Voyageurs

by Margaret Elphinstone

  CHAPTER 2

  SEVENTH MONTH, 1811. THE BRIG JANE LEAPT UP and down against the jetty at Whitehaven, her bare masts tossing against the sky like the horns of an angry bull. I stood within the shelter of the houses at the end of East Strand, and my heart misgave me as I watched. The grey waves were short and choppy, and the wind sliced their tops off in spurts of icy spray. The fishing boats jogged up and down like kittle ponies. Far across the Solway I saw the same Scotch hills that are visible from the back of Blencathra, but with the sea between they looked more wild and lowering than ever I saw them yet.

  My uncle kept a chandler's business in Maryport, and he had a share in the Jane (for she was built at Peat's Yard in Maryport), so he was able to introduce me to the captain, and arrange my accommodations. I was grateful, for though I'd done business at Maryport, Whitehaven was another world, and I knew enough to know that I was a lamb among wolves, but not so much that I could set about fending for myself to any real purpose. My uncle laments that all our trade is gone to the upstart city of Liverpool, but Whitehaven seemed a busy enough port to my rustic eyes. Our maritime investment was carried on through my uncle: we had a share in the Friends, a hundred-ton brig, built in Maryport in the year ‘03, and it had been my annual task to attend the shareholders’ meeting, and to take our dividends to be lodged at Forster's Bank in Penrith. I'd always enjoyed visiting the shipyard on the Ellen River, then strolling along the quayside with my uncle or my cousins, watching the sailors at their work, and meeting the far-travelled captains, getting a whiff of a world that was unimaginably exotic and wholly foreign to me. Twice I'd stayed on in Maryport for First Day and attended the Meeting, and truly I could say that I was among Friends in that place.

  In contrast, I'd only twice been in Whitehaven. On my first visit to the coast in ‘03 my uncle had needed a man to go to Whitehaven with a note about a bill of lading, and being curious about the world as most lads of fifteen are, I offered to ride over. It was a blustery day in Third Month. The war was but newly renewed after the Peace of Amiens, and I could see a couple of frigates beating across the Solway, to defend our harbours no doubt. These were the days when we expected invasion every hour, and indeed there was much unrest among our own young men in Meeting, and controversy among Friends about paying the quotas for the Militia. When I looked upon the great warships in the Solway I felt a stirring in my blood, but it didn't lead me to question the discipline of our Society. I consider ‘thou shalt not kill’ to be a just law, and I believe that the world would be a better place if men heeded the words they spoke by rote. But at that time I thought little about it; I liked doing more than thinking when I was a lad.

  I discharged my errand at Whitehaven, and occupied the later part of the afternoon with wandering along the quayside, looking at the shipping. I'd never been in so great a port before, and I was all eyes, and full of wonder. There was more than a little to shock a country-bred lad: never had I seen such shipyard taverns, full of language as foul as the stench from the gutters, or such painted barques of frailty coquetting past the tavern doors holding their gaudy skirts out of the mud. Some of them winked at one another and called lewd words at me, kenspeckle as I was in such a place in my broadbrimmed hat and plain coat, so I didn't know where to look. I'd thought to get my ordinary at a harbourside inn where I could look out at the shipping as I ate, but I durst not enter those dark doors, crowded about as they were with seafaring men lounging at the doors with tankards, or even whole bottles, in their hands. They watched me too, or so I thought, and some laid their finger at the side of their nose and caught one another's eye as I passed. With my uncle at Maryport I was proud to be called Quaker, and known for all the probity in business that our name means to the world, but alone as a lad on the docks at Whitehaven I was not proud at all, but simply feart.

  Yet never a one of them laid hands on me. I would have passed unscathed through what seemed to me, boy that I was, to be a veritable Sodom. But all of a sudden there was a hue and cry behind me on the quay. When I swung round, it was to see the place emptying like water out of a sieve, the lounging men vanishing away, and the fishermen leaving their nets and fleeing into the dark alleys between the warehouses. Only the painted Jezebels stood their ground, shrieking like cats and blocking the road so I could not see. There was a commotion behind them, shouts and bangs and a crowd jostling. Part of it broke away, and two men, one without his jacket, came tearing past me. I was all amazed. A yellow-haired whore seized me by my coat and shook me. ‘Press, tha gommerai, Pressgang! Art tha clean gyte?’

