'Tis with no very willing heart that I sit down to write, as best I may, the account of the vastly strange and remarkable occurrences that took place in and about my home when I was but a girl of eighteen years of age, it being then the year of our Lord 1728. Yet, since it has to be done, let me address myself to the task as ably as I can, and pray that strength and lucidity may be accorded to me, so that those who, in days to come, shall read that which I set down, may be easily led to understand what I now attempt.
I, Joice Bampfyld, was, as I say, at the period at which I take up my pen, nearing eighteen years of age, and I dwelt at Pomfret Manor, situated, on the southern bank of the James River, in His Majesty's state of Virginia, the estate being some fifty miles inland from the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, and some ten miles south-west of the township of Richmond. On this manor, which had passed into my hands two years before at the decease of my dear and lamented father, who was of the third generation of the Bampfylds settled there, we raised tobacco and corn in large quantities and had good horned cattle and many sheep, while for the fruits of the earth there was no lack, so that my life from the first had ever been one of ease and comfort, and, even in Virginia, we of Pomfret Manor were accounted well-to-do folk. Yet, comfortable as was the existence here, there was still much in our surroundings that disturbed that comfort, as it disturbed the comfort of all our neighbours. Thus, our negro servants were now-a-days not always to be depended on for their fidelity; sometimes they would project insurrections and revolts which, when put into practice, could only be subdued by bloodshed, while our indented or convict servants--I mean the whites--were even still more troublesome, what with their runnings away, their constant endeavours to seduce the blacks from their allegiance, their drunkenness when they could get at drink, and their general depravity. For depraved they were beyond all thought, being most of them convicts from the jails in England who had saved their necks by praying to be sent to Virginia to be sold as plantation-hands, while the remainder were as often as not criminals evading justice, who, in England, had cheerfully sold themselves into four years' slavery (four years being the limit here, though much longer in the sugar-producing islands of the West Indies) so as to escape from the eye of justice and begin a new life in a new land. And, also, amongst them there were defaulting debtors and bankrupts, men who were flying from their wives and children, women who were deserting their husbands, and, sometimes, wretches who, when drunk in the seaport towns at home, had been carried on board and brought to the colonies, where, although they at first resented their kidnapping, they soon settled down to be as great villains as their fellows. Yet, had it not been for these dreadful people, one knows not how the plantations could have been kept prosperous, since certain it is that no free-born Englishman in Virginia, or any other of the colonies, would consent to toil in the fields, while the negroes were so lazy, and, in many cases, so sullen, that little hard work could be got out of them. Indoors the blacks would do their duties cheerfully enough; they loved cooking and nursing; they took pride in polishing and keeping in order the beautiful furniture which our fathers and grandfathers had imported from England, and in looking to the silver and the brasses. They did not even make objection to gardening, keeping our walks and grass plots in excellent order and our rose vines well trained against the walls, but that, with their delight of fiddling at dances and singing of songs, was all that they would do willingly.
Yet these minor troubles were but little and sank into nothingness beside the one great trouble, nay, the awful horror, that was always near us. I mean the Indians. Earlier, in the first Colonial days, the red men had dwelt in some semblance of friendship with our forerunners; they would live in peace with them, sleep by their firesides, eat from their platters, and teach them how to capture all the game of the forests and the fish of the waters. Yet, even then, all this harmony would be occasionally disturbed by a sudden outbreak on their part resulting in a dreadful massacre which, in its turn, resulted in a massacre on the part of the colonists in retaliation. So, as time went on, these two races, the white and red, which had once dwelt as friends together drew away from one another; the Indians retired further into the Alleghany mountains or even crossed them into the unknown land lying west of them, while the colonists made good their holdings on the eastern side of those mountains and defied the red men. But, still, the state of things was most dreadful--most horrible. For though the Indians had withdrawn, and, of late years, had made no great raid on the settlements in our part, one never knew when they were not meditating an attack upon some quiet manor like my own, or some peaceful village consisting of a few scattered houses, or even upon some small town. Men went armed always--at church every man's loaded firelock, or gun, reposed against the side of the pew in which he worshipped--no woman thought of going a mile away from home without an escort, and children who wandered into the woods would often disappear and never be heard of again. So that one would meet weeping mothers and sad-faced looking fathers who mourned their children as dead, nay, who would rather have mourned them as dead than have had to bow to the living fate that had o'ertaken them. For they never came back, or, if they came, 'twas in such a shape that they had better have died than have been taken. One, the child of John Trueby of Whitefountain, did indeed come back fifteen years after he had been stolen by the Shawnees, dressed and painted as an Indian of that tribe, but only to slay his own father with a tomahawk at the direction of those with whom he had become allied. Another, who had been stolen by the Doeg Indians, returned only to his native hamlet to set fire to it, beginning with the wooden frame-house in which his mother and sisters had mourned him for years. Who, therefore, should not tremble at the very name of Indian? Who that had a child should not kneel down and pray to God to take that child's life rather than let it fall into the hands of the savages, where its nature would undergo so awful a change, and amongst whom it would develope into a fiend? For those who once dwelt with the Indians in the mountains, and adopted their customs and habits, became fiends, 'twas said, and nothing else.
