The Kingdom on the Waves Read online

  The innkeeper informed us that he had no rooms, the most of them being enjoyed by the King’s officers, but that for a few shillings we might sleep by the kitchen fire, though he complained of entertaining such vagabonds. Notwithstanding the price was exorbitant for such hard accommodation, Dr. Trefusis nodded, which movement was imperceptible almost from the palsy of his chill, and we were admitted into the house.

  We slept, therefore, upon benches next to paltry flames. The hearth smoked immoderately, given the dampness and warmth of the night. During the early hours of the morning, I stoked the fire more than perhaps I should have, attempting to warm my tutor, whose very life I feared for, so clutched was he by shivering and agues. I slept but little.

  In the morning, with great anxiety I left Dr. Trefusis huddled upon the hearthstone and went forth to seek us more permanent lodgings.

  Beneath gray skies, I wandered the streets, engaged not simply in my errand, but also in wonder at what was about me. By the light of day, I saw the changes wrought upon Boston by military rule. A great metamorphosis had come upon the city since last I had been there, the winter previous. The whole of that town was occupied in making preparations to repel the assaults of rebellion.

  All that I saw struck me with the transports of wonder, for these habitual scenes were so greatly transformed, the familiar mingling so unreservedly with the confusions of combat, as to suggest the landscape of dream. Still could one mark the bustle of citizens with baskets, the cluck of drovers, their flocks reduced; still did one see the chaise and coach resting before houses; still did one hear the banter of livestock, the cry of the hawker, the tears of children, the exasperation of drays; but now, the hustle of commerce gave way in every corner to the demands of martial regularity and the irregularity of hasty defense.

  Soldiers in red marched ranked down private avenues, muskets held at ready. At certain intersections were deposited mortars and cannon, a few idle powder-monkeys lying atop them to guard them, awaiting commands or playing cards in the shadow of these engines of destruction.

  By the Common, the almshouse yard was thick that morning with Tory refugees fled to the city, groping now through the palings of the fence and clamoring for coin. Such an uproar and the sight of those pathetic faces could not but spur me on my errand, and impress upon me the necessity for swift accommodation and employment; for I had no wish to end my voyage incarcerated there.

  The Common itself was little more than an encampment, the infantry having erected their tents in among the malls and grazing-fields. Many of the trees that had lined the gracious and pleasant walks of the Common were cut down, and the smoke of countless cook-fires hung heavily in the humid air upon those denuded slopes. The paths and lawns were turned to muck with exercises and evolutions.

  The regulars marched upon the green in their formations as tiny men snapped orders.

  The beacon-mast upon Beacon Hill had been removed, and replaced instead with a wooden turret; there was another fort stood opposite Carver Street, and a battery of guns atop Fox Hill. Flag-Staff Hill was dug up with entrenchments. Down at the bottom of the Common, where on sunny days in years of peace, the tanners had pursued their noxious trade in yards, and the clamor of tinsmiths shearing and riveting their goods with doors thrown wide had fallen upon the ear as harsh and lively as the tanners’ art upon the nose, now doors were closed; the Marines were encamped along the road. Graves were dug for soldiers, some still open pits, others marked with wooden crosses.

  There was, as I wandered through the streets, a continual popping and cracking as the guns on Copp’s Hill fired, though I have no notion of what they might have aimed at.

  At the first instances of shelling, my breath was arrested and my motions strangulated by the alarums of fear, lest at any moment return fire should be hurled back across the roofs and channel; but no such return was offered, and gradually I perceived that this dialogue of shot was empty of communication, its leaden utterance falling short, rebel and soldier gasconading as two libertines discoursing in their cups, lain on two sides of a ditch, their language full of gesture and epithet, but debating to no purpose, their subjects dissimilar, their logic a-ramble, their ears closed to suasion.

  The populace went unimpeded about their business, little regarding the detonations, betraying no notice that invisible to sight, all about us on the streets and the green sward of the hillside were extended sweeping the dotted lines of ordnance calculation and the hovering directrix, focus, and vector of martial geometry.