  I jumped, but before I could well turn, the blue uniforms were coming in two thin lines, one on the shipward, one on the townward side of the docks, all yelling wildly as they rounded up the men out of the taverns and herded them like gimmers on to the open cobbles. In the thick of it I caught sight of a great red-faced man in a blue coat trimmed with white, wielding a cutlass. His fists were bloody, and a seaman lay at his feet. I would have run, but a tangle of struggling men barred the way townward. To my horror I saw the naval blue again behind the crowd. A sailor with a tarry plait was pushing hard against me, but I could not move. A pressman got to us and twisted his hand inside the fellow's collar, half throttling him, and flinging him hard on to the cobbles. In no time the poor man was trussed like a chicken, hands behind his back. The first fellow was already on me, his mate right after him. I flailed wildly with my fists. I hold our testimony to peace as dear as any: I would turn the other cheek if I could; if a man asked me to walk one mile I would not hesitate to walk with him twain; but to be taken aboard one of those stinking hell-holes misnamed His Majesty's ships, and forced at a rope's end to work towards the destruction and ruin of my fellows, to be hanged without compunction, or starved in irons among the rats, when I refused, as I inevitably must, to take up weapons with intent to hurt another man . . . None of this could I begin to contemplate. And so it was that I fought like a wildcat dragged from its lair, with fists and feet and head and teeth and every ounce of strength I had. And that was not little; I was a big tough lad even at fifteen. I bit one of them, and kicked out at the other. I got him straight in the ballocks so he screamed and fell like an ox. I twisted out of the first fellow's grip in a wrestling turn my cousin John Bristo taught me, leapt over the writhing body of the one lying in the gutter clutching his privates, and I ran like a hare with the hounds after it to the edge of the quay, where I dived straight into the scummy water between two fishing boats. I was weighted down with my winter coat and shoes, but I struck out hard, and came up well clear of the boats.1 I crossed the harbour and climbed out on all fours on to a slimy beach, foul water pouring off me, then waded through mud over my knees to a wooden ladder. I stood at the foot of it shivering and listening, then went up and cautiously stuck my head over the top. This arm of the jetty was deserted. On the main quay behind me the crowd milled to and fro like a giant jellyfish. No one saw me. I jumped on to the jetty, clumsy in my sodden coat, and ran for a dark alley among the sheltering houses. I dodged down one lane and then another, not stopping till I was out of earshot of the quay entirely. Then I leaned back on a wall, gasping for breath, and looked about me.

  I was in the back slums behind the harbour, miscalled Mount Pleasant, at a crossroads of four stinking alleys. A pig rootled among the glore on the little square of ground where the lanes met. I could not tell how much of the stink were the place, or the sliminess that enveloped my clothes and trickled down my neck. My hat was gone, and my hair dripped mucky water into my eyes. It was dank and daggy between the houses, like the bottom of a stagnant well. Little grey children came creeping out to stare at me. They stood round me in a wary half circle, and when I spoke they didn't answer. I heard a man shout, and one of the children whistled. A skeletal dog ran out of one of the lanes. Heavy footsteps echoed between the walls. I pushed aside a child and ran.

  All that was eight years ago, and now I was a man grown, and about to board the brig Jane and embark on a voyage of my own, such
as I had never then dreamed of. The days of the Hot Press were well by. If anyone tried to recruit me now, I could truly say that I was a landed proprietor (for my father had added my name to the title when I came of age) and exempt therefore. To prove my worth I carried a purseful of guineas – thirty-five, to be exact – for the expenses of my journey. Yet I still could not feel easy in Whitehaven. All those years ago I'd escaped from the press gang and ridden back to Maryport on my uncle's cob, letting the wind dry me as I rode. But I could not feel clean again until I'd stripped and flung myself into the freezing sea from a clean sandy beach between the two ports. I remember how I ducked under and swam, even though the seawater was like ice in my ears, and I rubbed myself all over, but still the stench of Whitehaven clung to my hair and my clothes, and indeed the very thought of the place made my gorge rise for many a long day after. And now, as I stood on the jetty once again, considering the clean lines and fresh paint of the Jane, I recalled my own part in the fighting, and wondered how much an uneasy conscience might have added to my feeling of abomination. I thought about the Sufferings of the first Friends, and about my ancestor Mark Greenhow wasting away the best years of his life in the dungeons at Carlisle. Would he have turned the other cheek, and been carried resistless aboard that man o’ war? Would he have stood before their guns and said ‘I will not,’ and bowed his head to the execution that would surely follow? That would have been a witness to the Truth, most certainly. But me – I had fought like the very devil, and now I was still alive, and whole, and free, able to look after Rachel, as she had always relied upon me to do.

