The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous. Volume 2

Thus in a sultry colony, among Black Negroes and their cruel Task-masters, and I the clerk to a Mulotter Washerwoman, did I come to be full sixteen years of age, and a stalwart Lad of my inches. But for that Fate, which from the first irrevocably decreed that mine was to be a Roving Life, almost to its end, I might have continued in the employ of Maum Buckey until Manhood overtook me. The Dame was not unfavourable towards me; and, without vanity, may I say that, had I waited my occasion, 'tis not unlikely but that I might have married her, and become the possessor of her plump Money-Bags, full of Moidores, pilar Dollars, and pieces of Eight. Happily I was not permitted so to disparage my lineage, and put a coffee-coloured blot on my escutcheon. No, my Lilias is no Mulotter Quartercaste. 'Twas my roving propensity that made me set but little store by the sugar-eyes and Molasses-speech which Madam Soapsuds was not loth to bestow on me, a tall and likely Lad. I valued her sweetness just as though it had been so much cane-trash. With much impatience I had waited for the coming back of my friendly skipper, that he might advise me as to my future career. But, as I have already warned the Reader, it was fated that I was to see that kindly shipmaster no more. Once, indeed, the old ship came into Port Royal, and right eagerly did I take boat and board her. But her name had been changed from The Humane Hopwood to The Protestant Pledge. She was in the Guinea trade now, and brought Negroes, poor souls! to slave in our Plantations. The Mariner that was her commander had but dismal news to tell me of my friendly Handsell. He, returning to the old country, had it seems a Mighty Quarrel with his Patron – and my Patron too, forsooth! – Villain Hopwood. Whether he had reproached him with his treachery to me or not, I know not; but it is certain that both parted full of Wrath and High Disdain, and each swearing to be the Ruin of the other. But Gold had, as it has always in a Mammon-ridden world, the longest, strongest pull. Devil Hopwood found it easy to get the better of a poor unlettered tarpaulin, that knew well enough the way into a Wapping Alehouse, but quite lost himself in threading the mazes of a great man's Antechamber. 'Tis inconceivable how much dirty work there was done in my young days between Corinthian columns and over Turkey carpets, and under ceilings painted by Verrio and Laguerre. Sir Basil, I believe, went to a great man, and puts a hundred guineas into the hands of his Gentleman – by the which I mean his Menial Servant, save that he wore no Livery; but there's many a Base wretch hath his soul in plush, and the Devil's aigulets on his heart. How much out of the Hundred my Lord took, and how much his Gentleman kept, it serves not to inquire. They struck a Bargain, and short was the Time before Ruin came swooping down on Captain Handsell. He had gone into the Channel trade; and they must needs have him exchequered for smuggling brandies and lace from St. Malo's. Quick on this follows a criminal Indictment, from which, as a Fool, he flies; for he might at least have threatened to say damaging things of Brute Basil in the dock, and have made terms with him before trial came on. And then he must needs take command of a miserable lugger that fetched and carried between Deal and Dunquerque – the old, old, sorry tinpot business of kegs of strong waters, and worse contraband in the guise of Jacobite despatches. To think of brave men's lives being risked in these twopenny errands, and a heart of Oak brought to the gallows, that clowns may get drunk the cheaper, or traitors – for your Jacobite conspirators were but handy-dandy Judases, now to King James and now to King George – exchange their rubbishing ciphers the easier! It drives me wild to think of these pinchbeck enterprises. If a Man's tastes lead him towards the Open, the Bold, and the Free, e'en let him ship himself off to a far climate, the hotter the better, where Prizes are rich, and the King's writ in Assault and Battery runneth not, – nor for a great many other things ayont Assault and Battery, – and where, up a snug creek, of which he knows the pilotage well, he may give a good account of a King's ship when he finds her. He who does any thing contrair to English law within five hundred leagues of an English lawyer or an English law-court is a very Ass and Dolt. Fees and costs will have their cravings; and from the process-server to the Hangman all will have their due. Give me an offing, where there is no law but that of the strong hand and the bold Heart. Any sharks but land-sharks for John Dangerous. I never see a parchment-visaged, fee-clutching limb of the law but I long to beat him, and, if I had him on blue water, to trice him up higher than ever he went before. But for a keg of brandy! But for a packet of treason-papers! Shame! 'tis base, 'tis idiotic. And this did the unlucky Handsell find to his cost. I believe he was slain in a midnight affray with some Riding Officers of the Customs close unto Deal, about two years after his going into a trade that was as mean as it was perilous.

So no more Hope for me from that quarter. The skipper of The Protestant Pledge would have retained me on board for a Carouse; but I had too much care for my Head and my Liver for such pranks, and went back, as dolefully as might be, to keep Maum Buckey's washing-books. I chafed at the thought that I could do no more. I told her the grim news I had heard of her brother-in-law, whereat she wept somewhat; for where Whites were concerned she was not a hard-hearted woman. But she cheered up speedily, saying that Sam had come to as sorry an end, and that she supposed there was but one way with the Handsells, Rum and Riot being generally their Ruin.

