For Faith and Freedom
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On the approach of our party and hearing the voices of the overseers, a gentlewoman (so, at least, she seemed) came out of the house and stood upon the verandah, shading her eyes and looking at the gang of wretches. She was dressed splendidly in a silken gown and flowered petticoat, as if she was a very great lady, indeed; over her head lay a kerchief of rich black lace; round her neck was a gold chain; when she slowly descended the steps of the verandah and walked towards us I observed that she was of a darker skin than it is customary to find at home; it was, indeed, somewhat like the skin of the gipsy people; her features were straight and regular; her hair was quite black; her eyes were also black, and large, shaped like almonds. On her wrists were heavy gold bracelets, and her fingers were loaded with rings. She seemed about thirty years of age. She was a woman of tall and fine presence, and she stood and moved as if she was a queen. She presently came forth from the verandah and walked across the yard towards us.
'Let me look at them – your new batch,' she said, speaking languidly, and with an accent somewhat foreign. 'How many are there? Where do they come from? Who is this one, for instance?' She took the girl named Deb by the chin, and looked at her as if she were some animal to be sold in the market. 'A stout wench, truly. What was she over there?'
The overseer read the name and the crimes of the prisoner. Madam (this was the only name by which I knew her) pushed her away disdainfully.
'Well,' she said, 'she will find companions enough here. I hope she will work without the whip. Hark ye, girl,' she added with, I think, kindly intent, 'it goes still to my heart when I hear that the women have been trounced; but the work must be done. Remember that! And who are those – and those?' She pointed with contempt to the poor creatures covered with dirt and dust, and in the ragged, miserable clothes they had worn all the voyage. 'Street sweepings; rogues and thieves all. Let them know,' she said grandly, 'what awaits those who skulk and those who thieve. And whom have we here?' – she turned to me – 'Is this some fine city madam fresh from Bridewell?'
'This prisoner,' said the overseer, 'is described as a rebel in the late Monmouth rising.'
'A rebel? Truly?' she asked with curiosity. 'Were Monmouth's soldiers women? We heard by the last ship something of this. Madam, I know not why you must needs become a rebel; but this, look you, is no place for gentlewomen to sit down and fold their arms.'
'Madam,' I replied, 'I look for nothing less than to work, being now a convict (though I was never tried) and condemned – I know not by whom – to transportation in his Majesty's Plantations.'
'Let me look at your hands,' she said sharply. 'Why, of what use are these little fingers? They have never done any work. And your face – prithee, turn back your hood.' I obeyed, and her eyes suddenly softened. Indeed, I looked not for this sign of compassion, and my own tears began to flow. ''Tis a shame!' she cried. ''Tis a burning shame to send so young a woman – and a gentlewoman, and one with such a face – to the Plantations! Have they no bowels? Child, who put thee aboard the ship?'
'I was brought on board by one Mr. Penne, who deceived me, promising that I should be taken to New England, where I have cousins.'
'We will speak of this presently. Meantime – since we must by the law find you some work to do – can you sew?'
'Yes, Madam, I can perform any kind of needlework, from plain sewing to embroidery.'
'What mean they,' she cried again, 'by sending a helpless girl alone with such a crew? The very Spaniards of whom they talk so much would blush for such barbarity. Well, they would send her to a convent where the good Nuns would treat her kindly. Madam, or Miss, thou art bought, and the master may not, by law, release you. But there is a way of which we will talk presently. Meanwhile, thou canst sit in the sewing-room, where we may find thee work.'
I thanked her. She would have said more; but there came forth from the house, with staggering step, the man who had bought us. He had now put off his wig and his scarlet coat, and wore a white dressing-gown and a linen nightcap. He had in his hand a whip, which he cracked as he walked.
'Child,' said Madam, quickly, 'pull down your hood. Hide your face. He hath been drinking, and at such times he is dangerous. Let him never set eyes upon thee save when he is sober.'
He came rolling and staggering, and yet not so drunk but he could speak, though his voice was thick.
