The Land of Bondage. John Bloundelle-Burton

so that, as they became lost, the parents' shame might become forgotten. There, too, lying about, were drunken lads and girls who had been picked up in the streets and brought on board and kept drunk until the ship should sail; there were some who looked like peasants who had been enticed in from the country, since they wore scarce any clothes, and-horror of horrors! – sitting weeping on a cask was a clergyman, still with his cassock on and with a red blotchy face. He-I afterwards learnt also-had forged to obtain money for drink, and this was his doom. And those who were not drunk, or sleeping off the effects of drink, came near that other drunkard, my cousin, and, approaching as close as possible to him until the mate and sailors kicked them, men and women, indiscriminately away, jeered at and derided him and made him welcome, and asked him if he had any money, or what he thought of the prospects of a sea voyage, and with what feelings he looked forward to a sojourn in Virginia as a slave.

      "As a slave! In Virginia!" he screamed, taking in his situation at last. "As a slave in Virginia! Oh, God! spare me, spare me! 'Tis a mistake, I tell you. A mistake. Another one was meant, not I. 'Tis he who should go. 'Tis he! Send for him and set me free!"

      And then they all laughed again, while the captain, seizing him roughly by the collar, threw him amidst the others, telling him he would do very well for him; and then they hauled up the gangway and gradually the ship wore round.

      She had commenced her voyage.

      So he went forth a slave and, as he went, the pity that had welled up into my heart for him became stifled and I felt it no more. For, think! As he screamed in his desperation for mercy he asked for it only for himself, he would at that moment, in spite of the horrors which he saw, have cheerfully sent me in his place. Nay, in his place or not, he had meant that I should go. Why, I asked myself, should I pity him?

      The Dove had quickly caught the north wind that was blowing now; she had slipped away so easily from us when once her anchor was up and her sails set, that, as she went heeling over down the river, we saw but little of her but her stern and her poop lantern swinging aft. And so we turned our boat's nose back to the city and prepared to return.

      Oliver was himself silent; I think because in his noble heart there was the same conflict going on that there was in mine-the regret for having been concerned in such a deed fighting with the pleasant conviction that he had foiled a most wicked plot against me and thus defeated two utter villains, my uncle and Considine, while, on a third one, the punishment had fallen. And now that years have passed it pleasures me to think that it was so with him, and that that brave heart of his could, even at this moment of triumph, feel sorrow for what he had thought it best to do. A brave heart, I have called it; a noble heart-and so it was. A heart ever entendered to me from the first when, God He knows, there was none else to show me kindness; a heart that so long as it beat was ever loyal, good, and true.

      "Will you put back to the bridge?" I asked him, seeing that he still kept the boat's course headed up river. "Surely it would be best to make straight for the packet and go on board at once. Suppose O'Rourke has recovered by now and informed my uncle. What may he not do to us?"

      "Nothing," replied Oliver, as he still set a fast stroke, "nothing. To begin with-which is the most important thing-he cannot catch the Dove, no, not even if he could persuade the captain of one of His Majesty's sloops now lying in the river to put out in chase of her, – such vessels as she is can show their heels to anything they have a few hours' start of. And as for what he can do to us-why, what can he attempt? We have been employed on his service, I hold in my pocket a letter from him justifying me in kidnapping the youth who claims to be Lord St. Amande. Well! that is what thy cousin claims to be in succession, and, even if he did not do so, how can thy uncle make any stir, or announce himself, as he needs must do if he blows on me; he, a participator in what I have done? While for O'Rourke-the noble Captain O'Rourke, Hanoverian spy, Jacobite plotter, white or black cockade wearer as the time serves and the wind shifts, crimp and bully, – think you he will come within a hundred leagues of Mr. Robert St. Amande after having failed so damnably? Nay! more likely are we to meet him in the streets of London when we get there than in those of Dublin! So bend thy back to it, Gerald, and pull hard for Essex Bridge. The tide runs out apace."

      As we passed up through the shipping lying in the river and on to our destination, Quin did utter one more remark to the effect that, if he had in very fact slain O'Rourke, or injured him so badly that he could not rise from the spot where he fell, it was possible we might still find him there, but that he did not think such a thing was very likely to come about.

      1

      A gossiping, chatting, or drinking place.