This horror, as well as the dread of being surprised and having our houses burnt over our heads, we had always with us, always, always; as well also as the fear of being carried into captivity and tortured; or, in the case of girls like myself, of being subjected to worse than torture. When we lay down to sleep at night we knew not whether we should be awakened ere morning by some one knocking at our door and calling, "The Indians! The Indians!" If we looked forth on to our garden to observe its beauties as it lay in the moonlight, we deemed ourselves fortunate if we did not, some time or other, see the hideous painted face of a savage and his snake-like eyes gleaming at us from behind a tree or bush. Sometimes, also, floating down the river at night, when there was no moon, would be discerned by those who had sharp eyes the canoes of our dreaded foes bent on some awful errand, and full of painted, crouching savages. And then, through the still night air, would ring the ping of bullets discharged from the shore by some of the men who were always on the watch for such visitations; a canoe, or perhaps two, would be sunk, and a day or so afterwards there would be washed ashore the naked bodies of some horrid dyed Indians who had been drowned, or shot, as they were surprised. I do not say 'twas always so, but it was so very frequently, and scarce a summer passed by that we did not have some visits from them, while we ever lived in dread of a determined onslaught from a whole tribe in which not only our farm, plantations, homesteads, or manors should be surrounded by hundreds of our foe, but also entire villages or towns.
Pomfret Manor--named after the village of Pomfret in Dorsetshire, from which my great-grandfather, Simon Bampfyld, had removed to Virginia in the days of King Charles the Second--was the principal house in the lordship or hundred of Pomfret, as 'twas called in English fashion (of which fashions we colonists were always very tenacious), and, as we had thriven exceedingly since first we came, it also gave its name to the village hard by. Now, my great-grandfather having brought considerable money with him from home, had soon become one of the leading colonists, as well as one of the richest, in the neighbourhood. The house itself had once stood in Dorsetshire, and had been taken to pieces there and removed bit by bit to Virginia, as is the case with many other mansions to be found in the colonies. So the dear place in which I was born had seen the birth of many other Bampfylds before me when it existed in England, and was consequently much beloved by us. Constructed of the old red English bricks, with, for its front, a vast portico with columns of white stone, it made a pleasant feature in the landscape, while, with careful training, we had produced a smooth lawn which ran down almost to the banks of the river, and, on either side of it, we had contrived a sweet pleasaunce, or garden. Here there grew amidst the rich Virginian vegetation such flowers--recalling my ancestor's earlier house across the seas--as roses of all kinds, including the Syrian damask and the white alba; here, too, sparkled the calendula, or marigold, and there the wall-flower; while beds of pinks, or, as the flower was called in old days, the Dianthus, added to the patches of colour. Over our big porch, so cool to sit in on the hot days, there grew also the native creepers mingling with the yellow jasmine--a world of gorgeous flowers in the summer and of warm red leaves in the autumn--in which the oriole, or golden thrush, would nestle and rear its young. In the rear of the house was yet another lawn, or plantation, whereon we sat in the summer under the catalpa trees when 'twas too hot to be in the front; where the pigeons cooed from their cote and the cattle munched the soft grass, while, from their kennels, the mastiffs, used for fighting, or, better still, frightening the Indians who could not face them, and for tracing runaway negroes, would be heard baying. Around the grounds came next the belts of pines which were cultivated largely, both for firing and for the making of much household furniture; beyond them were the plantations of tobacco and of rice, which latter had by so fortunate a chance been introduced to our immediate colonies some thirty years ago.
Such was the house in which I was born and reared, such the place in which occurred the stirring incidents which now I have to record. These incidents brought me and mine near unto death; they dealt out suffering and pain to many and punishment and retribution to one villain at least. But, also, they brought to my heart so tender and so sweet a joy, and to him whom I afterwards came to love so deep and cherished a happiness--as he has since many times told me--that on my knees nightly I thank my God that He saw fit in His great goodness to let those incidents take place.
And now I will address myself to all I have to tell.
When my dear father was within two years of his death, though neither he nor any other dreamed of it, so hale and strong did he seem, he and my cousin, Gregory Haller of Whitefountain, set out for Norfolk town one May morning intending to ride there that day, put up for the night, and, on the following day, purchase many things that were wanted for our respective homes; and so back again. Such journeyings were necessary periodically, and took place usually some six or eight times a year, I sometimes riding with them also, if I wanted a new gown or some ribbons imported from England, or a pair of silver-fringed gloves, or, may be, any pretty nick-nack that I should happen to set eyes upon which might grace our saloon or living-room. At other periods, as now, I would be left at home with my companion and tutoress, Miss Mills, a young English lady who had dwelt with us for some two years. She had come to the colonies from Bristol, of which she was a native, in search of employment as a teacher, and with high recommendations, one being from the Bishop of Bath and Wells, a most goodly man as all accounts declared. She liked but little our being left alone without my father, as may well be understood, and having around us nothing but negroes and bought, or indented, white servants; yet, whether we liked it or not it had to be borne as best might be. Both of us could handle pistols, in the use of which my father had perfected us, as was necessary, or might at any instant be necessary; and there were about the house one or two men who could perhaps be relied upon. Such was Mungo, our old negro butler, who, like myself, was of the fourth generation of his race settled in Virginia, since his great-grandfather was brought a slave from Africa and sold to my Lord Baltimore; and there were one or two others of his colour. Yet, as I say, we liked not being alone and, even on the hottest summer nights, would have all the great house carefully closed and barred and shuttered, and would pass our time as best we might by playing and singing at the spinet, or playing at such games as ombre or shove-groat. And Mary Mills and I would huddle ourselves together in my great bed at night for company, and, as we sillily said, for safety, and shiver and shake over every mouse that ran behind the wainscot or at every sound we heard without, dreading that it meant the Indians or a revolt amongst the plantation hands.
