BBefore it was daylight we were aroused by the discordant clang of a bell: work was about to begin.
Before it was daylight we were aroused by the discordant clang of a bell: work was about to begin.
In these latitudes there is little twilight; the day begins, as it ends, with a kind of suddenness. I arose, being thus summoned, and looked out. Long rays of light were shooting up the sky from the East, and, though the stars were still visible, the day was fast breaking. In a few moments it became already so light that I could see across the yard—or what the Italians would call the piazza—with its ragged bonannow-leaves, the figures of our fellow-slaves moving about the huts, and hear their voices. Alas! sad and melancholy are the voices of those who work upon his Majesty's Plantations. Two old negresses went about among the new-comers, carrying a bucketful of their yellow mess, which they distributed among us, and giving us to understand that this bowl of yellow porridge, or loblollie, made out of Indian corn, was all we should have before dinner. They also gave us to understand in their broken English, which is far worse than the jargon talked by some of our country people, that we should have to prepare our own meals for the future, and that they would show us how to make this delectable mess.
'Eat it,' said Barnaby; 'a pig is better fed at home. Eat it, Robin, lest thou faint in the sun. Perhaps there will be something better for dinner. Heigho! only to think of Mother Rosemary's, where I thought to lie last night! Patience, lads!'
One would not seem to dwell too long on the simple fare of convicts: therefore I will say, once for all, that our rations consisted of nothing at all but the Indian meal and of salt beef or salt fish. The old hands and the negro slaves know how to improve their fare in many ways, and humane masters will give their servants quantities of the fruits such as grow here in great abundance—as plantains, lemons, limes, bonannows, guavas, and the like. And many of the black slaves have small gardens behind their huts, where they grow onions, yams, potatoes, and other things which they cultivate on Sundays. They are all great thieves also, stealing, whenever they can, poultry, eggs, and fruit, so that they grow fat and sleek, while the white servants daily grow more meagre, and fall into diseases by reason of the poorness of theirfood. Then, as to drink, there are many kinds of drink (apart from the wines of Spain, Portugal, Canary, Madeira, and France) made in the country itself, such as mobbie, which is a fermented liquor of potatoes; and perino, from the liquor of chewed cassavy root; punch, which is water and sugar left to work for ten days; rum, which is distilled in every Ingenio, and is a spirit as strong as brandy, and said to be more wholesome. Those who have been long in the island, even the servants, though without a penny, know how and where to get these drinks; and, since there is no consoler, to the common sort, so good as strong drink, those who are able to drink every day of these things become somewhat reconciled to their lot.
'Come out, ye dogs of rebels and traitors!' It was the loud and harsh voice of the master himself, who thus disturbed us at our breakfast. 'Twas his custom thus to rise early, and to witness the beginning of the day's work. And 'twas his kindly nature which impelled him thus to welcome and encourage his newly-bought slaves. 'Come out, I say! Ye shall now show of what stuff ye are made. Instead of pulling down your lawful King, ye shall pull up your lawful master and make him rich. If ye never did a day's work in your lives, ye shall now learn the how by the must. Come forth, I say, ye lazy, guzzling skulkers!'
'Ay, ay,' said Barnaby, leisurely scraping his bowl, 'we are like, indeed, to be overfed here.' He rolled sailor fashion out of the hut.
'Barnaby,' I said, 'for God's sake, say nothing to anger the master! There is no help but in patience and in hope.'
So we, too, went forth. The master, red-faced as he was, looked as if he had been drinking already.
'So,' he cried, 'here is the learned physician. Your health, Doctor. And here is the gallant Captain, who was once a sailor. The air of the fields, Captain, will remind you, perchance, of the quarter-deck. This young gentleman looks so gallant and gay that I warrant he will ply the hoe with a light and frolick heart. Your healths, gentlemen. Hark ye, now. You are come of a good stock, I hear. Therefore have I bought you at a great price, looking to get my money back and more. Some planters would suffer you to lie at your ease cockered up with bonavist and Madeira till the money comes. As for me, I shall now show you what you will continue to do, unless the money comes. Therefore you will at once, I doubt not, ask for paper and pen and presently write. Sixty pounds a-piece, gentlemen—not one penny less—will purchase your freedom. Till then, the fields. And no difference between white and black; but one whip for both.'
We made no reply, but took the hoes which were given out to us and marched with the rest of the melancholy troop.
