During the next few days there was bustle in the _Broken Heart_.
Visitors came aboard to look at samples of goods; to talk with the
seamen; and to taste the rum and beer, which was served out, a cup to
each comer, for the first forty-eight hours of her stay in the port.
All sorts came aboard her; traders and planters, oyster and fisher
men, soldiers from the fort, officers of the Governor’s house,
Indians, men from the backwoods, trappers, a sun-burned,
good-humoured, silent company, very sharp at a bargain.
After the first two days, the trade began. The seamen rigged up
trading-booths ashore, with some old sails, stretched upon poles.
Planks were laid upon casks to serve as trade tables. The goods were
arranged at the back of each booth, in the care of trusty hands.
Clothing was more in demand than any other kind of goods; but the only
clothes bought were those of fine quality and beautiful colour. It
puzzled Captain Margaret to see a small planter, owning perhaps only
one white apprenticed servant, or redemptioner, buying clothes of
great price, putting them on in the booth, and riding off, like an
earl, on his little Virginian horse, to his little clearing in the
wilderness. A few planters, especially those who were newly come to
the colony from the islands, where they had been privateering, paid
for their purchases in ounces of silver. It was easy to recognize
these planters. They had not lost their sea-walk, nor that steadfast
anxiety of gaze which marks the sailor. They all carried arms; though
the richer sort of them wore only pistols and a knife, leaving the
carriage of the musket, the bag containing lead, a mould, and some
bullets, and the heavy leather-covered powder-bottle, to a
redemptioner, a Moskito Indian, or, more rarely, to a negro slave.
Cammock had known some of these men in the past. Often, as he sat in
the shade, watching the beauty of the scene, now so glorious with
coming autumn, Captain Margaret would see one of these strangers
approaching, followed by his man. He was always impressed by them,
sometimes by their physical splendour, sometimes by the sense that
they were full of a rather terrible exuberance. As he watched such a
man approaching the booths, puffing at his pipe, dressed in elaborate
clothes, hung about with silver at all points, with silver buttons,
silver brooches, silver discs, buckles of heavy silver, links and
stars of silver, silver chains and necklets, so that the man’s whole
wealth was on his body at one time, Captain Margaret was conscious of
a feeling of envy. His own training, his own beautifully ordered life
in an English college, had shut him off from such a life as this
man’s. This clashing, tinkling pirate--he was nothing more, although
he often looked so fine--was master of his world. Captain Margaret was
the slave of his; the unhappy slave. The pirate could leave his
plantation when he wished, letting the wild bines choke his tobacco.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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