I had not been at work upon the seine a week before I discovered, by listening to the conversation of my master and the other members of the family, that they prided themselves not a little upon the antiquity of their house, and the long practice of a generous hospitality to strangers, and to all respectable people who chose to visit their homestead. All circumstances seemed to conspire to render this house one of the chief seats of the fashion, the beauty, the wit, and the gallantry of South Carolina. Scarcely an evening came but it brought a carriage, and ladies and gentlemen and their servants; and every day brought dashing young planters, mounted on horseback, to dine with the family; but Sunday was the day of the week on which the house received the greatest accession of company. My master and family were members of the Episcopal Church, and attended service every Sunday, when the weather was fine, at a church eight miles distant. Each of my young masters and mistresses had a saddle-horse, and in pleasant weather they frequently all went to church on horseback, leaving my old master and mistress to occupy the family carriage alone. I have seen fifteen or twenty young people come to my master's for dinner on Sunday from church; and very often the parson, a young man of handsome appearance, was among them. I had observed these things long before, but now I had come to live at the house, and became more familiar with them. Three Sundays intervened while I was at work upon the seine, and on each of these Sundays more than twenty persons, besides the family, dined at my master's. During these three weeks, my young masters were absent far the greater part of the time; but I observed that they generally came home on Sunday for dinner. My young mistresses were not from home much, and I believe they never left the plantation unless either their father or some one of their brothers was with them. Dinner parties were frequent in my master's house; and on these occasions of festivity, a black man, who belonged to a neighboring estate, and who played the violin, was sent for. I observed that whenever this man was sent for, he came, and sometimes even came before night, which appeared a little singular to me, as I knew the difficulty that colored people had to encounter in leaving the estate to which they were attached.
[CHAPTER XI.]
Early in March, my seine being now completed, my master told me I must take with me three other black men, and go to the river to clear out a fishery. This task was a disagreeable job, for it was nothing less than dragging out of the river all the old trees and brush that had sunk to the bottom, within the limits of our intended fishing ground.
My master's eldest son had been down the river, and had purchased two boats, to be used at the fishery; but when I saw them, I declared them to be totally unfit for that purpose. They were old batteaux, and so leaky that they would not have supported the weight of a seine and the men necessary to lay it out. I advised the building of two good canoes from some of the large yellow pines in the woods. My advice was accepted, and together with five others hands, I went to work at the canoes, which we completed in less than a week.
So far things went pretty well, and I flattered myself that I should become the head man at this new fishery, and have the command of the other hands. I also expected that I should be able to gain some advantage to myself, by disposing of a part of the small fish that might be taken at the fishery. I reckoned without my host.
My master had only purchased this place a short time before he bought me. Before that time he did not own any place on the river, fit for the establishment of a fishery. His lands adjoined the river for more than a mile in extent, along its margin; but an impassable morass separated the channel of the river, from the firm ground, all along his lines. He had cleared the highest parts of this morass, or swamp, and had here made his rice fields; but he was as entirely cut off from the river, as if an ocean had separated it from him.
On the day that we launched the canoes into the river, and while we were engaged in removing some snags and old trees that had stuck in the mud, near the shore, an ill-looking stranger came to us, and told us that our master had sent him to take charge of the fishery, and superintend all the work that was to be done at it. This man, by his contract with my master, was to receive a part of all the fish caught, in lieu of wages; and was invested with the same authority over us that was exercised by the overseer in the cotton field.