For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

  CHAPTER XXXIX.

  FOR TEN YEARS.

  It was a numerous company gathered together on the deck of the ship.By their dress they were country lads; by their pale cheeks theywere prison birds like ourselves; by their dismal faces they were,also, like ourselves, rebels condemned to the Plantations. Alas!how many of these poor fellows have returned to their homes, andhow many lie in the graves of Jamaica, Virginia, and Barbadoes? Asfor preparations for a voyage, not one of us could make any, eitherof clothes or of provisions. There was not among the whole companyso much as a change of clothes; nay, there was not even a razor,and our faces were already bristling horribly with the beards whichbefore long made us look like so many Heyducs.

  Among them I presently discerned, to my great surprise and joy,none other than Barnaby. His coat of scarlet was now so ragged andstained that neither colour nor original shape could be discerned,his ruffles and cravat of lace were gone, and the scarlet sashwhich had formerly carried his hanger was gone also. In a word, hewas in rags and covered with the dust of the road. Yet his jollycountenance showed a satisfaction which contrasted greatly with thedejection of his companions. He sniffed the scent of tar and ropeswith a joy which was visible to all, and he contemplated the shipand her rigging with the air of one who is at home.

  Then he saw us and shouted to us while he made his way roughlythrough the rest.

  'What cheer, ho! Humphrey, brave lad of boluses?'--never did anyman grasp the hand of friend with greater vigour. 'This is better,I say, than the accursed prison, where one got never a breath offresh air. Here one begins to smell salt water and tarred rope,which is a downright wholesome smell. Already I feel hearty again. Iwould willingly drink a tankard or two of black beer. What, Robin,what? We are not going to be hanged, after all. Lift up thy head,therefore: is this a time for looking glum? We shall live to hangJudge Jeffreys yet!--what? Thy looks are but poorly, lad. Is it theprison or is it thy disappointment? That villain, Benjamin! Harkye, Robin'--some men's faces look black when they threaten, butBarnaby's grew broader, as if the contemplation of revenge made himthe happier--'Hark ye, this is my business. No one shall interferewith me in this. Benjamin is my affair. No one but I myself mustkill Benjamin: not you, Humphrey, because he is your cousin; notyou, Robin, because you must not kill Alice's husband even to getback your own sweetheart.' Barnaby spoke wisdom here; in spite ofRobin's vows he could not get Alice for himself by killing herhusband, unworthy though he was. 'Benjamin,' he went on, 'may callher wife, but if he seek to make her his wife, if I know Sis aright,he will meet his match. As for her safety, I am certain that she issafe. For why? Wherever there are folks of her religious kidney,there will she find friends. Cheer up, Robin! Soon or late I willkill this fine husband of hers.'

  But Robin shook his head.

  Barnaby then asked if I knew whither we were bound. I told himBarbadoes, according to the information given me by Mr. Penne.

  'Why,' said Barnaby, rubbing his hands, 'this is brave news, indeed.There is no place I would sooner choose. 'Tis a small island, tobegin with: give me a small island, so that the sea runneth allround about and is everywhere within easy reach. Where there is thesea there are boats; where there are boats there are the means ofescape. Cheer up, my lads! I know the Spanish Main right well. Giveme a tight boat, I care not how small, and a keg of water, and Iwill sail her anywhere. Ha! we are bound to Barbadoes, are we? Thisis truly brave news!'

  I asked him next what kind of place it was.

  'It is a hot place,' he replied. 'A man is always thirsty, and thereis plenty to drink except water, which is said to be scarce. But themerchants and the planters want none. They have wine of the best,of Spain and of France and of Madeira. Cider and strong ale theyimport from England. And drinks they make in the country--perino andmobbie--I remember--grippo and plantain wine and kill-devil. 'Tis arare country for drink, and many there be who die of too much. Holdup thy head, Robin; we will drink damnation to Benjamin yet. But'tis I who shall kill him. Courage, I say. What? Our turn will come!'

  I told him, then, what had been done with Mr. George Penne--namely,the ransom bought by the Rector for us all, and the letter which Icarried to Mr. Penne's correspondent.

  'Why,' he said, with some discontent, 'we shall not be long uponthe island after all, and perhaps the money might have beenbetter bestowed. But 'twas kindly done of the Rector. As for thebanishment, I value it not a farthing. One place is as good asanother; and, for my own part, I love the West Indies. We shall haveour choice among them all, because, where there are boats and theopen sea, a man can go whithersoever pleaseth him best. The voyageout'--he glanced round him--'will, I fear, be choking work--therations will be short, there will be neither drink nor tobacco, andat nights we shall lie close. A more melancholy company I never saw.Patience, my lads; our turn will come.'

