Redskins and colonists

Front matter

COEffilGHT DEPOSm

I t f i

I

Introduction

“ Redskins and Colonists ” relates the particulars of a period of Colonial times of absorbing interest to all.

At the time of the opening of this tale the colony of Virginia was still struggling for existence. Time and again it had been reduced by the Indians, until only a handful of the original settlers remained. Lord Delaware had added to the number, and then came others, until, in 1622, the colony took on a more prosperous look. Sir Francis Wyatt succeeded Yeardley as governor, and he instructed the planters to cultivate the good-will of the red men.

Had that great Indian, Powhatan, still been alive, the good-will of the red men might have been gained. But Powhatan was dead, and his place was occupied by Opechancanough, a crafty and cruel warrior, who lost no time in arranging a plan for the wholesale slaughter of the whites. The Indians were now dexterous with firearms, and having been treated with contempt by the English, they laid their plans adroitly, and on March 22, 1622,

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INTRODUCTION they fell upon every settlement. Men, women, and even babes in their mothers’ arms, were massacred without mercy; and had it not been for one halfcivilized red man who gave the plot away in part if not in whole, the slaughter would have been practically universal.

By this slaughter upward of three hundred and fifty persons lost their lives, and at once a war was instituted against the Indians, lasting many years. The horrors and privations of this contest can scarcely be believed in these days, when wars with red men have become entirely a thing of the past. Whole families were killed off, and in some cases complete settlements were razed, so that, later, scarcely a trace of them was to be found! But at last the warfare ceased, and then prosperity once more shone upon the hardy pioneers who had risked their all to make the United States what they have since become.

Contents

The Sole Survivors .

I t i

Chapter I

On the ist of March, 1851, two men were standing by the side of a bark that presented the scene of bustle and confusion that distinguishes a craft unloading and within a day or two of putting to sea.

She is a good-looking craft,” said one. ‘‘ Though not a sailor, I have wandered about long enough to form an opinion of a ship when I see one. She is certainly handsome, and I should say that she was fast.”

Yes, the Dolphin is a stout ship,” the other said.

I have had her twelve years now, and she has always done well by me, and has earned me a good many thousand pounds since the day I bought her. I don’t know that any one out of the twelve I own has done better service or has met with fewer misadventures. I chose her for that reason as Rob^ ert’s first command. As you know, I have no idea of his sticking to the sea, fond of it though he may be. But I thought that it were as well for him to learn the business, and to work his way up till he could take the command of one of my vessels and sail her for a few years. In the first place, he was rather disposed to be dreamy as a boy, and I was sure that eight or ten years at sea would brighten him up and make a man of him. In the next place, it is always better that an owner should have a thorough practical knowledge of ships and their requirements. He is thus able to see for himself that they are in all respects well found when they start. Then he can check the bills captains run up for repairs and stores during their voyages, and can see that he is not imposed upon. My father sent me to sea as a boy, and I believe that no small portion of the success that I have achieved is due to the knowledge that I then gained.’'

‘‘ An excellent idea,” the other said. I wish that, instead of kicking over the traces and going out to seek my fortune on my own account, I had been sent to sea too, instead of being put in Parker’s office. I know that his idea was that when the time came I should look after the details of the business in the counting house, and that he should take the practical side of the shipping.”

“ It would have been better so, William ; but you see that you were mistaken in supposing that he intended you to remain long with the Parkers. Of course, I was away at sea when you ran away, and when I returned he told me that he had intended you should go out as supercargo for, at any rate, a few voyages ; so that, while I learned all about the rigging and fitting of a ship, you would have practical experience in the trading part of the business. Unfortunately, he was one of the old type, and didn't consider it necessary to inform us of his intentions, but when the time came, simply laid his orders upon us ; which, in my opinion, was a great mistake, and fathers in our days are for the most part wiser. At any rate, I have gone the other way to work. I explained to Robert my motive for wishing him to take to the sea for a time ; and though at first he had not, like most boys, any very strong wish to go to sea, he at once acknowledged that he could see that it would be an advantage that he should do so, and after a voyage or two took to it heart and soul."

