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This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
The volume is a collection of three (apparently) already published
texts, each with its own title page, table of contents, and pagination.
The table of contents for all three is repeated at the opening of the
volume. The redundant tables have been retained.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
——o——
DEMERARA.
ELLA OF GARVELOCH.
WEAL AND WOE IN GARVELOCH.
——o——
_IN NINE VOLUMES._
VOL. II.
——o——
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
MDCCCXXXIV.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES,
Duke-street, Lambeth.
CONTENTS.
DEMERARA.
CHAP. PAGE
1. Sunrise brings Sorrow in Demerara 1
2. Law endangers Property in Demerara 14
3. Prosperity impoverishes in Demerara 28
4. Childhood is Wintry in Demerara 45
5. No haste to the Wedding in Demerara 58
6. Man worth less than Beast in Demerara 64
7. Christianity difficult in Demerara 81
8. The Proud covet Pauperism in Demerara 93
9. Calamity welcome in Demerara 103
10. Protection is Oppression in Demerara 113
11. Beasts hunt Men in Demerara 123
12. No Master knows his Man in Demerara 129
ELLA OF GARVELOCH.
1. Landlord and Tenant 1
2. A Highland Farm 18
3. The first Excursion 34
4. Whom have we here? 44
5. A Highland Night 55
6. The Scotch abroad 67
7. Innovations 81
8. Seclusion not Peace 94
9. A Fool’s Errand 111
10. What is to happen next? 116
11. Understand before you complain 123
12. A waking Dream 132
WEAL AND WOE IN GARVELOCH.
1. Times are changed 1
2. Neighbourly chat 17
3. Kindred not kindness 27
4. Looking before and after 38
5. More haste than good speed 51
6. A dreary prospect 67
7. The discipline of the Teachable 83
8. The discipline of the Unteachable 105
9. Troubles never come alone 121
10. Conclusion 133
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
--------------
No. IV.
DEMERARA.
=A Tale.=
BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.
----------
‘Till now, ye have gone on and filled the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice: till now, as many such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wandered with their traversed arms, and breathed
Their sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries of itself—NO MORE.’—SHAKSPEARE.
_THIRD EDITION._
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
1833.
LONDON:
Printed by WILLIAM CLOWES,
Stamford Street.
DEMERARA.
=A Tale.=
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
‘Till now, ye have gone on and filled the time
With all licentious measure, making your wills
The scope of justice: till now, as many such
As slept within the shadow of your power,
Have wandered with their traversed arms, and breathed
Their sufferance vainly. Now the time is flush
When crouching marrow, in the bearer strong,
Cries of itself—NO MORE,’—SHAKSPEARE.
_THIRD EDITION._
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW
---
1833.
PREFACE.
---
Instead of encumbering my small pages with references to authorities and
acknowledgments of suggestions, I give notice in this place that I am
indebted to various authors and to some private friends, not only for
the information on which the argument of this tale is founded, but for
lights respecting negro character and manners which have enabled me to
impart whatever truth may be recognized in my slave personages. My
object having been to appropriate every thing, properly authenticated,
which could illustrate my subject, I leave it to those who may be amused
by the employment to point out whence I derived this argument, or that
anecdote, or those elements of scenery. At the same time, I cannot admit
that I have _copied_. The characters are intended to be original, the
arguments are recast, the descriptions recomposed, and, to the best of
my knowledge, no part of the work is a mere republication of what has
been written before.
If it be objected that the characters for which sympathy is claimed
might have been made more interesting, I reply that our sympathy for
slaves ought to increase in proportion to their vices and follies, if it
can be proved that those vices and follies arise out of the position in
which we place them, or allow them to remain. If the champions of the
slave had but seen how his cause is aided by representing him as he
is,—not only revengeful, but selfish and mean,—not only treacherous to
his master, but knavish to his countrymen, indolent, conceited,
hypocritical, and sensual,—we should have had fewer narratives of slaves
more virtuous than a free peasantry, and exposed to the delicate
miseries of a refined love of which they are incapable, or of social
sensibilities which can never be generated in such a social condition as
theirs.
That slaves cannot be made objects of attachment is one argument against
them in the mouths of slaveholders. I have attempted to employ the same
argument in their behalf. That they command our sympathies by their
injuries alone, that they claim our compassion by their vices yet more
than by their sufferings, is a statement the force of which their
adversaries cannot gainsay, since they themselves have furnished us with
the plea.
While endeavouring to preserve the characteristics of Negro minds and
manners, I have not attempted to imitate the language of slaves. Their
jargon would be intolerable to writer and readers, if carried through a
volume. My personages, therefore, speak the English which would be
natural to them, if they spoke what can be called English at all.
If I had believed, as many do, that strong feeling impairs the soundness
of reasoning, I should assuredly have avoided the subject of the
following tale, since SLAVERY is a topic which cannot be approached
without emotion. But, convinced as I am, on the contrary, that the
reason and the sensibilities are made for co-operation, and perceiving,
as I do, that the most stirring eloquence issues from the calmest logic,
I have not hesitated to bring calculations and reasonings to bear on a
subject which awakens the drowsiest, and fires the coldest. Whether the
deductions which appear to me as clear as day, are here made equally
apparent to others, I am unable to judge. I can only testify that it has
been my most earnest desire to make them so, and to lead the minds of my
readers through the same course with my own. If I have succeeded, they
will find that the argumentative part of the subject arises naturally
from that which appears at first sight to bear the least relation to
argument.
While conversing directly with my readers, I take the opportunity of
thanking those friends to my undertaking whom I cannot approach through
other channels, for the important assistance they have afforded me, by
furnishing me with books and other means of information on the topics of
my course which yet remain to be treated. Of all the kind offices which
have been rendered to me on account of this work, the one in question is
perhaps the most acceptable, because the most widely beneficial.
H. M.
CONTENTS.
DEMERARA.
CHAP. PAGE
1. Sunrise brings Sorrow in Demerara 1
2. Law endangers Property in Demerara 14
3. Prosperity impoverishes in Demerara 28
4. Childhood is Wintry in Demerara 45
5. No haste to the Wedding in Demerara 58
6. Man worth less than Beast in Demerara 64
7. Christianity difficult in Demerara 81
8. The Proud covet Pauperism in Demerara 93
9. Calamity welcome in Demerara 103
10. Protection is Oppression in Demerara 113
11. Beasts hunt Men in Demerara 123
12. No Master knows his Man in Demerara 129
DEMERARA.
----------------------------
CHAPTER I.
SUNRISE BRINGS SORROW IN DEMERARA.
The winter of the tropics is the most delicious of all seasons of any
climate to inhabitants of the temperate zone. The autumnal deluge is
over: there is no further apprehension of hurricanes for many months:
the storms of hail are driven far southwards by the steady north winds,
which spread coolness and refreshment among the groves and over the
plains. The sea, whose rough and heavy swell seemed but lately to
threaten to swallow up the island and desolate the coasts, now spreads
as blue as the heavens themselves, and kisses the silent shore. Inland,
the woods are as leafy as in an English June; for there, buds, blossoms,
and fruits abound throughout the year. The groves of cedar and mahogany,
of the wild cotton-tree and the fig, form an assemblage of majestic
columns, roofed by a canopy of foliage which the sun never penetrates,
while the winds pass through, and come and go as they list. In the
richest regions of this department of the globe, the cane-fields look
flourishing at this season, and coffee-plantations clothe the sides of
the hills. All inanimate things look bright; and birds of gay plumage,
and animals of strange forms and habits add to the interest and beauty
of the scene in the eye of a stranger.
The brightest beauty, the deepest interest, however, is not for
strangers, but for those who return to a region like this after years of
absence, like two travellers who were hastening, one fine January day,
to reach their long-left home,—a plantation in Demerara. Alfred Bruce
and his sister Mary had been sent to England for their education when
they were, the one seven, the other six years of age. They had spent
fourteen years without seeing their parents, except that their father
paid one short visit to England about the middle of the time. Of him,
they had, of course, a very vivid recollection, as they believed they
had of their mother, of their nurse, of the localities of the
plantation, and the general appearance of the country. They now,
however, found themselves so much mistaken in the last particular, that
they began to doubt the accuracy of their memories about the rest.
On landing, they had been full of delight at the contrast between an
English and a Guiana winter. When they had gone on board, in the Thames,
a thick fog had hung over London, and concealed every object from them
but the houses on the banks, which looked all the more dingy for the
snow which lay upon their roofs. When they landed, their native shores
reposed in the serene beauty of an evening sunshine. By as bright a
sunshine they were lighted on the next day; and it still shone upon them
as they approached their father’s estate; but it no longer seemed to
gladden them, for they became more and more silent, only now and then
uttering an exclamation.
“How altered every place looks!” said Mary. “The birds seem the only
living things.”
A servant, who had come to meet the travellers with the carriage,
reminded her that it was now the time of dinner, and that in an hour or
so the slaves would be seen in the fields again.
“It is not only that we see no people,” said Alfred; “but the country,
cultivated as it is, looks uninhabited. No villages, no farm-houses!
Only a mansion here and there, seemingly going to decay, with a crowd of
hovels near it. I remembered nothing of this. Did you, Mary?”
No. Mary thought the face of the country must have changed very
considerably; but the old servant said it was much the same as it had
always been in his time.
“Something must have befallen the cattle, surely?” observed Mary. “I
never saw such wretched, starved-looking cows in England.”
The servant, who had never beheld any better, smiled at his young
mistress’s prejudices, and only answered that these were her father’s
cattle, and that yonder mansion was his house.
In a few minutes more, the long-anticipated meeting had taken place.
Alfred, sitting beside his mother’s couch, with his beautiful little
sister Louisa on his knee; and Mary, with her father’s arm about her
waist, forgot all their expectations, all their confused recollections,
in present happiness. Their only anxiety was for Mrs. Bruce, who looked
as if recovering from an illness. They would not believe her when she
declared, with a languid smile, that she was as well as usual; but her
husband added his testimony that she had never been better. Mrs. Bruce
would have been as much surprised at her daughter’s fresh colour and
robust appearance, if she had not been more in the habit of intercourse
with Europeans than her daughter with West Indians.
These young people were far happier this first day—far more exempt from
disappointment—than many who return to the home of their childhood after
years of absence. Their father was full of joy,—their mother, of
tenderness. Louisa was as spirited, and clever, and captivating a little
girl as they had ever seen; and her perfect frankness and ease of manner
showed them how much liberty of speech and action was allowed her by her
parents, and how entirely they might therefore reckon on the freedom
which is so precious to young people when they reach what appears to
them the age of discretion. Alfred was as much surprised as pleased to
observe this spirit of independence in other members of the family. The
white servants, as well those whom he had never seen before as the
companions of his childhood, met him with an out-stretched hand and a
hearty welcome; and he observed that they addressed his father more as
if they were his equals than his domestics. Alfred immediately concluded
that his most sanguine hopes were justified, and that his father was
indeed no tyrant, no arbitrary disposer of the fortunes of his
inferiors, but a just and kind employer of their industry.
Mary, meanwhile, could not help observing the strangeness of the
domestic management she witnessed. The black servants whom she met about
the house were only half-clothed, and many of them without shoes and
stockings; while her mother was as splendidly dressed as if she had been
going to a ball. The rich sideboard of plate, and the whole arrangement
of the table, answered to her dim but grand remembrances of the
magnificence in which her parents lived; but the house was in as bad
repair, and every apartment as unfinished, as if the mansion was going
to decay before it was half completed. Having been told, however, before
she left England, that she must not look for English comfort in another
climate, she presently reconciled herself to whatever displeased her eye
or her taste.
Before Louisa went to bed, her brother asked her if she would take a
walk with him and Mary in the cool of the morning; they remembered the
sound of the conch of old, and they wished to see the people go forth to
their work. Louisa laughed heartily, supposing her brother to be in
jest; and Mrs. Bruce explained that nobody in the house was up for many
hours after the conch sounded; but when it appeared that Alfred was
serious, Louisa, liking the idea of a frolic, promised to be ready.
There was no occasion, as there would have been in England, to make any
proviso about the weather being fine.
It was a delicious morning, bright and balmy, when the young people went
forth. The sun was just peeping above the horizon, and the families of
slaves appearing from their dwellings. They came with a lagging step, as
if they did not hear the impatient call of the white man who acted as
superintendent, or the crack of the driver’s whip. Their names were
called over, and very few were missing. The driver pointed with his whip
to the sun, and observed that there was no excuse for sluggards on so
bright a morning.
“Do you find the weather make much difference?” inquired Alfred.
“All the difference, sir. On a chill, foggy morning, such as we
sometimes have at this season, it is impossible to collect the half of
them before breakfast; and those that come do little or no work. They
like the whip better than a fog, for they are made to live in sunshine.”
“Does my father insist on their working in raw weather?” asked Alfred.
“I should not have thought it could answer to either party.”
“They are so lazy,” replied the overseer, “that it does not do to admit
any excuse what ever, except in particular cases. If we once let them
off on such a plea, we should soon hear of more just as good.”
“True enough,” thought Alfred, who, earnestly as he had endeavoured to
keep his mind free from prejudice respecting the institution of slavery,
yet entertained a deep dislike of the system.
More than a third of the slaves assembled were men and women of the ages
most fitted for hard labour, and of the greatest strength of frame that
negroes attain in slavery. These brought with them their hoes and
knives, and each a portion of provision for breakfast. Having delivered
their vegetables to the women who were to cook their messes, they were
marched off to their labour in the coffee-walks. The second gang
consisted of young boys and girls, women who were not strong enough for
severe toil, and invalids who were sufficiently recovered to do light
work: these were dispersed in the plantations, weeding between the rows
of young plants. Little children, with an old woman near to take care of
them, were set to collect greens for the pigs, or to weed the garden, or
to fetch and carry what was wanted. These formed the third gang; and
they showed far more alacrity, and were found to do much more in
proportion to their strength, than the stoutest man of the first
company. They alone showed any interest in the presence of the
strangers. They looked back at Mary from time to time as the old woman
sent them before her to the garden, and were seen to peep from the gates
as long as Alfred and his sisters remained in sight. The other gangs did
not appear to observe that any one was by; and such of them as were
spoken to scarcely looked at their young master as they made their
reply.
The young people took a turn through the walks, where the slaves were
setting coffee-plants. There could not be better materials to work upon,
a finer climate to live in, a richer promise of a due reward for labour,
than Alfred saw before him; but never had he beheld employment so
listlessly pursued, and such a waste of time. When he observed how the
walks were sheltered from the north winds, how thriving the young plants
appeared, how fit a soil the warm gravelly mould formed for their
growth, he almost longed to be a labourer himself, at least during the
cool morning hours. But the people before him did not seem to share his
taste. At a little distance he could scarcely perceive that any of them
moved; and when they did, it was in a more slow and indolent manner than
he could have conceived. He had seen labourers in an English plantation
marking out the ground, and digging the holes, and spreading the roots,
and covering them with so much despatch, that the business of the
superintendent was to watch that they did not get over their ground too
fast; while here it took eight minutes to measure eight feet from stem
to stem; and as for laying the roots, one would have thought each fibre
weighed a stone by the difficulty there seemed to be in the work. He
reminded Mary how, at this hour of the morning, an English ploughman
leads forth his team in the chill of a February mist, and whistles,
while eye and hand are busy marking out his furrows; while, in this
bright and fragrant season, the black labourers before them seemed to
heed neither their employment on the one hand nor the sunshine on the
other. Quite out of patience, at last, at seeing a strong man throw down
his hoe, when the hole he was preparing was all but cleared, Alfred
snatched up the tool, finished the business, and went on to another and
another, till he had done more in half an hour than any slave near him
since sunrise. Louisa looked on in horror; for she had never seen a
white man, much less a gentleman, at work in a plantation; but when she
perceived that her sister looked more disposed to help than to find
fault, she ran away laughing to tell the overseer what Alfred was doing.
“You look well pleased to have your work done for you,” said Alfred to
the slave; “but I hope you will now bestir yourself as briskly for your
master as I have done for you.”
When Alfred looked at the man for an answer, he fancied that he knew his
face.
“What is your name?”
“Willy.”
“What, old Mark’s son, Willy?”
“Yes, old Mark is my father.”
“Why, Willy, have you forgotten me as I had nearly forgotten you? Don’t
you remember master Alfred?”
“O yes, very well.”
“Is this Willy who used to carry you on his shoulders?” asked Mary, “and
who used to draw my little chaise round the garden? He was a
high-spirited, merry boy, at——what age was he then?”
“Twelve when we went away. But, Willy, why did not you come and speak to
me as soon as you saw me? You might have been sure that I should
remember you when you told me your name.”
Willy made no answer, so Alfred went on—
“I find your father is alive still, and I mean to go and see him to-day;
for I hear he keeps at home now on account of his great age. Can you
show me his cottage?”
Willy pointed out a cottage of rather a superior appearance to some
about it, and said his father was always within or in the
provision-ground beside it. His mother was dead, but his two sisters,
Becky and Nell, were at hand; one was now in the field yonder, and the
other was one of the cooks, whom he would see preparing breakfast under
the tree.
There was time to see the slaves at breakfast before the same meal would
be ready at home. They assembled in the shade at the sound of the conch,
and each had his mess served out to him. The young people did not wish
to interfere with this short period of rest, and therefore, after
speaking kindly to two or three whom they remembered, they walked away.
As they were going, they met a few of the sluggards who had not put in
their appearance at the proper hour, and who sauntered along, unwilling
(as they well might be) to meet the driver.
“What will be done to them?” asked Mary.
“They will only be whipped a little,” said Louisa. Her sister stared to
hear her speak so lightly of being whipped.
“O, I do not mean flogged so that they cannot work; but just a stroke or
two, this way.”
And she switched her brother with the cane she snatched from his hand.
Seeing that both looked still dissatisfied, she went on—
“What better can they do in England when people are late at their work?
for I suppose people sleep too long there sometimes, as they do here.”
Her brother told her, to her great surprise, that lazy people are
punished in England by having their work taken from them; there being
plenty of industrious labourers who are glad to get it. She said there
was nothing her papa’s slaves would like so much as not to have to work;
but she had never heard of such a thing being allowed, except on Sundays
and holidays.
In their way home they looked in on old Mark, whom they found eating his
breakfast, attended upon by his daughter Becky, who had come in from the
field for that purpose. Mark had been an industrious man in his day—in
his own provision-ground at least; and, in consequence, he was better
off than most of his neighbours. His cottage consisted of three rooms,
and had a boarded floor. He had a chest for his clothes, and at holiday
times he was more gaily dressed than any of his younger neighbours. A
few orange-trees and bananas shaded the cottage, and gave the outside a
somewhat picturesque appearance, but the inside looked anything but
agreeable, Mary thought. The walls were merely wattled and smeared with
plaster; and the roof, thatched with cocoa-nut leaves, had holes in it
to let out the smoke of the nightly fire, which is necessary to keep
negroes warm enough to sleep. In the day-time they cook out of doors.
Mark had never been very bright in his intellects during his best days;
and now the little light he had was clouded with age. He was easily made
to understand, however, who his guests were. He told some anecdotes of
Alfred’s childhood; and when once set talking, went on as if he would
never have done. He appeared excessively conceited; for the tendency of
all he said was to prove his own merits. He related how he had told the
truth on one occasion, and been brave on another; and how the overseer
had been heard to say that he made the most of his provision-ground, and
how the estimate of his value had been raised from time to time. Even
when he gave instances of his master’s kindness to him, it appeared that
he only did so as proving his own merit. What was yet more strange,
Becky had exactly the same taste in conversation. She not only listened
with much deference to all her father had to say, but took up the strain
when he let it fall. The young people soon grew tired of this, and cut
short the rambling narratives of the compliments which Becky had
received from white people in her time. The conceit only took a new
form, however; at every word of kindness which either Alfred or Mary
spoke, both the slaves looked prouder and prouder.
“What odd, disagreeable people!” exclaimed Mary, as she turned away from
the door; “I always thought we should find slaves too humble, servile; I
hardly know how to treat them when they are proud.”
“Our slaves are particularly proud, because papa has treated them
kindly,” observed Louisa. “Mr. Mitchelson laughs at us when we are tired
of hearing them praise themselves, and says that if we used them
properly they would never tease us in that way; and I have heard that
Mrs. Mitchelson says to her daughter, ‘My dear, do not look so
conceited, or I shall think you have been talking with Mr. Bruce’s
slaves.’”
Louisa could not satisfy her brother as to why slaves were made
disagreeable by being kindly treated. All she knew was, that slaves were
either silent and obstinate, like Willy, or talkative and conceited like
his father and sisters. Alfred pondered the matter as he went home. “My
loves!” said their mother, in her usual feeble voice, as the young folks
entered the breakfast-room, “how weary you must be with all you have
done! I would have had breakfast an hour earlier than usual if you had
been in; for I am sure you must all be tired to death. Louisa, love,
rest yourself on my couch.”
Louisa did so; and her brother and sister were not believed when they
declared they were untired.
“When you know our climate a little better,” said Mr. Bruce, “you will
no more dream of such long walks than the English of staying at home all
a fine summer’s day; which I suppose they seldom do. But if you really
are not tired, Alfred, we will ride over to Paradise by and by. I
promised to take you to see your old friends, the Mitchelsons, as soon
as you arrived; and they are in a hurry to welcome you.”
CHAPTER II.
LAW ENDANGERS PROPERTY IN DEMERARA.
During a ride of several miles, Mr. Bruce and his son were deep in
conversation on the subject of their affairs, which were in a state to
cause great anxiety to both, though the anxiety of each differed much in
character. Mr. Bruce had made less and less by his plantation every year
for some years past; and he was now quite out of heart, and full of
complaints about the hardships inflicted on himself and his brother
planters, by what he called oppression at home, and the competition of
other countries in their trade. He was not a very clear-headed, though a
good-hearted man; and he had passed nearly his whole life within the
bounds of his own plantation; so that he, as a matter of course, adopted
the views of planters in general, and joined in the cry for higher
bounties on West India produce, and thought that the obvious way to
relieve West India distress was to obtain more exclusive monopolies. He
took credit to himself for being even better entitled than most of his
brethren to complain of neglect and want of protection, as he could not
oppress his slaves in his turn, nor endeavour to wrest out of them a
compensation for his losses in trade. He was too humane a man for this.
Thus believing that through the cruelty of the government and nation at
home, and his own tender-heartedness, he was going to ruin at a great
rate, he was heartily tired of his occupations, and ready to open his
mind to his son, and consult with him as to what should be done.
Young as Alfred was, he was deserving of his father’s confidence, and
far more likely to offer him good counsel, when he should have had a
little experience, than any of the neighbouring gentlemen who met from
time to time to condole with each other, and draw up memorials to
Government. Alfred had been in good hands in England. He had been
educated for the station he was to hold, and so carefully instructed in
both sides of the great questions which were to be before him through
life, that there was no danger of his being blind to all but what he
chose to see, or deaf to all but that which a certain class chose to
say. A fine estate in Barbadoes was likely soon to lapse to him; and the
knowledge that he might at any hour be called upon to act in the
responsible situation for which he had been educated, stimulated his
study of his duties and his insight into his prospects. He did not, of
course, make up his mind respecting the details of the management of a
plantation before he had had the opportunity of observing how the actual
system worked; but certain broad principles were fixed in his
mind,—principles which may be attested in any part of the world, and
which could not, he thought, be made void by any connexion, or obscured
by any aspect of circumstances whatever. With these principles full in
his mind, he began, from the moment he set foot on shore, to observe all
that surrounded him wherever he went, and to obtain information from
every class of persons to whom he could gain access.