Therefore you may be sure that whenever my father and cousin, or my father alone, returned from Norfolk or from Jamestown, we were right glad to see them, and to know that our loneliness as well as our unprotectedness was over for the time; and so 'twas now. They rode in as we were sitting down to our midday meal and, after my father and Gregory had each drunk a good stoup of rum (which we exchange largely for our tobacco with our brother colonists in Jamaica, the men finding it a pleasant, wholesome drink, when mixed with water) the former said:
"So my chicks have not been harried by the Indian foxes this time neither. 'Tis well. And see, now, there are some ships in from home. His Majesty's sloopTerrificis in the Bay, and the girls of Richmond are preparing to give a dance to the officers--thou should'st be there, Joice!---and there is a merchantman from London full of precious stuffs and toys. Yet, since I have no money, I could bring thee nought, my dear."
Here we laughed, for my father ever made this joke preparatory to producing his presents, and I said:
"What have you brought?"
"What have I brought? Well, let me consider. What say you now to a new horloge for the saloon? our old one is getting crazy in its works, as well it may be, since my grandfather brought it from home with him. This one hath Berthould and Mudges' 'scapements, so the captain of the ship told me," my father went on, reading from a piece of paper, "or rather wrote it down, and he guarantees it will be going a hundred years hence. Then, for a silk gown, I have purchased thee some pieces--our own early ventures in Virginian silk were none too successful!--which will become thy fair complexion well, and I have an odd piece of lace or two for a hood. While for you, Miss Mills," with an old-fashioned bow, which I think he must have learnt when young and used to attend Governor Spotswood's receptions, "as you are a dark beauty I have brought also a lace hood, and a new book since you love verse. 'Tis by one Mr. Thomson, and seems to describe the seasons prettily. The captain tells me it has ever a ready sale at home."
Then we thanked him as best we knew how, after which Gregory--who was ever timid and retiring before women, though like a lion, as I have heard others say, when chasing the Indians or a bear or wolf--stepped forward and said:
"And I, too, have brought thee a present, Joice, if thou wilt take it from my hands."
He spoke this way because his heart was sore that I could not love him and would not promise to be his wife, often as he had asked me. Tho', indeed, I did love him as a cousin, nay, as a brother, only he always said it was not that he wanted but a love sweeter and dearer than a sister's.
"I have brought you," he went on, "a filagree bracelet for your arms, tho'," in a lower voice, "they need no adornment. And for thy head a philomot-coloured hood, different in shape from the one uncle has brought. And its russet hue should well become thy golden hair, that looks like the wheat when 'tis a-ripening."
But here I bade him pay me no more compliments lest I should become vain, and then we all sat down to our meal together.
"And now," said my father, after he and Gregory had eaten well of what was on the table, such as most excellent fish from the river, one of our baked hams, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pones and wheaten bread, as well as puddings of papaw, or custard apples.
"And now we have a strange recital to make to you young ladies, the like of which is not often heard, or if heard--for the convict villains and bought servants are capable of any lies--not much believed in."
"What is it?" Mary Mills and I both asked in the same breath. "Tho'," she went on, "perhaps I can guess. Is't some young princess who has come out as a 'convict villain?'" and here she laughed. "Nay, 'twould not be so wonderful. From Bristol in my time there were many went forth who, when they reached here, or the Islands, told marvellous strange stories of their real position--sometimes imposing so much upon the planters that there would come letters home asking if such and such a woman could indeed be the Lady This, or if such and such a man could be the Lord That? Yet they never could procure proofs that such was the case."
My father and Gregory exchanged glances at her words, and then the former said:
"And such a letter I think I must send home. For I have bought to-day a young fellow--as much out of pity as for any use he is like to be, such a poor, starved radish of a young man is he--who protests and swears that 'tis all a mistake his being here, and that some dreadful villainy has been practised on him. For he says that, though not a lord himself, he is the son and heir of one, ay! and of a marquis, too, in the future."
I cried out at this, for my girl's curiosity was aroused, and Miss Mills exclaimed, "'Tis ever the old story. They have talents, these servants, tho' they apply them but ill. They should turn romancers when I warrant that they would outdo such stories as 'Polyxander,' or 'L'Illustre Bassa,' or 'Le Grand Cyrus,' or even the wanderings of Mendes Pinto."
"Yet," said Gregory, "there seems a strain of truth in his words. He speaks like a gentleman,"--Gregory had been educated at Harvard, so he was a fitting judge, independently of being a gentleman himself--"and, undoubtedly, no convict from home or rapscallion fleeing from justice would talk as assuredly as he does of his father's anger on those who kidnapped him, or of the certainty of his being sent for by the first ship from Ireland--whence he has come--if he had not some grounds to go upon."
