CHAPTER X.

HOW THEY PASSED THE WINTER EVENINGS.

One evening they made a rousing fire. Ben got out his shoemaker’s bench, and was tapping a pair of shoes. Boots were not worn by them; they wore shoes and buskins.

Fred and Charles were making baskets, and Joe an axe-handle, or rather smoothing it. Sally was knitting Charles a pair of mittens. As for Sailor, he had the cat on her back on the hearth, while he was astride of her, trying to lick her face with his tongue, the cat keeping him off with her paws, but when he became too familiar, would strike him with her claws.

“Charlie,” said Joe, looking up from his work, “tell us some more about England, like as you did the other night.”

“Yes, do, Charlie,” said Fred. “Was your father a cooper? You said they made hoops of willow and alder.”

“No; he was a basket-maker, and so were all my folks--my grandfather and great-grandfather. We cannot remember when our folks were not basket-makers. But then, as I have told you, we mean by basket-makers those who work with sallies, and make all kinds of things with it. My mother’s brother made a tea-set, and presented it to the queen,--plates, and cups and saucers, and tea and coffee pots, and tumblers. Of course they were only to look at; but they were just as beautiful as they could be, and all colored different colors, like china. He was four years about it, at spare times, when he could leave his regular work that he got his living by. My father employed four or five men, and we paid our rent, and got along quite comfortable, till my father was pressed.”

“Pressed!” said Fred; “what is that?”

“Why, in England, they are in war-time always short of men in the navy; and then they take them right in the street, or anywhere, and put them by force into the men-of-war, to serve during his majesty’s pleasure. I have heard people say that means during the war; and that as England is always at war with somebody, it was the same as forever. That is what pressing means.”

“A cruel, barbarous thing it is, too,” said Ben, “and ought to bring a curse on any government.”

“They press sailors generally,” said Charles; “but when they are very short of men they will take anybody they can get hold of. I have heard say they couldn’t press a squire’s son, or a man that owned land, and that they can’t go into a man’s house to take him; but, if they catch him outside, or going into the door, they will take him.”

“Can they take any of the quality?”

“No, indeed! all the misery comes on the poor in England.”

“I shouldn’t think,” said Fred, “that a poor man would dare to go out of doors.”

“Well, they don’t; leastways, in the night, when the press-gang is about. There was one time (I have heard my mother tell of it) when they were pressing blacksmiths.”

“What did they want of blacksmiths?”

“She said at that time they took blacksmiths and rope-makers, calkers, and shipwrights, and set them at work in the dock-yards on foreign stations, where they were building and repairing men-of-war. My uncle was a blacksmith; he had been warned that the press-gang were about, and was on his guard. But one night, just as he was getting into bed, there was a cry of murder right at his door-step. He ran out to help, and there was a man lying on the flags, and two others striking at him. The moment my uncle came out, the man who was crying murder jumped up, and all three of them rushed upon my uncle. It was the press-gang making believe murder to get him out of doors. He caught hold of the scraper on the step of the door, and cried for help. My aunt ran out and beat the press-gang with her broom, and the people in the block flung coals, and kettles, and anything they could lay their hands on, upon their heads. One woman got a tea-kettle of hot water, and was going to scald the press-gang; but she couldn’t without scalding my uncle. The people now rose, and came rushing from all quarters; but the police came, too, to help the press, and marines from the guard-house with cutlasses and pistols. His wife clung to him, and his children, and cried as though their hearts would break; but they put handcuffs on him, and dragged him away, all bleeding, and his clothes torn off in the scuffle.”

“What a bloody shame!” cried Ben, his face assuming that terrible expression which Charles had seen on it when the encounter between him and the land-pirates took place. “I wish I had been there; I’d have given some of them sore heads. But they are not so much to blame, after all. It is those that make the laws, and that set the press-gang at work. I should like to wring their necks for them.”

“I shouldn’t think,” said Joe, “such men would fight very well for the government that used them so.”

“They don’t,” said Ben; “and they dare not trust them; but they scatter them through the ship, a few in every mess, and put them where they can watch them. I was taken once by an English man-of-war. They put a prize crew on board of us; part of them were pressed men. We rose and retook her; the pressed men all joined us, and went into our army.”

“I should have thought they would have gone into the privateers or men-of-war.”

“They thought they were less likely to be taken again in the army, for if the English had got hold of them, they would have hung them. They told me that whenever they got into action with a French vessel, they threw the shot overboard, if they could get a chance, instead of putting it in the guns, in order that they might be taken; and that they sometimes revenged themselves by shooting their officers in the smoke and heat of the action.”

“I should think the officers would keep a bright look out for them.”

