So when they meet again, 'tis in Bishop, and any third Observer might note in an instant the deterioration the Year intervening has brought to each,— Dixon's pronounc'd limp and bile-stain'd Eyeballs, Mason's slow retreat, his steps taken backward, only just stubborn enough to keep facing the light, into Melancholy.
Increasingly ill at ease with change of any kind, be it growing a year older or watching America,— once home to him as the Desert to a Nomad upon it,— in its great Convulsion, Mason has begun to dream of a night-time City,— of creeping among monuments of stone perhaps twice his height, of seeking refuge from some absolute pitiless Upheaval in relations among Men.
'Twas Stonehenge, absent 'Bekah and Moon-Light. The Monuments made no sense at all. They were not Statues,— they bore no inscriptions. They were the Night's Standing-Stones, put there by some Agency remote not in Time but from caring at all what happen'd to the poor fugi?tives who now scurried among them, seeking their brute impenetrability for cover. Whoever their Makers had been, they were invisible now, with their own Chronicles, their own Intentions,— whatever these were,— and they glided on, without any need for living Witnesses.
Were this but a single Dream, wip'd out as usual by the rattling Quo?tidian, Mason might even have forgotten it by now. But it keeps coming back,— more accurately, he return'd to it, the same City, the same unlit Anarchy, again and again, each time to be plung'd into the middle of whatever has been going on in his absence. At first he visits fortnightly, but within the year he is journeying there ev'ry night. Even more alarm?ingly, he is not always asleep... out of doors against his will, a City in Chaos, the lights too few, the differences between friend and enemy not always clear, and Mistakes a penny a Bushel. Reflection upon any Top-ick is an unforgivable Lapse, out here where at any moment Death may come whistling in from the Dark.
"Well Hullo, Death, what's that you're whistling?"
"Oo, little Ditters von Dittersdorf, nothing you'd recognize, hasn't happen'd yet, not even sure you'll live till it's perform'd anywhere,— have to check the 'Folio as to that, get back to you?"
"No hurry,— truly, no hurry."
"You 'cute Rascal," Death reaching out to pinch his Cheek— Some?times Mason wakes before traversing into the next Episode,— sometimes the bony Thumb and Finger continue their Approach, asymptotickally ever closer, be he waking, or dreaming something else.
"Their visits," wrote the Revd, on unnam'd Authority, "consisted of silence when fishing, fever'd nocturnal Conversation when not. Though even beside the Wear, or in it, are they ever conversing. In their silences, the true Measure of their History."
Mason arrives one day to find Dixon sitting there with giant Heaps of Cherries and Charcoal. "Have some," offering Mason his choice.
"Excuse me. The Gout is eas'd by things that begin with 'Ch'?"
"Why aye. They don't know that down in Gloucestershire?"
"Chicken?"
"In the form of Soup, particularly."
"Chops? Cheese? Chocolate?"
" 'Tis consider'd an entertaining Affliction, by those who have not suf-fer'd it."
"Oh, Dixon, I didn't mean,— " Ev'ry turn now, a chance for someone taking the hump. "Here, your Cushion,— may I,—
"First thing!— is, you mustn't touch...the Foot, thank thee. Bit abrupt, sorry, yet do I know this, by now, like a County Map,— where the valleys of least Pain lie, and where the Peaks to avoid. Ev'ry movement has to be plann'd like a damn'd Expedition.... Meg Bland is the only mortal, nothing personal, who may even breathe too close to it."
"Lucky me," says she, in the door straight as a Swift, a tall ginger-hair'd Beauty disinclin'd to pass her time unproductively. Margaret Bland gave up on marrying Dixon long ago, indeed these Days is reluctant, when the Topick arises, even to respond. "We'll have the Wedding just before we go to America," he said,— and, "We'll go to America as man and wife." For a while she was a good sport, and allow'd herself to be entertain'd with his Accounts of what Adventure and Wealth were there to seize, in that fabl'd place. But there soon grew upon her, as she had observ'd it in her mother, a practical disillusionment before the certainty of Death, that men for their part kept trying to put off as long as possible. She saw Jere doing just that, with his world of Maps, his tenderness and care as he bent over them, as herself, resign'd to tending him,— no different than man and wife, really.
