For Faith and Freedom

by Walter Besant

My brother, this stout Barnaby, was one of them; my father was one of them; Humphrey was one of them; and in a little while I was very sure (because Robin would feel no peace of mind if I was with the insurgents and he was still at home) my lover would be with them too. And I pictured to myself a holy and serious camp, filled with godly, sober soldiers, listening to sermons and reading the Bible, going forth to battle with hymns upon their lips; and withal so valiant that at their very first onset the battalions of the King would be shattered. Alas! anyone may guess the foolish thoughts of a girl who had no knowledge of the world, nor any experience. Yet all my life I had been taught that Resistance was at times a sacred duty, and that the Divine Right of the (so-called) Lord's Anointed was a vain superstition. So far, therefore, was I better prepared than most women for the work in hand.

When we rode through Sherborne all the folk were a-bed and the streets were empty. From Sherborne our way lay through Yetminster and Evershott to Beaminster, where we watered and rested the horses, and took some of Barnaby's provisions. The country through which we rode was full of memories of the last great war. The castle of Sherborne was twice besieged; once by Lord Bedford, when the Marquis of Hertford held it for the King. That siege was raised; but it was afterwards taken by Fairfax, with its garrison of six hundred soldiers, and was then destroyed, so that it is now a heap of ruins; and as for Beaminster, the town hath never recovered from the great fire when Prince Maurice held it, and it is still half in ruins, though the ivy hath grown over the blackened walls of the burned houses. The last great war, of which I had heard so much! And now, perhaps, we were about to begin another.

It was two o'clock in the morning when we dismounted at Beaminster. My mother sat down upon a bench and fell instantly asleep. My father walked up and down impatiently, as grudging every minute. Barnaby, for his part, made a leisurely and comfortable meal, eating his bread and meat—of which I had some—and drinking his Canary with relish, as if we were on a journey of pleasure and there was plenty of time for leisurely feeding. Presently he arose with a sigh (the food and wine being all gone), and said that, the horses being now rested, we might proceed. So he lifted my mother into her seat and we went on with the journey, the day now breaking.

The way, I say, was never tedious to me, for I was sustained by the novelty and the strangeness of the thing. Although I had a thousand things to ask Barnaby, it must be confessed that for one who had travelled so far he had marvellous little to tell. I daresay that the deck and cabins of a ship are much the same whether she be on the Spanish Main or in the Bristol Channel, and sailors, even in port, are never an observant race, except of weather and so forth. It was strange, however, only to look upon him and to mark how stout a man he was grown and how strong, and yet how he still spoke like the old Barnaby, so good-natured and so dull with his book, who was daily flogged for his Latin grammar, and bore no malice, but prepared himself to enjoy the present when the flogging was over, and not to anticipate the certain repetition of the flogging on the morrow. He spoke in the same slow way, as if speech were a thing too precious to be poured out quickly; and there was always sense in what he said (Barnaby was only stupid in the matter of syntax), though he gave me not such answers as I could have wished. However, he confessed, little by little, something of his history and adventures. When he ran away, it was, as we thought, to the port of Bristol, where he presently found a berth as cabin-boy on board a West India-man. In this truly enviable post—everybody on board has a cuff or a kick or a rope's-end for the boy—he continued for some time. 'But,' said Barnaby, 'you are not to think that the rope's-end was half so bad as my father's rod; nor the captain's oath so bad as my father's rebuke; nor the rough work and hard fare so bad as the Latin syntax.' Being so strong, and a hearty, willing lad to boot, he was quickly promoted to be an able seaman, when there were no more rope's-endings for him. Then, having an ambition above his station, and not liking his rude and ignorant companions of the fo'k'sle (which is the fore-part of a ship, where the common sailors sleep and eat), and being so fortunate as to win the good graces of the supercargo first and of the captain next, he applied his leisure time (when he had any leisure) to the method of taking observations, of calculating longitudes and latitudes, his knowledge of arithmetic having fortunately stuck in his mind longer than that of Latin. These things, I understand, are of the greatest use to a sailor and necessary to an officer. Armed with this knowledge, and the recommendation of his superiors, Barnaby was promoted from before the mast and became what they call a mate, and so rose by degrees until he was at last second captain. But by this time he had made many voyages to the West Indies, to New York and Baltimore, and to the West Coast of Africa in the service of his owners, and, I daresay, had procured much wealth for them, though but little for himself. And, being at Rotterdam upon his owners' business, he was easily persuaded—being always a stout Protestant, and desirous to strike a blow in revenge for the ejection of his father—to engage as sailing Master on board the frigate which brought over the Duke of Monmouth and his company, and then to join him on his landing. This was the sum of what he had to tell me. He had seen many strange people, wonderful things, and monsters of the deep: Indians, whom the cruelty and avarice of the Spaniards have well-nigh destroyed, the sugar plantations in the islands, negro slaves, negroes free in their own country, sharks and calamaries (of which I had read and heard)—he had seen all these things, and still remained (in his mind, I mean) as if he had seen nothing. So wonderfully made are some men that, whatever they see, they are in no way moved.

