“To my mind, sir, the best thing to do would be to keep chickens,” he observed with a look of simple earnestness. “My old mother used to keep them, and I helped her to feed them, and I know all their ways; and if we could get a few we could keep them in this here stable of yours, sir, and they would well-nigh feed themselves.”
I thought Tom’s proposal so good a one that I forthwith put his plan into execution. I had made several friends among the negroes by stopping and talking to them and exchanging a joke occasionally. Not that what I said was always very comprehensible to them, nor were their replies to me, but they understood my signs as I did theirs, so that we got on very well.
“Now, Tom,” said I, “we will go out and buy these same chickens. You know a laying hen from an old cock, I suppose?”
“Lord love ye, yes, sir,” was Tom’s answer, with a grin. “And if so be ye wants any of the rhino, I’ve saved three dollars, which will go far to buy them; and you know, Mr Hurry, sir, it will be an honour and pleasure to me if you will take them. I’ve no use for them, and may be, if they stop burning in my pocket, I shall only drink them up some day.”
I thought this too probable, but still I was unwilling to take the honest, generous-hearted fellow’s money. I had myself scraped together a couple of dollars, with which I expected to be able to purchase a cock and five or six fowls, and I thought that would be enough. Tom and I accordingly set out on our expedition, with our dollars in our pockets. Before long we reached the hut of an old negro and his wife, where I had seen some good-looking fowls. Looking about, however, we saw none of them. As we were going away old Quasho made his appearance, followed by Quashie, his better half. In vain, however, did we tell them we wanted some fowls; I had forgotten the French word, and they did not understand us.
“I think as how I can make them know what we wants, sir,” said Tom and he began crowing away at the top of his voice; then he cackled most lustily and began running about as a hen does before she begins to lay an egg, and finally, having provided himself with a round stone, he produced it as if he had just deposited it in a nest. Then he pulled out one of his dollars and held it up before them. Quasho and Quashie clapped their hands with delight at the significance of the action, and away they scuttled into the woods, soon returning with a couple of hens.
“Bons, bons!” cried Tom, taking them, but not giving up the coin. Again he crowed and again he cackled, and gave the old couple a shove to signify that they were to go off and bring more fowls. It did not suit them, it appeared, to comprehend what he wanted, but Tom was not to be done, so at last Quasho exclaimed—
“Jiggigery, niggery, hop,” or some words which so sounded, and away scuttled the old lady, bringing back a couple more hens.
Tom, having secured them by the legs under his arm, allowing them to peck away at his back, attempted the same manoeuvre, but the old people put on such a look of dull stolidity that I was certain they would give no more fowls for the dollar. I told him, therefore, to give up the dollar, and we continued on our way to another hut, where, for another dollar, we got the same number of fowls. Three dollars were thus expended, and, with our newly-acquired farm produce, we returned in triumph to my stable.
Manby was highly amused at the notion of my turning egg and chicken merchant, which I told him it was my intention to do. In that country food of all sorts for my fowls was easily procured, so I had no difficulty in collecting an ample supply. This became one of my chief occupations. Tom Rockets and I used to go out into the woods with bags, and come back loaded with nuts and seeds and roots for my pets. The consequence of their being thus amply supplied with provisions was that they quickly took to laying eggs, and thus in a short time I had four or five eggs every morning. Some of these Tom and I ate, and others we sold or exchanged for meat. They, with the produce of our kitchen garden, enabled us to be pretty well independent of the provisions furnished us by the authorities. Thus, what I at first thought a misfortune turned out to be a real benefit, because the necessity of procuring food made me exert myself, and afforded me an occupation of interest. I gave them all names, and I knew each of them, and they soon learned to know me and to come at my call. Whichever I summoned came flapping up to me, cackling or crowing as the case might be, whether cock or hen. I was rather proud of the nickname which my messmates gave me of “the farmer.” Often, when they were almost starving after our mess was broken up, I was able to supply myself and Tom with a comfortable breakfast and dinner. Never, indeed, were dollars better expended. I have already mentioned the various reports of disasters to the British arms, both by sea and land, which reached us from time to time. Soon after I got my fowls we were told, as an undoubted fact, that Jersey and Guernsey had been taken by surprise, and that every man, woman, and child in them had been destroyed on account of their loyalty to England; but the most terrific and heart-rending news came at last. It was that England herself had been invaded; that the enemy, having gained a secure footing in the country, had won three or four pitched battles, and had finally taken London, after a terrific resistance, when half the population were slain. Probably, under other circumstances, we should not have believed this last report unless it had been fully authenticated, though, unguarded as the shores of England at that time were, we knew that it was possible; but, dispirited and ill as many of us were, we were fully prepared to give credence to any story even of a less probable character. For two or three weeks we were left in the most dreadful state of doubt and uncertainty as to whether England still existed or not as an independent nation. Some of us fully believed that liberty no longer was to be found except in the highlands of Scotland and among the mountains of Wales.