As it is one of the failings of youth not to know when it is well off, and to grow A-weary even of continued prosperity, I admit that the life I led palled upon me, and that I longed to change it. But it was not, all things considered, so very unpleasant a one. True, the employment was a sorry one, and utterly beneath the dignity of a Gentleman, such as bearing fardels in the streets or unloading casks and bales at the wharf, for instance. But it is in man's nature never to be satisfied, and when he is well to long to be better, and so, by force of striving, to tumble into a Hole, where indeed he is at the Best, for he is Dead. At this distance of time, though I have many comforts around me, – Worldly Goods, a Reputable name, my Child, and her Husband, – I still look back on my old life in Jamaica, and confess that Providence dealt very mercifully with me in those bygone days. For I had enough to eat and to drink, and a Mistress who, although Passionate and Quarrelsome enough by times, was not unkind. If she would swear, she would also tender gentle Language upon occasion; and if she would throw things, she was not backward in giving one a dollar to heal one's pate. An odd life it was, truly. There was very little of that magnificence about the town of Port Royal in my days which I have heard the Creoles to boast about. It may have been handsome enough in the Spaniard's Reign, or in King Charles the Second's; but I have heard that its most comely parts had been swallowed up by an Earthquake, and, when I remember it, the Main thoroughfare was like nothing half so much as the Fag End of Kent Street in the Borough, where the Broom-men live. As for public scavengers – humane at least – there were none; for that salutary practice of putting rebellious Blacks into chain-gangs, and making them sweep the streets, – which might be well done in London with Pickpockets and the like trash, to their souls' health and the benefit of the Body politic, – did not then obtain. The only way of clearing the offal was by the obscene birds that flew down from the hills; Messieurs the landcrabs, who were assuredly the best scavengers of all, not stirring beyond the Palisadoes. Some things were very cheap, but others inordinately dear. Veal was at a prodigious price; and 'twas a common saying, that you could buy Four children in England cheaper than you could one calf in Jamaica. But for the products and dishes of the colony, which I have elsewhere hinted at, all was as low-priced as it was abundant. What droll names did they give, too, unto their fish and flesh and fowl! How often have you in England heard of Crampos, Bonettas, Ringrays, Albacoras, and Sea-adders, among fish; of Noddies and Boobies and Pitternells and Sheerwaters among birds? And Calialou Soup, and Pepperpot to break your Fast withal in the morning, and make you feel, ere you get accustomed to that Fiery victual, like a Salamander for some hours afterwards!

