It was late September and a little north of Hatteras--the time of the
year and the place for storm and rough seas. The _Bright Nancy_
met it, met tempest. The sea ran to meet the clouds, the clouds
descended to meet the sea. A shrieking wind drove us, bare-masted. When
forty-eight hours had passed and the wind lulled and the sun shone,
it was seen that we were in bitter case. The foremast was gone, the
mainmast hurt, and we had sprung a leak that we could not stop and
though we pumped day and night the water deepened in our hold. We flung
into the ocean her lading, casks and casks of sugar. We mended our
masts and piled on sail, the wind being now all in our favor.
So we hastened as best we might, but before we reached Chesapeake her
end was come.
She sank, the _Bright Nancy_!
Captain and crew, we were but a dozen, having lost two in the tempest.
We took to our boats--got off clear--watched her go down--and wild and
mournful it is to see a ship die!
Land loomed faint against the western sky. We rowed toward it, the sea
being yet heavy. After an hour of this and no great progress made, a
sail appeared to larboard, increased, became a trading brig with men
noting our signal. She lay to--the _Miranda_ of Baltimore--and we
rowed to her side. After some parley and showing that we were almost
unarmed, she agreed to take us aboard, her present destination being
Norfolk.
The sea calmed itself. Captain Cobb was a sturdy man who could bear
up against the sinking of a ship. He talked with Captain Bart of the
_Miranda_; our seamen foregathered with hers. Olafson and I
watched the sea and the misty, misty shore.
I said to him, “I have seen Norfolk before. I have been up the James
River.”
“This New World has so great rivers! What was your ship?”
But I did not tell him that at the moment nor why I was upon it. I
said, “Olafson, do you believe that there is something deep in us that
knows where it is walking?”
“Perhaps----”
“There are two men in each of us. One knows, but can very rarely tell
the other. The other is a child.”
The sea grew calm and blue. The _Miranda_, passing between the capes,
stood into Chesapeake. Captain Cobb came and talked to the _Bright
Nancy’s_ seamen. The _Miranda_ would make the shortest tarrying at
Norfolk. She was what we saw, small and overmanned. Captain Bart would
take him, Captain Cobb, and the two mates as passengers to Baltimore,
and five seamen who would work for their passage. From Baltimore to
Philadelphia was no great way; by water or by land we’d get to our home
port. We seamen might decide among ourselves, by lot or any other way,
upon those five. What was now concerning him was the remainder. We
must look out for a ship that would bring us to Philadelphia. He had
saved money and papers from the _Bright Nancy_. He would pay us, the
five remaining, and take our word that, barring accident, we would get
back to Philadelphia and report. Her owners would want all accounted
for. He--Cobb--would get another ship presently, and if we wanted her
forecastle we must be at hand. So Captain Cobb, a bluff, short man.
We listened, agreed, and when he was gone drew lots to determine who
should cling to the _Miranda_ and who should be left at Norfolk to
seek another ship. Olafson and I both drew Norfolk.
It was falling toward dusk when this was settled. That night I dreamed
of Scotland and of Mysie Johnston.
Morning broke red with a kind of high, intense light striking the shore
that was now close to us.--I was again upon the _Janet_, again
upon the brig _King William_. Twelve years--what are twelve years?
And yet, a thousand years might hardly span from where I stood then
and where now--the dead fire and the kindled fire and the living fire!
The wind ran fresh; the light made the low shores beautiful; little
boats and two or three statelier ones were upon the green water; the
white gulls flew around and overhead. We came to Point Comfort that I
well remembered. We stood across to Norfolk.
Here it sat, the same town, but a little enlarged. I marked it under
the bright, blue, autumn sky. It was now October. The seamen of the
_Miranda_ began their chantey, the anchor slid down, cut the
water, and grappling with the earth became a root to hold the ship.
It held her no great while. The second dawn from the red, entering
one, we watched her forth from river mouth into the Bay, Olafson and
I, standing upon a wharf. The three left with us were sleeping or
waking at the Seaman’s Hearth. It was so early the wharf had few upon
it beside us two. The white mist clung to the great river and the low,
Virginian land. I said, “Olafson, I’ve never told you, but Bartram took
me upon the _Janet_ here. I was in trouble--I was fleeing.”
He answered in his Viking voice, “That may happen easily to a man who
follows the sea.”