'Oho!' he cried. 'Here are the new servants. Stand up, every man and woman. Stand up, I say!' Here he cracked his whip, and they obeyed, trembling. But Madam placed herself in front of me. 'Let me look at ye.' He walked along the line, calling the unhappy creatures vile and foul names. O shame! thus to mock their misery! 'What!' he cried. 'You think you have come to a country where there is nothing to do but lie on your backs and eat turtle and drink mobbie? What! You shall find out your mistake.' Here he cracked his whip again. 'You shall work all day in the field, not because you like it, but because you must. For your food, it shall be loblollie, and for your drink, water from the pond. What, I say! Those who skulk shall learn that the Newgate "cat" is tender compared with her brother of Barbadoes. Tremble, therefore, ye devils all; tremble!'
They trembled visibly. All were now subdued. Those of them who swaggered – the dare-devil reckless blades – when first we sailed, were now transformed into cowardly, trembling wretches, all half-starved, and some reduced with fevers, with no more spirit left than enabled them still to curse and swear. The feeblest of mortals, the lowest of human wretches, has still left so much strength and will that he can sink his immortal soul lower still – a terrible power, truly!
Then Madam drew me aside gently, and led me to a place like a barn, where many women, white and black, sat sewing, and a great quantity of little black babies and naked children played about under their charge. The white women were sad and silent; the blacks, I saw with surprise, were all chattering and laughing. The negro is happy, if he have enough to eat and drink, whether he be slave or free. Madam sat down upon a bench, and caused me to sit beside her.
'Tell me,' she said, kindly, 'what this means. When did women begin to rebel? If men are such fools as to go forth and fight, let them; but for women' —
'Indeed,' I told her, 'I did not fight.'
Then nothing would do but I must tell her all, from the beginning – my name, my family, and my history. But I told her nothing about my marriage.
'So,' she said, 'you have lost father, mother, brothers, lover, and friends by this pretty business. And all because they will not suffer the King to worship in his own way. Well, 'tis hard for you. To be plain, it may be harder than you think, or I can help. You have been bought for sixty pounds, and that not for any profit that your work will bring to the estate, because such as you are but a loss and a burden; but only in the hope that your friends will pay a great sum for ransom.'
'Madam, I have indeed no friends left who can do this for me.'
'If so, it is indeed unfortunate. For presently the master will look for letters on your behalf, and if none come I know not what he may threaten, or what he may do. But think – try to find some one. Consider, your lot here must be hard at best; whereas, if you are released, you can live where you please; you may even marry whom you please, because beautiful young gentlewomen like yourself are scarce indeed in Barbadoes. 'Tis Christian charity to set you free. Remember, Child, that money will do here what I suppose it will do anywhere – all are slaves to money. You have six months before you in which to write to your friends and to receive an answer. If in that time nothing comes, I tell thee again, Child, that I know not what will happen. As for the life in the fields, it would kill thee in a week.'
'Perhaps, if the Lord so wills,' I replied helplessly, 'that may be best. Friends have I none now, nor any whom I could ask for help – save the Lord alone. I will ask for work in the fields.'
'Perhaps he may forget thee,' she said – meaning the master. 'But no; a man who hath once seen thy face will never forget thee. My dear, he told me when he came home that he had bought a woman whose beauty would set the island in flames. Pray heaven he come not near thee when he is in liquor. Hide that face, Child. Hide that face. Let him never see thee. Oh! there are dangers worse than labour in the fields – worse than whip of overseer!' She sprang to her feet, and clasped her hands. 'You talk of the Lord's will! What hath the Lord to do with this place? Here is nothing but debauchery and drinking, cruelty and greed. Why have they sent here a woman who prays?'
Then she sat down again and took my hand.
'Tender maid,' she said, 'thy face is exactly such as the face of a certain saint – 'tis in a picture which hangs in the chapel of the convent where the good nuns brought me up long ago, before I came to this place – long ago. Yes, I forget the name of the saint; thou hast her face. She stood, in the picture, surrounded by soldiers who had red hair, and looked like devils – English devils, the nuns said. Her eyes were raised to heaven, and she prayed. But what was done unto her I know not, because there was no other picture. Now she sits upon a throne in the presence of the Mother of God.'
