“Good-night.”
[CHAPTER VII
THE CONFLICT]
But where is Margaret all this time? She is on the shore, casting an anxious eye upon the waters. The moon is shining with such perfect brightness, that she can see across the river, though it be nearly two miles from the strand at Downham Reach to Freston Tower. She looks towards the dark shades of Woolverstone, and with a lover’s anxious eye, fancies she can descry a sail. A sail there was; but it came very slowly on, though a breeze reached the spot where poor Margaret was standing.
In that old vessel, seated at the helm, was as extraordinary a character as ever sailed upon the waves of the Orwell; and as he will be no insignificant actor in some succeeding scenes of this work, he shall be here introduced to the notice of the reader. He is thus described in the Suffolk Garland.
“The ancient fisherman whose character is here portrayed is not a mere creature of the imagination, but an eccentric being, once resident in the parish of St. Clement, Ipswich, by name Thomas Colson, but better known by the appellation of Robinson Crusoe. He was originally a wool-comber, and afterwards a weaver; but a want of constant employment in either of these occupations induced him to enter into the East Suffolk Militia. Whilst quartered at Leicester, he learned, with his usual ingenuity, the art of stocking-weaving, which trade he afterwards followed in this county. But this employment, in its turn, he soon relinquished, and became a fisherman on the river Orwell. His little vessel (if vessel it might be called, for every part of it was his own handiwork) presented a curious specimen of naval patchwork, for his extreme poverty did not afford him the means of procuring proper materials. In this leaky and crazy vessel, it was his constant custom, by day and by night, in calms and in storms, to toil on the river for fish. His figure was tall and thin; his countenance meagre, yet striking; and his eye sharp and piercing. Subject to violent chronic complaints, with a mind somewhat distempered, and faculties impaired, he was a firm believer in the evil agency of wizards and witchcraft.... His mind was so haunted with the dreams of charms and enchantments, as to fancy that he was continually under the influence of these mischievous tormentors. His arms and legs, nay, almost his whole body, was encircled with bones of horses, rings, amulets, and characts, verses, words, &c., &c., as spells and charms to protect him against their evil machinations. On different parts of his boat was to be seen ‘the horseshoe nailed,’ that most effective antidote against the power of witches. When conversing with him, he would describe to you that he saw them hovering about his person, and endeavouring by all their arts to punish and torment him. Though a wretched martyr to the fancies of a disordered imagination, his manners were mild and harmless, and his character honest and irreproachable. But, however powerful and effective his charms might be to protect him from the agency of evil spirits, they did not prove sufficiently operative against the dangers of storm and tempest. For, being unfortunately driven on the ooze by a violent storm on the 3rd of October, 1811, he was seen, and earnestly importuned to quit his crazy vessel; but relying on the efficacy of his charms, he obstinately refused; and the ebb of the tide drawing his bark off into deep water, his charms and his spells failed him, and poor Robinson sank to rise no more.”
The writer of these pages knew Colson well. He has often, when a boy, been in his boat with him; and always found him kind and gentle.
The old man who sat at the helm of his crazy vessel, now toiling up the Orwell, was a perfect fisherman, patient, quiet, steady, active, and thoughtful. He had enough to employ his mind as well as his body, and too deeply was that mind engaged. The whole legion of evil spirits seemed to be his familiar companions, or rather his incessant enemies. He knew all their names, and their propensities; how they visited and afflicted men; and his great study was, how to prevent their malice taking effect upon himself or any one else. He would converse with them, and parley with them; he would seem to suffer when any of them took him by surprise and found him off his guard. The loss of any one of his numerous charms was sure to occasion the visit of that very demon from whose attacks it was supposed to defend him. He has often been tried by intelligent persons, anxious to discover if he really invented a new tale for each spirit; notes were kept of the name and the peculiar temper he attributed to each; and, months afterwards, he was questioned again and again upon the same points, but he never faltered—never attributed a wrong direction to any one—but was as accurate and certain as on the first day he spoke of them.
The whole purport of these attacks was to persuade Robin to do some wicked deed, at which his mind revolted; and when they could not prevail against him, they used to seem, to his suffering mind, to torment him, sometimes to pinch him, sometimes to pelt him, at others, to burn or scald him, pull his hair off his head, to pull his ears, his nose, or his arms; and, under all these seeming attacks, the old man’s countenance would exhibit the species of suffering resembling the agonies of one really under such torture. No one could persuade him that it was imaginative; he would shake his head and say, “I see them plainly—take care they do not visit you!”