LOU I S 
 COUES 
 PAGE 
 
 EX 
 
 LIBR.IS 
 
COLLEGIUM 
 
 BOSTON1ENSE 
 
 (Hortteltua dl. (Eaitgan 
 memorial (Eollertinn 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/westwardhoorvoya01king_0 
 
WESTWARD HO! 
 
 VOL. I. 
 

 
 
 
Bideford. 
 
WESTWARD HO! 
 
 OR 
 
 THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF 
 
 Sir AMYAS LEIGH, Knight, 
 
 OF BURROUGH, IN THE COUNTY OF DEVON, IN 
 THE REIGN OF HER MOST GLORIOUS MAJESTY 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH 
 
 RENDERED INTO MODERN ENGLISH 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 UDitl) illustrations 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 JOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
ffl 4-gH-a* 
 IaTZ 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 New York, U.S.A. 
 
 
 MASS- 
 
 ^34856 
 
TO 
 
 THE EAJAH SIR JAMES BROOKE, K.C.B. 
 
 AND 
 
 GEORGE AUGUSTUS SELWYN, D.D. 
 
 BISHOP OF NEW ZEALAND 
 
 &f)ts Hook is HHtitcateti 
 
 BY ONE WHO (UNKNOWN TO THEM) HAS NO OTHER METHOD OF EX- 
 PRESSING HIS ADMIRATION AND REVERENCE FOR THEIll CHARACTERS. 
 
 THAT TYPE OF ENGLISH VIRTUE, AT ONCE MANFUL AND GODLY, 
 PRACTICAL AND ENTHUSIASTIC, PRUDENT AND SELF-SACRIFICING, 
 WHICH HE HAS TRIED TO DEPICT IN THESE PAGES, THEY HAVE 
 EXHIBITED IN A FORM EVEN PURER AND MORE HEROIC THAN THAT 
 IN WHICH HE HAS DREST IT, AND THAN THAT IN WHICH IT WAS 
 EXHIBITED BY THE WORTHIES WHOM ELIZABETH, WITHOUT DISTINC- 
 TION OF RANK OR AGE, GATHERED ROUND HER IN THE EVER 
 GLORIOUS WARS OF HER GREAT REIGN. 
 
 C. K. 
 
 February 1855. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. How Mr. Oxenham saw the White Bird . . 1 
 
 II. How Amyas came Home the First Time . . 18 
 
 III. Of two Gentlemen of Wales, and how they 
 hunted with the Hounds, and yet ran with 
 the Deer 48 
 
 IY. The two Ways of being crost in Love . . 64 
 
 Y. Clovelly Court in the Olden Time ... 87 
 
 VI. The Coombes of the Far West .... 112 
 
 VII. The true and tragical History of Mr. John 
 
 Oxenham of Plymouth 119 
 
 VIII. How the Noble Brotherhood of the Rose was 
 
 founded 158 
 
 IX. How Amyas kept his Christmas Day . . . 174 
 
 X. How the Mayor of Bideford baited his Hook 
 
 with his own Flesh 207 
 
 XI. How Eustace Leigh met the Pope’s Legate . 217 
 
 XII. How Bideford Bridge dined at Annery House . 233 
 
 XIII. How the Golden Hind came Home again . . 258 
 
 XIV. How Salvation Yeo slew the King of the 
 
 Gubbings 266 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Bideford Frontispiece 
 
 Bideford Church 18 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney 40 
 
 Appledore 56 
 
 Moorwinstow 74 
 
 Clovelly . 106 
 
 Compton Castle 120 
 
 Dartmouth 180 
 
 On the Torridge, Bideford ...... 160 
 
 Edmund Spenser 178 
 
 Sir Richard Grenyile 200 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh 222 
 
 Bideford Bridge 232 
 
 Brent-Tor 268 
 
 Okehampton 
 
 280 
 
WESTWARD HO! 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HOW MR. OXENHAM SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 
 
 “ The hollow oak our palace is, 
 
 Our heritage the sea. ” 
 
 All who have travelled through the delicious scenery of North 
 Devon must needs know the little white town of Bideford, 
 which slopes upwards from its broad tide -river paved with 
 yellow sands, and many-arched old bridge where salmon wait 
 for Autumn floods, toward the pleasant upland on the west. 
 Above the town the hills close in, cushioned with deep oak 
 woods, through which juts here and there a crag of fern-fringed 
 slate ; below they lower, and open more and more in softly- 
 rounded knolls, and fertile squares of red and green, till they 
 sink into the wide expanse of hazy flats, rich salt-marshes, and 
 rolling sand-hills, where Torridge joins her sister Taw, and 
 both together flow quietly toward the broad surges of the bar, 
 and the everlasting thunder of the long Atlantic swell. Plea- 
 santly the old town stands there, beneath its soft Italian sky, 
 fanned day and night by the fresh ocean breeze, which forbids 
 alike the keen winter frosts, and the fierce thunder heats of the 
 midland ; and pleasantly it has stood there for now, perhaps, 
 eight hundred years since the first Grenvil, cousin of the Con- 
 queror, returning from the conquest of South Wales, drew round 
 him trusty Saxon serfs, and free Norse rovers with their golden 
 curls, and dark Silurian Britons from the Swansea shore, and 
 all the mingled blood which still gives to the seaward folk of 
 the next county their strength and intellect, and, even in these 
 levelling days, their peculiar beauty of face and form. 
 
 But at the time whereof I write, Bideford was not merely 
 a pleasant country town, whose quay was haunted by a few 
 coasting craft. It was one of the chief ports of England ; it 
 E b 
 
2 HOW MK. OXENHAM [CHAP. I. 
 
 furnished seven ships to fight the Armada : even more than a 
 century afterwards, says the chroniclers, “ it sent more vessels 
 to the northern trade than any port in England, saving (strange 
 juxtaposition !) London and Topsham,” and was the centre of 
 a local civilisation and enterprise, small perhaps compared with 
 the vast efforts of the present day : but who uaie despise the 
 day of small things, if it has proved to be the dawn of mighty 
 ones ? And it is to the sea -life and labour of Bideford, and 
 Dartmouth, and Topsham, and Plymouth (then a petty place), 
 and many another little western town, that England owes the 
 foundation of her naval and commercial glory. It was the men 
 of Devon, the Drakes and Hawkins’, Gilberts and Raleighs, 
 Grenviles and Oxenhams, and a host more of “ forgotten 
 worthies,” whom we shall learn one day to honour as they 
 deserve, to whom she owes her commerce, her colonies, her very 
 existence. For had they not first crippled, by their West 
 Indian raids, the ill-gotten resources of the Spaniard, and then 
 crushed his last huge effort in Britain’s Salamis, the glorious 
 fight of 1588, what had we been by now, but a Popish appan- 
 age of a world-tyranny as cruel as heathen Rome itself, and far 
 more devilish ] 
 
 It is in memory of these men, their voyages and their 
 battles, their faith and their valour, their heroic lives and no 
 less heroic deaths, that I write this book ; and if now and then 
 I shall seem to warm into a style somewhat too stilted and 
 pompous, let me be excused for my subject’s sake, fit rather to 
 have been sung than said, and to have proclaimed to all true 
 English hearts, not as a novel but as an epic (which some man 
 may yet gird himself to write), the same great message which 
 the songs of Troy, and the Persian wars, and the trophies of 
 Marathon and Salamis, spoke to the hearts of all true Greeks 
 of old. 
 
 One bright summer’s afternoon, in the year of grace 1575, 
 a tall and fair boy came lingering along Bideford quay, in his 
 scholar’s gown, with satchel and slate in hand, watching wist- 
 fully the shipping and the sailors, till, just after he had passed 
 the bottom of the High Street, he came opposite to one of the 
 many taverns which looked out upon the river. In the open 
 bay window sat merchants and gentlemen, discoursing over their 
 afternoon’s draught of sack ; and outside the door was gathered 
 a group of sailors, listening earnestly to some one who stood in 
 the midst. The boy, all alive for any sea-news, must needs go 
 
SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 
 
 3 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 up to them, and take his place among the sailor-lads who were 
 peeping and whispering under the elbows of the men ; and so 
 came in for the following speech, delivered in a loud bold voice, 
 with a strong Devonshire accent, and a fair sprinkling of oaths. 
 
 “If you don’t believe me, go and see, or stay here and grow 
 all over blue mould. I tell you, as I am a gentleman, I saw it 
 with these eyes, and so did Salvation Yeo there, through a 
 window in the lower room ; and we measured the heap, as I 
 am a christened man, seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and 
 twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar between a thirty 
 and forty pound weight. And says Captain Drake : ‘ There, 
 my lads of Devon, I’ve brought you to the mouth of the world’s 
 treasure-house, and it’s your own fault now if you don’t sweep 
 it out as empty as a stock-fish.’ ” 
 
 “Why didn’t you bring some of they home, then, Mr. 
 Oxenham ?” 
 
 “Why weren’t you there to help to carry them? We 
 would have brought ’em away, safe enough, and young Drake 
 and I h.ad broke the door abroad already, but Captain Drake 
 goes off in a dead faint ; and when we came to look, he had a 
 wound in his leg you might have laid three fingers in, and his 
 boots were full of blood, and had been for an hour or more ; but 
 the heart of him was that, that he never knew it till he 
 dropped, and then his brother and I got him away to the boats, 
 he kicking and struggling, and bidding us let him go on with 
 the fight, though every step he took in the sand was in a pool 
 of blood ; and so we got off. And tell me, ye sons of shotten 
 herrings, wasn’t it worth more to save him than the dirty silver? 
 for silver we can get again, brave boys : there’s more fish in 
 the sea than ever came out of it, and more silver in Nombre 
 de Dios than would pave all the streets in the west country : 
 but of such captains as Franky Drake, Heaven never makes but 
 one at a time ; and if we lose him, good-bye to England’s luck, 
 say I, and who don’t agree, let him choose his weapons, and 
 I’m his man.” 
 
 He who delivered this harangue was a tall and sturdy per- 
 sonage, with a florid black-bearded face, and bold restless dark 
 eyes, who leaned, with crossed legs and arms akimbo, against 
 the wall of the house; and seemed in the eyes of the school-boy 
 a very magnifico, some prince or duke at least. He was dressed 
 (contrary to all sumptuary laws of the time) in a suit of crimson 
 velvet, a little the worse, perhaps, for wear ; by his side were 
 a long Spanish rapier and a brace of daggers, gaudy enough 
 
4 
 
 HOW MR. OXENHAM 
 
 [CHAF. I. 
 
 about the hilts ; his fingers sparkled with rings ; he had two 
 or three gold chains about his neck, and large earrings in his 
 ears, behind one of which a red rose was stuck jauntily enough 
 among the glossy black curls ; on his head was a broad velvet 
 Spanish hat, in which instead of a feather was fastened with a 
 great gold clasp a whole Quezal bird, whose gorgeous plumage 
 of fretted golden green shone like one entire precious stone. 
 As he finished his speech, he took off the said hat, and look- 
 ing at the bird in it — 
 
 “ Look ye, my lads, did you ever see such a fowl as that 
 before ? That’s the bird which the old Indian kings of Mexico 
 let no one wear but their own selves ; and therefore I wear it, — 
 I, John Oxenham of South Tawton, for a sign to all brave lads 
 of Devon, that as the Spaniards are the masters of the Indians, 
 we’re the masters of the Spaniards and he replaced his hat. 
 
 A murmur of applause followed : but one hinted that he 
 “ doubted the Spaniards were too many for them.” 
 
 “ Too many? How many men did we take Nombre de Dios 
 with? Seventy-three were we, and no more when we sailed out 
 of Plymouth Sound ; and before we saw the Spanish Main, half 
 were ‘ gastados,’ used up, as the Dons say, with the scurvy ; and 
 in Port Pheasant Captain Rawse of Cowes fell in with us, and 
 that gave us some thirty hands more ; and with that handful, 
 my lads, only fifty-three in all, we picked the lock of the new 
 world ! And whom did we lose but our trumpeter, who stood 
 braying like an ass in the middle of the square, instead of taking 
 care of his neck like a Christian ? I tell you, those Spaniards 
 are rank cowards, as all bullies are. They pray to a woman, 
 the idolatrous rascals ! and no wonder they fight like women.” 
 
 “ You’m right, Captain,” sang out a tall gaunt fellow who 
 stood close to him ; “ one westcountryman can fight two easter- 
 lings, and an easterling can beat three Dons any day. Eh ! 
 my lads of Devon ? 
 
 “ For 0 ! it’s the herrings and the good brown beef, 
 
 And the cider and the cream so white ; 
 
 O ! they are the making of the jolly Devon lads, 
 
 For to play, and eke to fight. ” 
 
 “Come,” said Oxenham, “come along! Who lists? who 
 lists? who’ll make his fortune? 
 
 “ Oh, who will join, jolly mariners all ? 
 
 And who will join, says he, 0 ! 
 
 To fill his pockets with the good red goold, 
 
 By sailing on the sea, 0 ! ” 
 
CHAP. I.] SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 5 
 
 “Who’ll list?” cried the gaunt man again; “now’s your 
 time ! We’ve got forty men to Plymouth now, ready to sail 
 the minute we get back, and we want a dozen out of you Bide- 
 ford men, and just a boy or two, and then we’m off and away, 
 and make our fortunes, or go to heaven. 
 
 “ Our bodies in the sea so deep, 
 
 Our souls in heaven to rest ! 
 
 Where valiant seamen, one and all, 
 
 Hereafter shall be blest !” 
 
 “ Now,” said Oxenham, “ you won’t let the Plymouth men 
 say that the Bideford men daren’t follow them ? North Devon 
 against South, it is. Who’ll join? who’ll join? It is but a 
 step of a way, after all, and sailing as smooth as a duck-pond 
 as soon as you’re past Cape Finisterre. I’ll run a Clovelly 
 herring-boat there and back for a wager of twenty pound, and 
 never ship a bucketful all the way. Who’ll join ? Don’t think 
 you’re buying a pig in a poke. I know the road, and Salvation 
 Yeo, here, too, who was the gunner’s mate, as well as I do the 
 narrow seas, and better. You ask him to show you the chart 
 of it, now, and see if he don’t tell you over the ruttier as well 
 as Drake himself.” 
 
 On which the gaunt man pulled from under h\s arm a great 
 white buffalo horn covered with rough etchings of land and sea, 
 and held it up to the admiring ring. 
 
 “ See here, boys all, and behold the pictur of the place, 
 dra’ed out so natural as ever was life. I got mun from a Por- 
 tugal, down to the Azores ; and he’d pricked mun out, and 
 pricked mun out, wheresoever he’d sailed, and whatsoever he’d 
 seen. Take mun in your hands now, Simon Evans, take mun 
 in your hands; look mun over, and I’ll warrant you’ll know 
 the way in five minutes so well as ever a shark in the seas.” 
 
 And the horn was passed from hand to hand ; while Oxen- 
 ham, who saw that his hearers were becoming moved, called 
 through the open window for a great tankard of sack, and 
 passed that from hand to hand, after the horn. 
 
 The school-boy, who had been devouring with eyes and ears 
 all which passed, and had contrived by this time to edge him- 
 self into the inner ring, now stood face to face with the hero of 
 the emerald crest, and got as many peeps as he could at the 
 wonder. But when he saw the sailors, one after another, hav- 
 ing turned it over a while, come forward and offer to join Mr. 
 Oxenham, his soul burned within him for a nearer view of that 
 wondrous horn, as magical in its effects as that of Tristrem, oi 
 
6 
 
 HOW MR. OXENHAM 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 the enchanter’s in Ariosto ; and when the group had somewhat 
 broken up, and Oxenham was going into the tavern with his 
 recruits, he asked boldly for a nearer sight of the marvel, which 
 was granted at once. 
 
 And now to his astonished gaze displayed themselves cities 
 and harbours, dragons and elephants, whales which fought with 
 sharks, plate ships of Spain, islands with apes and palm-trees, 
 each with its name over- written, and here and there, “ Here is 
 gold and again, “ Much gold and silver inserted most 
 probably, as the words were in English, by the hands of Mr. 
 Oxenham himself. Lingeringly and longingly the boy turned 
 it round and round, and thought the owner of it more fortunate 
 than Khan or Kaiser. Oh, if he could but possess that horn, 
 what needed he on earth beside to make him blest ! 
 
 “ I say, will you sell this ?” 
 
 “ Yea, marry, or my own soul, if I can get the worth of it.” 
 
 “ I want the horn, — I don’t want your soul ; it’s somewhat 
 of a stale sole, for aught I know ; and there are plenty of fresh 
 ones in the bay.” 
 
 And therewith, after much fumbling, he pulled out a tester 
 (the only one he had), and asked if that would buy it 1 
 
 “ That ! no, nor twenty of them.” 
 
 The boy thought over what a good knight-errant would do 
 in such case, and then answered, “ Tell you what : I’ll fight 
 you for it.” 
 
 “ Thank’ee, sir !” 
 
 “ Break the jackanapes’s head for him, Yeo,” said Oxenham. 
 
 “ Call me jackanapes again, and I break yours, sir.” And 
 the boy lifted his fist fiercely. 
 
 Oxenham looked at him a minute smilingly. “ Tut ! tut ! 
 my man, hit one of your own size, if you will, and spare little 
 folk like me ! ” 
 
 “ If I have a boy’s age, sir, I have a man’s fist. I shall be 
 fifteen years old this month, and know how to answer any one 
 who insults me.” 
 
 “ Fifteen, my young cockerel ? you look liker twenty,” said 
 Oxenham, with an admiring glance at the lad’s broad limbs, 
 keen blue eyes, curling golden locks, and round honest face. 
 “Fifteen? If I had half-a-dozen such lads as you, I would 
 make knights of them before I died. Eh, Yeo ?” 
 