  The streets near the city gates were almost entirely evacuated, owners fearing too much the assaults of enemy artillery. To frustrate invasion, the avenue hard by had been torn up into trenches; fascines and abatis — bound together out of tree trunks stripped of bark and sharpened to fierce points — lay on the street before the empty houses of society dames and gentlemen of fashion. Stacks of cobbles, pulled up out of the dirt, were piled in yards.

  Along the road there were mounds of furniture and clothing: stacks of headboards, gaming tables, stools, and Dutch kasten; these being the belongings of such as petitioned to be allowed to quit the city, but who had not yet received their exit pass, and so had been forced to tarry. Many of these chattels were on their way to ruin by the late rains, their veneer being invaded by the water and swelling so that the wood wrinkled and buckled. A soldier stood by to frustrate the designs of thieves.

  For a time I regarded the picket-guards patrolling the gates of the city. I meditated upon the peculiar circumstance, that but a half mile away, across the Neck, my former companions — good Mr. G—g among them — glowered back from the fortifications at Roxbury.

  Such was the state of the city at this time.

  My search for accommodation did not go easily. Officers had laid claim to most of the rooms in likely inns; others were taken by the wealthier of Loyalists come in from the countryside.

  I passed by the abandoned habitation of the College of Lucidity on Cambridge Street. Notwithstanding the hazard was too great for us to take refuge in that mansion, lest some agent of the College return, I wished to see it now that my circumstances were so deeply changed.

  I lingered before its gates. Guards in red coats with buff facings were stationed by the door. I made bold to approach them and, in the guise of a slave, make inquiries as to who dwellt there. They replied that the house had belonged to members of the rebel faction, and had been requisitioned as barracks for Clavering’s Regiment, the 52nd. As they spoke, the doors opened, and several officers issued forth, laughing and tripping down the steps.

  I bowed my thanks and walked on. I marveled at the strangeness of those rooms so well known to me — the moldings and wainscot, the herbs hung to dry on the back stairs — now echoing with the tread of martial boots and the shouts of command, the arcane experimental chambers, perhaps, housing the pallets of rank and file.

  I left behind that scene and sought our accommodation further.

  The difficulty lay not in finding vacant rooms — for there were whole houses vacant — but rather vacant rooms in houses where owners were present still to let out their property. At length, inquiring at an inn, I heard of a woman of some quality who wished to take on boarders and put them in her former bedroom, where her husband had died of an hectic fever in the most exquisite agonies some months before, the chamber being now loathsome to her, associated with the remembrance of pain and the tauntings of former felicity.

  The price, given her distress, was such as would not soon be met with elsewhere. I told her therefore that likely my master — for so I called Dr. Trefusis, though he would have protested — would soon return with me and we would take up residence there.

  Now I hurried through the streets beneath a new drizzle to the inn where we had stayed. Upon entering that house, I discovered a pathetic scene that moved my heart: The room now was filled with merrymakers and roustabouts upon the trestle-benches, calling toasts to one another. Slumped by the fire, in the midst of all of that shouting, was Dr. Tr
efusis, insensate, shivering though near flame, stubble upon his cheeks and chin, his scarce hair still clammy.

  I woke him and told him that I had located a room for us in the North End, upon Staniford Street. He congratulated me, and asked that we might remove ourselves there instanter so he could sleep without being roused by Irish balladry and ensigns lifting their shirts to compare back-hair.

  I helped him rise to his feet, though he was unsteady. He begged me find a hired chaise on which he could be conveyed to our new dwelling, to which I eagerly assented; we only then discovering that, while he had slept, his purse had been stolen.

  We did not even have money sufficient to pay for our miserable night’s stay at the inn.

  The landlord, little inclined to believe our tale of distress, pointed out that he had seen our money the night before, and that we should make good on our promises now. We begged — we remonstrated — and, at last, he agreed to take Dr. Trefusis’s silk waistcoat, ruined as it was, in payment.

