“So you quit the Trade!” said Trevannion. “Well, so long as I stay in
it, I’ll maintain it’s not so bad!”
“Yes, Trevannion. But one day you also will quit.”
“Perhaps, and perhaps not,” said Trevannion. “When you’ve fetched your
bread and butter so long this way it’s not easy to face getting it
another way. I’ve a family.”
“I know. It’s hard to know what to do.--Well, I’m giving the
_Janet_ back again.”
“I’m sorry! Men like you and Bartram who is dead keep us
going.--Hoggard is the most probable man.”
“There are better! If it were possible--Bartram loved the _Janet_.”
“I’ve heard you say you love her.”
“I do.”
“Then why leave her?”
“Ah, that, Trevannion, opens up so many things! But----”
“We _could_ give her to Carraway.”
“I’d prefer it--seeing that Olafson won’t budge from being mate.”
“Very good then,” he said. “I’ll do it.--And now may I ask what
_you_ are going to do?”
“I haven’t quite decided,” I said, and thanking him for his kindness
rose to take my leave.
“You’ve got, I’m glad to know, a good deal of money with us here.”
“Yes. Bartram’s will left me his savings, and I’ve saved a little
myself.”
“Then,” said Trevannion, “I sha’n’t worry about you. Money’s a great
lifeboat.”
“I should like,” I said, “to make the _Janet_ my home until
Carraway’s notified and comes aboard.”
“Why, of course!” he answered. “You’re Captain until then. It’ll be
about three days, I imagine. He’s eager.”
“He’s as good a man as you’ve got. It wasn’t his fault, the losing of
the _Thistle_.”
He went with me to the door. “Have you come into a fortune or been made
a lord, or what? I’ve known you for more than three years, but you’ve
hardly looked as you do now----”
David Scott stood for a moment, looking out upon the town and the sea
and the morning sun. “Trevannion, there’s a lass named Happiness. She
hasn’t a penny, yet the world’s her dower!”
“Oh, well, if you’re happy----!” said Trevannion, and we parted.
That money! I drew it out in those days, leaving just enough to keep
David Scott from want until he knew what course he would shape. It was
not so much after all--Bartram’s and mine together--about six hundred
pounds. There was a merchant I knew in Charlestown, not in the trade,
or gaining by it more than another, where all were touched. He managed
matters for me. Out of the sum now in his hands I drew as I needed
it for the purpose I had in mind. It had first occurred to me to buy
and free as many Negroes as I might out of the _Janet’s_ lading
this last voyage. But then I saw that I could not. I was by no means
powerful enough to see them shipped back to Africa, sent there to their
own people and released. How could I get that done, who would become
outcast by the very mention of it to owners of ships and factories?
And if I bought and freed them here in America? They were barbarians,
free to fall into, and to cause, all manner of trouble in a world not
theirs. At once they would meet the Law of the Land, and it would break
them. Nothing could be done by me here and now. I saw that last lading
that I had brought herded into the barracoons, and during a week sold,
slave by slave, at the slave block.
What I could do I did. There was a mulatto shoemaker who sat in a hutch
of a shop upon a half-road, half-street, and worked at cobbling and
making. I used to pass him, coming and going from Trevannion’s, and
several times I had stopped for a cast of his trade. At first I thought
he was a free Negro. But no, he said, Mr. So-and-so was his master and
owned this hut. One half of what he earned he took each week to Mr.
So-and-so; on the other he lived. Later, stopping again to speak to
him, in a burst of confidence he let it out that from this half he was
slowly putting by. “To buy myself.” There was pride in his voice.
“Will Mr. So-and-so sell you? You must be profitable.”
“Yes. He’s a good man. When I have the money he’ll free me.”
“How long will it take you?”
He mentioned a term of years. His plans after that included freeing
in succession his wife who was owned by another family, though in
Charlestown, and his son and daughter owned by the mother’s owners. He
would be an elderly man before, barring accidents, it was all done.
Through the merchant and a lawyer I bought these four and freed them,
and bought for them the cobbler’s shop and tools. I found other men
and women whom I bought and freed, working quietly. It hardly took a
month to bring David Scott, so far as money was concerned, within a
few pounds of where he was when on an autumn eve in Virginia he first
cried, “_Janet_, ahoy!”
All this went on quietly, very few knowing anything about it. Carraway,
it proved, had some arrangements and a short journey to make before
he took over the _Janet_. For ten days still I was Captain and
dwelled on my ship. When at last Carraway appeared I removed to a
small inn by the shore.
Those ten days were strange, meditative days to me, whose life had
changed its road. I was not unhappy; I was happy with some ache and
bewilderment at the new taste of the happiness. And I think that it is
the sense of growth, saying forever, “Listen! Here is again something
new under the Great Newness,” that makes one feel one’s self a child.
The _Janet_ rode quietly in harbor, and I was aboard her much of
those ten days. There was regret, I know, that I was departing, and yet
the seaman’s nature is like the sea, and a new Captain, said to be a
not unkindly man, was coming, and they would weigh anchor, and new days
would cover the old, and novelty is novelty. But Michaelson and Wheeler
and two or three others and Tom and Don did grieve. As for Olafson, I
could not make him out in those days.
I felt Bartram, I felt Colley and McNaughton, and when I left the
_Janet_ I took them with me.
I left her. I went one eve when the sunset burned around her.
Carraway slept in the Captain’s cabin and walked the poop deck. If he
in no wise equalled Bartram yet he was honest and strove to be just and
had the name of a good captain. The _Janet_ would shake out her
sails and be gone in a week.
The dawn in which she was to leave harbor I rose while it was yet
night and stole from my inn and walked the shore road till I came to
a point whence I could see her sail. I sat down under a pine tree,
and a pale light being now in the east, watched them making sail. The
_Janet_! I watched her forth, the _Janet_. She went in the
glory of the dawn, in the slant, golden light of the sun. I never saw
her again with these bodily eyes, but ah! often and often by the inner
light.
I returned to the inn. My affairs were nearly done. The money I had
kept for David Scott would allow him short time before he must begin
earning. Going by the waterside I looked at the ships in harbor, and
when I reached the inn, there was Olafson sitting, waiting for me.
“Olafson!”
“I’ve left it too, sir.”
We sat down. He spoke of the _Bright Nancy_, Captain Cobb,
carrying sugar to Philadelphia. She had put in here for some need or
other, and, he had heard, wanted seamen. Olafson knew her, a decent
ship, with a decent captain and mates. He proposed now to sign with her
as far as Philadelphia. He knew folk in that city who would help him
to a mate’s berth again--on some ship that was not for Africa. When I
told him of my own lack of money and the ideas bred by it, he proposed
that I also become seaman for this voyage upon the _Bright Nancy_.
Philadelphia was a prosperous town, full of trade; there must be there
many chances.
I sat and regarded Olafson whom I greatly liked, and the _Bright
Nancy_, and Philadelphia of which I knew a little, and chiefly
that it held many Quakers. Then I thanked Olafson, and took my hat,
and together we found and hired a boat and went out to the _Bright
Nancy_.