James Robertson - Joseph Knight

‘Who else here has been syringed by Davie?’ he said. It came out almost as a shout. John shook his head in exasperation.

‘Oh, Sandy!’ James said. ‘That’s the last time I congress with any of your past bedfellows.’

‘It’s no secret, is it?’ Sandy said. ‘We all get the clap sooner or later.’

‘Not I,’ John said.

‘The later ye are, the mair chance,’ Kinloch said.

‘It depends on who’s been there before you,’ James said. ‘Eh, Sandy?’

‘That’s why I always like to get in first,’ Sandy said.

Again, John winced at his youngest brother’s forced bravado. He worried for him – that in his efforts to keep up with the pace set by James and Peter, he would burn himself out.

‘I hear Mr Collins flogged a girl almost to death for clapping him,’ said Peter. ‘But who’s to say she did not catch it from him, if Davie’s not pulling our legs. That would seem a trifle unfair.’

‘I never fash mysel wi the fairness or otherwise of another man’s use o the whip,’ Kinloch said. ‘Ye never ken all the circumstances. Ye see some neger greeting in the bilboes, or knocked senseless by her master, and ye feel it’s cruel. Then ye discover she was stealing, or feigning illness, or she wouldna do as she was tellt, in bed or oot o it. Mr Collins doubtless had another grievance forby the clap.’

‘There’s some men I would not have at my table, though,’ said John, ‘on account of the manner they treat their slaves.’

‘Such as?’ Kinloch sounded touchy.

‘Well, Tom Irvine.’

‘Auld Tom?’ said Kinloch. ‘What’s Tom done to upset ye, man?’

‘He’s a rough and ready kind of man,’ said Hodge, ‘fierce at times I’m sure, but he doesn’t strike me as anything out of the ordinary.’ The merchant suddenly pulled off his wig and swiped at a mosquito, then laid the wig in his lap. His bald head gleamed with rivulets of sweat.

‘He degrades himself,’ said John. ‘He does not care if the blacks see him as a brute. In fact he revels in it.’

‘Then Mr Hodge’s observation is correct,’ said Davie Fyfe. ‘There’s plenty like him.’

‘Sometimes it’s necessary,’ said Kinloch.

‘No,’ said John, ‘it is necessary to be strict, to punish where punishment is due. Of course we can all agree on that. But Irvine – no, I’d not have him at my table.’ He made a rasping sound in his throat.

‘What on earth is it he’s done?’ Hodge asked.

‘We were down there three weeks ago,’ James explained. ‘His crop was all in – you know he hasn’t as much land, and what he has is poor, badly drained – and we thought we might hire some of his slaves to help finish ours. But they were in such a miserable, wasted condition we’d never have got the work out of them to make it worthwhile. We went to see him and he was wandering about in just his shirt. Said he’d lost his breeks and couldn’t be bothered to look for them. The place was stinking. One of his lassies had asked if she could go to tend her garden as there was nothing to be done in the house, so he shat in the hall and told her to clean that up.’

‘Maybe he is demented,’ said Kinloch. ‘The heat, Mr Hodge.’ But Mr Hodge had gone rather quiet, and did not seem to hear.

‘Is Mr Collins demented?’ asked Fyfe.

‘Collins? Of course not. Why?’

‘I heard if he catches a slave eating cane, he flogs him and has another slave shit in his mouth. Then he gags him for a few hours. Or he has one slave piss on the face of another. Is that the behaviour of a sane man?’

‘It may not be pleasant,’ said Kinloch, ‘but it’s no mad. If it was him doing the shitting and pissing, I grant that might suggest an unbalanced mind. But he instructs another neger to do it. He maintains his ain dignity.’

‘For God’s sake,’ John Wedderburn said. There was a round of more or less revolted laughter from the others, which he at last joined in. The story was neither new nor particularly shocking. They might not have stooped quite to good old Tom Irvine’s level, or Collins’s, or at least if they had they were not saying, but they had done other things – dripped hot wax into wounds opened by whipping, rubbed salt or hot peppers in them. Or, more to the point, they had not actually done these things: they had had others do them – white employees, other slaves – and watched. Or not watched. Like Collins, they had kept their distance, and thus their dignity.

‘In any case,’ Kinloch added, ‘eating shit is just a step frae eating dirt. I suppose some of them don’t mind it much.’

There was silence around the table as they all considered this. Dirt-eating was one of the great mysteries of the plantations. Some slaves had a craving for the ground, clay in particular. Nothing was more likely to send a white man into a fit of revulsion than the sight of an African grovelling in the field, stuffing his face with soil. Nothing brought down the lash so fiercely. It was like watching some wild beast sniffing and scraping at a midden. It seemed to mark the distinction between the races more clearly than anything.

‘We have a case of that just now,’ said John, passing round a new bottle of claret. ‘A boy called Plato. We’ve had to strap him to a board to keep him from it. Did you see him today, James?’

‘On my way up. I’ve put him in a hut away from the others. He has a sore breaking out on his face that I fear may be the start of the yaws. I’ve told that old witch Peggy to look after him – nothing kills her, and her herbs and potions will not hurt him – may even be of help. I looked in his mouth. He has worms there.’

‘From the dirt, nae doubt,’ said Kinloch.

‘I’m not so sure,’ James said. ‘Davie and I have been giving this some thought. I begin to wonder if it’s not the other way round – if the dirt does not come from the worms.’

Kinloch snorted. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

‘Well,’ said Fyfe, ‘why should the soil which gives us our good crops cause so many ailments among the slaves? A dirt-eater comes down with everything: the flux, dropsy, fatigue, stupidity –’

‘And there ye pit your finger on the nub,’ said Kinloch. ‘Idleness and idiocy. The only thing that will cure thae ills is a thrashing. A good sound Negro never came doun wi dirt-eating.’

‘But George,’ said James, ‘suppose for a moment that a good sound Negro did. What would be the cause of it? Suppose, for example, that he got the ground itch – you’ll agree any Negro can get that between his toes?’

‘We’d get it if we didna wear shoes. Ye’re no wanting to gie them all shoes, are ye?’

‘The ground itch is caused by hook worms,’ said James, ignoring the question. ‘You clean out the scabs, bathe the feet, and with time the itch is gone. But suppose the worms – some of them – get under the skin, and into the blood. Where do they go? They go through the blood to the lungs. Your good Negro coughs to clear his lungs. This brings the worms to his mouth. He takes a drink. The worms are carried into his gut. They feed there. The slave, consequently, is constantly hungry. He has a craving for whatever will fill his belly. The cane, or the ground it grows on. The worms grow inside him. They lay their eggs. The good Negro shits in the cane field. His shit is full of eggs. Need I go on?’

‘I see,’ said Kinloch. ‘Ye mean getting one slave to shit in another’s mouth may spread the worms?’

‘For God’s sake, man,’ said Fyfe, ‘forget about that. The ground is covered in hook worms. All we’re saying is, if Plato is infested with worms, maybe that’s the cause of his dirt-eating. Not the other way round.’

‘It’s the same with the yaws,’ James went on. ‘It never seems to come on its own. And you’ll grant that not even the most devious malingerer can feign it.’