On the present occasion, his father enforced his complaints of West
India adversity, by pointing to the estates on either hand as they rode
along, and relating how they had changed owners, and what disasters had
befallen their various proprietors.
“In England,” said he, “estates go down from generation to generation,
and a man may have some pleasure in improving and cultivating, in the
hope that his children’s great-grand-children may profit by and carry on
his labours. But here, no man knows whether his son will be the better
for all he does.”
“We shall never prosper,” replied Alfred, “till the system is wholly
changed. Security of property is one of the prime elements of
prosperity.”
“And that security can never be reached here, son. As soon as a man
thinks he is likely to do well, there comes a hurricane, or a mortality
among his slaves, or, worst of all, an insurrection; and perpetually,
some thwarting measure of our enemies at home. They need not envy us our
possessions here; for I am sure it requires the patience of Job to be an
India planter.”
“It must require more patience, father, than I shall ever have, to hold
property which is needlessly insecure.”
“How do you mean _needlessly_ insecure?”
“I mean insecure through bad institutions. I do not see at present how
we are to guard against hurricanes; but if I were convinced that the
other evils you mention could not be removed, I would as soon go into
Turkey and hold my chattels at the pleasure of the sultan, as be your
heir. There is little to choose between any two countries where there is
not security of property.”
“But what I complain of, Alfred, is, that the law does not secure us our
property. If the same law secures property in England, why does it not
here?”
“Aye, there is the question, father. Is it not clear that there is some
flaw in our institutions here which keeps them out of the pale of the
protection of law? Hurricanes and bad seasons are answerable for a very
small portion of our distress; and to set against them, we have, as with
all our complaints we cannot deny, a very extraordinary degree of
protection from government; though we cannot manage to benefit much by
it. By far the larger share of our evils are such as law cannot remedy;
and since that law works far better in England than here, it is plain
that the fault does not rest with the law.”
“I am sure it is time we were looking into it, son.”
“High time, indeed: but people are unwilling to look deep enough. If
some of the pains that are spent in providing expedients for the
management of property, were employed in examining into its nature and
tenure, we should be more in the way of finding out what part of our
system is wrong.”
“My dear son, you really are too hard upon us. Do you think we do not
know what property is?”
“I do; because I think we hold a great deal that does not belong to us.
We can find that out presently by going back to the beginning. Taking
the old pagan fable of the first pair of human beings coming out of a
cave, and supposing that cave to be in yonder hill,—what property,—what
of _their own_ would that man and woman have on first coming into the
day-light?”
“As soon as they chose to take possession, they might have a whole
continent.”
“Aye; but before they took possession: as they stood, hand in hand, at
the mouth of the cave.”
“Why nothing: for if the man said, ‘That tree, bending with fruit, is
mine,’ the woman might say, ‘No, I want it;’ and neither could give a
reason for keeping it that the other might not offer as well.”
“True,—as to the fruit tree; but there is a possession for each which
each has a sound reason for claiming. Suppose the man to say to the
woman, ‘The hair of my head is too short, and I will have some of
yours;’ or the woman to say, ‘I have not strength enough in my limbs,
and you must work for me,’ has either any property in the person of the
other?”
“Certainly not. If the woman wants the whole of her hair to shade her
face at noonday, and the man the whole strength of his limbs for toil or
sport, there is no reason why each should not keep his own if he can.
But most likely one would be stronger than the other, and then
possession would be taken.”
“But not property established. If the man cut off the woman’s tresses
while she slept, the hair would be no longer a part of the woman, as
strength of limb or faculties of sense: yet the woman would still have
the best title to it as having been hers by original endowment. If the
woman, in her turn, bound the man’s feet as he lay sick on the ground,
and would not release him till he had dug up as many roots for her as
she chose, would the man, therefore, or his strength of limb, become her
property?”
“Certainly not; for if he chooses to dig up no more roots than he eats
himself, she can do nothing with him for her own advantage; and the
moment he can free himself he will. This is merely force acting against
force, and there is no right in the case.”
“But the woman has a right to cut off her own hair, and the man to
employ his own strength, as long as he does not trespass on his
companion’s personal rights. Now, we see that man has no natural
property in man.”
“Nor in anything else but himself,” interrupted Mr. Bruce, “as you began
by showing. If you can prove that man has now any right to property in
the fruits of the earth, it follows that he may in man.”
“I think not,” said Alfred. “The question depends on what constitutes
_right_. I think that man has a conventional, though not a natural
right, to the productions of the earth; but neither the one nor the
other can sanction his holding man in property. There may be a general
agreement that men shall take and keep possession of portions of land;
but there can never be a general agreement that man shall be lord of
man. If the man and woman agree to take each a portion of land, and not
to interfere with one another, that agreement is a kind of law; and, in
proportion as it is observed, the property of each will be secure. The
same plan is pursued by their descendants till they become too numerous
to make a mere agreement a sufficient security. They then agree upon an
express law, sanctioned by certain punishments, which once more secure
to each the possession of what has now become his property by common
consent.”
“Such agreement and such law,” said Mr. Bruce, “are essential to the
general good; for there would be no end to violence and fraud, no
inducement to improvement, no mutual confidence and enjoyment, if the
law of brute force were to exclude all other law.”
“True,” said Alfred. “The general good is not only the origin, but ought
to be the end and aim of the institution of property. With the property
in man which has been assumed from age to age, the case is very
different; and there never was a time when that sort of property could
be secure, or established by general agreement, or conducive to the
general good. One needs but to draw a parallel between the histories of
the two kinds of property to see this.”
“Histories too long for me and my neighbours to study, I am afraid,
Alfred.”
“They may be very briefly sketched, father. Capital held by the tenure
of mutual agreement,—that is, property in all things created subordinate
to man, has a perpetual tendency to increase and improvement; and every
such increase is an addition to the good of society. Cultivators of the
land have made their portions more and more productive, so as to
maintain a greater number of people perpetually. Inventions have arisen,
arts have improved, manufactures have extended, till a far larger
multitude of people spend their lives in ease and enjoyment, than would
ever have been born if security of property had been unknown. There is
this conspicuous mark of blessing on capital rightly applied, that the
more it increases the more it will increase; while precisely the reverse
is the fact with that which is unrighteously made capital. The more
eagerly it is applied, the faster it dwindles away; the more it is
husbanded, the more want it causes. Its increase adds to the sum of
human misery; its diminution brings a proportionate relief.”
“Why, then, has there been slavery in all ages of the world?”
“Because the race, like the individual, is slow in learning by
experience: but the race has learned, and goes on to learn
notwithstanding; and slavery becomes less extensive with the lapse of
centuries. In ancient times, a great part of the population of the most
polished states was the property of the rest. Those were the days when
the lords of the race lived in barbarous, comfortless splendour, and the
bulk of the people in extreme hardship;—the days of Greek and Roman
slavery. Then came the bondage and villeinage of the Gothic nations,—far
more tolerable than the ancient slavery, because the bondmen lived on
their native soil, and had some sort of mutual interest with their
owners; but it was not till they were allowed property that their
population increased, and the condition of themselves and their masters
improved. The experience of this improvement led to further
emancipation; and that comparative freedom again to further improvement,
till the state of a boor as to health, comfort, and security of
property, is now superior to that of the lord of his forefathers. In the
same manner, my dear sir, it might be hoped that the condition of the
descendants of your slaves, a thousand years hence, would be happier
than yours to-day, if our slaves were the original inhabitants of the
soil they till. As it is, I fear that our bad institutions will die out
only in the persons of those most injured by them. But that they will
die out, the slave-history of Europe is our warrant; and then, and then
only, will the laws of England secure the property of Englishmen as
fully abroad as at home. It is no reproach upon laws framed to secure
righteous property, that they do not guard that which is unrighteous.
Consider once more who are the parties to the law, and the case will be
clear.
“The government and the holders of the property are the parties to the
maintenance of the law. The infringers of the law are the third party,
whom it is the mutual interest of the other two to punish. So the matter
stands in England, where the law works comparatively well. Here the case
is wholly changed by the second and third parties being identical, while
the first treats them as being opposed to each other. The infringer of
the law,—that is, the rebellious slave, being the property of—that is,
the same party with, his owner, the benefits of the compact are
destroyed to all. If the slave is not to be punished, the owner’s
property (his plantation) is not safe. If he is punished, the owner’s
property (the slave) is injured. No wonder the master complains of the
double risk to his property; but such risk is the necessary consequence
of holding a subject of the law in property.”
“You put me in mind, son, of old Hodge’s complaint,—you remember
Hodge,—about his vicious bull. He thought it very hard that, after all
the mischief done to his own stock, he should be compelled by the
overseer to kill the bull. Hodge owned a rebellious subject of the law.”
“True; and Hodge was to be pitied, because there was no making a free
labourer of his bull. But if he had had the choice whether to hold the
animal itself as capital, or only its labour, we should have laid the
blame of his double loss upon himself.”
“You must hear what Mitchelson has to say on that subject, son. He has
suffered as much in his time as any man from troublesome slaves. More
than one was executed, and several ran away while his last lease was
current. His management has changed, however, with the change of times.”
“Is he suffering, like every body else?”
“Yes; and I do not think he would have renewed his lease if he had
anticipated how prices would fall. But he is a prudent man, and knows
how to mould his plan to differences of circumstance.”
“Who is his landlord?”
“Stanley, who has lived in England these fifteen years, you know. When
he left this neighbourhood, he let Paradise to Mitchelson for ten years,
at a thousand a year. There was a permanent population of 300 slaves on
the estate at that time.”
“If there were no more than 300 slaves, sugars must have borne a better
price than they do now, to make it a good bargain to Mitchelson.”
“They averaged a gross price of 30_l._ a ton. In addition to the rent,
the other charges amounted to about 20_l._ a ton; so that Mitchelson’s
net income was 1000_l._”
“And prices being higher than at present, he was tempted to work his
slaves to the utmost?”
“Yes; but another part of the agreement was, that the plantation, with
all belonging to it, should be appraised when the lease expired, and
that Mitchelson should pay up for any damage it might have sustained, or
pocket the value of any improvement. He made his calculations carefully,
and found that it would hardly answer to overwork his slaves
considerably, as what he would have to pay up for the sacrifice of life
at the end of ten years, would balance the present increase of profits
from making more sugar; so he began moderately: but when prices rose to
40_l._ a ton, adding 2000_l._ to his income, it became clearly his
interest to increase his crop. He determined therefore to add 100 tons
to it, even at an expense of life of 1000_l._ But it is inconceivable
what trouble he had after a time. He can tell you as much as any man I
know about the inefficiency of the law for the protection of property.”
Alfred made no reply; and there was a long silence.
“Well!” continued his father, “do not you wish to know the end of
Mitchelson’s speculation?”
“O! by all means. I was thinking what would be the issue of it——at the
end of time.”
“At the close of the lease,—that is, five years ago,—he willingly paid
up for the slaves that were under-ground, and got a renewal——”
“Pray, did Stanley understand his system?”
“Why, I should suppose he did, having lived here some years himself; but
whether he did or not, he found Mitchelson a good tenant, and that was
all that concerned him. No sooner was Mitchelson set going again, than
prices fell, and fell, till they were only 25_l._ a ton.”
“Thank God!” cried Alfred.
“Nay; I was really very sorry, independently of my own stake in the
market. It was truly mortifying that it should happen at the beginning
of a lease. He made the best of it, however, and saw that if he could
not bring his crops just to answer the rent and expenses, he might make
his profit at the end of the lease by a large claim on the score of
improvements. So he changed his system entirely, as you will see
presently. He raises food for slaves and cattle on ground which he
cropped before, feeds them well and works them lightly, so that their
numbers may increase, and has even had his slaves taught mechanical
arts. He will have a pretty heavy lump of profits, at the end of another
five years, if this state of things continues.”
“We are told in England, father, that it is the interest of planters to
be humane to their slaves, and the English are too apt to believe it. I
trust that you have never put your hand to such a declaration since
Mitchelson opened his affairs to you; or that you explain it away like
an innkeeper I knew in England.”
“What did he declare?”
“A gentleman was giving him a lecture about over-working his
post-horses. ‘Bless me, sir!’ said the man, ‘do you think I know my own
interest in the poor beasts no better than that? It is my interest, you
see, to keep them in good condition till the election, our great county
election, which comes on in three weeks.’ ‘And what becomes of your
horses then?’ ‘There must be wear and tear at those times, you know; but
when that fortnight is over, there will be rest for man and beast: for
it is always a dead time for posting just after an election.’ ‘Much good
may your tender mercies do your carrion!’ said the gentleman, as I shall
be tempted to say to Mitchelson, if he tells me the story of his two
leases.”
“Let me just observe, Alfred, that I hope you will not admit any
prejudice against Mitchelson on account of your peculiar opinions about
property. He is the most humane man to his white servants, the most
indulgent parent, the best——”
“Father,” interrupted Alfred, “I assure you, once for all, that when I
hear of cruelties in the gross, I execrate systems, not men. If I had
thought of individuals as I do of institutions here, you would have
already had my farewell, and I should have been on board ship again for
England by this time.”
“Patience! my dear boy, patience!”
“Not with abuses, father; not with social crimes. As much as you please
in enlightening those who are unaware of them: but with the abuses
themselves, no patience!”
----------------------------
CHAPTER III.
PROSPERITY IMPOVERISHES IN DEMERARA.
Alfred was not at all disposed to gainsay what his father protested
about Mr. Mitchelson’s native kindliness of disposition. He remembered
the days when it was a common indulgence to be carried about the grounds
in Mr. Mitchelson’s arms, or to sit on his knee, and listen to stories
of that England to which he was to go, some time or other. He ascribed
this gentleman’s treatment of his slaves, not to any love of tyranny for
its own sake, but to the grand error of regarding human beings as
property, operating upon pecuniary interest. Though, therefore, it was
impossible to regard him with the same esteem as if he had known how to
respect the rights of his fellow-men, Alfred was not disposed to visit
the sins of a system upon an individual who had always treated him with
kindness; and he therefore met his old friend’s cordial greeting with
frank good-humour.
The ladies were not at home; but they would be in long before it would
be necessary for the Bruces to be turning homewards. Would they step
indoors and rest, or prolong their ride to a once favourite seat of
Alfred’s, where the pavilion peeped out from among the trees? The
gentlemen were for proceeding, Alfred with the hope of making some
observations by the way, and obtaining a distant view of the sea from
the verandah of the pavilion.
The gangs of slaves were at work in the cane-fields through which they
passed; but the apathy with which they pursued their employment was even
more striking than on Mr. Bruce’s estate. Alfred thought within himself
how poor is the purchase of a man. It is the mind that makes the value
of the man. It is the mind which gives sight to the eye, and hearing to
the ear, and strength to the limbs; and the mind cannot be
purchased,—only that small portion of it which can be brought under the
dread of the whip and the stocks. Where the man is allowed the
possession of himself, the purchaser of his labour is benefited by the
vigour of his mind through the service of his limbs: where man is made
the possession of another, the possessor loses at once and for ever, all
that is most valuable in that for which he has paid the price of crime.
He becomes the owner of that which only differs from an idiot in being
less easily drilled into habits, and more capable of effectual revenge.
Alfred lingered to watch the scene before him, though the sun shed down
a flood of rays that would have been thought intolerable in England, and
though the doves were cooing in the shade which his companions had
already reached, and humming-birds were flitting among the stems like
flying blossoms from some paradise that better deserved the name than
this. The overseer was finding fault with one of the slaves, a
middle-aged man, of robust make and a more intelligent countenance than
most of his companions. Alfred asked what was the matter.
“He is lazy, sir, as usual: and as usual, he says that he is a very bad
labourer and never was worth much to his master; but he can work hard
enough in his provision-ground. Nobody brings so many vegetables and
pigs to market as Cassius.”
“How is this, Cassius?” said Alfred.
Cassius only repeated what he had said about the impossibility that he
should do much work, as he had always been a bad slave for labour.
At this moment the gong sounded the hour of dinner. The overseer went
away. Cassius slowly walked off, as it happened, in the same direction
that Alfred was going. When he had reached the shade, the slave looked
behind him to see that the overseer was not observing him, and then
quickened his pace almost to a run. Alfred tied his horse to a tree,
followed him, and reached his provision-ground a very few minutes after
him. Cassius was already at work, digging as if he were toiling for
wages.
Alfred laughed good-humouredly as he asked Cassius what he said now
about the impossibility of his working like other people.
Cassius put on a sullen look while he answered, “You may ask my master,
and he will tell you that he has always had trouble with me. When I was
a youth, I never liked work, and I have done less and less ever since. I
am worth very little to him. I have been whipped five times since last
crop, and I got into the stocks many times last year. I eat more than my
work pays for.”
“Then I wonder your master keeps you. Don’t you?”
“I wonder he puts such a high ransom upon me. It is too high for such an
one as I.”
“And are you working out your ransom, Cassius?”
“I am trying, sir. But I shall have eaten more than it is worth before I
get money to pay it.”
“Now,” thought Alfred, “I understand the meaning of this extraordinary
humility, and of old Mark’s and Becky’s conceit, too,” he added, as he
remembered what had passed in the morning; “they wish to enhance their
own value, from a suspicion that they will change masters one of these
days; and Cassius depreciates his, because he hopes to get off with a
lower ransom. Dreadful! that human beings should rate their own value
according to the depth of another man’s purse! They seem, too, to have
no idea of natural disinterested kindness; for Mark and Becky took all
the merit of my father’s little indulgences to themselves. They seemed
to think they must be much better than their neighbour Harry, because my
father roofed their cottage after the storm, while Harry was obliged to
wait till he could repair his himself. How this world is turned upside
down when slaves are in it!”
“Come, Cassius,” he said aloud, “I am not your master, and I am not
going to speak to your master about you.”
“You do not want to buy me?” inquired Cassius, looking inquisitively.
“Not I. I have no estate, and am not likely ever to want any slaves.”
“What did you follow me for then?”
“Because I was curious to see how you manage your provision-ground, if
you really cannot work. But do not attempt to deceive me any more. I see
you are afraid of having your ransom raised. But you need not fear. I
should be too much pleased to see you obtain your freedom to put any
hinderance in your way. Make me your friend, Cassius; and tell me how
much money you have earned, and how much more you want; and where you
mean to go if you get your liberty.”
This was going too straight to the point. Cassius had never had a friend
since he was parted from his father in his youth; and not remembering
much of the comfort of having one, he was not ready with his confidence.
He looked suspiciously at Alfred, put on a lazy, stupid look, and said
nothing but a few words without meaning.
Alfred’s next question, as it showed ignorance of what everybody in the
West Indies knows, did more towards establishing a right understanding
than anything else he could have said. It proved to the slave that the
gentleman was not practising upon him.
“This is very fine soil,” was Alfred’s remark, as he turned up a
spade-full of earth; “and yet I see nothing but plantains, and yams, and
potatoes, unless that patch of corn-ground is yours too. Why do not you
grow a few canes or coffee-plants? or cotton, at least, would answer
your purpose better, I should think.”
Cassius grinned with some feeling deeper than mirth, while he told the
young ignoramus that no slaves were allowed to grow any of the articles
their masters sell. This was clearly to guard against theft; but it
seemed hard that the labour by which a ransom could alone be raised,
must be employed on productions which can never become very valuable.
Cassius laughed so long at the idea of a slave growing canes or coffee,
that Alfred began to regret the joke, for it did not seem a very merry
one to him. He could and would have laughed in England to see a cottager
growing pine-apples on a quarter of a rood of ground, because it would
have been ridiculous, and it would not be against any law. Here the case
was reversed; it was not ridiculous, and it was against the law; and
Alfred was not disposed to laugh.
“How much time do you spend at work here, Cassius? Two hours a-day?”
Cassius laughed again, and said—
“I have not more than two hours for eating, and day-sleep, and my
ground, altogether.”
“Indeed! you go to work at six and leave off at eight for half an hour.
You come home again to dinner, and you have two hours then, have not
you?”
“No; one and a half: and sometimes I must sleep, when I have worked at
night, and when it is very hot. We blacks grow cross if we do not sleep
in the day.”
“Well, then, there is the evening. You leave work at six, and there is
time for much digging before dark.”
“Not when we have the cattle-feed to gather. Sometimes we are at that
till the night comes on. It is so cold,” he continued, shivering at the
thought of it. “When our bundles of grass are made up, we have to carry
them far, and they gather the dew, and it trickles down our backs, while
we wait to give them in. I had rather work two hours more in the field
by star-light than gather grass when the ground is damp, and be always
scolded because the bundle is not bigger.”
“Why,” thought Alfred, “should cattle be fed by human labour? Or, if
grass must be gathered, why not by people whose regular business it
shall be to do it by day-light, instead of exposing those to the damp
who are relaxed by the heat of the day? I will see how my father manages
this.”
During the whole time of conversation, as well as in each pause, Cassius
went on with his work as if he had not a moment to lose. The hope of
ransom was the spring that animated him. Everything about him testified
to his eagerness for saving. His bed of planks, with its single mat and
blanket, was his only furniture, except a few eating utensils; he had
but one wooden trencher and two calabashes. Handsome as he was, Cassius
did not seem to have the personal vanity of a negro, and on festival
days was the least gaily dressed of the group. He never took a farthing
from his hoard, and added to it on every possible occasion.
“Where do you mean to go when you have paid your ransom?” asked Alfred,
“or will you buy land and remain? or be a free labourer for your
master?”
“I go, sir, but my mind is not settled where. I hear there is a place
over the sea, in my own country, where we may live in the same way that
the whites live here; where we may grow sugar and coffee, and trade as
we like, and be rich, and even be governors—such as are most fit to be
so. One of our people got ransomed and went, but we have never heard if
he found such a place.”
“You mean Liberia?”
“Yes, sir. Have you been there?”
“No; but I have been where I heard a great deal about the place. If I
were you, I would go to Liberia as soon as I could—that is, if you can
labour. No man can prosper at Liberia, or anywhere else, unless he
exerts himself.”
Cassius stood erect, and pointed with a smile to his grove of plantains,
to his patch of maize, to his plots of vegetables, flourishing in a
clean soil.
“I see, Cassius,” said Alfred, “what you mean. I see that there was
deceit in your way of speaking of yourself before the overseer. Cease to
be a slave as soon as you can; but while you are here, be faithful to
your master.”
“Faithful!” exclaimed Cassius, looking full at him. “I have never stolen
his sugar—I have never murdered his children—I have never even listened
to those who talked of burning his canes or poisoning his cattle.”
“God forbid! but if you are not industrious—if you do not speak the
truth—you are not faithful.”
“I should be unfaithful if I had ever promised either; but I never did.
Why should I be industrious for him? And as for telling the truth, I
will do it when it helps me to get my ransom; but if telling the truth
hinders my being free, I lie to myself when I tell the truth to my
master, for I have said to myself that I will be free.”
Alfred had nothing to reply, for his principles of morality had all a
reference to a state of freedom, and he had not learned yet to apply
them in circumstances which they did not suit. He would have said
beforehand, that there could be no lack of arguments and sanctions for
truth and fidelity, the two most clearly necessary bonds of society;
but, at the moment, it appeared to him that not one would apply. He
inquired whether there was no religious teacher on the estate, and
whether he did not bid them be faithful and truthful?
