Tom Cringle's Log Part 19

As yet there was no lightning nor rain, and in the expectation of escaping the shower, as the wind was with me, I made more sail, pushing the horse into a gallop, to the great discomposure of the negro who sat beside me.

"Ma.s.sa, you can't escape it, you are galloping into it; don't ma.s.sa hear de sound of de rain coming along against de wind, and smell de earthy smell of him like one new-made grave?"

"The sound of the rain." In another clime, long, long ago, I had often read at my old mother's knee, "And Elijah said unto Ahab, there is a sound of abundance of rain, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not; and it came to pa.s.s, in the meanwhile, that the heaven was dark with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain."

I looked, and so it was, for in an instant a white sheet of the heaviest rain I had ever seen (if rain it might be called, for it was more like a water-spout) fell from the lower edge of the black cloud, with a strong rushing noise, that increased as it approached to a loud roar like that of a waterfall. As it came along, it seemed to devour the rocks and trees, for they disappeared behind the watery screen the instant it reached them.

We saw it a-head of us for more than a mile coming along the road, preceded by a black line from the moistening of the white dust, right in the wind's eye, and with such an even front, that I verily believe it was descending in bucketsful on my horse's head, while as yet not one drop had reached me. At this moment the adjutant-general of the forces, Colonel F----, of the Coldstream Guards, in his tandem, drawn by two sprightly blood bays, with his servant, a light boy, mounted Creole fashion on the leader, was coming up in my wake at a spot where the road sank into a hollow, and was traversed by a watercourse already running knee deep, although dry as a bone but the minute before.

I was now drenched to the skin, the water pouring out in cascades from both sides of the vehicle, when just as I reached the top of the opposite bank, there was a flash of lightning so vivid, accompanied by an explosion so loud and tremendous, that my horse, trembling from stem to stem, stood dead still; the dusky youth by my side jumped out, and buried his snout in the mud, like a porker in Spain nuzzling for acorns, and I felt more queerish than I would willingly have confessed to. I could have knelt and prayed. The noise of the thunder was a sharp ear-piercing crash, as if the whole vault of heaven had been made of gla.s.s, and had been shivered at a blow by the hand of the Almighty.

It was, I am sure, twenty seconds before the usual roar and rumbling reverberation of the report from the hills, and among the clouds, was heard.

I drove on, and arrived just in time to dress for dinner, but I did not learn till next day, that the flash which paralysed me, had struck dead the Colonel's servant and leading horse, as he ascended the bank of the ravine, by this time so much swollen, that the body of the lad was washed off the road into the neighbouring gully, where it was found, when the waters subsided, entirely covered with sand.

I found the party congregated in the piazza around Mr Fyall, who was pa.s.sing his jokes, without much regard to the feelings of his guests, and exhibiting as great a disregard of the common civilities and courtesies of life as can well be imagined. One of the party was a little red-faced gentleman, Peregrine Whiffle, Esquire, by name who, in Jamaica parlance, was designated an extraordinary master in Chancery; the overseer of the pen, or breeding farm, in the great house as it is called, or mansionhouse of which Mr Fyall resided, and a merry, laughing, intelligent, round, red-faced man, with a sort of Duncan Knockdunder nose, through the wide nostrils of which you could see a cable's length into his head; he was either Fyall's head clerk, or a sort of first lieutenant; these personages and myself composed the party. The dinner itself was excellent, although rather of the rough and round order; the wines and food intrinsically good; but my appet.i.te was not increased by the exhibition of a deformed, bloated negro child, about ten years old, which Mr Fyall planted at his elbow, and, by way of practical joke, stuffed to repletion with all kinds of food and strong drink, until the little dingy brute was carried out drunk.

The wine circulated freely, and by and by Fyall indulged in some remarkable stories of his youth, for he was the only speaker, which I found some difficulty in swallowing, until at length, on one thumper being tabled, involving an impossibility, and utterly indigestible, I involuntarily exclaimed, "by Jupiter!"

"You want any ting, ma.s.sa?" promptly chimed in the black servant at my elbow, a diminutive kiln-dried old negro.

"No," said I, rather caught.

"Oh, me tink you call for Jupiter."

I looked in the baboon's face--"Why, if I did; what then?"

"Only me Jupiter, at ma.s.sa service, dat all."

"You are, eh, no great shakes of a Thunderer; and who is that tall square man standing behind your master's chair?"

"Daddy Cupid, ma.s.sa."

"And the old woman who is carrying away the dishes in the piazza?"

"Mammy Weenus."

"Daddy Cupid, and Mammy Weenus--Shade of Homer!"