The tears stood in her great black eyes – I take it that she was thinking of the days when she was young.
'Well, we must keep thee out of his way. While he is sober he listens to reason, and thinks continually upon his estate and his gains. When he is drunk no one can hold him, and reason is lost on him.'
She presently brought me a manchet of white bread and a glass of Madeira wine, and then told me that she would give me the best cottage that the estate possessed, and, for my better protection, another woman to share it with me. I thanked her again, and asked that I might have the girl called Deb, which she readily granted.
And so my first day of servitude ended in thus happily finding a protector. As for the cottage, it was a poor thing; but it had a door, and a window with a shutter. The furniture was a pallet with two thick rugs, and nothing more. My condition was desperate, indeed; but yet, had I considered, I had been, so far, most mercifully protected. I was shipped as a convict (it is true) by a treacherous villain; but on the ship I found a compassionate captain, who saved me from the company among whom I must otherwise have dwelt. I was sold to a drunken and greedy planter; but I found a compassionate woman who promised to do what she could; and I had for my companion the woman who had become a most faithful maid to me upon the voyage, and who still continued in her fidelity and her love. Greater mercies yet – and also greater troubles – were in store, as you shall see.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON
Thus delivered from the slavery of the fields, I began to work, an unprofitable servant, among those who made and mended the garments of the servants and negroes. On an estate so large as this there is always plenty to be done by the sempstresses and needlewomen. Thus, to every woman is given by the year four smocks, two petticoats, and four coifs, besides shoes, which are brought from England by the ships. Those who wait in the house have, in addition, six smocks and three waistcoats. To the men are given six shirts; and to every man and woman a rug or gown of thick stuff to cast about them when they come home hot, so that they may not catch cold – a thing which throws many into a fever. All these things have to be made and mended on the estate.
As for the children, the little blacks, they run about without clothing, their black skin sufficing. The women who are engaged upon the work of sewing are commonly those of the white servants, who are not strong enough for the weeding and hoeing in the fields, or are old and past hard work. Yet the stuff of which the smocks and shirts are made is so coarse that it tore the skin from my fingers, which, when Madam saw, she brought me fine work – namely, for herself. She was also so good as to provide me with a change of clothes, of which I stood sadly in need, and excused my wearing the dress of the other women. I hope that I am not fond of fine apparel, more than becomes a modest woman, but I confess that the thought of wearing this livery of servitude, this coarse and common dress of smock, petticoat, and coif, all of rough and thick stuff, like canvas, with a pair of shoes and no stockings, filled my very soul with dismay. None of the many acts of kindness shown me by Madam was more gratefully received than her present of clothes – not coarse and rough to the skin, nor ugly and common, befitting prisoners and criminals, but soft and pleasant to wear, and fit for the heat of the climate. 'Twas no great hardship, certainly, to rise early and to sit all day with needle and thread in a great room well-aired. The company, to be sure, was not what one would have chosen; nor was the language of the poor creatures who sat with me – prison and Bridewell birds, or negro slaves – such as my poor mother would have desired her daughter to hear. The food was coarse; but I was often at the house (when the master was away), and there Madam would constantly give me something from her own table, a dish of chocolata (rightly called the Indian nectar) made so thick and strong that a spoon stands upright in it, or a glass of Madeira, if my cheeks looked paler than ordinary. In this country, the great heat of the air seems to suck out and devour the heat of the body, so that those of European birth, if they are not nourished on generous diet, presently fall into a decline or wasting away, as is continually seen in the case of white servants, both men and women, who die early, and seldom last more than five or six years.
Briefly, Madam seemed to take great pleasure in my conversation, and would either seek me in the work-room, or would have me to the house, asking questions as to my former life. For herself, I learned that she was born in Cuba, and had been brought up by nuns in a convent; but how or why she came to this place, I knew not, nor did I ask. Other gentlewomen of the island I never saw, and I think there were none who visited her. Nor did she show kindness to the women servants (except to myself), treating them all, as is the fashion in that country, as if they were so many black negroes, not condescending to more than a word or a command; and if this were disobeyed, they knew very well what to expect from her. But to me she continued throughout to be kind and gracious, thinking always how she could lighten my lot.