  So we walked the mile to our new lodging. Dr. Trefusis leaned upon me. I could feel the expansion and contraction of his ribs with each breath. He scarcely showed the spark of consciousness in his eyes. I am certain we looked to those we passed like a scene of utmost destitution and ruin; and indeed, perhaps we were: myself, newly liberated into penury; and Dr. Trefusis, who had, just twenty-four hours previous, sat drinking tea in a country house, surrounded by all the trappings of luxury, waited upon by servants and bondsmen, now stripped to his shirt.

  We arrived at our destination; where our hostess, seeing the state of my quondam master, refused us the room. I begged. She denied. I pled. She was hard as iron, saying that her nuptial chamber should not be subjected to the stench of the sea-bottom that accompanied this penniless wretch.

  Dr. Trefusis, for his part, reached over and picked a white cushion off the chair and held it on top of his head.

  I assumed he had gone deranged.

  The cushion held to shield his balding pate, he said, “Madame, your servant.”

  The hostess regarded him first with disgust — then with fury — then with astonishment — then, finally, with abashment.

  “Dr. Trefusis,” she said. “Sir.” She curtseyed. “I knew you not, without the wig. . . .”

  “Indeed,” he said. “I shall have to purchase another. But first, I have some need of sheets, a bolster, a fire, and, with an even greater show of celerity, Madame, a bucket into which I may vomit broth.”

  Mrs. Platt was a woman of some substance whose late husband had entertained Dr. Trefusis and Mr. Gitney upon occasion. The widow was trapped now within the city, so lost in her grief at the death of her spouse some months before that she had lacked all motivation to flee when General Gage declared military rule. Her servants had been dismissed, save three; and one of those three had died of the smallpox a se’nnight previous. She now had a single maidservant, devoted to her since youth, and an aging manservant, Jacob, previously of the stables, who performed all heavy labor about the house.

  Everything was in a state of disarray — sewing projects abandoned upon the spinnet, shutters drawn, dogs sleeping on the settee, dirty plates and platters still lain on the table, the food crusted to their rims. The neglect of the dishes, I discovered, was due to a curious impasse: Sally, the maid, now serving also as cook, refused to clean dishes, despising the lowly office of scullion. Madam Platt could not countenance this insubordination, but neither could she insist upon service when she could not pay a farthing in wages. Thus, the dignity of both women demanded that they never speak of dishes nor of swabbing. Mrs. Platt simply moved to a different seat at the dining table each night, was served there, and, without a word, left the plates for some future period. Thus, she distributed behind her, rotating through the room, a record of her meals, a calendar in rinds and cores.

  We conducted Dr. Trefusis up to the bedroom and laid him in the bed in his shirt. He being settled and falling swiftly into a shivering sleep, I quitted the chamber and repaired downstairs. Amply did I render thanks to Mrs. Platt for the beneficence of her entertainment of my master.

  “Pho, don’t speak of it,” she said. “But he does have coin? Upon his person? Because I cannot pay for so much as victuals now, the salt-meat is become so dear. We are starving. No person will extend us credit.” She hugged herself, her arms wrapped hard around her stomacher. Her looks were drawn and pallid. “He is possessed of the money?”

  I did not know how to answer her, being startled by her forwardness and unversed in the telling of lies.

  My silence served the purpose.

  She took it as a reproof, and held up a hand. “My apologies,” said she, shaking her head. “Dr. Trefusis is a gentleman of quality. I do not doubt his word. You will forgive my anxiety. This strife and bombs have made me run distracted.”

  I bowed my head and indicated that we could not but be gratified at hospitality so seasonable and generosity of so open a character.

  “Yes. Yes, yes. You are welcome to rest in this house until your master’s work takes him onwards. Is he pursuing some philosophical theme?”

  “He inquires always,” I said, “into the nature of right and wrong; which is the issue in this present contest.”

  “Indeed,” she said, but she was no longer listening, wiping dirt off a picture-frame with her finger.

  I bowed again and set off. It was imperative that I swiftly find employment, having no coin nor credit nor property for barter. It appeared that not simply Dr. Trefusis and I, but also our new hostess, depended upon what work I might find.

