BARKER’S STORY.
My first recollection is of being on board a sailing ship at sea, and by
degrees I learned that my mother was dead; that the rough commander who
was dreaded and feared by everyone else as well as myself was my father,
and that I was kept with him on the ship because I was less troublesome
there than anywhere else, and because he desired to look after my
education in person, which began when I was five years old.
I heard somewhere that my father, the rough commander, had been very
fond of my mother, who died the day I was born, and that his disposition
had been different since he gave her an ocean burial, on which occasion
he read the service himself in a choking voice, and, locking himself in
his cabin directly after it was over, did not come out again for three
days and four nights. There was but one other woman on the ship, the
stewardess, and I was put in her care, but before I was old enough to
remember, she went away, so that I have not the slightest recollection
of her.
The mate, who had been in my father’s employ a long while, told me that
when my mother was alive she accompanied the ship on all its voyages,
and that the commander was not then so hard with the men, but frequently
gave them holidays, when it was possible, and was amused with their
sports. Indeed, he spent much of his time in her company, trusting the
management of the vessel to the first officer while at sea, and was
altogether very gallant and attentive, which he had not been to anyone
since. The mate’s recollection of my mother was that she was pretty, and
fair-haired, and very young and girlish, and evidently well-bred, for
her hands were small and white, and she was graceful and accomplished.
He believed she had run away to marry my father, for she never left the
ship after coming to it as a bride until she was buried in mid-ocean,
and neither of them seemed to have friends on shore they were anxious to
see, but were entirely content with each other. When the ship was at
anchor in the little American port where it was owned, all hands went
away for a time except my father and his young bride, and the mate said
they seemed to be sorry when the noisy, rough men came back again, as if
they had greatly enjoyed being alone.
My father kept her picture in an expensive case in his room, and
although I frequently saw him looking at it himself--indeed, when he was
not busy with the maps and charts, he had the picture on the table in
front of him--I was only permitted to see the face on rare occasions, as
on holidays, or after I had learned my lessons particularly well, when
he held it before me for a few moments, but never allowing me to take it
in my own hands. When I was still a very little boy, I excused much of
his neglect of me because of the grief he felt over my mother’s death,
and I think my first thoughts were that he in some way laid it all to
me, for when I caught him looking at me his face was covered with a
frown, and I almost expected him to grasp my throat and inquire why I
had been so wicked and so inconsiderate of his feelings. For a great
many years I believed her death was due to some blunder of mine, and I
suppose this was one reason why I avoided my father as much as possible,
that he might not accuse me of it.
I lived on the sea, never being away from it a day until I was fourteen
years old, and, occupying a little room connected with my father’s
cabin, was compelled to study a certain number of hours each day, and
recite to him at night. If I did not learn as much during the day as he
thought I ought to learn, he sent for a sailor, and ordered me whipped,
but the sailors were my friends, and, begging me to apply myself more in
the future, beat the masts instead of my legs. But usually I learned my
lessons to amuse myself, for he would not allow me to talk with the
sailors, and did not talk to me himself, so that I was very lonely, and
studied my books from necessity. Although I never attended school, in
this way I became something of a scholar, for I did little else than
study under my father’s hard tutelage for eight years--from the day I
was five years old until I was thirteen, when he began to grow tired of
teaching me. Being an educated man himself, he taught me everything it
was necessary for one in my position to know, and selected my studies
with so much good judgment, and instructed me with so much vigor and
clearness, that I could not have learned more during a like number of
years at school.
After I was nine years old he gave me permission to mingle with the
sailors to learn their languages, for nearly every country under
sunlight was represented in the forecastle mess, and after that I spent
all my idle time among them, telling them the story of the stars in
return for their strange words, or explaining the mysteries of the winds
and currents. I have said that before this he did not allow me to talk
to the men, but perhaps I had better write that it was generally
understood that I should not mingle with them freely, so that we were
all conspirators in getting together. The most pleasant recollection of
my youth is of taking an occasional dinner with the sailors, or of
spending an hour with them when they were off watch, when there was
always a lookout to give notice should the captain approach. Although we
were always changing crews, they were all my friends, and the companions
of my boyhood were gray and grizzled men, who adapted themselves to my
condition, and did whatever pleased me most.