In this employment, therefore, I continued with such contentment as may be imagined, which was rather a forced resignation to the will of the Lord than a cheerful heart. But I confess that I looked upon the lot of the other women with horror, and was thankful indeed that I was spared the miseries of those who go forth to the fields. They begin at six in the morning, and work until eleven, when they come home to dinner: at one o'clock they go out again and return at sunset, which, in this country, is nearly always about half-past six. But let no one think that work in the fields at Barbadoes may be compared with work in the fields at home; for in England there are cloudy skies and cold wintry days in plenty, but in Barbadoes, save when the rain falls in prodigious quantities, the skies have no clouds, but are clear blue all the year round: the sun burns with a heat intolerable, so that the eyes are well-nigh blinded, the head aches, the limbs fail, and, but for fear of the lash, the wretched toiler would lie down in the nearest shade. And a terrible thirst (all this was told me by the girl Deb) seizes the throat, all day long, which nothing can assuage but rest. For the least skulking the whip is laid on; and if there be a word of impatience or murmuring, it is called stark mutiny, for which the miserable convict, man or woman, is tied up and flogged with a barbarity which would be incredible to any were it not for the memory of certain floggings in our own country. Besides the lash, they have also the pillory and the stocks, and the overseers carry in addition to their whip a heavy cane, with which they constantly belabour the slaves, both white and black. I say 'slaves' because the white servants are nothing less, save that the negroes are far better off, and receive infinitely better treatment than the poor white creatures. Indeed, the negro being the absolute property of his master, both he and his children, to ill-treat him is like the wanton destruction of cattle on a farm; whereas there is no reason in making the convicts last out more than the ten years of their servitude, or even so long, because many of them are such poor creatures when they arrive, and so reduced by the miseries of the voyage, and so exhausted by the hard labour to which they are put, that they bring no profit to the master, but quickly fall ill and die like rotten sheep. Like rotten sheep, I say, they die, without a word of Christian exhortation; and like brute creatures, who have no world to come, are they buried in the ground! Again, the food served out to these poor people is not such as should be given to white people in a hot climate. There is nothing but water to drink, and that drawn from ponds, because in Barbadoes there are few springs or rivers. It is true that the old hands, who have learned how to manage, contrive to make plantain wine, and get, by hook or by crook, mobbie (which is a strong drink made from potatoes), or kill-devil, which is the new spirit distilled from sugar. Then for solid food, the servants are allowed five pounds of salt beef for each person every week, and this so hard and stringy that no boiling will make it soft enough for the teeth. Sometimes, instead of the beef, they have as much salt fish, for the most part stinking; with this a portion of ground Indian corn, which is made into a kind of porridge, and called loblollie. This is the staple of the food, and there are no rustics at home who do not live better and have more nourishing food.
I do not deny that the convicts are for the most part a horrid crew, who deserve to suffer if any men ever did; but it was sad to see how the faces of the people were pinched with hunger and wasted with the daily fatigues, and how their hollow eyes were full of despair. Whatever their sins may have been, they were at least made in God's own image: no criminal, however wicked, should have been used with such barbarity as was wreaked upon the people of this estate. The overseers were chosen (being themselves also convicts) for their hardness of heart. Nay, did they show the least kindness towards the poor creatures whom they drove, they would themselves be forced to lay down the whip of office and to join the gang of those who toiled. And over them was the master, jealous to exact the last ounce of strength from the creatures whom he had bought. Did the good people of Bristol who buy the sugar and molasses and tobacco of the Indies know or understand the tears of despair and the sweat of agony which are forced with every pound of sugar, they would abhor the trade which makes them rich.