  I wandered the streets again. I walked by the side of the Mill Pond, which smelled of rotting weeds and fish, gulls clustering above it, screeching at the sea-winds, their cries punctuated by the detonation of artillery. I followed Hanover Street to Dock Square, musing upon strategems.

  My plan for employ was simple, and was drawn from the lures of my former master, Mr. Sharpe, in his deceptions; as oft the trout may sup on the worm snatched away from the barbs of the hook dangled for his destruction.

  Some weeks previous, Mr. Sharpe had told my friend Private G—g that I was in demand to play with the orchestra gathered for the diversion of the officers and the consolation of the besieged.

  This position in the orchestra, but putative, conceived as a feint to draw me away from my fellows so that rogues might throw me in chains — this phantasm might now be conjured to solidity.

  I stood before Faneuil Hall, observing the few men who passed in and out of its doors; all the while, my fancy painting the exhilaration of performance, the auditors delighted, the bows drawn in unison, the candles affixed to our music-stands, the ardent labor and delight of shaping melody, so much more grateful a work than the mounding up of fortifications and the crafting of ditch which had been my portion for so many months past.

  I made a motion to enter the hall, but could not. My heart misgave; a sudden fear struck me. I hung back, and could in no wise continue.

  I was a refugee, without instrument; I had not so much as touched a fiddle for weeks — and for months before that, had not played a violin worth the name — not since the dances at the Pox Party, now awful to recall. I was a Negro, a mere boy, a cricket with only youth and greenness to recommend me, demanding to be heard by gentlemen and ladies of the first quality. And I could already hear the sneers at my poor scrapings, the scorn at my childish vanity.

  There was no employment I longed for so much as to play in a band of music — such was my thought; but the spirit accustomed to disparagement and humiliation, weaned upon castigation and contumely, relucts to believe itself capable of attainment — and relucts so in proportion to how much its aims are desired. The inward person doth shrink and hesitate before the daunting inception of active deeds, wishing that some discouraging voice should intervene and forbid, so that no hazard might be made.

  Those accustomed to failure fear the novelty of success. Those taught the lessons of subordination are oft timid in the school of s
elf-service. And those freed from a habit of bondage — bondage of the chain or the spirit — may feel as a man deposited in caverns without benefit of lantern and told he may range infinitely where he will: The word of his great latitude for motion is little consolation, when he might at any moment strike his head upon a ceiling he did not know dropped so low, or be precipitated into pits, and breathe his last broken on some umbrageous declivity.

  So I did not allow myself to believe that I might offer my services where most I wished, but rather sought out other employment.

  I turned from Faneuil Hall. With heavy heart, I made my way along the quays to inquire after positions. For several hours, I presented myself in shops, but none required help. The privates of the Army were in such desperate circumstances, their pay being so meager, that they worked at other trades than killing and dying to supplement their income. The city was glutted with them, and they looked upon a Negro who might labor for even less pay with jealousy and suspicion.

  The gristmills were locked. Many docks were empty of ships. The smithies were out of blast.

  At each disappointment, my spirits rose.

  Had my route been witnessed by another, he might have noted that my inquiries wound their way back toward Faneuil Hall.

  I repaired to the market to see if any might have need of someone who could tell sums and lift. A gloom had settled over the place, and the haggling was mercenary, sharp-tongued, and often shouted. There being few provisions for sale, the bustle of commerce had given way to the scurried agitations of scarcity and the angry chafferings of need.

  I inquired of fishmongers, bakers, the officials who weighed the bread.

  None required assistance.

  Now, standing in the marketplace, engulfed in that invested town, that hive of my former masters’ enemies, my eyes fell again upon Faneuil Hall. With relief, I recognized that I had escaped other employment only narrowly. Did I continue my pretense of seeking work elsewhere, I was in great danger that I might find it, cruelly disappointed by success; and I knew that my gifts, such as they were, might not be of inconsiderable interest to whatever impresario now organized these symphonies and dances.