 “ He’ll do,” said Yeo ; “ he will make a brave gamecock in 
 a year or two, if he dares ruffle up so early at a tough old hen- 
 master like the Captain.” 
 
CHAP, i.] SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 7 
 
 At which there was a general laugh, in which Oxenham 
 joined as loudly as any, and then bade the lad tell him why he 
 was so keen after the horn. 
 
 “ Because,” said he, looking up boldly, “ I want to go to sea. 
 I want to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards. 
 Though I am a gentleman’s son, I’d a deal liever be a cabin- 
 boy on board your ship.” And the lad, having hurried out his 
 say fiercely enough, dropped his head again. 
 
 “ And you shall,” cried Oxenham, with a great oath ; “ and 
 take a galloon, and dine off carbonadoed Dons. Whose son 
 are you, my gallant fellow ?” 
 
 “ Mr. Leigh’s, of Burrough Court.” 
 
 “ Bless his soul ! I know him as well as I do the Eddystone, 
 and his kitchen too. Who sups with him to-night?” 
 
 “ Sir Richard Grenvil.” 
 
 “Dick Grenvil? I did not know he was in town. Go 
 home and tell your father John Oxenham will come and keep 
 him company. There, off with you ! I’ll make all straight 
 with the good gentleman, and you shall have your venture 
 with me ; and as for the horn, let him have the horn, Yeo, 
 and I’ll give you a noble for it.” 
 
 “Not a penny, noble Captain. If young master will take 
 a poor mariner’s gift, there it is, for the sake of his love to the 
 calling, and Heaven send him luck therein.” And the good 
 fellow, with the impulsive generosity of a true sailor, thrust the 
 horn into the boy’s hands, and walked away to escape thanks. 
 
 “And now,” quoth Oxenham, “my merry men all, make 
 up your minds what mannered men you be minded to be before 
 you take your bounties. I want none of your rascally lurching 
 longshore vermin, who get five pounds out of this captain, and 
 ten out of that, and let him sail without them after all, while 
 they are stowed away under women’s mufflers, and in tavern 
 cellars. If any man is of that humour, he had better to cut 
 himself up, and salt himself down in a barrel for pork, before 
 he meets me again ; for by this light, let me catch him, be it 
 seven years hence, and if I do not cut his throat upon the 
 streets, it’s a pity ! But if any man will be true brother to 
 me, true brother to him I’ll be, come wreck or prize, storm or 
 calm, salt water or fresh, victuals or none, share and fare alike ; 
 and here’s my hand upon it, for every man and all ! and so — 
 
 “ Westward ho ! with a rumbelow, 
 
 And hurra for the Spanish Main, 0 ! ” 
 
 After which oration Mr. Oxenham swaggered into the 
 
8 
 
 HOW MR. OXEN HAM 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 tavern, followed by his new men ; and the boy took his way 
 homewards, nursing his precious horn, trembling between hope 
 and fear, and blushing with maidenly shame, and a half-sense 
 of wrong-doing at having revealed suddenly to a stranger the 
 darling wish which he had hidden from his father and mother 
 ever since he was ten years old. 
 
 Now this young gentleman, Amyas Leigh, though come of 
 as good blood as any in Devon, and having lived all his life in 
 what we should even now call the very best society, and being 
 (on account of the valour, courtesy, and truly noble qualities 
 which he showed forth in his most eventful life) chosen by me 
 as the hero and centre of this story, was not, saving for his 
 good looks, by any means what would be called now-a-days an 
 “interesting” youth, still less a “ highly-educated ” one ; for, 
 with the exception of a little Latin, which had been driven 
 into him by repeated blows, as if it had been a nail, he knew 
 no books whatsoever, save his Bible, his Prayer-book, the old 
 “ Mort d’ Arthur ” of Caxton’s edition, which lay in the great 
 bay window in the hall, and the translation of “ Las Casas’ 
 History of the West Indies,” which lay beside it, lately done 
 into English under the title of “ The Cruelties of the Spaniards.” 
 He devoutly believed in fairies, whom he called pixies ; and 
 held that they changed babies, and made the mushroom rings 
 on the downs to dance in. When he had warts or burns, he 
 went to the white witch at Northam to charm them away ; he 
 thought that the sun moved round the earth, and that the moon 
 had some kindred with a Cheshire cheese. He held that the 
 swallows slept all the winter at the bottom of the horse-pond ; 
 talked, like Raleigh, Grenvil, and other low persons, with a 
 broad Devonshire accent ; and was in many other respects so 
 very igporant a youth, that any pert monitor in a national 
 school might have had a hearty laugh at him. Nevertheless, 
 this ignorant young savage, “ vacant of the glorious gains ” of 
 the nineteenth century, children’s literature and science made 
 easy, and, worst of all, of those improved views of English his- 
 tory now current among our railway essayists, which consist in 
 believing all persons, male and female, before the year 1688 , 
 and nearly all after it, to have been either hypocrites or fools, 
 had learnt certain things which he would hardly have been 
 taught just now in any school in England ; for his training had 
 been that of the old Persians, “to speak the truth and to draw 
 the bow,” both of which savage virtues he had acquired to 
 perfection, as well as the equally savage ones of enduring pain 
 
CHAP, i.] SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 9 
 
 cheerfully, and of believing it to be the finest thing in the world 
 to be a gentleman ; by which word he had been taught to under- 
 stand the careful habit of causing needless pain to no human 
 being, poor or rich, and of taking pride in giving up his own 
 pleasure for the sake of those who were weaker than himself. 
 Moreover, having been entrusted for the last year with the 
 breaking of a colt, and the care of a cast of young hawks which 
 his father had received from Lundy Isle, he had been profiting 
 much, by the means of those coarse and frivolous amusements, 
 in perseverance, thoughtfulness, and the habit of keeping his 
 temper ; and though he had never had a single “object lesson,” 
 or been taught to “ use his intellectual powers,” he knew the 
 names and ways of every bird, and fish, and fly, and could read, 
 as cunningly as the oldest sailor, the meaning of every drift of 
 cloud which crossed the heavens. Lastly, he had been for some 
 time past, on account of his extraordinary size and strength, un- 
 disputed cock of the school, and the most terrible fighter among 
 all Bideford boys ; in which brutal habit he took much delight, 
 and contrived, strange as it may seem, to extract from it good, 
 not only for himself but for others, doing justice among his 
 school-fellows with a heavy hand, and succouring the oppressed 
 and afflicted ; so that he was the terror of all the sailor-lads, and 
 the pride and stay of all the town’s boys and girls, and hardly con- 
 sidered that he had done his duty in his calling if he went home 
 without beating a big lad for bullying a little one. For the rest, 
 he never thought about thinking, or felt about feeling; and had 
 no ambition whatsoever beyond pleasing his father and mother, 
 getting by honest means the maximum of “ red quarrenders ” 
 and mazard cherries, and going to sea when he was big enough. 
 Neither was he what would be now-a-days called by many a 
 pious child ; for though he said his Creed and Lord’s Prayer 
 night and morning, and went to the service at the church every 
 forenoon, and read the day’s Psalms with his mother every 
 evening, and had learnt from her and from his father (as he 
 proved well in after life) that it was infinitely noble to do right 
 and infinitely base to do wrong, yet (the age of children’s re- 
 ligious books not having yet dawned on the world) he knew 
 nothing more of theology, or of his own soul, than is contained 
 in the Church Catechism. It is a question, however, on the 
 whole, whether, though grossly ignorant (according to our 
 modern notions) in science and religion, he was altogether 
 untrained in manhood, virtue, and godliness ; and whether the 
 barbaric narrowness of his Information was not somewhat 
 
10 
 
 HOW MR. OXENHAM 
 
 [chap. I. 
 
 counterbalanced both in him and in the rest of his generation 
 by the depth, and breadth, and healthiness of his Education. 
 
 So let us watch him up the hill as he goes hugging his 
 horn, to tell all that has passed to his mother, from whom he 
 had never hidden anything in his life, save only that sea-fever ; 
 and that only because he foreknew that it would give her pain ; 
 and because, moreover, being a prudent and sensible lad, he 
 knew that he was not yet old enough to go, and that, as he 
 expressed it to her that afternoon, “ there was no use hollaing 
 till he was out of the wood.” 
 
 So he goes up between the rich lane -banks, heavy with 
 drooping ferns and honeysuckle ; out upon the windy down 
 toward the old Court, nestled amid its ring of wind-clipt oaks ; 
 through the grey gateway into the homeclose ; and then he 
 pauses a moment to look around ; first at the wide bay to the 
 westward, with its southern wall of purple cliffs ; then at the 
 dim Isle of Lundy far away at sea ; then at the cliffs and 
 downs of Morte and Braunton, right in front of him ; then at 
 the vast yellow sheet of rolling sand-hill, and green alluvial 
 plain dotted with red cattle, at his feet, through which the 
 silver estuary winds onward toward the sea. Beneath him, on 
 his right, the Torridge, like a land-locked lake, sleeps broad and 
 bright between the old park of Tapeley and the charmed rock 
 of the Hubbastone, where, seven hundred years ago, the Norse 
 rovers landed to lay siege to Kenwith Castle, a mile away on his 
 left hand; and not three fields away, are the old stones of “ The 
 Bloody Corner,” where the retreating Danes, cut off from their 
 ships, made their last fruitless stand against the Saxon sheriff 
 and the valiant men of Devon. Within that charmed rock, so 
 Torridge boatmen tell, sleeps now the old Norse Viking in his 
 leaden coffin, with all his fairy treasure and his crown of gold ; 
 and as the boy looks at the spot, he fancies, and almost hopes, 
 that the day may come when he shall have to do his duty 
 against the invader as boldly as the men of Devon did then. 
 And past him, far below, upon the soft south-eastern breeze, the 
 stately ships go sliding out to sea. When shall he sail in them, 
 and see the wonders of the deep ? And as he stands there with 
 beating heart and kindling eye, the cool breeze whistling 
 through his long fair curls, he is a symbol, though he knows it 
 not, of brave young England longing to wing its way out of its 
 island prison, to discover and to traffic, to colonise and to 
 civilise, until no wind can sweep the earth which does not bear 
 the echoes of an English voice. Patience, young Amyas ! 
 
SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 
 
 11 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 Thou too shalt forth, and westward ho, beyond thy wildest 
 dreams ; and see brave sights, and do brave deeds, which no 
 man has since the foundation of the world. Thou too shalt 
 face invaders stronger and more cruel far than Dane or Norman, 
 and bear thy part in that great Titan strife before the renown 
 of which the name of Salamis shall fade away ! 
 
 Mr. Oxenham. came that evening to supper as he had pro- 
 mised : but as people supped in those days in much the same 
 manner as they do now, we may drop the thread of the story for 
 a few hours, and take it up again after supper is over. 
 
 “ Come now, Dick Grenvil, do thou talk the good man 
 round, and I’ll warrant myself to talk round the good wife.” t 
 
 The personage whom Oxenham addressed thus familiarly 
 answered by a somewhat sarcastic smile, and, “ Mr. Oxenham - 
 gives Dick Grenvil” (with just enough emphasis on the “ Mr.” 
 and the “Dick,” to hint that a liberty had been taken with 
 him) “ overmuch credit with the men. Mr. Oxenliam’s credit 
 with fair ladies, none can doubt. Friend Leigh, is Heard’s 
 great ship home yet from the Straits V 3 
 
 The speaker, known well in those days as Sir Richard 
 Grenvile, Granville, Greenvil, Greenfield, with two or three 
 other variations, was one of those truly heroical personages 
 whom Providence, fitting always the men to their age and their 
 work, had sent upon the earth whereof it takes right good care, 
 not iu England only, but in Spain and Italy, m Germany and 
 the Netherlands, and wherever, in short, great men and great 
 deeds were needed to lift the mediaeval world into the modern. 
 
 And, among all the heroic faces which the painters of that 
 age have preserved, none, perhaps, hardly excepting Shaks- 
 peare’s or Spenser’s, Alva’s or Parma’s, is more heroic than that 
 of Richard Grenvil, as it stands in Prince’s “ Worthies of 
 Devon of a Spanish type, perhaps (or more truly speaking, a 
 Cornish), rather than an English, with just enough of the 
 British element in it to give delicacy to it^ massiveness. The 
 forehead and whole brain are of extraordinary loftiness, and 
 perfectly upright ; the nose long, aquiline, and delicately 
 pointed ; the mouth fringed with a short silky beard, small and 
 ripe, yet firm as granite, with just pout enough of the lower 
 lip to give hint of that capacity of noble indignation which lay 
 hid under its usual courtly calm and sweetness ; if there be a 
 defect in the face, it is that the eyes are somewhat small, and 
 close together, and the eyebrows, though delicately arched, and, 
 without a trace of peevishness, too closely pressed down upon 
 
12 
 
 HOW MR. OXENHAM 
 
 [CHAP. i. 
 
 them, the complexion is dark, the figure tall and graceful ; 
 altogether the likeness of a wise and gallant gentleman, lovely 
 to all good men, awful to all bad men ; in whose presence none 
 dare say or do a mean or a ribald thing; whom brave men left, 
 feeling themselves nerved to do their duty better, while cowards 
 slipped away, as bats and owls before the sun. So he lived and 
 moved, whether in the Court of Elizabeth, giving his counsel 
 among the wisest ; or in the streets of Bideford, capped alike 
 by squire and merchant, shopkeeper and sailor ; or riding along 
 the moorland roads between his houses of Stow and Bideford, 
 while every woman ran out to her door to look at the great Sir 
 Bichard, the pride of North Devon ; or, sitting there in the low 
 mullioned window at Burrough, with his cup of malmsey before 
 him, and the lute to which he had just been singing laid across 
 his knees, while the red western sun streamed in upon his 
 high, bland forehead, and soft curling locks ; ever the same 
 steadfast, God-fearing, chivalrous man, conscious (as far as a 
 soul so healthy could be conscious) of the pride of beauty, and 
 strength, and valour, and wisdom, and a race and name which 
 claimed direct descent from the grandfather of the Conqueror, 
 and was tracked down the centuries by valiant deeds and noble 
 benefits to his native shire, himself the noblest of his race. 
 Men said that he was proud : but he could not look round him 
 without having something to be proud of ; that he was stern 
 and harsh to his sailors : but it was only when he saw in them 
 any taint of cowardice or falsehood ; that he was subject, at 
 moments, to such fearful fits of rage, that he had been seen to 
 snatch the glasses from the table, grind them to pieces in his 
 teeth, and swallow them : but that was only when his indigna- 
 tion had been aroused by some tale of cruelty or oppression ; 
 and, above all, by those West Indian devilries of the Spaniards, 
 whom he regarded (and in those days rightly enough) as the 
 enemies of God and man. Of this last fact Oxenham was well 
 aware, and therefore felt somewhat puzzled and nettled, when, 
 after having asked Mr. Leigh’s leave to take young Amyas 
 with him, and set forth in glowing colours the purpose of his 
 voyage, he found Sir Richard utterly unwilling to help him with 
 his suit. 
 
 “ Heyday, Sir Richard ! You are not surely gone over to 
 the side of those canting fellows (Spanish Jesuits in disguise, 
 every one of them, they are), who pretended to turn up their 
 noses at Franky Drake as a pirate, and be hanged to them 1 ” 
 
 “ My friend Oxenham,” answered he, in the sententious and 
 
SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 
 
 13 
 
 CHAP. I.] 
 
 measured style of the clay, “ I have always held, as you should 
 know by this, that Mr. Drake’s booty, as well as my good 
 friend Captain Hawkins’s, is lawful prize, as being taken from the 
 Spaniard, who is not only ‘ hostis humani generis,’ but has no 
 right to the same, having robbed it violently, by torture and 
 extreme iniquity, from the poor Indian, whom God avenge, as 
 He surely will.” 
 
 “ Amen,” said Mrs. Leigh. 
 
 “ I say Amen too,” quoth Oxenham, “ especially if it please 
 Him to avenge them by English hands.” 
 
 “And I also,” went on Sir Richard; “for the rightful 
 owners of the said goods being either miserably dead, or incap- 
 able by reason of their servitude, of ever recovering any share 
 thereof, the treasure, falsely called Spanish, cannot be better 
 betowed than in building up the state of England against them, 
 our natural enemies ; and thereby, in building up the weal of 
 the Reformed Churches throughout the world, and the liberties 
 of all nations, against a tyranny more foul and rapacious than 
 that of Hero or Caligula ; which, if it be not the cause of God, 
 I, for one, know not what God’s cause is ! ” And, as he 
 warmed in his speech, his eyes flashed very fire. 
 
 “ Hark now ! ” said Oxenham, “ who can speak more boldly 
 than he ? and yet he will not help this lad to so noble an 
 adventure.” 
 
 “ You have asked his father and mother ; what is their 
 answer ? ” 
 
 “ Mine is this,” said Mr. Leigh ; “ if it be God’s will that 
 my boy should become, hereafter, such a mariner as Sir Richard 
 Grenvil, let him go, and God be with him ; but let him first 
 bide here at home and be trained, if God give me grace, to 
 become such a gentleman as Sir Richard Grenvil.” 
 
 Sir Richard bowed low, and Mrs. Leigh catching up the 
 last word — 
 
 “ There, Mr. Oxenham, you cannot gainsay that, unless you 
 will be discourteous to his worship. And for me — though it 
 be a weak woman’s reason, yet it is a mother’s : he is my only 
 child. His elder brother is far away. God only knows 
 whether I shall see him again ; and what are all reports of his 
 virtues and his learning to me, compared to that sweet presence 
 which I daily miss ? Ah ! Mr. Oxenham, my beautiful Joseph 
 is gone ; and though he be lord of Pharaoh’s household, yet he is 
 far away in Egypt ; and you will take Benjamin also ! Ah ! Mr. 
 Oxenham, you have no child, or you would not ask for mine ! ” 
 
14 
 
 HOW MR. OXENHAM 
 
 [CHAP. I. 
 