The speaker was Mr. John Burton, who had been until two years before the sole owner of his business, although it had been settled that Robert should shortly become a member of the firm. At that time, however, his brother William, whom he had not seen or heard of since the latter had, at the age of sixteen, run away from home some thirty years before, returned to England, and he at once took him to his home. Although two years his junior, William looked the elder of the two. John, after spending, a few years at sea, had settled down as junior partner in the firm of Burton and Son, of which he became the sole representative at his father’s death some fifteen years later.

The business had flourished under his charge. His ships were always well found and well manned. He maintained that it was cheaper to lay out a sum sufficient to make them seaworthy in all respects than to insure them.

“ A man with but two or three ships must,” he argued, “ be insured. He cannot risk the accidents of the sea ; but with a fleet of twelve vessels it pays him to insure himself. Certainly it has been so in my case. I have never lost a ship since I gave up insuring them at my father’s death. I am more particular than most men in seeing that their equipment is as perfect as can be; and it has paid me well, and given me the satisfaction of knowing that, except when from time to time men have been washed overboard in a storm or killed by falling from aloft, I can say that no single life has ever been lost from causes within my control among the men who had served in my ships. I have kept an exact account of the saving I have made by not insuring, and it has been sufficient to enable me to sell a ship whenever she became in the slightest degree unseaworthy, for whatever price she would fetch, and to replace her by a thoroughly good and sound one.”

John Burton was a widower, and he invited his brother to make his home with him. The latter had many tales to tell of the life he had led since he left London as a boy ; and, according to his own account, misfortune had often dogged his path. There were, however, many more stories of his career that he took good care not to relate. He had, indeed, led a wild and reckless life. He had been for years a beachcomber in the South Sea Islands and a golddigger in California. He had been a smuggler, and had been engaged in operations that the law would not have distinguished from piracy. He had made money in heaps, and had thrown or gambled it away as quickly as he made it. When he sailed for England it was with no fixed intention of staying there. He had a few hundred pounds to spend, and he thought that he would look round and see whether his brother was alive and how he was prospering.

He was still a bachelor ; possibly there was something to be done; at any rate, it was worth going home for, and of late he had begun to feel that he was not the man he had been, and that he was tired of the life that he had so long been leading. On arriving in England he had, before calling upon his brother, made some inquiries at the docks and warehouses, and found that his brother was a widower with one son, that he owned twelve ships, and was in all ways a successful man. He learned a good deal about his private character, and posted himself where he could get a good view of him as he came out from his office. Once or twice he followed him down to the docks, watched him talking with his captains, and arrived at the conclusion that it was well worth staying for a time in England. Then he went to a tailor’s and ordered a suit of quiet clothes, and had his hair carefully cut, his mustache and beard shaved, and his whiskers trimmed, in accordance with the style prevalent among business men in the City. This done, he wrote a carefully worded letter from the quiet hotel, ‘‘ The Hummums,” in Covent Garden, where he was staying:

My dear brother John : — As you have not seen nor heard of me for some thirty years, you have doubtless almost forgotten my existence. Had I been getting on very badly I should probably have returned like a bad penny. Had I done well I should certainly have written to our father, if only to show that, although I could not stand the life in the counting house, I had at least some business capacity in me. I have, however, had my ups and downs — making money sometimes, but not enough to enable me to write and say that I was doing well; more often losing it, but not driven to such sore straits as would have compelled me to own that I had done wrong in striking out a course for myself. However, I have returned, and may stay in England a few weeks or a few months. I am not intending to thrust myself upon you. I have no right to do so. I went out from the family of my own accord, and thereby forfeited any right to family afYection. I do not mind now admitting that I did wrong, though I am sure that I should do the same again were I similarly placed. However, I have been heavily punished for what was no doubt an act of folly. I should, however, be very glad to see you if you would be pleased to see me. Should you not care about having one whom men doubtless consider as a ne’er-do-well call upon you, I shall have no right to complain. I shall send this down by hand. If you are not in, the messenger will leave it for you. If you are in, and he brings me back your message that there is no answer, I shall understand that you do not wish to renew the ties that I severed long ago. — Your brother, William.”