Ours was a merchant ship, though we carried a few passengers, and, as
the voyages were long, I became well acquainted with them, for I sat
beside my father at the cabin table, and was a great deal in their
company, when not engaged with the books. What I know of manners and of
polite society I learned from them, and although I thought I liked every
new set the best, I believe I cried equally hard when any of them went
away. There were many brides among them, going with their husbands to
homes in distant countries, and after hearing of my strange childhood,
they were all very kind to me. Frequently they asked my father to allow
me to visit them at their homes, until his ship touched again at the
port where they left us, but always to my inexpressible sorrow he
refused, saying he was liable to put the vessel into another trade at
any time. I do not remember that we ever had children for passengers,
except very small ones, so that I grew up entirely in the company of my
elders, and do not now feel that I ever had any childhood at all.
When fifteen years old I was permitted to go on an excursion into the
interior with a party of the men, while the ship was lying at a Spanish
town, and by an accident I was separated from the rest, and did not find
my way back for two days. When the men returned, my father supposed I
had run away, and sailed without me, leaving my effects at a shipping
office in case I should call for them, together with a sum of money,
which was to be forwarded to him unless claimed in a given number of
weeks. I really felt relief when I found that I was free, I had lived so
wretchedly with my father, and by representing my dilemma to other
captains whose ships were in, I had no difficulty in securing a
situation, which I desired more than a passage to my own country, and
engaged with a captain who was going in an entirely opposite direction.
Having studied navigation with my father, I was able to make myself
useful to the captain who employed me, and I remained in his service a
number of years, at first as his secretary, and finally as confidential
adviser and third officer, during which time I learned accidentally that
my father was dead, and that his estate did not pay his debts. This
induced me to hoard my earnings, which were considerable, and when I was
twenty I was part owner and third officer of a ship sailing between a
small American port and the Indies. After I had been at this a year or
two, my vessel was put in the docks for repairs, and having nothing else
to do I fell in love, which is the part of my history upon which I shall
dwell.
The girl with whom I became acquainted,--I cannot say infatuated, for I
never was; I suppose it was a kind of curiosity,--and who afterwards
became my wife, was the only one I had ever known since reaching
manhood, and I persisted in calling at her house mainly because she had
told me that her father and mother objected to it, though I cannot see
why they should, as my station in life was better than theirs, and I had
excellent prospects. I do not offer it as an excuse for my later
conduct, but it is really the case that I never asked her to become my
wife. She took it for granted that I desired to marry her, and said one
evening that since it was well understood that we were to be married
some time--nothing of the kind was well understood--we might as well
agree on a date, and in my weakness I said the sooner the better, or
something to that effect, which she understood as a proposal, and
accepted in due form. There was never any love between us, but she
always gave me to understand that I was distressing her by being there
against her father’s will, and never having known a woman before, I
supposed the kind of regard she had for me was all that women generally
gave, and to vindicate her, and to show her father that he was mistaken
in his judgment of me, I allowed the matter to go on until we were
married, although I assure you that there was never a moment that I was
not trying to devise some means to get out of it, being convinced that
it would never do. I am too old a man--and I hope too honorable--to
misrepresent any particular in the story I am telling, therefore I have
been careful to write only the exact truth, the benefit of a doubt
always being given to the dead.
I soon saw that I had made a mistake, but hoped for the best, and, after
making extensive arrangements for her comfort, sailed on a voyage which
occupied me a year and a half. On returning I found that a daughter had
been born to me; but in spite of this I formed such a dislike for my
wife that it was with the greatest difficulty I treated her civilly.
During the few months I was at home the child became very dear to me,
but as my love for it grew, my repugnance for the mother increased so
much that I sailed earlier than at first intended (I was captain of the
ship by this time) to be out of her company. I had not been at sea a
week until I began to dread to return, and often I seriously
contemplated drowning, to be rid of it all. But when I thought of the
pretty child, I tried to banish the thought for her sake, though I could
not do it, and as we neared home on the return trip I dreaded my native
town as I dreaded sunken reefs and rocks. The crew counted the days
until they could expect to see their wives and sweethearts waving
welcome from the shore, but the thought of a meeting with my wife was
horrible beyond my ability to relate. I thought of it in a hundred
different ways, trying to devise some way to rob the meeting of its
terror, but I could never arrange it satisfactorily, and suffered as the
damned are said to suffer. On coming home I dreaded most to kiss her, as
I was expected to do, and next to that, the first meeting. I cannot
explain to you this aversion fully, but it was so strong that I was
constantly in the most horrible misery, and the more I thought of it,
the more I loathed her.