"From whom did you purchase this youth, Mr. Bampfyld?" asked Mary, who herself seemed now to be impressed by what they said.
"From the most villainous-looking captain I ever set my eyes on," replied my father; "a fellow who could look no one straight in the face, but who sold off his cargo as quickly as he could, took the money, and, with a fine breeze, departed from the Bay last evening, having taken in some fresh water. His papers were for Newcastle, on the Delaware, but he said he could make as good a market in Virginia as there--if not better. I gave," went on my father, "a bond of twelve hundred pounds of tobacco for this fellow, which I borrowed of Roger Cliborne, and so miserable did he look that I gave it out of compassion. Whether he will ever be worth the money is doubtful, but Heaven send that he, at least, involves us in no trouble."
He spake meaning that he trusted the youth would involve us in no trouble with the Government at home, nor with the Lords of Trade and Plantations who, since many people had wrongfully been sent out to the colonies of late years--in spite of Mary Mills' banter---had caused much investigation to take place recently into such cases, and had, thereby, created much discomfort and annoyance as well as loss of money to those into whose hands such people had fallen. Alas! had this wretched young man caused us no worse trouble than this in the future we could have borne it well enough. What he did bring upon us was so terrible that, Christian tho' I trust I am, I cannot refrain from saying it would have been better that he should have been drowned from the vessel that brought him over than ever to have been able to curse Pomfret with his presence.
The sun was dipping towards the Alleghanies by now, so that, at the back of the house, it was getting cool and pleasant, and Gregory said that if the ladies so chose we might go down and see the young gentleman, who was, doubtless, by this time duly placed among the other convicts, bought-servants and redemptioners. Wherefore, putting on our sun-hoods, Mary and I went forth with them--who by now had finished not only their dinner but their beloved pipes and rum-sangaree--and down to where those poor creatures abode.
We had some eighty such, including negroes, at this moment on our plantation, an a motley collection they were, as I have already told. Those who came under the name of "redemptioners" were the best workers as well as the most trustworthy, because, having an object before them, namely, to establish themselves in the colonies when the service into which they had sold themselves for four years to pay their passage out, was over, they worked hard and lived orderly and respectably, and were generally promoted to be overseers above the others. Two or three of them were married, their wives having either come with them or been selected from among the female redemptioners, and all of them knew either a good trade or were skilful mechanics, so that they were doubly useful. Then there were the "bought" servants, as distinguished from the redemptioners, who consisted generally of the wretched creatures who had been made drunk at home and smuggled on board when in that state, or who, being beggars in the streets of Bristol, London, Leith, or Dublin, were but too glad to exchange their cold and hunger for the prospect of warmth and food in the colonies--the description of which latter places lost nothing in the telling by those who shipped them at, you may be sure, a profit. These were called the "kids," because of having been kidnapped, and also because most of them were very young. Next, there were the convicts, the worst of all as a rule to deal with, since many of them were hardened criminals at home who had been spared hanging and cast for transportation instead, and had become no better men or women under the colonial rule. Even in my short life we had had some dreadful beings amongst these servants, one having been a highwayman at home, another a coiner and clipper, a third a footpad and a cutthroat, a fourth a robber of drunken men, and so on, while there were women whose mode of life in England I may not name nor think of. All were not, however, equally bad, nor had all been such sinners in England. One had done no more than steal a loaf when starving, another had hoaxed a greenhorn with pinchbeck watches; one, when drunk, had shouted for James Sheppard, a poor lunatic, who had thought to assassinate the late King, another had been mixed up with Councillor Layer's silly attempt to bring in the Pretender. Yet all had stood their trials and had been sentenced to death, but had afterwards had that sentence commuted. And in every plantation in all the colonies much the same thing prevailed. The treatment of these bond servants varied not so much according to the laws of the different countries or states, as according to the tempers and feelings of their different owners for the time being. If a man was merciful he treated them well and fed them well; if he was cruel he beat them and starved them, whipped both white men and women, when they were naked, with hickory rods steeped in brine, and, when they were sick, let them die because, since they were his only for four years, their lives were not worth preserving. And, although he might not kill them by law, as he might a negro or a dog, if he did kill them it was unknown for notice to be taken of it. And sometimes, too, dissipated planters would gamble for their white men and women as they would for bales of tobacco or bags of Virginia shillings, so that those who had a hard master one day exchanged him for a good one on the next, or the case might be exactly reversed. My father, though firm, could not be considered aught else but a good master to both his black and white servants. Indian meal was allowed them in large quantities, while pork--though true it is that our swine were so numerous that they were accounted almost valueless--was served out to them regularly. Moreover, those who did well were given small rewards, even if only a Rosa Americana farthing now and again, while for floggings, none received them but those who stole, or ran away and were recaptured, or misbehaved themselves grossly. But each, on being purchased on to our estate, had read to him a dreadful list of punishments which he would surely receive if he did aught to merit them. It was thought well by my father that the fear of such punishments should be kept ever before their eyes, even if those punishments were but rarely dealt out.