Jupiter, to my surprise, shrunk from my side, as if he had received a blow, and the next moment I could hear him communing with Venus in the piazza.

"For true, dat leetle man-of-war buccra must be Obeah man: how de debil him come to sabe dat it was stable-boy Homer who broke de candle shade on ma.s.sa right hand, dat one wid de piece broken out of de edge?" and here he pointed towards it with his chin--a negro always points with his chin.

I had never slept on sh.o.r.e out of Kingston before; the night season in the country in dear old England, we all know, is usually one of the deepest stillness--here it was any thing but still;--as the evening closed in, there arose a loud humming noise, a compound of the buzzing, and chirping, and whistling, and croaking of numberless reptiles and insects, on the earth, in the air, and in the water. I was awakened out of my first sleep by it, not that the sound was disagreeable, but it was unusual; and every now and then a beetle, the size of your thumb, would bang in through the open window, cruise round the room with a noise like a humming-top, and then dance a quadrille with half-a-dozen bats; while the fire-flies glanced like sparks, spangling the folds of the muslin curtains of the bed. The croak of the tree-toad, too, a genteel reptile, with all the usual loveable properties of his species, about the size of the crown of your hat, sounded from the neighbouring swamp, like some one snoring in the piazza, blending harmoniously with the nasal concert got up by Jupiter, and some other heathen deities, who were sleeping there almost naked, excepting the head, which every negro swathes during the night with as much flannel and as many handkerchiefs as he can command. By the way, they all slept on their faces--I wonder if this will account for their flat noses.

Next morning we started at daylight, cracking along at the rate of twelve knots an hour in a sort of gig, with one horse in the shafts, and another hooked on a-breast of him to a sort of studdingsail-boom, or outrigger, and followed by three mounted servants, each with a led horse and two sumpter mules.

In the evening we arrived at an estate under Mr Fyall's management, having pa.s.sed a party of maroons immediately before. I never saw finer men tall, strapping fellows, dressed exactly as they should be and the climate requires; wide duck trowsers, over these a loose shirt, of duck also, gathered at the waist by a broad leathern belt, through which, on one side, their short cutla.s.s is stuck, while on the other hangs a leathern pouch for ball, and a loose thong across one shoulder, supports, on the opposite hip, a large powder-horn and haversack. This, with a straw hat, and a short gun in their hand, with a sling to be used on a march, completes their equipment--in better keeping with the climate, than the padded coats, heavy caps, tight cross-belts, and ponderous muskets of our regulars. As we drove up to the door, the overseer began to bawl, "Boys, boys!" and kept blowing a dog-call. All servants in the country in the West Indies, be they as old as Methuselah, are called boys. In the present instance, half-a-dozen black fellows forthwith appeared, to take our luggage, and attend on ma.s.sa in other respects. The great man was as austere to the poor overseer, as if he had been guilty of some misdemeanour, and after a few short, crabbed words, desired him to get supper, "do you hear?"

The meat consisted of plantation fare-salted fish, plantains and yams, and a piece of goat mutton. Another "observe,"--a South Down mutton, after sojourning a year or two here, does not become a goat exactly, but he changes his heavy warm fleece, and wears long hair; and his progeny after him, if bred on the hot plains, never a.s.sume the wool again. Mr Fyall and I sat down, and then in walked four mutes, stout young fellows, not over-well dressed, and with faces burnt to the colour of brick-dust.

They were the bookkeepers, so called because they never see a book, their province being to attend the negroes in the field, and to superintend the manufacture of sugar and rum in the boiling and distilling-houses.

One of them, the head bookkeeper, as he was called, appeared literally roasted by the intensity of the sun's rays.

"How is Baldy Steer?" said the overseer to this person.

"Better to-day, sir--I drenched him with train--oil and sulphur."

"The devil you did," thought I--"alas! for Baldy." "And Mary, and Caroline, and the rest of that lot?" "Are sent to Perkin's Red Rover, sir; but I believe some of them are in calf already by Bullfinch--and I have cut Peter for the lampas." The knife and fork dropped from my hands.

"What can all this mean? is this their boasted kindness to their slaves?

One of a family drenched with train-oil and brimstone, another cut for some horrible complaint never heard of before, called lampas, and the females sent to the Red Rover, some being in calf already!" But I soon perceived that the baked man was the cowboy or shepherd of the estate, making his report of the casualties amongst his bullocks, mules, and heifers.

"Juliet Ridge will not yield, sir," quoth another.

"Who is this next? a stubborn concern she must be."

"The liquor is very poor." Here he helped himself to rum and water, the rum coming up about an inch in the gla.s.s, regular half and half, fit to float a marlinspike.