“Aye, but I was not following it then. I’ll tell you some day about it
all. It’s enough now that though it’s many a year, Virginia is not
utterly without danger to me.”
“Then,” he said, “let’s take the first ship we may, big or little. And
I’ll make the inquiry while you lie close at the Seaman’s Hearth.”
But it seemed to me slight danger. Years and years, and I was never
known at Norfolk. And seamen looking for a ship are just that--few
men inquire further. Still I did not, in the days that followed, seek
crowded places.
No ship for Philadelphia presented herself. We heard however of the
_Indian King_ that would presently come in, receive her tobacco,
and go on to the Delaware. She at last seemed our best chance. Olafson
and I, after trials elsewhere, agreed to await her, seeing that we had
little choice but to do so. But all suddenly those that were with us at
the Seaman’s Hearth--Bush and Allgood and Reddy--announced that they
had signed with the _Marigold_ of London, sailing with tobacco a
week after the departure of the _Miranda_, and wanting men.
They went--a fickle lot--but Olafson and David Scott must stay for
Philadelphia.
The _Indian King_ came leisurely. We had sufficient money, and
none seeing aught in me but Jack awaiting a ship, I at last threw away
fear. It was October and gorgeous weather. Olafson and I lounged by
the water side, talking a little and watching all the craft, great and
small. He too had a power of silence. We might be together for hours,
and content with each other’s company, yet our words would never sail a
boat. The Seaman’s Hearth, just by the water, with a bit of a yard and
a broken landing, had so much custom and no more. Seamen came and went,
making, the most of them, short tarrying. The man and his wife who
kept the Hearth got used to two big men, quiet and giving no trouble,
waiting for the _Indian King_.
The town was small enough. It took no long time to view it over. It
was a place of trade and shipping as against Williamsburg that was of
Government, a College, and Polite Society. Not that Norfolk, either,
lacked a small polite world of merchants and retired sea captains and
lawyers and others. It had inns other and better than the Seaman’s
Hearth. Officers from British and foreign ships were seen in these,
and planters on business, arriving in wherries or their own sloops, or
if of the neighborhood, on horseback. What with the coming and going
of many seamen, of nations more than one--for often one heard Spanish,
French or Dutch--and with frontiersmen appearing from the forests west
and south with their wares and on their own business and quick, after
their kind, to take offense, the town had the name of a quarrelsome
one. To meet that condition the officers of the law were numerous and
arbitrary; there were a prison, a stout mayor, a court and lawyers.
Olafson and I examined this borough, and then we sat by harbor side
or walked afield--long walks, through October, into the land south of
the James. Pine trees and other trees and rich and tangled brakes, and
tobacco and tobacco. Now and then a good house, with Negro quarters
near, oftener small houses built of logs; oftenest no house at all,
but autumn forest, marshes, ancient, abandoned Indian fields, streams,
autumn forest coloring like a sunset.
Olafson was not of an impatient kind and David Scott had learned to
curb it. We walked dreamily, soberly, content to await the _Indian
King’s_ good time. Meanwhile there was beauty of a low, forested
land and sighing reeds by still, winding water, of magnificent single
trees, and of a clear, pure, high heaven. I felt it as I had never
done--it gave my heart a contented ache. Years ago I should have said
that I hated Virginia, but now I had passed that bewilderment. These
old, old forests, these still flowing waters, these fields, these
horses, dogs, and others of four feet, these flying folk, these hasty
roads and houses of log and now and then of frame and brick, the
infrequent humans passing, white and black and colored and now and
then a red man, the old and young, the child, the woman, the man, the
mounted and afoot--all were now to me as they had not been. In this
kingdom, when one enters it, long progressions happen in short times.
I was not as I had been when I was in Virginia before and grew less
so all the while. Now the momentary feeling of that evening at the
inn in Charlestown had come to keep house with me. Compassion, hope,
admiration. All things--David Scott with them--had become soul rather
than body, with spirit our ultimate.
Olafson and I talked at times. I told him one day, walking under pine
trees, having just passed a great, ragged, tobacco field, of why and
how I had been in Virginia. He said at the end, “We’d better be more
careful! The _Inez_ that’s going to Baltimore this week is a poor
thing, but I think that her master will take us. Or one of us. You go.
We’ll find each other at Philadelphia. The _Indian King’s_ too
much delayed.”
But that finger with some meaning in it was laid again upon my
shoulder. I did not take, or move to take, the _Inez_.