There were as many blacks as whites. We were divided into gangs; with every gang a driver armed with a whip; and over all the overseers, who, by their severity, showed their zeal for themaster. The condition of slavery hath in it something devilish, both for those who are slaves and those who are masters. The former it drives into despair, and fills with cunning, dishonesty, treachery, and revenge. Why, the black slaves have been known to rise in rebellion, and while they had the power have inflicted tortures unheard-of upon their masters. The latter it makes cruel and unfeeling; it tempts them continually to sins of all kinds; it puts into their power the lives, the bodies—nay, the very souls—of the poor folk whom they buy. I do maintain, and conceal not my opinion, that no man ought, in a Christian country, to be a slave except for a term of years, and then for punishment. I have been myself a slave, and I know the misery and the injustice of the condition. But it is idle to hope that the planters will abandon this means of cultivating their estates, and it is certain that in hot countries no man will work except by compulsion.
The whip carried by the driver is a dreadful instrument, long, thick, and strongly plaited, with a short handle. It is coiled and slung round the shoulders when it is not being used to terrify or to punish, and I know well that its loud crack produces upon the mind a sensation of fear and of horror such as the thunder of artillery or the sight of the enemy charging could never cause even to a coward. The fellows are also extremely dexterous in the use of it; they can inflict a punishment not worse than the flogging of a schoolboy; or, with no greater outward show of strength, they will cut and gash the flesh like a Russian executioner with the cruel instrument which they call the knout.
For slight offences, such as laziness or carelessness in the field, the former is administered; but for serious offences, the latter. One sad execution (I cannot call it less) I myself witnessed. What the poor wretch had done I know not, but I can never forget his piercing shrieks as the whip cut into the bleeding flesh. This is not punishment: it is savage and revengeful cruelty. Yet the master and the overseers looked on with callous eyes.
They marched us to a field about half a mile from our village or camp, and there, drawing us up in line, set us to work. Our task was, with the hoe, to dig out square holes, each of the same depth and size, in which the sugar canes are planted, a small piece of old cane being laid in each. These holes are cut with regularity and exactness, in long lines and equally distant from each other. It is the driver's business to keep all at work at the same rate of progress, so that no one should lag behind, no one should stop to rest or breathe, no one should do less than his neighbours. The poor wretches, with bent bodies streaming with their exertions, speedily become afflicted with a burning thirst; their legs tremble; their backs grow stiff and ache; their whole bodies become full of pain; and yet they may not rest nor stand upright to breathe a while, nor stop to drink, until the driver calls a halt. From time to time the negroes—men and women alike—were dragged out of the ranks and laid on the ground three or four at a time, to receive lashesfor not making the holes deep enough or fast enough. At home one can daily see the poor creatures flogged in Bridewell; every day there are rogues tied to the cart-wheel and flogged wellnigh to death; but a ploughman is not flogged for the badness of his furrow, nor is a cobbler flogged because he maketh his shoon ill. And our men do not shriek and scream so wildly as the negroes, who are an ignorant people and have never learned the least self-restraint. It was horrid also to see how their bodies were scarred with the marks of old floggings, and branded with letters to show by whom they had been bought. As for our poor fellows, who had been brave recruits in Monmouth's army, they trembled at the sight and worked all the harder; yet some of them with the tears in their eyes, to think that they should be brought to such a dismal fate and to herd with these poor, ignorant, black people.
'Twas the design of the master to set us to the very hardest work from the beginning, so that we should be the more anxious to get remission of our pains. For it must not be supposed that all the work on the estate was so hard and irksome as that with the hoe—which is generally kept for the strongest and hardest of the negroes, men and women. There are many other employments: some are put to weed the canes, some to fell wood, some to cleave it, some to attend the Ingenio, the boiling-house, the still-house, the curing-house; some to cut the maize, some to gather provisions, of bonavist, maize, yams, potatoes, cassavy, and the like. Some to the smith's forge; some to attend to the oxen and sheep; some to the camels and assinegoes, and the like: so that, had the master pleased, he might have set us to work better fitted to English gentlemen. Well, his greediness and cruelty were defeated, as you shall presently see. As for the domestic economy of the estate, there were on it five hundred acres of land, of which two hundred were planted with sugar, eighty for pasture, one hundred and twenty for wood, thirty for tobacco, five for ginger, and as many for cotton-wool, and seventy for provisions—viz. corn, potatoes, plantains, cassavy, and bonavist—with a few for fruit. There were ninety-six negroes, two or three Indian women with their children, and twenty-eight Christian servants, of whom we were three.
At eleven o'clock we were marched back to dinner. At one we went out again, the sun being at this time of the day very fierce, though January is the coldest month in the year. We worked till six o'clock in the evening, when we returned.
'This,' said Robin, with a groan, 'is what we have now to do every day for ten years.'
