For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

'Barnaby,' I said presently, 'how can I turn round and make myself comfortable?'

'The evening is still,' he said, without replying. 'See, there is a bat, and there another. If it were not for the trouble in there'—he pointed to the hut—'I should be easy in my mind and contented. I could willingly live here a twelvemonth. Why, compared with the lot of the poor devils who must now be in prison, what is ours? They get the foul and stinking clink, with bad food, in the midst of wounded men whose hurts are putrefying, with jail fever, and with the whipping-post or the gallows to come. We breathe sweet air, we find sufficient food—to-morrow, if I know any of the signs, thou shalt taste a roasted hedgehog, dish fit for a king! I found at the bottom of the comb a pot left by some gipsies: thou shalt have boiled sorrel and mushrooms to thy supper. If we stay here long enough there will be nuts and blackberries and whortleberries. Pity, a thousand pities, there is not a drop of drink! I dream of punch and hipsy. Think upon what remains, even if thou canst not bear to think of what is lost. Hast ever seen a tall ship founder in the waves? They close over her as she sinks, and, in an instant, it is as if that tall ship with all her crew had never been in existence at all. The army of Monmouth is scattered and ruined. Well; it is, with us, amidst these woods, just as if there had been no army. It has been a dream perhaps. Who can tell? Sometimes all the past seems to have been a dream. It is all a dream—past and future. There is no past and there is no future; all is a dream. But the present we have. Let us be content therewith.'

He spoke slowly and with measured accents as one enchanted. Sometimes Barnaby was but a rough and rude sailor. At other times, as these, he betrayed signs of his early education and spoke as one who thought.

'It is ten years and more since last I breathed the air of the hills. I knew not that I loved so much the woods and valleys and the streams. Some day, if I survive this adventure, I will build me a hut and live here alone in the woods. Why, if I were alone I should have an easy heart. If I were driven out of one place I could find another. I am in no hurry to get down among men and towns. Let us all stay here and be happy. But there is Dad—who lives not, yet is not dead. Sister, be thankful for thy safety in the woods, and think not too much upon the dead.'

We lived in this manner, the weather being for the most part fine and warm, but with showers now and then, for a fortnight or thereabouts, no one coming up the comb and there being still no sign of man's presence in the hills. Our daily fare consisted of the wild birds snared by Barnaby, such creatures as rabbits, hedgehogs, and the like, which he caught by ingenious ways, and trout from the brook which he caught with a twisted pin or by tickling them with his hand. There were also mushrooms and edible leaves, such as the nettle, wild sorrel, and the like of which he knew. These we boiled and ate. He also plucked the half-ripe blackberries and boiled them to make a sour drink, and one which, like the cider loved by our people, would grip his throat because he could not endure plain cold water. And he made out of the bones of the birds a kind of thin broth for my father, of which he daily swallowed a teaspoonful or so. So that we fared well, if not sumptuously. The bread, to be sure, which Barnaby left for mother and me, was coming to the last crust, and I know not how we should have got more without venturing into the nearest village.

Now, as I talked every night with my brother, I found out what a brave and simple soul it was—always cheerful and hopeful, talking always as if we were the most fortunate people in the world, instead of the most miserable, and yet by keeping the truth before me, preventing me from getting into another Fool's Paradise as to our safety and Robin's escape, such as that into which I had fallen after the army marched out of Taunton. I understand now, that he was always thinking how to smooth and soften things for us, so that we might not go distracted with anxiety and grief; finding work for me, talking about other things—in short, the most thoughtful and affectionate brother in all the world. As for my mother, he could do nothing to move her. She still sat beside her wounded husband, watching all day long for any sign of consciousness or change.

Seeing that Barnaby was so good and gentle a creature, I could not understand how it was that in the old days he used to get a flogging most days for some offence or other, so that I had grown up to believe him a very wicked boy indeed. I put this question to him one night.

He put it aside for a while, replying in his own fashion.

'I remember Dad,' he said, 'before thou canst, Sister. He was always thin and tall, and he always stooped as he walked. But his hair, which now is white, was brown, and fell in curls which he could not straighten. He was always mighty grave; no one, I am sure, ever saw him laugh; I have never seen him so much as smile, except sometimes when he dandled thee upon his knee, and thou wouldst amuse him with innocent prattle. All his life he hath spent in finding out the way to Heaven. He did find the way—I suppose he hath truly discovered it—and a mighty thorny and difficult way it is, so that I know not how any can succeed in reaching port by such navigation. The devil of it is that he believes there is no other way; and he seemed never so happy as when he had found another trap or pitfall to catch the unwary, and send them straight to hell.

'For my part,' Barnaby went on slowly, 'I could never love such a life. Let others, if they will, find out rough and craggy ways that lead to heaven. For my part, I am content to jog along the plain and smooth high road with the rest of mankind, though it brings us in the end to a lower place, inhabited by the baser sort. Well, I dare say I shall find mates there, and we will certainly make ourselves as comfortable as the place allows. Let my father, therefore, find out what awaits him in the other world; let me take what comes in this. Some of it is sweet and some is bitter; some of it makes us laugh and sing and dance; and some makes us curse and swear and bellow out, as when one is lashed to the hatches and the cat falls on his naked back. Sometimes, Sister, I think the naked negroes of the Guiney Coast the happiest people in the world. Do they trouble their heads about the way to heaven? Not they. What comes they take, and they ask no more. Has it made Dad the happier to find out how few are those who will sit beside him when he hath his harp and crown? Not so. He would have been happier if he had been a jolly ploughboy whistling to his team, or a jolly sailor singing over his pannikin of drink of a Saturday night. He tried to make me follow in his footsteps; he flogged me daily in the hope of making me take, like himself, to the trade of proving out of the Holy Bible that most people are surely damned. The more he flogged, the less I yearned after that trade; till at last I resolved that, come what would, I would never thump a pulpit like him in conventicle or church. Then, if you will believe me, Sister, I grew tired of flogging, which, when it comes every day, wearies a boy at fourteen or fifteen more than you would think. Now, one day, while I was dancing to the pipe and tabor with some of the village girls, as bad luck would have it, Dad came by. "Child of Satan!" he roared, seizing me by the ear, which I verily thought he would have pulled off. Then to the girls, "Your laughter shall be turned into mourning," and so lugged me home and sent me supperless to bed, with the promise of such a flogging in the morning as should make all previous floggings seem mere fleabites or joyous ticklings in comparison. This decided me. So in the dead of night I crept softly down the stairs, cut myself a great hunch of bread and cheese, and ran away and went to sea.'