We heard much laughing and many derisive shouts as we drew near the white servants' quarters, nor had we long to wait or far to go before we discovered the cause of it, which was our new purchase telling the others of his miseries and dreadful lot, as he termed it. Through the breaks in the trees we perceived him seated on a pork barrel--a miserable-looking figure, unkempt and dirty. His long straight hair, like a New England Puritan's or a Quaker's, was hanging down his shoulders; he had no shoes upon his feet, and thus he was holding forth to his new acquaintances.
"So consider," we heard him say, as we drew near, "consider what I, a gentleman, the Honourable Roderick St. Amande, have suffered. Near five months at sea, nearly drowned and shipwrecked, with our ship driven out of her course, then chased by pirates who knew the cargo there was on board; beaten, ill-used, cuffed and ill-treated by all--and all of it a mistake."
"Ay," exclaimed the man who had been, it was said, a housebreaker, and was a rough, coarse fellow, "and so was my affair all a mistake. 'Twas friend Jonathan--Jonathan Wild who hath now himself been hanged, as I have since heard--who pinched me falsely, but the Government, recognising my merits more than my lord on the bench, who was asleep when he tried me, sent me out here where I fell into the hands of old Nick."
Thus the wretch presumed to speak of my father, whose Christian name was Nicholas, and his remarks were received with laughter; upon which he went on, "Yet, take heart of grace, my young Irish cock-sparrow. Thou art in good hands. Nick is a good man and will not over-work thee; and he will feed thee, which is more than thy beggarly country could well do. Moreover, when thou hast done thy four years' service, thou canst palm off thy pretended lordship on some young colonial girl who will doubtless be glad enough to wed thee; if thou makest thy story plausible. Nay, there is one at hand; Nick hath a daughter fair as a lily, with lips like roses----"
"Silence, villain," said my father in a voice of thunder, as he strode forth from under the trees, his eyes flashing fiercely. "Thou hound!" he went on, addressing the man. "Is it thus you dare to speak of me and mine! Overseer," calling to one who was seated in his hut, and who came forth at once, "see this man has nought but Indian meal served out to him during the remainder of his service. How much longer is that service?"
"About four months, your honour," the overseer replied.
"So be it. Nothing but meal for him, and where there is any one labour harder than another, set him to it. And, hark ye," he said, turning to the convict. "If in those four months I find my daughter's name has been on your foul lips again, you shall be flogged till you are dead--even though I have to answer for it to the Lords of Trades and Plantations myself. Go."
The fellow slunk away cowed and followed by the overseer who drove him to the shed he inhabited with the other convicts, and, although it was their hour of relaxation previous to their last work in the evening, he ordered him to remain there under pain of flogging. Then my father, turning to his new purchase, bade him get off the barrel and come forth under the shade of the trees to where we were.
He did so, looking, as I thought, with some awe upon him who could speak so fiercely and have his orders at once obeyed. Also, we all observed that when he drew near to us and saw ladies, he took off the ragged, filthy cap he wore with a polite bow though an easy one, and with the air of one who is being presented to those with whom he is on a perfect equality. My father's face relaxed into a slight smile at this, while Mary whispered to me, "Faith! 'tis becoming vastly interesting. The creature is, I believe, in very truth, a gentleman."
"Now, young man," my father said, "you harp well upon this story of your being a nobleman's son---the Honourable Roderick St. Amande, you say you are? What proofs have you of this?"
The youth looked at him, frankly enough as we thought, and then he replied, "None here, because of the wicked scheme that has been practised on me instead of on--but no matter. Yet I have told you the truth of how I was kidnapped by two ruffians, a man and a youth--when I was dr--when I had been entertaining my friends in Dublin."
This part of his story he had, indeed, told my father and Gregory on the journey back from Norfolk where he was bought, and they had already repeated it to us, as you have heard.
"But," he continued, "'tis capable enough of proof, if you will prove it. Write to Dublin, write to the Viscount St. Amande, my father, or to the King-at-Arms, who hath enrolled him successor to my uncle, Gerald, the late Lord, or, if you will, write to the Marquis of Amesbury, whose kinsman and successor, after my father, I am."
"Humph!" said my father, "the name of the Marquis is known to me. 'Twas once thought he should have been sent Governor of Maryland, only he would not. He thought himself too great a man."
"Young man," said Mary Mills, "since you say you are heir to the Marquis of Amesbury, doubtless you can tell us his lordship's country seat?"
"Young lady," he replied, looking at her in so strange a way that, as she said later that night, she should dread him ever after, "'twere best to say his 'seats.' One he has near Richmond, in Surrey, a pretty place; another is in Essex, but the greatest of all is Amesbury Court, near Bristol--" Mary started at this, for she knew it to be true--"though in his town house, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, he has some choice curiosities, to say nothing of some most excellent wine. I would I had a draught of it now--your infernal American sun burns me to pieces, and the cruel voyage has nigh killed me."
"Young man," said Gregory, "remember that, whomsoever you be, you are here a slave, and not free to express your thoughts either on our climate or aught else."