An hour later a cab drove up to the door, and a gentleman got out hastily and inquired of the waiter for Mr. William Burton, and was shown up to a private room that William had engaged for the morning. The waiter opened the door and announced Mr. John Burton.” William gave an exclamation of pleasure as he rose from his chair. For half a minute the two men stood looking at each other without speaking.

This is kind of you indeed, John,” William said.

‘‘ I think I should have known you. You were eighteen, you see, and of course in my eyes you were almost a man. I recognize you rather by your eyes than anything else. I am sure that you cannot recognize me. I was )7’our junior; and besides, while your life has run easily and smoothly, mine has been a hard one, and knocking about for thirty years in the neighborhood of the tropics takes a lot out of a man. I feel, and I am sure that I look, your senior.’’

I certainly should not have known you, brother,” John said. “ You have grown out of all recognition ; and indeed, being a man of business, and before I can quite accept you as my brother, I must ask you a few questions so as to assure myself of your identity. Let me think. In the first place, where did you go to school ? ”

“ To old Trotter’s at Clapham,” the other said readily. ‘‘ You were in the second class when I went there, and the very day after I went you licked Jenson for bullying me.”

‘‘ Quite right,” the other replied, more warmly than he had before spoken. “ Can you tell me any special incident at school that I shall be likely to remember? ”

‘‘ Yes. I don’t suppose that you have forgotten how I went on to the ice of one of the ponds on the common before it was safe, and went through, and how you lay down and crawled out till you were near enough to me to throw me your jacket, and you held on by the sleeve and I to the jacket till one of the fellows — Sykes it was, I think — ran back to the school and brought a rope/’

“ That will do, William. Now let us shake hands. I am heartily glad to see you home. I have often wondered what had become of you, and wished that you were back again. I have been married since then, and lost my wife years ago. I have one boy ; . he has been to sea (as I was) for some six years, and is now first mate on board one of my ships, so I have been a lonely man. I won’t ask you any questions now as to what you have been doing. Of course, it will be a long story, and I must get back to business. Get your things packed up. I will call for you at six o’clock and drive you down to my place. I live at Old Brompton. It is a quiet little place, but I took it when first married, and did not care to move into our father’s house at Bryanston Square at his death. No; nonsense! I will take no refusal. Get everything ready by six sharp.”

Then, shaking hands heartily with his brother, John Burton hurried away. William’s two portmanteaus were down in the hall, and he was standing at the door punctual to a moment, when his brother drove up in a dogcart, just as the clock in the market was striking the hour.

‘‘ You are as punctual as our father was, John,”

William said as the groom jumped down and lowered the back of the dogcart, while the porter brought out the luggage.

“ Yes ; he was the same to the end, William. He always entered the office at the stroke of nine, and woe be to anyone who arrived even a minute later. I don’t know that I am quite as punctual as he was, but I don’t think there is much difference.”

So William Burton was installed at his brother’s. He told John as much as seemed good to him of his trading transactions and adventures, with such variations from the truth as seemed advisable. At the end of a fortnight he proposed going into lodgings.

I have brought enough home with me to live comfortably for six months at home, to pay my passage out, and to make a fresh start.”

“ That is all very well, William, but it does not seem to me that the fresh starts that you have made, and which seem to have been numerous, have had much results. However, that is your affair; but it is my affair that you shall not leave here and go into lodgings. It is a very great pleasure to me to have you here. I quite look forward to coming home and having someone to talk to in the evening.”