“There was one some time ago, and he taught us a great deal. He told us
what it was to be Christians, and he made us Christians, and said that
our master and all his family were Christians too. But he could not
teach us long, and he went away in a little while.”
“What prevented his teaching you?”
“He could not make his stories seem true, and whenever he read the
Gospel, there was something either to make us laugh, or to make the
overseer or our master angry. At last, he preached one day about all men
being brothers, and about all being equal when they were born, and that
they should be equal again when they were dead. He was disgraced and
sent away after that; and so he ought to be for preaching what was
false; for our master says, the blacks never were and never will be
equal with the whites; and we know that our master and the overseer are
not at all like our brothers.”
“And yet,” said Alfred, speaking his own thoughts, rather than thinking
of the prudence of what he was saying, “there were men once who sold a
brother as a slave into Egypt.”
“But he was not like us,” said Cassius; “for God made him a great lord
over his brothers that sold him, and he let them go home again. I am
sure,” he continued, grinning as he spoke, “if God made us lords over
the white men, we should not let them go.”
“I am sorry,” said Alfred, “that your teacher is gone, for it seems as
if teaching like his was very much wanted. When you get to Liberia,
however, you will learn these things faster and better.”
He then asked for water; and while Cassius took down a calabash and
disappeared to fetch some, Alfred went on digging.
“Ah! ha!” said the slave when he returned, “if I had a white gentleman
to dig for me whenever I am away, I should soon go to Liberia: but I did
not know that white gentlemen could dig.”
“I cannot help you much in that way, Cassius; but here is what will do
as well;” and he put some money into his hand. Cassius leaped high into
the air, and was apparently going to sing; but checked himself in a
moment when he saw the face of an old negro, a neighbour of his, peeping
through the fence.
“I must be going,” said Alfred; “but I shall never find my way to the
pavilion. Will this old man go with me?”
“Yes, sir; and Robert is merry and will talk all the way.” So a
ludicrous introduction took place between the gentleman and the
roguish-looking old slave.
They had not far to go; but Robert found time to tell all his affairs to
Alfred by the way. He told him that he had a cottage and
provision-ground close by Cassius’s, and that he had a wife as old as
himself, and that they were too tired to dig and plant when they had
done work, so that their ground produced but little; but that their
neighbour took care that they had enough, and either gave them food or
worked in their ground on a Sunday, and that he piled their fire for
them every night. In answer to Alfred’s remark, that Cassius was
generous and kind in doing all this, old Robert said in a careless way,
that Cassius was young and he and his wife old. This reminded Alfred of
the fact, that respect for the aged is one of the characteristics of
negroes.
He was far from feeling any of this respect in the present instance. Old
Robert could not be got to answer a question straightforward, or to tell
anything without contradicting himself twenty times. He told fibs about
his master and Cassius and himself; had a story for every question that
was asked, the object of the story being to find out how the gentleman
would like to have the question answered; and praised everything and
everybody that he supposed would be acceptable to a white. Alfred soon
grew tired of this, and bade him mind where he was going and leave off
talking: whereupon the old man began to sing,—not, as Alfred would have
liked, one of the songs of his own land, in consideration of which the
cracked voice and antic action would have been forgiven,—but an English
hymn, which he shouted through the wood, shaking his head, clasping his
hands and turning up his eyes, which, however, never failed to warn him
of the boughs which straggled across the path, and which he held aside
that they might not incommode his companion. When they came within
hearing of the pavilion, the chaunt became doubly devout. Mitchelson
shouted to him, with an oath, to hold his tongue, to which he answered
with a flippant “Very well, sir,” and took his way back again, muttering
to himself as he hobbled along.
Alfred was surprised to find that Mrs. Mitchelson and her two daughters
had joined the party in the pavilion. Fruit and wine were on the table;
the ladies reposed on couches and the gentlemen lolled in their chairs,
as English people are wont to do in a hot climate. Alfred took his seat
by a window, where the spicy winds breathed softly in, and whence he
could look over cane-fields glaring in the sun with coffee-walks
interspersed, over groves of the cotton-tree, of the fig, the plantain
and the orange, to where the sea sparkled on the horizon, with here and
there a white sail gliding before the breeze.
“What luxury!” he exclaimed, “to sit in this very seat once more, to
look again on this landscape; to be regaled with such fragrance as I
have only dreamed of since my childhood, and to feast on such fruit,”
helping himself to an orange, “as the English at home have little more
idea of than the Laplanders.”
“Dear me!” said Miss Grace Mitchelson, “I thought the English ate
oranges. I am sure there was something about oranges in what papa read
out of the newspaper about the theatre.”
“Yes,” said her sister Rosa, “did not they throw orange-peel on the
stage, papa?”
Alfred explained that the oranges which are thought a great treat in
England, are such as would be thrown away as only half-ripe at Demerara.
His father looked pleased as he praised one after another of the things
in which a tropical climate excels a temperate one. Mr. Mitchelson
stopped him, however, in the midst of his observations on the fertility
of the soils which stretched from the height on which they sat to the
distant ocean.
“Fertile indeed they have been,” said he, “and fertile many of them
still are; but richness of soil is not a lasting advantage like a fine
climate. It wears out fast, very fast, as I can tell to my cost. If you
had seen what yonder cane-field produced when it first came into my
hands, and could compare it with last year’s crop, you would be
surprised at the change.”
“Do soils become exhausted faster at Demerara than elsewhere?” asked Mr.
Bruce. “If not, there is a poor prospect before our whole race. One
would fear they must starve in time. What do they say in England, son?”
“They say, sir, that soils used to be exhausted there, and that, as a
matter of course, they were suffered to lie fallow from time to time;
but I believe sugar-planters do not like fallows.”
“We cannot afford them,” said Mitchelson. “We must have crops year by
year to answer our expenses; and when we have short leases, we must make
the most of them, whatever becomes of the land when we have done with
it.”
“English farmers are so far of your opinion, that the best of them say
they cannot afford fallows; but neither do they exhaust their soils.”
“How in the name of wonder do they manage then?”
“They practise convertible husbandry to a greater extent than we
planters ever dream of. Wheat and barley exhaust the land like canes;
but by growing green crops in turn with grain, and changing corn land
into pasture, they renew the powers of the soil, and may go on for ever,
for aught I see, till fallows are banished from the land, and every rood
is fertile in its due proportion.”
“That is all very well,” said Mitchelson; “but it is no example for us.
Sugar is our staple, and sugar we must grow. We have little use for
green crops, and less for pasture.”
“In the present state of things, certainly,” replied Alfred. “The
question is, whether it might not answer to find a use for both? I have
seen a calculation, and I mean to verify it as I have opportunity, of
the expenses and profits of the management of such an estate as this by
methods of convertible husbandry. Such a system involves many changes;
but they seem to me likely to be all advantageous; and I long to see
them tried.”
“He who made the calculation had better try, son.”
“He means to do so, and I shall go over to Barbadoes, some day, and see
the result. He will begin by making his slaves more like English
labourers——”
“There is a foolish English fancy to begin with,” observed Mitchelson.
“Employing them,” continued Alfred, “in a greater variety of ways than
is common here, and doing much of their work with cattle. Instead of
buying provisions, importing bricks, and a hundred other things that
might be procured at hand, while the soil is all the time growing barren
as fast as it can, he will vary his crops, thus raising food for man and
beast; he will enlarge his stock of cattle, thus providing manure for
his land, and butcher’s meat for his people; his horses will graze for
themselves instead of the slaves doing it for them, and they, meanwhile,
will be making bricks and doing other things worthy of men, while the
work of cattle will be done by cattle.”
“Very fine, indeed! and what becomes of his sugar all this time?”
“A certain proportion of this estate will thus, he expects, be always
kept in good heart for the production of the staple on which his profits
depend. The profits of this portion and the savings consequent on his
management, will amount to at least as much, at the end of ten years, as
the profits of growing sugar only; while his land will be in as good
condition as ever, the number of his slaves increased, the quality of
his stock improved, and all in good train for going on to a state of
further prosperity.”
“Your friend is a proprietor, I suppose, Mr. Alfred?”
“He is; but he would follow the same plan if he held a lease.”
“Not he; at least if he once knew what slaves are.”
“He sees, sir, that whatever slaves may be, they can do many things that
cattle cannot do, while cattle do the hardest part of slaves’ work
better than slaves.”
“To say the truth,” said Mr. Bruce, “I have often wished for ploughs and
oxen, if I could but have fed the cattle and employed my lazy slaves. It
did seem strange, when I came back from England, to contrast the fine
farm-yards and dairies I saw there, with our paddocks, where our
half-starved beasts are fed with grass ready cut.”
“It reminds me,” observed Alfred, “of a child’s story-book I saw in
England, with pictures of the world turned topsy-turvy. There was one of
a mare perched in a gig, with her master in harness. We might make a
fellow to it of a man cutting grass for the ox, after having done the
work of the plough.”
Alfred had not forgotten that ladies were present all this time, and was
still further from supposing that the conversation could be interesting
to them; but he was relieved from all consideration for them, by having
seen them long before drop asleep, or shut their eyes so as to prohibit
conversation as much as if they were. When the gentleman rose, however,
to return to the mansion, the fair ones roused themselves and took each
an arm to be conducted through the wood. What was the subject of their
conversation is not recorded; but it was probably not convertible
husbandry, as the ladies of Demerara hear quite enough in the gross of
the troubles of a plantation, to be excusable for wishing to avoid the
details of grievances which they are told can be remedied by no other
power than the English government.
----------------------------
CHAPTER IV.
CHILDHOOD IS WINTRY IN DEMERARA.
Old Robert seemed to care so little for slavery himself, that perhaps it
was natural that he should expect others to care as little; and that he
should laugh at his neighbour Cassius for working so hard as he did in
his provision-ground, and for his general gravity of manner. Yet Robert
knew something of the worst treatment of slaves. He was one who had
survived the system of over-working which high prices had occasioned;
and he showed that he remembered its hardships by his present dislike of
work and contrivances to avoid it. Not a slave on the plantation was so
inventive of excuses, so rich in pretences, so ready with long stories
and jokes, all designed to stave off work, as Robert, unless it were his
wife. None were at the same time so impatient of idleness in others as
they; and there was not a hardship which they had suffered, not a threat
which had terrified them in former days, not a punishment that it came
within their power to inflict, that they did not practise whenever
opportunity threw an inferior in their way. If Robert had to lead a
horse or drive an ox anywhere, he was sure to beat and torment the
animal to the utmost by the way. If his wife found a reptile in her
dwelling, she killed it as slowly as she dared, and as cruelly as she
could. It would have been well if their power had not been extended
beyond beasts, birds, and reptiles; but it was not only shown, by their
example, that slavery is the school of tyranny, but, in the instance of
a poor little sufferer who lived with them, that the most dreadful lot
on earth is to be the slave of slaves.
Little Hester was only ten years old when she was first put under old
Sukey, according to the custom by which novices in bondage are made to
serve a sort of apprenticeship to those who have been long under the
yoke. Some humane masters observing the facilities thus afforded to
slave-tyranny, have attempted to break through the custom, but have
found that, with all its abuses, it is too much liked by the slaves to
be given up. The children prefer, at the outset, being instructed by
their own people; and the elderly folks find pleasure, some in the
exercise of authority, and others in reviving their impressions of their
own young days of friendless slavery. No one who knows how fond negroes
are of excitements of feeling, will wonder at their seeking this
melancholy enjoyment. There are many instances where the pupil has been
cherished by a mother whose babe had been early taken from her by death
or violence; or by a father who had seen his sons carried off to a
distance, one by one, as they became valuable for their strength or
skill. There are many more instances, however, where the young slave’s
lot is more chequered than that of childhood in any other part of the
world; where kindness is as capricious or rare as sunshine and warmth to
the blossoms of a Greenland meadow. Little Hester seemed to wither fast
under the treatment of her master and mistress, as they called
themselves; but a tone of voice gentler than usual, a mild word, a look
of encouragement, would revive her and strengthen her till the next
gleam came. There was no end to her troubles but in sleep; and she never
slept without dreading the waking. Wearied as she was when she laid
herself down on her mat, she was apt to sleep as long as the old people;
and if she ever failed to jump up when the gong sounded, Robert was sure
either to throw cold water over her, or to touch her feet with a blazing
piece of wood from the fire, and to laugh at her start and cry. However
foggy the morning, out she must go to the field, and do as much of other
people’s work as was put upon her by her master’s order. However tired
at noon, she must cook the mess of vegetables, and feed the pigs, and
run hither and thither in the broiling sun. However dewy the evening,
she must stand in the grass and pluck as much as she could carry; and,
having carried it, must be kept the last, as she was the youngest,
before she was relieved of her burden. She dared not put it down and
leave it; for, when she once did so, she was flogged for not having
gathered her portion. When she came home damp and shivering, she was
thrust from the fire; and creeping under her mat, lay awake till the
smoke hung thick enough round her to warm her, and make her forget her
bodily hunger and her cravings of the heart in sleep. These cravings of
the heart were her worst misery; for she had known what it was to be
cherished, and to love in return. Of her father she remembered little.
He had been executed for taking part in an insurrection when she was
very young; but her mother and she had lived together till lately. She
had seen her mother die, and had stood by the grave where she was
buried; yet she awoke every morning expecting to see her leaning over
her mat. She dreamed almost every night that her arm was round her
mother’s neck, and that her mother sang to her, or that they were going
together to find out the country where her father was waiting for them;
but as often as she awoke, she saw old Robert’s ugly face instead, as he
stood with his red and blue cap on, mocking her; or heard both shouting
the hymns which she hated, because they were most sung on Sundays when
she was more unhappy than on other days, being tormented at home, and
just as much overworked as in the field, without any one to pity her or
speak for her. Cassius now and then took her into his ground and gave
her some fruit; and he had once stopped Sukey when he thought she had
beat the girl enough; but his respect for the aged prevented his seeing
how cruel these people were; and, supposing that the poor child would be
a slave all her days, he did not “make her discontented with her
condition,” as the overseer’s phrase was on all occasions of
interference.
One day, when Hester returned from her morning’s work, she found the
cottage empty, and her dinner left on the table as if her master and
mistress had taken their’s, or did not mean to return for it. The little
girl danced to the door to shut it, and then sat down on her mat to eat
her mess of vegetables and herrings. Almost before she had done, she
sank down asleep, for, besides being overwearied as usual, the absence
of scolding tongues made such an unwonted quiet in the dwelling, that
she felt as if it was night. She slept this time without fear of being
roused by fire or water; for Robert was taking his turn that day as
watchman of the provision-grounds in the neighbourhood; and on these
occasions the old man frequently took his dinner in a neighbour’s
dwelling, and his wife made holiday also during the hour and a half she
could call her own. Hester therefore thought herself secure till the
gong should sound. She was mistaken, however; for after dreaming that
she heard the dreaded voice calling her, and that she knew it was only a
dream, she felt her hair twitched smartly, and started at Sukey’s shout
of—
“Don’t you hear your master calling you?”
“Sleep has no master,” said the poor little girl, trying to rouse
herself, and to remember what time of day it was. “Is the sun up? Shall
I be flogged?”
“Yes; you shall be flogged if you don’t run this moment to the sick
house and say that your mistress is ill, and can’t work any more to-day.
Make haste, or you won’t be there before the gong sounds.”
“But,” said the child, looking timidly at Sukey’s face, which showed
more signs of mirth than of pain; “they will not believe me, and then
they will flog me.”
Sukey said she should go down to the sick house as soon as she could;
and in the mean time began to hold her body and writhe herself about as
if in great pain, while Robert mixed something in a calabash as Hester
had seen him do before when he was lazy or bent on mischief, and wanted
to make himself ill for a short time to escape work. The little girl
still lingered, saying—
“If you would go with me now, the surgeon would see that you are ill.”
But Sukey flying at her in a passion, and Robert giving her a tremendous
kick to hasten her departure, the child fled away through the wood at
her utmost speed.
“Horner,” said the surgeon to the overseer, when Hester had made her way
through the crowd of reputed invalids who surrounded the door of the
sick house, “what is the matter with Sukey? Where was she this morning?”
“At her work, and so merry I was obliged to make her hold her tongue.
She was as well as I am two hours ago, and is now, I’ll be bound for
it.”
“If she is not really ill, child,” said the surgeon, “you shall be
punished for bringing such a story.”
“We’ll make you really ill, I can tell you,” Horner proceeded.
The child looked out wistfully, in hopes Sukey was coming to tell her
own story. She was rejoiced to see Robert approaching with a solemn face
and a calabash in his hand.
“Sukey is very bad, very bad,” he protested. “She can’t come; she can’t
walk; but if the surgeon will send her some physic, she hopes she can go
to her work to-morrow.”
And he displayed the contents of his calabash—some stinking black stuff
which he vowed she had just thrown up. The surgeon looked at it, and
then jerked the liquor in the old rogue’s face. Robert whined and
muttered as he shook the perfume from his locks and wiped it from his
nose and chin, but bowed humbly when the surgeon handed him a powder,
and hobbled away to avoid further question. The little girl had already
disappeared.
It was moonlight when she returned from delivering her bundle of
cattle-feed. As she passed slowly before the fence of Cassius’s ground,
it seemed to her that it was not in its usual order. Another look showed
her that the soil was as rough in some parts as if it had been dug up,
and that the green crop was trampled and the leaves strewn about as if a
herd of oxen had made their way through it. This might have been the
case, as the gate stood open; and Hester stepped in to see. She started
when she saw that somebody was there. Cassius stood, leaning his
forehead against his low threshold, his arms folded on his breast. The
child remained beside him for some minutes, hoping he would turn round,
but as he did not, she gently pulled his jacket. He still took no
notice. At last, a long deep sob broke from him, and the child,
terrified at his agitation, ran away. He strode after her, and caught
her at the gate. He held her with a strong grasp, as he cried—
“Who robbed my ground? You know, and you shall tell me. Don’t dare to
tell me a lie. Who robbed me?”
“Indeed, indeed, I don’t know. I did not know you had been robbed.”
“You did, you did. Why, don’t you see?” he cried, as he dragged her from
one plot to another, “here is not a potato left, the yams are all gone,
and look at the plantain boughs torn down. Everything is spoiled. I have
nothing to feed my pigs with. I have nothing to carry to market. I have
no more money than I had a year ago. I shall not be free this year—nor
the next—nor the next—nor—I wish I was dead. I shall never be free till
then.”
Hester did not understand what all this meant, so she remained silent
and quiet.
“Child!” Cassius broke forth again, “do you want to be free? Do you know
anybody that wants to be free?”
“I don’t know what it is to be free,” said the child, innocently.
“No, nor ever will,” muttered Cassius. “It was not you that helped to
rob me then. It is somebody else who wants a ransom by fair means or
foul.”
“You always gave me some fruit when I asked,” said the child, “so why
should I steal it? And I have been in the fields ever since
dinner-time.”
“And where have Robert and Sukey been?”
Instead of answering, Hester looked round for a way of escape. Her
impatient companion shook an answer out of her.
“They beat me sometimes when I say where they are.”
“I will beat you if you don’t. No, no, I won’t,” said Cassius, relenting
at the child’s tears; “I never beat you, did I?”
“No, never; and I had rather anybody beat me than you; but you won’t say
that I saw you?”
“Not if you tell me all you know.”
“Well; I don’t know anything about your ground being robbed; but my
master can tell you, I suppose, because he was watchman this afternoon,
and I think my mistress stayed from work to help him, for she said she
was ill.”
“And is she ill?”
“Only the same as she always is, when she does not like to go to the
field.”
Cassius made no other answer to all Hester told him, than to bid her go
home, as it was so late that Robert and Sukey would suspect her if she
stayed longer.
Robert’s door was fastened when the child got home; and when she called
to be let in, her master cried out, that she should be punished in the
morning for loitering; and that in the mean time she might get supper
and sleep where she could, for he and Sukey would not get up to let her
in. The child began to wail, but was threatened with a double flogging
if she did not hold her tongue and go to sleep at the door. She sat down
on the ground to consider whether she dared go and ask shelter of
Cassius, or whether she should lie down on the litter of straw beside
Robert’s dog, and try to keep herself warm in that manner. In a minute
she heard a giggle from within, and suspecting her master might not be
in bed, she crept round to where the fire-light shone through a chink,
and looking in, saw both the old people up and stirring. They seemed to
be making a plentiful supper, and little heaps of yams and potatoes were
lying about, which she had no doubt came out of Cassius’s ground. It was
by this time so very cold, and the sight of a fire was so tempting, that
she determined to seek shelter with Cassius, resolving, however, with a
prudence melancholy at her years, to say nothing of what she had seen,
and hoping that the spoils would be put out of the way of discovery
before the morning.
Cassius was not gone to bed, for he knew there would be no rest for him
this night. It was a relief to him to have something to do; and he
bestirred himself to heap wood on the fire, to get the child some
supper, and to cover her up warm. He also promised to beg her off from
the threatened flogging; so that the child was unusually happy at the
end of her day’s troubles, and got rest by pleasanter means than crying
herself to sleep.
Cassius laid his complaint against the watchman as a watchman, as he had
no means of proving him to be a thief; for Robert and Sukey had employed
the night in removing all traces of their spoils, which, however, filled
their pockets well the next market-day. Robert was slightly punished for
negligence on his beat, in the face of all the many stories he had to
tell of his unequalled excellence as a watchman, and of the
extraordinary difficulties which attended his duty on that particular
day. By dint of repeated and pertinacious complaints, Cassius obtained
some ungracious and imperfect redress, the overseer swearing at him for
his obstinacy, and his master complaining of the interference of the law
in his private property.
Mr. Mitchelson was perfectly correct in saying that planters are subject
to an evil which their countrymen in England are free from, when the law
interferes with private property; but that evil is chargeable upon the
nature of the property. It is another branch of the mischief of the
claimant and the infringer of the law being opposed to one another in
one sense, while in another they constitute the same party.
An injured slave appeals to the law; the law decrees him redress; and
the unwilling master, while he cannot set aside the decree,
complains—and the complaint, though unjust, is true in fact—that the law
intermeddles in the disposal of his private property.
This fact brings in another consideration, another instance of the
reversal, in the case of slavery, of all common rules,—that slaves are
better protected in despotic states than under a free government. Where
there is least scruple about interfering with private property,—that is,
where there is a despotic magistracy,—there will be the fewest
considerations to oppose to the impulses of humanity. Where the
slave-holder possesses the largest influence over public opinion,—where
he is a member of a colonial assembly, or an influential elector of such
a member, or a possessor of any of those means of keeping the magistracy
in check, which exist only under a free government,—there is the
strongest probability of the magistrate’s being tempted to stifle those
complaints which he knows cannot be urged elsewhere if disallowed by
him.
In the days of Augustus, one Vidius Pollio, in the presence of the
emperor, ordered one of his slaves, who had committed some slight fault,
to be cut in pieces and be thrown into his fish-pond to feed the fishes.
The emperor thereupon commanded him to emancipate, immediately, not only
that slave, but all the others that belonged to him.
In these days, no potentate can thus dispose of the property of a
Briton; and it is well. But it is clearly just that while the Briton
abjures despotic rule, he should hold none under him in such subjection
as to need the interference of despotic vengeance for the redress of
their wrongs.
To attempt to combine freedom and slavery is to put new wine into old
skins. Soon may the old skins burst! for we shall never want for a
better wine than they have ever held.