The days went by. It became evident that weather or some need had
delayed the _Indian King_. But Olafson and David Scott were happy
enough. There is something beyond happiness. Each morn when I waked I
touched that. It held for a longer or shorter while, then faded through
the day. But with each succeeding morn it renewed itself, though with
an infinite variety. It was not dependent upon place or outward history.
October was flying, and still I waited. Perhaps I was waiting for the
_Indian King_, perhaps not.
There came a splendid, frosty morning. The frost vanished, the
windless, sunny day grew warm. Olafson and I debated whether we should
walk afar or go down to our favorite landing and watch the water and
its life. We went to the landing, out to the end, and sat upon the gray
boards, our feet above the green water lapping the piles, our shoulders
against unsawn logs brought down by some raft. Usually this was a quiet
place, a lesser wharf and landing with no great business, but from it
we could watch well the movement of the water world. So we sat there,
and the sun warmed our backs, and the half hours passed, and we did not
trouble to talk, being so much at one.
I was in Philadelphia, telling Philip Smith that I would go to England.
Olafson’s voice entered my ear.
“That sloop is making in here.”
We watched her; she was from the river, not the sea. That and the look
of her brought back something--the tang of up country, of the forests,
of the gray landings like long forefingers, of the brick great houses
and the fields. The wind was light, she came slowly.
I heard Olafson’s voice again, “There are more and more folk upon this
wharf. We had better go walking.”
“Not yet,” I said, and now I was upon the _Janet_, and Bartram
seemed to be saying something, saying it solemnly. I answered Bartram,
“God knows we all have sinned and sin! But there is Something that has
ways and means of its own to draw us forth.” And then I was not on the
_Janet_ or in Philadelphia or England, but somewhere where the
Something spoke. And it was not Something, it was All, it was One. From
that I came stilly, quietly down to the gray wharf and the gleaming
water under the October sky.
The sun shone warm. A small crowd--not a great one, fifteen or twenty
perhaps--was gathering upon the wharf. The sloop might be expected. A
great, laughing black man with a pole came by me and I thought, “You’re
like Pickaninny.”
The sloop grew in size. I saw her kind--that she belonged to some
planter--was bringing tobacco and other matters downstream and would
take back goods, and likely enough had on board her owner. She came
on, a fair creature; she was close and they prepared to bring her
alongside the wharf. Behind us two seamen some one shouted a welcome
and voices answered from the sloop. Then strangely, strangely, to David
Scott, there began to play a flute. A shaggy man in a squirrel-skin
cap, seated cross-legged on the deck by a heap of pelts, breathed into
the instrument, and the soaring, dropping notes relimned for me the
River James from a sycamore south of Daniel Askew’s to the side of the
_Janet_.
Without thought, of its own accord, my hand went up to that scar across
my forehead. Neither swiftly nor slowly I got to my feet and turned my
back upon the sloop. There were folk upon the wharf, but not enough to
impede movement. I walked away, Olafson following me. They saw but two
seamen, so fulfilled with ships that a mere river craft was no magnet.
When we were quit of the wharf I spoke. “I know that flute player. He
would not say my name if he thought, but he might not think.”
We returned to the Seaman’s Hearth and ate our dinner. Afterwards the
question was if we should stay by the Hearth or should take a long walk
into the country. We went, and the smell and feel of it come back to
me to-day, and the goodness of Olafson. We returned under a tremendous
sunset, red and purple ships of the gods on a golden sea. That night I
slept sound and deep, and when I waked at dawn it was with the sense of
having been in a far country, far and great and dear.
Olafson and I ate breakfast. That over, I said that we would not mew
ourselves up because that old Indian trader and flute player was in
town, or more probably somewhere upon the edge of it. The chance of
meeting was very slight, and he was not an enemy; he was a friend. If I
could meet him where none other was by I should like it.
Olafson still demurred. He said that he did not know how it came to
him but he had a sense of danger. But I was restless. I could not stay
within--I was drawn forth--and when he proposed the country again I
said no. At last we went to the water side to watch for the _Indian
King_, but to another wharf than that by which lay the sloop from up
river.
The _Indian King_ did not appear to-day, either. Toward noon we
began our return to the Seaman’s Hearth. We might have taken obscure
ways but we did not. When Olafson proposed it I shook my head. So we
came into the principal street.