Now and then also, with some other young white folks with whom I had stricken up acquaintance, – clerks, storekeepers, and the like, – would we seek out the dusky beauties of the town in their own quarters, and shake a leg at their Dignity Routs, Blackamoor Drums, and Pumpkin-Faced Assemblies, or by what other name the poor Black wretches might choose to call their uproarious merrymakings. There, in some shed, all hustled together as a Moorfields Sweetener does luck in a bag, would be a mob of men and women Negroes, all dressed in their bravest finery, although little of it was to be seen either on their Backs or their Feet; the Head being the part of their Bodies which they chiefly delight to ornament. Such ribbons and owches, such gay-coloured rags and blazing tatters, would they assume, and to the Trips and Rounds played to them by some Varlet of a black fiddler, with his hat at a prodigious cock, and mounted on a Tub, like unto the sign of the Indian Bacchus at the Tobacconist's, would they dance and stamp and foot it merrily – with plenty of fruit, salt fish, pork, roasted plantain, and so forth, to regale themselves withal, not forgetting punch and sangaree – quite forgetful, poor mercurial wretches, for the time being of Fetters and the Scourge and the Driver that would hurry them to their dire labour the morrow morn. Surely there never did exist so volatile, light-spirited, feather-brained a race as these same Negro Blacks. They will whistle and crack nuts, ay and dance and sing to the music of the Fiddle or the Banjar an hour after the skin has been half flayed off their backs. They seem to bear no particular Malice to their Tormentors, so long as their weekly rations of plantain, yam, or salt fish, be not denied them, and that they have Osnaburgs enow to make them shirts and petticoats to cover themselves. Give them but these, and their dance at Christmas time, with a kind word thrown to them now and again, just as you would fling a marrow-bone to a dog, and they will get along well enough in slavery, almost grinning at its Horrors and making light of its unutterable Woes. I never saw so droll a people in my life. Nor is it the less astonishing thing about them that, beneath all this seeming lightheartedness and jollity, there often lies smouldering a Fire of the Fiercest passion and blackest revenge. The dark-skinned fellow who may be flapping the flies away from you in the morning, and bearing your kicks and cuffs as though they were so many cates and caresses, may, in the evening, make one in a circle of Heathen monsters joined together to listen to the Devilish Incantations of the Obeah man, – to mingle in ceremonies most hideous and abominable, and of which perhaps that of swearing eternal Hatred to the White Race over a calabash that is made out of the skull of a new-born Babe, and filled with Dirt, Rum, and Blood mixed together, is perchance the least horrid. And yet I don't think the unhappy creatures are by nature either treacherous, malicious, or cruel. 'Tis only when the fit seizes them. Like the Elephants, the idea suddenly comes over them that they are wronged – that 'tis the White Man who has wrought them all these evils, and that they are bound to Trample him to bleeding mud without more ado. But 'tis all done in a capricious cobweb-headed manner; and on the morrow they are as quiet and good-tempered as may be. Then, just as suddenly, will come over them a fit of despondency, or dark, dull, brooding Melancholy. If they are at sea, they will cast themselves into the waves and swim right toward the sharks, whose jaws are yawning to devour them. If they are on dry land, they will, for days together, refuse all food, or worse still, go dirt-eating, stuffing themselves with clay till they have the mal d'estomac, and so die: this mal, of which our English stomach-ache gives no valid translation (which must prove my excuse for placing here a foreign word), being, with the Yaws, their most frequent and fatal complaint. Of a less perplexing nature also are their fits of the Sulks, when, for more than a week at a time, they will remain wholly mute and intractably obstinate, folding their arms or squatting on their hams, and refusing either to move or speak, whatsoever threats may be uttered or enforced against them, and setting no more store by the deep furrowing cuts of the Cowhide whip (that will make marks in a deal board, if well laid on, the which I have often seen) than by the buzzings of a Shambles Fly. They had many ways of treating these fits of the sulks, in my time all of them cruel, and none of them successful. One was, to set the poor wretches in the stocks, or the bilboes, rubbing chillies into the eyes to keep them from going to sleep. Another was a dose of the Fire-cane, as it was called, which was just a long paddle, or slender oar, pierced with holes at the broadest part, with the which the patient being belaboured, a blister on the fish rose to each hole of the Paddle. A curious method, and one much followed; but the Negroes sulked all the more for it. There was a Dutch woman from Surinam, who had brought with her from that plantation of the Hollanders that highly Ingenious Mode of Torment known as the "Spanso Bocko."[3 - Vide Stedman's Surinam.] The manner of it was this. You took your Negro and tied him wrists and ankles, so bending him into a neat curve. Then, if his spine did not crack the while, you thrust a stake between his legs, and having thus comfortably Trussed him, pullet fashion, you laid him on the ground one side upwards, and at your leisure scarified him from one cheek to one heel with any instrument of Torture that came handy. Then he (or she, it did not at all matter in the Dutchwoman's esteem), being one gore of welts and gashes, was thought to be Done enough on one side, and consequently required Doing t'other. So one that stood by to help just took hold of the stake and turned the Human Pullet over, and then he was so thoroughly basted as sometimes to be Done a little too much, often dying on the spot from that Rib wasting. Oh, it was rare sport! I wonder whereabouts in the nethermost Hell the cunning Dutchman is now who first devised this torment; also the Dutchwoman who practised it? I can fancy Signor Beelzebub and his Imps taking a keen delight in their application of the Spanso Bocko. The which I never knew it cure a Negro of the sulks. They would force back their tongues into their gullets while the torment was going on, determined not so much as to utter a moan, and, having a peculiar Art that way, brought by them from own country, would often contrive to suffocate themselves and Expire. Their own country! That is what one of the miserable beings said when, being threatened with torment of a peculiar, outrageous nature, he flung himself into a cauldron of boiling sugar, and was scalded to death on the instant. Let me not omit to mention while I am on this chapter of Brutality – wreaked by Christian men upon poor Heathen savages, for many of them were not many weeks from Guinea and Old Calabar, where they had been worshiping Mumbo Jumbo, and making war upon one another in their own Pagan fashion – that I have known Planters even more refined in their cruelty. They would make their slaves drink salt water, and then set them out in the hot sun tied to the outside posts of the Piazza. The end of that was, that they went Raving Mad, gnawing their Tongues and poor blubberous Lips to pieces[4 - Dean of Myddelton's Evidence, Clarkson's Committee.] before they died. Another genius, who was a proficient in his Humanities, and quite of a classic frame of mind in his cruelties, bethought himself of a mode of Torture much practised among the Ancient Persians, and so must needs smear the body of an unhappy Negro all over with molasses. Then, binding him fast to a stake in the open, the flies and mosquitoes got at him, – for he was kept there from one morning until the next, – and he presently gave up the Ghost. But nothing that I ever saw or heard of during the time of my living in the Western Indies, could equal the Romantic Torture, not so much invented as imported, by a Gentleman Merchant who had lived among the islands of the Grecian Archipelago, and whose jocose humour it was to imprison his women slaves in loose garments of leather, very tightly secured, however, at the wrists, neck, and ankles. In the same garments, before fastening round the limbs of the victim, one or more Infuriated cats were introduced; the which ferocious animals, playfully disporting themselves in their attempt to find a point of egress, would so up and tear, and mangle, and lacerate, with their Terrible claws, the flesh of the sufferers, that not all the Brine-washing or pepper-pod-rubbing in the world, afterwards humanely resorted to on their release from their leathern sepulchre, would save them from mortification. There was a completeness and gusto about this Performance that always made me think my Gentleman Merchant from the Greek Islands a very Great Mind. The mere vulgar imitations of his Process which, in times more Modern, I have heard of – such as taking an angry cat by the tail and drawing its claws all abroad down the back of a Negro strapped on to a plank, so making a map of all the rivers in Tartarus from his neck to his loins – are, in my holding, beneath contempt. There is positive Genius in that idea of shutting up the cats in a hide-bound prison, and so letting them work their own wills on the inner walls; and I hope my Gentleman Merchant has as warm a niche in Signor Beelzebub's Temple of Fame, as the Great Dutch Philosopher who first dreamt of the Spanso Bocko.

