Chapter XXVIII

“So you quit the Trade!” said Trevannion. “Well, so long as I stay in it, I’ll maintain it’s not so bad!”

“Yes, Trevannion. But one day you also will quit.”

“Perhaps, and perhaps not,” said Trevannion. “When you’ve fetched your bread and butter so long this way it’s not easy to face getting it another way. I’ve a family.”

“I know. It’s hard to know what to do.--Well, I’m giving the _Janet_ back again.”

“I’m sorry! Men like you and Bartram who is dead keep us going.--Hoggard is the most probable man.”

“There are better! If it were possible--Bartram loved the _Janet_.”

“I’ve heard you say you love her.”

“I do.”

“Then why leave her?”

“Ah, that, Trevannion, opens up so many things! But----”

“We _could_ give her to Carraway.”

“I’d prefer it--seeing that Olafson won’t budge from being mate.”

“Very good then,” he said. “I’ll do it.--And now may I ask what _you_ are going to do?”

“I haven’t quite decided,” I said, and thanking him for his kindness rose to take my leave.

“You’ve got, I’m glad to know, a good deal of money with us here.”

“Yes. Bartram’s will left me his savings, and I’ve saved a little myself.”

“Then,” said Trevannion, “I sha’n’t worry about you. Money’s a great lifeboat.”

“I should like,” I said, “to make the _Janet_ my home until Carraway’s notified and comes aboard.”

“Why, of course!” he answered. “You’re Captain until then. It’ll be about three days, I imagine. He’s eager.”

“He’s as good a man as you’ve got. It wasn’t his fault, the losing of the _Thistle_.”

He went with me to the door. “Have you come into a fortune or been made a lord, or what? I’ve known you for more than three years, but you’ve hardly looked as you do now----”

David Scott stood for a moment, looking out upon the town and the sea and the morning sun. “Trevannion, there’s a lass named Happiness. She hasn’t a penny, yet the world’s her dower!”

“Oh, well, if you’re happy----!” said Trevannion, and we parted.

That money! I drew it out in those days, leaving just enough to keep David Scott from want until he knew what course he would shape. It was not so much after all--Bartram’s and mine together--about six hundred pounds. There was a merchant I knew in Charlestown, not in the trade, or gaining by it more than another, where all were touched. He managed matters for me. Out of the sum now in his hands I drew as I needed it for the purpose I had in mind. It had first occurred to me to buy and free as many Negroes as I might out of the _Janet’s_ lading this last voyage. But then I saw that I could not. I was by no means powerful enough to see them shipped back to Africa, sent there to their own people and released. How could I get that done, who would become outcast by the very mention of it to owners of ships and factories? And if I bought and freed them here in America? They were barbarians, free to fall into, and to cause, all manner of trouble in a world not theirs. At once they would meet the Law of the Land, and it would break them. Nothing could be done by me here and now. I saw that last lading that I had brought herded into the barracoons, and during a week sold, slave by slave, at the slave block.

What I could do I did. There was a mulatto shoemaker who sat in a hutch of a shop upon a half-road, half-street, and worked at cobbling and making. I used to pass him, coming and going from Trevannion’s, and several times I had stopped for a cast of his trade. At first I thought he was a free Negro. But no, he said, Mr. So-and-so was his master and owned this hut. One half of what he earned he took each week to Mr. So-and-so; on the other he lived. Later, stopping again to speak to him, in a burst of confidence he let it out that from this half he was slowly putting by. “To buy myself.” There was pride in his voice.

“Will Mr. So-and-so sell you? You must be profitable.”

“Yes. He’s a good man. When I have the money he’ll free me.”

“How long will it take you?”

He mentioned a term of years. His plans after that included freeing in succession his wife who was owned by another family, though in Charlestown, and his son and daughter owned by the mother’s owners. He would be an elderly man before, barring accidents, it was all done.

Through the merchant and a lawyer I bought these four and freed them, and bought for them the cobbler’s shop and tools. I found other men and women whom I bought and freed, working quietly. It hardly took a month to bring David Scott, so far as money was concerned, within a few pounds of where he was when on an autumn eve in Virginia he first cried, “_Janet_, ahoy!”

All this went on quietly, very few knowing anything about it. Carraway, it proved, had some arrangements and a short journey to make before he took over the _Janet_. For ten days still I was Captain and dwelled on my ship. When at last Carraway appeared I removed to a small inn by the shore.

Those ten days were strange, meditative days to me, whose life had changed its road. I was not unhappy; I was happy with some ache and bewilderment at the new taste of the happiness. And I think that it is the sense of growth, saying forever, “Listen! Here is again something new under the Great Newness,” that makes one feel one’s self a child.

The _Janet_ rode quietly in harbor, and I was aboard her much of those ten days. There was regret, I know, that I was departing, and yet the seaman’s nature is like the sea, and a new Captain, said to be a not unkindly man, was coming, and they would weigh anchor, and new days would cover the old, and novelty is novelty. But Michaelson and Wheeler and two or three others and Tom and Don did grieve. As for Olafson, I could not make him out in those days.

I felt Bartram, I felt Colley and McNaughton, and when I left the _Janet_ I took them with me.

I left her. I went one eve when the sunset burned around her.

Carraway slept in the Captain’s cabin and walked the poop deck. If he in no wise equalled Bartram yet he was honest and strove to be just and had the name of a good captain. The _Janet_ would shake out her sails and be gone in a week.

The dawn in which she was to leave harbor I rose while it was yet night and stole from my inn and walked the shore road till I came to a point whence I could see her sail. I sat down under a pine tree, and a pale light being now in the east, watched them making sail. The _Janet_! I watched her forth, the _Janet_. She went in the glory of the dawn, in the slant, golden light of the sun. I never saw her again with these bodily eyes, but ah! often and often by the inner light.

I returned to the inn. My affairs were nearly done. The money I had kept for David Scott would allow him short time before he must begin earning. Going by the waterside I looked at the ships in harbor, and when I reached the inn, there was Olafson sitting, waiting for me.

“Olafson!”

“I’ve left it too, sir.”

We sat down. He spoke of the _Bright Nancy_, Captain Cobb, carrying sugar to Philadelphia. She had put in here for some need or other, and, he had heard, wanted seamen. Olafson knew her, a decent ship, with a decent captain and mates. He proposed now to sign with her as far as Philadelphia. He knew folk in that city who would help him to a mate’s berth again--on some ship that was not for Africa. When I told him of my own lack of money and the ideas bred by it, he proposed that I also become seaman for this voyage upon the _Bright Nancy_. Philadelphia was a prosperous town, full of trade; there must be there many chances.

I sat and regarded Olafson whom I greatly liked, and the _Bright Nancy_, and Philadelphia of which I knew a little, and chiefly that it held many Quakers. Then I thanked Olafson, and took my hat, and together we found and hired a boat and went out to the _Bright Nancy_.