“So they do; and are very careful not to go under the tops, and keep well clear of the masts, lest a marline-spike should come down on their heads, or a block unhook, or a heaver fall, as accidents of that kind were very apt to happen when pressed men were aloft. I don’t believe a man could be so on his guard that I could not kill him in the course of a three years’ cruise, if I wanted to, and appear to do it by accident, too.

“I have seen hundreds of these men, and they all tell the same story. I’ve seen a poor fellow who was pressed when he was nineteen; his mother was a widow, and he was her sole dependence. I’ve seen him, when he was telling me the story, jump up and smite his hands together, while the tears ran down his cheeks, and pray God to curse that government, and hope that he might live to see its downfall; but I never heard them curse the country; they seemed to love that; it was the government they hated and cursed.”

“Was your father pressed when your uncle was?” said Joe.

“No; about four months after.”

“Tell us about that, Charles,” said Sally.

“I don’t like to tell or think about it; but I will tell you. At the time my uncle was taken, it made a great noise. People were very much frightened, and kept very close, never going out in the evening if they could help it.”

“I don’t see,” said Ben, “in a country where the law allowed them to seize people in the street, and carry them off, why they could not go into the house and take them.”

“Perhaps they could; but that was what folks said, that an ‘Englishman’s house was his castle,’ and they couldn’t come into the house to take them, and they never did. We didn’t think they would press my father, because he was neither a rope-maker nor carpenter; but they were short of men, and all was fish that came to their net. Nevertheless, we kept such strict watch that my father would not have been taken; but he was sold to them by a blood-seller.”

“What is a blood-seller?” said Sally.

“A man that will go to the captain of the press-gang, and tell him where he can find a man, and how he can get hold of him; and they get paid for it.”

“O, that is the meanest, wickedest thing I ever did hear tell of.”

“It is often done in England, though; but this man didn’t do it for money.”

“What did he do it for?”

“He and my father courted mother when they were both young men; but she liked my father best, and married him. He always hated my father after that; told lies about him, killed his geese, and tried to injure him in his business. But when he found the press-gang were about, he thought if he could sell him to them, and get him out of the way, mother would marry him.”

“He must have been a fool, as well as a villain, to think a woman would marry a man that did that.”

“But he did not think that would ever be known; but it came out. He knew that my father had engaged to make cases for the army to carry instruments in.”

“What are they?”

“Why, little square baskets, with partings in them, and covered with leather, to put the doctors’ things in. They are so light that a man can carry them on his back just like a knapsack.

“My father set out from home, to go to the government workshop, long before daylight, that the press-gang might not see him; he had about four miles to go. If he could only get there, and put his name on the roll, he would be safe, as then he would have a passport given him to go and come, and the press couldn’t touch him. He could make better wages working at home, but my mother persuaded him to work for less wages, for the sake of being safe.

“The blood-seller knew all about this, and told the press-gang. He was in sight of the workshop, and hurrying on with all his might, when four men jumped out from a hedge and seized him,--one of whom put his hand on his shoulder, and told him he must go and serve in the navy during his majesty’s pleasure. Before daylight he was out of sight and hearing of everybody that knew him.”

“Poor man,” said Sally, “when he was almost in safety.”

“But how did you know what had become of him?” said Joe.

“He was going to board with his cousin, and come home Saturday nights. They looked for him till the middle of the week, and, when he didn’t come, his cousin came over to our house, and said to mother, ‘Where is John? I thought he was going to work for the army.’

“‘He went from here at three o’clock last Monday morning.’

“‘He has not been at our house, nor at the workshop, for I have been to see.’

“‘Not been at your house! Why, he told me he was going to enter his name on the roll, and be mustered in, and get his protection, and then go to your house to dinner.’

“‘My God! then the press-gang have got him!’

“As he uttered these awful words, my mother screamed out, ‘The thing that I greatly feared has come upon me,’ and fell senseless on the hearth. We children thought she was dead.”

“Poor soul,” cried Sally, “how she must have suffered! Your cousin ought to have broke it to her more gently. But what did you do then?”

“He put her on the bed, and called some women that lived over the way, and they brought her to. All her folks and friends came to see her, and tried to comfort her, and told her that perhaps he had gone on some unexpected business, and would return; and that even if he was pressed, he might be discharged when the war was over.”

“How long before you found out what become of him?”

“In about ten days my mother had a letter from him. It was all blotted over with tears. He said he was on board the hulk at Sheerness, and that if we came quick we could see him, as he might be ordered away at any time.”

“What is a hulk?” said Fred.

“It is an old man-of-war, not fit for service, and made a prison-ship of, to keep the men in till they want them in the ships they are going in. My grandfather went with us to the ship; there we found him with two thousand more men.”

