Текст книги "A Place Called Freedom"

Автор книги: Ken Follett

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

3

THE LITTLE CHURCH WAS FULL. THE JAMISSON FAMILY and their guests took up a great deal of room, the women with their wide skirts and the men with their swords and three-cornered hats. The miners and crofters who formed the usual Sunday congregation left a space around the newcomers, as if afraid they might touch the fine clothes and besmirch them with coal dust and cow dung.

Mack had spoken defiantly to Esther, but he was full of apprehension. Coal owners had the right to flog miners, and on top of that Sir George Jamisson was a magistrate, which meant he could order someone hanged, and there would be no one to contradict him. It was indeed foolhardy for Mack to risk the wrath of such a powerful man.

But right was right. Mack and the other miners were being treated unjustly, illegally, and every time he thought of it he felt so angry he wanted to shout it from the rooftops. He could not spread the news surreptitiously, as if it might not really be true. He had to be bold, or back out.

For a moment he considered backing out. Why make trouble? Then the hymn began, and the miners sang in harmony, filling the church with their thrilling voices. Behind him Mack heard the soaring tenor of Jimmy Lee, the finest singer in the village. The singing made him think of High Glen and the dream of freedom, and he steeled his nerve and resolved to go through with his plan.

The pastor, Reverend John York, was a mild-mannered forty-year-old with thinning hair. He spoke hesitantly, unnerved by the magnificence of the visitors. His sermon was about truth. How would he react to Mack’s reading out the letter? His instinct would be to take the side of the mine owner. He was probably going to dine at the castle after the service. But he was a clergyman: he would be obliged to speak out for justice, regardless of what Sir George might say, wouldn’t he?

The plain stone walls of the church were bare. There was no fire, of course, and Mack’s breath clouded in the cold air. He studied the castle folk. He recognized most of the Jamisson family. When Mack was a boy they had spent much of their time here. Sir George was unmistakable, with his red face and fat belly. His wife was beside him, in a frilly pink dress that might have looked pretty on a younger woman. There was Robert, the elder son, hard eyed and humorless, twenty-six years old and just beginning to develop the round-bellied look of his father. Next to him was a handsome fair-haired man of about Mack’s age: he had to be Jay, the younger son. The summer Mack was six years old he had played with Jay every day in the woods around Castle Jamisson, and both had thought they would be friends for life. But that winter Mack had started work in the pit, and then there was no more time for play.

He recognized some of the Jamissons’ guests. Lady Hallim and her daughter, Lizzie, were familiar. Lizzie Hallim had long been a source of sensation and scandal in the glen. People said she roamed around in men’s clothing, with a gun over her shoulder. She would give her boots to a barefoot child then berate its mother for not scrubbing her doorstep. Mack had not set eyes on her for years. The Hallim estate had its own church, so they did not come here every Sunday, but they visited when the Jamissons were in residence, and Mack recalled seeing Lizzie on the last occasion, when she had been about fifteen; dressed as a fine lady, but throwing stones at squirrels just like a boy.

Mack’s mother had once been a ladies’ maid at High Glen House, the Hallim mansion, and after she married she had sometimes gone back, on a Sunday afternoon, to see her old friends and show off her twin babies. Mack and Esther had played with Lizzie on those visits—probably without the knowledge of Lady Hallim. Lizzie had been a little minx: bossy, selfish and spoiled. Mack had kissed her once, and she had pulled his hair and made him cry. She looked as though she had not changed much. She had a small impish face, curly dark hair and very dark eyes that suggested mischief. Her mouth was like a pink bow. Staring at her, Mack thought I’d like to kiss her now. Just as the notion crossed his mind she caught his eye. He looked away, embarrassed, as if she might have read his mind.

The sermon came to an end. In addition to the usual Presbyterian service there was to be a christening today: Mack’s cousin Jen had given birth to her fourth child. Her eldest, Wullie, was already working down the pit. Mack had decided that the most appropriate time for his announcement was during the christening. As the moment drew near he felt a watery sensation in his stomach. Then he told himself not to be foolish: he risked his life every day down a mine—why should he be nervous about defying a fat merchant?

Jen stood at the font, looking weary. She was only thirty but she had borne four children and worked down the pit for twenty-three years and she was worn out. Mr. York sprinkled water on her baby’s head. Then her husband, Saul, repeated the form of words that made a slave of every Scottish miner’s son. “I pledge this child to work in Sir George Jamisson’s mines, boy and man, for as long as he is able, or until he die.”