Before I left the island of Jamaica, there befell me an adventure which I may briefly narrate. It being the sickly season and very few ships in port, Maum Buckey's business was somewhat at a stand-still, and with little difficulty I obtained from her a fortnight's holiday. I might have spent it with no small pleasure, and even profit, at one of her up-country plantations, or at the Estate of some other Planter; for I had friends and to spare among the white Overseers and Bookkeepers; and although the Gentry – that is to say, the Enriched Adventurers, who deemed themselves such – were of course too High and Mighty to associate with one of my Mean Station, I was at no loss for companions among those of my own degree. So bent upon a frolic, and being by this time a good Rider and a capital shot, I joined a band of wild young Slips like myself, to go up the country hunting the miserable Negroes that had Marooned, as it was called. These Maroons were runaway slaves who had bid a sudden good-by to bolts and shackles, whips and rods, and shown their Tyrants a clean pair of heels, finding their covert in the dense jungles that covered the mountain slopes, where they lived on the wild animals and birds they could shoot or snare, and sometimes making descents to the nearest plantations, thence to carry off cattle, ponies, or pigs, or whatever else they could lay their felonious hands upon. These were the Blacks again, you will say, with a vengeance, and at many Thousand Miles' distance from Charlwood Chase: but those poor varlets of Deerstealers in England never dreamt of taking Human Life, save when defending their own, in a fair stand-up Fight; whereas the Maroons had no such scruples, and spared neither age, nor sex, nor Degree – that had a white skin – in their bloodthirsty frenzy. The Savage Indians in the American plantations, who will swoop down on some peaceful English settlement, slaying, scalping, and Burning up men, women, and children, – with other Horrors and Outrages not to be described in decent terms, – are just on a par with these black Maroons. Now and again would be found among them some Household Runaways, or Field Hands born into slavery on the Plantations, – and these were most useful in acting as spies or scouts; but as a rule the Head Men and Boldest Villains among the Maroons were Savage Negroes, just fresh from Africa, on whom the bonds of servitude had sate but for a short time, and who in the jungle were as much at Home as though they were in their native wilds again. Of great stature, of prodigious strength, amazing Agility, and astounding natural cunning, these creatures were as ferocious as Wild Baboons that had lived among civilized mankind just long enough to learn the Art of firing off a Gun and wielding a cutlass, instead of brandishing a Tree-branch or heaving a Cocoa-nut. They were without Pity; they were without knowledge that theirs was a cut-throat, nay, a cannibal trade. The white man had made war on them, and torn them from their Homes, where they were happy enough in their Dirt and Grease, their War-paint, and their idolatrous worship of Obeah and Bungey. 'Twas these Men-monsters that we went to hunt. The Planters themselves were somewhat chary of dealing with them; for the cruelty which the Maroons inflicted on those who fell into their power were Awful alone to contemplate, much more so to Endure; but they were glad enough when any gang of young Desperadoes of the meaner white sort – which, speaking not for myself, I am inclined to believe the Meanest and most Despicable of any sort or condition of Humanity – would volunteer to go on a Maroon Hunt. We were to have a Handsome Recompense, whether our enterprise succeeded or failed; but were likewise stimulated to increased exertion by the covenanted promise of so many dollars – I forget how many now – for every head of a Maroon that we brought at our saddlebows to the place of Rendezvous. And so we started one summer morning, some twenty strong, all young, valiant, and not overscrupulous, armed, I need scarcely say, to the teeth, and mounted on the rough but fleet ponies of the country.

A train of Negroes on whom we could Depend – that is, by the strict application of the law of Fear, not Kindness, and who stood in such Terror of us, and of our ever-ready Thongs, Halters, Pistols, and Cutlasses, as scarcely to dare call their souls their own – followed us with Sumpter mules well laden with provisions, kegs of drink, both of water and ardent, and additional ammunition. I was full of glee at the prospects of this Foray, vowed that it was a hundred times pleasanter than making out Maum Buckey's washing-books, and hearing her scold her laundry-wenches; and longed to prove to my companions that the Prowess I had shown at twelve – ay, and before that age, when I brained the Grenadier with the Demijohn – had not degenerated now that I was turned sixteen, and far away from my own country. So we rode and rode, who but we, and dined gaily under spreading trees, boasting of the brave deeds we would do when we had tracked the black Marooning vagabonds to their lair. At which those Negro servants upon whom we could depend grinned from ear to ear, and told us in their lingo that they "oped we would soon Dam black negar tief out, and burn his Fader like canebrake." "'Tis strange," I thought, "that these creatures have not more compassion for their fellows whom we are hunting." To be sure, they were mostly of the Household breed, between whom and the fresh-imported Negroes held to field-service there is little sympathy. It escaped me to tell you that we had with us yet more powerful and Trustworthy auxiliaries than either our arms, our Horses, or our servants; being none other than nine couples of ferocious Bloodhounds, of a breed now extinct in Jamaica, and to be found only at this present moment, I believe, in the island of Cuba. These animals, which were of a terrible Ferocity and exquisitely keen scent, were kept specially for the purpose of hunting Maroons, – such are the Engines which Tyrannical Slavery is compelled to have recourse to, – and were purposely deprived of food beyond that necessary for their bare sustenance, that they might more fully relish the Recompense that awaited them when they had hunted down their prey.

Gaily we went on our Road rejoicing, now by mere bridle-paths, and now plunging our hardy little steeds right through the bristling underwood, when there burst upon us one of those terrible Tornadoes, or Tempests of wind and rain, so common in the Western Indies. The water came down in great solid sheets, drenching us to the skin in a moment; the sky was lit up for hundreds of miles round by huge blasts of lurid fire; the wind tore great branches off trees, and hurled them across the bows of our saddles, or battered our faces with their soaked leaves or sharp prickles. The very Dogs were blinded and baffled by this tremendous protest of nature; and in the very midst of the storm there broke from an ambuscade a band of Maroons, three times as strong as our own, who fell upon us like incarnate Demons as they were. Our hounds had found their scent long before, – just after dinner, indeed, – and we had been following it for some two hours; – even now it was Reeking close upon us, but we little deemed how Near. I suppose that those Negro Rascals, whom we had trusted so implicitly, and on whom we thought that we could Depend so thoroughly, had Betrayed us. This was the second time in my short Life that I fallen into an Ambuscade; and Lo! each time the "Blacks" had been mixed up with my misadventure.

These naked Maroons cared nothing about the Storm, whose torrents ran off their well-oiled carcasses like water off a Duck's back. There was a very Devil of a fight. 'Twas every one for himself, and the Tempest for us all. The Runaways were well armed, and besides could use their teeth and nails to better advantage than many a doughty Fighting man can use his weapons, and clawed and tore at us like Wild Beasts. I doubt not we should have got the worst of it, but that we were Mounted, – and a Man on horseback is three times a Footman in a Hand-to-Hand encounter; and again, that our good friends the bloodhounds, that had been scared somewhat at the outset, recovered their self-possession, and proceeded each to pin his Maroon, and to rend him to pieces with great deliberation. In the end, that is to say, after about twenty-seven minutes' sharp tussling, Dogs, Horses, and Men were victorious; and, as we surveyed the scene of our Triumph, the storm had spent its fury. The black clouds cleared away as suddenly as they had darkled upon us; the Golden Sun came out, and the dreadful scene was lit up in Splendour. Above, indeed, it was all Beauty and Peace for Nature cannot be long Angry. The trees all seemed stemmed and sprayed with glistering jewels; the moisture that rose had the tints of an hundred Rainbows; the long grass flashed and waved; the many birds in the boughs began to sing Hymns of Thankfulness and Joy. But below, ah, me! what a Dreadful scene of blood and Carnage, and Demoniac revenge, there was shown! Of our band we had lost three Killed; five more were badly Wounded; and there was not one of us but had some Hurt of greater or lesser seriousness. We had killed a many of the Maroons; and the two or three that had escaped with Life, albeit most grievously gashed, were speedily put out of their misery. Had we been seeking for Runaway house-servants, we might have taken prisoners; but with a wild African Maroon this is not serviceable. The only thing that you can do with him, when you catch him, is to kill him.

