Look Ahead, Look Back (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 3)

by Annette Laing

  While she ate at the table, Jane came and sat with her. “’annah, pray tell, ’ave you ’eard anything of the white witch in the woods?” she asked quietly.

  “Yeah,” Hannah muttered, swallowing a mouthful of mush. To herself, she said under her breath, “Fairies, ghosts, witches. What next?”

  “What did you say?” Mr. Gordon said sharply, and Hannah jumped, thinking that he had spoken to her. Turning around, however, she saw that he was looking at Jane.

  “The white witch . . .” Jane said slowly. “The slaves speak of ’er, sir.”

  “I will thank you, lassie, not to bring their ignorant, unchristian superstitions into this house,” Mr. Gordon said angrily. “I have just this day witnessed Cato’s refusal to be treated with physic because he holds that ill health is caused by invisible evil creatures in the blood. Mr. Osborn’s servant believes the same. We are Christians, not heathen, and you will remember that in your conversations with the negroes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jane said quietly. “But, you see, the white witch is . . .”

  “Enough!” Mr. Gordon shouted, startling everyone. “Do not speak of this again. Not to Hannah, not to the negroes, and certainly not to me.”

  Jane looked frightened by his outburst and she fell into silence. But now Hannah was curious. She resolved that as soon as they were alone, she would ask Jane what she knew about this witch.

  Mrs. Osborn had ventured outside for the first time in three weeks, saying that she was feeling a little better. Brandon was glad to have her working alongside him, tending the garden. She still huffed and puffed whenever she lifted all but the lightest things, but the color had returned to her cheeks. He stared at her enormous belly, and tried to guess how long it would be until her baby was born. She saw him looking, and gave him a friendly smile. He turned away, embarrassed.

  As he returned to his hoeing, Brandon saw three young black men, one of them with a limp, walking purposefully in his direction. They looked so determined, they made him anxious. He was ashamed to find himself reacting in this way to black men. Had he listened to too many horror stories about slave rebellions? More than ever, he felt self-conscious that he appeared white.

  “Can I help you?” he called out, leaning on his hoe. He sensed Mrs. Osborn tensing up in fear next to him.

  “Sir, it is Mr. Osborn we come to see,” replied the man with the limp in heavily accented English.

  Brandon thought he recognized him. He said, “Hey, don’t you work for Mr. Gordon?”

  The man reluctantly nodded. “We are his slaves, sir,” he said. Then he looked around impatiently. “Is Mr. Osborn here?”

  “Not at the moment,” Brandon said nervously. “Can I tell him you stopped by?”

  The leader of the group looked at the other two, and they agreed with nods to leave a message. He said, “Tell him that Cuffee and two friends wish to speak with him.”

  “Any particular subject?” Brandon asked.

  “Yes, sir,” said Cuffee. “We wish to take communion.”

  Brandon would never have guessed that any slaves were Christians. He had assumed that they were Muslims, or people with no religious beliefs that he would even recognize. Now that he knew better, he hated to disappoint them. But he had learned from his boss that communion was an infrequent ceremony in the eighteenth century, not a daily or even weekly event. He cleared his throat and said, “Next communion won’t be until Christmas, Mr. Osborn says.”

  Cuffee gave a curt nod in reply.

  Brandon suggested that they stop by again tomorrow afternoon, when he expected Mr. Osborn to be home, and the men agreed that they would.

  When he heard the news of the slaves’ visit, Mr. Osborn was no less surprised than Brandon had been, but he took this unexpected development in his stride, and when the group returned the following day, he received them warmly.

  “So, you wish to take catechism, and become Christians?” he said, stepping out of the house to greet them. With a smile, his hat in his hands, Cuffee replied on the group’s behalf. “No, sir, we are already Christians, except for Tony here. My Christian name is Mark. I am from Angola, and so is John, here. ”

  “Angola?” Mr. Osborn asked, puzzled. “Angola in Africa? Surely Africa is a heathen land.”

  “No, sir,” John said. “Not Angola. The Portuguese brought Christianity, through our holy mother church.”

  Mr. Osborn looked puzzled at him for a long time, and then the lights went on. He frowned. “Oh, so you are Papists.”