----------------------------
CHAPTER V.
NO HASTE TO THE WEDDING IN DEMERARA.
About this time there was occasion for a family consultation in old
Mark’s cottage; and it took place one day instead of the afternoon
sleep, to which the family regularly composed themselves when dinner was
done, except at such busy seasons as deprived them of the indulgence
necessary to negroes.
Old Mark had talked on, as usual, all dinner time, his children
listening to him as if he had been an oracle, except Nell, who, for
once, seemed inattentive to her father, and full of her own thoughts.
Becky observed upon this as soon as there was a pause, saying that she
supposed Nell had had some scolding, or was likely to be punished for
having spoiled some of her work that morning. Willy said that it was a
different sort of speech that Nell had had made to her; and he laughed.
Becky’s face clouded over at once; for, much as she had to say about the
compliments paid to herself, she knew that Nell had far more.—Nell was
handsomer and more spirited than Becky; and they were about equally
vain; so that, till they had each a lover, there were frequent quarrels
between the sisters; and even since their rivalry had ceased, Becky was
subject to pangs of envy as often as she heard of her sister being more
admired than herself.
Nell now explained that their neighbour Harry had made up his mind at
last to marry her if she chose; and she only waited to know what her
father would say.
He shook his head, and asked how long it was since there had been a
slave marriage on the estate. None of the young people remembered one on
their plantation, but there had been one in the neighbourhood within ten
years. Mark remembered that he had been happier with his wife than
before he married her; and from his own experience, would have
recommended his daughters to settle; but more and more difficulties had
arisen since his young days about the consequences of slaves’ marriages,
and he was afraid to advise the step; especially as Willy was altogether
against it, out of regard to his sister, and Becky, because her own
lover would not promise to marry her. Willy did not speak for a long
time, while his father went on prosing about how everybody would talk,
and stare, and wonder, and whether it would please or displease their
master, and lastly, whether Nell would be happier or less happy after
it.
“If you will marry too, Willy——”
“I won’t marry,” said Willy, doggedly.
“Your master values you, and so it is most likely he would not be angry;
and it would make people wonder less about Nell.”
“They might well wonder at me. No, father; I saw what came of the
marriage in the next plantation. It was just like no marriage.”
“But there is a law now to make our marriages as lawful as white
people’s.”
“To bind a man and his wife together as long as they are both slaves;
but if the man gets free, the woman cannot go with him. His money is not
hers because it is his; and if anybody buys her, her husband may not
follow her unless his master allows it. They cannot do their children
any good. They cannot make them free, nor save them from labour, nor
help them to get justice.”
“But there is a pleasure in living with a wife in a cottage, and in
sowing corn together, and in making the fire for one another, and in
having her to talk to, and to dance with, when holidays come.”
Willy observed that all this might be done without being married, and
was done by everybody on the plantation, who would have married if the
civil rights of marriage had been allowed to them as to the whites.
“But you do every thing for yourself, Willy. You want nobody to sing to
you, or to dance with you, or to go to market with you. You want nobody
to love.”
“I love you, father, and Nell, and Becky.”
“But I shall die soon, and Nell will marry, and Becky loves her lover.
It is time you should find somebody else to love.”
“The time is past, father. I began to love Clara once, just before she
died; and while I was forgetting my sorrow for her, I learned by what I
saw, never to love anybody else.”
“Why, Willy?”
“Because a black must be first a slave and then a man. A white woman has
nobody to rule her but her husband, and nobody can hurt her without his
leave: but a slave’s wife must obey her master before her husband; and
he cannot save her from being flogged. I saw my friend Hector throw
himself on the ground when his wife was put in the stocks; and then I
swore that I would never have a wife.”
“But think of Hector’s children, Willy. O, you do not know the pleasure
of hearing one’s little children laugh in the shade, when the sun makes
one faint at noon! It is like a wind from the north. And to let them
sleep under the same mat, and to see them play like the whites,—and then
their master pats their heads sometimes when they follow him.”
“Like dogs,” said Willy, “that as often get a kick as a kind word. When
I see little children as clever and as merry as whites, I take them up
in my arms and love them; but when they are carried away where their
father shall never see them again, or when their mothers look sad to
find them growing as stupid as we are, I am glad that I am not their
father.”
“Becky!” said her father, “are these the reasons that your lover will
not marry you?”
Becky made no answer; for the fact was she knew nothing more than that
he thought there was no occasion.
“Willy!” said the old man again, “if you will not love nor marry here,
you will try to go somewhere where you can be a man and a husband
without being a slave. You work in our ground. Is it that you may be
free when I am dead?”
“No, father, I shall not try to be free.”
“Why then do you sow corn and dig our ground for us? If you get money,
why will you not pay it to be free?”
“I sow corn that you may have as good food as when you were young and
could dig like me. I get money because others do so; but, unless it were
many times as much, it does little good to me, for I shall never be
free. The Englishmen, over the sea, tell us that they wish us to be
free, and bid us try to buy our ransom; and when we have nearly done so,
they put a higher price upon us, and laugh when we give up.”
“How can people so far off raise our price?”
“They raise the price of sugars because our masters ask them, and then
our masters raise our price. Hector once hoped to buy his freedom; and
it made him happy to see his master look sad, because then he knew that
his master could not sell his sugar, and did not want his slaves so
much, and Hector hoped that no more sugar would be sold till his master
had taken his ransom and let him go. But one day the overseer told him
that his ransom was too low and he must not go yet. It was because his
master wanted to make sugar again; and he wanted to make sugar because
the people in England pitied our masters, and made sugar dearer that
they might be rich.”
“If the whites in England pitied us,” said Nell, “they would make sugar
cheaper that we might be free.”
“Till they do,” said Willy, folding his arms, “I will be as I am, I will
work no more than I cannot help. I will sleep all I can, that I may
forget. I will love my father till he dies, and Nell and Becky till they
have husbands that will love them more than I. Then, since I cannot
love, I will hate; and I will call to the hurricane to bury me under my
roof and set me free.”
“You will love our young master, Willy? He did not forget you while he
was beyond the sea, and he is a kind master now he has come back.”
“I did not forget him,” said Willy. “I remember how he made me play with
him when we were both boys; but I did not love him then, because he was
oftener my master than my play-fellow; and I do not love him now,
because he will be my master again. Don’t ask me, father, to love
anybody. Slaves cannot love.”
Willy looked round for his sisters; but Nell was gone to Harry’s cottage
to tell him she would marry him, thus taking advantage of her brother’s
mention of husbands for herself and Becky. Becky had followed to see how
Harry would take the communication. So Willy threw himself down on his
mat as if going to sleep, while his father, whose ideas had been carried
back to his young days, sat at the door of the hut, singing to himself
the song with which he had courted his long-buried wife.
----------------------------
CHAPTER VI.
MAN WORTH LESS THAN BEAST IN DEMERARA.
“What can be the matter with Mitchelson?” said Mr. Bruce one day, when
his son was riding with him. “See what a hurry he is in, and how vexed
he looks! He is in a downright passion with his favourite mare.”
Mr. Mitchelson smoothed his countenance a little as he approached, but
still looked sorely troubled. The cause of his vexation was soon told.
His mill-dam had burst, and been carried away at a very critical season,
and nothing could repay the loss of time before it could be restored.
Time was everything in such a case.
“And how long will it take to repair it?” inquired Alfred.
“Three months,—three precious months, I expect.”
“Is it possible?” said Alfred. “I cannot think it.”
“You judge of everything, son, as if this were England,” said Mr. Bruce.
“Our people do not turn off work like the labourers you have been
accustomed to see.”
“Mr. Mitchelson must know best, of course,” replied Alfred; “but does
your surveyor, or contractor, or whoever he be, bid you wait three
months?”
“He will when he hears the story which I am now on my way to tell him. I
can’t stop, so good morning.”
“Let me go with you,—may I?” said Alfred. “I like to see and hear
everything I can.”
Mr. Mitchelson professing himself glad of his company, Alfred turned his
horse’s head in search of the contractor.
While this important personage was musing and calculating, Mr.
Mitchelson kept urging,—
“Time, you know, is everything. Anything to save time.”
Alfred modestly suggested that it would be worth trying the experiment
of making the slaves as much like English labourers for the occasion as
possible. Mitchelson laughed at the idea; but asked the contractor how
long the repairs would take if the number of slaves he meant to employ
were English labourers?
“From twelve to fifteen days, I should think.”
“And how long if they work like slaves in general?”
“Probably sixty days.”
“Somewhat under the time I fixed in my own mind. You know, Alfred, I
said three months at a round guess.”
“I wish—I wish——” Alfred kept saying, half to himself.
“What do you wish?” said the contractor, who understood the value of
labour, and suspected that he and Alfred were of the same way of
thinking on that class of subjects; “what is it you wish?”
“Perhaps Mr. Mitchelson will laugh at me for the notion; but I wish he
would let you and me manage this affair, as we shall agree; you pledging
yourself for the cost, and I for the time. You shall arrange the work,
and I will manage the slaves.”
“In that case,” replied the contractor, “I would engage to finish the
repairs in twenty days.”
“Twenty days!” cried Mitchelson. “My dear sir, you were more right in
saying sixty. You will not do it under sixty. But you may try. I give
you _carte blanche_; and to leave you perfectly free, I will go away. I
want to go into Berbice, and I may as well do it now while our regular
business is stopped.”
The other contracting parties were by no means sorry for this. Alfred’s
partner returned with him, and operations were commenced immediately.
The main feature of Alfred’s plan was to pay wages. He collected the
men, told them what they had to do and expect, promised them warm
clothing in case of their working early and late, showed them the ample
provision of meat, bread, and vegetables he had stored at hand, marched
them off, only staying behind to forbid the overseer to come within
sight of the mill-dam, and from that time never left the spot till the
work was finished. Horner was very angry, and full of scorn and evil
prognostications; but nobody cared except the poor women and children,
upon whom he vented his ill-humour as long as he was deprived of his
dominion over the able-bodied labourers.
Mr. Bruce arrived when the work was half done, to see how his son’s
speculation was likely to succeed. As he approached, he was struck with
the appearance of activity so unusual in that region. The first sound he
heard was a hum of voices, some singing, some talking, some laughing;
for negroes have none of the gravity of English labourers. When they are
not sullen they are merry; and now they showed that talk and mirth were
no hinderance to working with might and main. Cassius toiled the hardest
of all, and was the gravest; but he was happy: for this was an
opportunity of increasing the fund for his ransom which he had little
dreamed of. Alfred was talking with him, and lending a hand, as he did
continually to one or another, when his father appeared.
“Bravo! son,” cried Mr. Bruce, as Alfred ran to meet him. “You and your
partner are doing wonders, I see. Will you fulfil your contract?”
“Very easily, sir, if weather remains favourable—(O! I forgot there was
no fear of bad weather)—and if Mr. Mitchelson keeps out of the way, so
that I may keep Horner and his whip out of the way also till we have
done. The family are all absent, you see; but I will step in with you
while you rest yourself. I was surprised to find the ladies gone too
when I arrived.”
“Mitchelson always takes them with him when he is absent for more than a
few hours.”
Alfred thought within himself that he should not have suspected the
gentleman of being so very domestic.
“But come,” said Mr. Bruce, dismounting and fastening up his horse,
“show me the secrets of your management. What are these barrels, and
whence comes this savoury smell?”
“These barrels hold beef and pork, sir; and the savour is from the
cooking in yonder hut.”
“And what is your allowance per man?”
“As much as he chooses to eat. We should get little work done if we gave
each labourer weekly no more than two pounds of herrings and eight
pounds of flour, with the vegetables they grow themselves.”
“The law pronounces that to be enough.”
“But what says the law of nature? You and I do no hard work; and could
we keep ourselves sleek and strong on such a supply of food?”
“Negroes do not want so much as whites.”
“That is a good reason for their having as much as they do want. Our
people here are not troubled with indigestion, as far as I can perceive.
What do you think of our warm jackets?”
“I cannot imagine how they can support the heat in such clothing. No
wonder they throw them aside.”
“They are only for morning and evening. The people scarcely seem to heed
the morning fogs while they wear their woollens; and we make them put
them on again when the sun sets——”
“Do you mean that they work after sunset of their own accord?”
“We have difficulty in making them leave off at nine o’clock. They like
to sing to the moon as they work; and when they have done, they are not
too tired for a dance. Father, you would more than pay for a double suit
of clothing to your slaves by the improvement in their morning’s work;
and yet I believe you give them more than the law orders.”
“Yes. One hat, shirt, jacket, and trowsers, cannot be made to last a
year; and the clothing that the slaves buy for themselves is more for
ornament than warmth. I do not know how the overseer clothes them, but I
have always desired that they should have whatever was necessary.”
Alfred said to himself that the overseer’s notions of what was necessary
might not be the best rule to go by.
Mr. Bruce meanwhile was looking alternately at two gangs of slaves at
work after a rather different manner. He was standing on the confines of
two estates; and, in a field at a little distance, a company of slaves
was occupied as usual; that is, bending over the ground, but to all
appearance scarcely moving, silent, listless, and dull. At hand, the
whole gang, from Cassius down to the youngest and weakest, were as busy
as bees, and from them came as cheerful a hum, though the nature of
their work rather resembled the occupation of beavers.
“Task-work with wages,” said Alfred, pointing to his own gang; “eternal
labour, without wages,” pointing to the other. “It is not often that we
have an example of the two systems before our eyes at the same moment. I
need not put it to you which plan works the best.”
“It is indeed very striking; but what can we do? We must hold labour as
capital,—to put the question in the form you like best,—for our modes of
cultivation require continuous labour. We cannot begin our tillage, and
leave off and begin again, as may suit the pleasure of our labourers. We
must have labour always at command.”
“Undoubtedly; and which has the most labour at command at this
moment,—Mitchelson, or the owner of those miserable drones yonder? And
what is to prevent Mitchelson from having this efficient labour always
at command if he uses the same means that have secured it now? Labour is
the product of mind as much as of body; and, to secure that product, we
must sway the mind by the natural means,—by motives. A man must learn to
work from self-interest before he will work for the sake of another; and
labouring against self-interest is what nobody ought to expect of white
men,—much less of slaves.”
“I am quite of your opinion there, and, in consequence, make my slaves
as comfortable as I can. Of course, every man, woman, and child, would
rather play for nothing than work for nothing.”
“Then surely it is best for all parties to make the connexion between
labour and its reward as clear as possible. I doubt whether any slave
believes that his comforts depend on the value of his work. At any rate,
he often sees that they do not. And this difficulty will for ever attend
the practice of holding labourers as fixed capital.”
“But the maintenance of their labour, son, is reproducible as much as if
they were free.”
“It is; in the same way as the subsistence of oxen and horses. In both
cases it is consumed and reproduced with advantage: but cattle are fixed
capital, and so are slaves. But slaves differ from cattle, on the one
hand, in yielding (from internal opposition) a less return for their
maintenance; and from free labourers, on the other, in not being acted
upon by the inducements which stimulate production as an effort of mind
as well as body. In all three cases the labour is purchased. In free
labourers and cattle, all the faculties work together, and to advantage;
in the slave they are opposed: and therefore he is, as far as the amount
of labour is concerned, the least valuable of the three.”
“And too often as to the quality of his labour also, son. A slave does
some few things for us that cattle and machinery could not do; but he
falls far short of a free labourer in all respects. Our slaves never
invent or improve.”
“Why should they? No invention would shorten their toil, for they do no
task-work. No improvement does them any good, for they have no share in
the profits of their labour. They _can_ invent and improve,—witness
their ingenuity in their dwellings, and their skill in certain of their
sports; but their masters will never possess their faculties, though
they have purchased their limbs. Our true policy would be to divide the
work of the slave between the ox and the hired labourer; we should get
more out of the sinews of the one and the soul of the other, than the
produce of double the number of slaves.”
“I have sometimes wondered,” said Mr. Bruce, “whether we do not lose on
the whole by forbidding our slaves to raise exportable produce in their
own grounds. They, being better adapted than ourselves to the soil and
climate, might discover and practise modes of tillage from which we
might gather many useful hints, which might more than repay what we
should lose by their thefts.”
“What you would lose by theft is a mere trifle,” answered Alfred, “in
the account of the cost of a negro. If they were free labourers,
thieving as fast as opportunity would allow, (which being free
labourers, they would not,) your blacks would cost you little in
comparison of what they do now without thieving.”
“How do you know?”
“I took pains to calculate the cost of a slave before I left England;
and I have had the means of proving my calculation by the experience of
my friend yonder, the contractor, who has had more opportunity than most
people I know of mastering both sides of the question.”
“Does he speak of slaves newly imported, or of those born and bred on
the estate? for that makes a vast difference.”
“We have reckoned both. Those imported were, of course, by far the
dearest; for, in addition to the usual cost, we had to defray the
expenses, in life and money, of wars on the coast of Africa, and of
conveying them across the ocean, the loss under the seasoning when they
arrived, and the revenue to the African trader; and, after all, they are
worth less than those bred on the spot, from being unacquainted with the
language, and unused to the kinds of labour in which they were to be
employed.”
“I never was one to advocate the importation of slaves; it is so clear
that the expenses of their rearing are much less than those attending
their transport. But I really do not think the cost of maintaining
slaves can be greater than that of free labourers. They must both eat
and drink, you know, and be clothed and housed.”
“True, father; and the question therefore is, whether their maintenance
can be managed the more economically by their own contrivance when they
have an interest in saving, or by their master’s pinching them when they
have an interest in wasting his property. The free labourer has every
inducement to manage his field or other possession frugally, and to
husband whatever produce he may obtain. You need only look into the
state of our slave acres, to see how different the case is there. The
cultivation is negligently performed, the produce stolen or wasted, so
that we reap scarcely a third of the natural crop. In both cases, the
master pays the subsistence of the labourer, but the slave-owner pays in
addition for theft, negligence, and waste.”
“Well but, Alfred, give me the items. Tell me the value of a healthy
slave at twenty-one?”
“I believe his labour will be found at least 25 per cent. dearer than
free labour. From birth to fifteen years of age, including food,
clothing, life-insurance, and medicine, he will be an expense; will not
he?”
“Yes. The work he does will scarcely pay his insurance, medicine, and
attendance, leaving out his food and clothing; but from fifteen to
twenty-one, his labour may just defray his expenses.”
“Very well; then food and clothing for fifteen years remain to be paid;
the average cost of which per annum being at the least 6_l._, he has
cost 90l. over and above his earnings at twenty-one years. Then if we
consider that the best work of the best field-hand is worth barely
two-thirds of the average field-labour of whites,—if we consider the
chances of his being sick or lame, or running away, or dying,—and that
if none of these things happen, he must be maintained in old age, we
must feel that property of this kind ought to bring in at least 10 per
cent. per annum interest on the capital laid out upon him. Whether the
labour of a black, amounting to barely two-thirds of that of a white
labourer, defrays his own subsistence, his share of the expense of an
overseer and a driver, and 10 per cent. interest on 90_l._, I leave you
to say.”
“Certainly not, son, even if we forget that we have taken the average of
free labour, and the prime of slave labour. We have said nothing of the
women, whose cost is full as much, while their earnings are less than
the men’s. But you overlook one grand consideration;—that whites cannot
work in the summer time in this climate and on this soil.”
“It is only saying ‘free black’ instead of ‘white.’ The tenure of the
labour is the question, not the colour of the labourers, as long as
there is a plentiful supply of whichever is wanted. Only let us look at
what is passing before our eyes, and we shall see whether negroes
working for wages, or even under tribute, are not as good labourers as
whites.”
“I have often meditated adopting the plan of tribute, Alfred, since
times have gone badly with me; but it is difficult on a coffee
plantation. If I were in Brazil, the proprietor of a gold mine, or at
Panama, the lord of a pearl-fishery, I would adopt their customs. I
would supply my slaves with provisions and tools, and they should return
me a certain quantity of gold or pearls, and keep the surplus.”
“That is one way of making them work by fair means, father. It is an
important approach to emancipation, as I believe it was found in Russia.
It seems, too, an excellent preparative for a state of freedom; and
surely such a preparative would never have been adopted, and would not
have been allowed to proceed to entire emancipation, if such comparative
freedom had not been advantageous to the master as well as the slave. It
is a strong argument, brought forward by slave-holders, in favour of
emancipation.”
“But the plan could not be tried on a coffee plantation, son—that is the
worst of it. If we lived in the neighbourhood of a large town, I would
attempt it on a small scale. Some of my slaves should let their labour,
paying me a weekly tribute, and keeping whatever they earned over and
above. This is done in places south and west of us on this continent, as
a Spanish friend of mine was telling me lately.”
“Suppose we try task work instead, father?”
“I have no other objection than this, son. If the experiment did not
answer, there would be no getting the slaves back to the present
system.”
“A strong argument against the present system, father; but not the less
true for that: suppose then we try with some new employment. If the
blacks are as stupid as they are thought to be here, we need not fear
their carrying the principle out any farther than we wish. Suppose we
make bricks by task-work. Why should we import them, when we have
abundance of brick clay on the estate and labour to spare?”
“It has been found to answer better to import them.”
“Who says so?”
“Mr. Herbert, my old neighbour. He had not straw enough, to be sure,
growing, as he does little besides sugar.”
“Ah; the bounty is all in all with these sugar-growers, father. They
keep their eye fixed on that bounty, and give no other article of
production a fair chance. Besides, I suppose he did not try task-work?”
“Not he. But consider, Alfred, how very little the freight is; and then,
there is the fuel.”
“The fuel is easily had; and a ton of coal will serve for eight tons of
bricks. We are better supplied with straw than if we raised sugars only;
and the apparatus is not expensive. Only consider, father: the labour of
your slaves, at present, does not average more than fifteen-pence a day;
and brickmakers, in England, make from five to seven shillings a day. Do
let me try whether, by working by count, we cannot raise the value of
our slave-labour, and save the expense of importation.”
“But, my dear son, we do not want bricks enough to make it worth while.”
“Our neighbours want them as well as ourselves; and it may answer well
to withdraw a permanent portion of labour from our coffee-walks and
transfer it to our brick-field. The art is not difficult, and the
climate is most favourable, so confidently as we may reckon on the
absence of heavy rains for weeks together.”
“Well; we will see about it, son.”
“I give you warning, father,” said Alfred, laughing, “that I shall not
be content with one experiment. If we save by brickmaking, I shall
propose our making the bagging and packages for our coffee at home,
instead of paying so high as we do for them.”
“Nay, Alfred; what becomes of your boasted principle of the division of
labour?”
“I think as highly as ever of it where labour is as productive as it
ought to be. But where eight free labourers do as much work as twelve
slaves, it follows that if those twelve slaves were set free, four of
them would be at leisure for more work. If as much sugar was raised
already as was wanted, those four labourers might make a great saving by
refining and claying the sugars at home; which business is now done
elsewhere.”
“In the Spanish colonies, where there is a large proportion of free
labourers, I know they do many things among themselves which British
planters do not, and thus reduce the cost of cultivation in a way that
we should be very glad to imitate.”
“Such imitation is easy enough, surely. We have only to introduce as
large a proportion of free labour.”
“The wages of free labour are so dreadfully high,” objected Mr. Bruce.
“Only in proportion to the scarcity of free labour, I believe, father.
