The slave ship
King_? Is she in?”
Olafson answered No. As for me, I said nothing. The questioner was
Colonel Giles Amory. There he stood, now a quite elderly man, but still
firm and fine. Two or three neighbor planters were with him, come down
upon his sloop, a new one that I had not recognized. I knew his old
one, the _Daphne_. Moreover, he had with him one who still served
as his clerk, though now with pay--Gervase Morrison, to wit--and also
the overseer Barget. All were older, but there came around me a glamor
of Amory Hall and Old Mill quarter. The Negro there behind Barget--it
was Pickaninny.
I could not tell Olafson; Colonel Amory held him in talk of ships. I
made to go away myself, but a man, a planter whom I did not know, put
himself in front of me. “Are you of the _Inez_ then?” To this day
I do not know what was their insistence about these ships. They had
some business with them, but I do not know what.
But I was held. And in a moment, glancing toward him, I saw that
Gervase Morrison recognized me. He recognized, but he would not tell;
he turned his gaze away. It had scarcely happened before I knew that
Pickaninny----He became ashy, his eyes bulged; I saw him quiver
all over, and I thought, “Now he will tell,” for I knew how often
excitement and drama force the Negro past reticence. But he did not
tell. I saw him stand, gather and control his big, excited body, and
turn his face away.
It was Barget. I felt him looking at me--it was idle now to go--I might
burst through the crowd, take to my heels, and that would be but to
shout, “After me! I have reason to run away!”
He moved a little nearer--the overseer whom I knew so well--older,
all weather-seamed and bitten, with graying hair, but the same. Years
rarely alter a man beyond recognition--and if he have a great, known
scar upon his forehead.
His eyes were upon me first--the all of me--then upon that scar. His
lips parted; he cried, “David Scott! Yon’s David Scott!”
Colonel Amory swung around from Olafson, “David Scott!”
Barget seized me. I said, “I’m not your man, Barget. Don’t you remember
that Daniel Askew bought me?”
“He’s dead!” he answered. “And a runaway’s to be apprehended, no matter
whose he is, nor how long gone!”
And well enough David Scott knew that! There was commotion--another man
was helping Barget, though I made no resistance. Olafson would have
fought but I did not wish that and cried to him that naught could be
done and not to try it. It was Colonel Amory who interrogated me.
“Well, Scott! And where have _you_ been?”
I smiled. “A good many places, Colonel! Out of these parts and into
them again. Olafson here and I were upon the _Bright Nancy_ that
sank a while ago, this side Hatteras. We were seeking to get back to
Philadelphia. Except for being seamen together, he has naught to do
with me--a free, Danish sailor.”
He still stared. “It’s been years!--How old are you?”
“Something over thirty-nine.”
“Well, by Gad! you know the law. You were sold for a servant when you
might have been hanged. You ran away--and here you are again! In the
King’s name I apprehend you and commit you to the gaol here. Daniel
Askew is dead, but we’ll notify his son Geoffrey.” He continued to
stare. “Well, you’re big, and somehow you’ve grown in bearing. You seem
calm enough. Maybe you’ve learned wisdom. We all have to learn it one
day!”
I answered him, “Yes, we all have to--one and all. I don’t propose to
give you any trouble, Colonel Amory. I’d like to speak if I may to
Gervase Morrison and Pickaninny. And if you’ll be so good as to give me
two or three minutes with my friend here I shall thank you.”
He gave them, being in much a kindly man and kinder now that he was old
than when he was young. Olafson and I spoke together, Barget watching.
Olafson’s face worked. “What can be done? Something must be done!”
“What should it be?” I asked. “Nothing now that comes to me is useless,
Olafson. Do I look unhappy?”
“No!”
“It was at Daga that I was unhappy--and at My Fancy--and on the
_Janet_. And of old here in Virginia also. But I shall not be so
again.--I’ll give you a letter for Philip Smith.”
We spoke together a little longer, and then I must go to gaol with
Barget and a helper or two and a constable who had appeared. Olafson
kept with us. Barget, walking beside me, was willing to answer
questions. Williams? Williams had retired--he, Barget, was full
overseer. Old Mill quarter? Well, a different crowd was there now.