I am crowding the results of several years into a few lines, during
which time I came and went, the aversion all the time growing upon me.
Sometimes I was at home only a week; at other times a month or more, and
the length of the voyages varied in the same manner. I will not worry
you with the details; it is enough to say that she was petulant, an
invalid, uninviting in person, without charms of any kind, and utterly
lacking in what is now known as common sense. It will be said (you will
remark it, no doubt) that I should have made these discoveries before I
married her, which is true; I should have, but I did not, as others have
failed to make vitally important discoveries until it was too late to
take advantage of them; hence this candid avowal of my disgraceful
history. I wish to say again that I make these statements with all
respect to the charity which should be shown the memory of the dead, yet
in justification of myself it is necessary to tell the truth, which may
be spoken with propriety at any time.
Other men’s wives were intellectual if not beautiful, or beautiful if
not intellectual, but mine was neither. It is my candid judgment, and I
write it with sorrow and pity, that she had not a single good quality.
(I have thought it all over, before proceeding, and assert it again: Not
one.) I think she never went to bed in her life that she did not drink
some sort of tea for some sort of complaint, and it was her only boast
that in all the world a woman could not be found who “bore up” as well
as she did. She took pride in nothing else; she had no other ambition
than to demonstrate that such was the case, and had no other delight
than to cite evidences of it. I beg you will remember that these are
cold, calculated assertions of fact, and not illustrative in any degree.
I have spent several weeks in writing this letter, in a manner that
cannot be misconstrued; every word has been weighed, and put down after
its effect and the impression it would convey had been carefully
considered.
She took not the slightest interest in me nor my affairs; indeed, she
took interest in nothing except her family, which worried her so much
that frequently she awakened in the night, and cried for hours like a
silly child for fear her mother, or her father, or her brothers, or her
sisters, were not well, although there would not be the slightest reason
to suppose they were not enjoying their usual health. This circumstance
is particularly worthy of note when it is known that she did not get
along with her family, for they were always quarrelling when together,
and although they were the most ordinary people, she talked of them, and
wondered what would they say to this or that, so much that I gently
remonstrated with her. This she construed into an attack, and while I
lived with her she regularly vindicated “her family” whenever I came
into her presence, in a manner indicating that they were of royal blood.
They moved away from there after we had been married a few years, and
this gave her occasion to bewail her separation from them, which she
never lost opportunity to do. Her father was a perfect type of a common
man; the mother was a little better, perhaps, but the brothers and
sisters did not average with the young people in the poor town where
they were brought up, so that this great admiration was unwarranted, and
ridiculous. But if it were disagreeable when “her family” were in the
same town with us, it was unbearable when they were away. For every
month of their separation she added a hall, park or castle to her
father’s possessions--which consisted in reality of battered household
goods that a really vigorous man could have carried away on his back.
Finally I began to think seriously of running away.
Inasmuch as this is a hurried sketch of my life, I will mention as a
single example of how we lived, and which might be multiplied by any
figure below a thousand, that if I complained that we seldom had fish on
the table, we had fish regularly thereafter until I complained that we
had nothing else, whereupon she said I was a grumbler, and hard to
please, and from that time fish was banished from the house. No matter
how much I longed for fish after that, I was afraid to ask for it, for
we would then get nothing else.
I think I never sat down at the table with her that she did not bring
out a depraved private dish for herself which I abhorred and despised.
Tripe boiled in vinegar was one of these; roasted cheese was another,
and the fumes from either made me so sick that I was compelled to get up
and go out. She persisted in bringing these dishes to the table to “show
her spirit,” although many times she did not want them, I am thoroughly
convinced.
In addition to the disagreeable qualities I have hastily mentioned, she
was always complaining; if not of me, of her health; if not of her
health, of the trouble the child was, or of the house in which we lived,
which I am certain was the best she had ever seen; but she never
complained of my long voyages, and I think she enjoyed my absence as
much as I did hers. In short, although by this time I realized the
fitness of a suitable marriage, I knew mine was the most unsuitable in
the world; that we had nothing in common; that we should grow gradually
worse instead of better, and that I should surely become, by reason of
it, a dissatisfied, incapable and worthless man. Therefore, I began to
weigh the consequences of running away.
