Mass' George

My father looked pleased, and turned to examine the young plants that had been set.

"Does me good, Master George, to see the captain coming round as he is.

Quite takes to the garden again. But dear, dear! It's in a melancholy state."

"Nonsense!" I cried; "why, it's wonderful how well it looks."

"Wonderful? Well, sir, I wouldn't have thought you could talk in that way of such a wilderness. Why, even old Han there, in his broken English savage way, said he was ashamed of it."

"Oh, well, I'm not," I said. "It's glorious to be able to get back once more to the dear old place. I say, though, you don't want Pomp any longer?"

"Ah, but I do, sir. Why?"

"I want to row up and have a bit of fis.h.i.+ng. It does seem so long since I've had a turn."

"Eh? Who said go fis?" cried Pomp, sharply. "Ma.s.s' George go fish?

Catch terrapum, and take de gun?"

"Morgan says he can't spare you."

"Oh!" exclaimed Pomp; but Morgan smiled one of his curious dry smiles, as he took off his hat and pointed with the corner.

"Just you go to the far end of the shed, Pomp, and you'll find in the damp place an old pot with a lot of bait in it as I put ready. On'y mind this, it's not to be all games."

"What do you mean?" I said, for Pomp had rushed off to get the bait.

"Bring us a bit o' fish. Be quite a treat."

Half an hour after Pomp and I were pulling up the river close in beneath the over-spreading boughs, ready to shout for joy as the golden sunbeams came down through the leaves and formed a lace-work of glory on the smooth deep water. Every now and then there was a familiar rustle and a splash, a flapping of wings, and a harsh cry as a heron or stork rose from his fis.h.i.+ng-ground; then some great hawk hovered over the stream, or we caught sight of the yellow and orange of the orioles.

Pomp was for rowing on and up to a favourite spot where there was a special haunt of the fish, where the stream curved round and formed a deep pool. But I felt as if I must stop again and again to let the boat drift, and watch humming-birds, or brightly-painted b.u.t.terflies and beetles, flitting here and there, so that it was quite a couple of hours before we reached the spot, and suddenly turned the curve of the river into the eddy.

As we did so silently I turned to look, and sat there petrified for a few moments, before I softly laid my hand on Pomp's arm. He turned round sharply and saw what I did--a party of six Indians on the opposite bank.

Before either of us could dip oar again we were seen; there was a deep, low exclamation, and the party turned and plunged into the forest and were gone.

With one sweep of my oar I sent the boat round into the stream, and we rowed back as rapidly as we could, expecting to hear arrows whizzing by us every moment. But we reached the landing-place in safety, secured the boat, and ran to the newly-erected house to give the alarm. I saw my father's brow contract with agony, but he was prompt in his measures.

"We will face them here," he said, "if they come." And, summoning in Morgan and Hannibal, the door and windows were barricaded, the weapons loaded, and we waited for

But we waited in vain. The severe lesson dealt to the Indians by our people and the Spaniards had had its result, and though I had not understood it then, the savages were more frightened of us than we of them; and the very next day, while we were still expecting attack, Colonel Preston came over from the settlement in company with the doctor, who wished to see his three patients once again, while the former announced a visit from some of the chiefs to make peace with our people, and to ask permission to trade.

That was the last alarm we had from the Indians, who would often come afterwards to barter skins, and some of their basket-work, with venison and fish, for knives and tobacco. And in the course of time my father and I had them for guides in many a pleasant hunting expedition, and for allies against the Spaniards, when they resumed their pretensions to the country, and carried on a feeble, desultory warfare, which kept the settlement always on the alert, but never once disturbed us, for our home lay quite out of their track and beyond them, when they came up the river upon one of their expeditions.

At such times my father always answered the call to arms; and as time went on, in addition to Morgan and the black, he had two great strapping fellows in Pomp and me--both young and loose-jointed, but able hands with a firelock.

Such calls were exciting; but after two or three, so little damage was done, that they ceased to cause us much anxiety; and after a bold attempt or two at retaliation, in which the war was carried right into the Spaniards' own land, and away up to their Floridan fort, matters gradually settled down.

For our settlement had prospered and increased, the broad savannahs grew year by year into highly-cultivated cotton land; the sugar-cane nourished; coffee was grown; and as the plantations spread, the little settlement gradually developed into a town and fort, to which big s.h.i.+ps came with merchandise from the old country, and took back the produce of our fields. Then as the town increased, and the forest disappeared in the course of years, we found ourselves in a position to laugh at the pretensions of the Spaniards.

But over all that there seems to hang a mist, and I recall but little of the troubles of those later days. It is of the early I write--of the times when all was new and fresh; and I have only to close my eyes to see again our old home surrounded by forest, that was always trying to reclaim the portions my father had won; but the skirmishers of Nature gained nothing, and a pleasant truce ensued. For my father was too wealthy to need to turn his land into plantations and trouble himself about the produce; he loved to keep it all as he had made it at first, save that now and again pleasant little additions were made, and the comforts of civilisation were not forgotten.

But as time went on, and I grew up, my pleasant life there had to come to an end, and I was obliged to go out into the world as became a man.

It was my great delight though as the years rolled on to get down south for a month's stay at the old place, and with Hannibal and Pomp for companions, and an Indian or two for guides, to penetrate the wilds for days and days together, boating, fis.h.i.+ng, shooting, and studying the glories of the wondrous water-ways of the forest and swamps.

Such trips seemed always fresh, and when I returned there was the delightful old home in which my father had elected to end his days; and I picture one of those scenes outside the embowered house with its broad veranda, and the pretty cottages a couple of hundred yards away beyond the n.o.ble garden, Morgan's pride. The home was simple still, for my father did not increase his establishment, save that a couple of young black girls elected to come from the settlement to place themselves under old Sarah's management.

I should not have mentioned this but for one little incident which took place two years after.

I had been in England for a long stay, and at the termination of my visit I had taken pa.s.sage, landed at the settlement, made a hasty call on two old friends, and then walked across to my father's, where, after my warm welcome from within doors, including a kiss from our Sarah for the great swarthy man she always would call "My dear boy," I went out to have my hand crunched by grey-headed old Morgan, and to grasp old Hannibal's broad palm as well.

"Why, where's Pomp?" I said.

"Him heah, Ma.s.s' George," was shouted from the direction of one of the cottages. "I come, sah, but she juss like 'tupid lil n.i.g.g.e.r. Come 'long, will you; Ma.s.s' George won't eat you."

I opened my eyes a little as I recognised in the smart, pleasant-looking black girl by his side, Salome, one of the maids I had seen at the cottage before I sailed for Europe.

"Why, Pomp," I said, laughing, "what does this mean?"

"Dab juss what I tell her, Ma.s.s' George," he cried. "I know you be quite please, on'y she all ashame and foolis like."

"But, Pomp, my good fellow, you don't mean--"

"Oh yes, I do, Ma.s.s' George; and I know you be dreffle glad--dat my wife."

Yes; I can picture it all--that old plantation life started by brave-enduring Englishmen, who were ready to face stern dangers, and determined to hold their own--picture it all more vividly than perhaps I have done for you; but as far as in me lay, I have tried to place before you who read the incidents of a boy's life in those distant days; and if I have been somewhat prosy at times, and made much of trifles, which were serious matters to us, forgive my shortcomings as I lay down my pen.

THE END.