Before us rose the chief tavern of the place--we made to pass it; there
were loungers about, and a knot of men emerging from the house, two or
three important persons, it seemed, with satellites. Together they were
enough to halt us; we made to go around in the dusty street and a voice
said, “Those are seamen. Ask them, Colonel!”
We were stopped. Another voice spoke. “Are you men from the _Indian
King_? Is she in?”
Olafson answered No. As for me, I said nothing. The questioner was
Colonel Giles Amory. There he stood, now a quite elderly man, but still
firm and fine. Two or three neighbor planters were with him, come down
upon his sloop, a new one that I had not recognized. I knew his old
one, the _Daphne_. Moreover, he had with him one who still served
as his clerk, though now with pay--Gervase Morrison, to wit--and also
the overseer Barget. All were older, but there came around me a glamor
of Amory Hall and Old Mill quarter. The Negro there behind Barget--it
was Pickaninny.
I could not tell Olafson; Colonel Amory held him in talk of ships. I
made to go away myself, but a man, a planter whom I did not know, put
himself in front of me. “Are you of the _Inez_ then?” To this day
I do not know what was their insistence about these ships. They had
some business with them, but I do not know what.
But I was held. And in a moment, glancing toward him, I saw that
Gervase Morrison recognized me. He recognized, but he would not tell;
he turned his gaze away. It had scarcely happened before I knew that
Pickaninny----He became ashy, his eyes bulged; I saw him quiver
all over, and I thought, “Now he will tell,” for I knew how often
excitement and drama force the Negro past reticence. But he did not
tell. I saw him stand, gather and control his big, excited body, and
turn his face away.
It was Barget. I felt him looking at me--it was idle now to go--I might
burst through the crowd, take to my heels, and that would be but to
shout, “After me! I have reason to run away!”
He moved a little nearer--the overseer whom I knew so well--older,
all weather-seamed and bitten, with graying hair, but the same. Years
rarely alter a man beyond recognition--and if he have a great, known
scar upon his forehead.
His eyes were upon me first--the all of me--then upon that scar. His
lips parted; he cried, “David Scott! Yon’s David Scott!”
Colonel Amory swung around from Olafson, “David Scott!”
Barget seized me. I said, “I’m not your man, Barget. Don’t you remember
that Daniel Askew bought me?”
“He’s dead!” he answered. “And a runaway’s to be apprehended, no matter
whose he is, nor how long gone!”
And well enough David Scott knew that! There was commotion--another man
was helping Barget, though I made no resistance. Olafson would have
fought but I did not wish that and cried to him that naught could be
done and not to try it. It was Colonel Amory who interrogated me.
“Well, Scott! And where have _you_ been?”
I smiled. “A good many places, Colonel! Out of these parts and into
them again. Olafson here and I were upon the _Bright Nancy_ that
sank a while ago, this side Hatteras. We were seeking to get back to
Philadelphia. Except for being seamen together, he has naught to do
with me--a free, Danish sailor.”
He still stared. “It’s been years!--How old are you?”
“Something over thirty-nine.”
“Well, by Gad! you know the law. You were sold for a servant when you
might have been hanged. You ran away--and here you are again! In the
King’s name I apprehend you and commit you to the gaol here. Daniel
Askew is dead, but we’ll notify his son Geoffrey.” He continued to
stare. “Well, you’re big, and somehow you’ve grown in bearing. You seem
calm enough. Maybe you’ve learned wisdom. We all have to learn it one
day!”
I answered him, “Yes, we all have to--one and all. I don’t propose to
give you any trouble, Colonel Amory. I’d like to speak if I may to
Gervase Morrison and Pickaninny. And if you’ll be so good as to give me
two or three minutes with my friend here I shall thank you.”
He gave them, being in much a kindly man and kinder now that he was old
than when he was young. Olafson and I spoke together, Barget watching.
Olafson’s face worked. “What can be done? Something must be done!”
“What should it be?” I asked. “Nothing now that comes to me is useless,
Olafson. Do I look unhappy?”
“No!”
“It was at Daga that I was unhappy--and at My Fancy--and on the
_Janet_. And of old here in Virginia also. But I shall not be so
again.--I’ll give you a letter for Philip Smith.”
We spoke together a little longer, and then I must go to gaol with
Barget and a helper or two and a constable who had appeared. Olafson
kept with us. Barget, walking beside me, was willing to answer
questions. Williams? Williams had retired--he, Barget, was full
overseer. Old Mill quarter? Well, a different crowd was there now.
