The Honorable Frederick Dunburne, second son of the Earl of Clandennie,
having won some six hundred pounds at écarté at a single sitting at
Pintzennelli's, embarked with his two friends, Captain Blessington and
Lord George Fitzhope, to conclude the night with a round of final
dissipation in the more remote parts of London. Accordingly they
embarked at York Stairs for the Three Cranes, ripe for any mischief.
Upon the water the three young gentlemen amused themselves by shouting
and singing, pausing only now and then to discharge a broadside of
raillery at the occupants of some other and passing boat.
All went very well for a while, some of those in the passing boats
laughing and railing in return, others shouting out angry replies. At
last they fell in with a broad-beamed, flat-nosed, Dutch-appearing
yawl-boat, pulling heavily up against the stream, and loaded with a
crew of half-drunken sailors just come into port. In reply to the
challenge of our young gentlemen, a man in the stern of the other boat,
who appeared to be the captain of the crew--a fellow, as Dunburne could
indefinitely perceive by the dim light of the lanthorn and the faint
illumination of the misty half-moon, possessing a great, coarse red
face and a bullet head surmounted by a mildewed and mangy fur cap--
bawled out, in reply, that if they would only put their boat near
enough for a minute or two he would give them a bellyful of something
that would make them quiet for the rest of the night. He added that he
would ask for nothing better than to have the opportunity of beating
Dunburne's head to a pudding, and that he would give a crown to have
the three of them within arm's-reach for a minute.
Upon this Captain Blessington swore that he should be immediately
accommodated, and therewith delivered an order to that effect to the
watermen. These obeyed so promptly that almost before Dunburne was
aware of what had happened the two boats were side by side, with hardly
a foot of space between the gunwales. Dunburne beheld one of the
watermen of his own boat knock down one of the crew of the other with
the blade of an oar, and then he himself was clutched by the collar in
the grasp of the man with the fur cap. Him Dunburne struck twice in the
face, and in the moonlight he saw that he had started the blood to
running down from his assailant's nose. But his blows produced no other
effect than to call forth a volley of the most horrible oaths that ever
greeted his ears. Thereupon the boats drifted so far apart that our
young gentleman was haled over the gunwale and soused in the cold water
of the river. The next moment some one struck him upon the head with a
belaying-pin or a billet of wood, a blow so crushing that the darkness
seemed to split asunder with a prodigious flaming of lights and a
myriad of circling stars, which presently disappeared into the profound
and utter darkness of insensibility. How long this swoon continued our
young gentleman could never tell, but when he regained so much of his
consciousness as to be aware of the things about him, he beheld himself
to be confined in a room, the walls whereof were yellow and greasy with
dirt, he himself having been laid upon a bed so foul and so displeasing
to his taste that he could not but regret the swoon from which he had
emerged into consciousness. Looking down at his person, he beheld that
his clothes had all been taken away from him, and that he was now clad
in a shirt with only one sleeve, and a pair of breeches so tattered
that they barely covered his nakedness. While he lay thus, dismally
depressed by so sad a pickle as that into which he found himself
plunged, he was strongly and painfully aware of an uproarious babble of
loud and drunken voices and a continual clinking of glasses, which
appeared to sound as from a tap-room beneath, these commingled now and
then with oaths and scraps of discordant song bellowed out above the
hubbub. His wounded head beat with tremendous and straining
painfulness, as though it would burst asunder, and he was possessed by
a burning thirst that seemed to consume his very vitals. He called
aloud, and in reply a fat, one-eyed woman came, fetching him something
to drink in a cup. This he swallowed with avidity, and thereupon (the
liquor perhaps having been drugged) he dropped off into unconsciousness
once more.