Wherever there is little of a good thing, it is dear, according to the
general rule. Slave-labour is not only dear in itself, but it makes free
labour dear also; and gives an undue advantage to free labourers at the
expense of the other two parties. If we would but allow natural
principles of supply and free competition to work, the rights of all
parties would be equalized.—But there is Horner hovering at a distance
and looking as if he longed to come and whip us all round. I must keep
him off, or he will spoil our work. The very sight of him is enough to
paralyse my men; they absolutely hate him.”
“And well they may,” observed Mr. Bruce. “I cannot think what makes
Mitchelson keep that man in his service. Even my overseer, who knows the
nature of the business well, calls him a brute.”
Alfred told his father, in a low voice, that he should think it his duty
to get this man discharged as soon as possible; for he was so enraged at
the adoption of a new plan, and at its evident success, that it was too
probable he would ill-treat the slaves to the utmost as soon as he had
them again in his power.
“He cannot vent his revenge upon me,” said Alfred, “and will therefore
pour it out upon them; and since I have done the deed, I must look to
the consequences. Having taken these poor creatures under my care, I
must see that they do not fall back into a worse state than before. I
will not quit Mr. Mitchelson’s side till I have seen him change his
overseer.”
Mr. Bruce shook his head, and made some grave remarks upon the
imprudence of making enemies. He did not perceive, and his son did not
remind him, that for his one new enemy he had secured a posse of
grateful friends.
Mr. Mitchelson and his family returned punctually on the twenty-first
day. The dam was, to their great surprise, finished, the mill fit for
use, the slaves in good plight, the contractor satisfied and gone home,
and all at a less cost than would have secured the reluctant labour of
as many hands for sixty days;—to say nothing of the vast advantage of
avoiding a suspension of the usual operations on the estate. Mr.
Mitchelson being, of course, pleased, all was right, except that Horner
snatched every opportunity of oppressing and thwarting the people under
him; and it was no easy matter to get him dismissed. He was foolish
enough to let fall words in the hearing of the slaves, which showed that
he was aware he owed his situation to his master’s favour only, and that
he owed Alfred a grudge. The natural consequence, among a people
perfectly ignorant, and yet subject to human passions, was that they
adored Alfred, and hated Mr. Mitchelson and his overseer with an intense
and almost equal hatred.
----------------------------
CHAPTER VII.
CHRISTIANITY DIFFICULT IN DEMERARA.
Mr. Mitchelson told his young friend that he must not think of leaving
Paradise at present. “You have served me in one way,” he said, “and you
now must do it in another. You have built up my mill-dam, and now you
must give me the pleasure of your society. I shall be little flattered,
if you give me to understand that you prefer intercourse with my slaves
to associating with me and my family.”
Alfred was quite disposed to remain at Paradise for a few days; and they
were made days of festivity, according to the hospitable customs of the
West Indies. An excursion was planned for one day, the main object of
which was to inspect an estate, now to be let on lease, for which Mr.
Mitchelson had been authorised by a friend to negotiate. The ladies of
the family cared little for the estate; but there was some pretty
country a little way beyond which Alfred had never seen, and which they
visited to show him. A party of pleasure was therefore formed, and all
the elegant accompaniments of such an arrangement were provided in
profusion. The ladies in carriages, the gentlemen on horseback, set out
in the cool of the morning, saw all they meant to see, dined luxuriously
at the house belonging to the plantation which Mr. Mitchelson had been
left behind to survey, and returned in good time in the evening. Alfred
was rather surprised at the anxiety of the ladies not to be delayed
beyond a certain hour, and remembered how apt parties of pleasure in
England are to transgress in this respect: how faithfully they promise
to be home “by ten, at latest,” and how fidgetty grandfathers, or
anxious mothers, or officious servants, sit at home listening for
carriage wheels, start when the clock strikes eleven, groan when it
comes to twelve, and forgive everything when the weary, unsociable,
young folks are at last safely housed, and yawn a good night to each
other, leaving everything to be told the next day. The most
unaccountable thing of all to him, was the extraordinary prudence of the
young people.
“Come, Alfred,” said Mr. Mitchelson, “we can go so much faster than the
carriage this cool afternoon, that it is a pity you should not see a
fine sea-view there is behind the wood there. You like a sea-view, I
know.”
“O papa!” exclaimed Miss Grace, as she saw them turning their horses,
“what are you going to do? You do not mean to leave us!”
“Only for half an hour, my dear. We shall join you where the roads
meet.”
There was a general cry from the ladies that it was too late for the
party to separate. Mr. Mitchelson urged that the carriages could take
care of each other, and that he and Alfred could come to no harm, for he
knew the road perfectly,—a fine open road, except one bit that led
through a wood;—and the gentlemen trotted off without more controversy.
It was true that the road could not be missed. It was true that, as Mr.
Mitchelson protested, the view was fine enough to have tempted them
twice as far out of their way; but it was not so true that he was clear
about the way back. He thought he was, or he would not have ventured;
and for a considerable way he guided his young friend confidently, and
congratulated himself on having suggested so pleasant a variety in their
journey home. But changes had been made since he last went over the
ground; changes which he was long in perceiving, and of which he was not
fully convinced till he had become completely bewildered about the
direction in which he was proceeding. They had entered an extensive wood
of which he remembered nothing: the road branched off, and he did not
know whether to go right or left; and, what was worse, both roads were
found to become wilder and less marked, till they ended in being no road
at all. There was nothing for it but to go back; a proceeding which
seemed to Alfred so easy, that he was astonished at the nervous
agitation of his companion, who alternately checked and urged on his
horse, talked fast, or would say nothing, and at last appeared so
irritable as well as panic-struck, that Alfred despaired of managing
him, and let him take his own way about what should be done. As might be
expected, he lost the track again. They became more involved in shade
than ever, and the short twilight of that climate was darkening every
moment.
If Alfred had been alone, or favoured with a more manly and agreeable
companion, he would have thought it no great hardship to be obliged to
pass the night in the woods of such a country as this. There could be no
richer bower than the foliage around him; no lamps in a pillared hall so
beautiful as the fire-flies that began already to flit among the
columnar stems which retired in long perspective on every hand; no
perfumes more delicious than the fragrance of the pimento, borne through
the groves by the whispering nightwind; no canopy so splendid as the
deep blue heaven where the constellations appeared magnified as if the
powers of the eye had been strengthened, where the milky-way seemed
paved with planets, and where Venus rose like a little moon, and in the
absence of the greater, casting a distinguishable shadow from trunk and
waving bough. Alfred’s heart leaped at the idea of watching, in so
favourable a situation, the solemn march of night, and repairing before
the dawn to the plains whence he might see the first sunbeams kiss the
ocean. He could perceive no danger, and he felt no want. He could pluck
grass for a bed; he could light a fire, if it should be necessary; and
both had so lately eaten that there was no fear of being starved before
morning. He turned to his companion, who had thrown himself from his
horse upon the ground; but Mitchelson’s countenance looked so gloomy in
the dim light, that his young friend hesitated to address him.
“Lord have mercy upon us!” groaned Mitchelson. “What may happen if we
cannot get home?”
“I was not aware there was any danger,” replied Alfred. “What is our
danger? not wild beasts, nor cold, nor hunger; we can light a fire——”
“O! my poor wife. O! my children. Their friends will leave them,
supposing we are coming.”
“I am sorry for the fright they will have,” said Alfred; “but surely
they will not think any great harm can befall us before morning?”
“O! what may not have happened before morning? Alfred, I had rather you
and I had to battle with wild beasts than women with slaves. If the
wretches find out my absence——”
The cause of all this terror now flashed upon Alfred: the same cause
which made Mitchelson carry his family with him wherever he went. He was
afraid to leave his household in the power of his slaves. Yet this was
the country where (so people are told in England) slaves are contented
and happy, and, in every respect, better off than the free peasantry of
the empire! This was the country whose proprietors dared to complain of
the inefficiency of British law for the security of property! The
present was not the moment, however, for venting his indignation, or
pointing to the obvious truths which stared him in the face. Alfred
looked on his terrified companion as he sat trembling on the trunk of a
fallen tree, and felt nothing but pity. He could not triumph while he
knew that the unhappy man was scared with visions of burning
cane-fields, of a murdered wife and insulted children.
“Do not let us give up, if you are really very anxious to get home,”
said Alfred gently. “I can guide you a little way back, I believe; and
if you will but compose yourself, you may observe some familiar object
before long which will help us into the right track. We may yet be home
before midnight.”
It was past midnight, however, and the moon was high in the heaven
before they got out of the wood and found themselves on a road—not the
one they wanted, but one which would lead them home at length, after a
circuit of a few miles. Mitchelson’s countenance, as seen by the
moonlight, was pale and haggard, and the horses were so weary that they
stumbled continually. Alfred, too, was sufficiently fatigued to be glad
to be relieved from all difficulty but that of going straight forward as
well as he could, and from all obligation to converse. He looked at his
companion from time to time, fearing that he might drop from his horse;
for Mitchelson, never strong, and exposed during the whole day to
unusual fatigue, was ill prepared for an adventure like the present, and
appeared utterly exhausted. Alfred looked about in vain for any place
where they might stop for a few minutes to refresh themselves. There
were none but clusters of negro-huts here and there, where all was
silent and motionless, except that smoke curled up from the roofs in
little white clouds as the silvery light fell upon them. Mitchelson
would not hear of calling up any one to furnish a calabash of water, or
any more substantial refreshment; and he seemed particularly uneasy
while in the neighbourhood of these dwellings, starting whenever a bough
dangled in the breeze, and casting a suspicious glance into the shadows
as he urged his horse forwards. He appeared more in a hurry than ever,
though he actually tottered in his saddle, as they came to a place which
seemed to Alfred as if he had seen it before.
“Surely,” said Alfred, “this is your own estate. Yes, that hut is
Cassius’s. You shall go no further till you have eaten and drunken, or I
shall have you fainting by the road-side.”
So saying, he dismounted, and fastened his horse to some palings at a
little distance from the hut. Mitchelson tried by word and gesture to
restrain him; but Alfred, who thought his companion in no condition to
take care of himself, was decided.
“Fear nothing,” he said, “Cassius and I are good friends, and it will
give him pleasure to be of service to us.”
He approached softly, and his footsteps were not heard, though Cassius
was awake, and somewhat differently engaged from what might have been
expected at such a time of night.
When Alfred reached the threshold, he thought he heard the murmurs of a
voice within, and stepped round to the opening, which served for a
window, to observe for his guidance what was passing within. Cassius was
alone: it was his voice that Alfred had heard. His night-fire was
smouldering on the earthen floor, and he was kneeling beside it, his
arms folded, his head drooped on his breast, except now and then when he
looked up with eyes in which blazed a much brighter fire than that
before him. A flickering blaze now and then shot up from the embers, and
showed that his face was bathed with tears or perspiration, and that his
strong limbs shook as if an icy wind was blowing upon him.
Alfred had often wondered, while in England, what Christianity could be
like in a slave country. Since he arrived in Demerara he had heard
tidings of the Christian teacher who had resided there for a time, which
gave him a sufficiently accurate notion of the nature of his faith and
of that of the planters; but he was still curious to know how the Gospel
was held by the slaves. He had now an opportunity of learning, for
Cassius was at prayer. These were snatches of his prayer.
“May he sell no sugar, that no woman may die of the heat and hard work,
and that her baby may not cry for her. If Christ came to make men free,
let him send a blight that the crop may be spoiled; for when our master
is poor, we shall be free. O Lord! make our master poor: make him sit
under a tree and see his plantation one great waste. Let him see that
his canes are dead, and that the wind is coming to blow down his house
and his woods; and then he will say to us, ‘I have no bread for you, and
you may go.’ O, God! pity the women who cannot sleep this night because
their sons are to be flogged when the sun rises. O, pity me, because I
have worked so long, and shall never be free. Do not say to me, ‘You
shall never be free.’ Why shouldst thou spare Horner who never spares
us? Let him die in his sleep this night, and then there will be many to
sing to thee instead of wailing all the night. We will sing like the
birds in the morning if thou wilt take away our fear this night. If
Jesus was here, he would speak kindly to us, and, perhaps, bring a
hurricane for our sakes. O, do not help us less because he is with thee
instead of with us! We have waited long, O Lord! we have not killed any
one: we have done no harm, because thou hast commanded us to be patient.
If we must wait, do thou give us patience; for we are very miserable,
and our grief makes us angry. If we may not be angry, be thou angry with
one or two, that a great many may be happy.”
These words caught Alfred’s ear amidst many which he could not hear. In
deep emotion, he was about to beckon his companion to come and listen
too, when he found he was already at his elbow.
“Stand and hear him out,” whispered Alfred. “You will do him no harm, I
am sure. You will not punish a man for his devotions, be their character
what it may. Let Cassius be master for once. Let him teach us that which
he understands better than we. He seems to have thought more than you or
I on what Christ would say to our authority if He were here. I will go
in when he rises, and hear more.”
“For God’s sake, do not trust yourself with him. Let us go. Don’t ask
him for water, or anything else. I will have nothing,—I am going home
this moment.”
“Then I will follow,” said Alfred, knocking at the door of the hut as
soon as he saw that Cassius had risen and was about to replenish his
fire.
“Cassius, I have overheard some of your prayers,” he said, when he had
explained to the astonished slave the cause of his appearance. “I was
glad when you told me that you had been made a Christian; but your
prayer is not that of a Christian. Surely this is not the way you were
taught to pray?”
“We were told to pray for the miserable, and to speak to God as our
Father, and tell him all that we wish. I know none so miserable as
slaves, and therefore I prayed that there might be an end of their
misery. I wish nothing so much as that I and all slaves may be free, and
so I prayed for it. Is it wrong to pray for this?”
“No. I pray for the same thing, perhaps, as often as you; but——”
“Do you? Do you pray the same prayer as we do?” cried the slave, falling
at Alfred’s feet, and looking up in his face. “Then let us be your
slaves, and we will all pray together.”
“I wish to have no slaves, Cassius: I would rather you should be my
servants, if you worked for me at all. But we could not pray the same
prayer while you ask for revenge. How dared you ask that the overseer
might die, and that your master might be poor, and see his estate laid
waste, when you know Jesus prayed for pardon for his enemies, and
commanded us to do them good when we could?”
“Was it revenge?” asked Cassius. “I did not mean it for revenge; but I
can never understand what prayer would best please God. I would not pray
for my master’s sorrow and Horner’s death if it would do nobody any
good, or even nobody but me; but when I know that there would be joy in
a hundred cottages if there was death in the overseer’s, may I not pray
for the hundred families? And if I know that the more barren the land
grows, the more the men will eat, and the women sing, and the children
play, and the sooner I myself shall be free, may I not pray that the
land may be barren? And as the land grows barren, my master grows poor.
You know the Gospel better than I do. Explain this to me.”
Alfred did his best to make it clear that, while blessings were prayed
for, the means should be left to Divine wisdom: but though Cassius
acquiesced and promised, it was plain he did not see why he should not
take for granted the suitableness of means which appeared to him so
obvious. When Alfred heard what provocation he had just received, he had
only wondered at the moderation of his petitions, and the patience with
which he bore reproof. Horner had given him notice the preceding
evening, that as it appeared from his exertions at the mill-dam, that he
was of more value than he had always pretended, his ransom should be
doubled. In such a case, a prayer for such low prices as would lessen
his own value was the most natural that could burst from the lips of a
slave.
Alfred resolved, in his own mind, to obtain justice for Cassius, but
refrained from exciting hopes which it might be out of his power to
realize. He cheered the slave by accepting food and drink from him, and
by imparting to him that luxury which it is to be hoped visits this
class of beings more frequently than formerly,—sympathy. When Cassius
came out to hold the stirrup for Alfred, he looked with a smile at the
moon, and said that there would be time for himself to sleep before the
gong should sound, and yet more for the gentleman, who need not mind the
gong.
Alfred’s horse had been grazing to such good purpose during the
conversation with Cassius, that he carried his master home without
another stumble.
----------------------------
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PROUD COVET PAUPERISM IN DEMERARA.
It was well that Alfred had held out no expectation to Cassius that his
ransom would be lowered, or to anybody that the overseer would be
dismissed. Mr. Mitchelson was willing to promise everything to any
person under whose influence he might be at the time; but as fear had
been his predominant passion ever since the days of the insurrection
which once happened on his estate, and as Horner had found some means of
making him afraid of him, there seemed little hope that any
counter-influence would be of any avail. Alfred continued to hover about
the plantation, however, and to give the slaves who had been exposed to
increased hardship by his means, the protection of his occasional
presence, till he was called away for a time, and obliged to leave his
charge to the tender mercies of their enemy, while he undertook a yet
more pressing responsibility. The Barbadoes’ estate became his, and it
was necessary that he should proceed to the spot.
“I wish I could make you think of returning to live with us, my dear
son,” said Mr. Bruce. “You see we cannot possibly break up our
establishment and come to you. Why cannot you arrange your concerns, and
then leave them to an agent, like other people?”
“He will, I am sure,” added his mother, “if he has any idea how we dread
losing him. Mary, love, you have more influence than anybody with your
brother; you can persuade him to return to us.”
Mary looked up through her tears, while she replied that she believed
her brother had long weighed the duty of living on his estate against
other claims; and she hoped he would do what he thought right, and then
it was certain he would come back if he could.
Alfred declared that it was a great grief to him to leave his family so
soon, and that he should return as speedily and as often as possible to
visit them; but that he could not promise to reside permanently anywhere
but on his own estate.
His father observed that there were plenty of agents to be had, and that
he was sorry some friends of his in England had prejudiced his son
against management by agents.
Alfred observed that, believing, as he did, that the non-residence of
proprietors was the curse of the West Indies, he could not
conscientiously add his weight to the burden. Neither was he at all sure
that he could afford the heavy expenses of agency, or that any of the
plans for which he had been expressly educated could be fairly tried
without his superintendence. Whatever might be the honesty and obedience
of an agent, and however strong his own confidence in one recommended by
his father, it was impossible that any man should discern his views so
clearly or take so warm an interest in their issue, as himself. It
appeared to him that a critical period in the state of his slave
population had arrived, and he could not forgive himself if he gave the
management into other hands.
“I am glad you are aware,” said his father, “that Barbadoes is little
like Demerara. What you have seen here affords no rule for what you are
to do there.”
“One kind of rule, perhaps,” said Alfred, smiling; “the rule of
contrary. Here soils are fertile, there barren; here the slave
population decreases as rapidly as it increases there; here slaves are
very valuable, there they are worth little; here they are manumitted at
the average of 27, there of 125 in a year, the impediment of a heavy tax
remaining in each.”
“Then you had rather have an estate in Barbadoes than here,” said Mary,
“whatever your profits may be?”
“Much rather. Slavery, like other institutions, is only enforced where
it is worth enforcing; and since it is found less worth enforcing in
Barbadoes than elsewhere, I shall meet with the less opposition to
measures which I should have adopted wherever my estate had happened to
lie. I do not despair of inducing some of my neighbours to make free
labourers of their blacks, if, as I expect, they already find that they
are of little value as slaves.”
“The reason why they are so little valuable,” said Mr. Bruce, “is that
there is less sugar grown in Barbadoes than in any of the colonies which
grow sugar at all.”
“True,” said Alfred. “The soil of Barbadoes produces less sugar; the
planters therefore profit less by the bounty on sugars: they are less
tempted to overwork their slaves, and to reduce their provision-grounds
to the narrowest limits prescribed by law; the slaves therefore increase
beyond the proportion wanted for the land, and of course obtain their
freedom easily. The exact reverse is the case here. Here the most sugar
is grown, the largest share of the bounty taken, the slaves most
overworked and underfed, their numbers decreasing, their value
increasing, and their freedom the most difficult to achieve.”
Mary looked up from her work, observing that the bounty was then the
great obstacle to emancipation.
“The one obstacle,” replied her brother, “without which no other could
stand for an hour. Louisa, my dear, bring me a map of the world.”
“Of the world!” exclaimed the little girl; “I could show you the way to
Barbadoes with a much smaller map than that.”
“You shall teach me the way to Barbadoes afterwards; I want the larger
map first. Look here, Mary. See here what the whole world owes to
British legislation on the sugar trade! Let us first find out to what
extent sugar might be grown if we had to consider climate only.”
“I have always wondered,” said Mary, “why there was no sugar grown in
Africa, or in any part of South America but the little angle we inhabit.
So it might be anywhere within that line.”
“Anywhere (as far as climate is concerned) within thirty degrees of the
equator. There are duties which prohibit the English from purchasing
sugar from China, New Holland, the Indian Archipelago, Arabia, Mexico,
and all South America, but our little corner here; and from Africa none
is to be had either. The slave-trade has destroyed all hope of that,
independently of all restrictions. The slave-trade has been like a
plague in Africa.”
“Well, but you have passed over Hindostan.”
“The trade is not absolutely prohibited there; but it is restricted and
limited by high duties.”
“What remains then?”
“Only our corner of the world, and a tiny territory it is, to be
protected at the expense of such vast tracts—only the West India
Islands, and a slip of the continent.”
“But surely it is a hardship on the inhabitants of these other
countries, to be prevented supplying the British with sugars?”
“It is a hardship to all parties in turn—to the British, that the price
is artificially raised, and the quantity limited; to the inhabitants of
these vast tracts, that they are kept out of the market; to the West
India planters; but most of all, to the slaves.”
“To the planters? Why, I thought it was for their sakes that the
monopoly was ordered!”
“So it is; but they suffer far more than they gain by it. The
cultivation of sugar is at present a forced cultivation, attended with
expense and hazard, and only to be maintained by a monopoly price, both
high and permanent.
“Look at Mitchelson’s plantation, and see whether its aspect is that of
a thriving property! A miserable hoe, used by men and women with the
whip at their backs, the only instrument used in turning up the soil,
while there are such things in the world as drill ploughs and cattle! A
soil exhausted more and more every year! A population decreasing every
year, in a land and climate most favourable to increase! Are these signs
of prosperity? Yet all these are the consequence of a monopoly which
tempts to the production of sugar at all hazards, and at every cost.
“I see how all these evils would disappear, brother, if the trade were
free; but could the proprietors stand the shock? Could they go through
the transition?”
“O yes; if they chose to set about it properly, living on their own
estates, and making use of modern improvements in the management of the
land. If the soil were improved to the extent it might be, the West
Indies might compete with any country in the world. The planter would
estimate his property by the condition of his land, and not by the
number of his slaves. He would command a certain average return from the
effective labour he would then employ, instead of the capricious and
fluctuating profits he now derives from a species of labour which it is
as impolitic as guilty to employ; and, as the demand for sugar would
continually increase, after the effects of free competition had once
been felt, there would be no fear of a decline of trade. A soil and
climate like this are sufficient warrants that the West Indies may trade
in sugar to the end of the world, if a fair chance is given by an open
trade.”
“Then if economy became necessary, there would be no slaves; for it is
pretty clear that slave labour is dear.”
“Slavery can only exist where men are scarce in proportion to land; and
as the population would by this time have increased, and be increasing,
slavery would have died out. At present, land is abundant, fertile, and
cheap in Demerara, and labour decreases every year; so that slaves are
valuable, and their prospect of emancipation but distant. But in my
estate, as I have told you, the land is by far less fertile, labour more
abundant, and slavery wearing out. My exertions will be directed towards
improving my land, and increasing the supply of labour; by which I shall
gain the double advantage of procuring labour cheap, and hastening the
work of emancipation. I hope no new monopoly will be proposed, which
should tempt me to change my plan, and aid and abet slavery.”