'Heart up, lads!' said Barnaby; 'our time will come. Give me time to turn round, as a body may say. Why, the harbour is full of boats. Let me get to the port and look round a bit. If we had any money now—but that is past praying for. Courage and patience! Doctor, you hoe too fast: no one looks for zeal. Follow the example of the black fellows, who think all day long howthey shall get off with as little work as possible. As for their lash, I doubt whether they dare to lay it about us, though they may talk. Because you see, even if we do not escape, we shall some time or other, through the Rector's efforts, get a pardon, and then we are gentlemen again; and when that moment arrives I will make this master of ours fight, willy-nilly, and I will kill him, d'ye see, before I go home to kill Benjamin.'
He then went on to discourse (either with the hope of raising our spirits or because it cheered his mind just to set them forth) upon his plans for the means of escape.
'A boat,' he said, 'I can seize. There are many which would serve our purpose. But a boat without victuals would be of little use. One would not be accused of stealing, yet we may have to break into the store and take therefrom some beef or biscuit. But where to store our victuals? We may have a voyage of three or four hundred knots before us. That is nothing for a tight little boat when the hurricane season is over. We have no compass either—I must lay hands upon a compass. The first Saturday night I will make for the port and cast about. Lift up your head, Robin. Why, man, all bad times pass if only one hath patience.'
It was this very working in the fields, by which the master thought to drive us into despair, which caused in the long run our deliverance, and that in the most unexpected manner.
This
This servitude endured for a week, during which we were driven forth daily with the negroes to the hardest and most intolerable toil, the master's intention being so to disgust us with the life as to make us write the most urgent letters to our friends at home; since, as we told him two hundred guineas had been already paid on our account (though none of the money was used for the purpose), he supposed that another two hundred could easily be raised. Wherefore, while those of the new servants who were common country lads were placed in the Ingenio, or the curing-house, where the work is sheltered from the scorching sun, we were made to endure every hardship that the place permitted. In the event, however, the man's greed was disappointed and his cruelty made of none avail.
In fact, the thing I had foreseen quickly came to pass. When a man lies in a lethargy of despair, his body, no longer fortified by a cheerful mind, presently falls into any disease which is lurking in the air. Diseases of all kinds may be likened unto wild beasts: invisible, always on the prowl, seeking whom they may devour. The young fall victims to some, the weak to others; the drunkards and gluttons to others; the old to others; and the lethargic, again, to others. It was not surprising to me, therefore, when Robin, coming home one evening, fell to shivering and shaking, chattering with his teeth, and showing every external sign of cold, though the evening was still warm, and the sun had that day been more than commonly hot. Also, he turned away from his food, and would eat nothing. Therefore, as there was nothing we could give him, we covered him with our rugs; and he presently fell asleep. But in the morning, when we awoke, behold! Robin was in a high fever: his hands and head burning hot, his cheek flushed red, hiseyes rolling, and his brain wandering. I went forth and called the overseer to come and look at him. At first he cursed and swore, saying that the man was malingering (that is to say, pretending to be sick, in order to avoid work); that, if he was a negro instead of a gentleman, a few cuts with his lash should shortly bring him to his senses; that, for his part, he liked not this mixing of gentlemen with negroes; and that, finally, I must go and bring forth my sick man or take it upon myself to face the master, who would probably drive him afield with the stick.
'Sir,' I said, 'what the master may do I know not. Murder may be done by any who are wicked enough. For my part, I am a physician, and I tell you that to make this man go forth to work will be murder. But indeed he is light-headed, and with a thousand lashes you could not make him understand or obey.'
Well, he grumbled, but he followed me into the hut.
'The man hath had a sunstroke,' he said. 'I wonder that any of you have escaped. Well, we can carry him to the sick-house, where he will die. When a new hand is taken this way he always dies.'
'Perhaps he will not die,' I said, 'if he is properly treated. If he is given nothing but this diet of loblollie and salt beef, and nothing to drink but the foul water of the pond, and no other doctor than an ignorant old negress, he will surely die.'
'Good Lord, man!' said the fellow. 'What do you expect in this country? It is the master's loss, not mine. Carry him between you to the sick-house.'
So we carried Robin to the sick-house.
At home we should account it a barn, being a great place with a thatched roof, the windows open, without shutter or lattice, the door breaking away from its hinges. Within there was a black lying on a pallet, groaning most piteously. The poor wretch, for something that he had done, I know not what, had his flesh cut to pieces with the whip. With him was an old negress mumbling and mouthing.
We laid Robin on another pallet, and covered him with a rug.