This was the moment Mack had decided on.

He stood up.

At this point in the ceremony the viewer, Harry Ratchett, would normally step up to the font and hand over to Saul the “arles,” the traditional payment for pledging the child, a purse of ten pounds. However, to Mack’s surprise, Sir George rose to perform this ritual personally.

As he stood up, he caught Mack’s eye.

For a moment the two men stood staring at one another.

Then Sir George began to walk to the font.

Mack stepped into the central aisle of the little church and said loudly: “The payment of arles is meaningless.”

Sir George froze in midstep and all heads turned to look at Mack. There was a moment of shocked silence. Mack could hear his own heartbeat.

“This ceremony has no force,” Mack declared. “The boy may not be pledged to the mine. A child cannot be enslaved.”

Sir George said: “Sit down, you young fool, and shut your mouth.”

The patronizing dismissal angered Mack so much that all his doubts vanished. “You sit down,” he said recklessly, and the congregation gasped at his insolence. He pointed a finger at Mr. York. “You spoke about truth in your sermon, Pastor—will you stand up for truth now?”

The clergyman looked at Mack with a worried air. “What is this all about, McAsh?”

“Slavery!”

“Now, you know the law of Scotland,” York said in a reasonable tone. “Coal miners are the property of the mine owner. As soon as a man has worked a year and a day, he loses his freedom.”

“Aye,” Mack said. “It’s wicked, but it’s the law. I’m saying the law does not enslave children, and I can prove it.”

Saul spoke up. “We need the money, Mack!” he protested.

“Take the money,” Mack said. “Your boy will work for Sir George until he’s twenty-one, and that’s worth ten pounds. But—” He raised his voice. “But when he’s of age, he will be free!”

“I advise you to hold your tongue,” Sir George said threateningly. “This is dangerous talk.”

“It’s true, though,” Mack said stubbornly.

Sir George flushed purple: he was not used to being defied so persistently. “I will deal with you when the service is over,” he said angrily. He handed the purse to Saul then turned to the pastor. “Carry on, please, Mr. York.”

Mack was flummoxed. Surely they would not simply go on as if nothing had happened?

The pastor said: “Let us sing the final hymn.”

Sir George returned to his seat. Mack remained standing, unable to believe it was all over.

The pastor said: “The Second Psalm: ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’ ”

A voice behind Mack said: “No, no—not yet.”

He looked around. It was Jimmy Lee, the young miner with the wonderful singing voice. He had run away once already, and as a punishment he wore around his neck an iron collar stamped with the words This man is the property of Sir George Jamisson of Fife. Thank God for Jimmy, Mack thought.

“You can’t stop now,” Jimmy said. “I’m twenty-one next week. If I’m going to be free, I want to know about it.”

Ma Lee, Jimmy’s mother, said: “So do we all.” She was a tough old woman with no teeth, much respected in the village, and her opinion was influential. Several other men and women voiced agreement.

“You’re not going to be free,” Sir George rasped, standing up again.

Esther tugged at Mack’s sleeve. “The letter!” she hissed urgently. “Show them the letter!”

Mack had forgotten it in his excitement. “The law says differently, Sir George,” he cried, waving the letter.

York said: “What is that paper, McAsh?”

“It’s a letter from a London lawyer that I’ve consulted.”

Sir George was so outraged he looked as if he might burst. Mack was glad they were separated by rows of pews; otherwise the laird might have got him by the throat. “You have consulted a lawyer?” he spluttered. That seemed to offend him more than anything else.

York said: “What does the letter say?”

“I’ll read it,” Mack said. “ ‘The ceremony of arles has no foundation in English or Scottish law.’ ” There was a rumble of surprised comment from the congregation: this contradicted everything they had been taught to believe. “ ‘The parents cannot sell what they do not own, namely the freedom of a grown man. They may compel their child to work in the mine until he reaches the age of twenty-one, but’ ”—Mack paused dramatically and read the next bit very slowly—“ ‘but then he will be free to leave!’ ”

All at once everyone wanted to say something. There was an uproar as a hundred people tried to speak, shout, begin a question or voice an exclamation. Probably half the men in the church had been pledged as children and had always considered themselves slaves in consequence. Now they were being told they had been deceived, and they wanted to know the truth.

