The Quality of Mercy (17 page)

This was all very well, as far as it went. But the felonious intention in this present case was not altogether evident. He could not recall any case of piracy in which no attempt had been made to profit from the stolen goods. Why had these men run off to Florida without attempting to sell the slaves or the ship? There were cases on record of persons taken prisoner by pirates, but these were persons of rank, for whom a ransom might be asked. What ransom could be asked for a parcel of blacks, and who could conceivably ask it? It was this appalling tangle, and the thought of discharging it onto the Lord Chief Justice, on whom his advancement largely depended, that had so much affected his appetite. And he had felt released from an incubus after dispatching the note announcing his decision.

In spite of the blow to his hopes and his continuing depression at Evans’s disappearance, Ashton did what he could in the course of the next few hours to institute a search for the negro’s whereabouts. He sent for two men who had helped him on occasion in similar searches, and gave them Evans’s name and description. If they found him and brought word of where he was, they would have a guinea each. He did not tell them the address at which Evans had been staying, though one of them asked for this. They could not be trusted with such information. No reliance could be placed on the men themselves, only on their hope of a reward.
Slave-takers and slave-finders belonged all within a single confraternity; had the paymaster been other, these two would have sought out any fugitive negro in London and returned him by force to those who claimed to be his owners. They knew the communities among which the fugitives took refuge, as they knew many of the houses where those recaptured were kept confined until a ship for the plantations was fitted out and made ready to sail.

Ashton had no clear idea of how many black people there were in the city; the numbers were nowhere recorded. Some had been manumitted and lived as free men and women; others fled and lived as they could, as laborers, market porters, street musicians, beggars; yet others remained in the service of those who had brought them here, slaves still, liable to be sold to another master or carried back to the West Indies. This growing population had created a new trade: the manhunters, who combed the streets for runaways and lived on the rewards.

It was late in the afternoon when Jane returned. She had spent most of the day, in company with two ladies of her acquaintance, in the Pass Room at Bridewell, where the female vagrants and prostitutes and unmarried mothers were kept confined for short periods before being moved on. She was engaged, together with the others, in trying to teach the women useful skills, such as weaving, frame knitting and basketwork. She often encountered resistance, but today there had been progress, or so she felt, and she was happy at this—so much so that she launched into speech immediately at sight of her brother, giving him no opportunity for the time being to relate the doleful news he had received that day.

“They have been harshly used since earliest childhood, most of them,” she said. “No one has ever thought of them or taken any care for them in all their lives. They have been whipped out of one parish after another. Why should we be so shocked that they have bastard children or take to thieving and whoring? Is it any wonder?”

“No, certainly not.” Ashton had never grown altogether used to
his sister’s impetuous habit of speech when she was excited in her feelings, nor to her forthright use of terms not usually regarded as polite in young unmarried ladies.

“They feel of no use to themselves or anybody, that’s what it is. Today we had two silk weavers with us, we paid them for the day’s work, they set up their looms and the women took turns to try their hand, they saw things made and finished—small things: handkerchiefs, braid, ribbons.”

Jane’s face was alight, her eyes were shining. “They took part in it themselves, you see, Frederick, that is the great thing about it, they could see what they had produced. Only give these women power over themselves and they will be saved from so much misery. A few shillings a week, I know it is not much, but it would give them some self-respect, some control over their own lives.”

All the force of her conviction vibrated in the words. People must be given means to act, to change things. It was no use wringing one’s hands and doing nothing. Pitying people was only useful as a spur to action, it had no value as a state of mind. Sometimes Jane wondered if she were really such a good Christian after all. Compassion made her feel uncomfortable and impatient, and it could turn quickly to anger unless there was some immediate scope for rendering it superfluous. She could not feel that it was good for the soul to contemplate the sufferings of others—or one’s own, for that matter.

“Houses of Correction, they call them,” she said. “That is correction, is it, covering women with shame?”

Only now did she notice that her brother’s face was not showing the degree of gladness at her success that she might have expected. “How has your day been?” she asked.