"I love her," he tells Mason. "I say thah'.... Yet to myself I think, She's my last, my.. .how would tha say...?"
"She's a good Woman," Mason says, "thou must see that."
"Bringing me Cherries ev'ry day. For this," pollicating the Toe. Shak?ing his head, laughing in perplexity, he looks over at Mason, finds Mason looking at him,— "The Girls are mine."
Mason, who rarely these Days smiles, smiles. "Well.—  Well, well, in fact." They sit nodding at each other for a while.
"Tha must've seen it in their Faces, in Mary...and Elizabeth, for fair...?"
"So that's what it is,— well, they are beautiful Young Women despite it all."
"Thy Boys,— they must be nearly grown?"
Mason nodding, "Oh, and I got married again. Forgot to mention that. Aye. Then we had Charles Junior, then two weeks after he was born, my Dad got married again. We both married women nam'd Mary. Tha would like them both, I know. Mine in particular."
"She's young...?"
"Amazing. How do these People—
"Strange Geordie Powers, Friend,— and I know thou need as many Children as possible, as a Bridge over a Chasm, to keep thee from falling into the Sky.”
"Charlie the Baby's the very Image of my Dad, that's what's so peculiar. The Boys look like Rebekah, but the Baby,— the resemblance makes me jumpy. I expect him to start shouting at me...sometimes he does. Can't understand any of it of course, but then I can't make out my Dad either."
"Eeh. Then all's fairly as usual...?"
"I come to the Mill ev'ry morning, and he gives me one Loaf. 'Take thee this day, thy daily bread,'— ev'ry time,— 'tis Wit. 'Tis great fun for him. How inveterate a Hatred shall I be able to enjoy, for someone who looks like my baby son?"
"Tha seem disappointed."
"Next worst thing to unrequited Love, isn't it? Insufficient hate."
"And yet it's done thee a world of Good...? the months, often years, of Time tha didn't know tha had...?"
"Ahrr. Years off my age."
"And we've another coming in right about Harvest time.—  How do you know that about me? Maybe I hate children."
"Then feel free to ignore my wish of much Joy, Mason. Shouldn't tha be in Sapperton, with thy Mary?"
"Her mother is there, and they are just as content to have me away."
They are dozing together by Dixon's Hearth. Both their Pipes are out. The Fret has gather'd in the waste places, cross'd them, and come to the Edge of the Town. Anything may lie just the other side, having a Peep. There is jollity at The Queen's Head, tho' here in Bondgate, for the moment, the Bricks are silent.
Each is dreaming about the other. Mason dreams them in London, at some enormous gathering,— it is nam'd the Royal Society, but is really something else. Some grand Testimonial, already some Days in progress, upon a Stage, before a Pit in which the Crowds are ever circulating. Bradley is there, living and hale,— Mason keeps trying to find him, so that Dixon and he may meet, but each new Face is a new distraction, and presently he cannot find Dixon, either—
Dixon is dreaming of a Publick performance as well, except it's he and Mason who are up on the Stage, and whoever may be watching are kept invisible by the Lights that separate Stage and Pit. They are both wearing cheap but serviceable suits, and back'd by a chamber orchestra, they are singing, and doing a few simple time-steps,—
It...was...fun,
While it lasted,
And it lasted,
Quite a while,—
[Dixon] For the bleary-eyed lad from the coal pits,
[Mason] And the 'Gazer with big-city Style,—
[Both] We came, we peep'd, we shouted with surprize,
Tho' half the time we couldn't tell the falsehoods from the lies,
[M] I say! is that a—   [D] No, it ain't! [M] I do apologize,—
[Both] This Astronomer's Life, say,
Pure as a Fife, hey,
Quick as a Knife, in
The Da-a-ark!
[M] Oh, we went,—
Out to Cape Town, [D] Phila-
Del-phia too,
[Both] Tho' we didn't quite get to Ohi-o,
There were Marvels a-plenty to view...
Those Trees! Those Hills! Those Vegetables so high!
The Cataracts and Caverns,
And the Spectres in the Sky,
[M] I say, was that— [D]............