When at last he emerged for a second time into the light of reason, it
was to find himself aboard a brig--the _Prophet Daniel_, he discovered
her name to be--bound for Baltimore, in the Americas, and then pitching
and plunging upon a westerly running stern-sea, and before a strong
wind that drove the vessel with enormous velocity upon its course for
those remote and unknown countries for which it was bound. The land was
still in sight both astern and abeam, but before him lay the boundless
and tremendously infinite stretch of the ocean. Dunburne found himself
still to be clad in the one-armed shirt and tattered breeches that had
adorned him in the house of the crimp in which he had first awakened.
Now, however, an old tattered hat with only a part of the crown had
been added to his costume. As though to complete the sad disorder of
his appearance, he discovered, upon passing his hand over his
countenance, that his beard and hair had started a bristling growth,
and that the lump on his crown--which was even yet as big as a walnut--
was still patched with pieces of dirty sticking-plaster. Indeed, had he
but known it, he presented as miserable an appearance as the most
miserable of those wretches who were daily ravished from the slums and
streets of the great cities to be shipped to the Americas. Nor was he a
long time in discovering that he was now one of the several such
indentured servants who, upon the conclusion of their voyage, were to
be sold for their passage in the plantations of Maryland.
Having learned so much of his miserable fate, and being now able to
make shift to walk (though with weak and stumbling steps), our young
gentleman lost no time in seeking the Captain, to whom he endeavored to
explain the several accidents that had befallen him, acknowledging that
he was the second son of the Earl of Clandennie, and declaring that if
he, the Captain, would put the _Prophet Daniel_ back into some English
port again, his lordship would make it well worth his while to lose so
much time for the sake of one so dear as a second son. To this address
the Captain, supposing him either to be drunk or disordered in his
mind, made no other reply than to knock him incontinently down upon the
deck, bidding him return forward where he belonged.
Thereafter poor Dunburne found himself enjoying the reputation of a
harmless madman. The name of the Earl of Rags was bestowed upon him,
and the miserable companions of his wretched plight were never tired of
tempting him to recount his adventures, for the sake of entertaining
themselves by teasing that which they supposed to be his hapless mania.
Nor is it easy to conceive of all the torments that those miserable,
obscene wretches were able to inflict upon him. Under the teasing sting
of his companions' malevolent pleasantries, there were times when
Dunburne might, as he confessed to himself, have committed a murder
with the greatest satisfaction in the world. However, he was endowed
with no small command of self-restraint, so that he was still able to
curb his passions within the bounds of reason and of policy. He was,
fortunately, a complete master of the French and Italian languages, so
that when the fury of his irritation would become too excessive for him
to control, he would ease his spirits by castigating his tormentors
with a consuming verbosity in those foreign tongues, which, had his
companions understood a single word of that which he uttered, would
have earned for him a beating that would have landed him within an inch
of his life. However, they attributed all that he said to the
irrational gibbering of a maniac.
About midway of their voyage the _Prophet Daniel_ encountered a
tremendous storm, which drove her so far out of the Captain's reckoning
that when land was sighted, in the afternoon of a tempestuous day in
the latter part of August, the first mate, who had been for some years
in the New England trade, opined that it was the coast of Rhode Island,
and that if the Captain chose to do so he might run into New Hope
Harbor and lie there until the southeaster had blown itself out. This
advice the Captain immediately put into execution, so that by nightfall
they had dropped anchor in the comparative quiet of that excellent
harbor.
Dunburne was a most excellent and practised swimmer. That evening, when
the dusk had pretty well fallen, he jumped overboard, dived under the
brig, and came up on the other side. Thus leaving all hands aboard
looking for him or for his dead body at the starboard side of the
_Prophet Daniel_, he himself swam slowly away to the larboard. Now
partly under water, now floating on his back, he directed his course
towards a point of land about a mile away, whereon, as he had observed
before the dark had settled down, there stood an old wooden building
resembling a church, and a great brick house with tall, lean chimneys
at a little farther distance inland.