As for him he lived in Williams’ house. Did I remember Dick Merry?
Well, Merry’s seven years was long out, and then he had worked for the
Colonel for wages, and now for three years had been under overseer.
“You might have done something like that yourself! The world moves and
there’s been a lot of changes. The Colonel’s daughters are all married
and there are grandchildren now. And my daughter Nelly is dead--she was
a rare and good one!”
So we came to Norfolk gaol, Olafson moving near me, walking as in a
dream, his blue northern eyes upon ships and seas. As for me, I cannot
say that I did not feel captivity. I did. But it was not heavy upon my
soul as once it had been....
It was not heavy when, in two or three days, the son of Daniel Askew
came and claimed me. I remembered him as a frightened boy, shuddering
always away from his father. Now he was not demon like the other, but a
timid, blustering man.
It was not heavy when Barget came and told me that Colonel Amory had
bought me from Geoffrey Askew, bought me back to Amory Hall and the
woodcutting and the tobacco. “Aye, and I hope you’ll determine to bide
with us now!”
I laughed. “Aye, for a while anyhow, Mr. Barget, seeing there’s some
reason, I think, why I should and must. But you know none of us is
going to bide forever in our common slavery. Not you, not me, not
Pickaninny, not the Colonel.”
“You must not talk that way,” he said. “It makes against contentment.”
“There is high contentment and there is low contentment,” I said, and
left it at that.
Olafson came to tell me good-by. He and I were well enough used to
danger and what is called disaster--well enough used to partings. But
the tears stood in our eyes when we said good-by, tasting the sea,
the wind and the ships. I had the means to write a long letter to
Philip Smith and I had done so. I said that I had a conviction that I
would be held some years in Virginia, how many I did not know, though
I guessed at seven. That I did not intend to run away again. That I
felt in my soul that there was some reason on the part of Life that is
Higher for things being as they were. It might be that my knowledge
was to encrease, here, withdrawn again from liberty of the body. Outer
knowledge, inner knowledge. I felt that a time would surely come when
I should be used in other ways. Then perchance I might see him again,
then perchance I might go to England. It was all in the future’s
keeping. But now I was not astounded, cast down, or wretched. I begged
him to believe that, and that I should remember him, having in effect
remembered him ever since I came first upon the _Janet_.
I gave the letter to Olafson. We said good-by; he went, he sailed away
from Virginia upon the _Indian King_.
Another day and another in Norfolk gaol--and Colonel Amory had ended
his business in this borough. His sloop, the _Amaranth_, waited. I
trod again the gray boards of the wharf, and went down into the little
ship. Barget said, “I’m responsible, so I’ll just tie a rope around you
and to the mast,” and did so. In an hour the Colonel came aboard and
the sails were made.
Toward noon Gervase Morrison found or made an opportunity to speak to
me. “Well, David Scott----”
“Well, Gervase Morrison----”
“Are you witheringly unhappy?”
“No, not in the least!”
“Well, that’s a gain!” he said. “You used to be unhappy. I need not lie
awake of nights for you then?”
I smiled. “No, you need not. And how are you and how have you fared?”
“Oh, on the dead level road and so-so! I am my own man, as it is
counted, but I do not know that it counts very far.”
“Not so far but that there is a further.”
He answered with a dry disconsolateness. “There always is--only how to
set foot upon that road! Well, I’m rather glad to see you, though sorry
you come back so. And what has been your life?”
“In part a blind and ill one,” I said. “Then my own Self struck me,
Morrison, and I see!”
He stared, then he said, “Well, sight is a blessed thing!” and was
called away.
We sailed up the River James. I watched the shore and thought of the
_King William_, of Scotland and the Indies and Africa, of the
_Janet_, of Bartram and Colley and McNaughton and others. The
air breathed fine, the banks were golden and crimson. I thought of
the forest and the woodcutter’s task--one of the oldest in the world.
The ax and the hoe--old, old.... I thought of Old Mill quarter and
the servants and slaves there. I thought of the fields. I heard Old
Hannibal singing,
“When have I done with the trouble of the world?
Ooh! when have I done?”
A time would come--a time would come--when Earth should put on Heaven.
I thought, I felt, I lived. I knew my work. I was upheld.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.