to have settled first, though afterwards we altered our minds.
The first thing I did of moment after having gotten all our
goods on shore, and placed them in a storehouse, or warehouse,
which, with a lodging, we hired at the small place or village
where we landed–I say, the first thing was to inquire after my
mother, and after my brother (that fatal person whom I married
as a husband, as I have related at large). A little inquiry
furnished me with information that Mrs.—-, that is, my mother,
was dead; that my brother (or husband) was alive, which I
confess I was not very glad to hear; but which was worse, I
found he was removed from the plantation where he lived
formerly, and where I lived with him, and lived with one of
his sons in a plantation just by the place where we landed,
and where we had hired a warehouse.
I was a little surprised at first, but as I ventured to satisfy
myself that he could not know me, I was not only perfectly
easy, but had a great mind to see him, if it was possible to so
do without his seeing me. In order to that I found out by
inquiry the plantation where he lived, and with a woman of
that place whom I got to help me, like what we call a chairwoman,
I rambled about towards the place as if I had only a mind to
see the country and look about me. At last I came so near that
I saw the dwellinghouse. I asked the woman whose plantation
that was; she said it belonged to such a man, and looking out
a little to our right hands, ‘there,’ says she, is the gentleman
that owns the plantation, and his father with him.’ ‘What are
their Christian names?’ said I. ‘I know not,’ says she, ‘what
the old gentleman’s name is, but the son’s name is Humphrey;
and I believe,’ says she, ‘the father’s is so too.’ You may
guess, if you can, what a confused mixture of joy and fight
possessed my thoughts upon this occasion, for I immediately
knew that this was nobody else but my own son, by that father
she showed me, who was my own brother. I had no mask,
but I ruffled my hood so about my face, that I depended upon
it that after above twenty years’ absence, and withal not
expecting anything of me in that part of the world, he would
not be able to know anything of me. But I need not have used
all that caution, for the old gentleman was grown dim-sighted
by some distemper which had fallen upon his eyes, and could
but just see well enough to walk about, and not run against a
tree or into a ditch. The woman that was with me had told me
that by a mere accident, knowing nothing of what importance
it was to me. As they drew near to us, I said, ‘Does he know
you, Mrs. Owen?’ (so they called the woman). ‘Yes,’ said
she, ‘if he hears me speak, he will know me; but he can’t see
well enough to know me or anybody else’; and so she told me
the story of his sight, as I have related. This made me secure,
and so I threw open my hoods again, and let them pass by me.
It was a wretched thing for a mother thus to see her own son,
a handsome, comely young gentleman in flourishing
circumstances, and durst not make herself known to him, and
durst not take any notice of him. Let any mother of children
that reads this consider it, and but think with what anguish of
mind I restrained myself; what yearnings of soul I had in me
to embrace him, and weep over him; and how I thought all my
entrails turned within me, that my very bowels moved, and I
knew not what to do, as I now know not how to express those
agonies! When he went from me I stood gazing and trembling,
and looking after him as long as I could see him; then sitting