Mack held up a hand for quiet, and almost immediately they fell silent. For an instant he marveled at his power. “Let me read one more line,” he said. “ ‘Once the man is adult, the law applies to him as it applies to everyone else in Scotland: when he has worked a year and a day as an adult he loses his freedom.’ ”

There were grunts of anger and disappointment. This was no revolution, the men realized; most of them were no more free than they had ever been. But their sons might escape.

York said: “Let me see that letter, McAsh.”

Mack went up to the front and handed it to him.

Sir George, still flushed with anger, said: “Who is this so-called lawyer?”

Mack said: “His name is Caspar Gordonson.”

York said: “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of him.”

“So have I,” said Sir George scornfully. “An out-and-out radical! He’s an associate of John Wilkes.” Everyone knew the name of Wilkes: he was the celebrated liberal leader, living in exile in Paris but constantly threatening to return and undermine the government. Sir George went on: “Gordonson will hang for this, if I have anything to do with it. That letter is treason.”

The pastor was shocked at this talk of hanging. “I hardly think treason comes into it—”

“You’d better confine yourself to the kingdom of heaven,” Sir George said sharply. “Leave it to men of this world to decide what is treason and what is not.” With that he snatched the letter out of York’s hand.

The congregation were shocked at this brutal rebuke to their pastor, and they went quiet, waiting to see how he would react. York held Jamisson’s gaze, and Mack was sure the pastor would defy the laird; but then York dropped his eyes, and Jamisson looked triumphant. He sat down again, as if it were all over.

Mack was outraged by York’s cowardice. The church was supposed to be the moral authority. A pastor who took orders from the laird was completely superfluous. Mack gave the man a look of frank contempt and said in a derisive voice: “Are we to respect the law, or not?”

Robert Jamisson stood up, flushed with anger like his father. “You’ll respect the law, and your laird will tell you what the law is,” he said.

“That’s the same as having no law at all,” Mack said.

“Which is just as well, as far as you’re concerned,” Robert said. “You’re a coal miner: what have you to do with the law? As for writing to lawyers—” He took the letter from his father. “This is what I think of your lawyer.” He tore the paper in half.

The miners gasped. Their future was written on those pages, and he was ripping them up.

Robert tore the letter again and again, then threw the pieces in the air. They fluttered over Saul and Jen like confetti at a wedding.

Mack felt as grief-stricken as if someone had died. The letter was the most important thing that had ever happened to him. He had planned to show it to everyone in the village. He had imagined taking it to other pits in other villages, until all Scotland knew about it. Yet Robert had destroyed it in a second.

Defeat must have shown in his face, for Robert looked triumphant. That enraged Mack. He would not be crushed so easily. Anger made him defiant. I’m not finished yet, he thought. The letter had gone but the law was still the same. “I see you’re frightened enough to destroy that letter,” he said, and he was surprised by the withering scorn in his own voice. “But you can’t tear up the law of the land. That’s written on a paper that’s not so easily ripped.”

Robert was startled. He hesitated, not sure how to respond to such eloquence. After a moment he said angrily: “Get out.”

Mack looked at Mr. York, and the Jamissons did the same. No layman had the right to order a member of the congregation to leave a church. Would the pastor bow the knee, and let the laird’s son throw out one of his flock? “Is this God’s house, or Sir George Jamisson’s?” Mack demanded.

It was a decisive moment, and York was not equal to it. He looked shamefaced and said: “You’d better leave, McAsh.”

Mack could not resist a retort, though he knew it was foolhardy. “Thank you for the sermon on truth, Pastor,” he said. “I’ll never forget it.”

He turned away. Esther stood up with him. As they started down the aisle, Jimmy Lee got up and followed. One or two others stood, then Ma Lee got to her feet, and suddenly the exodus became general. There was a loud scraping of boots and rustling of dresses as the miners left their places, bringing their families with them. As Mack reached the door he knew that every miner in the place was following him out of the church, and he was seized by a feeling of fellowship and triumph that brought tears to his eyes.

They gathered around him in the churchyard. The wind had dropped but it was snowing, big flakes drifting lazily down onto the gravestones. “That was wrong, to tear up the letter,” Jimmy said angrily.

Several others agreed. “We’ll write again,” said one.

Mack said: “It may not be so easy to get the letter posted a second time.” His mind was not really on these details. He was breathing hard and he felt exhausted and exhilarated, as if he had run up the side of High Glen.

“The law is the law!” said another miner.

“Aye, but the laird is the laird,” said a more cautious one.