Prompted thus, he related the double blow he had received, told her how he had set the men on to discover Evans’s whereabouts. “Without some luck they have small chance of finding him in time,” he said. “Evans’s new owner, as he considers himself, this sugar planter, Lyons, may be the one behind it, or perhaps he is in league with the previous owner, Bolton. Both were intending
to bring an action against me for trespass and theft in the sum of two hundred guineas.”

“Yes, I remember you speaking of this.”

“Well, they keep finding reasons for postponing the action, and this is because they cannot be sure of winning. Two witnesses to the first assault, when they carried him out to the ship, have now come forward. I believe that is why they have anticipated the judgment by securing Evans’s person. Better to have fifty guineas in hand than wait for a doubtful ruling.”

“They have gone to a great deal of trouble for the sake of their fifty guineas.”

“That is true. There is more than money in this, much more. Their sense of property has been outraged. Both are convinced they have an absolute right of ownership in him, and will wave a bill of sale to prove it.”

Ashton was silent for some moments, then said, more quietly, “This business is taking on the look of a feud, an issue of principle on both sides. If we can only rescue the man and get him safe to court, preferably with the bruises of his ill-treatment still upon him … If we can get a favorable ruling, we might, with God’s help, add some real momentum to the movement for ending this foul trade. It is strange, perhaps it is regrettable, the heart can take no account of numbers.”

“How do you mean?”

“Evans’s life and circumstances are no less in importance, in their value to us, than the lives of all the negroes that were thrown from the deck of the
Liverpool Merchant
. Both have to be measured against the many thousands of lives we hope to redeem.”

“But Evans is only one, and his life is not at immediate risk, only his liberty. You cannot really mean what you are saying, Frederick.”

But she knew, with sinking heart, and without needing to look at his face, that he had meant every word of it.

It was at this moment, when this stricken silence had fallen between them, that the housemaid tapped on the door, bearing a
note that had just been delivered. It was an invitation, addressed to both brother and sister, to an evening reception to be held the following week at the house of Mr. Jonathan Bateson.

“I don’t think I know him,” Ashton said. “Perhaps you have some closer acquaintance with the family?”

“No, I have never been to the house and have no acquaintance in the family at all.”

“Strange.” Ashton was silent for some moments, then said, “Bateson, Bateson—yes, now I think of it, I recall the name. He sits in the House of Commons. He represents the West India Interest. The sugar trade, in other words.” He looked at his sister more closely. “Perhaps he is an associate of Mr. Erasmus Kemp,” he said.

Jane turned away, as if there were something that needed her attention. But he was in time to see that she had changed color. “The man will be waiting for an answer,” he said. “I think we should accept, don’t you?”

“Snippin’ off me buttons without wakin’ me would have needed a light touch,” Sullivan said. “He cannot have been so drunk as he made himself out to be. It is troublin’ to the spirit to think that he must have had a knife about him.”

Just beyond Chesterfield, heading north on foot, he had fallen in with another wayfarer, a thickset, shaven-headed man, and had confided to him the story of the stolen buttons.

“Lookin’ at it another way,” he said, “the weather is improvin’ day by day, an’ where is the need for a coat like that?”

“That’s right, that’s what I allus say, look on the bright side,” his new companion said. “You can’t win every bout, you will get beat sometimes an’ lose the purse money, but you ain’t lost it cos you didn’t have it without you won the match.”

“My feelin’s exactly,” Sullivan said. “Then there is the further argument that a coat like that, whether equipped with buttons or not, will tend to cramp the style of a fiddlin’ man, an’ reduce the power of his music.”

He had pawned the coat in Peterborough before leaving, together with the bag in which he had been carrying his fiddle and bow; these were slung over his shoulder now, as they had been when he walked out of Newgate Prison. His old shirt and
trousers had also been in this bag, but the pawnbroker had not been interested in these.

“He tried to make out that a coat that has lost its buttons has thereby undergone a grievous loss in its value. I wasn’t born yesterday, I said to him, I am a traveled man, I said, I know somethin’ of commerce, an’ it is obvious to me that you are exaggeratin’ the importance of them buttons for your own purposes. Buttons is a variable thing, I said, buttons can be gold, they can be silk, they can be cloth, but a good stout coat is not subject to changes of quality.”

