'Twas the design of the master to set us to the very hardest work from the beginning, so that we should be the more anxious to get remission of our pains. For it must not be supposed that all the work on the estate was so hard and irksome as that with the hoe--which is generally kept for the strongest and hardest of the negroes, men and women. There are many other employments: some are put to weed the canes, some to fell wood, some to cleave it, some to attend the Ingenio, the boiling-house, the still-house, the curing-house; some to cut the maize, some to gather provisions, of bonavist, maize, yams, potatoes, cassavy, and the like. Some to the smith's forge; some to attend to the oxen and sheep; some to the camels and assinegoes, and the like: so that, had the master pleased, he might have set us to work better fitted to English gentlemen. Well, his greediness and cruelty were defeated, as you shall presently see. As for the domestic economy of the estate, there were on it five hundred acres of land, of which two hundred were planted with sugar, eighty for pasture, one hundred and twenty for wood, thirty for tobacco, five for ginger, and as many for cotton-wool, and seventy for provisions--viz. corn, potatoes, plantains, cassavy, and bonavist--with a few for fruit. There were ninety-six negroes, two or three Indian women with their children, and twenty-eight Christian servants, of whom we were three. At eleven o'clock we were marched back to dinner. At one we went out again, the sun being at this time of the day very fierce, though January is the coldest month in the year. We worked till six o'clock in the evening, when we returned. 'This,' said Robin, with a groan, 'is what we have now to do every day for ten years.' 'Heart up, lads!' said Barnaby; 'our time will come. Give me time to turn round, as a body may say. Why, the harbour is full of boats. Let me get to the port and look round a bit. If we had any money now--but that is past praying for. Courage and patience! Doctor, you hoe too fast: no one looks for zeal. Follow the example of the black fellows, who think all day long how they shall get off with as little work as possible. As for their lash, I doubt whether they dare to lay it about us, though they may talk. Because you see, even if we do not escape, we shall some time or other, through the Rector's efforts, get a pardon, and then we are gentlemen again; and when that moment arrives I will make this master of ours fight, willy-nilly, and I will kill him, d'ye see, before I go home to kill Benjamin.' He then went on to discourse (either with the hope of raising our spirits or because it cheered his mind just to set them forth) upon his plans for the means of escape.