As Mack calmed down he began to wonder realistically what he had achieved. He had stirred everyone up, of course, but that on its own would not change anything. The Jamissons had flatly refused to acknowledge the law. If they stuck to their guns what could the miners do? Was there ever any point in fighting for justice? Would it not be better to touch his forelock to the laird and hope one day to get Harry Ratchett’s job as viewer?

A small figure in black fur shot out of the church porch like a deerhound unleashed. It was Lizzie Hallim. She made straight for Mack. The miners stepped out of her way with alacrity.

Mack stared at her. She had looked pretty enough in repose, but now that her face was alive with indignation she was ravishing. Her black eyes flashing fire, she said: “Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Malachi McAsh—”

“I know your name,” she said. “How dare you talk to the laird and his son that way?”

“How dare they enslave us when the law says they may not?”

The miners murmured their agreement.

Lizzie looked around at them. Snowflakes clung to the fur of her coat. One landed on her nose and she brushed it off with an impatient gesture. “You’re fortunate to have paid work,” she said. “You should all be grateful to Sir George for developing his mines and providing your families with the means to live.”

Mack said: “If we’re so fortunate, why do they need laws forbidding us to leave the village and seek other work?”

“Because you’re too foolish to know when you’re well off!”

Mack realized he was enjoying this contest, and not just because it involved looking at a beautiful highborn woman. As an opponent she was more subtle than either Sir George or Robert.

He lowered his voice and adopted an inquiring tone. “Miss Hallim, have you ever been down a coal mine?”

Ma Lee cackled with laughter at the thought.

Lizzie said: “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“If one day you do, I guarantee that you’ll never again call us lucky.”

“I’ve heard enough of your insolence,” she said. “You should be flogged.”

“I probably will be,” he said, but he did not believe it: no miner had been flogged here in his lifetime, though his father had seen it.

Her chest was heaving. He had to make an effort not to look at her bosom. She said: “You’ve an answer for everything, you always had.”

“Aye, but you’ve never listened to any of them.”

He felt an elbow dig painfully into his side: it was Esther, telling him to watch his step, reminding him that it never paid to outsmart the gentry. She said: “We’ll think about what you’ve told us, Miss Hallim, and thank you for your advice.”

Lizzie nodded condescendingly. “You’re Esther, aren’t you?”

“Aye, miss.”

She turned to Mack. “You should listen to your sister, she’s got more sense than you.”

“That’s the first true thing you’ve said to me today.”

Esther hissed: “Mack—shut your gob.”

Lizzie grinned, and suddenly all her arrogance vanished. The smile lit up her face and she seemed another person, friendly and gay. “I haven’t heard that phrase for a long time,” she said, laughing. Mack could not help laughing with her.

She turned away, still chuckling.

Mack watched her walk back to the church porch and join the Jamissons, who were just emerging. “My God,” he said, shaking his head. “What a woman.”

4

JAY WAS ANGERED BY THE ROW IN THE CHURCH. IT INFURIATED him to see people getting above their station. It was God’s will and the law of the land that Malachi McAsh should spend his life hewing coal underground and Jay Jamisson should live a higher existence. To complain about the natural order was wicked. And McAsh had an infuriating way of speaking as if he were the equal of anyone, no matter how highborn.

In the colonies, now, a slave was a slave, and no nonsense about working a year and a day or being paid wages. That was the way to do things, in Jay’s opinion. People would not work unless compelled to, and compulsion might as well be merciless—it was more efficient.

As he left the church some of the crofters offered congratulations on his twenty-first birthday, but not one of the miners spoke to him. They stood in a crowd to one side of the graveyard, arguing among themselves in low, angry voices. Jay was outraged by the blight they had cast on his celebratory day.

He hurried through the snow to where a groom held the horses. Robert was already there, but Lizzie was not. Jay looked around for her. He had been looking forward to riding home with Lizzie. “Where’s Miss Elizabeth?” he said to the groom.

“Over by the porch, Mr. Jay.”

Jay saw her talking animatedly to the pastor.

Robert tapped Jay on the chest with an aggressive finger. “Listen here, Jay—you leave Elizabeth Hallim alone, do you understand?”

Robert’s face was set in belligerent lines. It was dangerous to cross him in this mood. But anger and disappointment gave Jay courage. “What the devil are you talking about?” he said.

“You’re not going to marry her, I am.”

“I don’t want to marry her.”

“Then don’t flirt with her.”