 “ And how do you know that, my sweet Madam ? ” said the 
 adventurer, turning first deadly pale, and then glowing red. 
 Her last words had touched him to the quick in some unexpected 
 place ; and rising, he courteously laid her hand to his lips, and 
 said — “ I say no more. Farewell, sweet Madam, and God send 
 all men such wives as you.” 
 
 “And all wives,” said she, smiling, “such husbands as 
 mine.” 
 
 “ Nay, I will not say that,” answered he, with a half sneer 
 — and then, “ Farewell, friend Leigh — farewell, gallant Dick 
 Grenvil. God send I see thee Lord High Admiral when I come 
 home. And yet, why should I come home? Will you pray for 
 poor Jack, gentles ? ” 
 
 “ Tut, tut, man ! good words,” said Leigh ; “ let us drink 
 to our merry meeting before you go.” And rising, and putting 
 the tankard of malmsey to his lips, he passed it to Sir Richard, 
 who rose, and saying, “ To the fortune of a bold mariner and a 
 gallant gentleman,” drank, and put the cup into Oxenham’s 
 hand. 
 
 The adventurer’s face was flushed, and his eye wild. 
 Whether from the liquor he had drunk during the day, or 
 whether from Mrs. Leigh’s last speech, he had not been himself 
 for a few minutes. He lifted the cup, and was in act to pledge 
 them, when he suddenly dropped it on the table, and pointed, 
 staring and trembling, up and down, and round the room, as if 
 following some fluttering object. 
 
 “ There ! Do you see it ? The bird ! — the bird with the 
 white breast ! ” 
 
 Each looked at the other ; but Leigh, who was a quick- 
 witted man, and an old courtier, forced a laugh instantly, and 
 cried — 
 
 “ Nonsense, brave Jack Oxenham ! Leave white birds for 
 men who will show the white feather. Mrs. Leigh waits to 
 pledge you.” 
 
 Oxenham recovered himself in a moment, pledged them all 
 round, drinking deep and fiercely; and after hearty farewells, 
 departed, never hinting again at his strange exclamation. 
 
 After he was gone, and while Leigh was attending him to 
 the door, Mrs. Leigh and Grenvil kept a few minutes’ dead 
 silence. At last — 
 
 “ God help him ! ” said she. 
 
 “ Amen ! ” said Grenvil, “ for he never needed it more. But, 
 indeed, Madam, I put no faith in such omens.” 
 
CHAP. I.] SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 15 
 
 “ But, Sir Richard, that bird has been seen for generations 
 before the death of any of his family. I know those who were 
 at South Tawton when his mother died, and his brother also ; 
 and they both saw it. God help him ! for, after all, he is a 
 proper man.” 
 
 “ So many a lady has thought before now, Mrs. Leigh, and 
 well for him if they had not. But, indeed, I make no account 
 of omens. When God is ready for each man, then he must go ; 
 and when can he go better ? ” 
 
 “ But,” said Mr. Leigh, who entered, “ I have seen, and 
 especially when I was in Italy, omens and prophecies before 
 now beget their owii fulfilment, by driving men into reckless- 
 ness, and making them run headlong upon that very ruin 
 which, as they fancied, was running upon them.” 
 
 “And which,” said Sir Richard, “they might have avoided, 
 if, instead of trusting in I know not what dumb and dark 
 destiny, they had trusted in the living God, by faith in whom 
 men may remove mountains, and quench the fire, and put to 
 flight the armies of the alien. I too know, and know not 
 how I know, that I shall never die in my bed.” 
 
 “ God forfend ! ” cried Mrs. Leigh. 
 
 “And why, fair Madam, if I die doing my duty to my God 
 and my queen ? The thought never moves me : nay, to tell 
 the truth, I pray often enough that I may be spared the 
 miseries of imbecile old age, and that end which the old North- 
 men rightly called ‘ a cow’s death ’ rather than a man’s. But 
 enough of this. Mr. Leigh, you have done wisely to-night. 
 Poor Oxenham does not go on his voyage with a single eye. I 
 have talked about him with Drake and Hawkins ; and I guess 
 why Mrs. Leigh touched him so home when she told him that 
 he had no child.” 
 
 “Has he one, then, in the West Indies'?” cried the good 
 lady. 
 
 “ God knows ; and God grant we may not hear of shame 
 and sorrow fallen upon an ancient and honourable house of 
 Devon. My brother Stukely is woe enough to North Devon 
 for this generation.” 
 
 u Poor braggadocio ! ” said Mr. Leigh ; “ and yet not alto- 
 gether that too, for he can fight at least.” 
 
 “ So can every mastiff and boar, much more an Englishman. 
 And now come hither to me, my adventurous godson, and don’t 
 look in such doleful dumps. I hear you have broken all the 
 sailor-boys’ heads already.” 
 
16 HOW MR. OXEN HAM [chap. r. 
 
 “ Nearly all,” said young Amyas, with due modesty. “ But 
 am I not to go to sea ? ” 
 
 “ All things in their time, my boy, and God forbid that 
 either I or your worthy parents should keep you from that 
 noble calling which is the safeguard of this England and her 
 queen. But you do not wish to live and die the master of a 
 trawler ? ” 
 
 “ I should like to be a brave adventurer, like Mr. Oxenham.” 
 
 “ God grant you become a braver man than he ! for as I 
 think, to be bold against the enemy is common to the brutes ; 
 but the prerogative of a man is to be bold against himself.” 
 
 “ How, sir ? ” 
 
 “ To conquer our own fancies, Amyas, and our own lusts, 
 and our ambition, in the sacred name of duty ; this it is to be 
 truly brave, and truly strong ; for he who cannot rule himself, 
 how can he rule his crew or his fortunes ? Come, now, I will 
 make you a promise. If you will bide quietly at home, and 
 learn from your father and mother all which befits a gentleman 
 and a Christian, as well as a seaman, the day shall come when 
 you shall sail with Richard Grenvil himself, or with better men 
 than he, on a nobler errand than gold-hunting on the Spanish 
 Main.” 
 
 “0 my boy, my boy !” said Mrs. Leigh, “hear what the 
 good Sir Richard promises you. Many an earl’s son would be 
 glad to be in your place.” 
 
 “ And many an earl’s son will be glad to be in his place a 
 score years hence, if he will but learn what I know you two 
 can teach him. And now, Amyas, my lad, I will tell you for 
 a warning the history of that Sir Thomas Stukely of whom I 
 spoke just now, and who was, as all men know, a gallant and 
 courtly knight, of an ancient and worshipful family in Ilfra- 
 combe, well practised in the wars, and well beloved at first by 
 our incomparable queen, the friend of all true virtue, as I 
 trust she will be of yours some day ; who wanted but one step 
 to greatness, and that was this, that in his hurry to rule all 
 the world, he forgot to rule himself. At first, he wasted his 
 estate in show and luxury, always intending to be famous, and 
 destroying his own fame all the while by his vainglory and 
 haste. Then, to retrieve his losses, he hit upon the peopling 
 of Florida, which thou and I will see done some day, by God’s 
 blessing ; for I and some good friends of mine have an errand 
 there as well as he. But he did not go about it as a loyal 
 man, to advance the honour of his queen, but his own honour 
 
SAW THE WHITE BIRD. 
 
 17 
 
 CHAP. I.J 
 
 only, dreaming that he too should be a king; and was not 
 ashamed to tell her majesty that he had rather be sovereign of 
 a molehill than the highest subject of an emperor.” 
 
 “ They say,” said Mr. Leigh, “ that he told her plainly he 
 should be a- prince before he died, and that she gave him one 
 of her pretty quips in return.” 
 
 “ I don’t know that her majesty had the best of it. A fool 
 is many times too strong for a wise man, by virtue of his thick 
 hide. For when she said that she hoped she should hear from 
 him in his new principality, ‘Yes, sooth/ says he, graciously 
 enough. ‘ And in what style V asks she. ‘ To our dear sister/ 
 says Stukely : to which her clemency had nothing to reply, but 
 turned away, as Mr. Burleigh told me, laughing.” 
 
 “ Alas for him !” said gentle Mrs. Leigh. “ Such self-con- 
 ceit — and Heaven knows we have the root of it in ourselves 
 also — is the very daughter of self-will, and of that loud crying 
 out about I, and me, and mine, which is the very bird-call for 
 all devils, and the broad road which leads to death.” 
 
 “ It will lead him to his,” said Sir Bichard ; “ God grant it 
 be not upon Tower-hill ! for since that Florida plot, and after 
 that his hopes of Irish preferment came to nought, he who 
 could not help himself by fair means has taken to foul ones, 
 and gone over to Italy to the Pope, whose infallibility has not 
 been proof against Stukely’s wit ; for he was soon his Holiness’s 
 closet counsellor, and, they say, his bosom friend ; and made 
 him give credit to his boasts that, with three thousand soldiers 
 he would beat the English out of Ireland, and make the Pope’s 
 son king of it.” 
 
 “ Ay, but,” said Mr. Leigh, “ I suppose the Italians have 
 the same fetch now as they had when I was there, to explain 
 such ugly cases ; namely, that the Pope is infallible only in 
 doctrine, and quoad Pope ; while quoad hominem, he is even as 
 others, or indeed, in general, a deal worse, so that the office, 
 and not the man, may be glorified thereby. But where is 
 Stukely now ?” 
 
 “ At Rome when last I heard of him, ruffling it up and down 
 the Vatican as Baron Ross, Viscount Murrough, Earl Wexford, 
 Marquis Leinster, and a title or two more, which have cost the 
 Pope little, seeing that they never were his to give ; and plot- 
 ting, they say, some hair-brained expedition against Ireland by 
 the help of the Spanish king, which must end in nothing but 
 his shame and ruin. And now, my sweet hosts, I must call for 
 serving-boy and lantern, and home to my bed in Bideford.” 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [chap. ii. 
 
 And so Amyas Leigh went back to school, and Mr. Oxen- 
 ham went his way to Plymouth again, and sailed for the 
 Spanish Main. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 “ Si taceant homines, facient te sidera notum, 
 
 Sol nescit comitis immemor esse sui.” 
 
 Old Epigram on Brahe. 
 
 Five years are past and gone. It is nine of the clock on a still, 
 bright November morning ; but the bells of Bideford church are 
 still ringing for the daily service two hours after the usual time ; 
 and instead of going soberly according to wont, cannot help 
 breaking forth every five minutes into a jocund peal, and 
 tumbling head over heels in ecstasies of joy. Bideford streets 
 are a very flower-garden of all the colours, swarming with sea- 
 men and burghers, and burghers’ wives and daughters, all in 
 their holiday attire. Garlands are hung across the streets, and 
 tapestries from every window. The ships in the pool are 
 dressed in all their flags, and give tumultuous vent to their 
 feelings by peals of ordnance of every size. Every stable is 
 crammed with horses ; and Sir Richard Grenvil’s house is like 
 a very tavern, with eating and drinking, and unsaddling, and 
 running to and fro of grooms and serving-men. Along the 
 little churchyard, packed full with women, streams all the gentle 
 blood of North Devon, — tall and stately men, and fair ladies, 
 worthy of the days when the gentry of England were by due 
 right the leaders of the people, by personal prowess and beauty, 
 as well as by intellect and education. And first, there is my 
 lady Countess of Bath, whom Sir Richard Grenvil is escorting, 
 cap in haud (for her good Earl Bourchier is in London with 
 the queen) ; and there are Bassets from beautiful Umberleigh, 
 and Carys from more beautiful Clovelly, and Fortescues of 
 Wear, and Fortescues of Buckland, and Fortescues from all 
 quarters, and Coles from Slade, and Stukelys from Affton, and 
 St. Legers from Annery, and Coffins from Portledge, and even 
 Coplestones from Eggesford, thirty miles away : and last, but 
 not least (for almost all stop to give them place), Sir John 
 Chichester of Ralegh, followed in single file, after the good old 
 patriarchal fashion, by his eight daughters, and three of his 
 
Bide ford Church . 
 

THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 19 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 five famous sons (one, to avenge his murdered brother, is 
 fighting valiantly in Ireland, hereafter to rule there wisely also, 
 as Lord Deputy and Baron of Belfast) ; and he meets at the 
 gate his cousin of Arlington, and behind him a train of four 
 daughters and nineteen sons, the last of whom has not yet 
 passed the Town-hall, while the first is at the Lychgate, who, 
 laughing, make way for the elder though shorter branch of that 
 most fruitful tree ; and so on into the church, where all are 
 placed according to their degrees, or at least as near as may 
 be, not without a few sour looks, and shovings, and whisperings, 
 from one high-born matron and another j till the churchwardens 
 and sidesmen, who never had before so goodly a company to 
 arrange, have bustled themselves hot, and red, and frantic, and 
 end by imploring abjectly the help of the great Sir Bichard 
 himself to tell them who everybody is, and which is the elder 
 branch, and which is the younger, and who carries eight 
 quarterings in their arms, and who only four, and so prevent 
 their setting at deadly feud half the fine ladies of North 
 Devon ; for the old men are all safe packed away in the cor- 
 poration pews, and the young ones care only to get a place 
 whence they may eye the ladies. And at last there is a silence, 
 and a looking toward the door, and then distant music, flutes 
 and hautboys, drums and trumpets, which come braying, and 
 screaming, and thundering merrily up to the very church doors, 
 and then cease ; and the churchwardens and sidesmen bustle 
 down to the entrance, rods in hand, and there is a general 
 whisper and rustle, not without glad tears and blessings from 
 many a woman, and from some men also, as the wonder of the 
 day enters, and the rector begins, not the morning service, but 
 the good old thanksgiving after a victory at sea. 
 
 And what is it which has thus sent old Bideford wild 
 with that “goodly joy and pious mirth,” of which we now only 
 retain traditions in our translation of the Psalms ? Why are 
 all eyes fixed, with greedy admiration, on those four weather- 
 beaten mariners, decked out with knots and ribbons by loving 
 hands ; and yet more on that gigantic figure who walks before 
 them, a beardless boy, and yet with the frame and stature of 
 a Hercules, towering, like Saul of old, a head and shoulders 
 above all the congregation, with his golden locks flowing down 
 over his shoulders 1 And why, as the five go instinctively up 
 to the altar, and there fall on their knees before the rails, are 
 all eyes turned to the pew where Mrs. Leigh of Burrough has 
 hid her face between her hands, and her hood rustles and 
 
20 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 shakes to her joyful sobs ? Because there was fellow-feeling of 
 old in merry England, in county and in town ; and these are 
 Devon men, and men of Bideford, whose names are Amyas 
 Leigh of Burrough, John Staveley, Michael Heard, and Jonas 
 Marshall of Bideford, and Thomas Braund of Clovelly : and 
 they, the first of all English mariners, have sailed round the 
 world with Francis Drake, and are come hither to give God 
 thanks. 
 
 It is a long story. To explain how it happened we must 
 go back for a page or two, almost to the point from whence we 
 started in the last chapter. 
 
 For somewhat more than a twelvemonth after Mr. Oxen- 
 ham’s departure, young Amyas had gone on quietly enough, 
 according to promise, with the exception of certain occasional 
 outbursts of fierceness common to all young male animals, and 
 especially to boys of any strength of character. His scholar- 
 ship, indeed, progressed no better than before ; but his home 
 education went on healthily enough ; and he was fast becoming, 
 young as he was, a right good archer, and rider, and swords- 
 man (after the old school of buckler practice), \yhen his father, 
 having gone down on business to the Exeter Assizes, caught 
 (as was too common in those days) the gaol-fever from the 
 prisoners; sickened in the very court; and died within a week. 
 
 And now Mrs. Leigh was left to God and her own soul, 
 with this young lion-cub in leash, to tame and train for this 
 life and the life to come. She had loved her husband fervently 
 and holily. He had been often peevish, often melancholy ; for 
 he was a disappointed man, with an estate impoverished by his 
 father’s folly, and his own youthful ambition, which had led 
 him up to Court, and made him waste his heart and his purse 
 in following a vain shadow. He was one of those men, more- 
 over, who possess almost every gift except the gift of the power 
 to use them ; and though a scholar, a courtier, and a soldier, 
 he had found himself, when he was past forty, without settled 
 employment or aim in life, by reason of a certain shyness, pride, 
 or delicate honour (call it which you will), which had always 
 kept him from playing a winning game in that very world after 
 whose prizes he hankered to the last, and on which he revenged 
 himself by continual grumbling. At last, by his good luck, 
 he met with a fair young Miss Foljambe, of Derbyshire, then 
 about Queen Elizabeth’s Court, who was as tired as he of the 
 sins of the world, though she had seen less of them ; and the two 
 contrived to please each other so well, that though the queen 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 21 
 
 CHAP. IT.] 
 
 grumbled a little, as usual, at the lady for marrying, and at 
 the gentleman for adoring any one but her royal self, they got 
 leave to vanish from the little Babylon at Whitehall, and settle 
 in peace at Burrough. In her he found a treasure, and he knew 
 what he had found. 
 
