Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1893 — The Perils of Certain English Prisoners. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Perils of Certain English Prisoners.

By CHARLES DICKENS.

(IHT)

CHAPTER I. iwM iii T WASIX THE year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and fortyfour, that I, Gill jwjjroim Davis. to com mand, His Mark.

having then the honor to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood aleaning over the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus in the South American waters, off the Mosquito shore. My lady remarks to me before I jgo any further that there Ghristain name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is that the name given to me in baptism wherein I -was made &c., was Gilbert. She is .certain to be right, but I never j fceard of it. I was a fondling child j picked up somewhere or another, : and I always understood my Christian name to be Gill. It is true that I was called Gills when employed at Snorridge Bottom, betwixt Chat-h am and Maidstone, to frighten birds;, but that had nothing to do with the baptism wherein I was made &c., and wherein a number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me alone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, I consider, must have been the beadle. Such name of Gills was entirely owing to my cheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life were of a raspy description. My lady stops jne.again, before I go any further, by laughing exactly in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at. me. That ac-

tion on her part calls to my mind, as I look at her hand with the rings on it Well, 1 won't! To be sure it will come in in its own place. But it’s always strange to me noticing the quiet hand, and noticing it (as I have done, you know, so many times) a-fondiing children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and honor were up —there! I won’t —not at present!—Scratch it out. She won’t scratch it out, and quite honorable; because we have made an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and that nothin# that is once taken down shall be scratched out. I have the great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and I am speaking my true and faithful account of those adventures, and my lady is writing it, word for word. I say, there I was, a-leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop Christopher Columbus in South American waters off Mosquito shore, a subject of His Gracious Majesty King George of England and a private in the Royal Marines. In those climates you don’t want to do much. I was doing nothing. I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder?) on the hillsides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a rough white coat in all weathers air the year round, who used to let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me go* about with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so much of his staff, that I ran away from him—which was what he wanted all along, I expect —to be knocked about the world in preference to Snorridge Bottom.- I had been knocked about the world for nine and twenty years in all, when I stood looking along those bright blue South American waters. Looking after the shepherd I may say. Watching him in a half-waking dream, with my eyes half shut as he, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, seemed to move away from the ship’s side, far away over the blue water and go right down into the sky. “It’s rising out of the water steady,” a voice said close to me. I had beeu thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own comrade. “What’s rising out of the water, steady?" I asked my comrade. “What?” said he. “The Island." “Oh, the Island!” says I, turning <uy eyes toward it. ‘ True. I forgot the island.” “Forgot the port you’re going to? That's odd, ahftit?" “If is odd,” says !. “And odd," he said, slowly considering with himself, “ain’t even. Is it. Gill?” He had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another. As soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was satisfied. He was one of the best of men, and in a certain sort of wav, one with the least to say to himself. I-qualify it, because being , able to read and write like a quartermaster, he had always one most excellent idea in his mind. That was, Duty. Upon my soul, I don’t believe, though I admire learning beyond everything, that he could have got a better idea cut of all the books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, and been the cleverest of scholars. My comrade and 1 had been quartered in Jamaica and from there we had been'drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away west and north of the Mosquito Coast. At Belize there had been great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there wero always more pi rates than enough in the Caribbean

seas), and as they got the better of our English cruisers by running into out-of-the-way creeks and shallows and taking the landjvhen they were hotly pressed, the flwernor of Be lize had received orders from home to keep a sharp lookout for them along shore. Now, there was an armed sloop came once a year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the island, laden with all manner of necessaries to eat. and to wear, and to use in various ways, and it was aboard of that sloop, which had touched at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks. The island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had been given, the name of SiLver-Store. The. reason of its being so called was that the English colony owned and worked a silver mine over on the mainland, in Honduras, and used this island as a safe and convenient place to store | their silver in, until it was annually : fetched away by the sloop. It was ! brought down from the mine to the i coast on the backs of mules, attend ed by friendly Indians and guarded by white men; from thence it was conveyed over to Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that country; from Silver-Store it was carried to Jamaica by the armed sloop once a year, as I have already mentioned; from Jamaica it went, of course, all over the world. How 1 came to be aboard the armed sloop is easily told. Four-and-twenty marines under the command of a lieutenant —that officer’s name was Underwood —had been told off at Belize to proceed to Silver Store, in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chase of the pirates. The island was considered a good post of observation against the pirates both bv land and sea; neither the, pirate ship nor yet her

boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so much heard of that the reinforcement was sent. Of that party I wrs one. It included a corporal and a sergeant Charker was corporal and the sergeant’s name was Drooce. He was the most tyranical non-commissioned officer in His Majesty’s service. The night came on soon after I had the foregoing words with Charker. All the wonderful bright colors went out of the sea and sky in a few minutes and the stars in the heavens seemed to shine out together and look down at themselves in the sea over one another’s shoulders, millions deep. Next morning we cast anchor off the island. There was a snug harbor with a little reef; there was a sandy beach; there were cocoanut trees with high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the top like plumes of magnificent green feathers; there were all the objects usually seen in those parts, and I am not going to describe them, having something else to tell about. Great rejoicings, to be sure were made on our arrival. All the flags in the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, and all the people in the place came down to look at us. One of those Sambo fe'lows—they call those natives Sambos when they are half negro and half Indian —had come off outside the reef to pilot us in and remained on board after we had let go our anchor. He was called Christian George King and was fonder of all hands thau anybody else was. Now, I confess for myself that on the first day, if I had been captain of the Christopher Columbus instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should have kicked Christian George King—who was no more a Christian than he Was a King ora George—over the side, without exactly knowing why, except that it was the right thing to do. But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a partiularly pleasant humor when I stood under arms that morning on board the Christopher Columbus in the harbor of the Island of Silver-Store. I had a hard life, and the life of the English on the Island seemed too easy and too gav to please me. “Here you are," I thought to myself, “good scholars and good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like, able to eat and drink what

you like, and spend what you like, and do what you like; and much you care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal Marines! Yet, it’s hard, too, I think, that you should have al) the half-pence, and I all the kicks; you all the smooth and I all the rough; you all the oil and I all the vinegar.” It was as envious a thing as might be, let alone its. being nonsensical: but I thought it I took it so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young English lady came aboard, I grunted to myself, -, Ah! you have got a lover, I’ll be bound!” As if there was any new offense to ine in that, if she had! She was a sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor way for some time, and who: was so ill then that he was obliged to be carried ashore. She was the child of a military officer, and had come out there with her sister, who was married, to. one of the owners of the silver mine, and who had three children with her. It was easy to see that she was the light and spirit o' the look at her, I gruntedtoTnySelf again, in an even worse state of mind than before, “I’ll be damned, If I dont hate him, whoever he is 1 ’ My officer. Lieut. Linder wood, was as ill as the captain of the sloop, and was carried ashore, too. They were both young men of about my age, who had been delicate in the West Indian climate. I even took that in bad part. I thought 1 was much fitter for the work than they were, and that if all of us had our deserts, I should be both of them rolled into one. (It may be imagined what sort of an officer of marines I should have made, without the power of reading a. written order. And as to any knowledge how to command the sloop—Lord! I should have sunken her in a quarter of an hour!) However,such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and dismissed. I strolled about the place alone with Charker, making my ob-

servations in a similar spirit. It was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly South, American and partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that account, being like a bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot, and had accommodated itself to circumstances as it drifted along. The huts of the Sambos, to the number of five-and-twenty, perhaps, were down by the beach to the left of the anchorage. On the right was a sort of barrack, with a South American flag and the Union Jack flying from the same staff, where the little English colony could all come together, if they saw occasion. It was a walled square of building,, with a sort of pleasure ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a powder magazine, with a little square trench around it, and steps down to the door. Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not guarded, and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder-magazine, “that’s' where the keep they silver,you see;” aud Charker had said to me, after thinking it over, “And silver ain’t gold, is it, Gill?” when the beautiful I young English lady I had been so billious about, looked out of a door or a window —at all events looked out, from under a bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so quickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited straw when we saluted. “Would you like to come in and see the place?” she said. “It is rather a curious place." We thanked the young lady, and said we didn’t wish to be troublesome; but she said it could be do trouble to an English soldier's daughter to show English soldiers how their countrymen and country- ' women fared so far away from England, and consequently we saluted again and went in. Then, as we stood in the shade, she showed us (being as affable as beautiful) how the different families lived in their separate houses, and how there was a general house for storesand a general reading-room, and a general room for music and dancing and a room for church, and bow there were other houses on the rising ground called the Signal Hill, where they lived in the hotter weather. l< Your officer has been carried up