Jay knew that Lizzie had found him attractive, and he had enjoyed bantering with her, but he had no thought of capturing her heart. When he was fourteen and she thirteen he had thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and it had broken his heart that she was not interested in him (or, indeed, any other boy)—but that was a long time ago. Father’s plan was for Robert to marry Lizzie, and neither Jay nor anyone else in the family would oppose the wishes of Sir George. So Jay was surprised Robert had been upset enough to complain. It showed he was insecure—and Robert, like his father, was not often unsure of himself.

Jay enjoyed the rare pleasure of seeing his brother worried. “What are you afraid of?” he said.

“You know damn well what I mean. You’ve been stealing my things since we were boys—my toys, my clothes, everything.”

An old familiar resentment goaded Jay into saying: “Because you always got whatever you wanted, and I got nothing.”

“Nonsense.”

“Anyway, Miss Hallim is a guest at our house,” Jay said in a more reasonable tone. “I can’t ignore her, can I?”

Robert’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “Do you want me to speak to Father about it?”

Those were the magic words that had ended so many childhood disputes. Both brothers knew that their father would always rule in favor of Robert. A long-familiar bitterness rose in Jay’s throat. “All right, Robert,” he conceded. “I’ll try not to interfere with your courting.”

He swung onto his horse and trotted away, leaving Robert to escort Lizzie to the castle.

Castle Jamisson was a dark gray stone fortress with turrets and a battlemented roofline, and it had the tall, overbearing look of so many Scottish country houses. It had been built seventy years ago, after the first coal pit in the glen began to bring wealth to the laird.

Sir George inherited the estate through a cousin of his first wife’s. Throughout Jay’s childhood his father had been obsessed with coal. He had spent all his time and money opening new pits, and no improvements had been made to the castle.

Although it was Jay’s childhood home he did not like the place. The huge, drafty rooms on the ground floor—hall, dining room, drawing room, kitchen and servants’ hall—were arranged around a central courtyard with a fountain that was frozen from October to May. The place was impossible to heat. Fires in every bedroom, burning the plentiful coal from the Jamisson pits, made little impression on the chill air of the big flagstoned chambers, and the corridors were so cold that you had to put on a cloak to go from one room to another.

Ten years ago the family had moved to London, leaving a skeleton staff to maintain the house and protect the game. For a while they would come back every year, bringing guests and servants with them, renting horses and a carriage from Edinburgh, hiring crofters’ wives to mop the stone floors and keep the fires alight and empty the chamberpots. But Father became more and more reluctant to leave his business, and the visits petered out. This year’s revival of the old custom did not please Jay. However, the grown-up Lizzie Hallim was a pleasant surprise, and not merely because she gave him a means of tormenting his favored older brother.

He rode around to the stables and dismounted. He patted the gelding’s neck. “He’s no steeplechaser, but he’s a well-behaved mount,” he said to the groom, handing over the reins. “I’d be glad to have him in my regiment.”

The groom looked pleased. “Thank you, sir,” he said.

Jay went into the great hall. It was a big, gloomy chamber with dim shadowy corners into which the candlelight hardly penetrated. A sullen deerhound lay on an old fur rug in front of the coal fire. Jay gave it a nudge with the toe of his boot and made it get out of the way so that he could warm his hands.

Over the fireplace was the portrait of his father’s first wife, Robert’s mother, Olive. Jay hated that painting. There she was, solemn and saintly, looking down her long nose at all who came after her. When she caught a fever and died suddenly at the age of twenty-nine his father had remarried, but he never forgot his first love. He treated Jay’s mother, Alicia, like a mistress, a plaything with no status and no rights; and he made Jay feel almost like an illegitimate son. Robert was the firstborn, the heir, the special one. Jay sometimes wanted to ask whether it had been an immaculate conception and a virgin birth.

He turned his back on the picture. A footman brought him a goblet of hot mulled wine and he sipped it gratefully. Perhaps it would settle the tension in his stomach. Today Father would announce what Jay’s portion would be.

He knew he was not going to get half, or even a tenth, of his father’s fortune. Robert would inherit this estate, with its rich mines, and the fleet of ships he already managed. Jay’s mother had counseled him not to argue about that: she knew Father was implacable.

Robert was not merely the only son. He was Father all over again. Jay was different, and that was why his father spurned him. Like Father, Robert was clever, heartless, and mean with money. Jay was easygoing and spendthrift. Father hated people who were careless with money, especially his money. More than once he had shouted at Jay: “I sweat blood to make money that you throw away!”

