A MENDER OF NETS
"A slave insurrection!"
Landless, recoiling, struck with his shoulder the torch, which fell to
the floor. The flame went out, leaving only a red gleaming end. "I will
get another," said the mender of nets, and limped to the corner where
the shadow had been thickest. Landless, left in darkness, heard a faint
muttering as though Master Robert Godwyn were talking to himself. It
took some time to find the torch; but at length Godwyn returned with one
in his hand, and kindled it at the expiring light.
Landless rose from his seat, and strode to and fro through the hut. His
pulses beat to bursting; there was a tingling at his finger-tips; to his
startled senses the hut seemed to expand, to become a cavern,
interminable and unfathomable, wide as the vaulted earth, filled with
awful, shadowy places and strange, lurid lights. The mender of nets
became a far-off sphinx-like figure.
Godwyn watched him in silence. He had a large knowledge of human nature,
and he saw into the mind and heart of the restless figure. He himself
was a philosopher, and wore his chains lightly, but he guessed that the
iron had entered deeply into the soul of the man before him. The sturdy
peasants, indented servants with but a few short years to serve, better
fed and better clad than their fellows at home, found life on a Virginia
plantation no sweet or easy thing; the political and ecclesiastical
offenders enjoyed it still less, while the small criminal class found
their punishment quite sufficiently severe. To this man the life must be
a slow _peine forte et dure_, breaking his body with toil, crushing his
soul with a hopeless degradation. The thought of escape must be ever
present with him. But escape in the conventional manner, through
pathless forests and over broad streams, was a thing rarely attained to.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred failed; and the last state of the man who
failed was worse than his first.
Landless strode over to the table, and leaned his weight upon it.
"Listen!" he said. "God knows I am a desperate man! My attempt to escape
failing, there is naught but His word between me and the deepest pool of
these waters. I am no saint. I hate my enemies. Restore to me my sword,
pit me against them one by one, and I will fight my way to freedom or
die.... A fair fight, too, a rising of the people against oppression; a
challenge to the oppressor to do his worst; a gallant leading of a
forlorn hope.... But a slave insurrection! a midnight butchery! There
was one who used to tell me tales of such risings in the Indies. Murder
and rapine, fire rising through the night, planters cut down at their
very thresholds, shrieking women tortured, children flung into the
flames,--a carnival of blood and horror!"
"We are not in the Indies," said the other quietly. "There will be no
such devil's work here. Sit down and listen while I put the thing before
you as it is. There are, most iniquitously held as slaves in this
Virginia, some four hundred Commonwealth's men, each one of whom, at
home and in his own station, was a man of mark. Many were Ironsides. And
each one is a force in himself,--cool, determined, intrepid,--and wholly
desperate. With them are many victims of the Act of Uniformity, godly
men, eaten up with zeal. For their freedom they would dare much; for
their faith they would spill every drop of their blood."
"They are like our friend, the Muggletonian, fanatics all, I suppose,"
said Landless.
"Possibly. Your fanatic is the best fighting machine yet invented. Do
you not see that these two classes form a regiment against which no
trainbands, no force which these planters could raise, would stand?"
"But they are scattered, dispersed through the colony!"
"Ay, but they can be brought together! And to that end, seeing how few
there are upon any one plantation, upon the day when they rise, they
must raise with them servants and slaves. Then will they overpower
masters and overseers, and gathering to one point, form there a force
which will beat down all opposition. It is simple enough. We will but do
that which it was proposed to do ten years ago. You know the
instructions given by the Parliament to the four commissioners?"
"They were to summon the colony to surrender to the Commonwealth. If it
did so, well and good; if not, war was to be declared, and the servants
invited to rise against their masters and so purchase their freedom."