 Mrs. Leigh was, and had been from her youth, one of those 
 noble old English churchwomen, without superstition, and with- 
 out severity, who are among the fairest features of that heroic 
 time. There was a certain melancholy about her, nevertheless ; 
 for the recollections of her childhood carried her back to times 
 when it was an awful thing to be a Protestant. She could 
 remember among them, five-and-twenty years ago, the burning 
 of poor blind Joan Waste at Derby, and of Mistress Joyce 
 Lewis, too, like herself, a lady born ; and sometimes even now, 
 in her nightly dreams, rang in her ears her mother’s bitter cries 
 to God, either to spare her that fiery torment, or to give her 
 strength to bear it, as she whom she loved had borne it before 
 her. For her mother, who was of a good family in Yorkshire, 
 had been one of Queen Catherine’s bedchamber women, and 
 the bosom friend and disciple of Anne Askew. And she had 
 sat in Smithfield, with blood curdled by horror, to see the hap- 
 less Court beauty, a month before the paragon of Henry’s Court, 
 carried in a chair (so crippled was she by the rack) to her fiery 
 doom at the stake, beside her fellow -courtier, Mr. Lascelles, 
 while the very heavens seemed to the shuddering mob around 
 to speak their wrath and grief in solemn thunder peals, and 
 heavy drops which hissed upon the crackling pile. 
 
 Therefore a sadness hung upon her all her life, and deepened 
 in the days of Queen Mary, when, as a notorious Protestant 
 and heretic she had had to hide for her life among the hills 
 and caverns of the Peak, and was only saved by the love which 
 her husband’s tenants bore her, and by his bold declaration 
 that, good Catholic as he was, he would run through the body 
 any constable, justice, or priest, yea, bishop or cardinal, who 
 dared to serve the Queen’s warrant upon his wife. 
 
 So she escaped : but, as I said, a sadness hung upon her 
 all her life ; and the skirt of that dark mantle fell upon the 
 young girl who had been the partner of her wanderings and 
 hidings among the lonely hills ; and who, after she was married, 
 gave herself utterly up to God. 
 
 And yet in giving herself to God, Mrs. Leigh gave herself 
 to her husband, her children, and the poor of Northam town, 
 and was none the less welcome to the Grenviles, and Fortescues, 
 
22 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 and Chichesters, and all the gentle families round, who honoured 
 her husband’s talents, and enjoyed his wit. She accustomed 
 herself to austerities, which often called forth the kindly rebukes 
 of her husband; and yet she did so without one superstitious 
 thought of appeasing the fancied wrath of God, or of giving 
 Him pleasure (base thought) by any pain of hers ; for her spirit 
 had been trained in the freest and loftiest doctrines of Luther’s 
 school; and that little mystic “Alt-Deutsch Theologie” (to 
 which the great Reformer said that he owed more than to any 
 book, save the Bible, and St. Augustine) was her counsellor 
 and comforter by day and night. 
 
 And now, at little past forty, she was left a widow : lovely 
 still in face and figure ; and still more lovely from the divine 
 calm which brooded, like the dove of peace and the Holy Spirit 
 of God (which indeed it was), over every look, and word, and 
 gesture ; a sweetness which had been ripened by storm, as well 
 as by sunshine; which this world had not given, and could 
 not take away. Ho wonder that Sir Richard and Lady Gren- 
 vile loved her ; no wonder that her children worshipped her ; 
 no wonder that the young Amyas, when the first burst of grief 
 was over, and he knew again where he stood, felt that a new 
 life had begun for him ; that his mother was no more to think 
 and act for him only, but that he must think and act for his 
 mother. And so it was, that on the very day after his father’s 
 funeral, when school-hours were over, instead of coming straight 
 home, he walked boldly into Sir Richard Grenvile’s house, and 
 asked to see his godfather. 
 
 “ You must be my father now, sir,” said he firmly. 
 
 And Sir Richard looked at the boy’s broad strong face, 
 and swore a great and holy oath, like Glasgerion’s, “ by oak, 
 and ash, and thorn,” that he would be a father to him, and a 
 brother to his mother, for Christ’s sake. And Lady Grenvile 
 took the boy by the hand, and walked home with him to Bur- 
 rough ; and there the two fair women fell on each other’s 
 necks, and wept together ; the one for the loss which had 
 been, the other, as by a prophetic instinct, for the like loss 
 which was to come to her also. For the sweet St. Leger 
 knew well that her husband’s fiery spirit would never leave 
 his body on a peaceful bed ; but that death (as he prayed 
 almost nightly that it might) would find him sword in hand, 
 upon the field of duty and of fame. And there those two vowed 
 everlasting sisterhood, and kept their vow ; and after that all 
 things went on at Burrough as before ; and Amyas rode, and 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 23 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 shot, and boxed, and wandered on the quay at Sir Richard’s 
 side ; for Mrs. Leigh was too wise a woman to alter one tittle 
 of the training which her husband had thought best for his 
 younger boy. It was enough that her elder son had of his own 
 accord taken to that form of life in which she in her secret 
 heart would fain have moulded both her children. For Frank, 
 God’s wedding gift to that pure love of hers, had won himself 
 honour at home and abroad ; first at the school at Bideford ; 
 then at Exeter College, where he had become a friend of Sir 
 Philip Sidney’s, and many another young man of rank and pro- 
 mise; and next, in the summer of 1572, on his way to the 
 University of Heidelberg, he had gone to Paris, with (luckily 
 for him) letters of recommendation to Walsingham, at the 
 English Embassy : by which letters he not only fell in a second 
 time with Philip Sidney, but saved his own life (as Sidney did 
 his) in the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day. At Heidel- 
 berg he had stayed two years, winning fresh honour from all 
 who knew him, and resisting all Sidney’s entreaties to follow 
 him into Italy. For, scorning to be a burden to his parents, 
 he had become at Heidelberg tutor to two young German 
 princes, whom, after living with them at their father’s house 
 for a year or more, he at last, to his own great delight, took 
 with him down to Padua, “ to perfect them,” as he wrote home, 
 “ according to his insufficiency, in all princely studies.” Sidney 
 was now returned to England ; but Frank found friends enough 
 without him, such letters of recommendation and diplomas did 
 he carry from I know not how many princes, magnificoes, and 
 learned doctors, who had fallen in love with the learning, 
 modesty, and virtue of the fair young Englishman. And ere 
 Frank returned to Germany he had satiated his soul with all 
 the wonders of that wondrous land. He had talked over the 
 art of sonnetering with Tasso, the art of history with Sarpi ; 
 he had listened, between awe and incredulity, to the daring 
 theories of Galileo ; he had taken his pupils to Venice, that 
 their portraits might be painted by Paul Veronese ; he had 
 seen the palaces of Palladio, and the Merchant Princes on the 
 Rialto, and the Argosies of Ragusa, and all the wonders of 
 that meeting-point of east and west ; he had watched Tintor- 
 etto’s mighty hand “hurling tempestuous glories o’er the 
 scene;” and even, by dint of private intercession in high 
 places, had been admitted to that sacred room where, with 
 long silver beard and undimmed eye, amid a pantheon of his 
 own creations, the ancient Titian, patriarch of art, still lingered 
 
24 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME [CHAP. II. 
 
 upon earth, and told old tales of the Bellinis, and Raffaelle, and 
 Michael Angelo, and the building of St. Peter’s, and the fire at 
 Venice, and the Sack of Rome, and of kings and warriors, 
 statesmen and poets, long since gone to their account, and 
 showed the sacred brush which Francis the First had stooped 
 to pick up for him. And (licence forbidden to Sidney by his 
 friend Languet) he had been to Rome, and seen (much to the 
 scandal of good Protestants at home) that “ right good fellow,” 
 as Sidney calls him, who had not yet eaten himself to death, 
 the Pope for the time being. And he had seen the frescoes of 
 the Vatican, and heard Palestrina preside as chapel-master over 
 the performance of his own music beneath the dome of St. 
 Peter’s, and fallen half in love with those luscious strains, till 
 he was awakened from his dream by the recollection that 
 beneath that same dome had gone up thanksgivings to the God 
 of heaven for those blood-stained streets, and shrieking women, 
 and heaps of insulted corpses, which he had beheld in Paris on 
 the night of St. Bartholomew. At last, a few months before 
 his father died, he had taken back his pupils to their home in 
 Germany, from whence he was dismissed, as he wrote, with 
 rich gifts ; and then Mrs. Leigh’s heart beat high, at the 
 thought that the wanderer would return : but, alas ! within a 
 month after his father’s death, came a long letter from Frank, 
 describing the Alps, and the valleys of the Waldenses (with 
 whose Barbes he had had much talk about the late horrible 
 persecutions), and setting forth how at Padua he had made the 
 acquaintance of that illustrious scholar and light of the age, 
 Stephanus Parmenius (commonly called from his native place, 
 Budaeus), who had visited Geneva with him, and heard the 
 disputations of their most learned doctors, which both he and 
 Budaeus disliked for their hard judgments both of God and 
 man, as much as they admired them for their subtlety, being 
 themselves, as became Italian students, Platonists of the school 
 of Ficinus and Picus Mirandolensis. So wrote Master Frank, 
 in a long sententious letter, full of Latin quotations : but the 
 letter never reached the eyes of him for whose delight it had 
 been penned : and the widow had to weep over it alone, and to 
 weep more bitterly than ever at the conclusion, in which, with 
 many excuses, Frank said that he had, at the special entreaty 
 of the said Budaeus, set out with him down the Danube stream 
 to Buda, that he might, before finishing his travels, make 
 experience of that learning for which the Hungarians were 
 famous throughout Europe. And after that, though he wrote 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 25 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 again and again to the father whom he fancied living, no letter 
 in return reached him from home for nearly two years ; till, fear- 
 ing some mishap, he hurried hack to England, to find his mother 
 a widow, and his brother Amyas gone to the South Seas with 
 Captain Drake of Plymouth. And yet, even then, after years 
 of absence, he was not allowed to remain at home. For Sir 
 Richard, to whom idleness was a thing horrible and unrighteous, 
 would have him up and doing again before six months were 
 over, and sent him off to Court to Lord Hunsdon. 
 
 There, being as delicately beautiful as his brother was 
 huge and strong, he had speedily, by Carew’s interest and that 
 of Sidney and his Uncle Leicester, found entrance into some 
 office in the Queen’s household ; and he was now basking in 
 the full sunshine of Court favour, and fair ladies’ eyes, and all 
 the chivalries and euphuisms of Gloriana’s fairy-land, and the 
 fast friendship of that bright meteor Sidney, who had returned 
 with honour in 1577, from the delicate mission on behalf of 
 the German and Belgian Protestants, on which he had been 
 sent to the Court of Vienna, under colour of condoling with 
 the new Emperor Rodolph on his father’s death. Frank found 
 him when he himself came to Court in 1579 as lovely and 
 loving as ever ; and, at the early age of twenty-five, acknow- 
 ledged as one of the most remarkable men of Europe, the patron 
 of all men of letters, the counsellor of warriors and statesmen, 
 and the confidant and advocate of William of Orange, Languet, 
 Plessis du Mornay, and all the Protestant leaders on the Con- 
 tinent ; and found, moreover, that the son of the poor Devon 
 squire was as welcome as ever to the friendship of nature’s and 
 fortune’s most favoured, yet most unspoilt, minion. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Leigh, as one who had long since learned to have 
 no self, and to live not only for her children, but in them, sub- 
 mitted without a murmur, and only said, smiling, to her stern 
 friend — “You took away my mastiff-pup, and now you must 
 needs have my fair greyhound also.” 
 
 “ Would you have your fair greyhound, dear lady, grow up 
 a tall and true Cotswold dog, that can pull down a stack of 
 ten, or one of those smooth-skinned poppets which the Florence 
 ladies lead about with a ring of bells round its neck, and a 
 flannel farthingale over its loins ? ” 
 
 Mrs. Leigh submitted ; and was rewarded after a few 
 months by a letter, sent through Sir Richard, from none other 
 than Gloriana herself, in which she thanked her for “ the loan 
 of that most delicate and flawless crystal, the soul of her 
 
26 
 
 HOW AMY AS CAME HOME 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 excellent son,” with more praises of him than I have room to 
 insert, and finished by exalting the poor mother above the 
 famed Cornelia ; “ for those sons, whom she called her jewels, 
 she only showed, yet kept them to herself : but you, madam, 
 having two as precious, I doubt not, as were ever that Roman 
 dame’s, have, beyond her courage, lent them both to your coun- 
 try and to your queen, who therein holds herself indebted to 
 you for that which, if God give her grace, she will repay as 
 becomes both her and you.” Which epistle the sweet mother 
 bedewed with holy tears, and laid by in the cedar-box which 
 held her household gods, by the side of Frank’s innumerable 
 diplomas and letters of recommendation, the Latin whereof she 
 was always spelling over (although she understood not a word 
 of it), in hopes of finding, here and there, that precious 
 excellentissimus Nosier Franciscus Leighius Anglus , which was 
 all in all to the mother’s heart. 
 
 But why did Amyas go to the South Seas ? Amyas 
 went to the South Seas for two causes, each of which has, 
 before now, sent many a lad to far worse places : first, because 
 of an old schoolmaster ; secondly, because of a young beauty. 
 I will take them in order and explain. 
 
 Vindex Brimblecombe, whilom servitor of Exeter College, 
 Oxford (commonly called Sir Vindex, after the fashion of the 
 times), was, in those days, master of the grammar-school of 
 Bideford. He was, at root, a godly and kind-hearted pedant 
 enough ; but, like most schoolmasters in the old flogging days, 
 had his heart pretty well hardened by long, baneful licence to 
 inflict pain at will on those weaker than himself ; a power 
 healthful enough for the victim (for, doubtless, flogging is the 
 best of all punishments, being not only the shortest, but also a 
 mere bodily and animal, and not, like most of our new-fangled 
 “ humane ” punishments, a spiritual and fiendish torture), but 
 for the executioner pretty certain to eradicate, from all but the 
 noblest spirits, every trace of chivalry and tenderness for the 
 weak, as well, often, as all self-control and command of temper. 
 Be that as it may, old Sir Vindex had heart enough to feel that 
 it was now his duty to take especial care of the fatherless boy 
 to whom he tried to teach his qui , quce, quod : but the only 
 outcome of that new sense of responsibility was a rapid increase 
 in the number of floggings, which rose from about two a week 
 to one per diera, not without consequences to the pedagogue 
 himself. 
 
 For all this while, Amyas had never for a moment lost sight 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 27 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 of his darling desire for a sea-life; and when he could not 
 wander on the quay and stare at the shipping, or go down to 
 the pebble-ridge at Northam, and there sit, devouring, with 
 hungry eyes, the great expanse of ocean, which seemed to woo 
 him outward into boundless space, he used to console himself, in 
 school-hours, by drawing ships and imaginary charts upon his 
 slate, instead of minding his “ humanities.” 
 
 Now it befell, upon an afternoon, that he was very busy at 
 a map, or bird’s-eye view of an island, whereon was a great castle, 
 and at the gate thereof a dragon, terrible to see ; while, in the 
 foreground came that which was meant for a gallant ship, 
 with a great flag aloft, but which, by reason of the forest of 
 lances with which it was crowded, looked much more like a 
 porcupine carrying a sign -post ; and, at the roots of those 
 lances, many little round o’s, "whereby were signified the heads 
 of Amyas and his schoolfellows, who were about to slay that 
 dragon, and rescue the beautiful princess who dwelt in that 
 enchanted tower. To behold which marvel of art, all the other 
 boys at the same desk must needs club their heads together, 
 and with the more security, because Sir Vindex, as was his 
 custom after dinner, was lying back in his chair, and slept the 
 sleep of the just. 
 
 But when Amyas, by special instigation of the evil spirit 
 who haunts successful artists, proceeded further to introduce, 
 heedless of perspective, a rock, on which stood the lively por- 
 traiture of Sir Vindex — nose, spectacles, gown, and all ; and in 
 his hand a brandished rod, while out of his mouth a label 
 shrieked after the runaways, “ You come back ! ” while a 
 similar label replied from the gallant bark, “Good-bye, master!” 
 the shoving and tittering rose to such a pitch, that Cerberus 
 awoke, and demanded sternly what the noise was about. To 
 which, of course, there was no answer. 
 
 “You, of course, Leigh ! Come up, sir, and show me your 
 exercitation.” 
 
 Now of Amyas’s exercitation not a word was written; and, 
 moreover, he was in the very article of putting the last touches 
 to Mr. Brimblecombe’s portrait. Whereon, to the astonishment 
 of all hearers, he made answer — 
 
 “All in good time, sir !” and went on drawing. 
 
 “ In good time, sir ! Insolent, veni et vapula ! ” 
 
 But Amyas went on drawing. 
 
 “ Come hither, sirrah, or I’ll flay you alive !” 
 
 “Wait a bit !” answered Amyas. 
 
28 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 The old gentleman jumped up, ferula in hand, and darted 
 across the school, and saw himself upon the fatal slate. 
 
 “ Proh Jiagitiumf what have we here, villain ?” and clutch- 
 ing at his victim, he raised the cane. Whereupon, with a serene 
 and cheerful countenance, up rose the mighty form of Amyas 
 Leigh, a head and shoulders above his tormentor, and that slate 
 descended on the bald coxcomb of Sir Yindex Brimblecombe, 
 with so shrewd a blow, that slate and pate cracked at the same 
 instant, and the poor pedagogue dropped to the floor, and lay 
 for dead. 
 
 After which Amyas arose, and walked out of the school, 
 and so quietly home ; and having taken counsel with himself, 
 went to his mother, and said, “Please, mother, I’ve broken 
 schoolmaster’s head.” 
 
 “Broken his head, thou wicked boy!” shrieked the poor 
 widow ; “ what didst do that for?” 
 
 “ I can’t tell,” said Amyas penitently ; “ I couldn’t help it. 
 It looked so smooth, and bald, and round, and — you know ?” 
 
 “ I know ? Oh, wicked boy ! thou hast given place to the 
 devil ; and now, perhaps, thou hast killed him.” 
 
 “Killed the devil?” asked Amyas, hopefully but doubtfully. 
 “No, killed the schoolmaster, sirrah ! Is he dead ?” 
 