Jay had made matters worse, just a few months ago, by running up a huge gambling debt, nine hundred pounds. He had got his mother to ask Father to pay. It was a small fortune, enough to buy Castle Jamisson, but Sir George could easily afford it. All the same he had acted as if he were losing a leg. Since then Jay had lost more money, although Father did not know about that.

Don’t fight your father, Mother reasoned, but ask for something modest. Younger sons often went out to the colonies: there was a good chance his father would give him the sugar plantation in Barbados, with its estate house and African slaves. Both he and his mother had spoken to his father about it. Sir George had not said yes, but he had not said no, and Jay had high hopes.

His father came in a few minutes later, stamping snow off his riding boots. A footman helped him off with his cloak. “Send a message to Ratchett,” Father said to the man. “I want two men guarding the bridge twenty-four hours a day. If McAsh tries to leave the glen they should seize him.”

There was only one bridge across the river, but there was another way out of the glen. Jay said: “What if McAsh goes over the mountain?”

“In this weather? He can try. As soon as we learn he’s gone, we can send a party around by road and have the sheriff and a squad of troops waiting on the other side by the time he gets there. But I doubt he’d ever make it.”

Jay was not so sure—these miners were as hardy as the deer, and McAsh was an obstinate wretch—but he did not argue with his father.

Lady Hallim arrived next. She was dark haired and dark eyed like her daughter, but she had none of Lizzie’s spark and crackle. She was rather stout, and her fleshy face was marked with lines of disapproval. “Let me take your coat,” Jay said, and helped her shrug off her heavy fur. “Come close to the fire, your hands are cold. Would you like some mulled wine?”

“What a nice boy you are, Jay,” she said. “I’d love some.”

The other churchgoers came in, rubbing their hands for warmth and dripping melted snow on the stone floor. Robert was doggedly making small talk to Lizzie, going from one trivial topic to another as if he had a list. Father began to discuss business with Henry Drome, a Glasgow merchant who was a relation of his first wife, Olive; and Jay’s mother spoke to Lady Hallim. The pastor and his wife had not come: perhaps they were sulking about the row in the church. There was a handful of other guests, mostly relatives: Sir George’s sister and her husband, Alicia’s younger brother and his wife, and one or two neighbors. Most of the conversations were about Malachi McAsh and his stupid letter.

After a while Lizzie’s raised voice was heard over the buzz of conversation, and one by one people turned to listen to her. “But why not?” she was saying. “I want to see for myself.”

Robert said gravely: “A coal mine is no place for a lady, believe me.”

“What’s this?” Sir George asked. “Does Miss Hallim want to go down a pit?”

“I believe I should know what it’s like,” Lizzie explained.

Robert said: “Apart from any other considerations, female clothing would make it almost impossible.”

“Then I’ll disguise myself as a man,” she shot back.

Sir George chuckled. “There are some girls I know who could manage that,” he said. “But you, my dear, are much too pretty to get away with it.” He obviously thought this a clever compliment and looked around for approval. The others laughed dutifully.

Jay’s mother nudged his father and said something in a low voice. “Ah, yes,” said Sir George. “Has everyone got a full cup?” Without waiting for an answer he went on: “Let us drink to my younger son, James Jamisson, known to us all as Jay, on his twenty-first birthday. To Jay!”

They drank the toast, then the women retired to prepare for dinner. The talk among the men turned to business. Henry Drome said: “I don’t like the news from America. It could cost us a lot of money.”

Jay knew what the man was talking about. The English government had imposed taxes on various commodities imported into the American colonies—tea, paper, glass, lead and painters’ colors—and the colonists were outraged.

Sir George said indignantly: “They want the army to protect them from Frenchies and redskins, but they don’t want to pay for it!”

“Nor will they, if they can help it,” said Drome. “The Boston town meeting has announced a boycott of all British imports. They’re giving up tea, and they’ve even agreed to save on black cloth by skimping on mourning clothes!”

Robert said: “If the other colonies follow the lead of Massachusetts, half our fleet of ships will have no cargoes.”

Sir George said: “The colonists are a damned gang of bandits, that’s all they are—and the Boston rum distillers are the worst.” Jay was surprised at how riled his father was: the problem had to be costing him money, for him to get so worked up about it. “The law obliges them to buy molasses from British plantations, but they smuggle in French molasses and drive the price down.”