'No, but you are treated as if you were. It is a new thing having gentlemen among the servants, and the planters are not yet accustomed to them. They are a masterful and a wilful folk, the planters of Barbadoes; from childhood upwards they have their own way, and brook not opposition. You have seen into what a madness of wrath you threw the master by your opposition. Believe me, Sir, the place is not wholesome for you and for your friends. The master looks to get a profit, not from your labour, but by your ransom. Sir'—she looked me very earnestly in the face—'if you have friends at home—if you have any friends at all—entreat them—command them—immediately to send money for your ransom. It will not cost them much. If you do not get the money you will most assuredly die, with the life that you will have to live. All the white servants die except the very strongest and lustiest. Whether they work in the fields, or in the garden, or in the Ingenio, or in the stables, they die. They cannot endure the hot sun and the hard fare. They presently catch fever, or a calenture, or a cramp, and so they die. This young gentlewoman who is now with your cousin will presently fall into melancholy and die. There is no help for her, or for you—believe me, Sir—there is no hope but to get your freedom.' She broke off here, and never at any other time spoke to me again upon this subject.
In three weeks' time, indeed, we were to regain our freedom, but not in the way Madam imagined.
Before I go on to tell of the wonderful surprise which awaited me, I must say that there was, after this day, no more any question about the field-work for me. In this island, then, there was a great scarcity of physicians; nay, there were none properly qualified to call themselves physicians, though a few quacks; the sick servants on the estates were attended by the negresses, some of whom have, I confess, a wonderful knowledge of herbs—in which respect they may be likened to our countrywomen, who, for fevers, agues, toothache, and the like, are as good as any physicians in the world. It was, therefore, speedily rumoured abroad that there was a physician upon my master's estate, whereupon there was immediately a great demand for his services; and henceforth I went daily, with the master's consent, to visit the sick people on the neighbouring estates—nay, I was even called upon by his Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor himself, Mr. Steed, for a complaint from which he suffered. And I not only gave advice and medicines, but I also received a fee just as if I had been practising in London. But the fees went to my master, who took them all, and offered me no better diet than before. That, however, mattered little, because wherever I went I asked for, and always received, food of a more generous kind, and a glass or two of wine, so that I fared well and kept my health during the short time that we remained upon the island. I had also to thank Madam for many a glass of Madeira, dish of cocoa, plate of fruit, and other things, not only for my patient Robin, but also for myself, and for another, of whom I have now to speak.
When, therefore, the master was at length free from pain and in a comfortable sleep, I left him, with Madam's permission, and sought the sick-house in a most melancholy mood, because I believed that Robin would surely die, whatever I should do. And I confess that, having had but little experience of sunstroke and the kind of fever which followeth upon it, and having no books to consult and no medicine at hand, I knew not what I could do for him. And the boasted skill of the physician, one must confess, availeth little against a disease which hath once laid hold upon a man. 'Tis better for him so to order the lives of his patients while they are well as to prevent disease, just as those who dwell beside an unruly river (as I have seen upon the great river Rhone) build up a high levée, or bank, over which it cannot pass.
In the sick-house the floor was of earth, without boards; there was no other furniture but two or three wooden beds, on each a coarse mattress with a rug; and all was horribly filthy, unwashed, and foul. Beside the pallet where Robin lay there knelt, praying, a woman with her head in her hands. Heavens! there was, then, in this dark and heathenish place one woman who still remembered her Maker!
Robin was awake. His restless eyes rolled about; his hands clutched uneasily at his blanket; and he was talking. Alas! the poor brain, disordered and wandering, carried him back to the old village. He was at home again in imagination, though we were so far away. Yea; he had crossed the broad Atlantic, and was in fair Somerset, among the orchards and the hills. And, only to hear him talk, the tears rolled down my cheeks.
'Alice,' he said. Alas! he thought that he was again with the sweet companion of his youth. 'Alice; the nuts are ripe in the woods. We will to-morrow take a basket and go gather them. Benjamin shall not come to spoil sport. Besides, he would want to eat them all himself. Humphrey shall come, and you, and I. That will be enough.'
Then his thoughts changed again. 'Oh! my dear,' he said—in a moment he had passed over ten years, and was now with his mistress, a child no longer. 'My dear, thou hast so sweet a face. Nowhere in the whole world is there so sweet a face. I have always loved thy face; not a day but it has been in my mind—always my love, my sweetheart, my soul, my life. My dear, we will never leave the country; we want no grandeur of rank, and state, and town; we will always continue here. Old age shall find us lovers still. Death cannot part us, oh! my dear, save for a little while—and then sweet Heaven will unite us again to love each other for ever, and for ever'——
'Oh! Robin! Robin! Robin!'