The Dead Bodies of our unfortunate companions were laid across the sumpter mule's back; but when we came to look for our train of dependable Negroes, we found that all save three had fled. These did so very strongly protest their Innocence, and plead their abiding by us as a proof thereof, that I felt half inclined to hold them blameless. There were those among us, however, who were of a far different opinion, and were for lighting a fire of branches and Roasting them into confession. But there was a Scotch gentleman among us by the name of MacSawby, who, being of a Practical turn (as most of his countrymen are, and, indeed, Edinborough in Scotland is about the most Practical town that ever I was in), pointed out that we were all very Tired, and needed Refreshment and Repose; that the task of Torturing Negroes gave much trouble and consumed more time ("Aiblins it's douce wark," quoth the Scotch gentleman); that all the wood about was sopped with wet (and a "Dry Roast's best," said the Scotch Gentleman); and finally, that the thing could be much better done at home, where we had proper Engines and Instruments for inflicting Exquisite Agony, and proper Slaves to administer the same. So that for the nonce, and for our own Convenience, we were Merciful, and promised to defer making necessary Inquisition, by means of Cowhide, Tamarind-bush, and Fire-cane, until our return to the Rendezvous.

I should tell you that I got a Hurt in my hand from a kind of short Chopper or Tommyhawk that one of the Savages carried. 'Twas fortunately my left hand, and seeming but a mere scratch, I thought little or nothing about it. But at the end of the second day it began to swell and swell to a most alarming size and tumorous discoloration, the inflammation extending right up my arm, even to my shoulder. Then it was agreed on all sides that the blade of the Tommyhawk with which I had been stricken must have been anointed with some subtle and deadly Poison, of the which not only the Maroons but the common Household and Town Negroes have many, preparing them themselves, and obstinately refusing, whether by hope of Reward or fear of punishment, to reveal the secret of their components to the Whites. I had to rest at the nearest Plantation to our battle-field; and the Planter – who had been a captain in the Chevalier de St. George's service (the old one), that had come out here, after the troubles of 1715, a Banished man, but had since been pardoned, and had taken to Planting, and grown Rich – was kind enough to permit me to be taken into his house and laid in one of his own Guest-chambers, where I was not only tended by his own Domestics, but was sometimes favoured with the Attention and sympathy of his angelic Wife, a young woman of most charming countenance and lively manners, most cheerful, pious, and Humane, taking great care of her slaves, physicking them frequently, reading to them little books written by persons of the Nonconforming persuasion, – a kind of doctrine that I never could abide, – and never suffering them to be whipped upon a Sunday. However, I grew worse; whereupon one Mr. Sprague, that set up for surgeon, but was more like a Boatswain turned landsman than that, or than a Horse, came to me, and was for cutting off my arm, to prevent mortification. There were two obstacles in the way of this operation's performance; the first being that Mr. Sprague had no proper instruments by him beyond a fleam and a syringe, with which, and with however good a will, you can scarcely sever a Man's limb from his Body; and the next that Mr. Sprague was not sober. Love for a young widow had driven him to drinking, it was said; but I think that it was more the Love of Liquor to which his bibulous backslidings were owing. 'Twas lucky for me that he had nor saw nor tourniquet with him. It is true that he departed in quest of some Carpenter's Tools, which he declared would do the job quite as well; but, again to my good luck, the carpenter was as Rare a pottlepot as he; and they two took to boiling rum in a calabash and drinking of it, and smoking of Tobacco, and playing at Skimming Dish Hob, Spie the Market, Shove-halfpenny, Brag, Put, and Dilly Dally, and other games that reminded them of the old country, for days and nights together so that the old Negro woman that belonged to the carpenter, seeing them gambling and drinking in the morning just as she had left them drinking and gambling the overnight, stared with amazement like a Mouse in a Throwster's mill. And by the time they had finished their Rouse I was, through Heaven's kindness and the segacity of a Negro nurse named Cubjack, cured. This woman, it is probable knew the secret of the Poison from the bitter effects of which I was suffering. At all events, she took me in hand, and by warm fomentations and bathings, and some outward applications of herbs and anointed bandages, reduced the swelling and restored my hand to its proper Form and Hue. At the end of the week I was quite cured, and able to resume my journey back to Kingston. I did not fail to express my gratitude to the hospitable Planter and his Lady, and I gave the Nurse Cubjack half a dollar and a silver tobacco-stopper that had been presented to me by Maum Buckey.

As a perverse destiny would have it, this Tobacco-stopper, this harmless trinket, was the very means of my losing my situation, and parting in anger from my Pumpkin-faced Patroness. Although I was, even at the present dating, but a raw lad, she took it into her head to be jealous of me, and all about this silver pipe-stopper. She vowed I had given it away to some Quadroon lass up country; she would not hearken to my protests of having bestowed it upon the nurse who had saved my life; and indeed when, at my instance, inquiries were made, Cubjack's replies did not in any way bear out my statement. The unhappy creature, who had probably sold my Tobacco-stopper for a few joes, or been deluded out of it by the Obeah Man, and was afraid of being flogged if discovery were made thereof, positively denied that I had given her anything beyond the half-dollar. You see that these Negroes have no more idea of the pernicious quality of the Sin of Lying, than has a white European shopkeeper deluding a Lady into buying of a lustring or a paduasoy; and see what similar vices there are engendered among savages and Christian folks by opposite causes.