  Everyone including Brandon now looked at him in confusion. Mr. Osborn hurriedly explained. “By that, I mean you are Catholics, and you owe your loyalty to the Pope in Rome. This presents something of a problem. You must all first take instruction. John and, er, Mark, I’m afraid that, as Papists, you hold some very peculiar ideas about Christianity that we must first address. Will you willingly meet with me after church on Sundays?”

  The three men looked worried. “We are willing,” Tony said. “But Mr. Gordon does not wish us to learn about Christianity.”

  Mr. Osborn gave a small smile. “Well, since it is obviously too late to prevent you from learning about it, perhaps he will consent in your case? Brandon, will you catechize these men? You may visit them in their quarters on Sunday.”

  Brandon greeted this command with a nervous nod. What had he got himself into? How could he teach three adult men anything?

  As soon as the slaves had bid farewell and set off across the fields, Mr. Osborn said to Brandon, “Mayhaps, I needs must teach these men myself, for they will surely have fallen into serious errors as members of the Popish church.”

  Brandon let out a silent sigh of relief. But Mr. Osborn hadn’t let him off the hook. He added, “Let us first see how your presence on Mr. Gordon’s plantation is received before I attend there myself. Brandon, you will go on Sunday as I directed.”

  Brandon felt a bit like an untrained dog being sent into a minefield.

  Taking the back trail through the woods to the quarters, Brandon trod nervously for fear of stepping on snakes. He had never seen so many snakes in his life as he had in 1752. Deadly cottonmouths hung out by the river, copperheads hid in the woodpile, and massive black king snakes (which were fairly harmless but didn’t look it) crawled through the fields. Brandon had also spotted more than a few rattlesnakes. In fact, he had seen more snakes than he had known existed: Some were small and bright green, others were red and orange, still others were long and brown. He was relieved to see fewer of them now that the cold had set in, but to be on the safe side, he stomped heavily everywhere he walked, making as much noise as he could to scare them away.

  Now, emerging from the woods, he felt more than ever like a trespasser in the slave quarters.

  To make matters worse, he really wasn’t sure he could teach the slaves as Mr. Osborn wanted. He didn’t exactly feel confident about his understanding of the Church of England’s complicated beliefs. True, Mr. Osborn had coached him in the Thirty-Nine Articles, the basic points on which Anglicans agreed. But Brandon had a problem with the article about baptizing adults. However, he was reluctant to ask too many questions, afraid that Mr. Osborn would somehow figure out his secret, that he was a Baptist. Otherwise, he didn’t have any deep personal objections to anything Mr. Osborn taught him.

  All the same, he wasn’t sure he was competent to teach the Church of England’s beliefs to other people. So, without consulting Mr. Osborn, he decided to hold a Bible study as an icebreaker for his catechist group. After years of Sunday school and Church youth camps, he felt more comfortable starting out this way. He didn’t think that Anglicans were much into Bible studies, but he couldn’t see the harm.

  Bashfully, he silently approached the small group of slaves who were sitting outside their barracks, singing. Tony was playing a drum, while Cuffee was bashing a stick on the ground, and the others, including Sukey, sang their mournful song. The words of the song were in English, but Brandon didn’t recognize it at all.

&n
bsp; When the music faded to a close, Brandon coughed to make his presence known, and the men who had been sitting on the ground scrambled to their feet and snatched off their hats.

  Brandon turned to look behind him, to see who had provoked this show of respect, and realized with a start that the fuss was directed at him. He coughed again, and raised a hand in greeting.

  “Er, hi? I’m Brandon?” he said nervously. “You wanted to talk about the Bible? And church stuff?”

  Tony nodded. One man made a disapproving face and drifted away, but the others stayed, and Sukey brought out a low rough wooden stool for Brandon. He squatted on it, feeling smaller than ever, and opened his Bible. It was a little hard to read because of the long s’s that Mr. Osborn had explained to him, and the italic script that seemed to have no particular rhyme or reason. Still, he was ready. He was familiar with the ancient language of the King James version of the Bible, since that was the one used at his church in Snipesville.

  He flipped through the pages until he found the chapter and verse he wanted.

