“We’ve won! We’ve won!” he shouted. “The Cabinet’s intact, the Prime Minister is back, the Repeal stands! We’ve won!”
James Buffum rolled out of bed and reached for the paper. Frederick, partly dressed, emerged from behind a curtained cubicle and clapped the little man on the shoulder. John Bright had watched his wife die of starvation while he sat at his spindles. But he could not fill enough spools. He could not spin fast enough. She had died. So John Bright had left his loom and joined Richard Cobden. Now there would be more food in England. He stood clinging to the dark man’s hand—this new friend who knew so much about suffering.
“I’m going home,” he said in his rich rolling Lancashire brogue. “I’m going down to tell the folks myself. Come with me. We’ll be glad together!”
So it happened that Frederick spent the Christmas in a spinner’s shack in Lancaster. On Christmas Eve he wrote Anna.
The baby’s crying in the next room and here in the corner sleeps a little lad just about Freddie’s age. He’s curled in a tight knot and his hair is falling over his face. It’s not as round as I remember Freddie’s, nor are his legs as plump. This house isn’t as big as our little place in New Bedford and there are four children! But tonight they’re all happy. The weavers carried on as if John and I had given them the world! My hand shakes as I think of it. We brought a goose and a few toys for the children. You should have seen their eyes! Tomorrow we will feast! How I wish you could share this with me. They’re letting me borrow their little ones. But my heart cannot but be anxious for my own. Are you well and are the children well? I enclose some money. Enough, I hope, for your most urgent needs. But my real Christmas present to you is news that will make you very happy. Friends here are raising money to purchase my freedom—seven hundred and fifty dollars! The Misses Richardson, sweet sisters in Newcastle, have written to Mr. Walter Forward of Philadelphia, who will seek out Captain Auld and ask what he will accept for my person. He will tell my former master that I am now in England and that there is no possibility of my being taken. There can be little doubt that under the circumstances the Captain will name his price—and be very glad to get it! So, dear Anna, soon this separation will be at an end. I will return to you and to my dear children, in fact and before the law, a free man.
The writer sat for a few moments regarding that last line. Anna’s eyes would shine when she read it. For an instant her face was there. Then the child stirred in his sleep. Frederick rose and straightened the little limbs on the cot. His hands were very tender.
“Frederick! I believe you’ve grown,” Garrison beamed. He had just arrived in London from America.
John Bright nodded. “He is a big man,” he said.
Garrison whisked Frederick away to Sir John Bowring’s castle where they had been asked for over New Year’s.