TELLS OF MY EDUCATION.
I had not been a week in the place before I saw one thing very clear--
that I should never get on with Mr. Lambie. His notion of business was
to walk down the street in a fine coat, and to sleep with a kerchief
over his face in some shady veranda. There was no vice in the creature,
but there was mighty little sense. He lived in awe of the great and
rich, and a nod from a big planter would make him happy for a week. He
used to deafen me with tales of Colonel Randolph, and worshipful Mr.
Carew, and Colonel Byrd's new house at Westover, and the rare fashion
in cravats that young Mr. Mason showed at the last Surrey horse-racing.
Now when a Scot chooses to be a sycophant, he is more whole-hearted in
the job than any one else on the globe, and I grew very weary of Mr.
Lambie. He was no better than an old wife, and as timid as a hare
forbye. When I spoke of fighting the English merchants, he held up his
hands as if I had uttered blasphemy. So, being determined to find out
for myself the truth about this wonderful new land, I left him the
business in the town, bought two good horses, hired a servant, by name
John Faulkner, who had worked out his time as a redemptioner, and set
out on my travels.
This is a history of doings, not of thoughts, or I would have much to
tell of what I saw during those months, when, lean as a bone, and brown
as a hazelnut, I tracked the course of the great rivers. The roads were
rough, where roads there were, but the land smiled under the sun, and
the Virginians, high and low, kept open house for the chance traveller.
One night I would eat pork and hominy with a rough fellow who was
carving a farm out of the forest; and the next I would sit in a fine
panelled hall and listen to gentlefolks' speech, and dine off damask
and silver. I could not tire of the green forests, or the marshes alive
with wild fowl, or the noble orchards and gardens, or even the salty
dunes of the Chesapeake shore. My one complaint was that the land was
desperate flat to a hill-bred soul like mine. But one evening, away
north in Stafford county, I cast my eyes to the west, and saw, blue and
sharp against the sunset, a great line of mountains. It was all I
sought. Somewhere in the west Virginia had her high lands, and one day,
I promised myself, I would ride the road of the sun and find their
secret.
In these months my thoughts were chiefly of trade, and I saw enough to
prove the truth of what the man Frew had told me. This richest land on
earth was held prisoner in the bonds of a foolish tyranny. The rich
were less rich than their estates warranted, and the poor were ground
down by bitter poverty. There was little corn in the land, tobacco
being the sole means of payment, and this meant no trade in the common
meaning of the word. The place was slowly bleeding to death, and I had
a mind to try and stanch its wounds. The firm of Andrew Sempill was
looked on jealously, in spite of all the bowings and protestations of
Mr. Lambie. If we were to increase our trade, it must be at the
Englishman's expense, and that could only be done by offering the
people a better way of business.
When the harvest came and the tobacco fleet arrived, I could see how
the thing worked out. Our two ships, the _Blackcock_ of Ayr and the
_Duncan Davidson_ of Glasgow, had some trouble getting their cargoes.
We could only deal with the smaller planters, who were not thirled to
the big merchants, and it took us three weary weeks up and down the
river-side wharves to get our holds filled. There was a madness in the
place for things from England, and unless a man could label his wares
"London-made," he could not hope to catch a buyer's fancy. Why, I have
seen a fellow at a fair at Henricus selling common Virginian
mocking-birds as the "best English mocking-birds". My uncle had sent
out a quantity of Ayrshire cheeses, mutton hams, pickled salmon,
Dunfermline linens, Paisley dimity, Alloa worsted, sweet ale from
Tranent, Kilmarnock cowls, and a lot of fine feather-beds from the
Clydeside. There was nothing common or trashy in the whole consignment;
but the planters preferred some gewgaws from Cheapside or some worthless
London furs which they could have bettered any day by taking a gun and
hunting their own woods. When my own business was over, I would look on
at some of the other ladings. There on the wharf would be the planter
with his wife and family, and every servant about the place. And there
was the merchant skipper, showing off his goods, and quoting for each a
weight of tobacco. The planter wanted to get rid of his crop, and knew
that this was his only chance, while the merchant could very well sell
his leavings elsewhere. So the dice were cogged from the start, and I
have seen a plain kitchen chair sold for fifty pounds of sweet-scented,
or something like the price at which a joiner in Glasgow would make a
score and leave himself a handsome profit.