I say, then, that Barnaby answered my questions, as we rode along, briefly, and as if such matters troubled him not. When I asked him, for example, how the poor miserable slaves liked being captured and sold and put on board ship crowded together for so long a voyage, Barnaby replied that he did not know, his business being to buy them and carry them across the water, and if they rebelled on board ship to shoot them down or flog them; and when they got to Jamaica to sell them: where, if they would not work, they would be flogged until they came to a better mind. If a man was born a negro, what else, he asked, could he expect?

There was one question which I greatly desired to ask him, but dared not. It concerned the welfare of his soul. Presently, however, Barnaby answered that question, before I put it.

'Sister,' he said, 'my mother's constant affliction concerning me, before I ran away, was as to the salvation of my soul. And truly, that formerly seemed to me so difficult a thing to compass (like navigation to an unknown port over an unknown sea set everywhere with hidden rocks and liable to sudden gusts) that I could not understand how a plain man could ever succeed in it. Wherefore it comforted me mightily after I got to sea to learn on good authority that there is another way, which, compared with my father's, is light and easy. In short, Sister, though he knows it not, there is one religion for lands-folk and another for sailor-folk. A sailor (everybody knows) cannot get so much as a sail bent without cursing and swearing—this, which is desperately wicked ashore, counts for nothing at all afloat: and so with many other things; and the long and the short of it is that if a sailor does his duty, fights his ship like a man, is true to his owners and faithful to his messmates, it matters not one straw whether he hath daily sworn great oaths, drunk himself (whenever he went ashore) as helpless as a log, and kissed a pretty girl whenever his good luck gave him the chance—which does, indeed, seldom come to most sailors'—he added this with a deep sigh—'I say, Sister, that for such a sailor, when his ship goes down with him, or when he gets a grapeshot through his vitals, or when he dies of fever, as happens often enough in the hot climates, there is no question as to the safety of his soul, but he goes straight to heaven. What he is ordered to do when he gets there,' said Barnaby, 'I cannot say; but it will be something, I doubt not, that a sailor will like to do. No catechism or Latin syntax. Wherefore, Sister, you can set my mother's heart—poor soul!—quite at rest on this important matter. You can tell her that you have conversed with me, and that I have that very same inward assurance of which my father speaks so much and at such length. The very same assurance it is—tell her that. And beg her to ask me no questions upon the matter.'

'Well, Barnaby; but art thou sure'——

'It is a heavenly comfort,' he replied, before I had time to finish, 'to have such an assurance. For why? A man that hath it doth never more trouble himself about what shall happen to him after he is dead. Therefore he goes about his duty with an easy mind; and so, Sister, no more upon this head, if you love me and desire peace of mind for my mother.'

So nothing more was said upon that subject then or afterwards. A sailor to be exempted by right of his calling from the religion of the landsman! 'Tis a strange and dangerous doctrine. But, if all sailors believe it, yet how can it be? This question, I confess, is too high for me. And as for my mother, I gave her Barnaby's message, begging her at the same time not to question him further. And she sighed, but obeyed.