In the Conoloways, on the Twenty-second of April,— the first point of Aries,— it snows all night, four inches of it upon the Ground when the Axmen wake, and merrily begin to form it into Missiles or stuff it down the backs of one another's Breeches. Springtide. Mason puts his head out the Tent-Flap and is caught in an intimate Avalanche down the side of the Tent. Dixon has his hat knock'd off by a Snowball, and goes chas?ing Tom Hynes 'round the Cook-Waggon.
"I dreamt of a City to the West of here," Dixon tries to recall, scrying in his Coffee-Mug, the wind blowing Wood-smoke in his eyes, "at some great Confluence of Rivers, or upon a Harbor in some inland Sea,— a large City,— busy, prospering, sacred."
"A Sylvan Philadelphia...."
"Well.. .well yes, now tha put it thah' way,—
"I hope you are prepar'd for the possibility, that waking Philadelphia is as sacred as anything over here will ever get, Dixon,— observe you not, as we move West, more and more of those Forces, which Cities upon Coasts have learn'd to push away, and leave to Back Inhabitants,— the Lightning, the Winter, an Indifference to Pain, not to mention Fire, Blood, and so forth, all measur'd upon a Scale far from Philadelphian,— whereunto we, and our Royal Commission, and our battery of costly Instruments, are but Fleas in the Flea Circus. We trespass, each day ever more deeply, into a world of less restraint in ev'rything,— no law, no con?vergence upon any idea of how life is to be,— an Interior that grows meanwhile ever more forested, more savage and perilous, until,— per?haps at the very Longitude of your 'City,'— we must reach at last an Anti-City,— some concentration of Fate,— some final condition of Abandonment,— wherein all are unredeemably alone and at Hazard as deep as their souls may bear,— lost Creatures that make the very Seneca seem Christian and merciful."
"Eeh, chirpy today...? yet do I wish thee joy of thy dreams, Mason. I knaah the ones just before tha wake are most pleasant to thee,— having myself by then been long awake, from reluctance to re-visit the Horrors of my own, and so able to observe thee."
"How, then? Do I talk in my sleep, is that what you're saying?"
"Oh, aye. But tha needn't worry, no one would make it out, 'tis all another Language."
"I'm talking, another Language, in my Sleep,— Dixon?"
"Don't see what the whim-wham's about,—
"Possession!— That is, somebody else's soul, possessing my body, whilst I sleep,— that's what it's about!"
"Why aye, whilst tha're away dreaming, that's what some would say, and others would add, What of it? Don't squint, ask the Reverend. Tha've a Dream-body, what use to thee's the solid one, for the time tha sleep? Here's some wand'ring Soul who may have been centuries without sleep, who may've indeed forgotten what sleep feels like, who, had Winding-Sheets pockets to carry it, might've offer'd pounds of Gold, for even a quarter-hour's rest...and here thy body is, as an Inn in the Wilderness, heated, drain'd, provision'd, and but for a beating Heart and a dormant Brain, vacant. Surely 'tis only the mildest of inconve?niences—
"Then tell me, Mirth,— where might this alien Ghost be, whilst I'm not dreaming? In what sort of humor?"
"Busy looking for another Habitation, I'd imagine...? Apprehen-
"Well— this won't do, will it."
"Not if tha feel this way. Here,— why not have Captain Zhang 'round someday to stand just outside, listen closely, and see what he can make of it...?"
"Too intimate."
"Half the Camp hears it. Some take it for Indians. Axmen say, if so, 'tis a Nation they have not yet encounter'd."
Later in the day, as they emerge from a Woodline, Mason gesturing eastward to where the encampment has swung into view, a Flight of sail,— "Something waits, directly in the Path of our Parallel,— too sure of itself to feel oblig'd to come forward and meet us,— and Lo,— what is to become of this rolling Gypsy village we've brought with us?" late sun, early Shadow in the tent-riggings. Pots a-clattering, kitchen smoke sucked out of Vents by the wind passing over. "None of this may be about either you or me. Our story may lie rather behind and ahead, and only with the Transits of Venus, never here in the Present, upon the Line, whose true Drama belongs to others,— Darby, Cope, Tom Hynes, Mr. Barnes, some new hire we don't even see,— and when 'tis all done I shall only return to Sapperton, no wiser, and someday wake up and not know if any of this 'happen'd,' or if I merely dream'd it, even this very moment, Dixon, which I know is real—"
"Oh dear....?"
For a while, at any rate, it appears to be the Drama of Stig, the Merry Axman, with ev'ryone else scurrying 'round out of sight, switching Wigs and Coats, appearing in the Proscenium only when needed,— "and whom has Stig ever needed?" as Mrs. Eggslap is apt to sigh, even in his hearing. But Stig, working diligently upon his Ax-bit, requires as near to perfect clarity of mind as he may achieve. It is this apparently single-minded concentration that at length draws the Attention of Light-Fingers McFee, in the midst of whose rummaging thro' Stig's Sea-Chest, Stig makes his Entrance, Ax in Hand.
"What is this?" he inquires.