 “ I don’t think he’s dead ; his coxcomb sounded too hard 
 for that. But had not I better go and tell Sir Richard ?” 
 
 The poor mother could hardly help laughing, in spite of her 
 terror, at Amyas’s perfect coolness (which was not in the least 
 meant for insolence), and being at her wits’ end, sent him, as 
 usual to his godfather. 
 
 Amyas rehearsed his story again, with pretty nearly the 
 same exclamations, to which he gave pretty nearly the same 
 answers ; and then — - 
 
 “ What was he going to do to you, then, sirrah ?” 
 
 “ Flog me, because I could not write my exercise, and so 
 drew a picture of him instead.” 
 
 “ What ! art afraid of being flogged ?” 
 
 “ Not a bit ; besides, I’m too much accustomed to it ; but 
 I was busy, and he was in such a desperate hurry ; and, oh, sir, 
 if you had but seen his bald head, you would have broken it 
 yourself ! ” 
 
 Now Sir Richard had, twenty years ago. in like place, and 
 very much in like manner, broken the head of Yindex Brimble- 
 combe’s father, schoolmaster in his day ; and therefore had a 
 precedent to direct him ; and he answered — 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 29 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 “ Amyas, sirrah ! those who cannot obey will never be fit 
 to rule. If thou canst not keep discipline now, thou wilt never 
 make a company or a crew keep it when thou art grown. Dost 
 mind that, sirrah ?” 
 
 “Yes,” said Amyas. 
 
 “ Then go back to school this moment, sir, and be flogged.” 
 
 “ Very well,” said Amyas, considering that he had got off 
 very cheaply ; while Sir Richard, as soon as he was out of the 
 room, lay back in his chair, and laughed till he cried again. 
 
 So Amyas went back, and said that he was come to be 
 flogged ; whereon the old schoolmaster, whose pate had been 
 plastered meanwhile, wept tears of joy over the returning prodi- 
 gal, and then gave him such a switching as he did not forget 
 for eight-and-forty hours. 
 
 But that evening Sir Richard sent for old Vindex, who 
 entered, trembling, cap in hand ; and having primed him with 
 a cup of sack, said, — 
 
 “Well, Mr. Schoolmaster ! My godson has been somewhat 
 too much for you to-day. There are a couple of nobles to pay 
 the doctor.” 
 
 “ 0 Sir Richard, gratias tibi et Domino ! but the boy hits 
 shrewdly hard. Nevertheless I have repaid him in inverse kind, 
 and set him an imposition, to learn me one of Phsedrus his fables, 
 Sir Richard, if you do not think it too much.” 
 
 “ Which, then 1 The one about the man who brought up a 
 lion’s cub, and was eaten by him in play at last V 1 
 
 “Ah, Sir Richard! you have always a merry wit. But, 
 indeed, the boy is a brave boy, and a quick boy, Sir Richard, 
 but more forgetful than Lethe ; and — sapienti loquor — it were 
 well if he were away, for I shall never see him again without 
 my head aching. Moreover, he put my son Jack upon the fire 
 last Wednesday, as you would put a football, though he is a 
 year older, your worship, because, he said, he looked so like a 
 roasting pig, Sir Richard.” 
 
 “Alas, poor Jack !” 
 
 “ And what’s more, your worship, he is pugnax , bellicosus , 
 gladiator , a fire-eater and swash-buckler, beyond all Christian 
 measure ; a very sucking Entellus, Sir Richard, and will do to 
 death some of her majesty’s lieges ere long, if he be not wisely 
 curbed. It was but a month agone that he bemoaned himself, 
 I hear, as Alexander did, because there were no more worlds to 
 conquer, saying that it was a pity he was so strong ; for, now he 
 had thrashed all the Bideford lads, he had no sport left ; and 
 
30 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [chap. ii. 
 
 so, as my Jack tells me, last Tuesday week he fell upon a 
 young man of Barnstaple, Sir Richard, a hosier’s man, sir, and 
 plebeius (which I consider unfit for one of his blood), and, 
 moreover, a man full grown, and as big as either of us (Yindex 
 stood five feet four in his high-heeled shoes), and smote him 
 clean over the quay into the mud, because he said that there 
 was a prettier maid in Barnstaple (your worship will forgive 
 my speaking of such toys, to which my fidelity compels me) 
 than ever Bideford could show; and then offered to do the 
 same to any man who dare say that Mistress Rose Salterne, 
 his Worship the Mayor’s daughter, was not the fairest lass in 
 all Devon.” 
 
 “Eh ? Say that over again, my good sir,” quoth Sir 
 Richard, who had thus arrived, as we have seen, at the second 
 count of the indictment. “ I say, good sir, whence dost thou 
 hear all these pretty stories 1 ” 
 
 “ My son Jack, Sir Richard, my son Jack, ingenui vultus 
 puer” 
 
 “ But not, it seems, ingenui pudoris. Tell thee what, Mr. 
 Schoolmaster, no wonder if thy son gets put on the fire, if thou 
 employ him as a tale-bearer. But that is the way of all 
 pedagogues and their sons, by which they train the lads up 
 eavesdroppers and favour-curriers, and prepare them — sirrah, 
 do you hear 1 ? — for a much more lasting and hotter fire than that 
 which has scorched thy son Jack’s nether-tackle. Do you mark 
 me, sirT’ 
 
 The poor pedagogue, thus cunningly caught in his own trap, 
 stood trembling before his patron, who, as hereditary head of 
 the Bridge Trust, which endowed the school and the rest of the 
 Bideford charities, could, by a turn of his finger, sweep him 
 forth with the besom of destruction ; and he gasped with terror 
 as Sir Richard went on — 
 
 “ Therefore, mind you, Sir Schoolmaster, unless you shall 
 promise me never to hint word of what has passed between us 
 two, and that neither you nor yours shall henceforth carry tales 
 of my godson, or speak his name within a day’s march of Mistress 
 Salterne’s, look to it, if I do not ” 
 
 What was to be done in default was not spoken ; for down 
 went poor old Yindex on his knees : — 
 
 “ Oh, Sir Richard ! Excellentissime, immo prcecelsissime 
 Domine et Senator , I promise ! 0 sir, Miles et Eques of the 
 
 Garter, Bath, and Golden Fleece, consider your dignities, and 
 my old age — and my great family — nine children — oh, Sir 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 31 
 
 CHAV. II.] 
 
 Richard, and eight of them girls ! — Do eagles war with mice 1 
 says the ancient ! ” 
 
 “ Thy large family, eh ? How old is that fat-witted son of 
 thine V 
 
 “ Sixteen, Sir Richard ; but that is not his fault, indeed !” 
 
 “ Nay, I suppose he would be still sucking his thumb if he 
 dared — get up, man — get up and seat yourself.” 
 
 “ Heaven forbid ! ” murmured poor Vindex, with deep 
 humility. 
 
 “Why is not the rogue at Oxford, with a murrain on him, 
 instead of lurching about here carrying tales, and ogling the 
 maidens'?” 
 
 “ I had hoped, Sir Richard — and therefore I said it was not 
 his fault — but there was never a servitorship at Exeter open.” 
 
 “ Go to, man — go to ! I will speak to my brethren of the 
 Trust, and to Oxford he shall go this autumn, or else to Exeter 
 gaol, for a strong rogue, and a masterless man. Do you hear ?” 
 
 “Hear? — oh, sir, yes ! and return thanks. Jack shall go, 
 Sir Richard, doubt it not — I were mad else ; and, Sir Richard, 
 may I go too ?” 
 
 And therewith Vindex vanished, and Sir Richard enjoyed a 
 second mighty laugh, which brought in Lady Grenvile, who 
 possibly had overheard the whole ; for the first words she said 
 were — 
 
 “ I think, my sweet life, we had better go up to Burrough.” 
 
 So to Burrough they went ; and after much talk, and many 
 tears, matters were so concluded that Amyas Leigh found him- 
 self riding joyfully towards Plymouth, by the side of Sir Richard, 
 and being handed over to Captain Drake, vanished for three 
 years from the good town of Bideford. 
 
 And now he is returned in triumph, and the observed of all 
 observers ; and looks round and round, and sees all faces whom 
 he expects, except one ; and that the one which he had rather 
 see than his mother’s? He is not quite sure. Shame on himself! 
 
 And now the prayers being ended, the Rector ascends the 
 pulpit, and begins his sermon on the text : — 
 
 “ The heaven and the heaven of heavens are the Lord’s ; 
 the whole earth hath he given to the children of men deduc- 
 ing therefrom craftily, to the exceeding pleasure of his hearers, 
 the iniquity of the Spaniards in dispossessing the Indians, and 
 in arrogating to themselves the sovereignty of the tropic seas ; 
 the vanity of the Pope of Rome in pretending to bestow on 
 them the new countries of America; and the justice, valour, 
 
32 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [chap. ii. 
 
 and glory of Mr. Drake and his expedition, as testified by God’s 
 miraculous protection of him and his, both in the Straits of 
 Magellan, and in his battle with the Galleon ; and last, but 
 not least, upon the rock by Celebes, when the Pelican lay for 
 hours firmly fixed, and was floated off unhurt, as it were by 
 miracle, by a sudden shift of wind. 
 
 Ay, smile, reader, if you will; and, perhaps, there was 
 matter for a smile in that honest sermon, interlarded, as it was, 
 with scraps of Greek and Hebrew, which no one understood, 
 but every one expected as their right (for a preacher was nothing 
 then who could not prove himself “a good Latiner”); and 
 graced, moreover, by a somewhat pedantic and lengthy refuta- 
 tion from Scripture of Dan Horace’s cockney horror of the sea — 
 
 “ Illi robur et ses triplex,” etc., 
 
 and his infidel and ungodly slander against the “ impias rates,” 
 and their crews. 
 
 Smile, if you will : but those were days (and there were 
 never less superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in 
 the living God, and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a 
 matter of course, His help and providence, and calling, in the 
 matters of daily life, which we now in our covert Atheism term 
 “secular and carnal;” and when, the sermon ended, the Com- 
 munion Service had begun, and the bread and the wine were 
 given to those five mariners, every gallant gentleman who stood 
 near them (for the press would not allow of more) knelt and 
 received the elements with them as a thing of course, and then 
 rose to join with heart and voice not merely in the Gloria in 
 Excelsis , but in the Te Deum , which was the closing act of all. 
 And no sooner had the clerk given out the first verse of that 
 great hymn, than it was taken up by five hundred voices within 
 the church, in bass and tenor, treble and alto (for every one 
 could sing in those days, and the west country folk, as now, 
 were fuller than any of music), the chaunt was caught up by 
 the crowd outside, and rang away over roof and river, up to the 
 woods of Annery, and down to the marshes of the Taw, in wave 
 on wave of harmony. And as it died away, the shipping in the 
 river made answer with their thunder, and the crowd streamed 
 out again toward the Bridge Head, whither Sir Richard Gren- 
 vile, and Sir John Chichester, and Mr. Salterne, the Mayor, led 
 the five heroes of the day to await the pageant which had been 
 prepared in honour of them. And as they went by, there were 
 few in the crowd who did not press forward to shake them by 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 33 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 the hand, and not only them, but their parents and kinsfolk 
 who walked behind, till Mrs. Leigh, her stately joy quite broken 
 down at last, could only answer between her sobs, “ Go along, 
 good people — God a mercy, go along — and God send you all 
 such sons ! ” 
 
 “God give me back mine !” cried an old red-cloaked dame 
 in the crowd ; and then, struck by some hidden impulse, she 
 sprang forward, and catching hold of young Amyas’s sleeve — 
 
 “ Kind sir ! dear sir ! For Christ his sake answer a poor 
 old widow woman !” 
 
 “What is it, dame?” quoth Amyas, gently enough. 
 
 “ Did you see my son to the Indies ? — my son Salvation ?” 
 “Salvation?” replied he, with the air of one who recollected 
 the name. 
 
 “Yes, sure, Salvation Yeo, of Clovelly. A tall man and 
 black, and sweareth awfully in his talk, the Lord forgive him!” 
 Amyas recollected now. It was the name of the sailor who 
 had given him the wondrous horn five years ago. 
 
 “ My good dame,” said he, “ the Indies are a very large 
 place, and your son may be safe and sound enough there, with- 
 out my having seen him. I knew one Salvation Yeo. But he 
 
 must have come with . By the by, godfather, has Mr. 
 
 Oxenham come home ? ” 
 
 There was a dead silence for a moment among the gentlemen 
 round ; and then Sir Richard said solemnly, and in a low voice, 
 turning away from the old dame, — 
 
 “ Amyas, Mr. Oxenham has not come home ; and from the 
 day he sailed, no word has been heard of him and all his crew.” 
 “ Oh, Sir Richard ! and you kept me from sailing with him ! 
 Had I known this before I went into church, I had had one 
 mercy more to thank God for.” 
 
 “Thank Him all the more in thy life, my child!” whispered 
 his mother. 
 
 “And no news of him whatsoever?” 
 
 “ None ; but that the year after he sailed, a ship belonging 
 to Andrew Barker, of Bristol, took out of a Spanish caravel, 
 somewhere off the Honduras, his two brass guns ; but whence 
 they came the Spaniard knew not, having bought them at 
 Nombre de Dios.” 
 
 “Yes!” cried the old woman; “they brought home the 
 guns and never brought home my boy !” 
 
 “ They never saw your boy, mother,” said Sir Richard. 
 
 “ But I’ve seen him ! I saw him in a dream four years last 
 D 
 
34 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 Whitsuntide, as plain as I see you now, gentles, a-lying upon a 
 rock, calling for a drop of water to cool his tongue, like Dives to 
 the torment ! Oh ! dear me !” and the old dame wept bitterly. 
 
 “ There is a rose noble for you !” said Mrs. Leigh. 
 
 “And there another!” said Sir Richard. And in a few 
 minutes four or five gold coins were in her hand. But the old 
 dame did but look wonderingly at the gold a moment, and then — 
 
 “ Ah ! dear gentles, God’s blessing on you, and Mr. Cary’s 
 mighty good to me already ; but gold won’t buy back childer ! 
 0 ! young gentleman ! young gentleman ! make me a promise ; 
 if you want God’s blessing on you this day, bring me back my 
 boy, if you find him sailing on the seas ! Bring him back, and 
 an old widow’s blessing be on you ! ” 
 
 Amyas promised — what else could he do ? — and the group 
 hurried on ; but the lad’s heart was heavy in the midst of joy, 
 with the thought of John Oxenham, as he walked through the 
 churchyard, and down the short street which led between the 
 ancient school and still more ancient town-house, to the head of 
 the long bridge, across which the pageant, having arranged “east- 
 the- water,” was to defile, and then turn to the right along the 
 quay. 
 
 However, he was bound in all courtesy to turn his attention 
 now to the show which had been prepared in his honour • and 
 which was really well enough worth seeing and hearing. The 
 English were, in those days, an altogether dramatic people ) 
 ready and able, as in Bideford that day, to extemporise a pageant, 
 a masque, or any effort of the Thespian art short of the regular 
 drama. For they were, in the first place, even down to the 
 very poorest, a well-fed people, with fewer luxuries than we, 
 but more abundant necessaries ; and while beef, ale, and good 
 woollen clothes could be obtained in plenty, without overwork- 
 ing either body or soul, men had time to amuse themselves in 
 something more intellectual than mere toping in pot-houses. 
 Moreover, the half century after the Reformation in England 
 was one not merely of new intellectual freedom, but of immense 
 animal good spirits. After years of dumb confusion and cruel 
 persecution, a breathing time had come : Mary and the fires of 
 Smithfield had vanished together like a hideous dream, and the 
 mighty shout of joy which greeted Elizabeth’s entry into London, 
 was the key-note of fifty glorious years ; the expression of a 
 new-found strength and freedom, which vented itself at home in 
 drama and in song ; abroad in mighty conquests, achieved with 
 the laughing recklessness of boys at play. 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 35 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 So first, preceded by the waits, came along the bridge 
 toward the town-hall, a device prepared by the good rector, who, 
 standing by, acted as showman, and explained anxiously to the 
 bystanders the import of a certain “ allegory” wherein on a great 
 banner was depicted Queen Elizabeth herself, who, in ample ruff 
 and farthingale, a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, 
 stood triumphant upon the necks of two sufficiently abject per- 
 sonages, whose triple tiara and imperial crown proclaimed them 
 the Pope and the King of Spain ; while a label, issuing from 
 her royal mouth, informed the world that — 
 
 ‘ { By land and sea a virgin queen I reign, 
 
 And spurn to dust both Antichrist and Spain.” 
 
 Which, having been received with due applause, a well-bedizened 
 lad, having in his cap as a posy “ Loyalty,” stepped forward, 
 and delivered himself of the following verses : — 
 
 “ Oh, great Eliza ! oh, world-famous crew ! 
 
 Which shall I hail more blest, your queen or you ? 
 
 While without other either falls to wrack, 
 
 And light must eyes, or eyes their light must lack. 
 
 She without you, a diamond sunk in mine, 
 
 Its worth unprized, to self alone must shine ; 
 
 You without her, like hands bereft of head, 
 
 Like Ajax rage, by blindfold lust misled. 
 