  Well, 'twas a special mercy that we had with us one man, at least,who preserved his cheerfulness, for the rest of the company were asmelancholy as King James himself could have desired. Indeed, to lookback upon the voyage is to recall the most miserable time that canbe imagined. First of all, as I have said, we were wholly unpreparedfor a voyage, having nothing at all with us. Then we had bad weatherat the outset, which not only made our people ill, but caused thebiscuit to be mostly spoiled, so that before the end of the voyagea few peas with the sweepings of the biscuit-room, and sometimes alittle tough beef, was all our diet, and for drink nothing, not somuch as a pannikin of beer, but water, and that turbid, and not toomuch of it.

  As for me, I kept my health chiefly by the method common amongphysicians--namely, by watching the symptoms of others. But mostlywas I concerned with the condition of Robin. For the poor lad,taking so much to heart the dreadful villainy which had beenpractised upon Alice, never once held up his head, and would talkand think of nothing else but of that poor maid.

  'Where is she?' he asked a hundred times. 'Where hath she found ashelter and a hiding-place? How shall she escape the villain, whowill now do what he pleases since we are out of his way? And no helpfor her--not any until she die, or until he dies! And we cannot evensend her a letter to console her poor heart! Humphrey, it drivesme mad to think that every day carries us further from her. If Icould but be with her to protect her against her husband! Humphrey,Barnaby said well: I could not get her back to me over the dead bodyof her husband. But to protect her--to stand between her and the manshe hath sworn to obey!'

  There is no more dangerous condition of the mind than that whichwe call despair. It is, I take it, a disease, and that of the mostdangerous kind. I have observed many men in that condition. Withsome, the devil enters into them, finding all the doors open andunguarded; nay, he even receives a warm welcome. With others it isas if the body itself was left without its armour--a cheerful andhopeful mind being certainly an armour against disease, capable ofwarding off many of those invisible arrows which are always flyingabout the air and striking us down with fevers, agues, calentures,and other pains and grievous diseases.

  I marvel that more of the men on board were not sick; for, tobegin with, the water soon became thick and swarmed with wrigglingcreatures difficult to avoid in drinking; and then, though duringthe day we were allowed to be on deck (where the air was fresh evenif the sun was hot), at night we were terribly crowded below, andlay too close for health or for comfort. However, we finally madeCarlisle Bay and the port of St. Michael's or the Bridge. And I mustsay this for Barnaby, that he maintained throughout the whole voyagehis cheerfulness, and that he never ceased to make his plans forescape, drawing on a paper, which he procured, a rough chart of theSpanish Main, with as many islands as he could remember. Of thesethere are hundreds, some desolate and safe for fugitives, some withneither water nor green trees, and some with springs and woods, wildfruit, land turtles on the shore, fish in the sea, and everythingthat man can desire.

  We made the land, after I know not how many weeks, one day in theforenoon.

  'Barbadoes,' said Barnaby, pointing to a little cloud far away o
nthe horizon. 'Well; of this job I am wellnigh sick. To-morrow, ifthe wind holds, we shall have sailed round the island and shall beatup for Carlisle Bay. Well, it is lucky for us that we have thisletter of Mr. Penne's. We will go--I know the place well--to thesign of the Rock and Turtle, kept by old Mother Rosemary, if shelives still, or, if she be dead, by one of her daughters--she hadfifty daughters, at least, all buxom mulatto girls. There we willput off these filthy rags, have a wash in a tub of fresh water,get shaved, and then with smooth chins and clean shirts we willsit down to a dinner such as the old woman knows how to make, apotato-pudding and Scots collops with Rhenish wine, and afterwardsa cool cup of beverage, which is nothing in the world but squeezedlimes, with sugar and water, fit for such a womanly stomach asyours, Doctor. With this, and a pipe of tobacco, and perhaps a songand (when your Worship hath gone to bed) a dance from one of thegirls--I say, my lad, with this I shall be ready to forget Sedgemoorand to forgive Judge Jeffreys. When we are tired of Barbadoes, wewill take boat and sail away. I know one island, at least, wherethey care nothing for King James. Thither will we go, my lad.'

  Well; what we found at our port, and how we fared, was not quite asBarnaby expected and hoped, as you shall hear. But I must admirethe cunning of the man Penne, who not only took from Alice--poorchild!--all her brother's money, amounting to two hundred and fiftypounds or thereabouts (which you have read), on the pretext ofbestowing it for the advantage of all, but also received two hundredguineas from Mr. Boscorel on the same pretence. This made in allfour hundred and fifty pounds. And not one penny--not a singlepenny--of this great sum did the man spend upon the purpose forwhich it was given him.

