a high wind in jamaica by richard hughes

They went to see a nativity play, and when John was messing about on the second floor, he fell and broke his neck. That night, a pirate named José took them out into the town as a treat. The pirates held an auction of stolen goods that failed despite Jonsen’s best efforts to get the crowd drunk. In the morning, the ship had landed at Santa Lucia in Cuba. Other than Margaret, the children did not understand that they had been kidnapped, and they bunked down in the pirate ship’s hold with no complaint. With the money and loot in hand, Jonsen decided to take the children as well. When he refused, he threatened to shoot the children, and when this still did not convince Marpole, he threatened to burn the ship. The pirate captain Jonsen demanded Marpole give him all his money. After several happy weeks at sea, the ship was taken by a small boat of men, several disguised as women. He reported that the ship had been beset by pirates who had killed the children wholesale. The Bas-Thornton parents settled back into their routine, but one day received a letter from the ship’s captain, Marpole. The children were delighted by the prospect of an adventure, and they were accompanied by two of the Fernandez children, slightly older Margaret and her brother Harry. The children’s parents decided that it would be safer for them to get an education in England, so they booked the children tickets on the ship Clorinda and said a tearful goodbye when they pulled out of the port. When they emerged, their home had been destroyed.

The family survived by hunkering down in their cellar. In the chaos, their cat was killed by wild cats and one of their black servants was struck by lightning.

Not long after, an even more powerful natural event befell the Bas-Thorntons: a hurricane. Emily fantasized about telling this story to impressed audiences in England. One day, on a visit to the neighboring Fernandez family, they experienced an earthquake that caused animals to go wild and the ocean to ebb back dramatically.

Their five young children, John, Emily, Rachel, Edward, and Laura, ran wild around the abandoned plantation. In one of these homes lives the Bas-Thornton family. The unnamed narrator begins by describing the Gothic ruins of post-Emancipation Jamaica. The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Hughes, Richard.

A high wind in jamaica by richard hughes