* * * * *
The upshot was that I paid a visit to the Governor, Mr. Francis
Nicholson, whom my lord Howard had left as his deputy. Governor
Nicholson had come from New York not many months before with a great
repute for ill-temper and harsh dealing; but I liked the look of his
hard-set face and soldierly bearing, and I never mind choler in a man
if he have also honesty and good sense. So I waited upon him at his
house close by Middle Plantation, on the road between James Town and
York River.
I had a very dusty reception. His Excellency sat in his long parlour
among a mass of books and papers and saddle-bags, and glared at me from
beneath lowering brows. The man was sore harassed by the King's
Government on one side and the Virginian Council on the other, and he
treated every stranger as a foe.
"What do you seek from me?" he shouted. "If it is some merchants'
squabble, you can save your breath, for I am sick of the Shylocks."
I said, very politely, that I was a stranger not half a year arrived in
the country, but that I had been using my eyes, and wished to submit my
views to his consideration.
"Go to the Council," he rasped; "go to that silken fool, His Majesty's
Attorney. My politics are not those of the leather-jaws that prate in
this land."
"That is why I came to you," I said.
Then without more ado I gave him my notions on the defence of the
colony, for from what I had learned I judged that would interest him
most. He heard me with unexpected patience.
"Well, now, supposing you are right? I don't deny it. Virginia is a
treasure house with two of the sides open to wind and weather. I told
the Council that, and they would not believe me. Here are we at war
with France, and Frontenac is hammering at the gates of New York. If
that falls, it will soon be the turn of Maryland and next of Virginia.
England's possessions in the West are indivisible, and what threatens
one endangers all. But think you our Virginians can see it? When I
presented my scheme for setting forts along the northern line, I could
not screw a guinea out of the miscreants. The colony was poor, they
cried, and could not afford it, and then the worshipful councillors
rode home to swill Madeira and loll on their London beds. God's truth!
were I not a patriot, I would welcome M. Frontenac to teach them
decency."
Now I did not think much of the French danger being far more concerned
with the peril in the West; but I held my peace on that subject. It was
not my cue to cross his Excellency in his present humour.
"What makes the colony poor?" I asked. "The planters are rich enough,
but the richest man will grow tired of bearing the whole burden of the
government. I submit that His Majesty and the English laws are chiefly
to blame. When the Hollanders were suffered to trade here, they paid
five shillings on every anker of brandy they brought hither, and ten
shillings on every hogshead of tobacco they carried hence. Now every
penny that is raised must come out of the Virginians, and the
Englishmen who bleed the land go scot free."
"That's true," said he, "and it's a damned disgrace. But how am I to
better it?"
"Clap a tax on every ship that passes Point Comfort outward bound," I
said. "The merchants can well afford to pay it."
"Listen to him!" he laughed. "And what kind of answer would I get from
my lord Howard and His Majesty? Every greasy member would be on his
feet in Parliament in defence of what he called English rights. Then
there would come a dispatch from the Government telling the poor
Deputy-Governor of Virginia to go to the devil!"
He looked at me curiously, screwing up his eyes.
"By the way, Mr. Garvald, what is your trade?"
"I am a merchant like the others," I said; "only my ships run from
Glasgow instead of Bristol."
"A very pretty merchant," he said quizzically. "I have heard that hawks
should not pick out hawks' eyes. What do you propose to gain, Mr.
Garvald?"
"Better business," I said. "To be honest with you, sir, I am suffering
from the close monopoly of the Englishman, and I think the country is
suffering worse. I have a notion that things can be remedied. If you
cannot put on a levy, good and well; that is your business. But I mean
to make an effort on my own account."
Then I told him something of my scheme, and he heard me out with a
puzzled face.
