For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

'Nay,' I said, 'he must not be left. I am a physician, and I must stay beside him.'

'If he were your son I would not suffer you to stay with him.'

'Man!' I cried. 'Hast thou no pity?'

'Pity!' The fellow grinned. 'Pity! quotha. Pity! Is this a place for pity? Why, if I showed any pity I should be working beside you in the fields. It is because I have no pity that I am overseer. Look here'—he showed me his left hand, which had been branded with a red-hot iron. 'This was done in Newgate seven years ago and more. Three years more I have to serve. That done, I may begin to show some pity. Not before. Pity is scarce among the drivers of Barbadoes. As well ask the beadle for pity when he flogs a 'prentice.'

'Let me go to the master, then.'

'Best not; best not. Let this man die and keep yourself alive. The morning is the worst time for him, because last night's drink is still in his head. Likely as not you will but make the sick man's case and your own worse. Leave him in the sick-house, and go back to him in the evening.'

The man spoke with some compassion in his eyes. Just then, however, a negro boy came running from the house and spoke to the overseer.

'Why,' he said, 'nothing could be more pat. You can speak to the master, if you please. He is in pain, and Madam sends for Dr. Humphrey Challis. Go, Doctor. If you cure him, you will be a lucky man. If you cannot cure him, the Lord have mercy upon you! Whereas, if you suffer him to die,' he added with a grin and a whisper, 'every man on the estate will fall down and worship you. Let him die! Let him die!'

I followed the boy, who took me to that part of the house which fronts the west and north. It was a mean house of wood, low and small, considering how wealthy a man was the master of it; on three sides, however, there was built out a kind of loggia, as the Italians call it, of wood instead of marble, forming a cloister or open chamber, outside the house. They call it a verandah, and part of it they hang with mats made of grass, so as to keep it shaded in the afternoon and evening, when the sun is in the west. The boy brought me to this place, pointed to a chair where the master sat, and then ran away as quickly as he could.