there,” she said, “and my brother, too, for the better air. At present our few are dispersed over both spots, deducting,, that is to say, such of our number as are always going to or coming from or staying at the mine.” ( “He is among one of those pa rties. ” I thought, “and I wish somebody would knock his head off. ' 7 ) ■ ■ Some of ladies live here”, she said, “during at least half the year, as lonely as widows, with their children.” “Many children here, ma’am?” ‘"Seventeen. There are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like me.” There were' not eight like hertherewasnotonelikeher—inthe world. She meant single. “ Which, with about thirty Englishmen) of various degrees.” said theyoung lady, “form the little colony on the Island. I don’t count the sailors, for they don’t belong to e». Nor the soldiers,” she gave us a gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, “for the same reason,”n I 'NortheSaml7OS,ma’ain,’ r saidil. “ Under your favor and with your they trustworthy?” “Perfectly! We are all very kind to them, and they are very grates ul to us.” “Indeed, ma'am? Now —Christian, George King?- ” ‘‘Very much attached t»> us all. Would die for us.” She was, as in my uneducated way I have observed very beautiful women almost always to be. so composed that her composure gave great weight to what she said., and I bellevod it. Then she pointed out. to us the building like a powder magazine and explained to us in what manner the silver was brought from the mine and was brought over from the mainland and was stored there. The Christopher Columbus would have a rich lading, she said, for there had been a great yield that year, a much richer, yield than usual, and there was a chest of jewels besides the silver.

When we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through fearing we were troublesome, she turned us* over to a young woman, English born but West India bred, who served her as her maid. This young woman was the widow of a non-com-missioned officer in a regiment of the line. She had got married and widowed at St. Vincent, with only a few months between the two events. She was a little saucy woman, with abright pair of eyes, rather a neat little foot and figure and rather a neat little turned up nose. The sort of young woman, I considered at the time, who appeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have slapped your face if you accepted the invitation. I couldn’t make out hir name at first; for, when she gave it in answer to my inquiry, it sounded like Beltot, which didn’t sound right. But, when we became better acquainted —which was while Charker and I were drinking sugarcane sangaree, which she made in a most excellent manner —I found that her Christian name was Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and that the name of the deceased non-commis-sioned officer was Tott. Being the kind of neat little woman it was natural to make a toy of —I never saw a woman so like a toy in my life —she had got the plaything na:*o of Belltott. In short, she had no other name on the island. Even Mr. Commissioner Pordage (and he was a grave one!) formally addressed her as Mrs. Belltott. But I shall come to Mr. Commissioner Pordage presently. The name of the captain of the sloop was Capt. Maryon, and therefore it was no news to hear from Mrs. Belltott that his sister, the beautiful unmarried young English lady, was Miss Maryon. The novelty was that her Christian name was Marion, too. Marion Maryon. Many a time I have run off those two names in my thoughts, like a bit of verse. Oh many, and many, and many a time! We saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and true, and then took our leaves and went down to the beach. The weather was beautiful; the wind steady', low and gentle; the island a picture; the sea a picture, the sky a picture. In that country there are two rainy seasons in the year. One sets in about our English midsummer; the other about a fortnight after English Michaelmas. It was the beginning of August at that time; the first of these rainy seasons was well over, and everything was in its most beautiful growth and had its loveliest look upon it. “They enjoy themselves here," I says to Charker, turning surly again. “This is better than private soldiering.” We had come down to the beach to be friendly with the boat’s crew who were camped and hutted there, and we were approaching towards their quarter over the sand when Christian George King bomes up from the landing-place at a wolf's trot, crying. “Yup, So-Jeer!" —which was that Sambo Pilot's barbarous way of saying ' “Hallo, Soldier!” I have stated myself to be a man nf no learning, and, if I entertain prejudices, I hope allowance may be made. I will now confess to one. It may be a right one or it may be a wrong one, but I never did like Natives, except in the form of oysters. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Mrs. Mary Ranlett has built up an extensive business in a sailors' shipping office. She furnishes seamen in any desired number.

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