"Precisely. Berkeley submitted, and there was no rising. This time there
will be no summons, but a rising, and a very great one. It will be,
primarily, a rising of four hundred Oliverians, strong to avenge many
and grievous wrongs; but with them will rise servants and slaves, and to
the banner of the Commonwealth, beneath which they will march, will
flock every Nonconformist in the land, and, when success is assured,
then will come in and give us weight and respectability those (and they
are not a few) of the better classes who long in their hearts for the
good days of the Commonwealth, and yet dare not lift a finger to bring
them back."
"And the royalists?"
"If they resist, their blood be upon them! But there shall be no
carnage, no butchery. And if they submit they shall be unmolested, even
as they were ten years ago. There is land enough for all."
"The servants and slaves?"
"They that join with us, of whatever class, shall be freed."
"This insurrection is actually in train?"
"Let us call it a revolution. Yes, it is in train as far as regards the
Oliverians. We have but begun to sound servants and slaves."
"And you?"
"I am, for lack of a better, General to the Oliverians."
"And you believe yourself able to control these motley forces,--men
wronged and revengeful, fanatics, peasants, brutal negroes, mulattoes
(whom they say are devils), convicts,--to say to them, 'Thus far must
you go, and no farther.' You invoke a fiend that may turn and rend you!"
Godwyn shaded his eyes with his hand. "Yes," he said at last, speaking
with energy. "I do believe it! I know it is a desperate game; but the
stake! I believe in myself. And I have four hundred able adjutants, men
who are to me what his Ironsides were to Oliver, but none--" he
stretched out his hand, thin, white, and delicate as a woman's, and laid
it upon the brown one resting upon the table. "Lad," he said in a
gravely tender voice, "I have none upon this plantation in whom I can
put absolute trust. There are few Oliverians here, and they are like
Win-Grace Porringer, in whom zeal hath eaten up discretion. Lad, I need
a helper! I have spoken to you freely; I have laid my heart before you;
and why? Because I, who was and am a gentleman, see in you a gentleman,
because I would take your word before all the oaths of all the peasant
servants in Virginia, because you have spirit and judgment; because,--in
short, because I could love you as I loved your father before you. You
have great wrongs. We will right them together. Be my lieutenant, my
confidant, my helper! Come! put your hand in mine and say, 'I am with
you, Robert Godwyn, heart and soul.'"
Landless sprang to his feet. "It were easy to say that," he said
hoarsely, "for, in all the two years I lay rotting in prison, and in
these weeks of sordid misery here in Virginia, yours is the only face
that has looked kindly upon me, yours the only voice that has told me I
was believed.... But it is a fearful thing you propose! If all go as you
say it will,--why WELL! but if not, Hell will be in the land. I must
have time to think, to judge for myself, to decide--"
The door swung stealthily inward, and in the opening appeared the dead
white face, with the great letter sprawling over it, of Master Win-Grace
Porringer.
"There are boats on the creek," he said. "Two coming up, one coming
down."
Godwyn nodded. "I hold conference to-night with men from this and the
two neighboring plantations. You will stay where you are and see and
hear them. Only you must be silent; for they must not know that you are
not entirely one with us, as I am well assured you will be."
"They are Oliverians?"
"All but two or three."
"I secured the mulatto," interrupted the Muggletonian.
"Ay," said Godwyn, "I thought it well to have one slave representative
here to-night. These mulattoes are devils; but they can plot, and they
can keep a still tongue. But I shall not trust him or his kind too far."
The peculiar knock--four strokes in all--sounded upon the door, and
Porringer went to it. "Who is there?" passed on the one side, and "The
sword of the Lord and of Gideon" on the other. The door swung open, and
there entered two men of a grave and determined cast of countenance.
Both had iron-gray hair, and one was branded upon the forehead with the
letter that appeared upon the cheek of the Muggletonian. Again the knock
sounded, the countersign was given, and the door opened to admit a pale,
ascetic-looking youth, with glittering eyes and a crimson spot on each
cheek, who stooped heavily and coughed often. He was followed by another
stern-faced Commonwealth's man, and he in turn by a brace of
broad-visaged rustics and a smug-faced man, who looked like a small
shopkeeper. After an interval came two more Oliverians, grim of eye,
and composed in manner.