"May be," replied the youth, "but it cannot be for long, if this--this--per--gentleman will but make enquiries. A letter may go from here to Ireland, if the vessel has not such cursed winds as the slave-ship had that brought me, and a reply come back, within three months. And if you neither beat nor kill me, but treat me fair, you shall be well rewarded----"
"Stay," said my father, "on this, my estate, it is best for you not to speak of reward to me. Where rewards are given in Virginia they are given by the masters, not by the slaves. But, since you keep to your story and do challenge me to make enquiries as to its veracity, I have determined to act as a Christian to you. You shall neither be beaten nor hurt on my plantations--none are who behave well--and, pending the time that an answer may come as to the letter I shall write, you shall be fairly treated. If your narrative is true, you shall be free to go by the next ship that sails for England. If it is false, or it appeareth that you have used your knowledge of the noble families you have mentioned to impose on us, you shall be whipped and kept to the hardest work on the plantations till your time is served."
"I am obliged to you," the other answered. "And you may be assured that you will receive confirmation of the truth of all I have told you. Meanwhile, what is to be my lot until that confirmation comes?"
"I will consider. Can you keep accounts and reckonings?"
The young man, perhaps because he felt that was assured of easy treatment for some space of time at least, gave a laugh at this and cut a kind of caper, so that we ourselves were almost forced to laugh outright; and then he said:
"The devil an account--saving the young women's pardon--have I ever kept except to try and check the swindling rogues at the taverns who were ever for adding on to the scores I owed them, and inserting in the list bowls of punch and flasks of sherris I had never drunk. And the fashioners would ever insert charges for hoods for the girls, or laces for Doll----"
"Your recollections are scarcely seemly before these ladies," my father again interrupted sternly. "My nephew and I have had already twice to bid you mind your expressions. Now, sir, hear me and remember what I say. If I treat you well you must behave yourself as becomes a gentleman, and use neither strong language nor introduce unseemly stories into your talk. For, if you do not conform to these orders of mine, you will be sent back to dwell among the bond-servants to whom doubtless your language and narratives will be acceptable."
"I ask pardon," the other said, though by no means graciously, and speaking rather as one who was forced by an inferior to do that which he disliked. "I will offend the ladies' delicacy no more."
Then, without hesitation, he changed the subject and said, "And when, sir, may I expect to get some proper food? I have neither eaten nor drunk since you brought me from the coast this morning."
"You shall have food," my father replied. "Come with us"; while, as we all went back to the house, he said to Gregory, "'Tis the coolest rascal that was ever sold as a slave into the colonies. It seems impossible to doubt but that his story must be true."
And now I have to tell, as briefly as may be, of how the Honourable Roderick St. Amande--as he said he was, and as we all came to believe he was in very truth--who had come as a bought slave and bond-servant to our house, became ere long almost one of us, mixing on the same footing with us and, indeed, living almost the life of a member of my father's family. To listen to his discourse was, indeed, to be forced to believe in him, for while he had ceased to insist upon the truth of his position, as though 'twas no longer necessary, every word he uttered showed that he must have held that position at home and had, at least, mixed amongst those with whom he claimed to be on an equality. He spoke of other lords and ladies with such easy freedom as no impostor could have assumed who had only known them by sight or hearsay; he described London and Dublin, and the Courts of both, in a manner which other Virginians, who were in the habit of paying frequent visits home, acknowledged was perfectly just and accurate, and, above all, his easy assumption of familiarity, if not superiority, to those whom he designated as "colonials" and "emigrants," impressed everyone. To my father, whose bread he ate in easy servitude, he behaved with a not disrespectful freedom; Gregory he treated as a sort of provincial acquaintance; and to Mary Mills and myself he assumed an easy degree of intercourse which was at once amusing and galling. And that he was a bought slave who might be starved or flogged, and possibly killed if his master were cruelly disposed, he seemed to have entirely forgotten.
Yet--bitter as is the confession, knowing now how this wretch repaid at last that which was done for him--all of us came to regard him as an intimate, and, if the truth must be told, to take some amusement in his society. To my father he could tell many interesting stories, young as he was, of men moving in the gay world at home, of whom the former had heard, or with whose forerunners he had been acquainted. To Gregory he described the hunting of the fox in England and Ireland; racing which he had seen at Newmarket and on Hampstead Heath and Southsea Common, new guns that were invented for the chase, and the improved breeds of harriers that were trained in Wiltshire. To Mary and myself--shame on us that we loved to hear such things!--he would tell of the ladies of the Court and their love affairs and intriguings; of the women of the theatres and their great appetites and revellings, and of the balls and ridottos and "hops," as he termed them, which took place. Of books, though he had been at school at Harrow, he seemed to know nothing, though he had little scraps of Latin which he would lug into his conversation as suitable to the subject. Yet to us, to Mary who had never been allowed to go to a theatre in England, or to me who dwelt in a land where such a thing had never at this time been heard of, and where an exhibition of a polar bear, or a lion, or a camel in a barn was a marvel that drew crowds from miles around, his talk was agreeable.