In the end he had obtained five shillings on coat and bag together, more money than he had possessed since the day of his escape from prison. Some of it had gone in the course of the days it had taken him to get this far. But he still felt affluent and was planning to treat himself to pork pies and ale when he got to a likely-looking tavern. He said nothing of his resources to the man beside him, having suffered twice already through being too forthcoming. And the man asked him no questions of that sort, asserting merely that pawnbrokers were an unholy tribe.

“You goin’ far?” Sullivan asked.

“There is a fair at Redfield, startin’ tomorrow, if I can get there.”

“You are a wrestlin’ man, as I understand it?”

“That is so. William Armstrong, at your service. Strong by name an’ strong by nature. What I does is challenge any man in the crowd to come up an’ try his luck. Who gets the best of three falls takes the purse. All comers, any style, Irish, collar-an’-elbow, free-for-all. Strong young fellows, they are lookin’ for some easy money an’ the chance to show off for the girls.” He shook his head and smiled a little. “Not many gets to try a third fall,” he said.

“Where does the pledge come from?”

“I allus keeps a shillin’ or two about me to begin with.”

“Well, I wish you luck tomorrow.” It had occurred to Sullivan, while listening to the wrestler, that he could make for the fair too
and maybe increase his stock by providing a bit of music. “Redfield is north from here, isn’t it?” he said.

“That’s right, it’s on the Doncaster road. About twenty miles from here.”

“Well, this is turnin’ out providential,” Sullivan said, gladdened by this prospect of adding to his capital. He had no slightest idea of geography or distances, but thought he must be past the halfway mark by now. “All the same,” he said, “it is strange how things will get repeated as the years pass. I had a coat with brass buttons once before, years ago now, an’ the buttons was cut off an’ stole from me.”

He paused with momentary caution; but he was elated, speech came readily to him, as always, and the farther he got from London, the less likely he felt it that anyone should discover that he was a man on the run, or care who he was and where he was making for. So long as he remembered to leave out the name of the ship and all reference to Florida and the settlement … “Yes,” he said, “I was pressed aboard a slave ship bound for the Guinea Coast, an’ a man named Blair was pressed along of me—neither of us had any choice in it. We knew each other before, havin’ sailed together, but that time it wasn’t on a slaver—we would niver have signed on for a slaver. I was wearin’ a coat with brass buttons when we went aboard, an’ it was took off me back on the grounds it was verminous, which was an outright falsehood. I niver saw that coat again, but I know the buttons was cut off it, I know that for a fact, an’ I know who done it—it was the bosun. Haines was a bad man an’ he come to a bad end, an’ I thought me buttons was gone for good, but twelve years later I tripped over me own feet an’ fell down in a ditch, an’ there was one of the buttons just under me nose, not by chance but by a blessin’ that was intended. It was the very place where Haines met his end at the hands of the Indians, it must have fallen from him then. I was guided to it with the purpose of restorin’ me faith in justice. That button was a mark of grace an’ I gave it to a dyin’ man who had been the doctor on the ship, intendin’ it as somethin’ for him to hold, somethin’ to
see him through, if you take me meanin’. What became of it after that I niver knew. Billy Blair was dead by then. It is because of Billy I am on the road now. I made a vow to meself that I would find his folks an’ tell them what end he had made. They are minin’ people in the County of Durham, an’ that is where I am headin’.”

It was a story he had told at various times to various people in the course of his journey, amplified and embellished as he drew farther from London and felt safer. Getting to Durham had by now assumed the character of a divinely guided mission. His solemn vow, the grace of his escape from prison, that marvelous encounter by the wayside, the scrapes and vicissitudes of his journey so far—small misfortunes designed to teach him, by the mercy of his recovering from them, that he was watched over—all this combined to give the destination of Billy’s birthplace a significance that no other destination had ever had for him. His life on land had been spent in dockside Liverpool, where the boat from Ireland had set him down, and then as a fugitive in the wilderness of southern Florida. He had never before been north of the Humber, and had not the remotest idea of what life in a pit village might be like.