Last of all came the mulatto of the pale amber color and the gold
ear-rings; and with him came the long-nosed, twitching-lipped convict in
whose company Landless had crossed the Atlantic. His name was Trail; and
Landless, knowing him for a villainous rogue, started at finding him
amongst the company.
His presence there was evidently unexpected. Godwyn frowned and turned
sharply upon the mulatto. "Who gave you leave to bring this man?" he
demanded sternly.
The mulatto was at no loss. "Worthy Senors all," he said smoothly,
addressing himself to the company in general. "This Senor Trail is a
good man, as I have reason to know. Once we were together in San
Domingo, slave to a villainous cavalier from Seville. With the help of
St. Jago and the Mother of God, we killed him and made our escape. Now,
after many years, we meet here in a like situation. I answer for my
friend as I answer for myself, myself, Luiz Sebastian, the humble and
altogether-devoted servant of you all, worshipful Senors."
The man with the branded forehead muttered something in which the only
distinguishable words were, "Scarlet woman," and "Papist half-breed,"
and the smug-faced man cried out, "Trail is a forger and thief! I
remember his trial at the Bailey, a week before I signed as storekeeper
to Major Carrington."
This speech of the smug-faced man created something of a commotion, and
one or two started to their feet. The mulatto looked about him with an
evil eye.
"My friend has been in trouble, it is true," he said, still very
smoothly. "He will not make the worse conspirator for that. And why,
worthy Senors, should you make a difference between him and one other I
see in company? Mother of God! they are both in the same boat!" He fixed
his large eyes on Landless as he spoke, and his thick lips curled into a
tigerish smile.
Landless half rose, but Godwyn laid a detaining hand upon his arm. "Be
still," he said in a low voice, "and let me manage this matter."
Landless obeyed, and the mender of nets turned to the assembly, who by
this time were looking very black.
"Friends," he said with quiet impressiveness, "I think you know me,
Robert Godwyn, well enough to know that I make no move in these great
matters without good and sufficient reason. I have good and sufficient
reason for wishing to associate with us this young man,--yea, even to
make him a leader among us. He is one of us--he fought at Worcester. And
that he is an innocent man, falsely accused, falsely imprisoned,
wrongfully sent to the plantations, I well believe,--for I will believe
no wrong of the son of Warham Landless."
There was a loud murmur of surprise through the room, and one of the
Oliverians sprung to his feet, crying out, "Warham Landless was my
colonel! I will follow his son were he ten times a convict!"
Godwyn waited for the buzz of voices to cease and then calmly proceeded,
"As to this man whom Luiz Sebastian hath brought with him, I know
nothing. But it matters little. Sooner or later we must engage his
class,--as well commence with him as with another. He will be faithful
for his own sake."
The dark faces of his audience cleared gradually. Only the youth with
the hectic cheeks cried out, "I have hated the congregation of evil
doers, and I will not sit with the wicked!" and rose as if to make for
the door. Win-Grace Porringer pulled him down with a muttered, "Curse
you for a fool! Shall not the Lord shave with a hired razor? When these
men have done their work, then shall they be cut down and cast into
outer darkness, until when, hold thy peace!"
The company now applied itself to the transaction of business. Trail was
duly sworn in, not without a deal of oily glibness and unnecessary
protestation on his part. The man who held the little, worn Bible now
turned to Landless, but upon Godwyn's saying quietly, "I have already
sworn him," the book was returned to the bosom of its owner.
Each conspirator had his report to make. Landless listened with grave
attention and growing wonder to long lists of plantations and the
servant and slave force thereon; to news from the up-river estates, and
from the outlying settlements upon the Rappahannock and the Pamunkey,
and from across the bay in Accomac; to accounts of secret arsenals
slowly filling with rude weapons; to allusions to the well-affected
sailors on board those ships that were likely to be in harbor during the
next two months;--to the details of a formidable and far-reaching
conspiracy.