"Ha! What is this?" brandishing an un-roll'd Sheet of Parchment cov-er'd with elaborate Seals and antiquated writing in some other Language, possibly Swedish.
Stig holds out his hand. "Give it."
McFee gazes at the Ax-Bit's shining Edge, considering. "Indians!" he yells.
"What does it mean, 'Indians'?" Stig asks, of an empty Tent, for McFee has zipp'd away. Stig roars and chases after him, as they go kick?ing over Laundry-Kettles, tripping over Tent-Guys and causing Tents to
 collapse, stopping at the Commissary to throw Potatoes and Onions at each other furiously for a full minute,— till in rides Capt. Shelby's co-officer out here, Mr. Joseph ("Continuation Joe") Warford, who detains them both, and after all have proceeded to the Cook-tent, has a look at the mysterious Parchment.
"Hum. Swedish is it, Stig?"
"Latin," Stig replies.
"Now then Stig, out with it," demands Capt. Shelby, " - or them yingle-yanglin' days is past and gone."
"Very well.—  I am here on behalf of certain Principals in Sweden, who believe that the Penns, being secretly creatures of Rome, took ille?gally the original Svanssen land 'pon which Philadelphia would later come to sit,— and thus that the whole Metropolis has never ceas'd to belong, rightfully, to Sweden."
"What,— Swedish Jacobites!" exclaims Dixon, "sort of thing.. .why, -Stig...?"
"Amid the glitter of your great World, the Flame of our cause may be easily overlook'd,...yet it burns hotly enough that certain Hands long accustom'd to Thievery durst not venture too close. Swedes have been here from the beginning, living among the Indians in peace, with no need to obtain their land falsely,— indeed, for Penn, Swedes were but another tribe of Indian, residing within his American Grant, whose Priority there he found no less irksome,— which is why, at bottom, there ever was a Boundary Dispute, and these Astronomers are come here at all."
"Stig," cries Mrs. Eggslap, "I had no idea! why, you can talk! I'll go bail for him gladly, Your Grace."
"Surely," protests the Camp-Lawyer Mr. Barnes, "if this be a Swedish claim, 'tis advanced in a less than timely way, Sir.—  Eighty years and more, Kings have come and gone. How do you expect to fare in this?"
"I am but an Agent, Sir. For a greater View of Motive and Interest, beyond our own simple desire for Justice, you might ask among your Jesuitick acquaintance."
"If that's a remark about me,— " Dixon in full truculency.
"Gentlemen! Ladies!" cries the Justice of the Peace. "Must I read the Riot Act? I do so, I am told, most affectingly, having been compared indeed with Mr. Whitefield,— though I take in far less in donations, of course." (This seems to many a blatant request for a Bribe, tho' others maintain 'tis but innocent Joking.) "Now then Stig, give us your account, man."
"Do any of you know," Stig inquires, "what I have come down to you
out of? The Frost eternal, the Whiteness abounding, beneath that all-
night Sun? In the Royal Library in Copenhagen lies an ancient Vellum
Manuscript, a gift from Bishop Brynjolf to Frederick the Third, contain?
ing Tales of the first Northmen in America, of those long Winters and the
dread Miracles that must come to pass before Spring,— the Blood, the
Ghosts and Fetches, the Prophecies and second Sight And the melan?
choly suggestion, that the 'new' Continent Europeans found, had been
long attended, from its own ancient Days, by murder, slavery, and the
poor fragments of a Magic irreparably broken.
"To enter the Capes of Delaware, was thus, for me, to pass the Pillars of Hercules,— not outward, into the simple Mysteries of an open Sea, but inward,— branching, narrowing, compressing toward an Enigma as opaque and perilous as any in my Travels. All day we ascended, and at dusk, finally approach'd Philadelphia Irredempta, ceaselessly a-clamor in the torch-light, headlong, as if in continuous Arrival from the Future,— the mesopotamian Idyll of the Svanssens, as vanish'd as Eden.
"As I stood among the hectic Mobility at Dock-Side, uncertain as to my next Step, a foreign Hand tapp'd at my mantle. A voice bade me good day, using my Christian name. I shiver'd, though I seldom do, ordinarily. 'Twas not a Voice I knew,— yet, terribly, I knew it well. Unprepared for any reception here, nonetheless I went with him through the necessary exchanges of Counter-seals and words that may never be written down and the like,— I stammer'd some kind of thanks for having been met. I can remember no longer what he look'd like. A closed Carriage approach'd,—
"Hold," cries Capt. Shelby, "— what is this,— Elect Cohens, Bavar?ian Rosicrucians? Come, Stig, admit it,— you're not Swedish at all...are you?"
"Sir,— 'tis for you to work out,— let us say, that my people are of the North, Northern and very White, so white in fact that you British to us appear as do Africans, to you." He pauses, as one telling a Joak pauses for laughter, but all are silent, puzzling how white that might be. Stig
 presses on. "The first thing we learn to do, however, before we even learn to fish, is to impersonate Swedes,— for our Nation much prefer to remain............