“ Well, brother, you see, after such a life as I have led I cannot help finding it dull here during the day. I should be content if I could find something to do. I do not mean in the money-making

II way, but to give one employment. I was thinking of it yesterday, and it struck me that if you would but make me useful I should be as happy as a prince. I am, as you know, thoroughly at home with ships and everything connected with them. You are constantly having to run down to the docks. Now, couldn’t you let me take some of that off your hands ? I could bring you up news as to anything wanted, let you know exactly how things are going on, take your orders down to the captains, and things of that sort. It would be a real pleasure to me, and I should not find time hang on my hands and be seized with a fit of restlessness and go suddenly off again.”

‘‘ You really mean that, William? ”

“ I do, John.”

“ Then so let it be. It will certainly save me a great deal of trouble, and I may say annoyance, for sometimes one loses business through being out when someone comes in in a hurry to ask for a quotation for freight or whether I can take a passenger or two. Then one has one’s skipper often running up to ask about some trifle, and something goes wrong in his absence. I think it would be an excellent arrangement for us both. I am sure that you must find it desperately dull, for one cannot be walking about the streets all day.”

And so it was settled to the satisfaction of both. William made himself useful. His brother drove him up to the office every morning. Half an hour would be spent in opening the letters. William would then go off to the docks, returning at lunchtime with precise information how everything was going on — the progress the riggers were making, or the lading or unlading of the cargo — and with any matters on which the skipper required instructions. He then returned again, and was certain to present himself at the office at the very moment that the dogcart drew up to take them home. He made himself so useful that his brother began to wonder how he had ever got on without so valuable an assistant. The relief to him was indeed great. He was able to get through his work in the office comfortably and easily, and only paid an occasional visit to the docks.

Chapter II

William Burton did not stay after the first two months at his brother's house. I will take a lodging near," he said, and drop in often, John ; but I have so long been a Bohemian that I like to go where I wish of my own free will, and to drop into a theater occasionally. After being thirty years alone, one cannot expect to be able to settle down into altogether domestic ways immediately."

This time John offered no opposition. He thought his brother’s wish was but reasonable ; and he himself felt that an evening alone by himself with his books would be pleasant, and that when he had once heard all his brother’s stories he should find it more dull sitting alone with him evening after evening, trying to keep up a conversation, than being by himself. Another thing was that William was an inveterate smoker, while he himself had given up the practice altogether when he left the sea, and had now a positive objection to the smell of tobacco.

Robert returned for the third time from a voyage a year after his uncle’s arrival, and his father then broached to him the idea he had formed of taking William into the firm.

‘‘ I should not like to do it without consulting you, Robert. I have more reasons than one for wishing it. In the first place, it is hard on him that I should have inherited my father’s business and property, while his name was not so much as mentioned in the will. My father never forgave his running away, and would never allow his name to be as much as mentioned ; and as years went on and he never heard from him, he was, I believe, convinced that William was dead. Of course, had he remained here he would have shared with me in the business and property. I don’t say that he wasn’t wrong to run away, but I think that he has paid much heavier for it than he deserves. He tells me that, knowing his father as he did, he felt sure that he would not forgive him, but that he had always intended to write if he were in a position to do so, without his father being able to think that he had only written because he wanted a share of his money. So you see, Robert, ever since he has been home it has been on my mind that as my brother he ought to have some share of his father’s property, and not be obliged to go out again at his age to try to make a fortune. In the next place, he is my brother, and during the time that we have been together I have come to have a real affection for him, and it has been very pleasant for me to have him with me. Lastly, I am not, I suppose, so active and energetic as I was twenty years ago.

and it has been a great relief to have the dock v/ork taken so largely off my hands. I am able to trust him entirely, which I should never do a stranger. He is punctual, and most painstaking and intelligent. In many ways he has saved me money, and altogether he has become more than my right hand as far as that business goes. I should propose to offer him a fourth share in the business. I shall at the same time take you into partnership and give you a fourth share. You will, of course, eventually come into my share also. As a provision against any possible disagreement there might be between you, or your feeling that his greater age gave him an authority in the business out of proportion to the comparatively small share that he had in it, I should insert a clause in a deed of partnership saying that, at any time after you had come into possession of my share of the business, you might purchase his interest in it for the sum of ten thousand pounds — which, I may tell you, is about a third of the sum I laid by as savings. What do you think of that, lad?’’