The Oliverians spoke of the hour in which this mine should be sprung as
the great and appointed day of the Lord, the day when the Lord was to
stretch forth his hand and smite the malignants, the day when Israel
should be delivered out of the hand of Pharaoh. The branded man
apostrophized Godwyn as Moses. Their stern and rigid features relaxed,
their eyes glistened, their breath came short and thick. Once the youth
who had wished to avoid the company of the wicked broke into hysterical
sobbing. The two rustics spoke little, but possibly thought the more. To
them the day of the Lord translated itself the day of their obtaining a
freehold. The smug-faced shopkeeper put in his oar now and again, but
only to be swept aside by the torrent of Biblical quotation. The newly
admitted Trail kept a discreet silence, but used his furtive greenish
eyes to good purpose. Luiz Sebastian sat with the stillness of a great,
yellow, crouching tiger cat.
Godwyn heard all in silence. Not till the last man had had his say did
he begin to speak, approving, suggesting, directing, moulding in his
facile hands the incongruous and disjointed mass of information and
opinion into a rounded whole. The men, listening to him with breathless
attention, gave grim nods of approval. At one point of his discourse the
branded man cried out:--
"If the Puritan gentry you talk of would gird themselves like men, and
come forth to the battle, how quickly would the Lord's work be done!
They are the drones within the hive! They expect the honey, but do not
the work."
"It is so," said Godwyn, "but they have lands and goods and fame to
lose. We have naught to lose--can be no worse off than we are now."
"If the Laodicean, Carrington,"--began the branded man.
Godwyn interrupted him. "This is beside the matter. Major Carrington is
a godly man who hath, though in secret, done many kindnesses to us poor
prisoners of the Lord. Let us be content with that."
A moment later he said, "It waxeth late, friends, and loath would I be
for one of you to be discovered. Come to me again a week from to-night.
The word will be, 'The valley of Jehoshaphat.'"
The conspirators dropped away, in twos and threes, gliding silently off
in their stolen boats between the walls of waving grass. When, last of
all save Landless and the Muggletonian, Trail and Luiz Sebastian
approached the door, Godwyn stopped them with a gesture.
"Stay a moment," he said. "I have a word to say to you. We may as well
be frank with you. I distrust you, of course. It is natural that I
should. And you distrust me as much. It is natural that you should. I
would do without the aid of you and the class you represent if I could,
but I cannot. You would do without my aid if you could, but you cannot.
Betray me, and whatever blood money you get, it will not be that freedom
which you want. We are obliged to work together, unequal yoke-fellows as
we are. Do I make myself understood?"
"To a marvel, Senor," said Luiz Sebastian.
"Damn my soul, but you're a sharp one!" said Trail.
Godwyn smiled. "That is enough, we understand one another. Good-night."
The two glided off in their turn, and Godwyn said to the Muggletonian,
"Friend Porringer, that mended sail must be bestowed in the large boat
before the hut against Haines' coming for it in the morning. Will you
take it to the boat for me? And if you will wait there this young man
shall join you shortly."
The Muggletonian nodded, piled the heap of dingy sail upon his head and
strode off. The mender of nets turned to Landless.
"Well," he said. "What do you think?"
"I think," said Landless, raising his voice, "that the gentleman in the
dark corner must be tired of standing."
There was a dead silence. Then a piece of shadow detached itself from
the other heavy shadows in the dark corner and came forward into the
torch light, where it resolved itself into a handsome figure of a man,
apparently in the prime of life, and wearing a riding cloak of green
cloth and a black riding mask. Not content with the concealment afforded
by the mask, he had pulled his beaver low over his eyes and with one
hand held the folds of the cloak about the lower part of his face. He
rested the other ungloved hand upon the table and stared fixedly at
Landless. "You have good eyes," he said at last, in a voice as muffled
as his countenance.