As for him he lived in Williams’ house. Did I remember Dick Merry?
Well, Merry’s seven years was long out, and then he had worked for the
Colonel for wages, and now for three years had been under overseer.
“You might have done something like that yourself! The world moves and
there’s been a lot of changes. The Colonel’s daughters are all married
and there are grandchildren now. And my daughter Nelly is dead--she was
a rare and good one!”
So we came to Norfolk gaol, Olafson moving near me, walking as in a
dream, his blue northern eyes upon ships and seas. As for me, I cannot
say that I did not feel captivity. I did. But it was not heavy upon my
soul as once it had been....
It was not heavy when, in two or three days, the son of Daniel Askew
came and claimed me. I remembered him as a frightened boy, shuddering
always away from his father. Now he was not demon like the other, but a
timid, blustering man.
It was not heavy when Barget came and told me that Colonel Amory had
bought me from Geoffrey Askew, bought me back to Amory Hall and the
woodcutting and the tobacco. “Aye, and I hope you’ll determine to bide
with us now!”
I laughed. “Aye, for a while anyhow, Mr. Barget, seeing there’s some
reason, I think, why I should and must. But you know none of us is
going to bide forever in our common slavery. Not you, not me, not
Pickaninny, not the Colonel.”
“You must not talk that way,” he said. “It makes against contentment.”
“There is high contentment and there is low contentment,” I said, and
left it at that.
Olafson came to tell me good-by. He and I were well enough used to
danger and what is called disaster--well enough used to partings. But
the tears stood in our eyes when we said good-by, tasting the sea,
the wind and the ships. I had the means to write a long letter to
Philip Smith and I had done so. I said that I had a conviction that I
would be held some years in Virginia, how many I did not know, though
I guessed at seven. That I did not intend to run away again. That I
felt in my soul that there was some reason on the part of Life that is
Higher for things being as they were. It might be that my knowledge
was to encrease, here, withdrawn again from liberty of the body. Outer
knowledge, inner knowledge. I felt that a time would surely come when
I should be used in other ways. Then perchance I might see him again,
then perchance I might go to England. It was all in the future’s
keeping. But now I was not astounded, cast down, or wretched. I begged
him to believe that, and that I should remember him, having in effect
remembered him ever since I came first upon the _Janet_.
I gave the letter to Olafson. We said good-by; he went, he sailed away
from Virginia upon the _Indian King_.
Another day and another in Norfolk gaol--and Colonel Amory had ended
his business in this borough. His sloop, the _Amaranth_, waited. I
trod again the gray boards of the wharf, and went down into the little
ship. Barget said, “I’m responsible, so I’ll just tie a rope around you
and to the mast,” and did so. In an hour the Colonel came aboard and
the sails were made.
Toward noon Gervase Morrison found or made an opportunity to speak to
me. “Well, David Scott----”
“Well, Gervase Morrison----”
“Are you witheringly unhappy?”
“No, not in the least!”
“Well, that’s a gain!” he said. “You used to be unhappy. I need not lie
awake of nights for you then?”
I smiled. “No, you need not. And how are you and how have you fared?”
“Oh, on the dead level road and so-so! I am my own man, as it is
counted, but I do not know that it counts very far.”
“Not so far but that there is a further.”
He answered with a dry disconsolateness. “There always is--only how to
set foot upon that road! Well, I’m rather glad to see you, though sorry
you come back so. And what has been your life?”
“In part a blind and ill one,” I said. “Then my own Self struck me,
Morrison, and I see!”
He stared, then he said, “Well, sight is a blessed thing!” and was
called away.
We sailed up the River James. I watched the shore and thought of the
_King William_, of Scotland and the Indies and Africa, of the
_Janet_, of Bartram and Colley and McNaughton and others. The
air breathed fine, the banks were golden and crimson. I thought of
the forest and the woodcutter’s task--one of the oldest in the world.
The ax and the hoe--old, old.... I thought of Old Mill quarter and
the servants and slaves there. I thought of the fields. I heard Old
Hannibal singing,
“When have I done with the trouble of the world?
Ooh! when have I done?”
A time would come--a time would come--when Earth should put on Heaven.
I thought, I felt, I lived. I knew my work. I was upheld.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.