The intemperate cold of the water of those parts of America was so much
more excessive than Dunburne had been used to swim in that when he
dragged himself out upon the rocky, bowlder-strewn beach he lay for a
considerable time more dead than alive. His limbs appeared to possess
hardly any vitality, so benumbed were they by the icy chill that had
entered into the very marrow of his bones. Nor did he for a long while
recover from this excessive rigor; his limbs still continued at
intervals to twitch and shudder as with a convulsion, nor could he at
such times at all control their trembling. At last, however, with a
huge sigh, he aroused himself to some perception of his surroundings,
which he acknowledged were of as dispiriting a sort as he could well
have conceived of. His recovering senses were distracted by a ceaseless
watery din, for the breaking waves, rushing with a prodigious swiftness
from the harbor to the shore before the driving wind, fell with
uproarious crashing into white foam among the rocks. Above this watery
tumult spread the wet gloom of the night, full of the blackness and
pelting chill of a fine slanting rain.
Through this shroud of mist and gloom Dunburne at last distinguished a
faint light, blurred by the sheets of rain and darkness, and shining as
though from a considerable distance. Cheered by this nearer presence of
human life, our young gentleman presently gathered his benumbed powers
together, arose, and after a while began slowly and feebly to climb a
stony hill that lay between the rocky beach and that faint but
encouraging illumination.
So, sorely buffeted by the tempest, he at last reached the black,
square form of that structure from which the light shone. The building
he perceived to be a little wooden church of two stories in height. The
shutters of the lower story were tight fastened, as though bolted from
within. Those above were open, and from them issued the light that had
guided him in his approach from the beach. A tall flight of wooden
steps, wet in the rain, reached to a small, enclosed porch or
vestibule, whence a door, now tight shut, gave ingress into the second
story of the church.
Thence, as Dunburne stood without, he could now distinguish the dull
muttering of a man's voice, which he opined might be that of the
preacher. Our young gentleman, as may be supposed, was in a wretched
plight. He was ragged and unshaven; his only clothing was the miserable
shirt and bepatched breeches that had served him as shelter throughout
the long voyage. These abominable garments were now wet to the skin,
and so displeasing was his appearance that he was forced to acknowledge
to himself that he did not possess enough of humility to avow so great
a misery to the light and to the eyes of strangers. Accordingly,
finding some shelter afforded by the vestibule of the church, he
crouched there in a corner, huddling his rags about him, and finding a
certain poor warmth in thus hiding away from the buffeting of the chill
and penetrating wind. As he so crouched he presently became aware of
the sound of many voices, dull and groaning, coming from within the
edifice, and then--now and again--the clanking as of a multitude of
chains. Then of a sudden, and unexpectedly, the door near him was flung
wide open, and a faint glow of reddish light fell across the passage.
Instantly the figure of a man came forth, and following him came, not a
congregation, as Dunburne might have supposed, but a most dolorous
company of nearly, or quite, naked men and women, outlined blackly, as
they emerged, against the dull illumination from behind. These wretched
beings, sighing and groaning most piteously, with a monotonous wailing
of many voices, were chained by the wrist, two and two together, and as
they passed by close to Dunburne, his nostrils were overpowered by a
heavy and fetid odor that came partly from within the building, partly
from the wretched creatures that passed him by.
As the last of these miserable beings came forth from the bowels of
that dreadful place, a loud voice, so near to Dunburne as to startle
his ears with its sudden exclamation, cried out, "Six-and-twenty, all
told," and thereat instantly the dull light from within was quenched
into darkness.
In the gloom and the silence that followed, Dunburne could hear for a
while nothing but the dash of the rain upon the roof and the ceaseless
drip and trickle of the water running from the eaves into the puddles
beneath the building.