"Of all the brazen Scots--" he cried.
"Scot yourself," I laughed, for his face and speech betrayed him.
"I'll not deny that there's glimmerings of sense in you, Mr. Garvald.
But how do you, a lad with no backing, propose to beat a strong
monopoly buttressed by the whole stupidity and idleness of Virginia?
You'll be stripped of your last farthing, and you'll be lucky if it
ends there. Don't think I'm against you. I'm with you in your
principles, but the job is too big for you."
"We will see," said I. "But I can take it that, provided I keep within
the law, His Majesty's Governor will not stand in my way?"
"I can promise you that. I'll do more, for I'll drink success to your
enterprise." He filled me a great silver tankard of spiced sack, and I
emptied it to the toast of "Honest Men."
* * * * *
All the time at the back of my head were other thoughts than
merchandise. The picture which Frew had drawn of Virginia as a smiling
garden on the edge of a burning pit was stamped on my memory. I had
seen on my travels the Indians that dwelled in the Tidewater, remnants
of the old great clans of Doeg and Powhatan and Pamunkey. They were
civil enough fellows, following their own ways, and not molesting their
scanty white neighbours, for the country was wide enough for all. But
so far as I could learn, these clanlets of the Algonquin house were no
more comparable to the fighting tribes of the West than a Highland
caddie in an Edinburgh close is to a hill Macdonald with a claymore.
But the common Virginian would admit no peril, though now and then some
rough landward fellow would lay down his spade, spit moodily, and tell
me a grim tale. I had ever the notion to visit Frew and finish my
education.
It was not till the tobacco ships had gone and the autumn had grown
late that I got the chance. The trees were flaming scarlet and saffron
as I rode west through the forests to his house on the South Fork
River. There, by a wood fire in the October dusk, he fed me on wild
turkey and barley bread, and listened silently to my tale.
He said nothing when I spoke of my schemes for getting the better of
the Englishman and winning Virginia to my side. Profits interested him
little, for he grew his patch of corn and pumpkins, and hunted the deer
for his own slender needs. Once he broke in on my rigmarole with a
piece of news that fluttered me.
"You mind the big man you were chasing that night you and me first
forgathered? Well, I've seen him."
"Where?" I cried, all else forgotten.
"Here, in this very place, six weeks syne. He stalked in about ten o'
the night, and lifted half my plenishing. When I got up in my bed to
face him he felled me. See, there's the mark of it," and he showed a
long scar on his forehead. "He went off with my best axe, a gill of
brandy, and a good coat. He was looking for my gun, too, but that was
in a hidy-hole. I got up next morning with a dizzy head, and followed
him nigh ten miles. I had a shot at him, but I missed, and his legs
were too long for me. Yon's the dangerous lad."
"Where did he go, think you?" I asked.
"To the hills. To the refuge of every ne'er-do-weel. Belike the Indians
have got his scalp, and I'm not regretting it."
I spent three days with Frew, and each day I had the notion that he was
putting me to the test. The first day he took me over the river into a
great tangle of meadow and woodland beyond which rose the hazy shapes
of the western mountains. The man was twenty years my elder, but my
youth was of no avail against his iron strength. Though I was hard and
spare from my travels in the summer heat, 'twas all I could do to keep
up with him, and only my pride kept me from crying halt. Often when he
stopped I could have wept with fatigue, and had no breath for a word,
but his taciturnity saved me from shame.
In a hollow among the woods we came to a place which sent him on his
knees, peering and sniffing like a wild-cat.
"What make you of that?" he asked.
I saw nothing but a bare patch in the grass, some broken twigs, and a
few ashes.
"It's an old camp," I said.
"Ay," said he. "Nothing more? Use your wits, man."
I used them, but they gave me no help.
"This is the way I read it, then," he said. "Three men camped here
before midday. They were Cherokees, of the Matabaw tribe, and one was a
maker of arrows. They were not hunting, and they were in a mighty
hurry. Just now they're maybe ten miles off, or maybe they're watching
us. This is no healthy country for you and me."