'Now, man,' said the overseer, 'leave him there, and come forth to your work.'
'Nay,' I said, 'he must not be left. I am a physician, and I must stay beside him.'
'If he were your son I would not suffer you to stay with him.'
'Man!' I cried. 'Hast thou no pity?'
'Pity!' The fellow grinned. 'Pity! quotha. Pity! Is this a place for pity? Why, if I showed any pity I should be working beside you in the fields. It is because I have no pity that I am overseer. Look here'—he showed me his left hand, which had been branded with a red-hot iron. 'This was done in Newgate seven years ago and more. Three years more I have to serve. That done, I may begin to show some pity. Not before. Pity is scarce among the drivers of Barbadoes. As well ask the beadle for pity when he flogs a 'prentice.'
'Let me go to the master, then.'
'Best not; best not. Let this man die and keep yourself alive. The morning is the worst time for him, because last night's drink is still in his head. Likely as not you will but make the sick man's case and your own worse. Leave him in the sick-house, and go back to him in the evening.'
The man spoke with some compassion in his eyes. Just then, however, a negro boy came running from the house and spoke to the overseer.
'Why,' he said, 'nothing could be more pat. You can speak to the master, if you please. He is in pain, and Madam sends for Dr. Humphrey Challis. Go, Doctor. If you cure him, you will be a lucky man. If you cannot cure him, the Lord have mercy upon you! Whereas, if you suffer him to die,' he added with a grin and a whisper, 'every man on the estate will fall down and worship you. Let him die! Let him die!'
I followed the boy, who took me to that part of the house which fronts the west and north. It was a mean house of wood, low and small, considering how wealthy a man was the master of it; on three sides, however, there was built out a kind ofloggia, as the Italians call it, of wood instead of marble, forming a cloister or open chamber, outside the house. They call it a verandah, and part of it they hang with mats made of grass, so as to keep it shaded in the afternoon and evening, when the sun is in the west. The boy brought me to this place, pointed to a chair where the master sat, and then ran away as quickly as he could.
It was easy to understand why he ran away, because the master at this moment sprang out of his chair and began to stamp up and down the verandah, roaring and cursing. He was clad in a white linen dressing-gown and linen nightcap. On a small table beside him stood a bottle of beer, newly opened, and a silver tankard.
When he saw me he began to swear at me for my delay in coming, though I had not lost a moment.
'Sir,' I said, 'if you will cease railing and blaspheming I will examine into your malady. Otherwise I will do nothing for you.'
'What?' he cried. 'You dare to make conditions with me, you dog, you!'
'Fair words,' I said. 'Fair words. I am your servant to work on your plantation as you may command. I am not your physician; and I promise you, Sir, upon the honour of a gentleman, and without using the sacred name which is so often on your lips, that if you continue to rail at me I will suffer you to die rather than stir a little finger in your help.'
'Suffer the physician to examine the place,' said a woman's voice. 'What good is it to curse and to swear?'
The voice came from a hammock swinging at the end of the verandah. It was made, I observed, of a land of coarse grass loosely woven.
The man sat down and sulkily bade me find a remedy for thepain which he was enduring. So I consented and examined his upper jaw, where I soon found out the cause of his pain in a good-sized tumour formed over the fangs of a grinder. Such a thing causes agony even to a person of cool blood, but to a man whose veins are inflamed with strong drink the pain of it is maddening.
'You have got a tumour,' I told him. 'It has been forming for some days. It has now nearly, or quite, reached its head. It began about the time when you were cursing and insulting certain unfortunate gentlemen, who are for a time under your power. Take it, therefore, as a Divine judgment upon you for your cruelty and insolence.'
He glared at me, but said nothing, the hope of relief causing him to receive this admonition with patience, if not in good part. Besides, my finger was still upon the spot, and if I so much as pressed gently I could cause him agony unspeakable. Truly, the power of the physician is great.
'The pain,' I told him, 'is already grown almost intolerable. But it will be much greater in a few hours unless something is done. It is now like unto a little ball of red-hot fire in your jaw; in an hour or two it will seem as if the whole of your face was a burning fiery furnace; your cheek will swell out until your left eye is closed; your tortures, which now make you bawl, will then make you scream; you now walk about and stamp; you will then lie down on your back and kick. No negro slave ever suffered half so much under your accursed lash as you will suffer under this tumour—unless something is done.'
'Doctor,' it was again the woman's voice from the hammock, 'you have frightened him enough.'
'Strong drink,' I went on, pointing to the tankard, 'will only make you worse. It inflames your blood and adds fuel to the raging fire. Unless something is done the pain will be followed by delirium; that by fever, and the fever by death. Sir, are you prepared for death?'
