Here in his own domain Jonas laid aside solemnity, straddling a chair, carelessly pawing Anna's scrawny bottom now and then, a caress such as he might have granted to a useful dog. Reuben pushed the lukewarm stew around on his trencher for politeness' sake. He noticed that Ben was actually eating the stuff and emptying his mug of thin beer. Then Jonas recovered his mantle of stately gloom and guided them back upstairs to a room of their own. It was at the rear of the house overlooking a yard; except for Grandmother Cory's, probably the best room in the house. Jonas lit a candle and padded away. The room contained another four-poster with a dark blue canopy. The small-paned windows shone brilliantly clean, the furniture stood just so, defying any sinfulness of disorder. A framed sampler on the wall aimed its message so that anyone retiring or rising must be advised: _I will also vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known. Ezekiel xxxii; 9._ Staring at this, Reuben thought: There was never such a thing in my mother's house. "Ben," he said, and turned to his brother in sudden need--"Ben, I'm only now understanding." "Understanding, Ru?" "We're alone. There's nothing. Only you and me." * * * * * It came to Ben belatedly, lying still under the dark canopy, the candle out, that once again neither he nor Reuben had prayed. For his own part he had not even thought of it, being too concerned with finding some word of comfort for Reuben in that moment of desolate comprehension. Now, since there was some possibility that the boy had fallen asleep, he dared not move. He thought of Jesse Plum--surely a drinking companion must have steered the old man away to sleep it off in some tolerant kennel. "_The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether._" She might have been there in the room. Ben faced up to the words for the first time, retreated incredulously, was compelled to return, wondering if Reuben could have understood them as he did now. In effect his grandmother had said it was right and fitting that their father (her son) should die. Ben thought: _Fanatic...._ His father had used that term now and then, but indecisively, defining it but giving Ben the impression that a fanatic was a person you weren't likely to meet. The word was clarified for Joseph Cory's son now that it owned a face. Laboriously Ben instructed himself: in the morning he would tell his grandmother that he and Reuben intended to go on to Roxbury. At least that was decision, not frivolously reached; now perhaps he could rest. Reuben stirred and mumbled, but quieted at a pressure of Ben's arm. Ben watched the canopy, a blackness against softer dark. Moonlight must have arrived outside, faint, without consolation. In random air the canopy swayed like the bough of a sublimely silent tree possessed by midnight. Ben watched it, remembering.