Requiem for a Nun

REQUIEM FOR A NUN 193

to Ratcliffe: 'I've heard it somewhere. If anybody here knows it, it'll

be you. What's his nameT

'His name?' Ratcliffe said. 'Pettigrew's? Oh. His christian name.'

Ratcliffe told him. 'Why?'

'Nothing,' Peabody said. 'I'm going home. Anybody else coming?' He spoke

directly to nobody and said and would say no more, but that was enough:

a straw perhaps, but at least a straw; enough anyway for the others to

watch and say nothing either as Compson got up to and said to Ratcliffe:

'You coming?' and the three of them walked away together, beyond earshot

then beyond sight too. Then Compson said, 'All right. WhatT

'It may not work,' Peabody said. 'But you two will have to back me up.

When I speak for the whole settlement, you and Ratcliffe will have to

make it stick. Will youT

Compson cursed. 'But at least tell us a little of what we're going to

guarantee.' So Peabody told them, some of it, and the next morning

entered the stall in the Holston House stable where Pettigrew was

grooming his ugly hammer-headed ironmuscled horse.

'We decided not to charge that lock to old Mohataha, after all,' Peabody

said.

'That soT Pettigrew said. 'Nobody in Washington would ever catch it.

Certainly not the ones that can read.'

'We're going to pay for it ourselves,' Peabody said. 'In fact, we're

going to do a little more. We've got to repair that jail wall anyhow;

we've got to build one wall anyway. So by building three more, we will

have another room. We got to build one anyway, so that dont count. So by

building an extra threewall room, we will have another four-wall house.

That will be the courthouse.' Pettigrew had been hissing gently between

his teeth at each stroke of the brush, like a professional Irish groom.

Now he stopped, the brush and his hand arrested in midstroke, and turned

his head a little.

'CourthouseT

'We're going to have a town,' Peabody said. 'We already got a

church-that's Whitfield's cabin. And we're going to build a school too

soon as we get around to it. But we're going to build the courthouse

today; we've already got something to put in it to make it a courthouse:

that iron box that's been in Ratcliffe's way in the store for the last

ten years. Then we'll have a town. We've already even named her.'

Now Pettigrew stood up, very slowly. They looked at one another. After

a moment Pettigrew said, 'So?'

'Ratcliffe says your name's Jefferson,' Peabody said.

'That's right,' Pettigrew said. 'Thomas Jefferson Pettigrew. I'm from old

Ferginny.'