  You have heard how the merchants and planters came aboard the shipswhich put in with servants and slaves, and how these are put upfor sale one at a time. As was the sale described by Alice, justsuch was ours: though, I take it, our lads were not so miserable acompany as were those on board her ship. Pale of cheek they looked,and dejected, and some were sick with various disorders, caused bythe confinement of the prison or the sufferings of the voyage. Theyput us up one after the other and we were sold. I forget what Imyself fetched, and, indeed, it matters not, save that many jestswere passed at our expense, and that when one was put up--as Robin,for instance--who had been a Captain in the rebel army, the salesmanwas eloquent in praise of his rich and illustrious family, who wouldnever endure that this unfortunate man should continue in servitude.But Barnaby put his tongue in his cheek and laughed.

  When the sale was concluded, we were bundled into boats and takenashore to the barracoon, of which you have heard from Alice. Herethe same officer who read to her party the laws concerning servantsand their duties, and the punishments which await transgressors,read them also to ourselves.

  'Faith,' Barnaby whispered, 'there will be a great scoring of backsbefore many days are done, unless their bark is worse than theirbite.'

  This business despatched, I thought it was time to present myletter. Therefore I stepped forward, and informed the officer, who,by reason of his gown and wig and the beadles who were with him, Ijudged to be some lawyer, that, with my cousin and another, I held aletter which should hold us free from servitude.

  'Ay, ay,' he said. 'Where is that letter?'

  So I gave it to him. 'Twas addressed to one Jonathan Polwhele, andenjoined him to receive the three prisoners, named Humphrey Challis,Robin Challis, and Barnaby Eykin, to pay for them such sums as wouldreasonably be required to redeem them from servitude, and to advancethem such moneys as they would want at the outset for maintenance,the whole to be accounted for in Mr. Jonathan Polwhele's nextdespatches to his obedient, much obliged servant, G. P.

  'Sir,' said the officer, when he had read the letter through, 'thisepistle is addressed to one Jonathan Polwhele. There is no merchantor planter of that name on the whole island.'

  He gave me back the letter. 'If this,' he said, 'is all you have toshow, there is no reason why you and your friends should not marchwith the rest.'

  Truly, we had nothing else to show. Not only was there no one namedPolwhele on the island, but there never had been any one of thatname. Therefore it was plain that we had been tricked, and that theman George Penne was a villain. Alas! poor Barnaby. Where now werehis cool cups and his pipe of tobacco? Then the officer beckoned toa gentleman--a sober and grave person--standing near, and spoke tohim.

  'Gentlemen,' said the merchant, 'permit me to read this letter. So,it is in the handwriting of Mr. George Penne, which I know well.There is here some strange mistake. The letter is addressed to Mr.Jonathan Polwhele; but there is no one of that name in the place.I am myself Mr. Penne's correspondent in this island. My name,gentlemen, is Sefton, not Polwhele.'

  'Sir,' I said, 'do you know Mr. Penne?'

  'I have never seen him. He consigns to my care once or twice a yeara cargo of transported servants, being rogues and thieves, senthere, instead of to the gallows. He ships them to my care, I say,as he hath shipped the company arrived this morning; and I sellthem for him, taking for my share a percentage, as agreed upon, andremitting to him the balance in sugar and tobacco.'

  'Is there no letter from him?'

  'There is a letter in which he advises me of so many rebelsconsigned to me in order to be sold. Some among them, he says, werecaptains and officers in Monmouth's army, and some are of goodfamily, among whom he especially names Robin and Humphrey Challis.But there is not a word about ransom.'

  'Sir,' I said, knowing nothing as yet of Alice and her money, 'twohundred guineas have been paid to Mr. Penne by the Rev. PhilipBoscorel, Rector of Bradford Orcas, in the county of Somerset, forour ransom.'

  'Nothing is said of this,' he replied gravely. 'Plainly, gentlemen,without despatches from Mr. Penne I cannot act for you. You havea letter; it is written by that gentleman; it is addressed to Mr.Polwhele; it says nothing about Barbadoes, and would serve forJamaica or Virginia. So great a sum as two hundred guineas cannothave been forgotten. I exhort you, therefore, to patience untilother letters arrive. Why, two hundred guineas would have gone farto redeem you all three, and to maintain you for a great while.Gentlemen, I am grieved for you, because there is for the present nohelp for it, but that you must go with the planter who hath boughtyou, and obey his orders. I will, however, send to Mr. Penne anaccount of this charge, and I would advise that you lose no time inwriting to your friends at home.'

  'Heart up, lad!' cried Barnaby, for I turned faint upon thisterrible discovery, and would have fallen, but he held me up.'Patience; our turn will come.'

  'Write that letter,' said the merchant again. 'Write that letterquickly, so that it may go with the next vessel. Otherwise the workis hard and the heat is great.' So he turned and left us.

