The slave ship
windows I saw decent, quiet clerks; responsible looking persons went
in and out of its broad door. One of these told me that it was an old
house and furnished goods to villages and yet smaller settlements afar
in the wilderness.
At last, when I had been by this house half a dozen times, when I had
but three days and nights before the _Bright Nancy_ should sail, I
came on a golden, late afternoon even with the door at the moment when
there issued a clerk, a man something younger than myself, slender of
frame, with a pale, lined face. He asked, “Do you want anything, sir?”
“No,” I said; then, “You have a pleasant place here in which to work.”
“Aye,” he answered. “These are forest trees still, and straight as
masts.”
I wondered. “Perhaps that is why I come and come this way.” Aloud I
said, “I am a seaman. This fine city comes freshly upon me.”
“Aye, aye,” he said. “What is your ship?”
“The _Bright Nancy_.”
We were moving together under the trees. The house was a corner one,
the street we now moved upon quite quiet, with a great summer sky
above. “The _Bright Nancy_? That’s sugar from Havana.”
“I have made but one voyage with her. She sails the end of the week.”
He said, “I was upon a ship once--as clerk. It’s been long ago, but the
sea comes round me at times.”
“Why did you give it up?”
“That,” he said, “is a long story. It was the slave ship _Janet_.”
“Then I know your name,” I answered. “It is Philip Smith, and I took
your place and slept in your cabin.”
David Scott went home with Philip Smith. He lived with a sister much
his elder--just the two of them--in a small house by one of the creeks
that fed the river, a mile from the house where he was clerk. By the
time we had reached it he knew the fortunes of the _Janet_, and
of Bartram, McNaughton, Colley and many another, and I knew why he had
left the ship. It was as I thought--not the _Janet_ in herself but
the trade.
It came up in my mind again. I was talking to McNaughton.
“Why did he leave?”
“Ah, he was a brittle child! He developed scruples.”
“You call that being brittle?”
“If you have your wark and your living, Mr. Scott, I do! Aweel, he’s
doubtless howked himself to death in an almshouse. He wasna fit for
much when he left us.”
I looked at him walking beside me. He had not howked himself to death
in an almshouse, but bodily frailty did mark him. He spoke as if he
answered my thought, “I’ve never been strong enough to do much.”
His house was neat as a pin, with flowers and a great walnut tree in
the dooryard; his sister a quiet, strong person, like him in many ways.
We had a frugal, well-cooked supper in a room with a sanded floor, and
afterwards sat together in a great sunset glow upon the bench built
around the walnut tree. When I said at last that I must go back to The
Good Merchant Seaman, they would have me spend the night. I slept in a
small room under the steeply sloping roof, all clean and fragrant of
lavender. In the morning, breakfast eaten, I walked with Philip Smith
into the heart of town, parting with him at the red brick house behind
the forest trees, straight as masts.
That day I found Olafson and told him where I should be until Friday
when we must go aboard the _Bright Nancy_, then paid my score at
The Good Merchant Seaman and took my small chest of belongings to the
small house under the walnut tree. In the afternoon, when the sun’s
rays were all slanting, I again met Philip Smith and we walked out
together.
Upon the _Janet_ he had never been completely out of my mind. It
seemed that although he made no outward move to learn her fortunes,
within himself he had always followed her. He knew Bartram, McNaughton,
Colley, Llewellyn, Michaelson, Geordie, Tom and Don and most of the
others whom I had found at the mouth of the River James, twelve years
ago. We had common ground.
But there was something more than this. In a way he was like that
Quaker who had come to My Fancy. Like and not like. He was not so
conscious and advanced a man; much younger, not so given hand and foot
to what he saw, not so centered there that he must act, act definitely
from that place. He had in him the making of a man even with that
man. But again in another way, for the power of variation here is
great. He was not a Quaker. After his day’s work, which he performed
conscientiously and well, he read and dreamed and worked his garden and
sat in silent content with his elderly sister. From his boyhood his
health had been slight. He was a listener and observer, a taker apart
in the mind and a putter together again, still in the mind. But he had
light, he said, that at times seemed to go beyond the mind, into a
bigger life.
We talked, walking forth from the heart of town and into it again, or
seated on the bench under the walnut tree, or after candle light in
the room with the sanded floor, Mrs. Dorothy sitting with us, her
strong hands never idle.
We talked of slavery. It was widespread, he said; we were slaves within
and without, to one another and to our own old Adam. When you began to
free yourself you began within. Think it out and use the imagination
and cry for a stronger, cleaner, kinder heart!
“Little by little there will be result in the outer world.”
“Aye, little by little.”
We talked of Negro slavery. “They are slaves to themselves, you know,
too. Just like us.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know that. I know it abundantly. They’ll break that
slavery, little by little. Just as we do. In all that, they and we are
one.”
“I like,” he said, “to look at the future of this country and the
world--just as far as I can, which of course isn’t very far. There are
certain things that are plain to me. They--or their descendants--won’t
be in slavery to us--or our descendants--forever. I see the slave
trade with Africa stopping first, then long afterwards, it may be,
the host that will be here by then freed and become as hired laborers
anywhere.--Long after that perhaps we may be all Christians in a
Christian world.”
