gushing from John Smith’s nose will turn that white snow once again into red slush.
And then Thomas Kinsman will see you stand astounded, your mouth agape, as Jacob Walker, leaning upon a freshly whittled stick, saunters into view at the edge of St Mary’s churchyard. For here is another negro within this little English village. You will watch as a skinny black man from the Americas, with his greying hair and deep drawling voice, who was servant to a missus in Highgate, presents a grateful and excited Thomas with a gift; the first of the many Penny Magazines he gave to his ‘little nigger brother’ whenever he chanced him.
And be in no doubt that Thomas Kinsman would joy to take you through each page of each edition of every Penny Magazine he read, so you too might marvel at the engravings of Goodrich Castle or Highgate Church, or sit engrossed reading of the fertilisation of larvae, or the use of the goat as a wet-nurse.
But you must rest awhile for once Thomas Kinsman starts you upon the journey through his schooldays at the Crouch End Academy, he will demand all your regard as he talks of his lessons in history, geography and arithmetic, Greek, French and Latin. He may even offer to conjugate some Latin verbs for you, but it would be prudent for any listener to refuse politely this proposal; and be thankful that his school books were lost upon the voyage back to Jamaica, for he would have you perusing each and every one.
All these events Thomas Kinsman would willingly impart to any listener; but the story of his life in England does not truly commence until that keen-eyed negro boy—now fourteen, with shoulders that are restless to broaden, hair that wishes to sprout in parts never before seen and a voice that craves to pitch low—was bound in apprenticeship to a printer near Fleet Street. James Kinsman signed a deed that tied Thomas to a Mr Linus Gray for seven years—not only for instruction into the trade of print, but also to board within his household for the duration.
For Thomas could no longer remain within the Kinsmans’ charge, as liquor had seen them all driven from Crouch End. James Kinsman had declared that he could not minister within a village where the beer shop and the public houses had greater congregation than any Sunday worship. And where the foremost family of the parish shamelessly made their prominence through the distilling of gin.
When James Kinsman had sought to have all dens of inebriation closed down within Hornsey, so the labouring classes might go about their work with clearer heads, a rough and abusive crowd had gathered outside his house in Maynard Street, banging frying pans, pots, kettles, boards, pokers, shovels, to demand that the family depart. And although James Kinsman was forced to leave Hornsey to take up his new ministry in Lewes, in the county of Sussex, the learned, detailed, and very long, pamphlet he wrote upon the riotous intoxication to be found within Crouch End remains to this day, unpublished.
But Thomas Kinsman’s black eyes will not dim when he recounts this leave-taking. No. Rather, he will place his hands together and thoughtfully raise them to his lips while he pronounces slowly, so as to exalt the meaning, that for boys like him—for foundlings—the choice before him for betterment was either employment in service or in trade; and to be a printer, he will say with startling delight, well, ever since he first studied those Penny Magazines, to be a printer was his avid wish.
And, before you will realise, you will be standing within a cramped dusty printing office on the south side of Fleet Street in Water Lane, where the dim sunlight from the window shows motes of dust as big as coins gliding through the air. Linus Gray—a skinny, tall man of about two and thirty with a nose so pointed he could spear a fish with it and a jaw square as nobility—was at a desk with his head bowed, perusing several large sheets of paper with the care of a surgeon examining an open wound, as his new apprentice stepped in.
Linus’s expression, at first dull and bored, all at once changed upon seeing Thomas. He jumped from his seat laughing and clapping his hands. ‘Oh, wait until they see you!’ he sang as he skipped around his desk and spun Thomas to examine every angle of him within the dirty light. Linus Gray