“I don’t see,” said Ben, “in a country where the law allowed them to seize people in the street, and carry them off, why they could not go into the house and take them.”
“Perhaps they could; but that was what folks said, that an ‘Englishman’s house was his castle,’ and they couldn’t come into the house to take them, and they never did. We didn’t think they would press my father, because he was neither a rope-maker nor carpenter; but they were short of men, and all was fish that came to their net. Nevertheless, we kept such strict watch that my father would not have been taken; but he was sold to them by a blood-seller.”
“What is a blood-seller?” said Sally.
“A man that will go to the captain of the press-gang, and tell him where he can find a man, and how he can get hold of him; and they get paid for it.”
“O, that is the meanest, wickedest thing I ever did hear tell of.”
“It is often done in England, though; but this man didn’t do it for money.”
“What did he do it for?”
“He and my father courted mother when they were both young men; but she liked my father best, and married him. He always hated my father after that; told lies about him, killed his geese, and tried to injure him in his business. But when he found the press-gang were about, he thought if he could sell him to them, and get him out of the way, mother would marry him.”
“He must have been a fool, as well as a villain, to think a woman would marry a man that did that.”
“But he did not think that would ever be known; but it came out. He knew that my father had engaged to make cases for the army to carry instruments in.”