The companion of my sleeping-hut, the girl Deb, was a great, strapping wench, who bid fair to outlast her ten years of servitude, even under the treatment to which, with the rest, she was daily subjected. And partly because she was strong and active, partly because she had a certain kind of beauty (the kind which belongs to the rustic, and is accompanied by good-humour and laughter), she would perhaps have done well, as some of the women do, and ended by marrying an overseer, but for events which presently happened. Yet, strong as she was, there was no evening when she did not return worn out with fatigue, her cheeks burning, her limbs weary, yet happy because she had one more day escaped the lash, and had the night before her in which to rest. If it is worth noting, the women were from the outset the most willing workers, and the most eager to satisfy their taskmasters; the men, on the other hand, went sullen and downcast, thinking only how to escape the overseer's whip, and going through the work with angry and revengeful eyes. I think that some great mutiny might have happened upon this estate – some wild revenge – so desperate were these poor creatures and so horrible were the scourgings they endured, and the shrieks and curses which they uttered. Let me not speak of these things.
There are other things which make residence in Barbadoes, even to the wealthy, full of annoyances and irritations. The place is filled with cockroaches, great spiders, horrid scorpions, centipedes, and lizards. There are ants which swarm everywhere, and there are clouds of flies, and at night there are moskeetos and merrywings, which by their bites have been known to drive new-comers into fever, or else into a kind of madness.
In the evenings after supper there reigned a melancholy silence in the village, the people for the most part taking rest with weary limbs. Sometimes there would be a quarrel, with horrid oaths and curses and perhaps some fighting; but these occasions were rare.
From the house there came often the noise of singing, drinking, and loud talking when other planters would ride over for a drinking bout. There was also sometimes to be heard the music of the theorbo, upon which Madam played very sweetly, singing Spanish songs; so that it seemed a pity for music so sweet to be thrown away upon this selfish crew. It made me think of Humphrey, and of the sweet and holy thoughts which he would put into rhymes, and then fit the rhymes with music which seemed to breathe those very thoughts. Alas! In the village of Bradford Orcas there would be now silence and desolation! The good old Squire dead, my father dead, the young men sent to the Plantations, no one left at all but the Rector and Madam his sister-in-law, and I, alas! a slave. Perchance at that moment the Rector might be slowly drawing his bow across the strings of his violoncello thinking of those who formerly played with him; or perhaps he would be sorrowfully taking out his cases and gazing for a little consolation upon the figures of his goddesses and his nymphs. Only to think of the place, and of those who once lived there, tore my poor heart to pieces.
One evening, when there was a great noise and talking at the house, while we were sitting upon our beds with no other light than that of the moon, Madam herself came to the cottage.
'Child,' she said, 'nothing will do but that the gentlemen must see thy beauty. Nay, no harm shall happen while I am there: so much they know. But he hath so bragged about thy beauty and the great price he will demand for ransom that the rest are mad to see thee. I swear that not the least rudeness shall be offered thee. They are drinking, it is true; but they are not yet drunk. Come!'
So I arose and followed her. First, she took me to her own room, where she took off my hood and threw over me a long white lace mantilla, which covered my head and fell over my shoulders and below the waist.
She sighed as she looked at me.
'Poor innocent!' she said. 'If money could buy that face, there is not a man in the room but would give all he hath and count it gain. Canst thou play or sing?'
I told her that I had some knowledge of the theorbo. Therefore she brought me hers, and bade me sing to the gentlemen and then retire quickly. So I followed her into the living or keeping room, where a dozen gentlemen were sitting round the table. A bowl of punch was on the table, and every man had his glass before him, and a pipe of tobacco in his hand. Some of their faces were flushed with wine.
'Gentlemen,' said Madam, 'our prisoner hath consented to sing one song to you, after which she will ask permission to bid you good-night.'
So they all clapped their hands and rapped the table, and I, being indeed terrified, but knowing very well that to show fear would be the worst thing I could do, touched the strings and began my song. I sang the song which Humphrey made, and which he sang to the officers at Taunton when the Duke was there.
When I finished, I gave back the theorbo to Madam, curtsied to the gentlemen, and quickly stepped back to Madam's room, while they all bellowed and applauded and roared for me to come back again. But I put on my hood and slipped out to the cottage, where I lay down beside Deb, and quickly fell asleep. (It is a great happiness, in these hot latitudes, that, when a new-comer hath once got over the trouble of the merrywings, he falleth asleep the moment he lies down, and so sleeps through the whole night.)