This brought to mind the love I bore the child, which had grown steadily
during the eight years since she was born, and I came to the conclusion
that if I remained as I was I should become a man so gross and selfish
as to shrink under her increasing intelligence and refinement, for she
was as pure and good as an angel, and I concluded it would be better for
her to think of me as a good man dead than as a bad man alive, therefore
after I had lived in the manner I have described for nearly nine years,
making my voyages as long as possible, I went away, and determined never
to return.
The more I thought of it, once I was away, the stronger my determination
became never to enter the presence of my wife again, and after thinking
of it night and day for several weeks, I accepted the disgrace. Public
opinion is always against a man in matters of this kind, no difference
what his wrongs may be, and men who are contemplating running away from
family difficulties themselves regard the offence the greatest of which
some one else can be guilty, but I accepted the consequences, and felt
relief when I knew I was finally rid of her.
I had accumulated a good deal of property during my career as a
shipmaster, and I left it all, except the ship, and in such condition
that she could use it. The ship I determined to keep as my share, as it
was no more than half. My first idea was to locate somewhere--I had no
idea where, but a long way off--and after Agnes had reached a reasoning
age, to secretly write her the story I have written to you, and ask her
to decide between us, in the hope that she would come to me. This hope
supported me, and without it I could never have put into execution my
plan of escape.
On reaching the first port after sailing from home, I pretended to find
evidences of mutiny among the crew, which caused me a great deal of
pain, for many of the men had been with me for years, and were as true
and honest as men become, but it was necessary to carry out my plan, and
I discharged them all. After they had left the place by taking positions
on other ships, I engaged another crew, and went into another trade,
which carried me thousands of miles further away from my own country.
Again I discharged the crew, and after allowing the ship to be idle in
the docks for several weeks, I rebuilt and repainted it in such a manner
that its old acquaintances would not have known it had they encountered
it on the high seas. I also changed the name. After another voyage, I
sold the ship at a sacrifice, and took passage for my native land as
Damon Barker, where I arrived after an absence of two years, and by
mingling with seafaring men, I heard that the “Agnes” had been lost,
which impression was generally accepted.
I then determined to locate in the West, and for this purpose bought the
machinery which you have often seen in operation on Bull River, as I
believed milling would be a profitable business. I worked for a time as
a laborer in a mill, to become familiar with its workings, and I bribed
the head man to teach me at night. How I came to locate within twenty
miles of my wife and child, God only knows, for they arrived here before
I did, although I did not know it until four years afterward, as I have
already related. What has occurred since, you know.
One more paragraph, and I dismiss this part of my life forever. I have
given an inference that I am an only child, which is true so far as my
mother is concerned, but Mrs. Tremaine, whose disappearance with your
father will give you an interest in the subject, was the child of my
father’s first marriage. I believe, although I do not know exactly why,
that his first marriage was something like mine, and a few months after
securing a divorce he was married secretly to my mother, who was but
seventeen, and a member of an excellent family. While I knew where Mrs.
Tremaine lived, and knew of her relation to me, I had never seen her but
once or twice, which was long before I was married at all, and in my
desperation when I first came to this country, I sent her a sum of
money, accompanied by a letter of explanation, and entreated her to
visit Bradford, and learn how the child prospered. It happened that she
was widowed about that time, and instead of doing as I directed, she
came out to live with me. I confess to you that I always disliked her,
and was glad when she went away. Her husband was a quiet, good man, and
I think he must have died of neglect, for she neglected everybody except
sinners and drunkards. He was neither, and I think he died from
indigestion, induced by living on food prepared by himself. That she was
a failure as a woman, you and I know very well, and I have no doubt your
unfortunate father admits it by this time.
I have told you, in brevity and in truth, my life, and I only ask that
you destroy this immediately after you have finished the reading. If you
treat me in the future as you have in the past, I shall believe that you
think I was justified in my course; if your manner toward me changes, I
will understand that I am censured, but do not refer to this matter in
any manner in your future intercourse with me. I dismiss it forever.
Your friend,
DAMON BARKER.