“As Christ sees it.”
“Yes. I am very certain that he does not see it as the world sees it
now.”
Mrs. Dorothy folded her work. “May his Kingdom come!”
I had but these few days with them, and sweet was the taste of that
small, true home! Friday dawned; I said good-by and went to The Good
Merchant Seaman, where I found Olafson, and together we rowed to the
_Bright Nancy_. But it was settled. Only this voyage to Havana
and back, and then I should part with the sea. I should come to Philip
Smith and his sister and stay with them while I looked about. I should
find work, and when it was found I might still make my home with them.
There was the room under the roof; there were plate and knife and fork
at the table in the cool, sanded room where the walnut leaves made
patterns on the floor and wall. Here, too, ran a shelf of books. I said
good-by, expecting to see them again in three months’ time.
I was going alone toward The Good Merchant Seaman. It was early
morning--the water gleamed and glistened brightly before me--there was
a tree and a bench. I sat down. I leaned forward and clasped my hands.
Light came around me and a determination to do what I could.
When a man sees MAN then he becomes that ONE’S servant.
Moments passed.--The fledgling bird cannot long hold aloft.--I came
down to thought that uses words.
So I thought, “I will go to England and find that Quaker and set myself
to work with him and his circle.” I knew that it was Great Britain who
fostered the Slave Trade. I would go to England. There were men there,
Friends and others, whom I would find.
When would I go?
I stood pledged for this voyage to the _Bright Nancy_. But when I
came again to Philadelphia, I should stay but the shortest while in the
house under the walnut tree. Some ship would be going to England, and I
would go in her forecastle.
So my brain planned, not truly, I suppose, knowing the Great Mind. The
light had lessened, and though with the sense of it set like a star
before him a man assuredly goes forward in the general direction, just
the path that is meant may not be seen or foreseen.
CHAPTER XXX
It was late September and a little north of Hatteras--the time of the
year and the place for storm and rough seas. The _Bright Nancy_
met it, met tempest. The sea ran to meet the clouds, the clouds
descended to meet the sea. A shrieking wind drove us, bare-masted. When
forty-eight hours had passed and the wind lulled and the sun shone,
it was seen that we were in bitter case. The foremast was gone, the
mainmast hurt, and we had sprung a leak that we could not stop and
though we pumped day and night the water deepened in our hold. We flung
into the ocean her lading, casks and casks of sugar. We mended our
masts and piled on sail, the wind being now all in our favor.
So we hastened as best we might, but before we reached Chesapeake her
end was come.
She sank, the _Bright Nancy_!
Captain and crew, we were but a dozen, having lost two in the tempest.
We took to our boats--got off clear--watched her go down--and wild and
mournful it is to see a ship die!
Land loomed faint against the western sky. We rowed toward it, the sea
being yet heavy. After an hour of this and no great progress made, a
sail appeared to larboard, increased, became a trading brig with men
noting our signal. She lay to--the _Miranda_ of Baltimore--and we
rowed to her side. After some parley and showing that we were almost
unarmed, she agreed to take us aboard, her present destination being
Norfolk.
The sea calmed itself. Captain Cobb was a sturdy man who could bear
up against the sinking of a ship. He talked with Captain Bart of the
_Miranda_; our seamen foregathered with hers. Olafson and I
watched the sea and the misty, misty shore.
I said to him, “I have seen Norfolk before. I have been up the James
River.”
“This New World has so great rivers! What was your ship?”
But I did not tell him that at the moment nor why I was upon it. I
said, “Olafson, do you believe that there is something deep in us that
knows where it is walking?”
“Perhaps----”
“There are two men in each of us. One knows, but can very rarely tell
the other. The other is a child.”
The sea grew calm and blue. The _Miranda_, passing between the capes,
stood into Chesapeake. Captain Cobb came and talked to the _Bright
Nancy’s_ seamen. The _Miranda_ would make the shortest tarrying at
Norfolk. She was what we saw, small and overmanned. Captain Bart would
take him, Captain Cobb, and the two mates as passengers to Baltimore,
and five seamen who would work for their passage. From Baltimore to
Philadelphia was no great way; by water or by land we’d get to our home
port. We seamen might decide among ourselves, by lot or any other way,
upon those five. What was now concerning him was the remainder. We
must look out for a ship that would bring us to Philadelphia. He had
saved money and papers from the _Bright Nancy_. He would pay us, the
five remaining, and take our word that, barring accident, we would get
back to Philadelphia and report. Her owners would want all accounted
for. He--Cobb--would get another ship presently, and if we wanted her
forecastle we must be at hand. So Captain Cobb, a bluff, short man.
We listened, agreed, and when he was gone drew lots to determine who
should cling to the _Miranda_ and who should be left at Norfolk to
seek another ship. Olafson and I both drew Norfolk.
It was falling toward dusk when this was settled. That night I dreamed
of Scotland and of Mysie Johnston.
Morning broke red with a kind of high, intense light striking the shore
that was now close to us.--I was again upon the _Janet_, again
upon the brig _King William_. Twelve years--what are twelve years?