“ I don’t know that I should quite have liked it if it had not been for the last clause. As you spoke it certainly did rush across my mind that I should scarcely be able to manage things as I might wish with a partner so much older than myself. Your suggestion, however, entirely does away with that i6 difficulty, and I quite agree in all that you say. I can go to sea for another five or six years at any rate, and I shall be very glad to think of your having a brother with you ; and I am glad, too, that some of the strain of your work shall be taken off your hands. It is but just that he' should benefit in some way from his father’s fortune. Certainly, as long as you are at the head of the business there is no chance of any unpleasantness occurring.”

“ You don’t quite like your uncle, Robert? ”

“ No, sir, I don’t know that I do. I certainly have no reason for disliking him, but I don’t think that I understand him.”

“In what way, Robert ? ”

“ Well, it does not seem natural that a man who has been knocking about in Australia and among the Islands for thirty years should suddenly settle down into such a life as he is leading now. You see, I have twice been out to those parts, and I know something about the wild, reckless life the smaller traders and what we call beachcombers live there. I suppose as a whole they are as unmitigated a body of scoundrels as are to be found anywhere’ on the globe. Of course, there may be exceptions, and uncle may have been one of them. Still, I own that at present I have not seen enough of him to be able to form an opinion either way. But you have had vastly greater opportunities, and if you feel that you can trust him entirely it is quite sufficient for me. Still, if it had not been for that clause in the partnership which would empower me to buy him out, I would much rather that, instead of his having a fourth in the business, he should take three of the twelve ships for himself, with, of course, a sufficient amount of capital to enable him to work them properly. However, as I have said, that clause would remove all the difficulty, as I hope that it will be very many years before the contingency can arrive. It may well be that before then I shall have worked long enough with him to come round completely to your opinion of him.^’

“ I will think the matter over, Robert, and we will talk about it again before you sail.”

Three days later the conversation was resumed.

“ I think there is a good deal in what you said, Robert. It has in no way altered my opinion of William, but I can understand that you as a young man, with no special reason for liking an uncle whom you have never seen until he came here, should see it in the light that you do. I have therefore settled that the deed of partnership shall specify that it is to remain in force only during my lifetime, and that at the end of that time it shall end and determine. It shall specify that a first-rate firm of accountants, whom I shall name, shall then value the business, ships, etc., and that he shall be paid one-fourth of i8 the sum decided upon. You will, of course, have the option of paying it from the sum that I shall leave you, or of selling some of the ships and reducing the business ; but I should certainly advise you to do the former.”

“ Certainly, father; I think that that would be an excellent plan, and would suit him as well as myself. You are not fifty yet, and will, I hope, be the head of the firm for the next thirty years at least. He is a little younger than you are, but he looks ten years older; and certainly, from the life that he has led, he is not likely to survive you. But even if he did, he would be an old man, and would, I should think, be very glad indeed to take his share of the business in money.”

And so it was arranged. William Burton expressed a lively gratitude when his brother told him of the proposed arrangement.

‘‘ Pooh, pooh ! ” the latter said. “ You ought to have had a share of your father’s money, and the portion that I now propose is really not worth as much or more than the hatf-share that you would have had had you not fallen out with him ; so that I am really only righting a wrong, and I shall feel much more comfortable now that the matter is settled. This is the draft of the partnership that I have drawn up. As you will see on reading it through, it holds good only during my lifetime, and at my death the value of the business and ships will be estimated by a firm of accountants that I have named, and you will be paid your fourth in cash. This will probably suit you better than remaining in the business; and, indeed, I feel that though, as my junior, your position as junior partner would have no unpleasantness, it might be otherwise were my son to be the head and principal partner and you, a much older man, his junior. The name of the firm will be changed to that of John, Robert, and William Burton.”