For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

Barnaby then asked if I knew whither we were bound. I told him Barbadoes, 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, to begin with: give me a small island, so that the sea runneth all round about and is everywhere within easy reach. Where there is the sea there are boats; where there are boats there are the means of escape. Cheer up, my lads! I know the Spanish Main right well. Give me a tight boat, I care not how small, and a keg of water, and I will sail her anywhere. Ha! we are bound to Barbadoes, are we? This is 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 there is plenty to drink except water, which is said to be scarce. But the merchants and the planters want none. They have wine of the best, of Spain and of France and of Madeira. Cider and strong ale they import from England. And drinks they make in the country—perino and mobbie—I remember—grippo and plantain wine and kill-devil. 'Tis a rare country for drink, and many there be who die of too much. Hold up 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 I carried to Mr. Penne's correspondent.

'Why,' he said, with some discontent, 'we shall not be long upon the island after all, and perhaps the money might have been better bestowed. But 'twas kindly done of the Rector. As for the banishment, I value it not a farthing. One place is as good as another; and, for my own part, I love the West Indies. We shall have our choice among them all, because, where there are boats and the open sea, a man can go whithersoever pleaseth him best. The voyage out'—he glanced round him—'will, I fear, be choking work—the rations will be short, there will be neither drink nor tobacco, and at 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 as melancholy as King James himself could have desired. Indeed, to look back upon the voyage is to recall the most miserable time that can be imagined. First of all, as I have said, we were wholly unprepared for a voyage, having nothing at all with us. Then we had bad weather at the outset, which not only made our people ill, but caused the biscuit to be mostly spoiled, so that before the end of the voyage a few peas with the sweepings of the biscuit-room, and sometimes a little tough beef, was all our diet, and for drink nothing, not so much as a pannikin of beer, but water, and that turbid, and not too much of it.

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

'Where is she?' he asked a hundred times. 'Where hath she found a shelter and a hiding-place? How shall she escape the villain, who will now do what he pleases since we are out of his way? And no help for her—not any until she die, or until he dies! And we cannot even send her a letter to console her poor heart! Humphrey, it drives me mad to think that every day carries us further from her. If I could 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 body of her husband. But to protect her—to stand between her and the man she hath sworn to obey!'

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