What are these people about?

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> I think that Terrance is right in that the "many" who are watching are the
> local townsfolk, the same "them" who might turn into a murderous mob at the
> sight of Quaker garb. 

But why would they turn on a Quaker? One important thing I forget to
mention is that this is the major township on the edge of the wilderness
(Reform Church and German Pietists mostly) and not Philadelphia, which
is where Dixon decides to make himself less conspicuous by putting on
his Quaker garb and blending in. However, I'm still not sure why he
would go as Mason. I should think the mob would be more apt to commit
violence toward Mason. 



But I think that something needs to be said in defence
> of Dixon at the massacre site, and that just as _M&D_ is not anti-Jesuit
> it's not anti-Quaker (or anti-athiest or anti-agnostic) either. 

That's certainly clear. 

In going to
> the gaol "as Mason" I see an echo of the way Fra Christopher Maire disguised
> himself as Emerson's Cousin Ambrose from "godless London" to go off to The
> Jolly Pitman in County Durham (227). Dixon has learnt that much from his
> mentor - 'when in Rome ... ' or, at least, to remain as inconspicuous as
> possible. And I think that he also learnt that this inconspicuousness (and
> thus, self-preservation) can be achieved in a number of ways, for example by
> donning a ridiculous Ramillies wig or turning oneself into an outrageous
> buffoon, as Dixon does when he and Mason are under threat at The Dutch
> Rifle, just as well as by donning the nondescript clothes of the introverted
> astronomer. 

Right, I follow you up to the point where he would put on Mason's hat
and coat. Mason's snuff grays and nondescript English clothes would
still stand out like a cock roach on a wedding cake out in Lancaster I
imagine. And why does Dixon say that Mason is sticking out if he is not?
It could be that Dixon is just pulling Mason's leg when he says that
people are talking about his wig and his clothes and that there is
little he can do to blend in. Again, I could read it as Dixon being a
bit pissed about the Molly/Dolly sour apples thing and the lady's
suggestion  that Mason and Dixon are VERY CLOSE. 


What provokes his disguise is not fear so much as common sense,
> keeping his instinctive impulsiveness in check - something which he has only
> lately learnt from his teacher.

So going as Mason could also imply keeping his natural inclination to
seek adventure in check? 


> 
> I think that one difference between the situation here and later on, one
> reason that Dixon does not prostrate himself and reveal his empathy with the
> massacred Indians and thereby disclose his antagonism towards the townsfolk
> who let it happen and who seem to have forgotten the event so quickly, is
> that he can do nothing now to save those people, whereas in that moment with
> the slave-owner later he can do something, and that there and then his
> "faith" - in himself first and foremost - is restored.

He can't save them, but he never considers becoming a Christ.  No, they
are dead. But he can pray. Or is prayer, like weeping or crying out with
anger such a child's thing to do? 
Dixon plays his own Dutch Uncle, slapping himself upon the head, but he
also thinks to himself that he is not praying enough and given the
opportunity to pray, he decides how he would pray, but decides against
it. 



> 
> But I also think that the contempt which the characters feel at this point
> is not so much for the Paxtons themselves as for these townsfolk who, it
> seems to Mason, have drunk of "Lethe-water" (346.23), who have forgotten so
> quickly that terrible massacre of some few months ago, who believe that some
> (karmic) "Debt is paid" (344.1) by such brutal and unprovoked slaughter, who
> quickly carry on with their petty personal and political squabbling as if
> nothing at all had happened: "In America, Time is the true River that runs
> 'round Hell." And, at chapter's end, it is indeed as if the lads are
> climbing the rungs of a ladder out of Hell as they leave Lancaster Town.

Yes, just as in the Cape, but I still think the boys too have forgotten.
Forgotten their own histories. Dixon thinking it must be something in
the Wilderness that causes men to act with such brutality and Mason
thinking some Lethe waters cause the people to forget the Debts they
have amassed. Dixon thinks back only to the Romantic Feudal Raby. 



> (348) Cha and Jere's contempt for those who carried out the slaughter is not
> as great (cf. 311.14 ff) as it is for those who watched it happen and who
> then set about to justify it afterwards:
> 
>     In Time, these People are able to forget ev'rything. Be willing but to
>     wait a little, and ye may gull them again and again, however ye wish,--
>     even unto their own Dissolution. (346.24)
> 
> I think this is one of those moments when the sympathies of the characters
> and text are in close alignment.
> 


It's easy, I think, to see the alignment, not so easy to see where the
text is critical of our boys here. I think they are not quite as
innocent nor as honest as the text. So, they may climb their Jacob's
ladder with regrets and they may carry on the work like Knights of the
Kings who pay them. The text, I suspect, is more often aligned with the
pawns, those who resist and stand stubbornly in the middle of the board
like Mrs. Harland or those that slide themselves off the board
altogether, like the  functionary at the Cape.