“I can trust you,” said Mary, smiling. “You would not yield to the
temptation.”
“I trust not, sister: but I will not answer for the effect of living
long in a slave country. The very sight of slavery is corrupting, to say
nothing of the evil of holding property under the system. But I feel
resolute enough at this moment.”
“Remember, my dear son,” said Mr. Bruce, “that you may find, as many
find, that principles which seem very clear when only reasoned on, turn
out very differently when applied to practice. There is your principle
that you argue upon, as if it was a settled matter, that high prices
stimulate supply——”
“Well, father, what of it? Is it not true, when things take their
natural course?”
“I only know that it is not true here, if what you have been saying is
true. The high prices you complain of lessen instead of increasing the
supply of labour. Did not you say so?”
“I did; and I think the fact only shows that labour is not supplied in
its natural course. You see the principle operates naturally upon the
masters. It stimulates _them_ to the production of sugar to such a
degree as to ruin their soils; and if the supply of labour fails in
proportion to the rise of prices, it proves,—not that a principle is
false, which holds good everywhere else,—but that the peculiar kind of
labour used here is not rightly held or naturally recompensed. This is
only another of the many reversals of all allowed rules, which are so
striking to those who watch West Indian policy from a distance. We might
make another picture out of it for our new Topsy Turvy.”
“I would make two pictures,” said Mary. “John Bull comes with a high
price in his hand to buy sugar of a free labourer, who works harder and
harder, grows rich, and employs a tribe of labourers under him. John
Bull brings the same price to a slave. He pines and will not work: the
price is lessened; he brightens, works, eats, and grows fat. It dwindles
to nothing, and he leaps for joy, snaps his fingers in his master’s
face, and hugs John Bull with might and main.”
Alfred laughed while he admitted this to be a true picture. In answer to
an objection from his father, that slaves were not fit to employ and
enjoy freedom, he mentioned the remarkable fact that scarcely any free
blacks receive parish relief in comparison with whites, though their
civil and political disabilities are such as to impose great hardships
upon them. If, in an average of six years, including the whole of our
West Indian colonies, it be found, (and it has been proved,) that out of
a free black and coloured population of 88,000, only one in 387 has
received even occasional parish relief, while, out of a white population
of 63,400, one in 38 has been so relieved, it is pretty plain that the
manumitted slaves are not too vicious or idle to take care of
themselves; and there is an end to the common objection to manumission,
that the freed slaves must increase the burden of pauperism.
It had frequently occurred to Alfred, that forebodings of pauperism came
with a very ill grace from a body who subsist on the most expensive
pauper establishment ever invented. The West India monopoly is a most
burdensome poor-rate, levied by compulsion, and bestowed on those who
ought to maintain themselves. It operates as poor-rates always do, in
producing discontents among those who pay, and indolence, recklessness,
waste, and profligacy, among those who receive it, together with
incessant and greedy demands for further assistance. The main difference
is, that the West India paupers might and would flourish, if the mother
country could be prevailed upon to withhold the alms so clamorously
craved; which is more, alas! than can be said in the case of parish
paupers. Alfred thought that this consideration would for ever
strengthen him to stem the current of public opinion, which, however
narrow and foul, runs so strongly in the West Indies as to require the
force of a strong mind to keep its place in it. Happen what might, he
could never submit to be a pauper.
He hoped, however, that the days of strong temptation were over,—that
slavery was a perishing system,—a system that must perish ere long under
any kind of management. High prices, rich lands, and scarcity of people,
in conjunction, he argued, are the only supports of slavery.
High prices exhaust lands; so there is a prospect of an end of slavery
this way.
Moderate prices cause an increase of people; so there is the same
prospect this way.
Low prices only effect the same end more rapidly.
So, with a clear conviction that slavery must, at all events, come to an
end, Alfred set sail for Barbadoes. The chief object of his going was to
learn what he could do to hasten the wished-for day.
----------------------------
CHAPTER IX.
CALAMITY WELCOME IN DEMERARA.
There was every promise of a fine crop this season in Mr. Bruce’s
plantation. The coffee-walks had been refreshed by frequent showers, and
were screened from the chill north winds; and the fruit looked so well
that, as the owner surveyed his groves the day before the gathering
began, he flattered himself with the hopes of a crop so much above the
average as might clear off some of the debts which began to press
heavily upon him.
His daughters remained at his side during the whole of this cheerful
season; for Mary had but a faint remembrance, which she wished to
revive, of its customs and festivities. The time of crop is less
remarkable and less joyous in a coffee than a sugar plantation; but
there is much in both to engage the eye and interest the heart. The
sugar crop had been got in three months before, and Mary had then
visited the Mitchelsons, and seen how marvellously the appearance of the
working population, both man and beast, had improved in a very short
time. Horses, oxen, mules, and even pigs, had fattened upon the green
tops of the cane and upon the scum from the boiling-house; while the
meagre and sickly among the slaves recovered their looks rapidly while
they had free access to the nourishing juice which oozed from the mill.
The abundance of food more than made up for the increase of labour; and
the slaves, while more hardly worked than ever, seemed to mind it less,
and to wear a look of cheerfulness sufficiently rare at other seasons.
There was less apparent enjoyment to all parties at the time of
gathering in the coffee, though it was a sight not to be missed by a
stranger. The slaves could not grow fat upon the fruit of the
coffee-tree as upon the juice of the cane; but as there was an extra
allowance of food in consideration of the extra labour, the slaves went
through it with some degree of willingness. The weather was oppressively
hot, too; but Mary found it as tolerable in the shade of the walks as in
the house. She sat there for hours, under a large umbrella, watching the
slaves, as each slowly filled the canvass-bag hung round his neck, and
kept open by a hoop. She followed them with her eyes when they sauntered
from the trees to the baskets to empty their pouches, and then back
again to the trees; and listened to the rebukes of the overseer when he
found unripe fruit among the ripe.
“I am sure,” said she to her father one day, “I should come in for many
a scolding if I had to pick coffee to-day. If the heat makes us faint as
we lie in the shade, what must it be to those who stand in the sun from
morning till night! I could not lift a hand, or see the difference
between one berry and another.”
“Blacks bear the heat better than we do,” observed Mr. Bruce. “However,
it is really dreadfully sultry to-day. I have seldom felt it so much
myself, and I believe the slaves will be as glad as we when night
comes.”
“The little puffs of air that leave a dead calm,” said Mary, “only
provoke one to remember the steady breeze we did not know how to value
when we had it. I should not care for a thunderstorm if it would but
bring coolness.”
“Would not you? You little know what thunderstorms are here.”
“You forget how many we had in the spring.”
“Those were no more like what we shall have soon, than a June
night-breeze in England is like a January frost-wind. You may soon know,
however, what a Demerara thunderstorm is like.”
Mary looked about her as her father pointed, and saw that the face of
nature was indeed changed. She had mentioned a thunderstorm because she
had heard the overseer predict the approach of one.
There was a mass of clouds towering in a distant quarter of the heavens,
not like a pile of snowy peaks, but now rent apart and now tumbled
together, and bathed in a dull, red light. The sun, too, looked large
and red, while distant objects wore a bluish cast, and looked larger and
nearer than usual. There was a dead calm. The pigeon had ceased her
cooing: no parrots were showing off their gaudy plumage in the sunlight,
and not even the hum of the enamelled beetle was heard.
“What is the moon’s age?” asked Mr. Bruce of the overseer.
“She is full to-night, sir, and a stormy night it will be I fear.” He
held up his finger and listened.
“Hark!” said Mary, “there is the thunder already.”
“It is not thunder, my dear.”
“It is the sea,” said Louisa. “I never heard it here but once before;
but I am sure it is the same sound.”
“The sea at this distance!” cried Mary.
Her father shook his head, muttering, “God help all who are in harbour,
and give them a breeze to carry them out far enough! The shore will be
strewed with wrecks by the morning. Come, my dears, let us go home
before yonder clouds climb higher.”
The whites have not yet become as weather-wise, between the tropics, as
the negroes; and both fall short of the foresight which might be
attained, and which was actually possessed by the original inhabitants
of these countries. A negro cannot, like them, predict a storm twelve
days beforehand; but he is generally aware of its approach some hours
sooner than his master. It depends upon the terms he happens to be on
with the whites, whether or not he gives them the advantage of his
observations.
Old Mark sent his daughter Becky to Mr. Bruce’s house to deliver his
opinion on the subject; but all were prepared. No such friendly warning
was given to the Mitchelsons, who, overcome with the heat, were, from
the eldest to the youngest, lying on couches, too languid to lift up
their heads or think of what might be passing out of doors. Cassius,
meanwhile, was leaning over the gate of his provision-ground watching
the moon as she rose, crimson as blood, behind his little plantain
grove. Every star looked crimson too, and had its halo like the moon. It
was as if a bloody steam had gone up from the earth. Not a breath of air
could yet be felt; yet here and there a cedar, taller than the rest,
stooped and shivered; and the clouds, now rushing, now poised
motionless, indicated a capricious commotion in the upper air. Cassius
was watching with much interest these signs of an approaching tempest,
when he felt himself pulled by the jacket.
“May I stay with you?” asked poor Hester. “My master and mistress dare
not keep at home because our roof is almost off already, and they think
the wind will carry it quite away to-night.”
“Where are they gone?”
“To find somebody to take them in; but they say there will be no room
for me.”
“Stay with me then; but nobody will be safe under a roof to-night, I
think.”
“Where shall we stay then?”
“Here, unless God calls us away. Many may be called before morning.”
The little girl stood trembling, afraid of she scarcely knew what, till
a tremendous clap of thunder burst near, and then she clung to Cassius,
and hid her face. In a few moments the gong was heard, sounding in the
hurried irregular manner which betokens an alarm.
“Aha!” cried Cassius. “The white man’s house shakes and he is afraid.”
“What does he call us for?” said the terrified child. “We can do him no
good.”
“No; but his house is stronger than ours; and if his shakes, ours may
tumble down, and then he would lose his slaves and their houses too. So
let us go into the field where we are called, and then we shall see how
pale white men can look.”
All the way as they went, Hester held one hand before her eyes, for the
lightning flashes came thick and fast. Still there was neither wind nor
rain; but the roar of the distant sea rose louder in the intervals of
the thunder.
Cassius suddenly stopt short, and pulled the little girl’s hand from
before her face, crying, “Look, look, there is a sight!”
Hester shrieked when she saw a whole field of sugar-canes whirled in the
air. Before they had time to fall, the loftiest trees of the forest were
carried up in like manner. The mill disappeared, a hundred huts were
levelled; there was a stunning roar, a rumbling beneath, a rushing
above. The hurricane was upon them in all its fury.
Cassius clasped the child round the waist, and carried rather than led
her at his utmost speed beyond the verge of the groves, lest they also
should be borne down and crush all beneath them. When he had arrived
with his charge in the field whither the gong had summoned him, slaves
were arriving from all parts of the plantation to seek safety in an open
place. Their black forms flitting in the mixed light,—now in the glare
of the lightning, and now in the rapid gleams which the full moon cast
as the clouds were swept away for a moment, might have seemed to a
stranger like imps of the storm, collecting to give tidings of its
ravages. Like such imps they spoke and acted.
“The mill is down!” cried one.
“No crop next year, for the canes are blown away!” shouted another.
“The hills are bare as a rock,—no coffee, no spice, no cotton! Hurra!”
“But our huts are gone: our plantation-grounds are buried,” cried the
wailing voice of a woman.
“Hurra! for the white man’s are gone too!” answered many mingled tones.
Just then a burst of moonlight showed to each the exulting countenances
of the rest, and there went up a shout louder than the thunder,—“Hurra
hurra! how ugly is the land!”
The sound was hushed, and the warring lights were quenched for a time by
the deluge which poured down from the clouds. The slaves crouched
together in the middle of the field, supporting one another as well as
they could against the fury of the gusts which still blew, and of the
tropical rains. An inquiry now went round,—where was Horner? It was his
duty to be in the field as soon as the gong had sounded, but no one had
seen him. There was a stern hope in every heart that his roof had fallen
in and buried him and his whip together. It was not so, however.
After a while, the roaring of water was heard very near, and some of the
blacks separated from the rest to see in what direction the irregular
torrents which usually attend a hurricane were taking their course.
There was a strip of low ground between the sloping field where the
negroes were collected and the opposite hill, and through the middle of
this ground a river rushed along where a river had never been seen
before. A tree was still standing here and there in the midst of the
foaming waters, and what had, a few minutes ago, been a hillock with a
few shrubs growing out of it, was now an island. The negroes thought
they heard a shout from this island, and then supposed it must be fancy;
but when the cloudy rack was swept away and allowed the moon to look
down for a moment, they saw that some one was certainly there, clinging
to the shrubs, and in imminent peril of being carried away if the stream
should continue to rise. It was Horner, who was making his way to the
field when the waters overtook him in the low ground, and drove him to
the hillock to seek a safety which was likely to be short enough. The
waters rose every moment: and though the distance was not above thirty
feet from the hillock to the sloping bank on which the negroes had now
ranged themselves to watch his fate, the waves dashed through in so
furious a current that he did not dare to commit himself to them. He
called, he shouted, he screamed for help, his agony growing more
intense, as inch after inch, foot after foot, of his little shore
disappeared. The negroes answered his shouts very punctually; but
whether the impatience of peril prompted the thought, or an evil
conscience, or whether it were really so, the shouts seemed to him to
have more of triumph than sympathy in them; and cruel as would have been
his situation had all the world been looking on with a desire to help,
it was dreadfully aggravated by the belief that the wretches whom he had
so utterly despised were watching his struggles, and standing with
folded arms to see how he would help himself when there was none to help
him. He turned and looked to the other shore; but it was far too distant
to be reached. If he was to be saved, it must be by crossing the
narrower gulley; and, at last, a means of doing so seemed to offer.
Several trees had been carried past by the current; but they were all
borne on headlong, and he had no means of arresting their course: but
one came at length, a trunk of the largest growth, and therefore making
its way more slowly than the rest. It tilted from time to time against
the bank, and when it reached the island, fairly stuck at the very point
where the stream was narrowest. With intense gratitude,—gratitude which
two hours before he would have denied could ever be felt towards
slaves,—Horner saw the negroes cluster about the root of the tree to
hold it firm in its position. Its branchy head seemed to him to be
secure, and the only question now was, whether he could keep his hold on
this bridge, while the torrent rose over it, as if in fury at having its
course delayed. He could but try, for it was his only chance. The
beginning of his adventure would be the most perilous, on account of the
boughs over and through which he must make his way. Slowly, fearfully,
but firmly he accomplished this, and the next glimpse of moonlight
showed him astride on the bare trunk, clinging with knees and arms, and
creeping forward as he battled with the spray. The slaves were no less
intent. Not a word was spoken, not one let go, and even the women would
have a hold. A black cloud hid the moon just when Horner seemed within
reach of the bank; and what happened in that dark moment,—whether it was
the force of the stream, or the strength of the temptation,—no lips were
ever known to utter; but the event was that the massy trunk heaved once
over, the unhappy wretch lost his grasp, and was carried down at the
instant he thought himself secure. Horrid yells once more arose, from
the perishing man, and from the blacks now dispersed along the bank to
see the last of him.
“He is not gone yet,” was the cry of one; “he climbed yon tree as if he
had been a water rat.”
“There let him sit if the wind will let him,” cried another. “That he
should have been carried straight to a tree after all!”
“Stand fast! here comes the gale again!” shouted a third.
The gale came. The tree in which Horner had found refuge bowed,
cracked,—but before it fell, the wretch was blown from it like a flake
of foam, and swallowed up finally in the surge beneath. This was clearly
seen by a passing gleam.
“Hurra! hurra!” was the cry once more. “God sent the wind. It was God
that murdered him, not we.”
When the planters were sufficiently recovered to exchange letters of
condolence, Mr. Mitchelson wrote thus to Mr. Bruce. “You have probably
heard that my overseer, poor Horner, was lost from the waters being out
when he was making his way to the field where his duty called him. We
all lament him much; but your son will be glad to hear (pray tell him
when you write) that my slaves are conducting themselves as well as if
still under the charge of him we have lost. I am persuaded they would
have risked their own lives to save his, if it had been possible. But,
as they say, it was God’s will that he should perish!”
----------------------------
CHAPTER X.
PROTECTION IS OPPRESSION IN DEMERARA.
The external devastation which attends a hurricane is by no means the
only evil it brings. Where there is any difficulty in the management of
affairs, public or private, it is sure to be increased or made
insurmountable by any general excuse for aggression or rebellion. Many
an insurrection has taken place during or immediately after a hurricane.
Many a half-ruined planter has found his embarrassments brought to a
crisis by the crowd of demands which are hastened instead of deferred by
disaster. This was now Mr. Bruce’s case.
As soon as this gentleman had seen the destruction of all the hopes he
had built on his coffee-crop, he began to fear a seizure of his slaves
by his creditors. He assembled them within an inclosure as fast as
possible, and erected his fences, and had them guarded with the utmost
care, that he might at all events exempt his human property from a legal
seizure. But his precautions were vain. Some gap was found, or pretended
to be found, through which the officers entered in the night, and levied
slaves for the benefit of his creditors. This was sad news for the
breakfast-table; and as Mr. Bruce was really a kind-hearted man, it
added to his concern that, in the confusion of the seizure and in the
darkness of midnight, the slaves had been carried off without the usual
care being taken not to separate families: for some regard is paid to
this consideration in the absence of temptation to overlook it. Old
Mark’s household, among others, had been divided. Becky was this morning
sitting in grief beside her aged father, while Willy and Nell (whose
lover had been left behind) were marching, in sullen despair, with
drivers at their backs, they knew not whither, to become the property of
they knew not whom.
It would have been hard to say among what class of persons the deepest
distress prevailed in consequence of this hurricane, which the
revengeful impulses of the blacks had made them for a moment hail as a
friend. The slaves who were levied for their master’s debts mourned as
if they were carried anew into a strange land: their friends at home
wept for them more bitterly than if they had been dead; for they were
gone to renew their mortal sorrows instead of finding peace and freedom
in the better land beyond the grave. Cassius’s heart was burning within
him because the prospect of freedom, of late so hopeful though not very
near, was now removed for ever, or to so great a distance as to leave
him in despair. He was to be sold; and it would be long before the value
of slaves, now considerably raised by the event which had happened,
would be so lowered as to admit of a hope of obtaining ransom. Cassius’s
earnings being found to be greater than was expected, his price was
considerably raised, and he was placed first in the lot of marketable
slaves on Mitchelson’s estate.
The master, meanwhile, was lamenting the loss of his factotum, Horner,
and indolently dreading the difficulties of making new arrangements, and
doing some things himself which he had been accustomed to leave to his
overseer. But his distress was nothing compared with his friend, Mr.
Bruce’s. In perpetual fear of arrest, he dared not go out of doors to
see what had happened and what must be done. He delayed from day to day
looking into his affairs, suspecting that he should find total ruin at
the bottom. He resisted, partly through shame, and partly through
tenderness for Alfred, every entreaty to send for his son and to bring
his affairs to a certain issue. He wrote, “do not think of coming” in
every letter; but it chanced one day that Mary found an opportunity of
putting in a postscript to this effect: “Notwithstanding what my father
says about your remaining where you are, I think, and so does my mother,
that it would do him a world of good to see you. He grows more anxious
every day, and there is nobody here who can help to comfort him as you
could.” Upon this hint Alfred appeared. He little thought how the other
suffering parties we have mentioned had cast a longing look towards him,
as the friend most likely to aid them, or to sorrow with them if he
could not assist.
“Our young master would have Willy and Nell brought back if he was
here,” observed Becky to her father.
“Mr. Alfred would not let my ransom be raised, or may be he would buy me
himself, now he has an estate,” sighed Cassius.
“I would persuade Alfred to train my new overseer, and advise me what to
do, if I could get at him,” observed Mitchelson. “He did wonders at that
mill-dam, and I am sure he would do no less now.”
So when Alfred appeared, a gleam of pleasure passed over many a heavy
countenance.
“My dear son!” exclaimed Mr. Bruce. “We are always glad to see you. Who
is not? But you have come at the very best moment. There is to be a
meeting of planters to-morrow. You cannot think how I dread appearing;
and now you will go instead of me. It is necessary that this estate
should be represented; and you may truly say that I am too ill to appear
in person.”
Alfred was ready to be useful in any way; but urged the necessity of his
being fully informed respecting his father’s affairs before he could act
as his proxy. He begged that this day might be devoted to an inspection
of the accounts. Mr. Bruce groaned; but on this point his son was firm.
The two gentlemen and the agent whom Mr. Bruce’s indolence had induced
him to employ, were closeted for the rest of the day with their books
and papers.
Mrs. Bruce lay sighing and weeping the whole day, offering a passive
resistance to all the comfort her daughter endeavoured to bestow. In the
evening, Mary left her for a few minutes, to seek the refreshment of the
cool air of the garden. She remained within sight of the room where the
inquiry was going forward on which so much depended; looking up to the
windows every moment as if she could learn anything by that means of the
probable fate of the family. At last she saw somebody moving within: it
was Alfred who came to the window, saw her, made a sign to her to remain
where she was, and presently was drawing her arm within his own, and
leading her where they could not be overheard.
Alfred explained that his father was indeed deep in debt, but that his
incumbrances might be cleared off by good management, as they had only
been brought on by indolence and waste. If his father would dismiss his
agent, and conduct his affairs himself; if he would introduce a better
division of labour, and a greater economy of the resources of the
estate, all might be redeemed within a few years.
“Can I do nothing to assist?” Mary anxiously inquired. “I know I can
introduce economy into our household arrangements, for my mother leaves
them more and more to me: but can I help my father as well?”
“You may, by taking an interest in what ought to be his business. Go
with him sometimes when he superintends in the field, and show him that
you understand accounts, and keep an eye upon the books. You know as
much of accounts as I do, and let him see that he may trust you.”
“I may thank Mrs. H—— for teaching me this part of a woman’s business,”
said Mary. “She managed the fortunes of her five children from the day
of her husband’s death till their majority, and I am thankful that she
taught me what may now be so useful. I may learn the values of coffee in
time; and in the meanwhile I will make use of what I know of that of
pounds, shillings, and pence.”
“It is no mean knowledge, sister, since, in your case, the happiness of
some hundreds of human beings is affected by it. The fate of our slaves
depends on the state of my father’s affairs. I commend their comfort to
you. Soften their hardships much as your influence allows, and then my
father will soon find that their happiness and his prosperity go
together.”
“O, Alfred! have I any power,—any responsibility of this kind? It makes
me tremble to think of it.”
“If ladies have been frequently cited to answer the complaints of
slaves, (which you know to be the case,) it is clear that they have
influence over the fate of these unhappy dependants. If the wife of a
planter has been imprisoned for torturing a slave, why should not the
daughter of a planter use her influence to save her father’s slaves from
punishment, or, better still, keep them from deserving it?”
“I have been with old Mark to-day,” said Mary, “and I have been trying
all means I could think of to get Becky to complain to my father,
instead of the Protector, about Sunday labour: but she is so fierce, I
can make nothing of her. She never said a word about it while she had
her brother with her, but she declares she must make her complaints for
herself now he is gone. I dread the exposure, and she might get redress
from my father, I am sure.”
Alfred had heard with grief that Willy and Nell were among the levied
slaves. What his sister now said determined him to seek out old Mark and
his daughter without delay; and the brother and sister were soon at the
door of the hut.