 She light, you eyes ; she head, and you the hands, 
 
 In fair proportion knit by heavenly bands ; 
 
 Servants in queen, and queen in servants blest ; 
 
 Your only glory, how to serve her best , 
 
 And hers how best the adventurous might to guide, 
 
 Which knows no check of foemen, wind, or tide, 
 
 So fair Eliza’s spotless fame may fly 
 Triumphant round the globe, and shake th’ astounded sky ! ” 
 
 With which sufficiently bad verses Loyalty passed on, while my 
 Lady Bath hinted to Sir Richard, not without reason, that the 
 poet, in trying to exalt both parties, had very sufficiently snubbed 
 both, and intimated, that it was “ hardly safe for country wits 
 to attempt that euphuistic, antithetical, and delicately conceited 
 vein, whose proper fountain was in Whitehall.” However, on 
 went Loyalty, very well pleased with himself, and next, amid 
 much cheering, two great tinsel fish, a salmon, and a trout, 
 symbolical of the wealth of Torridge, waddled along, by means 
 of two human legs and a staff apiece, which protruded from the 
 fishes’ stomachs. They drew (or seemed to draw, for half the 
 ’prentices in the town were shoving it behind, and cheering on 
 the panting monarchs of the flood) a car wherein sate, amid 
 reeds and river-flags, three or four pretty girls in robes of grey- 
 
36 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [chap. ii. 
 
 '' blue spangled with gold, their heads wreathed one with a crown 
 of the sweet bog-myrtle, another with hops and white convol- 
 vulus, the thi’d with pale heather and golden fern. They 
 stopped opposite Amyas ; and she of the myrtle wreath, rising 
 and bowing to him and the company, began with a pretty blush 
 to say her say : — 
 
 “ Hither from my moorland home, 
 
 Nymph of Torridge, proud I come ; 
 
 Leaving fen and furzy brake, 
 
 Haunt of eft and spotted snake, 
 
 Where to fill mine urns I use, 
 
 Daily with Atlantic dews ; 
 
 While beside the reedy flood 
 Wild duck leads her paddling brood. 
 
 For this morn, as Phoebus gay 
 
 Chased through heaven the night mist grey, 
 
 Close beside me, prankt in pride, 
 
 Sister Tamar rose, and cried, 
 
 * Sluggard, up ! ’Tis holiday, 
 
 In the lowlands far away. 
 
 Hark ! how jocund Plymouth bells, 
 
 Wandering up through mazy dells, 
 
 Call me down, with smiles to hail, 
 
 My daring Drake’s returning sail.’ 
 
 * Thine alone V I answer’d. ‘ Nay; 
 
 Mine as well the joy to-day. 
 
 Heroes train’d on Northern wave, 
 
 To that Argo new I gave ; 
 
 Lent to thee, they roam’d the main ; 
 
 Give me, nymph, my sons again.’ 
 
 ‘ Go, they wait Thee,’ Tamar cried, 
 
 Southward bounding from my side. 
 
 Glad I rose, and at my call, 
 
 Came my Naiads, one and all. 
 
 Nursling of the mountain sky, 
 
 Leaving Dian’s choir on high, 
 
 Down her cataracts laughing loud, 
 
 Ockment leapt from crag and cloud, 
 
 Leading many a nymph, who dwells 
 Where wild deer drink in ferny dells ; 
 
 While the Oreads as they past 
 Peep’d from Druid Tors aghast. 
 
 By alder copses sliding slow, 
 
 Knee-deep in flowers came gentler Yeo 
 And paused awhile her locks to twine 
 With musky hops and white woodbine. 
 
 Then joined the silver-footed band, 
 
 Which circled down my golden sand, 
 
 By dappled park, and harbour shady, 
 
 Haunt of love-lorn knight and lady, 
 
 My thrice-renowned sons to greet, 
 
 With rustic song and pageant meet. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 37 
 
 For joy ! the girdled rohe around 
 Eliza’s name henceforth shall sound, 
 
 Whose venturous fleets to conquest start, 
 
 Where ended once the seaman’s chart, 
 
 While circling Sol his steps shall count 
 Henceforth from Thule’s western mount, 
 
 And lead new rulers round the seas 
 From furthest Cassiterides. 
 
 For found is now the golden tree, 
 
 Solv’d th’ Atlantic mystery, 
 
 Pluck’d the dragon -guarded fruit ; 
 
 While around the charmed root, 
 
 Wailing loud, the Hesperids 
 Watch their warder’s drooping lids. 
 
 Low he lies with grisly wound, 
 
 While the sorceress triple-crown’d 
 In her scarlet rohe doth shield him, 
 
 Till her cunning spells have heal’d him. 
 
 Ye, meanwhile, around the earth 
 Bear the prize of manful worth. 
 
 Yet a nobler meed than gold 
 Waits for Albion’s children bold ; 
 
 Great Eliza’s virgin hand 
 Welcomes you to Fairy-land, 
 
 While your native Naiads bring 
 Native wreaths as offering. 
 
 Simple though their show may be, 
 
 Britain’s worship in them see. 
 
 ’Tis not price, nor outward fairness, 
 
 Gives the victor’s palm its rareness 
 Simplest tokens can impart 
 Noble throb to noble heart : 
 
 Grsecia, prize thy parsley crown, 
 
 Boast thy laurel, Caesar’s town ; 
 
 Moorland myrtle still shall be 
 Badge of Devon’s Chivalry !” 
 
 And so ending, she took the wreath of fragrant gale from 
 her own head, and stooping from the car, placed it on the head 
 of Amyas Leigh, who made answer — 
 
 “ There is no place like home, my fair mistress ; and no 
 scent to my taste like this old home -scent in all the spice- 
 islands that I ever sailed by ! ” 
 
 “ Her song was not so bad,” said Sir Richard to Lady Bath 
 — “ but how came she to hear Plymouth bells at Tamar-head, 
 full fifty miles away ? That’s too much of a poet’s licence, is 
 it not V’ 
 
 “ The river nymphs, as daughters of Oceanus, and thus of 
 immortal parentage, are bound to possess organs of more than 
 mortal keenness ; but, as you say, the song was not so bad — 
 
38 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME. 
 
 [chap. ir. 
 
 erudite, as well as prettily conceived — and, saving for a certain 
 rustical simplicity and monosyllabic baldness, smacks rather of 
 the forests of Castaly than those of Torridge.” 
 
 So spake my Lady Bath ; whom Sir Richard wisely answered 
 not ; for she was a terribly learned member of the college of 
 critics, and disputed even with Sidney’s sister the chieftaincy 
 of the Euphuists ; so Sir Richard answered not, but answer 
 was made for him. 
 
 “ Since the whole choir of Muses, madam, have migrated to 
 the Court of Whitehall, no wonder if some dews of Parnassus 
 should fertilise at times even our Devon moors.” 
 
 The speaker was a tall and slim young man, some five-and- 
 twenty years old, of so rare and delicate a beauty, that it seemed 
 that some Greek statue, or rather one of those pensive and pious 
 knights whom the old German artists took delight to paint, had 
 condescended to tread awhile this work-day earth in living flesh 
 and blood. The forehead was very lofty and smooth, the eye- 
 brows thin and greatly arched (the envious gallants whispered 
 that something at least of their curve was due to art, as was 
 also the exceeding smoothness of those delicate cheeks). The 
 face was somewhat long and thin ; the nose aquiline ; and the 
 languid mouth showed, perhaps, too much of the ivory upper 
 teeth ; but the most striking point of the speaker’s appearance 
 was the extraordinary brilliancy of his complexion, which 
 shamed with its whiteness that of all fair ladies round, save 
 where open on each cheek a bright red spot gave warning, as 
 did the long thin neck and the taper hands, of sad possibilities, 
 perhaps not far off ; possibilities which all saw with an inward 
 sigh, except she whose doting glances, as well as her resemblance 
 to the fair youth, proclaimed her at once his mother, Mrs. Leigh 
 herself. 
 
 Master Frank, for he it was, was dressed in the very extra- 
 vagance of the fashion, — not so much from vanity, as from that 
 delicate instinct of self-respect which would keep some men 
 spruce and spotless from one year’s end to another upon a desert 
 island ; “ for,” as Frank used to say in his sententious way, 
 “ Mr. Frank Leigh at least beholds me, though none else be by ; 
 and why should I be more discourteous to him than I permit 
 others to be ? Be sure that he who is a Grobian in his own 
 company, will, sooner or later, become a Grobian in that of his 
 friends.” 
 
 So Mr. Frank was arrayed spotlessly ; but after the latest 
 fashion of Milan, not in trunk hose and slashed sleeves, nor in 
 
CHAP, il] THE FIRST TIME. 39 
 
 “ French standing collar, treble quadruple dsedalian ruff, or 
 stiff-necked rabato, that had more arches for pride, propped upi 
 with wire and timber, than five London Bridges but in a close- 
 fitting and perfectly plain suit of dove-colour, which set off 
 cunningly the delicate proportions of his figure, and the delicate 
 hue of his complexion, which was shaded from the sun by a 
 broad dove-coloured Spanish hat, with feather to match, looped 
 up over the right ear with a pearl brooch, and therein a crowned 
 E, supposed by the damsels of Bideford to stand for Elizabeth, 
 which was whispered to be the gift of some most illustrious 
 hand. This same looping up was not without good reason and 
 purpose prepense ; thereby all the world had full view of a 
 beautiful little ear, which looked as if it had been cut of cameo, 
 and made, as my Lady Rich once told him, “to hearken only 
 to the music of the spheres, or to the chants of cherubim/’ 
 Behind the said ear was stuck a fresh rose ; and the golden 
 hair was all drawn smoothly back and round to the left temple, 
 whence, tied with a pink ribbon in a great true lover’s knot, a 
 mighty love-lock, “ curled as it had been laid in press,” rolled 
 down low upon his bosom. Oh, Frank ! Frank ! have you 
 come out on purpose to break the hearts of all Bideford burghers’ 
 daughters ? And if so, did you expect to further that triumph 
 by dyeing that pretty little pointed beard (with shame I report 
 it) of a bright vermilion 1 But we know you better, Frank, and 
 so does your mother ; and you are but a masquerading angel 
 after all, in spite of your knots and your perfumes, and the gold 
 chain round your neck which a German princess gave you ; and 
 the emerald ring on your right fore-finger which Hatton gave 
 you ; and the pair of perfumed gloves in your left which 
 Sidney’s sister gave you; and the silver-hilted Toledo which 
 an Italian marquis gave you on a certain occasion of which you 
 never choose to talk, like a prudent and modest gentleman as 
 you are ; but of which the gossips talk, of course, all the more, 
 and whisper that you saved his life from bravoes — a dozen, at 
 the least ; and had that sword for your reward, and might have 
 had his beautiful sister’s hand beside, and I know not what else ; 
 but that you had so many lady-loves already that you were loth 
 to burden yourself with a fresh one. That, at least, we know 
 to be a lie, fair Frank ; for your heart is as pure this day as 
 when you knelt in your little crib at Burrough, and said — 
 
 “ Four corners to my bed ; 
 
 Four angels round my head ; 
 
 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 
 Bless the bed that I lie on.” 
 
40 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME. 
 
 [chap. ii. 
 
 And who could doubt it (if being pure themselves, they have 
 instinctive sympathy with what is pure), who ever looked into 
 those great deep blue eyes of yours, “ the black fringed curtains 
 of whose azure lids,” usually down-dropt as if in deepest thought, 
 you raise slowly, almost wonderingly each time you speak, as if 
 awakening from some fair dream whose home is rather in your 
 Platonical “ eternal world of supra-sensible forms,” than on that 
 work-day earth wherein you nevertheless acquit yourself so 
 well ? There — I must stop describing you, or I shall catch the 
 infection of your own Euphuism, and talk of you as you would 
 have talked of Sidney or of Spenser, or of that Swan of Avon, 
 
 whose song had just begun when yours but I will not 
 
 anticipate ; my Lady Bath is waiting to give you her rejoinder. 
 
 “ Ah, my silver-tongued scholar ! and are you, then, the 
 poet ? or have you been drawing on the inexhaustible bank of 
 your friend Raleigh, or my cousin Sidney? or has our new 
 Cygnet Immerito lent you a few unpublished leaves from some 
 fresh Shepherd’s Calendar?” 
 
 “ Had either, madam, of that cynosural triad been within 
 call of my most humble importunities, your ears had been de- 
 legate with far nobler melody.” 
 
 “ But not our eyes with fairer faces, eh ? Well, you have 
 chosen your nymphs, and had good store from whence to pick, I 
 doubt not. Few young Dulcinas round but must have been 
 glad to take service under so renowned a captain ?” 
 
 “ The only difficulty, gracious Countess, has been to know 
 where to fix the wandering choice of my bewildered eyes, where 
 all alike are fair, and all alike facund.” 
 
 “We understand,” said she, smiling; — 
 
 “ Dan Cupid, choosing ’midst his mother’s graces, 
 
 Himself more fair, made scorn of fairest faces.” 
 
 The young scholar capped her distich forthwith, and bowing 
 to her with a meaning look, 
 
 “ ‘ Then, Goddess, turn,’ he cried, ‘and veil thy light ; 
 
 Blinded by thine, what eyes can choose aright ?’ ” 
 
 “ Go, saucy sir,” said my lady, in high glee : “ the pageant 
 stays your supreme pleasure.” 
 
 And away went Mr. Frank as master of the revels, to bring 
 up the ’prentices’ pageant ; while, for his sake, the nymph of 
 Torridge was forgotten for awhile by all young dames, and most 
 young gentlemen : and his mother heaved a deep sigh, which 
 Lady Bath overhearing — 
 
 “What? in the dumps, good madam, while all are rejoic- 
 
Sir Philip Sidney. 
 

CHAP. II. j THE FIRST TIME. 41 
 
 ing in your joy*? Are you afraid that we court -dames shall 
 turn your young Adonis’ brain for him '?” 
 
 “ I do, indeed, fear lest your condescension should make 
 him forget that he is only a poor squire’s orphan.” 
 
 “ I will warrant him never to forget aught that he should 
 recollect,” said my Lady Bath. 
 
 And she spoke truly. But soon Frank’s silver voice was 
 heard calling out — 
 
 “Room there, good people, for the gallant ’prentice lads !” 
 And on they came, headed by a giant of buckram and 
 pasteboard armour, forth of whose stomach looked, like a 
 clock-face in a steeple, a human visage, to be greeted, as was the 
 fashion then, by a volley of quips and puns from high and low. 
 
 Young Mr. William Cary, of Clovelly, who was the wit of 
 those parts, opened the fire by asking him whether he were 
 Goliath, Gogmagog, or Grantorto in the romance ; for giants’ 
 names always began with a G. To which the giant’s stomach 
 answered pretty surlily, — 
 
 “ Mine don’t ; I begin with an 0.” 
 
 “Then thou criest out before thou art hurt, 0 cowardly 
 giant ! ” 
 
 “ Let me out, lads,” quoth the irascible visage, struggling 
 in his buckram prison, “and I soon show him whether I be a 
 coward.” 
 
 “Nay, if thou gettest out of thyself, thou wouldst be beside 
 thyself, and so wert but a mad giant.” 
 
 “ And that were pity,” said Lady Bath ; “ for by the 
 romances, giants have never overmuch wit to spare.” 
 
 “ Mercy, dear Lady !” said Frank, “ and let the giant begin 
 with an 0.” 
 
 “A ” 
 
 “ A false start, giant ! you were to begin with an 0.” 
 
 “I’ll make you end with an 0, Mr. William Cary !” roared 
 the testy tower of buckram. 
 
 “ And so I do, for I end with 4 Fico !’ ” 
 
 “ Be mollified, sweet giant,” said Frank, “ and spare the 
 rash youth of yon foolish Knight. Shall elephants catch flies, 
 or Hurlo-Thrumbo stain his club with brains of Dagonet the 
 jester 1 ? Be mollified; leave thy caverned grumblings, like Etna 
 when its windy wrath is past, and discourse eloquence from thy 
 central omphalos, like Pythoness ventriloquising.” 
 
 “ If you do begin laughing at me too, Mr. Leigh- 
 the giant’s clock-face, in a piteous tone. 
 
 said 
 
42 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [CHAP. II. 
 
 “ I laugh not. Art thou not Ordulf the earl, and I thy 
 humblest squire ? Speak up, my Lord ; your cousin, my Lady 
 Bath, commands you.” 
 
 And at last the giant began 
 
 “ A giant I, Earl Ordulf men me call, — 
 
 ’Gainst Paynim foes Devonia’s champion tall ; 
 
 In single fight six thousand Turks I slew ; 
 
 Pull’d off a lion’s head, and ate it too : 
 
 With one shrewd blow, to let Saint Edward in, 
 
 I smote the gates of Exeter in twain ; 
 
 Till aged grown, by angels warn’d in dream, 
 
 I built an abbey fair by Tavy stream. 
 
 But treacherous time hath tripped my glories up, 
 
 The staunch old hound must yield to stauncher pup ; 
 
 Here’s one so tall as I, and twice so bold, 
 
 Where I took only cuffs, takes good red gold. 
 
 From pole to pole resound his wondrous works, 
 
 Who slew more Spaniards than I ere slew Turks ; 
 
 I strode across the Tavy stream : but he 
 
 Strode round the world and back ; and here ’a be ! ” 
 
 “ Oh, bathos !” said Lady Bath, while the ’prentices shouted 
 applause. “ Is this hedgebantling to be fathered on you, Mr. 
 Frank?” 
 
 “ It is necessary, by all laws of the drama, Madam,” said 
 Frank, with a sly smile, “ that the speech and the speaker shall 
 fit each other. Pass on, Earl Ordulf ; a more learned worthy 
 waits.” 
 
 Whereon, up came a fresh member of the procession; namely, 
 no less a person than Yindex Brimblecombe, the ancient school- 
 master, with five-and-forty boys at his heels, who halting, pulled 
 out his spectacles, and thus signified his forgiveness of his 
 whilome broken head : — 
 
 “ That the world should have been circumnavigated, ladies 
 and gentles, were matter enough of jubilation to the student of 
 
 Herodotus and Plato, Plinius and ahem ! much more when 
 
 the circumnavigators are Britons ; more, again, when Dam- 
 nonians.” 
 
 “ Don’t swear, master,” said young Will Cary. 
 