  The second time I had come to Whitehaven was in the year ‘08, to see Rachel and Judith off on their great journey. Rachel had never been there before, and I could see she revelled in the new sights, the new sounds, the new possibilities of adventure opening up before her. Neither foul smells nor foul language ever had the power to daunt our Rachel. I never saw her shocked, or feart, by anything the world showed her, for all she'd grown up in such a sheltered nook. I remember an Irish whore accosting her as we crossed the quay, taking a fold of Rachel's plain dress and rubbing it between her fingers. ‘Could you tell me, is ye a nun, Sister?’ she asked. ‘Give me a penny then, of thy charity!’

  Rachel didn't flinch. ‘Nay,’ she said, ‘I'm no more a nun than thee is. Thee's far from home I think?’

  If my father and my aunt had not been Friends, doubtless they'd have dragged Rachel away, but as it: was they let her be. Rachel was used to doing what she chose, and she talked to the lass from Sligo a full five minutes, and ended by giving her two pennies from her purse. ‘But buy thee a dinner with it, lass,’ she said as they parted. ‘Thee looks fair starved, and my pennies are not for drink, I tell thee!’

  It hadn't been so easy for me to get away – I had no Aunt Judith to sponsor me – and yet remain in unity, After Judith's letter came, I took my concern about my sister to the next Monthly Meeting at Gillfoot. I wanted a letter from them that I could take to Yonge Street, for it must be my first object in Upper Canada to find Judith and get further directions from her, before setting forth into the uncharted wilderness. Only our Friends Joseph Priestman, Joseph Peat and John Nicholson were present at this Monthly Meeting, besides my father and myself. (For Caldbeck Meeting was dwining sadly through all the years of my youth.) It was a daggy day, wet as I have only ever known it in the lee of Blencathra in lambing time. The Meeting House at Gillfoot, which is only opened for our Monthly Meetings, was filled with a dampness that slowly numbed our feet from the earth floor upwards, and crept inside our clothes, while the rain swept between the broken slates overhead, leaking down between the rafters, so that our silent worship was accompanied by a chorus of steady dripping. By the time we ended the silence and proceeded to business my father was coughing deep in his chest, and a drop of rheum sat upon the end of our Clerk's nose, which looked like to fall and mingle with the ink.

  It was again decided to put forward the matter of the repair of Gillfoot Meeting House to the following month. Then Joseph Priestman asked me to speak to my Concern. I told them plainly; they listened and looked solemn. Joseph Peat was moved to suggest that the matter should be taken to our Quarterly Meeting at Carlisle, which would have created an unwarrantable delay, for I was wishful to sail this very spring, and to have the summer before me when I arrived in the wilderness. John Nicholson took my point about the need to move with the seasons, and he said that as it was a family concern, surely it was a private matter that could simply be minuted by the Monthly Meeting, but not subject to Friendly discipline. It was not as if I intended, as Judith had with Rachel, to travel within the Ministry. But Joseph Peat stuck to his point, saying that since Rachel had been travelling as companion to a Minister appointed by London Yearly Meeting, the matter concerned all Friends. Moreover, if I, Mark, were to follow her into the wilderness of her transgression, I too would be acting in a manner contrary to the discipline of our Society. I would seem to condone her rashness, and follow her on the path of her ungodliness, beguiled from the straight way by the sinfulness of my sister.

  ‘But,’ my father replied, ‘Rachel is no longer, sorrow be it to say, in unity with Friends. She is disowned by Yonge Street Monthly Meeting and by this Meeting also, in her absence. She is not in Membership with us, and her fate is no longer the concern of Friends in England or in Upper Canada. Mark's errand is therefore, as our Friend points out, a matter of private charity, the loving care of a brother for a lost sister.’