Then, as he stood, still marvelling at what he had seen, there suddenly
came a loud and startling crash, as of a trap-door let fall into its
place. A faint circle of light shone within the darkness of the
building, as though from a lantern carried in a man's hands. There was
a sound of jingling, as of keys, of approaching footsteps, and of
voices talking together, and presently there came out into the
vestibule the dark figures of two men, one of them carrying a ship's
lantern. One of these figures closed and locked the door behind him,
and then both were about to turn away without having observed Dunburne,
when, of a sudden, a circle from the roof of the lantern lit up his
pale and melancholy face, and he instantly became aware that his
presence had been discovered.
The next moment the lantern was flung up almost into his eyes, and in
the light he saw the sharp, round rim of a pistol-barrel directed
immediately against his forehead.
In that moment our young gentleman's life hung as a hair in the
balance. In the intense instant of expectancy his brain appeared to
expand as a bubble, and his ears tingled and hummed as though a cloud
of flies were buzzing therein. Then suddenly a voice smote like a blow
upon the silence--"Who are you, and what d'ye want?"
"Indeed," said Dunburne, "I do not know."
"What do you do here?"
"Nor do I know that, either."
He who held the lantern lifted it so that the illumination fell still
more fully upon Dunburne's face and person. Then his interlocutor
demanded, "How did you come here?"
Upon the moment Dunburne determined to answer so much of the truth as
the question required. "'Twas by no fault of my own," he cried. "I was
knocked on the head and kidnapped in England, with the design of being
sold in Baltimore. The vessel that fetched me put into the harbor over
yonder to wait for good weather, and I jumped overboard and swam
ashore, to stumble into the cursed pickle in which I now find myself."
"Have you, then, an education? To be sure, you talk so."
"Indeed I have," said Dunburne--"a decent enough education to fit me
for a gentleman, if the opportunity offered. But what of that?" he
exclaimed, desperately. "I might as well have no more learning than a
beggar under the bush, for all the good it does me." The other once
more flashed the light of his lantern over our young gentleman's
miserable and barefoot figure. "I had a mind," says he, "to blow your
brains out against the wall. I have a notion now, however, to turn you
to some use instead, so I'll just spare your life for a little while,
till I see how you behave."
He spoke with so much more of jocularity than he had heretofore used
that Dunburne recovered in great part his dawning assurance. "I am
infinitely obliged to you," he cried, "for sparing my brains; but I
protest I doubt if you will ever find so good an opportunity again to
murder me as you have just enjoyed."
This speech seemed to tickle the other prodigiously, for he burst into
a loud and boisterous laugh, under cover of which he thrust his pistol
back into his coat-pocket again. "Come with me, and I'll fit you with
victuals and decent clothes, of both of which you appear to stand in no
little need," he said. Thereupon, and without another word, he turned
and quitted the place, accompanied by his companion, who for all this
time had uttered not a single sound. A little way from the church these
two parted company, with only a brief word spoken between them.
Dunburne's interlocutor, with our young gentleman following close
behind him, led the way in silence for a considerable distance through
the long, wet grass and the tempestuous darkness, until at last, still
in unbroken silence, they reached the confines of an enclosure, and
presently stood before a large and imposing house built of brick.
Dunburne's mysterious guide, still carrying the lantern, conducted him
directly up a broad flight of steps, and opening the door, ushered him
into a hallway of no inconsiderable pretensions. Thence he led the way
to a dining-room beyond, where our young gentleman observed a long
mahogany table, and a sideboard of carved mahogany illuminated by three
or four candles. In answer to the call of his conductor, a negro
servant appeared, whom the master of the house ordered to fetch some
bread and cheese and a bottle of rum for his wretched guest. While the
servant was gone to execute the commission the master seated himself at
his ease and favored Dunburne with a long and most minute regard. Then
he suddenly asked our young gentleman what was his name.
Upon the instant Dunburne did not offer a reply to this interrogation.
He had been so miserably abused when he had told the truth upon the
voyage that he knew not now whether to confess or deny his identity. He
possessed no great aptitude at lying, so that it was with no little
hesitation that he determined to maintain his incognito. Having reached
this conclusion, he answered his host that his name was Tom Robinson.