 “Gulielme Cary, Gulielme Cary, hast thou forgotten thy ” 
 
 “ Whippings ? Never, old lad ! Go on ; but let not the 
 licence of the scholar overtop the modesty of the Christian.” 
 
 “ More again, as I said, when, incoloe , inhabitants of Devon; 
 but, most of all, men of Bideford School. Oh renowned school! 
 Oh schoolboys ennobled by fellowship with him ! Oh most 
 happy pedagogue, to whom it has befallen to have chastised a 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 circumnavigator, and, like another Chiron, trained another 
 Hercules : yet more than Hercules, for he placed his pillars on 
 
 the ocean shore, and then returned ; but my scholar’s voyage ” 
 
 “ Hark how the old fox is praising himself all along on the 
 sly,” said Cary. 
 
 “ Mr. William, Mr. William, peace ; — silentium , my grace- 
 less pupil. Urge the foaming steed, and strike terror into the 
 rapid stag, but meddle not with matters too high for thee.” 
 
 “ He has given you the dor now, sir,” said Lady Bath ; 
 “ let the old man say his say.” 
 
 “ I bring, therefore, as my small contribution to this day’s 
 
 feast ; first a Latin epigram, as thus ” 
 
 “ Latin ] Let us hear it forthwith,” cried my Lady 
 And the old pedant mouthed out, — 
 
 “ Torriguiam Tamaris ne spernat ; Leighius addet 
 Mox terras terris, inclyte Drake, tuis.” 
 
 “Neat, i’ faith, la!” Whereon all the rest, as in duty 
 bound, approved also. 
 
 “ This for the erudite : for vulgar ears the vernacular is 
 more consonant, sympathetic, instructive ; as thus : — - 
 
 “ Famed Argo ship, that noble chip, by doughty Jason’s steering, 
 
 Brought back to Greece the golden fleece, from Colchis home careering ; 
 But now her fame is put to shame, while new Devonian Argo, 
 
 Round earth doth run in wake of sun, and brings a wealthier cargo.” 
 
 “ Runs with a right fa-lal la,” observed Cary ; “ and would 
 go nobly to a fiddle and a big drum.” 
 
 “ Ye Spaniards, quake ! our doughty Drake a royal swan is tested, 
 
 On wing and oar, from shore to shore, the raging main who breasted : — 
 But never needs to chant his deeds, like swan that lies a-dying, 
 
 So far his name by trump of fame, around the sphere is flying.” 
 
 “ Hillo ho ! schoolmaster !” shouted a voice from behind ; 
 “move on, and make way for father Neptune!” Whereon a 
 whole storm of raillery fell upon the hapless pedagogue. 
 
 “We waited for the parson’s alligator, but we wain’t for 
 your’n.” 
 
 “Allegory! my children, allegory!” shrieked the man of 
 letters. 
 
 “ What do ye call he an alligator for ? He is but a poor 
 little starved evat !” 
 
 “ Out of the road, Old Custis ! March on, Don Palmado !” 
 These allusions to the usual instrument of torture in west 
 
44 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME [chap. II. 
 
 country schools made the old gentleman wince ; especially when 
 they were followed home by — 
 
 “ Who stole Admiral Grenvile’s brooms, because birch rods 
 were dear V' 
 
 But proudly he shook his bald head, as a bull shakes off the 
 flies, and returned to the charge once more. 
 
 “ Great Alexander, famed commander, wept and made a pother, 
 
 At conquering only half the world, but Drake had conquer’d t’other ; 
 And Hercules to brink of seas ! ” 
 
 “ Oh ! 55 
 
 And clapping both hands to the back of his neck, the school- 
 master began dancing frantically about, while his boys broke 
 out tittering, “ 0 ! the ochidore ! look to the blue ochidore ! 
 Who’ve put ochidore to maister’s poll ! ” 
 
 It was too true : neatly inserted, as he stooped forward, 
 between his neck and his collar, was a large live shore-crab, 
 holding on tight with both hands. 
 
 “ Gentles ! good Christians ! save me ! I am mare-rode ! 
 Incubo , vel ab incubo, opprimor ! Satanas has me by the poll! 
 Help ! he tears my jugular ; he wrings my neck, as he does to 
 Dr. Faustus in the play. Conjiteor ! — I confess! Satan, I 
 defy thee! Good people, I confess ! Ba<ravi£o/xcu ! The truth 
 will out. Mr. Francis Leigh wrote the epigram !” And diving 
 through the crowd, the pedagogue vanished howling, while 
 Father Neptune, crowned with sea-weeds, a trident in one hand, 
 and a live dog-fish in the other, swaggered up the street sur- 
 rounded by a tall bodyguard of mariners, and followed by a 
 great banner, on which was depicted a globe, with Drake’s ship 
 sailing thereon upside down, and overwritten— 
 
 “ See every man the Pelican, 
 
 Which round the world did go, 
 
 While her stern-post was uppermost, 
 
 And topmasts down below. 
 
 And by the way she lost a day, 
 
 Out of her log was stole : 
 
 But Neptune kind, with favouring wind, 
 
 Hath brought her safe and whole.” 
 
 “ Now, lads !” cried Neptune ; “ hand me my parable that’s 
 Writ for me, and here goeth ! ” And at the top of his bull-voice, 
 he began roaring, — 
 
 “ I am King Neptune bold, 
 
 The ruler of the seas; 
 
 I don’t understand much singing upon land, 
 
 But I hope what I say will please. 
 
CHAP. II.] 
 
 THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 45 
 
 “ Here be five Bideford men, 
 
 Which have sail’d the world around, 
 
 And I watch’d them well, as they all can tell, 
 
 And brought them home safe and sound. 
 
 “ For it is the men of Devon. 
 
 To see them I take delight. 
 
 Both to tack and to hull, and to heave and to pull, 
 
 And to prove themselves in fight. 
 
 “ Where be those Spaniards proud, 
 
 That make their valiant boasts ; 
 
 And think for to keep the poor Indians for their sheep, 
 And to farm my golden coasts ? 
 
 “ ’Twas the devil and the Pope gave them 
 My kingdom for their own : 
 
 But my nephew Francis Drake, he caused them to quake, 
 And he pick’d them to the bone. 
 
 1 ‘ For the sea my realm it is, 
 
 As good Queen Bess’s is the land ; 
 
 So freely come again, all merry Devon men, 
 
 And there’s old Neptune’s hand.” 
 
 “ Holla, boys ! holla ! Blow up, Triton, and bring forward 
 the freedom of the seas.” 
 
 Triton, roaring through a conch, brought forward a cockle- 
 shell full of salt-water, and delivered it solemnly to Amyas, 
 who, of course, put a noble into it, and returned it after Gren- 
 vile had done the same. 
 
 “ Holla, Dick Admiral !” cried Neptune, who was pretty far 
 gone in liquor ; “we knew thou hadst a right English heart 
 in thee, for all thou standest there as taut as a Don who 
 has swallowed his rapier.” 
 
 “ Grammercy, stop thy bellowing, fellow, and on ; for thou 
 smellest vilely of fish.” 
 
 “ Everything smells sweet in its right place. I’m going home.” 
 
 “ I thought thou wert there all along, being already half- 
 seas over,” said Cary. 
 
 “ Ay, right Upsee-Dutch ; and that’s more than thou ever 
 wilt be, thou ’long-shore stay-at-home. Why wast making 
 sheep’s eyes at Mistress Salterne here, while my pretty little 
 chuck of Burrough there was playing at shove-groat with Span- 
 ish doubloons 
 
 “Go to the devil, sirrah !” said Cary. Neptune had touched 
 on a sore subject ; and more cheeks than Amyas Leigh’s red- 
 dened at the hint. 
 
46 
 
 HOW AMYAS CAME HOME 
 
 [chap. ii. 
 
 “Amen, if Heaven so please !” and on rolled the monarch 
 of the se&s ; and so the pageant ended. 
 
 The moment Amyas had an opportunity, he asked his brother 
 Frank, somewhat peevishly, where Rose Salterne was. 
 
 “What ! the mayor’s daughter? With her uncle by Kilk- 
 hampton, I believe.” 
 
 Now cunning Master Frank, whose daily wish was to “seek 
 peace and ensue it,” told Amyas this, because he must needs 
 speak the truth : but he was purposed at the same time to speak 
 as little truth as he could, for fear of accidents ; and, therefore, 
 omitted to tell his brother how that he, two days before, had 
 entreated Rose Salterne herself to appear as the nymph of Tor- 
 ridge ; which honour she, who had no objection either to ex- 
 hibit her pretty face, to recite pretty poetry, or to be trained 
 thereto by the cynosure of North Devon, would have assented 
 willingly, but that her father stopped the pretty project by a 
 peremptory countermove, and packed her off, in spite of her tears, 
 to the said uncle on the Atlantic cliffs ; after which he went up 
 to Burrough, and laughed over the whole matter with Mrs. Leigh. 
 
 “ I am but a burgher, Mrs. Leigh, and you a lady of blood; 
 but I am too proud to let any man say that Simon Salterne 
 threw his daughter at your son’s head ; — no ; not if you were 
 an empress !” 
 
 “ And to speak truth, Mr. Salterne, there are young gallants 
 enough in the country quarrelling about her pretty face every 
 day, without making her a tourney-queen to tilt about.” 
 
 Which was very true ; for during the three years of Amyas’s 
 absence, Rose Salterne had grown into so beautiful a girl of 
 eighteen, that half North Devon was mad about the “ Rose of 
 Torrid ge,” as she was called ; and there was not a young gallant 
 for ten miles round (not to speak of her father’s clerks and 
 ’prentices, who moped about after her like so many Malvolios, 
 and treasured up the very parings of her nails) who would not 
 have gone to Jerusalem to win her. So that all along the vales 
 of Torridge and of Taw, and even away to Clovelly (for young 
 Mr. Cary was one of the sick), not a gay bachelor but was 
 frowning on his fellows, and vieing with them in the fashion of 
 his clothes, the set of his ruffs, the harness of his horse, the 
 carriage of his hawks, the pattern of his sword-hilt ; and those 
 were golden days for all tailors and armourers, from Exmoor to 
 Okehampton town. But of all those foolish young lads not one 
 would speak to the other, either out hunting, or at the archery 
 butts, or in the tilt-yard ; and my Lady Bath (who confessed 
 
THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 47 
 
 CHAP. II.] 
 
 that there was no use in bringing out her daughters where 
 Rose Salterne was in the way) prophesied in her classical 
 fashion that Rose’s wedding bid fair to be a very bridal of 
 Atalanta, and feast of the Lapithse ; and poor Mr. Will Cary 
 (who always blurted out the truth), when old Salterne once 
 asked him angrily in Bideford Market, “What a plague business 
 had he making sheep’s eyes at his daughter 1” broke out before 
 all bystanders, “ And what a plague business had you, old boy, 
 to throw such an apple of discord into our merry meetings here- 
 abouts h If you choose to have such a daughter, you must take 
 the consequences, and be hanged to you.” To which Mr. 
 Salterne answered with some truth, “ That she was none of his 
 choosing, nor of Mr. Cary’s neither.” And so the dor being 
 given, the belligerents parted laughing, but the war remained 
 in statu quo ; and not a week passed but, by mysterious hands, 
 some nosegay, or languishing sonnet, was conveyed into The 
 Rose’s chamber, all which she stowed away, with the simplicity 
 of a country girl, finding it mighty pleasant ; and took all com- 
 pliments quietly enough, probably because, on the authority of 
 her mirror, she considered them no more than her due. 
 
 And now, to add to the general confusion, home was come 
 young Amyas Leigh, more desperately in love with her than 
 ever. For, as is the way with sailors (who after all are the 
 truest lovers, as they are the finest fellows, God bless them, 
 upon earth), his lonely ship-watches had been spent in imprint- 
 ing on his imagination, month after month, year after year, 
 every feature and gesture and tone of the fair lass whom he had 
 left behind him ; and that all the more intensely, because, be- 
 side his mother, he had no one else to think of, and was as pure 
 as the day he was born, having been trained as many a brave 
 young man was then, to look upon profligacy not as a proof of 
 manhood, but as what the old Germans, and those Gortyneans 
 who crowned the offender with wool, knew it to be, a cowardly 
 and effeminate sin. 
 
48 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN 
 
 [chap. hi. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN OF WALES, AND HOW THEY HUNTED 
 WITH THE HOUNDS, AND YET RAN WITH THE DEER. 
 
 “I know that Deformed; he has been a vile thief this seven year; he goes 
 up and down like a gentleman : I remember his name .” — Much Ado 
 about Nothing. 
 
 Amyas slept that night a tired and yet a troubled sleep ; and 
 his mother and Frank, as they bent over his pillow, could see 
 that his brain was busy with many dreams. 
 
 And no wonder; for over and above all the excitement of the 
 day, the recollection of JohnOxenham had taken strange possession 
 of his mind; and all that evening, as he sat in the bay- windowed 
 room where he had seen him last, Amyas was recalling to him- 
 self every look and gesture of the lost adventurer, and wonder- 
 ing at himself for so doing, till he retired to sleep, only to renew 
 the fancy in his dreams. At last he found himself, he knew 
 not how, sailing westward ever, up the wake of the setting sun, 
 in chase of a tiny sail which was John Oxenham’s. Upon him 
 was a painful sense that, unless he came up with her in time, 
 something fearful would come to pass : but the ship would not 
 sail. All around floated the sargasso beds, clogging her bows 
 with their long snaky coils of weed ; and still he tried to sail, 
 and tried to fancy that he was sailing, till the sun went down 
 and all was utter dark. And then the moon arose, and in a 
 moment John Oxenham’s ship was close aboard ; her sails were 
 torn and fluttering ; the pitch was streaming from her sides ; 
 her bulwarks were rotting to decay. And what was that line 
 of dark objects dangling along the mainyard ? — A line of hanged 
 men ! And, horror of horrors, from the yard-arm close above 
 him, John Oxenham’s corpse looked down with grave-light eyes, 
 and beckoned and pointed, as if to show him his way, and strove 
 to speak, and could not, and pointed still, not forward, but back 
 along their course. And when Amyas looked back, behold, behind 
 him was the snow range of the Andes glittering in the moon, and 
 he knew that he was in the South Seas once more, and that all 
 America was between him and home. And still the corpse kept 
 pointing back, and back, and looking at him with yearning eyes 
 of agony, and lips which longed to tell some awful secret ; till 
 he sprang up, and woke with a shout of terror, and found him- 
 
CHAP. III.] OF WALES. 49 
 
 self lying in the little coved chamber in dear old Burrough, 
 with the grey autumn morning already stealing in. 
 
 Feverish and excited, he tried in vain to sleep again ; and 
 after an hour’s tossing, rose and dressed, and started for a bathe 
 on his beloved old pebble ridge. As he passed his mother’s 
 door, he could not help looking in. The dim light of morning 
 showed him the bed ; but its pillow had not been pressed that 
 night. His mother, in her long white night-dress, was kneeling 
 at the other end of the chamber at her prie-dieu, absorbed in 
 devotion. Gently he slipped in without a word, and knelt 
 down at her side. She turned, smiled, passed her arm around 
 him, and went on silently with her prayers. Why not 1 They 
 were for him, and he knew it, and prayed also ; and his prayers 
 were for her, and for poor lost John Oxenham, and all his 
 vanished crew. 
 
 At last she rose, and standing above him, parted the yellow 
 locks from off his brow, and looked long and lovingly into his 
 face. There was nothing to be spoken, for there was nothing 
 to be concealed between these two souls as clear as glass. Each 
 knew all which the other meant ; each knew that its own 
 thoughts were known. At last the mutual gaze was over ; she 
 stooped and kissed him on the brow, and was in the act to turn 
 away, as a tear dropped on his forehead. Her little bare feet 
 were peeping out from under her dress. He bent down and 
 kissed them again and again ; and then looking up, as if to ex- 
 cuse himself, — 
 
 “You have such pretty feet, mother !” 
 
 Instantly, with a woman’s instinct, she had hidden them. 
 She had been a beauty once, as I said ; and though her hair 
 was grey, and her roses had faded long ago, she was beautiful 
 still, in all eyes which saw deeper than the mere outward red 
 and white. 
 
 “Your dear father used to say so thirty years ago.” 
 
 “And I say so still: you always were beautiful; you are 
 beautiful now.” 
 
 “ What is that to you, silly boy 1 Will you play the lover 
 with an old mother ? Go and take your walk, and think of 
 younger ladies, if you can find any worthy of you.” 
 
 And so the son went forth, and the mother returned to her 
 prayers. 
 
 He walked down to the pebble ridge, where the surges of 
 the bay have defeated their own fury, by rolling up in the course 
 of ages a rampart of grey boulder-stones, some two miles long, 
 
50 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 as cunningly curved, and smoothed, and fitted, as if the work 
 had been done by human hands, which protects from the high 
 tides of spring and autumn a fertile sheet of smooth, alluvial 
 turf. Sniffing the keen salt air like a young sea-dog, he stripped 
 and plunged into the breakers, and dived, and rolled, and tossed 
 about the foam with stalwart arms, till he heard himself hailed 
 from off the shore, and looking up, saw standing on the top of 
 the rampart the tall figure of his cousin Eustace. 
 
 Amyas was half-disappointed at his coming ; for, love-lorn 
 rascal, he had been dreaming all the way thither of Rose Sal- 
 terne, and had no wish for a companion who would prevent his 
 dreaming of her all the way back. Nevertheless, not having 
 seen Eustace for three years, it was but civil to scramble out 
 and dress, while his cousin walked up and down upon the turf 
 inside. 
 