Unfortunately, however, there was that about him which led us two women--though I was scarce a woman then--to keep him at his distance. Being made free of the rum and the sangaree as well as, sometimes, the imported brandy, and being often with the young gentlemen of other plantations, whom he soon came to know, he was frequently inebriated, and, when in this state, was not fit to be encountered. My white bondmaid, Christian Lamb (who as a girl of fourteen had been sentenced to death in London for stealing a bottle of sweetmeats, but was afterwards cast for transportation) was one of the objects of his passion until her brother, a convict, threatened to have revenge if he did not desist. Of this brother so strange a thing was related that I must here repeat it. Going to bid farewell to his sister, Christian, in the transport at Woolwich, near London, he begged the captain to take him, too, as a foremast man, but this the other refused, bidding him brutally to wait but a little while and he would doubtless come soon "in the proper way," namely, as a convict himself. Enraged, he went ashore and picked a gentleman's pocket of a handkerchief, when, sure enough, he came out in the next transport to Virginia, and, enquiring for his sister, had the extreme good fortune to attract my father's notice and to be bought by him.
To Mary and to me Mr. St. Amande ever used the language of his class, as, I suppose, in England, and would exclaim:
"How beautiful you both are. You, Miss Mills, are dark as the Queen of Night, as the fellow saith in the play, while you Miss Bampfyld are like unto the lilies of the field. 'Tis well I have not to stay here long or my heart would be irremediably gone--split in twain, one half labelled 'Mary,' t'other 'Joice.' Nay, I know not that I do not love you both now."
"Best keep your love, sir," Mary would reply, "for those who wish it, as doubtless there are many. 'Tis said you admire many of the bond-women below; why not offer your love to them as well as your pretty speeches?"
Whereon he would flush up and reply, "Madam, my love is for my equals. You forget I am a peer in the future."
"And a slave in the present," she would retort, as it seemed to me then, cruelly. "Therefore are the bond-women your equals."
His drunkenness angered my father so, that, sometimes, he would order him out of the great saloon, where he would unconcernedly sprawl about, soiling our imported Smyrna and Segodia carpets, disarranging our old English furniture we prized so much, and rumpling the silk and satin covers on the couches. Then, when ordered forth, he would often disappear for a day or so, to be heard of next as being at a cock-fight at some neighbouring hamlet; or in a drinking bout with our clergyman, a most depraved divine who was only kept in his position till a more decorous person could be obtained; or herding down with the bond-servants and negroes till driven away by the overseers.
"In truth," my father would at these times exclaim, "I wish heartily a letter would come from the Marquis." He had written to him in preference to Lord St. Amande, reflecting that if, after all, the fellow was not what he seemed to be, the Marquis must be the man to set things right, while Lord St. Amande might, in such a case, be an impostor himself. Yet it grew more and more difficult to suppose this, since the youth himself had once or twice sent off letters addressed to "The Right Hon., The Viscount St. Amande," at Grafton Street, Dublin; to another gentleman addressed as "Wolfe Considine, Esquire," and to still another addressed as "Lord Charles Garrett, at The Castle, Dublin."
"'Tis a plaguey fellow this," he said to us of his lordship one day with a laugh, as he closed the latter up, "to whom I was engaged, as I seem to remember, to fight a duel on the morning the ruffians kidnapped me. A son of the Marquis of Tullamore, and a fire-eater, because his father had got him a pair of colours in Dunmore's regiment. He will swear I ran away for fear of him, till he gets this letter telling him I will meet him directly I set foot in Ireland again."
"What," said my father one night to me as we sat in the porch, "does he mean when he mutters something about an impostor who claims his father's title? I have heard him speak on the subject to you and Miss Mills, though, since I can not abide the youth, I have paid but little heed."
"He says," I replied, while my father smoked his great pipe and listened lazily, "that there is some youth in Ireland who claims to be the rightful lord, being the son of his uncle, the late Viscount. Yet he is not his son, he says, being in truth the son of that lord's wife who lived not with her husband."
"Humph!" exclaimed my father, "then 'tis strange he should be here sold into bond-service while the other is free at home. 'Tis common enough for such poor lads as that other to get sent away, but peers' true sons not often. Perhaps," he went on, "it is this gracious youth who is the impostor and not that other."
"I know not," I replied, "but from what Mary and I can gather--and he speaks more freely in his cups than ordinarily--there seems to have been some plot devised for shipping off that other, but some springe having been set this one was sent instead. Yet, he says, he cannot himself comprehend it, since the other was a beggar dwelling with beggars, while he was amongst the best, so that no confusion should have arisen."
"Does he say that his father, Lord St. Amande, entered into so foul a plot as that?"
"Nay, he says the youth was a young criminal cast for transportation for robbery, but that he escaped from jail and, in the hunt after him, they secured the wrong one, which he accounts for by both bearing the same name."
Again my father said "Humph!" and pondered awhile, and then, as he rose to seek his bed, he continued, "We shall know the truth some day, may be. The Marquis of Amesbury will surely answer my letter, and, indeed, if this young tosspot be what he says he is, there should already be some on their way to Virginia to seek for him. He cannot have been smuggled off without some talk arising about the affair, and, even if that should not be so, the letters he has sent by the couriers to his father should bring forth some response--if his tale is true."
So the time went on and the period drew near when news might be expected from Ireland. As it so went on and that intelligence might be looked for, we grew more and more sure that Mr. St. Amande's story must be true. For so certain did he seem of the fact that letters would come from his father--he knowing not that mine had written to the Marquis of Amesbury--requiring his release and paying, as the young man was courteous enough to term it, "my father's charges," that he threw off any restraint he might previously have had, and treated us all with even greater freedom than before. Yet, as you shall hear, he went too far.