He turned horribly pale and gasped.
'Do something for me!' he said. 'Do something for me, and that without more words!'
'Nay; but I will first make a bargain with you. There is in the sick-house a gentleman, my cousin—Robin Challis by name—one of the newly-arrived rebels, and your servant. He is lying sick unto death of a sunstroke and fever caused by your hellish cruelty in sending him out to work on the fields with the negroes instead of putting him to light labour in the Ingenio or elsewhere. I say, his sickness is caused by your barbarity. Wherefore I will do nothing for you at all—do you hear? Nothing! nothing!—unless I am set free to do all I can for him. Yea; and I must have such cordials and generous diet as the place can afford, otherwise I will not stir a finger to help you. Otherwise—endure the torments of the damned; rave in madness and in fever. Die and go to your own place. I will not help you. So; that is my last word.'
Upon this I really thought the man had gone stark, staring mad. For, at the impudence of a mere servant (though a gentleman of far better family than his own) daring to make conditions with him, he became purple in the cheeks, and, seizing his great stick which lay on the table, he began belabouring me with all his might about the head and shoulders. But I caught up a chair and used it for a shield, while he capered about, striking wildly and swearing most horribly.
At this moment the lady who was in the hammock stepped out of it and walked towards us slowly, like a Queen. She was without any doubt the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was dressed in a kind of dressing-gown of flowered silk, which covered her from head to foot; her head was adorned with the most lovely glossy black ringlets; a heavy gold chain lay round her neck, and a chain of gold with pearls was twined in her hair, so that it looked like a coronet; her fingers were covered with rings, and gold bracelets hung upon her bare white arms. Her figure was tall and full; her face inclined to the Spanish, being full and yet regular, with large black eyes. Though I was fighting with a madman, I could not resist the wish that I could paint her, and I plainly perceived that she was one of that race which is called Quadroon, being most likely the daughter of a mulatto woman and a white father. This was evident by the character of her skin, which had in it what the Italians call themorbidezza, and by a certain dark hue under the eyes.
'Why,' she said, speaking to the master as if he had been a petulant school-boy, 'you only make yourself worse by all this fury. Sit down, and lay aside your stick. And you. Sir'—she addressed herself to me—'you may be a great physician, and at home a gentleman; but here you are a servant, and therefore bound to help your master in all you can without first making conditions.'
'I know too well,' I replied, 'he bought me as his servant, but not as his physician. I will not heal him without my fee; and my fee is that my sick cousin be attended to with humanity.'
'Take him away!' cried the master, beside himself with rage. 'Clap him in the stocks! Let him sit there all day long in the sun! He shall have nothing to eat or to drink! In the evening he shall be flogged! If it was the Duke of Monmouth himself, he should be tied up and flogged! Where the devil are the servants?'
A great hulking negro came running.
'You have now,' I told him quietly, 'permitted yourself to be inflamed with violent rage. The pain will therefore more rapidly increase. When it becomes intolerable, you will be glad to send for me.'
The negro dragged me away (but I made no resistance), and led me to the courtyard, where stood the stocks and a whipping-post. He pointed to the latter with a horrid grin, and then laid me fast in the former. Fortunately, he left me my hat, otherwise the hotsun would have made an end of me. I was, however, quite easy in my mind. I knew that this poor wretch, who already suffered so horribly, would before long feel in that jaw of his, as it were, a ball of fire. He would drink, in order to deaden the pain; but the wine would only make the agony more horrible. Then he would be forced to send for me.
This, in fact, was exactly what he did.
I sat in those abominable stocks for no more than an hour. Then Madam herself came to me, followed by the negro fellow who had locked my heels in those two holes.
'He is now much worse,' she said. 'He is now in pain that cannot be endured. Canst thou truly relieve his suffering?'
'Certainly I can. But on conditions. My cousin will die if he is neglected. Suffer me to minister to his needs. Give him what I want for him and I will cure your'—I did not know whether I might say 'your husband,' so I changed the words into—'my master. After that I will cheerfully endure again his accursed cruelty of the fields.'
She bade the negro unlock the bar.
'Come,' she said. 'Let us hear no more about any bargains. I will see to it that you are able to attend to your cousin. Nay, there is an unfortunate young gentlewoman here, a rebel, and a servant like yourself—for the last week she doth nothing but weep for the misfortunes of her friends—meaning you and your company. I will ask her to nurse the sick man. She will desire nothing better, being a most tender-hearted woman. And as for you, it will be easy for you to look after your cousin and your master at the same time.'