We had a fearful war of words together, Maum Buckey and myself. She was a bitter woman when vexed, and called me "beggar buckra," "poor white trash," "tam lily thief," and the like. Whereat I told her plainly that I had no liking for her lackered countenance, and that she was a mahogany-coloured, slave-driving, old curmudgeon, that in England would be shown about at the fairs for a penny a peep. At the which she screamed with rage, and threw at me a jug of sangaree. Heavy enough it was; but the old lady had not so good an Aim as I had when I brained the Grenadier with the demijohn.

We had little converse after that. There were some wages due, and these she paid me, telling me that I might "go to de Debble," and that if she ever saw me again, she hoped it would be to see me hanged. I could have got Employment, I doubt not, in Jamaica, or in some other of the islands; but I was for the time sick of the Western Indies, and was resolved, come what might, to tempt my fortune in Europe. A desire to return to England first came over me; nor am I ashamed to confess that, mingled with my wish to see my own country once more, was a Hope that I might meet the Traitorous Villain Hopwood, and tell him to his teeth what a false Deceiver I took him to be. You see how bold a lad can be when he has turned the corner of sixteen; but it was always so with John Dangerous.

Some difficulty, nay, considerable obstacles, I encountered in obtaining a ship to carry me to Europe. The vindictive yellow woman, with whom (through no fault of my own, I declare) I was in disfavour, did so pursue me with her Animosity as to prejudice one Sea Captain after another against me; and it was long ere any would consent to treat with me, even as a Passenger. To those of my own nation did she in particular speak against me with such virulence, that in sheer despite I abandoned for the time my intention of going to England, and determined upon making for some other part of Europe, where I might push my fortune. And there being in port early in the winter a Holland ship, named the Gebrüder, which was bound for Ostend, I struck a bargain with the skipper of her, a decent man, whose name was Van Ganderdrom, and prepared to leave the colony in which I had passed over four years of my Eventful Life. Some friends who took an interest in me, – the "bright English lad," as they called me, – and who thought I had been treated by Maum Buckey with some unnecessary degree of Harshness, made up a purse of money for me, by which I was enabled to pay my Passage Money in advance, and lay in a stock of Provisions for the voyage; for, save in the way of Schnapps, Cheeses, and Herrings, the Holland ships were at that time but indifferently well Found. When every thing was paid, I found that I had indeed but a very small Surplus remaining; but there was no other way, and I bade adieu to the island of Jamaica, as I thought, for ever.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

OF WHAT BEFEL ME IN THE LOW COUNTRIES

I landed, after a long and tedious voyage, at the town of Ostend, it being the Spring time of the year 1729, with Youth, Health, a strong Frame, and a comely Countenance (as they told me), indeed, but with just two Guineas in my pouch for all my Fortune. Many a Lord Mayor of London has begun the World, 'tis said, with a yet more slender Provision (I wonder what Harpy Hopwood had to begin with?) and Eighteenpence would seem to be the average of Capital Stock for an Adventurer that is to heap up Riches. Still I seemed to have made my Start in Life's Voyage a great many times, and to have been very near ending with it more than once – witness the Aylesbury Assizes. Thus I felt rather Despondency than Hope at being come almost to manhood, and but to a beggarly Estate of Two-and-forty shillings. "But," said I, "courage, Jack Dangerous; thou hast strong legs and a valorous Stomach; at least thou needst not starve (bar cutpurses) for two-and-forty days; thou hast a knowledge of the French tongue," (which I picked up from a Huguenot emigrant from Languedoc, who was a Barber at Kingston, and taught me for well-nigh nothing), "and art cunning of Fence. Be the world thine Oyster, as the Playactor has it, and e'en open it with a Spadapoint." In this not unwholesome frame of mind I came out of the ship Gebrüder, and set foot on the Port with something like a Defiance of Fortune's scurvy tricks fermenting within me.

The Shipmaster recommended me to a very cleanly Tavern, by the sign of the Red Goose, kept in the Ganz-Straet by a widow-woman named Giessens. 'Twas Goose here, Goose there, and Goose every where, so it seemed with this good Frau; for she served Schiedam at the sign of the Goose, and she lived in Goose Street. She had herself a long neck and a round body and flat feet, going waddling and hissing about the house, a-scolding of her maids, like any Michaelmas matron among the stubble; not to forget her children, of whom she had a flock, waddling and hissing in their little way too, and who were all as like goslings as Sherris is like Sack. Little would have lacked for her to give me hot roast goose to my dinner, and goose-pie for supper, and some unguent of goose-grease to anoint my Pate with, had it chanced to be broken; and truly if I had lived under the sign of the Goose for many days, I might have taken to waddling and hissing too in my own Generation, and have been in time as brave a goose as any of them. Here there was a civil enough company of Seafaring men, Mates, Pilots, Supercargoes, and the like, with some Holland traders, and, if I mistake not, a few Smugglers that had contraband dealings in Cambrics, Steenkirks, Strong waters, and Point of Bruxelles. These last worthies did I carefully avoid; for since my Boyish Mischances I had imbibed a wholesome fear of hurting the King's Revenue, or meddling in any way with his Prerogative. "Well out of it, Jack Dangerous," I said. "Touch not His Majesty's Deer, nor His Majesty's Customs, and there shall be no sense of a tickling in thy windpipe when thou passest a post that is like unto the sign of the Tyburn Tavern." 'Tis astonishing how gingerly a man will walk who has once been within an ace of dancing upon nothing.