He would not, however, have gone as far as he did if, at this time, my father had not fallen into a sickness which obliged him to keep his bed--alas! it was to bring him to his end!--so that there was none to control this young man. Gregory, who had his own plantation where he lived with his widowed mother, and their joint interests to look after, could not be always at our place, and thus the marvellous thing came about that Mr. St. Amande, though our bond-servant in actual fact, did in our house almost what he pleased. He came and went as he chose, he rode my father's horses, he drank rum morning, noon and night, and he even brought his degraded friend, the clergyman, into the house to drink with him under the excuse of that wicked old man being necessary for my father's spiritual needs. But the latter ordered that degraded man from the room where he lay sick, and bade him begone, and, later on, at night, when these two began singing and bawling in their cups--so that some of the negroes and servants outside thought the Indians had at last surrounded us!--he staggered forth from his chamber, and, from the landing, swore he would go down and shoot them if they did not desist.
But now came the time when all this turmoil and this disgrace to our house was to cease.
I was passing one night through the saloon, having, indeed, come in from the porch where I had been advising with Gregory, who had ridden over to see us, as to what was to be done if my father remained much longer sick and we still had this dreadful infliction upon our house, when to my surprise--for I thought him away cockfighting--I saw him reel into the hall, and, perceiving me, direct his steps into the room where I was.
"Ha! ha! my pretty Joice!" he exclaimed, as he did so; "ha! ha! my Virginian beauty. So thou art here! How sweet, too, thou look'st to-night with thy bare white arms and rosy lips and golden hair. Faith, Joice! colonist girl though thou art, thou are fit to be beloved of any," and he hiccoughed loudly.
"If Gregory had not but gone this instant," I exclaimed, "he should whip you, you ill-mannered dog, for daring to speak to me thus in my father's own house. Get you to bed, sir, and disturb not the place."
"To bed! Not I! 'Tis not yet ten o' the clock and I am not accustomed to such hours. Nay, Joice, think on't, my dear. Five months at sea, kicked and cuffed and starved, and now in the land of plenty--plenty to eat and drink. And to spend, too! See here, my Joice," and he pulled out a handful of English guineas from his pocket. "Won 'em all at the match from that put Pringle, who, colonist though he is, hath impudently been sent to Oxford and is now back. Won't go to bed, Joice, for hours," he hiccoughed. "No! Fetch me bottle brandy. We'll sit up together and I'll tell you how I love you."
"Let me pass,slave," I exclaimed in my anger, while he still stood barring my way. "Let me pass."
"Hoity-toity. Slave, eh? Slave! And for how long, think you, my pretty? Ships are due in the bay even now, and then I can pay off thy father and go home. Yet I know not that I will go home. I have conceived a fancy for Virginia and Virginian girls. Above all for thee, Joice. I love thy golden head and blue eyes and rosy lips--what said the actor fellow in the play of old Bess's day, of lips like roses filled with snow? He must have dreamt of such as thine!--I love them, I say. And, Joice, I do love thee."
I was trembling with anger all the while he spoke, and now I said:
"While my father lies sick I rule in this house, and to-morrow that rule shall see you punished. To-morrow you shall go amongst the convicts and the bond-servants, and do slaves' work. You tipsy dog, this house is no place for you!"
He took no notice of my words beyond a drunken grin, and then, because he was a cowardly ruffian who thought he could safely assault a young girl who was alone and defenceless while her father lay ill upstairs, he sprang towards me and seized me in his arms exclaiming: "Roses filled with snow! And I will have a kiss from them. I will, I say, I will. Thy charms madden me, Joice."
But now, while I struggled with him and beat his face with my clenched hands, I sent shriek upon shriek forth, and I screamed to my father and Mary to come and save me from the monster.
"Ssh-ssh!" he said, while still he endeavoured to kiss me. "Hush, you pretty fool, hush! You will arouse the house, and kisses cost nothing--ha, the devil!"
He broke off his speech and released me, for now he saw a sight that struck fear to his craven heart. Standing in the open doorway, his face as white as the long dressing robe he wore, was my father with his drawn hanger in his hand, and, behind him, Mary Mills and one or two negroes.
"God!" he exclaimed, "my daughter assaulted by my own bought servant. You villain! your life alone can atone for this." Then, with one step, his strength returning to him for a moment, he came within distance of the ruffian, and, reaching his sword on high, struck full at his head. Fortunately for the other, but unfortunately for future events, his feebleness made that sword shake in his hand so that it missed the wretch's head--though only by a hair's breadth--and, descending, struck off one of his ears so that it fell upon the polished floor of the saloon, while the weapon cut into his shoulder as it continued its course.
"This time I will make more sure," my father exclaimed, raising the sword again, but, ere he could renew the attack, with one bound accompanied by a hideous yell of pain, the villain Roderick St. Amande had leapt out on to the porch and fled down the steps--his track being marked by a line of blood. While my poor father, overcome by his exertions, and seeing that the wretch had escaped, fell back fainting into the arms of Mary Mills.