The sun was dipping towards the Alleghanies by now, so that, at the back of the house, it was getting cool and pleasant, and Gregory said that if the ladies so chose we might go down and see the young gentleman, who was, doubtless, by this time duly placed among the other convicts, bought-servants and redemptioners. Wherefore, putting on our sun-hoods, Mary and I went forth with them--who by now had finished not only their dinner but their beloved pipes and rum-sangaree--and down to where those poor creatures abode.
We had some eighty such, including negroes, at this moment on our plantation, an a motley collection they were, as I have already told. Those who came under the name of "redemptioners" were the best workers as well as the most trustworthy, because, having an object before them, namely, to establish themselves in the colonies when the service into which they had sold themselves for four years to pay their passage out, was over, they worked hard and lived orderly and respectably, and were generally promoted to be overseers above the others. Two or three of them were married, their wives having either come with them or been selected from among the female redemptioners, and all of them knew either a good trade or were skilful mechanics, so that they were doubly useful. Then there were the "bought" servants, as distinguished from the redemptioners, who consisted generally of the wretched creatures who had been made drunk at home and smuggled on board when in that state, or who, being beggars in the streets of Bristol, London, Leith, or Dublin, were but too glad to exchange their cold and hunger for the prospect of warmth and food in the colonies--the description of which latter places lost nothing in the telling by those who shipped them at, you may be sure, a profit. These were called the "kids," because of having been kidnapped, and also because most of them were very young. Next, there were the convicts, the worst of all as a rule to deal with, since many of them were hardened criminals at home who had been spared hanging and cast for transportation instead, and had become no better men or women under the colonial rule. Even in my short life we had had some dreadful beings amongst these servants, one having been a highwayman at home, another a coiner and clipper, a third a footpad and a cutthroat, a fourth a robber of drunken men, and so on, while there were women whose mode of life in England I may not name nor think of. All were not, however, equally bad, nor had all been such sinners in England. One had done no more than steal a loaf when starving, another had hoaxed a greenhorn with pinchbeck watches; one, when drunk, had shouted for James Sheppard, a poor lunatic, who had thought to assassinate the late King, another had been mixed up with Councillor Layer's silly attempt to bring in the Pretender. Yet all had stood their trials and had been sentenced to death, but had afterwards had that sentence commuted. And in every plantation in all the colonies much the same thing prevailed. The treatment of these bond servants varied not so much according to the laws of the different countries or states, as according to the tempers and feelings of their different owners for the time being. If a man was merciful he treated them well and fed them well; if he was cruel he beat them and starved them, whipped both white men and women, when they were naked, with hickory rods steeped in brine, and, when they were sick, let them die because, since they were his only for four years, their lives were not worth preserving. And, although he might not kill them by law, as he might a negro or a dog, if he did kill them it was unknown for notice to be taken of it. And sometimes, too, dissipated planters would gamble for their white men and women as they would for bales of tobacco or bags of Virginia shillings, so that those who had a hard master one day exchanged him for a good one on the next, or the case might be exactly reversed. My father, though firm, could not be considered aught else but a good master to both his black and white servants. Indian meal was allowed them in large quantities, while pork--though true it is that our swine were so numerous that they were accounted almost valueless--was served out to them regularly. Moreover, those who did well were given small rewards, even if only a Rosa Americana farthing now and again, while for floggings, none received them but those who stole, or ran away and were recaptured, or misbehaved themselves grossly. But each, on being purchased on to our estate, had read to him a dreadful list of punishments which he would surely receive if he did aught to merit them. It was thought well by my father that the fear of such punishments should be kept ever before their eyes, even if those punishments were but rarely dealt out.
We heard much laughing and many derisive shouts as we drew near the white servants' quarters, nor had we long to wait or far to go before we discovered the cause of it, which was our new purchase telling the others of his miseries and dreadful lot, as he termed it. Through the breaks in the trees we perceived him seated on a pork barrel--a miserable-looking figure, unkempt and dirty. His long straight hair, like a New England Puritan's or a Quaker's, was hanging down his shoulders; he had no shoes upon his feet, and thus he was holding forth to his new acquaintances.
"So consider," we heard him say, as we drew near, "consider what I, a gentleman, the Honourable Roderick St. Amande, have suffered. Near five months at sea, nearly drowned and shipwrecked, with our ship driven out of her course, then chased by pirates who knew the cargo there was on board; beaten, ill-used, cuffed and ill-treated by all--and all of it a mistake."
"Ay," exclaimed the man who had been, it was said, a housebreaker, and was a rough, coarse fellow, "and so was my affair all a mistake. 'Twas friend Jonathan--Jonathan Wild who hath now himself been hanged, as I have since heard--who pinched me falsely, but the Government, recognising my merits more than my lord on the bench, who was asleep when he tried me, sent me out here where I fell into the hands of old Nick."
Thus the wretch presumed to speak of my father, whose Christian name was Nicholas, and his remarks were received with laughter; upon which he went on, "Yet, take heart of grace, my young Irish cock-sparrow. Thou art in good hands. Nick is a good man and will not over-work thee; and he will feed thee, which is more than thy beggarly country could well do. Moreover, when thou hast done thy four years' service, thou canst palm off thy pretended lordship on some young colonial girl who will doubtless be glad enough to wed thee; if thou makest thy story plausible. Nay, there is one at hand; Nick hath a daughter fair as a lily, with lips like roses----"
"Silence, villain," said my father in a voice of thunder, as he strode forth from under the trees, his eyes flashing fiercely. "Thou hound!" he went on, addressing the man. "Is it thus you dare to speak of me and mine! Overseer," calling to one who was seated in his hut, and who came forth at once, "see this man has nought but Indian meal served out to him during the remainder of his service. How much longer is that service?"
"About four months, your honour," the overseer replied.
"So be it. Nothing but meal for him, and where there is any one labour harder than another, set him to it. And, hark ye," he said, turning to the convict. "If in those four months I find my daughter's name has been on your foul lips again, you shall be flogged till you are dead--even though I have to answer for it to the Lords of Trades and Plantations myself. Go."
The fellow slunk away cowed and followed by the overseer who drove him to the shed he inhabited with the other convicts, and, although it was their hour of relaxation previous to their last work in the evening, he ordered him to remain there under pain of flogging. Then my father, turning to his new purchase, bade him get off the barrel and come forth under the shade of the trees to where we were.