  'Courage, man!' said Barnaby. 'To every dog his day. If now forfive minutes only I could have my thumb on Mr. Penne's windpipeand my fingers round his neck! And I thought to spend the eveningjoyfully at Mother Rosemary's! Courage, lad! I have seen already,'he whispered, 'a dozen boats in the bay, any one of which will serveour turn.'

  But Robin paid no heed, whatever happened. He stood up when hisname was called, and was sold without showing any emotion. When wefound that we had been tricked he seemed as if he neither heard norregarded.

  When all was ready we were marched, twenty in number, along a whiteand dusty road to our estate. By great good fortune--rather byProvidence--we were all bought by the same master. He was, it istrue, a bad man; but to be bought all together was a happiness whichwe could not expect. He bought us all because he understood that webelonged to the same family (and that one of position), in the hopeof receiving substantial ransom. This man rode with us, accompaniedby two overseers (these were themselves under the same sentence)who cracked their whips continually, and cursed us if we lagged.Their bark was worse, we afterwards found, than their bite, for itwas only in the master's presence that they behaved thus brutishly,and in order to curry favour with him and to prevent being reducedagain to the rank of those who served in the field. There was nodoubt, from
the very outset, that we were afflicted with a masterwhose like, I would hope, is not to be found upon the island ofBarbadoes. Briefly, he was one whose appearance, voice, and mannerall alike proclaimed him openly to all the world as a drunkard, aprofligate, and a blasphemer. A drunkard he was of that kind who areseldom wholly drunk and yet are never sober; who begin the day witha glass and go on taking more glasses all day long, with small alefor breakfast, strong ale and Madeira for dinner, a tankard in theafternoon, and for supper more strong ale and Madeira, and beforebed another tankard. As for compassion, or tenderness, or any of thevirtues which a man who holds other men in slavery ought to possess,he had none of them.

  Let me speak of him with no more bitterness than is necessary.We have, I think, all forgiven him, and he hath long since goneto a place where he can do no more harm to any, but awaitethjudgment--perhaps in the sure and certain hope of which the funeralservice speaks--but this is open to doubt.

  When we were arrived at the estate, the master dismounted, gave hishorse to a negro, and ordered us to be drawn up in line.

  He then made a short speech. He said that he had bought us, rebelsand villains as we were, and that he meant to get his money's worthout of us or he would cut us all to pieces. Other things he toldus, which I pass over because they were but repetitions of thisassurance. He then proceeded to examine us in detail. When he cameto me he cursed and swore because he said he had been made to payfor a sound, proper man, and had got a crookback for his bargain. Itold him that, with submission, he might find the crookback, whowas a physician, a more profitable bargain than many a stronger man.

  'What?' he roared. 'Thou art a physician, eh? Wouldst slink out ofthe field-work and sit idle among bottles and boluses? John'--heturned to one of the overseers--'pay particular attention, I commandthee, to this learned physician. If he so much as turn round in hiswork, make his shoulders smart.'

  'Ay, ay, Sir,' said the overseer.

  'And what art thou, sirrah?' He turned next to Barnaby. 'Anotherlearned physician, no doubt--or a Divine, a Bishop likely, or a Deanat the least?'

  'As for what I was,' said Barnaby, 'that is neither here nor there.For what I am, I suppose I am your servant for ten years, or untilour pardons are sent us.'

  'Thou art an impudent dog, I dare swear,' returned the master. 'Iremember now. Thou wast a Captain in the rebel army, once a sailor.Well, take care, lest thou taste the cat.'

  'Gentlemen who are made to taste the cat,' said Barnaby, 'are apt toremember the taste of it when their time is up.'

  'What?' he cried. 'You dare to threaten? Take that--and that!' andso began to belabour him about the head. I trembled lest Barnabyshould return the blows. But he did not. He only held up his arm toprotect his head, and presently, when the master desisted, he shookhimself like a dog.

  'I promise you I shall remember the taste of that wood,' he saidquietly.

  The master looked as if he would renew the cudgelling, but thoughtbetter of it.

  Then, without more violence, we were assigned our quarters. Acottage or hut was given to us. We were served with a hammock, and arug each; a pannikin, basin, spoon and platter for each; a Monmouthcap; two shirts, common and coarse; two pairs of canvas breeches,and a pair of shoes for each--so that we looked for all the worldlike the fellows who live by loading and unloading the ships in theport of Bristol. Yet the change after the long voyage was grateful.They served us next with some of the stuff they call loblollie, andthen the night fell and we lay down in our hammocks, which werecertainly softer than the planks of the ship, and then fell fastasleep in spite of the humming and the biting of the merrywings, andso slept till the break of day.