Harvard Yard by William Martin

be abroad.”
    And they followed, like chastened children, with Venn’s torch bobbing and sputtering ahead of them. And Isaac felt a deep coldness radiating from Katharine, as though she expected a profession of love that he could not yet give.
    At her garden gate, she turned and looked into his eyes. Her black brows, which by day offered such fine contrast to her pale skin, served only to heighten her anger in the moonlight. “We have known each other near four years, Isaac. ’Tis time to look to a future together.”
    “And so we shall,” he said. But in truth he was not looking further than the next morning and a meeting with President Dunster.
    No man who gazed upon the new college hall would ever doubt that the School of the Prophets had a future.
    It was the largest structure yet erected in New England, presenting an expanse of clapboard a hundred feet in width and two full stories in height, with a steep sloping roof and a cupola from which one might see the hills of Boston. The back, however, by which door Isaac entered, reflected less austere majesty and far more utility. There were dormered wings at each end and a tower in the middle supporting the cupola. There were privies, woodshed, well, brewhouse, barn, and cow yards on either side. This was to be a college in the best English style, a place for students to live, eat, and learn together, immersed in their studies and in the company of other scholars.
    President Dunster met Isaac in the library, directly above the Great Hall, where they had commenced the day before. Dressed in a simple collar and brown doublet, Dunster was a man of no great presence in public or private, yet his eyes did not stray when one spoke to him, and most students understood the message in his gaze: here was a man who listened and cared.
    “How do you feel on your first day as Ars Bacheloris? ” he asked, inviting Isaac to sit at the library table, the finest piece of furniture in the building.
    “Inadequate, sir.” Isaac looked at the books around him. “I once made it my task to read all four hundred volumes in John Harvard’s bequest. I have barely begun.”
    “The wise man knows that the more knowledge he gains, the more there is to get. So . . . you would now take a master of arts?”
    “Under your direction, sir.”
    “And how would you pay for it?”
    “It has been my hope to serve as a tutor, sir.”
    “I can offer a tutor no more than four pounds a year,” said Dunster. “And he cannot marry, for you know well that a tutor is expected to live in chambers.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “So”—Dunster ran his hands over the tabletop—“if the temptations of the flesh that bring you to Fort Hill are too great . . .”
    Isaac tried to hide his surprise, but his was not a face made for subtlety.
    Dunster gave a gentle laugh. “’Tis a small place, this Cambridge, but I have a proposal that will take you far from here, all the way to the largest city on earth.”
    “London?” This was more than Isaac could have hoped for.
    He had lain awake all the night before, tossing right and left. When he lay on his right, his mind had filled with images of Katharine, angry in the moonlight. When he rolled left, he had heard the voice of John Harvard, charging Isaac to keep his books . . . including one stolen by Nathaniel Eaton. And here was Dunster, offering Isaac the chance to consider Katharine and her moods at leisure while voyaging to the city where Eaton had fled.
    Dunster slid a copy of the Quaestiones across the table. “This is to be delivered to Thomas Weld. He went over last year to raise funds for us. He has written a pamphlet called New England’s First Fruits to describe our work. He would print the Quaestiones with the pamphlet, to prove that we’ve graduated a class and are holding to our purpose. Would you care to deliver your handiwork?”
    “Gladly, sir. But might it not be carried as a dispatch?”
    “They’ve asked that we send over a student, too. A