There is a mighty quantity of Sand and good store of Mud at Ostend, and a very comforting smell of fish; and so the High Dutch gentry, who, poor souls, know very little about the sea, and see no more salt water from Life's beginning unto its end than is contained within the compass of a pickling-tub, do use the place much for Bathing, and brag about their Dips and Flounderings, crying out, Die Zee ist mein Lust, in their plat Deutsch, as though they had all been born so many Porpoises. I would walk upon a morning much upon the Ramping-Parts, or Fortifications of the Town, watching whole caravans of Bathers, both of High and Low Dutch Gentry, coming to be dipped, borne into the Sea by sturdy Fellows that carried them like so many Sacks of Coals, and who would Discharge them into shallows with little more Ceremony than they would use in shooting such a cargo of Fuel into a cellar. "When my Money is gone," thought I, "I may earn a crust by the like labour." But then I bethought me that I was a Stranger among them; that they might be Jealous of me; and, indeed, when I imparted my design to the Widow-woman Giessens, who was beholden to me, she said, for that I had warned her how poor a guest I was growing, she told me that much interest was needed to obtain one of these Bather's places – almost as much, forsooth, as is wanted to get the berth of a Tide-waiter in England, – and these rascals were always waiting for the tide. Something like a Patent had to be humbly sued for, and fat fees paid to Syndics and Burgomasters, for the fine Privilege of sousing the gentry in the Brine. The good woman offered me Credit till I should find employment, and did so vehemently press a couple of Guilders upon me to defray my present charges, that I had not the heart to refuse, although I took care to avise her that my prospects of being able to repay her were as far off as the Cape of Good Hope.

It chanced one morning that I was walking out of the Town by the side of the Sea below the fortified parts to the Norrard. 'Twas fine and calm enough, and there was not so much Swell as to take a Puppy off his swimming legs; but suddenly I heard a great Outcry and Hubbub, and perceived, some ten feet from me in the Water the head of a Man convulsed with Terror, and who was crying out with all his might that he was Drowning, that he should never see his dear Mamma again, and that all his Estate would go to the Heir-at-Law, whom, as well as he could, for screeching and spluttering, he Cursed heartily in the English tongue. I wondered how he could be in such a Pother, seeing that he was so close to shore, and that moreover there were those nigh unto him who could have helped him if they had had a Mind to it. Close upon him was a Fat gentleman in a clergyman's cassock and a prodigious Fluster, who kept crying out, "Save him! Save him!" but budged not a foot to come to his assistance himself; and, but a dozen yards or so, was a Flemish Fellow, one of the Bathers, who, so far as I could make out from his shaking his head and crying out, "nicht" and "Geld," – the rest of his lingo was Greek to me, – did refuse to save the Gentleman unless he had more Money given him. For these Bathing-men were a most Mercenary Pack. In a much shorter time than it has taken me to put this on Paper I had off coat and vest, kicked off my shoes, and struck into the water. 'Twas of the shallowest, and I had but to wade towards him who struggled. When I came anigh him, he must even catch hold of me, clinging like Grim Death or a Barnacle to the bottom of a Barge, very nearly dragging me down. But I was happily strong; and so, giving him with my disengaged arm a sound Cuff under the ear, the better to Preserve his Life, I seized him by the waist with the other, and so dragged him up high, if not dry, unto the Sandy Shore. And a pretty sight he looked there, dripping and Shivering, although the sun shone Brightly, and he well nigh Blue with Fright.

What do you think the first words were that my Gentleman uttered so soon as he had got his tongue clear of Salt and Seaweed?

"You villain!" he cries to me, "you have assaulted me. Take witness, Gentlemen, he hath stricken me under the Ear. I will have him in the King's Bench for Battery. Mr. Hodge, you saw it; and you leave me this day week for allowing your Patron to be within an inch of Drowning."

I was always of a Hot Temper, and this cavalier treatment of me after my Services threw me into a Rage.

"Why, you little half-boiled Shrimp," I bawled out, "I have a mind to clout your under t'other Ear, that Brothers may not complain of Favour, and e'en carry you to where I found you."

The Gentleman in the cassock began to break out in excuses, saying that his Patron would reward me, and that he was glad that an Englishman had been by to rescue a Person of Quality from such great Peril, when that Flanders Oaf younger – the extortionate villain – would not stir a finger to help him unless he had half a guilder over and above his fee.

"Let him dry and dress himself," I said, in Dudgeon; "and if he be not civil to a Countryman, who is as good as he, I will kick him back to his Inn, and you too."

"A desperate youth!" murmured the Clergyman, as he handed his Patron a great bundle of towels; "and very meanly clad."

I walked away a few paces while the gentleman dried and dressed himself. Had I obeyed the Promptings of Pride, I should have gone on my ways and left him to his likings; but I was exceedingly Poor, and thought it Foolish to throw away the chance of receiving what his Generosity might bestow upon me. The Bathing-Man, who had been already paid his Fee, had the impudence to come up and ask for more "Geld," – for minding the gentleman's clothes, as I gathered from the speech of the clergyman, who understood Flemish. He was, however, indignantly refused, and, not relishing, perchance, the likelihood of a scuffle with three Englishmen, straightway decamped.