'Then, Madam,' I replied, 'take me to him, and I will speedily do all I can to relieve him.'
I found my patient in a condition of mind and body most dangerous. I wondered that he had not already fallen into a fit, so great was his wrath and so dreadful his pain. He rolled his eyes; his cheeks were purple; he clenched his fists; he would have gnashed his teeth but for the pain in his jaws.
'Make yourself easy,' said Madam. 'This learned physician will cause your pain to cease. I have talked with him and put him into a better mind.'
The master shook his head as much as to say that a better mind would hardly be arrived at without the assistance of the whipping-post; but the emergency of the case prevented that indulgence. Briefly, therefore, I took out my lancet and pierced the place, which instantly relieved the pain. Then I placed him in bed, bled him copiously, and forbade his taking anything stronger than small-beer. Freedom from pain and exhaustion presently caused him to fall into a deep and tranquil sleep. After all this was done I was anxious to see Robin.
'Madam,' I said, 'I have now done all I can. He will awake at noon, I dare say. Give him a little broth, but not much. Thereis danger of fever. You had better call me again when he awakes. Warn him solemnly that rage, revenge, cursing, and beating must be all postponed until such time as he is stronger. I go to visit my cousin in the sick-house, where I await your commands.'
'Sir,' she said courteously, 'I cannot sufficiently thank your skill and zeal. You will find the nurse of whom I spoke in the sick-house with your cousin. She took with her some cordial, and will tell me what else you order for your patient. I hope your cousin may recover. But, indeed'——she stopped and sighed.
'You would say, Madam, that it would be better for him and for us all to die. Perhaps so. But we must not choose to die, but rather strive to live, as more in accordance with the Word of God.'
'The white servants have been hitherto the common rogues and thieves and sweepings of your English streets,' she said. 'Sturdy rogues are they all, who fear naught but the lash, and have nothing of tenderness left but tender skins. They rob and steal; they will not work, save by compulsion; they are far worse than the negroes for laziness and drunkenness. I know not why they are sent out, or why the planters buy them, when the blacks do so much better serve their turn, and they can without reproach beat and flog the negroes, while to flog and beat the whites is by some accounted cruel.'
'All this, Madam, is doubtless true: but my friends are not the sweepings of the street.'
'No, but you are treated as if you were. It is a new thing having gentlemen among the servants, and the planters are not yet accustomed to them. They are a masterful and a wilful folk, the planters of Barbadoes; from childhood upwards they have their own way, and brook not opposition. You have seen into what a madness of wrath you threw the master by your opposition. Believe me, Sir, the place is not wholesome for you and for your friends. The master looks to get a profit, not from your labour, but by your ransom. Sir'—she looked me very earnestly in the face—'if you have friends at home—if you have any friends at all—entreat them—command them—immediately to send money for your ransom. It will not cost them much. If you do not get the money you will most assuredly die, with the life that you will have to live. All the white servants die except the very strongest and lustiest. Whether they work in the fields, or in the garden, or in the Ingenio, or in the stables, they die. They cannot endure the hot sun and the hard fare. They presently catch fever, or a calenture, or a cramp, and so they die. This young gentlewoman who is now with your cousin will presently fall into melancholy and die. There is no help for her, or for you—believe me, Sir—there is no hope but to get your freedom.' She broke off here, and never at any other time spoke to me again upon this subject.
In three weeks' time, indeed, we were to regain our freedom, but not in the way Madam imagined.
Before I go on to tell of the wonderful surprise which awaited me, I must say that there was, after this day, no more any question about the field-work for me. In this island, then, there was a great scarcity of physicians; nay, there were none properly qualified to call themselves physicians, though a few quacks; the sick servants on the estates were attended by the negresses, some of whom have, I confess, a wonderful knowledge of herbs—in which respect they may be likened to our countrywomen, who, for fevers, agues, toothache, and the like, are as good as any physicians in the world. It was, therefore, speedily rumoured abroad that there was a physician upon my master's estate, whereupon there was immediately a great demand for his services; and henceforth I went daily, with the master's consent, to visit the sick people on the neighbouring estates—nay, I was even called upon by his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor himself, Mr. Steed, for a complaint from which he suffered. And I not only gave advice and medicines, but I also received a fee just as if I had been practising in London. But the fees went to my master, who took them all, and offered me no better diet than before. That, however, mattered little, because wherever I went I asked for, and always received, food of a more generous kind, and a glass or two of wine, so that I fared well and kept my health during the short time that we remained upon the island. I had also to thank Madam for many a glass of Madeira, dish of cocoa, plate of fruit, and other things, not only for my patient Robin, but also for myself, and for another, of whom I have now to speak.