“O, my!” said Sally; “were all these poor men pressed?”

“No; my father said most of them were sailors who had shipped of their own accord. He was so pale and heart-broken I should have hardly known him. He wanted to be cheerful, and comfort us, but he couldn’t. The tears ran down his cheeks in spite of him.

“He took my mother in his arms, and said, ‘My poor Nancy, what will become of you and these little ones, now they have no father to earn them bread, and keep want from the door; and poor old father, too, that when we had food always had part of it.’ Little William, who was just beginning to go alone, clung around his neck, and sobbed as if his heart would break.

“‘We shall be at home, John, among friends; but you are going among strangers into battle, to be exposed to the dangers of the seas.’

“They now told us we must part, for we had been together two hours, though it seemed to us but a few moments. We had to see and talk with him right amongst a crowd of men: some were swearing, some wrangling, and some laughing and talking, for the sailors seemed to be as merry as could be, and in their rough way tried to cheer us up. Father asked my grandfather to pray with him before they parted; and when my father told some of the sailors what he was going to do, they went among the rest, and it was so still that you might have heard a pin drop. I saw tears in the eyes of many of them when we went away, and they said, ‘God bless you, old father!’ in a real hearty way, to my grandfather, and shook hands with him.”

“Sailors are rough men,” said Ben, “for they live on a rough element, and see rough usage; but there was not a sailor in all that ship’s company would have betrayed his shipmate, as that blood-seller did your father.”

“While we were on board the guard-ship, one of the marines told my father who it was that betrayed him to the press-gang, for he overheard him talking with the captain about it.

“It was bitter parting. We never expected to see him again, and we never did; for it was but a few months after that when he was killed in battle.”

“What did your mother do,” said Ben, “when she heard that your father was dead?”

“At first she took to her bed, and seemed quite heart-broken. After a while she kind of revived up, and said it was her duty to take care of us, for father’s sake. Then she hired men, and went into the shop herself; and the neighbors and our relations helped us cut and whiten the sallies, and pick the fowl, and we made out to pay the rent, and were getting along very well, when there came a new trouble.”

“What was that?”

“Why, this same man, Robert Rankins, that sold my father, began to come into the shop, and make us presents, and help us, and finally asked my mother to marry him; but she spit in his face, and called him a blood-seller, and told him what he had done to my father; but still he would come; when, to be rid of him, she put the children among my father’s folks, and took me and came to the States; and the rest you know,” said the boy, his voice shaking with the feelings which the recital called up.

Charlie’s stories were not all so sad as these. Many of them caused them all to laugh till their sides ached.

“How did you get your living, Charles,” said Ben, “before you shipped with the pirates in the shaving mill?”

“I ran of errands, and piled up wood on the wharves, picked up old junk round the wharves and sold it, and went round to the doors of the houses and sung songs; did everything and anything that I could get a copper by, except to beg and steal. I never did beg in my life, but sometimes I thought I must come to it or starve.”

“Sing me a song, do, Charlie,” said Fred.

“Some other time, Fred, I will; but not to-night. I have been talking about things that make my heart ache, and I don’t feel like it.”

If Charles could tell them many things that were new and interesting, they could equal him in all these respects. Joe could tell him stories of logging, camp-life in the woods, and hunting; Ben, of the seas and privateering.

Charlie was exceedingly curious and inquisitive in respect to everything that related to the Indians. He had read and heard a great many stories about them in his own country, from old soldiers that had been in the British armies, and of whom every village and hamlet had its share, and who had fought in all the Old French and Indian wars; but he had never seen a savage, or any of their work.

“They are the fellows for making baskets,” said Joe, “and they can color them too.” Then he told him about their canoes of birch bark.

Ben showed him a pair of snow-shoes, and put them on, and a pair of moccasons worked with beads.

Sally showed him a box made of birch wood, covered with bark, and worked with porcupine quills of different colors--blue, white, and green.

“Where did they get the colors?” said Charles.

“Out of roots and barks, that no one knows but themselves.”

“What color are they?” said Charles.

“Just the color of that,” said Joe, taking a copper coin from his pocket.

But he was the most of all delighted when he discovered that Uncle Isaac had lived among them, and knew all their ways, and promised himself that he would have many a good time talking with him.

“You must get the right side of Uncle Isaac if you want Indian stories,” said Joe.

“I guess he has done that already,” replied Ben, “or he never would have lent him his tools. Uncle Isaac don’t lend his tools to everybody. If you only knew the secret of the Indian colors, Charles, you might make your bedstead look gay.”

“Yes, father, and not cost a penny either. I would color the sacking bottom green; no, red; no, blue, I think, would look the handsomest.”