  I think Joseph Peat would have stuck to his point, and prevented me from making my journey in unity with Friends as I desired, had it not been that Joseph Priestman stood aside from his office as Clerk to speak in favour of my purpose. He said that ‘if Mark were called into Upper Canada on a matter of business, as it might be in relation to his uncle Isaiah Bristo's maritime interests, then it wouldn't be the concern of any Friend to say to him Yea or Nay. So how should his search for Rachel be different? If Mark conceives it his business to go into Upper Canada on any matter of business whatsoever, so long as it be consistent with the principles of our Society, then ‘tis his private and particular Concern. If he were travelling in the Ministry it would be very much our business, as we'd have to furnish him with the means of travel. But he goes at his own expense, and asks nothing of us but our prayers, and a letter of Friendship. Presumably our Friend Joseph would not begrudge him the cost of ink and paper? I see it as our clear duty to send him forth in the care of this meeting, by giving him a Minute for our Friends at Yonge Street, or for any other Meeting where he may visit. For my part I commend his charity towards our poor sister Rachel. I must say in Truth I fear the worst, but if she lives our prayers may help her. We know that she has acted so far in contradiction to the dictates of our society as to marry clandestinely out of the Unity of Friends. But if she lives, she may yet sincerely repent of her backslidings and amend her conduct. If so, she may ask to be received into Membership again, with her husband too, if Friends think them worthy. While any possibility remains that she lives, and that her brother Mark may yet have an opportunity with her, to persuade her back into unity with us, even perhaps to bring her home, should we not commend and support his Concern? For there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.’‘

  So it was thanks to our Clerk Joseph Priestman that I had the Minute I desired in my knapsack, recommending me to the care of our Friends in Upper Canada, and confirming that I travelled with the blessing of my own Meeting. Without this authority I'd have felt naked as a shorn lamb, setting out into a wilderness of wolves and bears and other predators unknown among my native hills.

  I chafed at the delays that followed the Monthly Meeting but they were needful. I stayed until Sixth Month, when the lambs were put to the hill, for my father's cough did not mend that year until all the snow was off the hills (nor was he ever again a hale man in winter from the time that Rachel was lost). He'd not been out on th
e fell since we'd fetched in the tup, and it was my cousin John Bristo from Portinscale who'd helped me gather the ewes off Blencathra at the back end of the year. After my father and I got soused coming back from the Meeting in Gillfoot in Third Month my father's voice was gone, and his breath was hard to get, coming only in great wheezing gasps that hurt to hear. I had to give him my arm that last part of the road from Mosedale. My mother made him mustard poultices and kept him in by the kitchen fire for five weeks or more, where he had naught to do but nurse the caddy lambs, for all the world, he said, like a doited old granny. So I was out lambing in the fields all hours, with my mother helping me when she had the chance, and young Thomas Carr from Mosedale in the daytime. I taught Thomas all I could, for I was mindful that next winter they would have to manage without me. He was a stout and trustworthy lad even then; he cannot have been more than fourteen when he began with us.2

  Aside from the lambing we had a dozen cows in calf – this was the year after we bought the Shorthorn bull – and oats to sow, as well as the usual dairy work. I had days to pay back to my cousins at Portinscale, and what with one thing and another I wasn't able to look into the matter of a passage to Upper Canada until spring had turned to early summer. I did no guiding that year. I left a notice at the Royal Oak explaining I was gone for a year or two, and I went over to Greta Hall and explained to Robert Southey that I could not accommodate any of his friends for the next two seasons, but if God saw fit to preserve me I would be back thereafter. He was kind, as I knew he would be, and enquired much after my sister. He offered me ten guineas, which if it had been proffered in charity to me I would instantly have refused, but he asked me to take it to buy any necessary comfort for her, if she should be found, and he said that if I didn't find her alive, then I might bring the sum back to him intact. He reminded me of the occasion when he had called at Highside shortly after he first came to Greta Hall, when he'd followed the Glendaramackin down off Blencathra in the mist, thinking it would take him southward, which of course is not the case. He arrived at our house drookit and bemired and entirely lost to direction, and found none at home but Rachel. At thirteen she was a skinny little maid with a thick plait of black hair that reached to her waist at the back. She received Robert Southey with great composure, and brought him in by the fire to dry, and gave him hot milk and bread and cheese. When my father came in she was instructing him in the Advices, for he was always curious about our Society, and never backward in asking questions about it. Later, when my father walked him back around the fell, and set him on the right road to Greta Hall, Robert Southey thanked him for our Quakerly hospitality, and told my father that Rachel had the most beautiful black eyes he had seen outside of Portugal. My father, not being sure what to make of this, repeated the whole to my mother when I was by, but she just tossed her head and made a derisive sound.3 The next time Robert Southey came my mother watched him closely, but decided that after all she liked him well, and that he had no improper designs upon a tender maiden. Since then he has called at Highside whenever he passes this way, though of late years he goes about but little.