"It is more than yours is," thought I; and I again stared in wonderment, until I perceived he spoke of the juice of a cane patch.

At this time a tall, lathy gentleman came in, wearing a most original cut coatee. He was a most extraordinary built man; he had absolutely no body, his bottom being placed between his shoulders, but what was wanted in corpus was made up in legs, indeed he looked like a pair of compa.s.ses, b.u.t.toned together at the shoulders, and supporting a yellow phiz half a yard long, thatched with a fell of sandy hair, falling down lank and greasy on each side of his face. Fyall called him Buckskin, which, with some other circ.u.mstances, made me guess that he was neither more nor less than an American smuggler.

After supper, a gla.s.s of punch was filled for each person, the overseer gave a rap on the table with his knuckles, and off started the bookkeepers, like shots out of shovels, leaving the Yankee, Mr Fyall, the overseer, and myself, at table.

I was very tired, and reckoned on going to bed now--but no such thing.

Fyall ordered Jupiter to bring a case from his gig-box, containing some capital brandy. A new brewage of punch took place, and I found about the small hours that we were all verging fast towards drunkenness, or something very like that same. The Yankee was specially plied by Fyall, evidently with an object, and he soon succeeded in making him helplessly drunk.

The fun now "grew fast and furious,"--a large wash-tub was ordered in, placed under a beam at the corner of the room, and filled with water; a sack and a three-inch rope were then called for, and promptly produced by the blackies, who, apparently accustomed to Fyall's pranks, grinned with delight.--Buckskin was thrust into the sack, feet foremost; the mouth of it was then gathered round his throat with a string, and I was set to splice a bight in the rope, so as to fit under his arms without running, which might have choked him. All things being prepared, the slack end was thrown over the beam. He was soused in the tub, the word was given to hoist away, and we ran him up to the roof, and then belayed the rope round the body of the overseer, who was able to sit on his chair, and that was all. The cold bath, and the being hung up to dry, speedily sobered the American, but his arms being within the sack, he could do nothing for his own emanc.i.p.ation; he kept swearing, however, and entreating, and dancing with rage, every jerk drawing the cord tighter round the waist of the overseer, who, unaware of his situation, thought himself bewitched as he was drawn with violence by starts along the floor, with the chair as it were glued to him. At length the patient extricated one of his arms, and laying hold of the beam above him, drew himself up, and then letting go his hold suddenly, fairly lifted the drunken overseer, chair and all, several feet from the ground, so as to bring him on a level with himself, and then, in mid air, began to pummel his counterpoise with right goodwill. At length, fearful of the consequences from the fury into which the man had worked himself, Fyall and I dashed out the candles, and fled to our rooms, where, after barricading the doors, we shouted to the servants to let the gentlemen down.

The next morning had been fixed for duck-shooting, and the overseer and I were creeping along amongst the mangrove bushes on the sh.o.r.e, to get a shot at some teal, when we saw our friend the pair of compa.s.ses crossing the small bay in his boat, towards his little pilotboat-built schooner, which was moored in a small creek opposite, the brushwood concealing every thing but her masts. My companion, as wild an Irishman as I ever knew, hailed him,--

"Hillo, Obadiah--Buckskin--you Yankee rascal, heave-to. Come ash.o.r.e here--come ash.o.r.e."

Obed, smoking his pipe, deliberately uncoiled himself--I thou as he rose, there was to be no end of him--and stood upright in the boat, like an ill-rigged jurymast.

"I say, Master Tummas, you ben't no friend of mine, I guess, a'ter last night's work; you hears how I coughs?"--and he began to wheezle and crow in a most remarkable fashion.

"Never mind," rejoined the overseer; "if you go round that point, and put up the ducks--by the piper, but I'll fire at you!"

Obed neighed like a horse expecting his oats, which was meant as a laugh of derision. "Do you think your birding-piece can touch me here away, Master Tummas?" And again he nichered more loudly than before.

"Don't provoke me to try, you yellow snake, you!"

"Try, and be d----d, and there's a mark for thee," unveiling a certain part of his body, not his face.

The overseer, or bushes, to give him his Jamaica name, looked at me and smiled, then coolly lifted his long Spanish barrel, and fired. Down dropped the smuggler, and ash.o.r.e came the boat.

"I am mortally wounded, Master Tummas," quoth Obed; and I was confoundedly frightened at first, from the unusual proximity of the injured part to his head; but the overseer, as soon as he could get off the ground, where he had thrown himself in an uncontrollable fit of laughter, had the man stripped and laid across a log, where he set his servant to pick out the pellets with a penknife.