The other, however, appeared to notice neither his hesitation nor the
name which he had seen fit to assume. Instead, he appeared to be lost
in a reverie, which he broke only to bid our young gentleman to sit
down and tell the story of the several adventures that had befallen
him. He advised him to leave nothing untold, however shameful it might
be. "Be assured," said he, "that no matter what crimes you may have
committed, the more intolerable your wickedness, the better you will
please me for the purpose I have in view."
Being thus encouraged, and having already embarked in disingenuosity,
our young gentleman, desiring to please his host, began at random a
tale composed in great part of what he recollected of the story of
_Colonel Jack_, seasoned occasionally with extracts from Mr. Smollett's
ingenious novel of _Ferdinand, Count Fathom_. There was hardly a petty
crime or a mean action mentioned in either of these entertaining
fictions that he was not willing to attribute to himself. Meanwhile he
discovered, to his surprise, that lying was not really so difficult an
art as he had supposed it to be. His host listened for a considerable
while in silence, but at last he was obliged to call upon his penitent
to stop. "To tell you the truth, Mr. What's-a-name," he cried, "I do
not believe a single word you are telling me. However, I am satisfied
that in you I have discovered, as I have every reason to hope, one of
the most preposterous liars I have for a long time fell in with.
Indeed, I protest that any one who can with so steady a countenance lie
so tremendously as you have just done may be capable, if not of a great
crime, at least of no inconsiderable deceit, and perhaps of treachery.
If this be so, you will suit my purposes very well, though I would
rather have had you an escaped criminal or a murderer or a thief."
"Sir," said Dunburne, very seriously, "I am sorry that I am not more to
your mind. As you say, I can, I find, lie very easily, and if you will
give me sufficient time, I dare say I can become sufficiently expert in
other and more criminal matters to please even your fancy. I cannot, I
fear, commit a murder, nor would I choose to embark upon an attempt at
arson; but I could easily learn to cheat at cards; or I could, if it
would please you better, make shift to forge your own name to a bill
for a hundred pounds. I confess, however, I am entirely in the dark as
to why you choose to have me enjoy so evil a reputation."
At these words the other burst into a great and vociferous laugh. "I
protest," he cried, "you are the coolest rascal ever I fell in with.
But come," he added, sobering suddenly, "what did you say was your
name?"
"I declare, sir," said Dunburne, with the most ingenuous frankness, "I
have clean forgot. Was it Tom or John Robinson?"
Again the other burst out laughing. "Well," he said, "what does it
matter? Thomas or John--'tis all one. I see that you are a ragged,
lousy beggar, and I believe you to be a runaway servant. Even if that
is the worst to be said of you, you will suit me very well. As for a
name, I myself will fit you with one, and it shall be of the best. I
will give you a home here in the house, and will for three months
clothe you like a lord. You shall live upon the best, and shall meet
plenty of the genteelest company the Colonies can afford. All that I
demand of you is that you shall do exactly as I tell you for the three
months that I so entertain you. Come. Is it a bargain?"
Dunburne sat for a while thinking very seriously. "First of all," said
he, "I must know what is the name you have a mind to bestow upon me."
The other looked distrustfully at him for a time, and then, as though
suddenly fetching up resolution, he cried out: "Well, what then? What
of it? Why should I be afraid? I'll tell you. Your name shall be
Frederick Dunburne, and you shall be the second son of the Earl of
Clandennie."
Had a thunder-bolt fallen from heaven at Dunburne's feet he could not
have been struck more entirely dumb than he was at those astounding
words. He knew not for the moment where to look or what to think. At
that instant the negro man came into the room, fetching the bottle of
rum and the bread and cheese he had been sent for. As the sound of his
entrance struck upon our young gentleman's senses he came to himself
with the shock, and suddenly exploded into a burst of laughter so
shrill and discordant that Captain Obadiah sat staring at him as though
he believed his ragged beneficiary had gone clean out of his senses.