  “I thought we could discuss what Jesus means in the Sermon on the Mount,” he said quietly. “You know.”

  They didn’t know, but they listened politely as Brandon read it to them. “. . . Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth . . .”

  He put down his Bible. “What do you think that means?”

  Nobody wanted to say anything, but they all looked approvingly at Brandon. So after an awkward silence, he read the chapter to the end. When he was finished, he waited for comments. But none came. “Anyone want to say something?” he asked.

  Cuffee’s hand shot up, and Brandon gratefully pointed to him. “Yes?”

  “Can we take communion now?” said Cuffee.

  “Uh, no,” Brandon said. “That is, Mr. Osborn wants to meet with you first, to, um, prepare you.”

  “Oh,” Cuffee said. But something was clearly troubling him, so Brandon waited for him to say more.

  Now Cuffee took a deep breath. “I know more about Christianity than Hannah does,” he said, “and she’s allowed to take communion. And she is also in the church of Rome.”

  There was no denying it. Hannah was a Catholic, and a pretty clueless one. Cuffee had made a good point. Why should he have to jump through a hoop when Hannah didn’t?

  Brandon was about to change the subject when Tony raised his hand.

  “I dreamed of Jesus,” he said.

  “Hush,” Cuffee chastised him. “You are not a baptized Christian!”

  “What of it?” Tony said. “I had a powerful dream, as though it was real.”

  Cuffee continued to look skeptical, but the others paid close attention to Tony. He spread his arms dramatically. “I dreamed that the swamp turned into a pool of blood, a whirling pool, and fire lit up the sky. At first, we were all afraid, but then, as we watched, a man came out of the center of the pool. He told us he was Jesus, and he told us not to be afraid. Then he handed each of us a burning torch, and he bid us light a way for him, which we did. And he made us powerful, kings of our own countries.”

  There was a rapt silence, and then Tony added, “He told me, clear as I tell you now, that this will all happen soon in the daytime world. We must pray to him.”

  Brandon’s jaw had dropped, and it took him a moment to gather his wits. “Yes, well,” he said, “Yes, well, I, uh, I agree with the last part. About praying to him. Great idea. Now, if we turn back to the Bible . . .”

  “I knew an Indian conjuror who made a prophecy like that,” said Sukey.

  “What, about the Bible?” Brandon asked desperately.

  “No, about the end of this world coming in a pool of blood,” she said. She turned to Tony and said, “You have been given a prophecy.”

  Tony beamed. Brandon couldn’t help wondering if Tony got the story from Sukey, and had just sort of made it Christian.

  But now Sukey was speaking again. “I listen to Mr. Osborn’s sermons whenever I am able,” she said to Brandon. “I cannot always understand his words, but I learn from him that Jesus is great and powerful.”

  Brandon nodded frantically. This was a line of discussion he wished to encourage. Sukey continued, “Brandon, Jesus says that the meek inherit the earth, and you say we are the meek, yes?”

  Brandon continued to nod enthusiastically.

  “Then,” Sukey said, leaning back and slapping her thighs, “thanks to Tony, we know what to look for when deliverance comes, the time when we are kings. We look for fire and blood.”

  Brandon had stopped nodding. He had a very bad feeling about this.

  As soon as he returned home, Brandon reported to Mr. Osborn, who was not pleased to learn of his decision to lead a Bible class.

  “You must understand that it takes years of study to be qualified to discourse upon the Bible!” he said angrily. “I was a Cambridge scholar, and I learned from the greatest theologians of this age. You cannot ask the miserable negroes to decide for themselves what is meant by the subtle language of God’s word. I suspect, Brandon, that you are a New Light, who has fallen prey to George Whitefield’s peculiar ideas of religion.”

  Brandon had no idea what his master was talking about. He wished that he could look up things that Mr. Osborn said on Wikipedia.

  For now, he needed to settle a question that was bothering him. “I just think,” he said carefully, “that people have a right to get to know Jesus better through His Word. I mean, we pray to Him about all our little problems, right? And He answers.”