He took me homeward at a speed which well-nigh foundered me, and, when
I questioned him, he told me where he got his knowledge.
They were three men, for there were three different footmarks in the
ashes' edge, and they were Cherokees because they made their fire in
the Cherokee way, so that the smoke ran in a tunnel into the scrub.
They were Matabaws from the pattern of their moccasins. They were in a
hurry, for they did not wait to scatter the ashes and clear up the
place; and they were not hunting, for they cooked no flesh. One was an
arrow-maker, for he had been hardening arrow-points in the fire, and
left behind him the arrow-maker's thong.
"But how could you know how long back this had happened?" I asked.
"The sap was still wet in the twigs, so it could not have been much
above an hour since they left. Besides, the smoke had blown south, for
the grass smelt of it that side. Now the wind was more to the east when
we left, and, if you remember, it changed to the north about midday."
I said it was a marvel, and he grunted. "The marvel is what they've
been doing in the Tidewater, for from the Tidewater I'll swear they
came."
Next day he led me eastward, away back in the direction of the manors.
This was an easier day, for he went slow, as if seeking for something.
He picked up some kind of a trail, which we followed through the long
afternoon. Then he found something, which he pocketed with a cry of
satisfaction. We were then on the edge of a ridge, whence we looked
south to the orchards of Henricus.
"That is my arrow-maker," he cried, showing me a round stone whorl.
"He's a careless lad, and he'll lose half his belongings ere he wins to
the hills."
I was prepared for the wild Cherokees on our journey of yesterday, but
it amazed me that the savages should come scouting into the Tidewater
itself. He smiled grimly when I said this, and took from his pocket a
crumpled feather.
"That's a Cherokee badge," he said. "I found that a fortnight back on
the river-side an hour's ride out of James Town. And it wasna there
when I had passed the same place the day before. The Tidewater thinks
it has put the fear of God on the hill tribes, and here's a red
Cherokee snowking about its back doors."
The last day he took me north up a stream called the North Fork, which
joined with his own river. I had left my musket behind, for this heavy
travel made me crave to go light, and I had no use for it. But that day
it seemed we were to go hunting.
He carried an old gun, and slew with it a deer in a marshy hollow--a
pretty shot, for the animal was ill-placed. We broiled a steak for our
midday meal, and presently clambered up a high woody ridge which looked
down on a stream and a piece of green meadow.
Suddenly he stopped. "A buck," he whispered. "See what you can do, you
that were so ready with your pistol." And he thrust his gun into my
hand.
The beast was some thirty paces off in the dusk of the thicket. It
nettled me to have to shoot with a strange weapon, and I thought too
lightly of the mark. I fired, and the bullet whistled over its back. He
laughed scornfully.
I handed it back to him. "It throws high, and you did not warn me. Load
quick, and I'll try again."
I heard the deer crashing through the hill-side thicket, and guessed
that presently it would come out in the meadow. I was right, and before
the gun was in my hands again the beast was over the stream.
It was a long range and a difficult mark, but I had to take the risk,
for I was on my trial. I allowed for the throw of the musket and the
steepness of the hill, and pulled the trigger. The shot might have been
better, for I had aimed for the shoulder, and hit the neck. The buck
leaped into the air, ran three yards, and toppled over. By the grace of
God, I had found the single chance in a hundred.
Frew looked at me with sincere respect. "That's braw shooting," he
said. "I can't say I ever saw its equal."
That night in the smoky cabin he talked freely for once. "I never had a
wife or bairn, and I lean on no man. I can fend for myself, and cook my
dinner, and mend my coat when it's wanting it. When Bacon died I saw
what was coming to this land, and I came here to await it. I've had
some sudden calls from the red gentry, but they havena got me yet, and
they'll no get me before my time. I'm in the Lord's hands, and He has a
job for Simon Frew. Go back to your money-bags, Mr. Garvald. Beat the
English merchants, my lad, and take my blessing with you. But keep that
gun of yours by your bedside, for the time is coming when a man's hands
will have to keep his head."