Shadowbrook by Beverly Swerling Read Free Book Online Page A

“This is another visitor, Daniel Willis, who comes to us from Rhode Island.”
    The men took seats beside the fire. Prudence arrived carrying a basket filled with still warm corncakes and a jug of sweet apple cider that steamed when she poured it into small crockery drinking bowls. The black woman served the men first, then Quent and Cormac, and finally Judith. Esther refused the refreshments and tied the skins into a neat bundle.
    Edward Taylor had been summoned in his capacity as the keeper of Do Good’s purse. He leaned forward and passed a soft deerskin pouch to John. “Thy father’s share of the last trip to New York City is here. Seventeen pounds and elevenshillings. All good coin. Louis d’or and
daalders
and Portuguese
cruzados
and the like. Thee need not hesitate to count them if thee wishes.”
    John hefted the pouch in his hand and the coins inside jingled softly. He loosened the drawstring but made no further move to count the money. “What brings you to Shadowbrook, Mr. Willis?”
    “There is no need to call me mister, John Hale. I’m told thee does not share our beliefs, but thee should know I seek no title of any kind.”
    “Very well—-Daniel, then. What brings you to Shadowbrook from Rhode Island in the dead of winter? It can’t have been an easy journey.”
    “Easy enough since it ended safely. I come on the urging of the Light Within, John Hale. To bring a message.”
    “Oh? What message is that?”
    “It is time we stop buying and selling our fellow creatures.”
    John looked over at the bundle of pelts that lay on the counter. “You worried about the seals and the beaver, Daniel? We’d be overrun with the things if we didn’t trap ‘em.”
    “I speak not of animals but of people, John Hale. Negro people like Prudence here.”
    Quent shot a look at the black woman. She stood absolutely still and stared straight ahead, as if she did not hear what was being said. “What do you say to that, Prudence?” John asked. “You think you’ve been treated right?”
    Prudence didn’t answer.
    “Thee may reply if thee wishes,” Martin Snowberry said quietly. “I confess, I would hear thy answer.”
    “Ain’t nobody in this place be’s mean to me.” Prudence didn’t look at them and began packing the basket with the remains of the food.
    “But thee is not paid for thy labor,” Daniel Willis said. “Thee gets no reward for thy toil. In the Bible it says the workman is worthy of his hire.”
    Esther was looking from Prudence to Daniel Willis with some consternation. “In his letter to the Colossians Paul says to be fair and just in the way thee treatest slaves. Would he say that if the owning of them were contrary to God’s law?”
    “Dost thee not believe that the Light Within is stronger than any written word, Esther?”
    “Of course I do. But we bought Prudence from a man who whipped her regularly. No one whips her here, and she is properly clothed and housed and fed. Thee must believe that it is better we bought her from a master who treated her so poorly.”
    Daniel Willis shook his head. “Thee canst not buy another human being.”
    “That would certainly surprise parliament and the king,” John said. The Province of New York was the only English colony with a royal governorappointed by London; all the others had a right of self-rule written into their charters. But though no territory north of Virginia approached the number of slaves bought and sold and owned in New York, one way or another they all—north and south alike—depended on the trade for their financial health. “Nor, I suspect, would the merchants of Rhode Island be happy with the news.”
    “Slavery is against the will of God,” Daniel Willis insisted. “Thee canst not buy and sell thy fellow human beings, nor expect them to work on thy behalf without fair recompense.”
    John stood up. “Not another white human being, perhaps. Nigras and Indians are different. And half-breeds, of course.” John put his