  Mr. Osborn sighed heavily. “No, Brandon, He does not, not in the way you seem to think. I believe, Brandon, that God is a reasonable God. The age of miracles has passed. He does not expect to follow us around, intervening willy-nilly in human affairs, as though we were incapable of decision. We are not merely blades of grass in the wind, who allow ourselves to be buffeted by fortune, or to act only at His divine whim.”

  “Blades of grass? No,” Brandon said. “He blesses people, and we do nothing to deserve that.”

  Mr. Osborn gave him a stern look. “Brandon, what you say is a perfect example of why it is too dangerous to permit slaves and others of low standing, such as you, to decide for yourselves the meaning of your faith. You have great intelligence but you are not educated.”

  Brandon was pretty sure that he and the Baptist faith had just been insulted, but he held his tongue. In the silence that followed, Mr. Osborn calmed down. “I must confess, however,” he said, scratching his head, “it was always thus. Whenever heathens are introduced to Christianity, no matter how carefully we try to mold their beliefs, they attempt to combine Truth with their superstitions.”

  Brandon looked at him quizzically, and Mr. Osborn sat back with his hands steepled together at the fingertips, almost as though he were at prayer. He gave a small smile. “Brandon, allow me to explain. You remember St. Swithin’s church in Balesworth?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Brandon.

  “Did you ever see the Green Man?”

  Brandon frowned. “You mean the pub on Balesworth High Street?”

  Mr. Osborn shook his head impatiently. “No, no. I mean the image of the Green Man in the church, scratched high on the wall of the vestry . . . .”

  “Hey, I did see that!” Brandon exclaimed. “And there was a bunch of writing too, but I couldn’t see to read it. I just thought it was graffiti anyway.”

  Mr. Osborn leaned forward. “Balesworth folk say that their ancestors drew on the church walls while they took sanctuary from the ravages of a plague, a very long time ago. The Green Man was a pagan god, and I suppose the poor people looked to him as a sign of life, of renewal. Even in this year of 1752, the people still speak of him, especially in the spring. Of course, they also believe in Christ, but I suppose we in the Church find it easier to accept the old beliefs alongside the new, rather than to try to argue with the common folk.”

  “Hmm, that makes sense,” said Brandon. “It’s easier to get people on board if you don’t make
them give up the fun stuff.”

  “Quite,” said Mr. Osborn. “And the same is true of the negroes. I am sure they hold all sorts of heathenish beliefs, but it would not be wise to wage war on those. Rather, we should endeavor to use gentle persuasion to bring them from the wilderness of superstition to the light of Christian truth. As our friendship grows, they will surely see the error of their ways, and our kindnesses will be repaid.”

  “Great,” Brandon said. But then he remembered something. “I just hope Mr. Gordon sees it that way.”

  “I think Mr. Gordon’s concerns are altogether different from mine,” Mr. Osborn said thoughtfully. “Mr. Gordon is a Presbyterian, and so he ought to think as other Presbyterians do, which is to be greatly intolerant of pagan beliefs. Yet, where his negroes are concerned, he is instead intolerant of Christianity. Now why do you think that is?”

  Brandon said hesitantly, “Have you asked him what his problem is?”

  “No,” Mr. Osborn said, smiling slyly. “What I just asked you is a question to which I suspect I already know the answer. I would venture that his love of God has largely succumbed to his love of gold. He is a slave-owning planter first, and a Christian second.”

  Brandon smiled back. “I think you pretty much nailed it, sir,” he said.

  It was Sunday evening, and Hannah had agreed to go for a walk with Jane. It was everyone’s alleged day off, but even so, Jane and Hannah spent much of the day doing chores. They ended up in the evening visiting with Sukey and Alex at the slave quarters, arriving just after sunset to find Sukey and Alex outside with a large newly-lit bonfire.

  It was Sukey who first greeted the two girls, but the very first thing that Hannah noticed was that Alex looked healthy: He was now fully recovered from his illness and its treatment. Mr. Gordon was happy to take credit for this, Alex told Hannah.

  “Nonsense,” tutted Sukey. “Cato is alive because of the magic of the white witch.”

  “How so?” asked Hannah with a frown.

  Alex explained, “Sukey went to see her a second time, and fetched me another herbal medicine. It was a hot drink, and it was really good.”