"It is a warm night," said Landless with a smile. "If Major Carrington
would drop that heavy cloak, he would find it more comfortable."
The man recoiled. "You know me!" he cried incredulously.
"I know the Carrington arms and motto. _Tenax et Fidelis_, is it not?
You should not wear your signet ring when you go a-plotting."
The Surveyor-General of the Colony dropped his cloak, and springing
forward seized Landless by the shoulders.
"You dog!" he hissed between his teeth, "if you dare betray me, I'll
have every drop of your blood lashed out of your body!"
Landless wrenched himself free. "I am no traitor," he said coldly.
Carrington recovered himself. "Well, well," he said, still breathing
hastily, "I believe you. I heard all that passed to-night, and I
believe you. You have been a gentleman."
"Had I my sword, I should be happy to give Major Carrington proof," said
Landless sternly.
The other smiled. "There, there, I was hasty, but by Heaven! you gave me
a start! I ask your pardon."
Landless bowed, and the mender of nets struck in. "I was sorry to keep
you so long, Major Carrington, in such an uncomfortable position. But
the arrival of the Muggletonian before he was due, together with your
desire for secrecy, left me no alternative."
"I surmise, friend Godwyn, that you would not have been sorry had this
young man proclaimed his discovery in full conclave," said Carrington
with a keen glance.
Godwyn's thin cheek flushed, but he answered composedly, "It is
certainly true that I would like to see Major Carrington committed
beyond withdrawal to this undertaking. But he will do me the justice to
believe that if, by raising my finger, I could so commit him, I would
not do so without his permission."
"Faith, it is so!" said the other, then turned to Landless with a stern
smile. "You will understand, young man, that Miles Carrington never
attended, nor will attend, a meeting wherein the peace of the realm is
conspired against by servants. If Miles Carrington ever visits Robert
Godwyn, servant to Colonel Verney, 'tis simply to employ him (with his
master's consent) in the mending of nets, or to pass an idle hour
reading Plato, Robert Godwyn having been a scholar of note at home."
"Certainly," said Landless, answering the smile. "Major Carrington and
Master Godwyn are at present much interested in the philosopher's
pretty but idle conception of a Republic, wherein philosophers shall
rule, and warriors be the bulwark of the state, and no Greek shall
enslave a fellow Greek, but only outer barbarians--all of which is
vastly pretty on paper--but they agree that it would turn the world
upside down were it put into practice."
"Precisely," said Carrington with a smile.
"You had best be off, lad," put in Godwyn. "Woodson is an early riser,
and he must not catch you gadding.... You will think on what you have
heard to-night, and will come to me again as soon as you can make
opportunity?"
"Yes," said Landless slowly. "I will come, but I make no promises."
He found Porringer seated in their boat, patiently awaiting him. They
cast off and rowed back the way they had come through the stillness of
the hour before dawn. The tide being full, the black banks had
disappeared, and the grass, sighing and whispering, waved on a level
with their boat. When they slid at last into the broader waters of the
inlet, the stars were paling, and in the east there gleamed a faint rose
tint, the ghost of a color. A silver mist lay upon land and water, and
through it they stole undetected to their several cabins.
Meanwhile the two men, left alone in the hut on the marsh, looked one
another in the face.
"Are you sure that he can be trusted?" demanded Carrington.
"I would answer for his father's son with my life."
"What of these scruples of his? Faith! an unusual conjunction--a convict
and scruples! Will you manage to dispose of them?"
Godwyn smiled with wise, sad eyes. "Time will dispose of them," he said
quietly. "He is new to the life. Let him taste its full bitterness. It
will plead powerfully against his--scruples. He has as yet no special
and private grievance. Wait until he gets into trouble with Woodson or
his master. When he has done that and has taken the consequences, he
will be ours. We can bide our time."