By and by the Gentleman was dressed, and a very smart appearance he made in a blue shag frock laced with silver, a yellow waistcoat bound with black velvet, green paduasoy breeches, red stockings, gold buckles, an ivory hilt to his sword, and a white feather in his hat. I have no mind to write out Taylor's accompts, but I do declare this to be the exact Schedule of his Equipment. Under the hat, which had a kind of Sunday Marylabonne cock to it, there bulged forth a mighty White Periwig of fleecy curls, for all the world like the coat of a Bologna Poodle Dog, and in the middle of his Wig there peeped out a little hatchet face with lantern jaws, and blue gills, and a pair of great black eyebrows, under which glistened a pair of inflamed eyes. He was not above five feet three inches, and his fingers, very long and skinny, went to and fro under his Point ruffles like a Lobster's Feelers. The Chaplain, who waited upon him as a Maid would on a lardy-dardy woman of Fashion, handed my Gentleman a very tall stick with a golden knob at the end on't, and with this, and a laced handkerchief and a long cravat, which he had likely bought at Mechlin, and a Snuff-box in the lean little Paw that held not the cane, he looked for all the world like one of my Grandmother's Footmen who had run away and turned Dancing Master.

"This, young man," said the Chaplain, making a low bow as he spoke to the comical Image before him, "is Bartholomew Pinchin, Esquire, of Hampstead. Make your reverence, sirrah!"

"Make a reverence to a Rag-doll!" I answered, with a sneer. "He hath left his twin brother beyond sea. I know him, and he is a Barbary Ape."

"The rogue is insolent," says B. Pinchin, Esq., clutching tighter at his tall cane, but turning very white the while. "I must batoon him into better manners."

"What!" I cried in a great voice, making a step towards him, for my blood was up. I would but have tweaked the little creature's Ears; but he, for a surety, thought I had a mind to Murder him. I do aver that he fell upon his knees, and with most piteous Accents and Protestations entreated me, for the sake of his Mamma, to spare his life, and he would give me all I asked.

I was quite bewildered, and turning towards the Parson, asked if his master was Mad; to which he made answer with some Heat, that he was no Master of his, but his Honoured Friend and Gracious Patron; whereupon the little Spark must go up to him, whimpering and cuddling about him, and beseeching him to save him from the Tall Rogue, meaning me.

"Body o' me, man," I exclaimed, scarcely able to keep from laughing, "I mean you no harm. I am a young Englishman, lately come from the Plantations, and seeking employment. I see you struggling yonder, and likely to give up the ghost, and I pull you out; and then you call me Rogue and charge me with striking of you. Was it cramp or cowardice that made you bawl so? Give me something to drink better manners to you, and I will leave you and this reverend gentleman alone."

The Parson bowed his head with a pleased look when I called him Reverend and a Gentleman, and, in an under-tone, told his Patron that I was a civilly behaved youth, after all. But the Poltroon with the white wig was not out of his Pother yet. He had risen to his feet with a patch of sand on each knee, and as the Chaplain wiped it off with a kerchief, he blubbered out that I wanted to rob him.

The Clergyman whispered in his ear – perhaps that I was a Dangerous looking Fellow, and might lose my temper anon to some tune: for my Whippersnapper approaches me, and, in a manner Civil enough, tells me that he is much obliged for what I had done for him. "And you will take this," says he. I will be shot if he did not give me an English groat.

"You can readily get English coin changed in the town," he observed with a smirk, as in sheer bewilderment I gazed upon this paltry doit.

I was desperately minded to Fling it at him, knock him and the Chaplain down, and leave the precious pair to pick themselves up again, but I forebore. "Well," I said, "if that's the value you put upon your life, I can't grumble at your Guerdon. I suppose that shrivelled little carcass of yours isn't worth more than fourpence. I'll e'en change it in town, and buy fourpennyworth of Dutch cheese, and you shall have the parings for nothing to send to your Mamma as a gift from foreign parts. Good morning to you, my noble Captain." And so saying I walked away in a Fume of Wrath and Contempt.

I was idling, that same afternoon, along the Main street of Ostend very much in the Dumps, and thinking of going down to the Port to seek a cook's place from some Ship Master, for I was not yet Qualified to engage as an Able-bodied Mariner, when I met the Chaplain again, this time alone, and coming out of a pastryman's shop. I would have passed him, as holding both him and his master in Disdain, but he Arrested me, and beckoned me into an Entry, there to have some Speech.

"My Patron is somewhat quick and hasty, and was uncommonly flustered by his mischance this morning," quoth the Rev. Mr. Hodge. "Nor perhaps did he use you as liberally as he should have done. Here is a golden guilder for you, honest man."

I thanked him, and as I pouched it told him that I would have taken no Money at all for a service which every man is bound to render to his Fellow-creature, but that I was sorely pressed for Money. On this, he asked my name and belongings. The name I gave him, at the which he winced somewhat; but of my history I did not care to enlighten him further beyond broadly stating that I had come from the Plantations, where I had been used to keep Accompts, and that I was an Orphan, and had no friends in England, even if I possessed the means to return thither.

"I think I can find you a place," the chaplain replied, when I had finished. "'Twill not be a very handsome one, but the work is little and light. Would it meet your purpose, now, to attend on a gentleman?"

"It depends," I replied, "on what kind of a Gentleman he is."

"A Gentleman of landed Estate," quoth the parson, quite pat. "An English gentleman, now travelling for his Diversion, but will, in good time, settle down in England, to live on his Acres in a Handsome manner, and be a justice of peace, and of the Quorum."

"Do you mean your Squire of Hampstead, yonder?" I answered, pointing my thumb over my shoulder, as though in the direction where I had met his Reverence and his Patron that morning.

"I do," responds Mr. Hodge.

"Bartholomew Pinchin, of Hampstead, Esquire, eh?" I continued.

"Exactly so."

"Then," I went on, raising my voice, and giving a furious glance at my companion, "I'll see Bartholomew Pinchin boiled, and I'll see Bartholomew Pinchin baked, and his Esquireship to boot, before I'll be his servant. He, a mean, skulking, pinchbeck hound! Tell him I'm meat for his master, and that he has no service, body or lip, of mine."