When, therefore, the master was at length free from pain and in a comfortable sleep, I left him, with Madam's permission, and sought the sick-house in a most melancholy mood, because I believed that Robin would surely die, whatever I should do. And I confess that, having had but little experience of sunstroke and the kind of fever which followeth upon it, and having no books to consult and no medicine at hand, I knew not what I could do for him. And the boasted skill of the physician, one must confess, availeth little against a disease which hath once laid hold upon a man. 'Tis better for him so to order the lives of his patients while they are well as to prevent disease, just as those who dwell beside an unruly river (as I have seen upon the great river Rhone) build up a high levée, or bank, over which it cannot pass.
In the sick-house the floor was of earth, without boards; there was no other furniture but two or three wooden beds, on each a coarse mattress with a rug; and all was horribly filthy, unwashed, and foul. Beside the pallet where Robin lay there knelt, praying, a woman with her head in her hands. Heavens! there was, then, in this dark and heathenish place one woman who still remembered her Maker!
Robin was awake. His restless eyes rolled about; his hands clutched uneasily at his blanket; and he was talking. Alas! the poor brain, disordered and wandering, carried him back to the oldvillage. He was at home again in imagination, though we were so far away. Yea; he had crossed the broad Atlantic, and was in fair Somerset, among the orchards and the hills. And, only to hear him talk, the tears rolled down my cheeks.
'Alice,' he said. Alas! he thought that he was again with the sweet companion of his youth. 'Alice; the nuts are ripe in the woods. We will to-morrow take a basket and go gather them. Benjamin shall not come to spoil sport. Besides, he would want to eat them all himself. Humphrey shall come, and you, and I. That will be enough.'
Then his thoughts changed again. 'Oh! my dear,' he said—in a moment he had passed over ten years, and was now with his mistress, a child no longer. 'My dear, thou hast so sweet a face. Nowhere in the whole world is there so sweet a face. I have always loved thy face; not a day but it has been in my mind—always my love, my sweetheart, my soul, my life. My dear, we will never leave the country; we want no grandeur of rank, and state, and town; we will always continue here. Old age shall find us lovers still. Death cannot part us, oh! my dear, save for a little while—and then sweet Heaven will unite us again to love each other for ever, and for ever'——
'Oh! Robin! Robin! Robin!'
I knew that voice. Oh! Heavens! was I dreaming? Was I, too, wandering? Were we all back in Somerset?
For the voice was none other than the voice of Alice herself!
A'Alice!' I cried.
'Alice!' I cried.
She rose from her knees and turned to meet me. Her face was pale; her eyes were heavy and they were full of tears.
'Alice!'
'I saw you when you came here, a week ago,' she said. 'Oh! Humphrey, I saw you, and I was ashamed to let you know that I was here.'
'Ashamed? My dear, ashamed? But how—why—what dost thou here?'
'How could I meet Robin's eyes after what I had done?'
'It was done for him, and for his mother, and for all of us. Poor child, there is no reason to be ashamed.'
'And now I meet him, and he is in a fever, and his mind wanders; he knows me not.'
'He is sorely stricken, Alice; I know not how the disease may end; mind and body are sick alike. For the mind I can do nothing; for the body I can do but little: yet with cleanliness and good food we may help him to mend. But tell me, Child, in the name of Heaven, how camest thou in this place?'
But before anything she would attend to the sick man. And presently she brought half-a-dozen negresses, who cleaned and swept the place, and sheets were fetched and a linen shirt, in which we dressed our patient, with such other things as we could devise for his comfort. Then I bathed his head with cold water, continually changing his bandages so as to keep him cool; and I took some blood from him, but not much, because he was greatly reduced by bad food and hard work.
When he was a little easier we talked. But, Heavens! to think of the villainy which had worked its will upon this poor child! As if it was not enough that she should be forced to fly from a man who had so strangely betrayed her, and as if it was not enough that she should be robbed of all her money—but she must also be put on board, falsely and treacherously, as one, like ourselves, sentenced to ten years' servitude on the Plantations! For, indeed, I knew and was quite certain that none of the Maids of Taunton were thus sent abroad. It was notorious, before we were sent away, that, with the exception of Susan Blake, who died of jail-fever at Dorchester,all the Maids were given to the Queen's ladies, and by them suffered to go free on the payment by their parents of thirty or forty pounds apiece. And as for Alice, she was a stranger in the place, and it was not known that she had joined that unfortunate procession. So that, if ever a man was kidnapper and villain, that man was George Penne.