Mark was sitting in the only chair the hut contained, talking as if to
people round him, though he was alone. Alfred immediately saw that the
little light of intellect which old age had left was quenched. The cause
of this was evident from his taking every man who came near him for
Willy, and every woman for Nell.
“How much did you sell the pig for?” he asked Alfred. “He brought a good
price, for your clothes are as fine as a white’s.—But,” suddenly
recollecting himself, “how did you get back? O, you will be flogged for
a runaway.”
“This is Mr. Alfred. You remember your young master, Mr. Alfred?”
“Ah! Mr. Alfred is come to your wedding, Nell. Why, my wife did not look
as pretty as you on her wedding-day. And who married you, and why did
not you let me go to your wedding? Becky said you could not be married
because they had carried you away, but now you are back again, I will
sing you a song I made for you and Harry.”
Presently the old man broke off singing in a great passion.
“Willy, you are a dog to bring me no water when I am so thirsty;” and he
shook a stick at his young master.
Alfred humoured him and took down a calabash, and was filling it with
water when Becky came home.
“See, Becky, what it is to be married!” cried the old man. “When will
you be as fine as Nelly?”
Becky made no answer, but snatched the calabash from Alfred’s hand, and
served her father herself.
“You would not believe that I could save you from Sunday labour, Becky,”
said Mary. “Here is my brother: you had better make your complaint to
him.”
Becky was so far from being reserved, as she had been in the morning,
about this complaint, that she poured out her grievances as fast as she
could speak, and far faster than Alfred could understand her. The fact
was, she had applied to the Protector of slaves, and he had dismissed
her complaint as frivolous and vexatious, because she owned that she had
frequently gone through an equal portion of Sunday labour without
complaint. She was now furious against all parties, and would scarcely
hold her tongue long enough to hear Alfred say that he thought her’s a
hard case, and only blamed her for not having complained long before.
It appeared that the overseer was in the habit of appointing a heavier
task on Saturdays than other days, and of compelling the completion of
it on the Sunday. It was evident that, if he chose to appoint a double
task on the Saturday, the negroes might be deprived altogether of the
benefit of the Sunday: and the young people thought that one such
attempt to evade the law on the part of the overseer was enough to
warrant his immediate dismissal, if it could be proved against him; and
that the Protector of slaves could be little fit for his office, if he
made the frequent repetition of a grievance the reason for not
redressing it. Becky smiled incredulously when Alfred promised that he
would come, next Sunday morning, and see whether she was at work or at
leisure; and if the former, on what pretence.
He had some hope of being able by that time to make some arrangement for
the return of the brother and sister, as he was to meet their present
owner at the assembly of planters on the Wednesday; but the event
disappointed him. Everything went wrong at the meeting. He dissented
entirely from the prayer of the petition to government which had been
agreed on; he disapproved of the tone of indignant complaint assumed by
the planters, and failed in his endeavour to convince some of them that
the remedy for their grievances rested with themselves. He had laid his
accounts for being treated as a visionary, and for his own plans being
laughed at as absurd; but he was not prepared for being put down because
his father’s affairs were known to be in a bad state; or for the
insulting mirth with which all humane suggestions were received, even
while the name of Providence was on every tongue. But nothing disgusted
him so much as the apathy with which his father’s principal creditor
turned from the offer of a negociation about the restoration of Willy
and Nell. There seemed no hope of effecting their return; and the only
prospect he could hold out to Becky was that of joining them whenever
the death of her father should release her from her attendance upon him;
and this could be done only by sacrificing her lover, as her sister had
been compelled to do by force.
----------------------------
CHAPTER XI.
BEASTS HUNT MEN IN DEMERARA.
The absent brother and sister were less willing to relinquish the hope
of return. Upon this hope they had lived from the moment of their
departure: they saw it in each other’s eyes, while their captivity was
too new to allow them an opportunity of speaking of it; and they kept it
alive by sympathy when some relaxation of discipline allowed them to
exchange a whisper from time to time. They planned to escape in the
night, to take refuge in the woods, and subsist there as well as they
could till the search should be over, and they could find their way back
to Mr. Bruce’s estate, and throw themselves at their master’s feet to
petition for such an exchange of slaves as would allow them to remain in
their old habitation. They had no thought of evading slavery altogether.
They had no means of leaving the coast, or of obtaining their freedom
within it. The utmost they hoped was to spend a life of slavery under a
lenient master, and among those they had long known, and could love: a
wish not so very immoderate or presumptuous, it may be thought, as to
merit very severe chastisement. Yet they knew that no punishment would
be thought too heavy, if they should be detected in cherishing this
hope.
One afternoon, they and their black brethren on the estate were left
unguarded, owing to the sudden illness of the driver, who fell down in
the field and was carried home in fits. A glance instantly passed from
Willy to Nell, and joy was in their hearts that an opportunity of escape
should occur so much sooner than they had expected. There was no
roll-call that night. If there had been, the brother and sister would
have been called in vain, for they were already on their perilous way to
the woods. Nobody missed them: they met nobody as they proceeded in the
shade till sunset, and over the plain in the twilight, till they reached
the forest. They did not know their way any further than they had been
able to study it by observing the stars. They were to travel northward
when the time should come for them to proceed to Mr. Bruce’s; but their
immediate object was to escape pursuit: and as pursuit would most
probably be directed where it would be guessed they wished to go, they
turned due west for the present, as soon as they could make out the
points of the compass by the lights overhead. They pushed on at their
utmost speed, disregarding cold, hunger, and the difficulties of the
way. They hastily plucked wild fruit when it hung within reach, now
creeping through thick underwood, now helping one another over fragments
of rock, and never stopped till day began to dawn. Then Nell cast
herself down on the ground, and besought her brother to let her rest. He
now observed for the first time that one of her feet was covered with
blood, and frightfully swollen. A large thorn had pierced it some hours
before, and as she had in her hurry let it remain, it was buried too
deep to be easily got out, and she was so lame as to be unable to go
farther.
Willy looked round anxiously, and walked from side to side to gaze
abroad and see whether this spot was easily accessible from any quarter.
He came back presently with a more cheerful countenance, saying,
“The bushes are thick all round us, and the wood is very wild; and there
is fruit on the trees, and a little river near, where we may drink. If
we could but hide ourselves as long as the sun is up, we might be safe
for many days.”
“Cannot we pile up these big stones to make a hiding-place, Willy? Set
them one upon another against this bank, and leave a hole behind where
we may creep in.”
Willy found this not very difficult. The hiding place looked outside
like a natural heap of fragments of rock, while behind there was a hole
large enough for two people to sit upright; and when some dry grass was
shaken down to make the ground soft, the runaway slaves thought they
could be content to remain in this narrow dwelling for a long time.
Willy laughed as he had not laughed since childhood, when he leaned back
in his dark corner, and Nell smiled as much as the pain of her foot
would let her. Hope had already done her heart good. Twenty-four hours
sooner she would have made everybody near her melancholy with her
groans, for slaves are fond of pity, and are made selfish by their
wrongs; but now, Nell began to feel like a free-woman. She could procure
no indulgence by complaint, and she was grateful to her brother for his
assistance in making her escape. She therefore hoped that he would
sleep, and remained quite quiet that she might not hinder his doing so.
Perhaps she would have attempted to sing a drowsy song, if she had not
been afraid of betraying their retreat by permitting any sound to issue
from it.
Her fit of patience lasted longer than might have been expected from
such a novice in the virtue. For a few hours she sat bearing the pain
very well, and she might possibly have endured for another if she had
not heard, or fancied she heard, a sound which made her heart throb as
painfully as her foot. The woods reposed in all the stillness of noon,
or she would have supposed the sound to be some freak of the wind among
the high foliage of the forest; but there was no wind, there was nothing
to provoke an echo; and her ears were struck by something too like the
distant, the very distant baying of a hound. She laid her hand on her
brother’s arm. He did not stir. She paused to listen again before she
disturbed him. She had not long to wait. It came again, nearer, and too
distinct to be mistaken. She shook the sleeper.
“Willy, Willy! hark to the hounds! The hounds are after us!”
Willy groaned as he started up, and shook some of the stones overhead,
which rolled down with a great clatter.
“Never mind that, Nell. We could not keep under cover with the hounds
upon us. O, if we had but passed a stream in our way! If we could but
have baulked the hounds!”
“There is a river below,” cried Nell; and Willy was off at the word.
“O, Willy, Willy, do not leave me! I cannot walk. O, carry me with you!”
Willy hesitated a moment as his worse and better nature strove together.
He came back for his sister, took her on his back, and began to scramble
down to the stream. It was too late, however. The shouts of men were now
heard mingling with the loud and louder baying of the blood-hounds,
which might be expected the next moment to spring from the bushes upon
their victims. There was no hope of getting down to the stream in time,
much less of being hidden on the opposite side. Willy cast a hurried
look behind him every moment; and when at last he heard a rustling in
the underwood, and saw fierce eyes glaring upon him, he laid his burden
on the grass, crying,
“Nell, will you die or be a slave?”
Nell grovelled on the earth and made no answer.
“I will die!” shouted Willy, and was about to spring into the water. His
sister recalled him by her cry.
“Becky; poor Becky! She will be all alone when our father dies.”
Willy turned. What his choice would have been cannot be known, for there
was no time for choice. Before the slave-hunters could come up to see
what happened, a fierce blood-hound had sprung at Willy’s throat and
brought him down. Once having tasted blood, the animal was not to be
restrained by whistle, shouts or blows, till the long death-grapple was
over. When the mangled negro had ceased to struggle, and lay extended in
his blood, the hound slunk back into the bushes, licking his chops, and
growling at Nell as if he would make another spring if he dared.
The remaining fugitive had no power to resist, even if she had had the
will. But her will was annihilated. She had nothing to hope or to fear
in the present extremity of bodily and mental misery. She sat quietly on
the grass when they tied her hands behind her back. She attempted to
walk when she was bid, and submitted to be carried when it was found she
could not stand. She did not speak when they took up the body of her
brother from its bloody bed, nor start when they tossed it into the
stream, though splashed by the plunge.
She was conscious but of one passing impulse during her journey back,—to
throttle the man on whose shoulders she was carried, as the hound had
throttled her brother: but the effort only served to remind her that her
arms were fastened. She was asleep or in a stupor when brought back to
her hut, a circumstance which was pointed out by a white as conclusive
of the fact that negroes have no feeling. As she was too lame to work,
however, and not in the best condition for the lash, she was not roused.
There was some mercy in leaving her to find out for herself, when she
should again be able to collect her disordered thoughts, that the brand
and the stocks were waiting for her, and that the days of her bondage
must henceforth be spent alone.
----------------------------
CHAPTER XII.
NO MASTER KNOWS HIS MAN IN DEMERARA.
Though Alfred was mortified at the event of his meeting with the
planters, he had reason to be satisfied on the whole with the result of
his present visit to Demerara. Now that poor Horner’s opposition was at
an end, it became comparatively easy to carry two or three measures
about Mitchelson’s slaves that Alfred had much at heart.
“I cannot give up the point of Cassius’s freedom,” said he to
Mitchelson. “I feel myself pledged in honour to obtain it.”
“In honour! I will spare your honour, my young friend, and never think
the worse of you if you forgot Cassius from this day.”
“You!” exclaimed Alfred in astonishment. “I am not pledged to you but to
Cassius.”
“And what should Cassius know about honour?” asked Mitchelson, laughing.
“Call it humanity, if you please. Cassius knows what humanity is; or, at
any rate, what liberty is: and since my employing him at the mill-dam
was the means at once of exciting his hopes and raising his ransom, I
cannot lose sight of him till I lose sight of the vessel in which he
shall be sailing to Africa.”
“You must keep a sharp look out then; for he may be marched off south,
or west, or east any day. I can make nothing of him, and shall not keep
him.”
“South, or west, or east! I thought you said he was promised to a
planter in the neighbourhood?”
“He was; but the bargain is off. The fellow was so idle and mulish the
day that I wanted him to show to the best advantage, that my friend will
not have him, unless for a lower price than I mean to accept.”
“You had better take his ransom as it was first fixed, and let him go.
You will make nothing of him at home or in the market after what he has
gone through lately.”
“I am quite of your opinion, and would end the business at once, but
that a neighbour has been talking to me about it, and convincing me that
it would be wrong.”
“Wrong! how should it be wrong?”
“We planters determined long ago never to admit the right of slaves to
purchase their freedom. We mean to keep it optional on our part whether
to sell them or not, in the same manner as we deny the right of any one
to make us sell any other articles of our property. Now, so much has
been said about this particular slave, Cassius, that my neighbours are
afraid that, if I let him go, advantage will be taken of the case to
represent that we can be obliged to part with our slaves, like the
Spanish planters. So you see that, in justice to the West India
interest, I must refuse Cassius his freedom.”
“I remember,” replied Alfred, “that some reforms specified by an Order
in Council were objected to on the ground you have stated; and the
declaration is of a piece with all the declarations with which
government is insulted by the landholders here. But though your
neighbours disregard equally the law of nature, the law of God, and the
ordinances of the government under which they live, they admit, I
believe, the conventional law of honour, of which you think Cassius can
know nothing; they admit that a gentleman must keep a promise,
deliberately made, and often repeated.”
“A promise to a gentleman, certainly. Promises to slaves are nothing,
you know, if circumstances alter, as they have done in this case. The
usages of society, for whose sake alone promises are made binding, bear
no relation to slaves.”
“True enough,” said Alfred, smiling. “I take you at your word, Mr.
Mitchelson. You have deliberately and repeatedly promised me that
Cassius should ransom himself at a certain sum. That sum is now ready,
and if you refuse to take it and let the man go, I will expose your
breach of promise to every planter in Demerara.”
“My dear Alfred! How strange of you to treat an old friend so
ceremoniously!”
“If you will not grant my claim in a friendly way, I must urge it
ceremoniously. Tell me in so many words, do you mean to keep your
promise or break it?”
“I declare I am quite at a loss what to do. My neighbours fully
understand that the ransom is refused.”
“That shall be no difficulty. I will tell them that I have recalled to
your memory a positive promise to myself. I will take care of your
honour towards them, if you will take care of it towards myself. And now
let us go and finish this business.”
“I am sure, my dear young friend, it always gives me the greatest
pleasure to oblige you, and besides——”
Alfred stopped short as he was walking, and said, “We must understand
one another better before we have done. I cannot allow you to think that
you are doing an act of favour. It is an act of very tardy justice to
Cassius, and of ungracious necessity towards myself. I am very sorry to
speak thus to an old friend, Mr. Mitchelson; and no interests of my own
should make me thus fight my ground inch by inch; but for the sake of
the slaves I must deny that it is any matter of favour to let a slave go
free when he offers his stipulated ransom.”
Mitchelson muttered something about his being unable to cut fine like
his accomplished young friend.
“You cut fine just now,” replied Alfred, “on behalf of the planters; you
must allow me to do the same on behalf of the slaves.”
They presently reached the spot where Cassius was seemingly at work with
others who were repairing the devastation caused by the hurricane.
Alfred asked Cassius whether he still had money to buy his ransom as at
first fixed. He had. How soon could he bring it in his hand and buy his
freedom? “Presently; in an hour; in five minutes,” the slave said, as he
saw the benevolent smile broadening on Alfred’s face.
“Fetch it then, and you and I will not part till you sail away over the
blue sea yonder. Mr. Mitchelson, we will join you again presently, and
conclude the business.”
“You are not going with him, Alfred? He will return sooner without you.”
But Alfred determined to lose sight of his charge no more till they
should have quitted Paradise.
Cassius walked so rapidly that Alfred could scarcely keep up with him.
On reaching his hut, a part of which had fallen in during the hurricane,
he put his spade into Alfred’s hands, pointing to a place where a heap
of rubbish lay. He fetched another spade for himself from a neighbour’s
hut, and began to dig among the rubbish with might and main. Alfred
worked as hard as he, and neither had yet spoken a word. They first
uncovered the bed of planks and mat on which the slave had spent so many
nights of desolate grief, and which had been so often watered with his
tears. Cassius, by a sudden impulse, kicked these to as great a distance
as he could, snatched up a burning stick from his fire, and kindled
them. As the flame shot up, he danced and sang till the last chip and
shred were burned. He then spat upon the ashes and returned to his work.
A little way under ground, beneath where the bed had stood, a leathern
pouch appeared. Cassius seized it, showed Alfred with a rapid and
significant gesture that it was full of coin, and marched straight
towards the entrance of his garden.
“Stay a moment,” said Alfred, laying his hand on his shoulder; “you are
not aware that you will never come back to this place again. Is there
nothing here, nothing of your own, that you wish to take with you? No
clothes, no tools, or utensils?”
Cassius looked about him with an expression of intense disgust.
“Be prudent, Cassius. Your clothes and your tools will not be the less
useful to you in Liberia because they belonged to you as a slave.”
Cassius slowly returned and took up a few articles, but presently seemed
much disposed to throw them into the fire.
“Well, well,” said Alfred, “leave them where they are, and if your
master does not allow you the value of them, I will. Now take one more
look at the dwelling where you have lived so long, and then let us be
gone.”
Cassius had, however, no sentimental regrets to bestow on the abode of
his captivity. He refused the last look, and strode away as an escaped
malefactor from the gibbet, without any wish to look back. The first
words he spoke were uttered as he passed old Robert’s hut.
“Little Hester will cry when she comes home and finds that I am gone.
Can you do nothing for poor little Hester, Mr. Alfred?”
This was exactly what Alfred was turning over in his mind.
When Cassius had told down his ransom with Alfred’s assistance, when the
necessary forms of business were gone through, and the variety of coins
which the pouch contained were fairly transferred to Mitchelson, Alfred
said,
“Now that our affair of justice is concluded, I am going to bring
forward a matter of pure favour.” Mr. Mitchelson, who liked granting
favours better than doing justice, looked very gracious. Alfred
explained, that by Cassius’s departure, Hester would lose her only
friend. He begged that she might be taken from under the charge of
Robert and Sukey, and placed with some one who would treat her kindly,
and that Mr. Mitchelson would himself inquire after the friendless
little girl from time to time.
“With the utmost pleasure, Alfred. I shall always pay particular
attention, I am sure, to objects that interest you. But would you like
to purchase her? I am sorry that I cannot offer, in the present state of
my affairs, to give her to you; but the demand shall be moderate if you
are disposed to purchase her.”
Alfred was also sorry that the state of his own and his father’s affairs
was not such as could justify his purchasing slaves. He would fain have
made this child free; but as he could not, he consoled himself with the
hope that he had secured better treatment for her till he might be able
to render her a higher benefit still. Mr. Mitchelson passed his word of
honour that she should that day be removed to the dwelling of a
gentle-tempered woman, who had lately lost a daughter of about Hester’s
age.
“Have you nothing to say to me, Cassius?” asked Mr. Mitchelson, as
Cassius was turning his back for ever upon his master’s mansion. “Have
you no farewell for me, so long as we have lived together?”
No, not any. Cassius cared little for good manners just at this moment,
and was only in haste to be gone.
“Lived together!” said Alfred to himself, as he quitted Paradise. “These
slaveholders never dream that they may not use the language of the
employers of a free and reasonable service. An English gentleman may
speak to his household servants of the time they have ‘lived together;’
but it is too absurd from the slaveholder who despises his slave to the
degraded being who hates his owner.”
Mitchelson meanwhile was wondering as much at Alfred, thinking, as he
watched them from the steps of his mansion,—
“That young man is a perfect Quixote, or he could never see anything to
care about in such a sullen brute as Cassius. I am glad I was never
persuaded to send any of my children to England. No man is fit to be a
West Indian planter who has had what is called a good education in
England.”
As Alfred was crossing his father’s estate on his way home, he met the
overseer looking angry, and with his anger was mingled some grief. He
was very ready to tell what was the matter. He had just heard of the
“unfortunate accident,” by which Willy had been torn to pieces by
bloodhounds. When Alfred had made two strange discoveries, he saw that
nothing was to be made of the overseer, and rode on. One discovery was,
that the man’s anger was against Willy himself for the attempt at
escape; the other, that he had just blurted out the whole story to Mark
in Becky’s absence. Of course Alfred lost no time in seeing if he could
comfort the old man.
Mark was still alone when they went in, rocking himself in his chair,
and apparently aware of what had happened, for he was singing, in a
faint wailing voice, a funeral song in his own tongue.
He stopped when Alfred entered the hut, Cassius remaining outside, and
before he could be prevented, rose from his seat, saying,
“I am ready for the burial. I see them waiting for me outside. Don’t
stop me; I am ready for the burial.”
In attempting to move forwards, he fell heavily.
“Help, help!” cried Alfred to his companion. “Lay him on the mat:
sprinkle water on his face; chafe his hands!”
It was too late. He was gone. He was indeed “ready for the burial.”
Alfred waited for Becky that he might give her the only comfort in his
power, in the hope that, now her filial cares were ended, she might join
her sister by the exchange of the one or the other.
“Cassius has been climbing every hour since sunrise, to where he may see
the sea,” said Mr. Bruce, laughing, to Alfred, on the day preceding his
return to Barbadoes. “He is like a school-boy going home for the
holidays.”
“To compare great things with small,” added Alfred.
“So you ship him with a party of your own, and your neighbour’s
liberated slaves, for Liberia. How did you get leave? How did you gain
any interest with the American Colonization Society?”
“Our object being the same, father, there was no difficulty in coming to
an understanding. We planters take upon ourselves the expense of
transportation, and the society receives our free blacks under the
protection of its agent at Liberia.”
“And what do you suppose will become of them there?”
“That which has become of the free blacks of the United States who are
settled there. They will labour, and prosper and be happy. They will
become farmers, planters, merchants, or tradespeople. They will make
their own laws, guard their own rights, and be as we are, men and
citizens.”
“Do you expect me to believe all this, son? Do you think I know so
little what blacks are?”
“Neither you nor I, father, can learn, in this place, what Africans are
in a better place. I believe, and I certainly expect others to believe,
what I have told you, on the strength of sound testimony. I wish you
could once witness a shipment for Liberia. It would confirm the
testimony wonderfully.”
“I am aware, son, that there are powerful emotions in the mind of a
negro at the very mention of Africa, or of the sea, or even of a ship.
When the importation of slaves was more practised than it is now, the
most endearing name by which negroes called each other was ‘shipmate.’
If it was so endearing on their being brought to a foreign country, I
can fancy that it must be yet more so, when they return to their own.
The little feeling that blacks have is all spent upon their country.”
Alfred shook his head, observing that he believed nobody in Demerara was
qualified to pronounce on that point.
“What! not I, that have had to do with negroes all my life?”
“Do you remember the Canary bird that Mary showed you when you were in
England?” was Alfred’s reply.
“What the little pining thing that was kept in the housekeeper’s room at
the Grosvenor Square house? O yes! Mary was very fond of it, I
remember.”
“Mary gave that Canary its seed and water for years, and she would have
laughed if any one had told her that she knew nothing about Canary
birds; but it would have been very true; for that tame little creature,
drawing up its tiny bucket of water when it was bid, seeing the sunbeams
shut out as soon as ever it hailed them with a burst of song, was not
like one of the same species with the wild, winged creatures that flit
about its native islands, and warble unchecked till twilight settles
down upon the woods. And we, father, can never guess from looking at a
negro sulking in the stocks, or tilling lands which yield him no
harvest, what he may be where there is no white man to fear and hate,
and where he may reap whatever he has sown. Happily there are some who
have been to Liberia, and can tell us what a negro may become.”
