given our firm’s long relationship with each of those houses.
    Matchett & Frew have invested to the full limit of their capacity, for which we must be grateful. The Gardiners likewise.
    A firm new to my acquaintance—Coppelius, Prinn & Goethals (Widow)—has shown interest. They are originally from Leipzig and have established an office here now that regular commerce between Great Britain and the Continent has resumed. They appear quite solid and respectable, but of course I will investigate

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