It behoves a physician to keep his mind under all circumstances calm and composed. He must not suffer himself to be carried away by passion, by rage, hatred, or even anxiety. Yet, I confess that my mind was clean distracted by the discovery that Alice herself was with us, a prisoner like ourselves; I was, I say, distracted, nor could I tell what to think of this event and its consequences. For, to begin with, the poor child was near those who would protect her. But what kind of protection could be given by such helpless slaves? Then was she beyond her husband's reach; he would not, it was quite certain, get possession of her at this vast distance. So far she was safe. But then the master, who looked to make a profit by her, as he looked to make a profit by us—through the ransom of her friends! She had no friends to ransom her. There was but one, the Rector, and he was her husband's father. The time would come when the avarice of the master would make him do or threaten something barbarous towards her. Then she had found favour with Madam, this beautiful mulatto woman, whom Alice innocently supposed to be the master's wife. And there was the young planter, who wished to buy her with the honourable intention of marrying her. In short, I knew not what to think or to say, because at one moment it seemed as if it was the most Providential thing in the world that Alice should have been brought here, and the next moment it seemed as if her presence only magnified our evils.
'Nay,' she said, when I opened my mind to her, 'seeing that the world is so large, what but a special ruling of Providence could have brought us all to this same island, out of the whole multitude of isles—and then again to this same estate out of so many? Humphrey, your faith was wont to be stronger. I believe—nay, I am quite sure—that it was for the strengthening and help of all alike that this hath been ordained. First, it enables me to nurse my poor Robin—mine, alas! no longer! Yet must I still love him as long as I have a heart to beat.'
'Love him always, Child,' I said. 'This is no sin to love the companion of thy childhood, thy sweetheart, from whom thou wast torn by the most wicked treachery'—but could say no more, because the contemplation of that sweet face, now so mournful, yet so patient, made my voice to choke and my eyes to fill with tears. Said I not that a physician must still keep his mind free from all emotion?
All that day I conversed with her. We agreed that for the present she should neither acknowledge nor conceal the truth from Madam, upon whose good-will we now placed all our hopes. That is tosay, if Madam questioned her she was to acknowledge that we were her former friends; but, if Madam neither suspected anything nor asked her anything, she should keep the matter to herself. She told me during this day all that had happened unto her since I saw her last, when we marched out of Taunton. Among other things I heard of the woman called Deb, who was now working in the canefields (she was one of a company whose duty it was to weed the canes). In the evening this woman, when the people returned, came to the sick-house. She was a great strapping woman, stronger than most men. She was dressed, like all the women on the estate, in a smock and petticoat, with a thick coif to keep off the sun, and a pair of strong shoes.
She came to help her mistress, as she fondly called Alice. She wanted to sit up and watch the sick man, so that her mistress might go to sleep. But Alice refused. Then this faithful creature rolled herself up in her rug and laid herself at the door, so that no one should go in or out without stepping over her. And so she fell asleep.
Then we began our night watch, and talked in whispers, sitting by the bedside of the fevered man. Presently I forgot the wretchedness of our condition, the place where we were, our hopeless, helpless lot, our anxieties and our fears, in the joy and happiness of once more conversing with my mistress. She spoke to me after the manner of the old days, but with more seriousness, about the marvellous workings of the Lord among His people; and presently we began to talk of the music which we loved to play, and how the sweet concord and harmony of the notes lift up the soul; and of pictures and painting, and Mr. Boscorel's drawings and my own poor attempts, and my studies in the schools, and so forth, as if my life was, indeed, but just beginning, and, instead of the Monmouth cap, and the canvas breeches, and common shirt, I was once more arrayed in velvet, with a physician's wig and a gold-headed cane.
Lastly she prayed, entreating merciful Heaven to bestow health of mind and enlargement of body to the sick man upon the bed, and her brother, and her dear friend (meaning myself), and to all poor sufferers for religion; and she asked that, as it had been permitted that she should be taken from her earthly lover by treachery, so it might now be granted to her to lay down her life for his, so that he might go free and she die in his place.
Through the open window I saw the four stars which make the constellation they call the 'Crucero,' being like a cross fixed in the heavens. The night was still, and there was no sound save the shrill noise of the cigala, which is here as shrill as in Padua. Slave and master, bondman and free, were all asleep save in this house, where Robin rolled his heavy head, and murmured without ceasing, and Alice communed with her God. Surely, surely, I thought, here was no room for doubt! This my mistress had been brought here by the hand of God Himself, to be as an angel or messenger of His own, for our help and succour—haply for our spiritual help alone, seeing that no longer was there any help from man.