SUMMARY.
-------
This volume, like the last, enlarges on principles already laid down. It
treats of the respective values of different kinds of labour, and of a
particular mode of investing capital. The truths illustrated may be
arranged as follows.
PROPERTY is held by conventional, not natural right.
As the agreement to hold man in property never took place between the
parties concerned, _i. e._, is not conventional, Man has no right to
hold Man in property.
LAW, _i. e._, the sanctioned agreement of the parties concerned, secures
property.
Where the parties are not agreed, therefore, law does not secure
property.
Where one of the parties under the law is held as property by another
party, the law injures the one or the other as often as they are
opposed. Moreover, its very protection injures the protected party,—as
when a rebellious slave is hanged.
-------
Human labour is more valuable than brute labour, only because actuated
by reason; for human strength is inferior to brute strength.
The origin of labour, human and brute, is the Will.
The Reason of slaves is not subjected to exercise, nor their will to
more than a few weak motives.
The labour of slaves is therefore less valuable than that of brutes,
inasmuch as their strength is inferior; and less valuable than that of
free labourers, inasmuch as their Reason and Will are feeble and
alienated.
-------
Free and slave labour are equally owned by the capitalist.
Where the labourer is not held as capital, the capitalist pays for
labour only.
Where the labourer is held as capital, the capitalist not only pays a
much higher price for an equal quantity of labour, but also for waste,
negligence, and theft, on the part of the labourer.
Capital is thus sunk, which ought to be reproduced.
As the supply of slave-labour does not rise and fall with the wants of
the capitalist, like that of free labour, he employs his occasional
surplus on works which could be better done by brute labour or
machinery.
By rejecting brute labour, he refuses facilities for convertible
husbandry, and for improving the labour of his slaves by giving them
animal food.
By rejecting machinery, he declines the most direct and complete method
of saving labour.
Thus, again, capital is sunk which ought to be reproduced.
In order to make up for this loss of capital to slave owners, bounties
and prohibitions are granted in their behalf by government; the waste
committed by certain capitalists abroad, being thus paid for out of the
earnings of those at home.
Sugar being the production especially protected, everything is
sacrificed by planters to the growth of sugar. The land is exhausted by
perpetual cropping, the least possible portion of it is tilled for food,
the slaves are worn out by overwork, and their numbers decrease in
proportion to the scantiness of their food, and the oppressiveness of
their toil.
When the soil is so far exhausted as to place its owner out of reach of
the sugar-bounties, more food is raised, less toil is inflicted, and the
slave population increases.
Legislative protection, therefore, not only taxes the people at home,
but promotes ruin, misery, and death, in the protected colonies.
A free trade in sugar would banish slavery altogether, since competition
must induce an economy of labour and capital; i. e., a substitution of
free for slave labour.
Let us see, then, what is the responsibility of the legislature in this
matter.
The slave system inflicts an incalculable amount of human suffering, for
the sake of making a wholesale waste of labour and capital.
Since the slave system is only supported by legislative protection, the
legislature is responsible for the misery caused by direct infliction,
and for the injury indirectly occasioned by the waste of labour and
capital.
-------
Printed by W. CLOWES, Stamford-Street.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY.
----------
No. V.
ELLA OF GARVELOCH.
=A Tale.=
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
_SECOND EDITION._
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
1832.
LONDON.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES,
Stamford Street.
ELLA
OF
GARVELOCH.
=A Tale.=
BY
HARRIET MARTINEAU.
_SECOND EDITION._
LONDON:
CHARLES FOX, 67, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
---
1832.
----------------------------
The Author must acknowledge herself indebted for much valuable
information on the subject of this volume to Dr. Macculloch’s
Description of the Western Islands of Scotland.
----------------------------
CONTENTS.
Chap. Page
1. Landlord and Tenant 1
2. A Highland Farm 18
3. The first Excursion 34
4. Whom have we here? 44
5. A Highland Night 55
6. The Scotch abroad 67
7. Innovations 81
8. Seclusion not Peace 94
9. A Fool’s Errand 111
10. What is to happen next? 116
11. Understand before you complain 123
12. A waking Dream 132
ELLA OF GARVELOCH.
----------------------------
CHAPTER I.
LANDLORD AND TENANT.
Among the islands which are clustered around the western shore of
Argyleshire, there is a small chain called the Garveloch Isles, or the
Isles of Rough Rock. There are four of them, divided from the coast of
Lorn by a tossing sea, and by scattered islands larger than themselves;
and from each other by narrow sounds, studded with rocks, and difficult
to navigate, on account of the force of their currents. This difficulty
would have placed the inhabitants nearly out of reach of intercourse
with those of the mainland, even if that intercourse had been desired by
either party; but it was not, at the date of our narrative, for they
knew and cared little about each other. The islanders, consisting of
only a few families scattered over Garveloch, (the principal of the
group, which therefore gives it name to the whole,) thought of nothing
but providing as they could for themselves alone; and their place of
habitation was so wild and dreary that it presented was the only
inhabited island of the four; Ilachanu, the westermost and next largest,
being a desert of rocks and moorland; and the easternmost, considerably
smaller, not having even yet received the poor distinction of a name.
The length of Garveloch is about a mile and a half; but its dwellers
were, in the days of our tale, as little acquainted with each other’s
concerns as if a chain of mountains had divided the north-eastern from
the south-western parts of their island. The difficulties which lay in
the way of their intercourse were so great from the nature of the
land,—it being divided by steep rocks into cliffs and narrow valleys
which were almost impassable,—that the rare communication which did take
place was by coasting when the weather was calm enough to render the
Sound safe for the crazy boats and small skill of the islanders. These
boats were but two; one belonging to a farmer who cultivated his sandy
fields on the southernmost and sunniest part of the land, and the other
to the family of a fisherman who had tenanted a good cottage and croft
on the shore some way higher up. These boats were borrowed as they were
wanted; and the intercourse of lending and receiving back again was all
that ever took place, except on the rare occasions of a marriage, a
birth, or a funeral, or the still rarer one of a visit from the
proprietor. These visits averaged about one in the lifetime of each
laird; for if it chanced that any one of the race was so fond of the
wildest kind of scenery, or so addicted to any pursuit in which the
productions of these islands could assist him, as to show his face a
second time to his amazed tenantry, it as often happened that another
was kept away entirely by the reports of those who had no love of dreary
lands and perilous waters.
There are traces in all the islands of times when they had been more
frequented; of times when the first introduction of a new faith into
this remote region was followed up by rites which must have given to it
an aspect of civilization which it had now long lost. Tombs of gray
stone, with a cross at the head of each, are conspicuous here and there;
and in the most secluded parts are mouldering walls which seem to have
formed hermitages in the olden times. If these establishments were, as
is most probable, connected with the cathedral of Iona, it seems strange
that so great a celebrity as they must have obtained should have died
away. There is not so much as one tradition, however obscure, among the
inhabitants, respecting these relics, and they therefore afford the less
interest to the traveller, who can only look at the remains and go away
as wise as he came.
There was once a laird, however, who was not willing to give up the
whole matter as a mystery without examination. He came again and again,
sometimes attended only by his steward, and sometimes by strangers as
curious as himself. He destroyed the average we have spoken of, greatly
to the joy of his island tenantry, and to the annoyance of the old
steward who had the charge of this range of islands, together with many
more in the neighbouring seas, and who much preferred talking big in the
name of the laird, and doing what he pleased among the people, to
following his principal in his excursions, standing by to hear the
statements of the tenantry, and receiving directions concerning their
affairs.
Notice of a visit from the laird was sometimes given and sometimes not,
according as Callum, the steward, happened to be in Garveloch or
elsewhere. He had an apartment of his own at the farm above-mentioned,
which he occupied sometimes for a few days together, and which was
therefore better furnished with accommodations than any other space
between four walls in the island. The convenience of having this
apartment prepared in case of the weather being too boisterous to permit
a return on the same day to the mainland, induced the proprietor to send
notice when Callum was on the spot to make arrangements. When he was
not, such notice served no purpose, as the people at the farm had no
power to levy supplies, and would not have known how to use them when
procured, so uncivilized were their habits and manners. On one occasion,
the omission of such notice caused the laird to witness a sight which he
had never before beheld in all its simplicity,—a funeral among his
tenants.
As the bark which contained himself and a party of friends approached
Garveloch, one fine spring morning, he saw two boats nearing the
landing-place before them. As these vessels were rocked in the surf,
snatches of a hoarse and wild music came from them, rising above the
roar and dash of the waves. The sound was not that of any instrument,
but of the rough voices of men, and it ceased when the labours of
landing began. This was done with all possible awkwardness, confusion
and noise, and then the companies of the two boats took their way up the
rocks without perceiving the laird’s vessel, which was still at a
considerable distance. Some of the men bore on their shoulders the body
about to be interred, and the rest followed at their own pace, not
forming themselves into any order of march, or seeming to be united by
any common object. The last of the stragglers disappeared behind a
projection of the rock, while the laird was preparing to be carried
through the surf by two of his boatmen. He pointed out to them, with
great exactness, the spot where they should land the rest of the party
when they should return from Ilachanu to join him at dinner, and then
took his way alone in the track of the funeral party.
He reached the burying-ground just as the ceremony was concluded; for
funerals in the Highlands are hurried over with an apparent negligence
and levity which shock the feelings of those who have been accustomed to
the solemnity which such a service seems fitted to inspire. The only
solemnity here arose from the desolation of the place. It was
unenclosed, so that the wild cattle had gone over it, defacing the
tombstones and cropping the coarse herbage which grew more plentifully
here than elsewhere. Thistles and docks appeared where there were some
traces of a path, and the fragments of broken crosses lay as rubbish
beside the newly-dug grave. The laird looked among the group for the
mourners. They were easily distinguished by their countenances, though
they shed no tears and spoke no word. They were three boys, the two
elder of whom were strong, ruddy, well-grown youths, apparently of the
ages of sixteen and fourteen. The third was either some years younger,
or was made to look so by his smallness of size and delicacy of
appearance. He fixed the attention of the laird at once by the signs of
peculiarity about him. His restlessness of eye and of manner was unlike
that which arises in children from animal spirits, and contrasted
strangely with the lost and melancholy expression of his countenance.
His brothers seemed not to forget him for a moment, sometimes holding
him by the hand to prevent his wandering from them, sometimes passing an
arm round his neck to control his restlessness, sometimes speaking to
him in the caressing tone which they would use to an infant. The laird,
learning from some who passed out of the burying-ground that these boys
were orphans, and had been attending the funeral of their father,
determined to learn more about them from themselves.
“You three are brothers, I find. Which of you is the eldest?”
“I am two years older than Fergus,” answered Ronald, “and Archie is
twelve, though he looks less.”
“And have you any brothers and sisters younger than you, Archie?”
enquired the laird.
Archie looked in the gentleman’s face for a moment, and then away again.
“He speaks to nobody but us,” said Ronald. “He heeds no other
voice,—that is, no man’s or woman’s voice. He knows the low of the
cattle and the cry of the sea-fowl when a storm is coming. He wants to
be down among the rocks now, ye see. We’re going, Archie, we’re going.
Stay a minute.—He’s not like us, your honour sees.”
“I see, I see. He looks quite lost.”
“To a stranger,” said Fergus, “but not to us. We know his ways so well
that we can always guide him, except when he is at the highest and
lowest, and then it is best to leave him to himself till the fit is
over.”
“He must require a great deal of watching; is there no one to take care
of him but you?”
“He takes to no folly, only to sport, Sir; and he is wiser than we about
many things, and sees farther. He is always housed before a tempest, or
safe in a hole in the rock, like the birds he seems to learn from, while
we breast the wind as we may, far from home. When he is dull or low,
Ella takes better care of him than we could do. She just puts fresh
heather under him and sings, and he sleeps sometimes many days
together.”
“And who is Ella?”
“Our sister, your honour; our elder sister. She is down by the boats,
and she will be glad to see your honour, for we have much to say to you
or to Mr. Callum. Where will your honour please to see Ella?”
“We will walk down to the boats, Ronald; or, if your sister should wish
to speak with me more privately, perhaps she will come up here.”
Ronald cast a hurried look at the new-made grave, and then said to
Fergus,
“Run down, Fergus, and ask Ella to come up to the cross yonder. The
laird will wait for her there: and let Archie go with you; he is in a
hurry for the shore.”
During the few minutes that they waited at the cairn or heap of stones
in which the cross was planted, the laird learned from his companion
something of the domestic circumstances of this orphan family. Their
mother had died at Archie’s birth, and their father had been growing
infirm for many years, so that almost the whole charge of the family had
rested upon Ella since she had been old enough to support it. Her
brother praised her only by stating facts; but these facts conveyed an
impression that she must be a woman of extraordinary energy, and one who
deserved all the respect and love with which her brothers could regard
her. It was very natural that, while listening to a tale of peculiar
interest concerning her, the laird should picture her to himself as
corresponding in outward appearance to the elevated idea which was given
him of her character; and it was with some disappointment that he looked
upon her for the first time. She appeared as much older than she really
was, as Archie looked younger. She might have been taken for his mother,
though she was, in fact, no more than five-and-twenty. Tall and gaunt in
person, and thinking as little of adornment in dress as her
country-women in general, on ordinary occasions, there was nothing at
first sight to attract a stranger. Her feet were bare, according to the
universal custom; her hair, unconfined by any cap, hanging down from
under the plaid which she had drawn over her head, the plaid itself
strapped round her in preparation for rowing her boat home, she looked
so unlike the maidens of a civilized country, that the laird, well as he
knew his own tenantry, was startled. When he looked again, however, and
observed the strong expression of her eye, and of her weather-stained
features, when he remembered what toils she had undergone, and that her
heart was now troubled and striving with natural grief, he felt that he
was wrong in expecting softness where it was not to be found.
“Have you anything to say to me, Ella; any complaint to make?”
“No complaint, your honour. Murmurs will not heal the grief of this day,
and other troubles are nothing. I only wished to speak to your honour
about the lads and myself; how we are to live and what to do.”
“Well; have you settled what you wish? and is there difficulty with
Callum, or any body else?”
“Your honour knows our farm, where we have lived till now. Mr. Callum
has given notice whenever he found my father ill, that we must quit it
at his death. So we are going to quit.”
“And what else would you do? Your brothers are not old enough to manage
a farm.”
“Mr. Callum is right, doubtless; and I have no desire to keep on what we
could not keep up. As for where we are to go,—we should be quite easy in
mind, if your honour would order the place down below to be made
weather-tight for us, and fix a rent upon it. Your honour would not ask
more than we could pay.”
“What, that half-ruined cottage in the bay, with the croft behind it!
How could you live there? There is not a fence complete, and not an ear
of barley has grown there these many years.”
“Your honour would have the fences mended at the same time with the
cottage; and there is the fishing to depend on, as well as the ground,
and the rocks shelve conveniently there for the weed, and Ronald could
sell kelp when I sell fish; and Fergus could bring us in peat,—and as
for Archie, the nearer the sea, the happier he is. So I hope your honour
will let us try the place.”
“It is a wretched place, Ella. I think we might find something better
for you. There are patches of richer soil in the vallies. Surely you had
better settle in a more sheltered situation. The wind will blow away
your soil and seed together before it has time to strike root.”
“We cannot get out of sight of the sea, on Archie’s account, sir.”
“He would never be happy between green hills,” added Fergus. “We should
ever be missing him from home, and finding him in the old places: but if
we settle on the beach, he will not be tempted to stray.”
“Though he could not stray very far, your honour, I am easier to have
him under my eye, which might be, if I lived by fishing.”
“That is scarcely a woman’s business, Ella. It brings toil and hardship
to the strongest men.”
“It is my business, your honour; and it is not the blackest night, nor
the stormiest day, that can weary me, thanks to Him that gives strength
where it is wanted. Would you be pleased to grant me what I ask, and let
me know with your own lips, what the rent shall be?”
“Let us go to the place, and see what it looks like.”
While they proceeded down the steep to the beach, Ella leading the way,
the laird marked her stern demeanour and masculine gait, and could not
fancy her singing her idiot brother to sleep, and couching him on fresh
heather. Presently, however, his idea of her was amended. Archie came
sauntering along the shore to join them, and yet with every appearance
of not observing them. He held a bunch of sea-bird’s feathers, which he
thrust into Ella’s hand without looking at her, but glanced back when he
had passed, as if to see what had become of them. Ella had thrown back
the plaid and stuck them in her hair, where they remained till he was
out of sight, when she threw them away and resumed her plaid.
“The people at the farm are relations of yours, I think, Ella?”
“They are fourth cousins of my mother’s; and disposed to be kind to us
for her sake: and that is another reason for our settling here.”
“But what will they think of such a dreary place in comparison with
their barley and oat fields, to say nothing of the house, with two
rooms, each as large as this cottage, besides Callum’s apartment?”
“It is what we think that matters most.”
“Very true. Now show me the boundaries that you would mark out if you
had your choice.”
“The rent will mark the boundary best: but we should like, besides this
field, to have the slope of the hill behind for our pony to graze on. We
must have the pony to carry the weed, and to draw the harrow, in case of
my being out at sea at the time. And I should like to take in a corner
of the peat moss yonder; that is all we wish for behind. Then Ronald
must be free to cut weed some way along these ledges to the left: they
shelve better than those on the other hand. Then the cottage should be
new roofed, and the fence put up; and your honour will name the rent.”
“You shall not be pressed for that, Ella. It would not be reasonable in
a situation like this.”
“I hope your honour sees we beg no favour,” replied Ella. “Ask Mr.
Callum, and he will tell you our rent has ever been ready, whether we
feasted or fasted: and ready it shall be, if it be God’s will to let the
sea and land yield us their own.”
“Better to fast and pay, than feast and owe,” said Fergus.
“Right, very right, Fergus. Well; you shall have your way; and I will
consult with Callum about the rent, and have the place made ready as
quickly as possible. Here he is. Let one of the lads come up to me at
the farm, an hour or two hence, and I will name the rent; meantime, you
can join your friends.”
Instead of going towards the boats, however, Ella slowly proceeded up
the rocks, in the direction of the burying-ground. The lads looked as if
they would fain have stayed to listen; but a glance from their sister
sent Fergus to look for Archie, and Ronald to join the little funeral
party, who were carousing as if it had been a wedding.
“There will be tears in those eyes within these few minutes, if there is
nobody nigh,” said Callum, looking after Ella as he came up. “They have
held tears, for as dry as they seem. Since her father began to fail, I,
for one, have seen heart-drops, though she would have had me think it
was but the wintry wind.”
“She has a proud spirit, Callum.”
“Proud! her pride ill becomes one that lives under your honour, and it
is more than I know how to master. There is no bringing her down; and if
she puts her spirit into her brothers, they will be beyond my reach
quite.”
“How do you mean, Callum? Why should you bring them down?”
“Only to make them like others that live under such as you,—grateful and
humble, and ready to obey.”
“To obey your pleasure, I suppose. No Callum, there has been far too
much servile obedience among the lower orders of our people, one sign of
which is their revengeful and turbulent temper. If they were less ready
to watch our pleasure in matters that do not concern them, they would do
fewer deeds that call for revenge, and have fewer causes of quarrel.
This proud woman, as we call her, has a peaceable temper, I hope and
believe?”
“Peaceable enough, your honour, or I own I should have picked a quarrel
with her before now, for I do not like her any more than I fancy she
likes me. But there has never been occasion for any words; for out comes
the pouch as sure as I show myself to gather the rent; and there is the
dinner and the whiskey on the table for me to take or leave, as I like.
She never kept me waiting, or stinted her hospitality, or got into a
quarrel with her neighbours that I could take hold of.”
“Then for what, in the name of wonder, Callum, would you have her be
grateful and ready to obey? I never did her any service that I am aware
of, (though I hope to do some yet,) and I know of no title to her
obedience that either you or I can urge. Can you tell me of any?”
Callum stared, while he asked if one party was not landlord and the
other tenant.
“You are full of our Scotch prejudices, I see, Callum, as I was once.
Only go into England, and you will see that landlord and tenant are not
master and slave, as we in the Highlands have ever been apt to think. In
my opinion, their connexion stands thus,—and I tell it you, that you may
take care not to exact an obedience which I am far from wishing to claim
from my tenants,—the owner and occupier of a farm, or other estate, both
wish to make gain, and for this purpose unite their resources. He who
possesses land wishes to profit by it without the trouble of cultivating
it himself; he who would occupy has money, but no land to lay it out
upon, so he pays money for the use of the land, and more money for the
labour which is to till it (unless he supplies the labour himself). His
tillage should restore him his money with gain. Now why should the
notion of obedience enter into a contract like this?”
“I only know,” replied Callum, “that in my young days, if the laird held
up a finger, any one of his people who had offended him would have been
thrown into the sea.”
“Such tyranny, Callum, had nothing to do with their connexion as
landlord and tenant, but only with their relation as chieftain and
follower. You have been at Glasgow, I think?”
“Yes; a cousin of mine is a master in the shawl-manufacture there.”
“Well; he has labourers in his employment there, and they are not his
slaves, are they?”
“Not they; for they sometimes throw up their work when he wants them
most.”
“And does he hold his warehouse by lease, or purchase?”
“He rents it of Bailie Billie, as they call him, who is so fierce on the
other side of politics.”
“If your cousin does not obey his landlord in political matters, (for I
know how he has spoken at public meetings,) why should you expect my
tenants to obey me, or rather you—for I never ask their obedience? The
Glasgow operative, and the Glasgow capitalist, make a contract for their
mutual advantage; and if they want further help, they call in another
capitalist to afford them the use of a warehouse which he lets for his
own advantage. Such a mutual compact I wish to establish with my people
here. Each man of them is usually a capitalist and labourer in one, and,
in order to make their resources productive, I, a landholder, step in as
a third party to the production required; and if we each fulfil our
contract, we are all on equal terms. I wish you would make my people
understand this; and I require of you, Callum, to act upon it yourself.”
The steward made no reply, but stood thinking how much better notions of
dignity the old laird had, and how much power he possessed over the
lives and properties of his tenants.
“Did this croft pay any rent before it was let out of cultivation?”
enquired the laird.
“No, your honour; it only just answered to the tenant to till it, and
left nothing over for rent; but we had our advantage in it too; for then
yon barley-field paid a little rent; but since this has been let down,
that field has never done more than pay the tillage. But we shall have
rent from it again when the lease is renewed, if Ella makes what I
expect she will make of this croft.”
“Is there any kelp prepared hereabouts, Callum?”
“Not any; and indeed there is no situation so fit for it as this that
Ronald is to have. There is nothing doing in Garveloch that pays us
anything, except at the farm.”
“Well, then, Ella can, of course, pay nothing at first but for the use
of the cottage, and the benefit of the fences, &c. Is there any other
capital laid out here?”
“Let us see. She has a boat of her own, and the boys will bring their
utensils with them. I believe, sir, the house and fence will be all.”
“Very well: then calculate exactly what they are worth, and what more
must be laid out to put them in good condition, and tell me; the
interest of that much capital is all that Ella must pay, till we see
what the bay and the little field will produce.”
The laird next gave particular directions what repairs should be made,
and that there should be no delay in completing them, and then left
Callum to make his estimate, bidding him follow to the farm when he had
done.
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