 Eustace Leigh was the son of a younger brother of Leigh of 
 Burrough, who had more or less cut himself off from his family, 
 and indeed from his countrymen, by remaining a Papist. True, 
 though born a Papist, he had not always been one ; for, like 
 many of the gentry, he had become a Protestant under Edward 
 the Sixth, and then a Papist again under Mary. But, to his 
 honour be it said, at that point he had stopped, having too 
 much honesty to turn Protestant a second time, as hundreds did, 
 at Elizabeth’s accession. So a Papist he remained, living out 
 of the way of the world in a great, rambling, dark house, still 
 called “ Chapel,” on the Atlantic cliffs, in Moorwinstow parish, 
 not far from Sir Richard Grenvile’s house of Stow. The penal 
 laws never troubled him ; for, in the first place, they never 
 troubled any one who did not make conspiracy and rebellion an 
 integral doctrine of his religious creed ; and next, they seldom 
 troubled even them, unless, fired with the glory of martyrdom, 
 they bullied the long-suffering of Elizabeth and her council into 
 giving them their deserts, and, like poor Father Southwell in 
 after years, insisted on being hanged, whether Burleigh liked or 
 not. Moreover, in such a no-man’s-land and end-of-all-the-earth 
 was that old house at Moorwinstow, that a dozen conspiracies 
 might have been hatched there without any one hearing of it ; 
 and Jesuits and seminary priests skulked in and out all the year 
 round, unquestioned though unblest; and found a sort of piquant 
 pleasure, like naughty boys who have crept into the store-closet, 
 in living in mysterious little dens in a lonely turret, and going 
 up through a trap-door to celebrate mass in a secret chamber in 
 the roof, where they were allowed by the powers that were to 
 
OF WALES. 
 
 51 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 play as much as they chose at persecuted saints, and preach 
 about hiding in dens and caves of the earth. For once, when 
 the zealous parson of Moorwinstow, having discovered (what 
 everybody knew already) the existence of “mass priests and 
 their idolatry” at Chapel House, made formal complaint thereof 
 to Sir Richard, and called on him, as the nearest justice of the 
 peace, to put in force the Act of the fourteenth of Elizabeth, 
 that worthy knight only rated him soundly for a fantastical 
 Puritan, and bade him mind his own business, if he wished not 
 to make the place too hot for him ; whereon (for the temporal 
 authorities, happily for the peace of England, kept in those days 
 a somewhat tight hand upon the spiritual ones) the worthy 
 parson subsided, — for, after all, Mr. Thomas Leigh paid his 
 tithes regularly enough, — and was content, as he expressed it, 
 to bow his head in the house of Rimmon like Naaman of old, 
 by eating Mr. Leigh’s dinners as often as he was invited, and 
 ignoring the vocation of old Father Francis, who sat opposite to 
 him, dressed as a layman, and calling himself the young gentle- 
 man’s pedagogue. 
 
 But the said birds of ill-omen had a very considerable lien 
 on the conscience of poor Mr. Thomas Leigh, the father of 
 Eustace, in the form of certain lands once belonging to the 
 Abbey of Hartland. He more than half believed that he should 
 be lost for holding those lands; but he did not believe it wholly, 
 and, therefore, he did not give them up ; which was the case, 
 as poor Mary Tudor found to her sorrow, with most of her 
 “ Catholic ” subjects, whose consciences, while they compelled 
 them to return to the only safe fold of Mother Church ( extrd, 
 quam nulla salus), by no means compelled them to disgorge the 
 wealth of which they had plundered that only hope of their sal- 
 vation. Most of them, however, like poor Tom Leigh, felt the 
 abbey rents burn in their purses ; and, as J ohn Bull generally 
 does in a difficulty, compromised the matter by a second folly 
 (as if two wrong things made one right one), and petted foreign 
 priests, and listened, or pretended not to listen, to their plot- 
 tings and their practisings ; and gave up a son here, and a son 
 there, as a sort of a sin-offering and scapegoat, to be carried off 
 to Douay, or Rheims, or Rome, and trained as a seminary priest; 
 in plain English, to be taught the science of villainy, on the 
 motive of superstition. One of such hapless scapegoats, and 
 children who had been cast into the fire to Moloch, was Eustace 
 Leigh, whom his father had sent, giving the fruit of his body 
 for the sin of his soul, to be made a liar of at Rheims. 
 
52 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 And a very fair liar he had become. Not that the lad was 
 a bad fellow at heart ; but he had been chosen by the harpies 
 at home, on account of his “peculiar vocation;” in plain English, 
 because the wily priests had seen in him certain capacities of 
 vague hysterical fear of the unseen (the religious sentiment, we 
 call it now-a-days), and with them that tendency to be a rogue, 
 w r hich superstitious men always have. He was now a tall, 
 handsome, light -complexioned man, with a huge upright fore- 
 head, a very small mouth, and a dry and set expression of face, 
 which was always trying to get free, or rather to seem free, and 
 indulge in smiles and dimples which were proper ; for one ought 
 to have Christian love, and if one had love one ought to be 
 cheerful, and when people were cheerful they smiled ; and there- 
 fore he would smile, and tried to do so; but his charity prepense 
 looked no more alluring than malice prepense would have done; 
 and, had he not been really a handsome fellow, many a woman 
 who raved about his sweetness would have likened his frankness 
 to that of a skeleton dancing in fetters, and his smiles to the 
 grins thereof. 
 
 He had returned to England about a month before, in obedi- 
 ence to the proclamation which had been set forth for that pur- 
 pose (and certainly not before it was needed), that, “whosoever 
 had children, wards, etc., in the parts beyond the seas, should 
 send in their names to the ordinary, and within four months 
 call them home again.” So Eustace was now staying with his 
 father at Chapel, having, nevertheless, his private matters to 
 transact on behalf of the virtuous society by whom he had been 
 brought up ; one of which private matters had brought him to 
 Bideford the night before. 
 
 So he sat down beside Amyas on the pebbles, and looked at 
 him all over out of the corners of his eyes very gently, as if he 
 did not wish to hurt him, or even the flies on his back ; and 
 Amyas faced right round, and looked him full in the face, with 
 the heartiest of smiles, and held out a lion’s paw, which Eustace 
 took rapturously, and a great shaking of hands ensued ; Amyas 
 gripping with a great round fist, and a quiet quiver thereof, as 
 much as to say, “ I am glad to see you ;” and Eustace pinching 
 hard with quite straight fingers, and sawing the air violently up 
 and down, as much as to say, “ Don't you see how glad I am to 
 see you V’ A very different greeting from the former. 
 
 “Hold hard, old lad,” said Amyas, “before you break my 
 elbow. And where do you come from V* 
 
 “ From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up 
 
OF WALES. 
 
 ciiap. in.] 
 
 53 
 
 and down in it,” said he, with a little smile and nod of mys- 
 terious self-importance. 
 
 “Like the devil, eh 1 ? Well, every man has his pattern. 
 How is my uncle ?” 
 
 Now, if there was one man on earth above another, of whom 
 Eustace Leigh stood in dread, it was his cousin Amyas. In the 
 first place, he knew Amyas could have killed him with a blow ; 
 and there are natures, who, instead of rejoicing in the strength 
 of men of greater prowess than themselves, look at such with 
 irritation, dread, at last, spite; expecting, perhaps, that the 
 stronger will do to them what they feel they might have done 
 in his place. Every one, perhaps, has the same envious, 
 cowardly devil haunting about his heart ; but the brave men, 
 though they be very sparrows, kick him out ; the cowards keep 
 him, and foster him ; and so did poor Eustace Leigh 
 
 Next, he could not help feeling that Amyas despised him. 
 They had not met for three years ; but before Amyas went, 
 Eustace never could argue with him ; simply because Amyas 
 treated him as beneath argument. No doubt he was often rude 
 and unfair enough ; but the whole mass of questions concerning 
 the unseen world, which the priests had stimulated in his 
 cousin’s mind into an unhealthy fungus crop, were to Amyas 
 simply, as he expressed it, “wind and moonshine;” and he 
 treated his cousin as a sort of harmless lunatic, and, as they 
 say in Devon, “half-baked.” And Eustace knew it; and 
 knew, too, that his cousin did him an injustice. “ He used 
 to undervalue me,” said he to himself ; “let us see whether he 
 does not find me a match for him now.” And then went off 
 into an agony of secret contrition for his self-seeking and his 
 forgetting that “ the glory of God, and not his own exaltation,” 
 was the object of his existence. 
 
 There, dear readers, Ex pede Herculem ; I cannot tire 
 myself or you (especially in this book) with any wire-drawn 
 soul-dissections. I have tried to hint to you two opposite sorts 
 of men. The one trying to be good with all his might and 
 main, according to certain approved methods and rules, which 
 he has got by heart ; and like a weak oarsman, feeling and 
 fingering his spiritual muscles over all day, to see if they are 
 growing. The other, not even knowing whether he is good or 
 not, but just doing the right thing without thinking about it, 
 as simply as a little child, because the Spirit of God is with 
 him. If you cannot see the great gulf fixed between the two, 
 I trust that you will discover it some day. 
 
54 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN 
 
 [CHAP. III. 
 
 But in justice be it said, all this came upon Eustace, not 
 because he was a Romanist, but because he was educated by 
 the Jesuits. Had he been saved from them, he might have 
 lived and died as simple and honest a gentleman as his brothers, 
 who turned out like true Englishmen (as did all the Romish 
 laity) to face the great Armada, and one of whom was fighting 
 at that very minute under St. Leger in Ireland, and as brave 
 and loyal a soldier as those Roman Catholics whose noble 
 blood has stained every Crimsean battle-field ; but his fate was 
 appointed otherwise ; and the Upas-shadow which has blighted 
 the whole Romish Church, blighted him also. 
 
 “Ah, my dearest cousin !” said Eustace, “ how disappointed 
 I was this morning at finding I had arrived just a day too late 
 to witness yonr triumph ! But I hastened to your home as 
 soon as I could, and learning from your mother that I should 
 find you here, hurried down to bid you welcome again to Devon.” 
 “Well, old lad, it does look very natural to see you. I 
 often used to think of you walking the deck o’ nights. Uncle 
 and the girls are all right, then 1 But is the old pony dead 
 yet ? And how’s Dick the smith, and Nancy ? Grown a fine 
 maid by now, I warrant. ’Slid, it seems half a life that I’ve 
 been away.” 
 
 “And you really thought of your poor cousin'? Be sure 
 that he, too, thought of you, and offered up nightly his weak 
 prayers for your safety (doubtless, not without avail) to those 
 
 saints, to whom would that you ” 
 
 “ Halt there, coz. If they are half as good fellows as you 
 and I take them for, they’ll help me without asking.” 
 
 “They have helped you, Amyas.” 
 
 “ Maybe ; I’d have done as much, I’m sure, for them, if 
 I’d been in their place.” 
 
 “ And do you not feel, then, that you owe a debt of grati- 
 tude to them ; and, above all, to her, whose intercessions have, 
 I doubt not, availed for your preservation ? Her, the star of 
 the sea, the all-compassionate guide of the mariner'?” 
 
 “ Humph !” said Amyas. “ Here’s Frank ; let him answer.” 
 And, as he spoke, up came Frank, and after due greetings, 
 sat down beside them on the ridge. 
 
 “ I say, brother, here’s Eustace trying already to convert 
 me ; and telling me that I owe all my luck to the Blessed 
 Virgin’s prayers for me.” 
 
 “ It may be so,” said Frank ; “ at least you owe it to the 
 prayers of that most pure and peerless virgin, by whose com- 
 
OF WALES. 
 
 55 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 mands you sailed ; the sweet incense of whose orisons have 
 gone up for you daily, and for whose sake you were preserved 
 from flood and foe, ^liat you might spread the fame and advance 
 the power of the spotless cliampioness of truth, and right, and 
 freedom, — Elizabeth, your queen.” 
 
 Amyas answered this rhapsody, which would have been then 
 both fashionable and sincere, by a loyal chuckle. Eustace smiled 
 meekly : but answered somewhat venomously nevertheless, 
 
 “ I, at least, am certain that I speak the truth, when I call 
 my patroness a virgin undefiled.” 
 
 Both the brothers’ brows clouded at once. Amyas, as he 
 lay on his back on the pebbles, said quietly to the gulls over 
 his head, 
 
 “ I wonder what the Frenchman, whose head I cut off at 
 the Azores, thinks by now about all that.” 
 
 “Cut off a Frenchman’s head ?” said Frank. 
 
 “Yes, faith ; and so fleshed my maiden sword. I’ll tell 
 you. It was in some tavern ; I and George Drake had gone 
 in, and there sat this Frenchman, with his sword on the table, 
 ready for a quarrel (I found afterwards he was a noted bully), 
 and begins with us loudly enough about this and that ; but, 
 after awhile, by the instigation of the devil, what does he vent 
 but a dozen slanders against her majesty’s honour, one atop of 
 the other. I was ashamed to hear them, and I should be more 
 ashamed to repeat them.” 
 
 “I have heard enough of such,” said Frank. “They come 
 mostly through lewd rascals about the French ambassador, who 
 have been bred (God help them) among the filthy vices of that 
 Medicean Court, in which the Queen of Scots had her schooling ; 
 and can only perceive in a virtuous freedom, a cloke for licen- 
 tiousness like their own. Let the curs bark ; Honi soit qui 
 mat y pense is our motto, and shall be for ever.” 
 
 “ But I didn’t let the cur bark ; for I took him by the ears, 
 to show him out into the street. Whereon he got to his sword, 
 and I to mine ; and a very near chance I had of never bathing 
 on the pebble-ridge more ; for the fellow did not fight with 
 edge and buckler, like a Christian, but had some newfangled 
 French devil’s device of scryming and foining with his point, 
 ha’ing and stamping, and tracing at me, that I expected to be 
 full of eyelet holes ere I could close with him.” 
 
 “Thank God that you are safe, then!” said Frank. “I 
 know that play well enough, and dangerous enough it is.” 
 
 “ Of course you know it ; but I didn’t, more’s the pity.” 
 
56 OF TWO GENTLEMEN [CHAP. nr. 
 
 “Well, I’ll teach it thee, lad, as well as Rowland Yorke 
 himself, 
 
 ‘ Thy fincture, carricade, and sly passata, 
 
 Thy stramazon, and resolute stoccata, 
 
 Wiping maudritta, closing^enihrocata, 
 
 And all the cant of the honourable fencing mystery.’” 
 
 “ Rowland Yorke Who’s he, then 1” 
 
 “ A very roystering rascal, who is making good profit in 
 London just now hy teaching this very art of fence ; and is as 
 likely to have his mortal thread ‘dipt in a tavern brawl, as thy 
 Frenchman. But how did you escape his pinking iron ?” 
 
 “ How 1 Had it through my left arm before I could look 
 round ; and at that I got mad, and leapt upon him, and caught 
 him by the wrist, and then had a fair side-blow ; and, as for- 
 tune would have it, off tumbled his head on to the table, and 
 there was an end of his slanders.” 
 
 “So perish all her enemies!” said Frank; and Eustace, 
 who had been trying not to listen, rose and said, 
 
 “ I trust that you do not number me among them ?” 
 
 “As you speak, I do, coz,” said Frank. “But for your 
 own sake, let me advise you to put faith in the true report of 
 those who have daily experience of their mistress’s excellent 
 virtue, as they have of the sun’s shining, and of the earth’s 
 bringing forth fruit, and not in the tattle of a few cowardly 
 back-stair rogues, who wish to curry favour with the Guises. 
 Come, we will say no more. Walk round with us by Apple- 
 dore, and then home to breakfast.” 
 
 But Eustace declined, having immediate business, he said, 
 in Northam town, and then in Bideford ; and so left them to 
 lounge for another half-hour on the beach, and then walk across 
 the smooth sheet of turf to the little white fishing village, which 
 stands some two miles above the bar, at the meeting of the 
 Torridge and the Taw. 
 
 Now it came to pass, that Eustace Leigh, as we have seen, 
 told his cousins that he was going to Northam : but he did not 
 tell them that his point was really the same as their own, 
 namely, Appledore ; and, therefore, after having satisfied his 
 conscience by going as far as the very nearest house in Northam 
 village, he struck away sharp to the left across the fields, 
 repeating I know not what to the Blessed Virgin all the way ; 
 whereby he went several miles out of his road ; and also, as is 
 the wont of crooked spirits, Jesuits especially (as three centuries 
 sufficiently testify), only outwitted himself. For his cousins 
 
Appledore. 
 
OF WALES. 
 
 57 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 going merrily, like honest men, along the straight road across 
 the turf, airived in Appledore, opposite the little “ Mariner’s 
 Rest ” Inn, just in time to see what Eustace had taken so 
 much trouble to hide from them, namely, four of Mr. Thomas 
 Leigh’s horses standing at the door, held by his groom, saddles 
 and mail-bags on back, and mounting three of them, Eustace 
 Leigh and two strange gentlemen. 
 
 “ There’s one lie already this morning,” growled Amyas ; 
 “he told us he was going to Northam.” 
 
 “ And we do not know that he has not been there,” blandly 
 suggested Frank. 
 
 “ Why, you are as bad a Jesuit as he, to help him out with 
 such a fetch.” 
 
 “ He may have changed his mind.” 
 
 “ Bless your pure imagination, my sweet boy,” said Amyas, 
 laying his great hand on Frank’s head, and mimicking his 
 mother’s manner. “ I say, dear Frank, let’s step into this 
 shop and buy a pennyworth of whipcord.” 
 
 “What do you want with whipcord, man'?” 
 
 “ To spin my top, to be sure.” 
 
 “ Top ? how long hast had a top ?” 
 
 “ I’ll buy one, then, and save my conscience ; but the 
 upshot of this sport I must see. Why may not I have an 
 excuse ready made as well as Master Eustace '?” 
 
 So saying, he pulled Frank into the little shop, unobserved 
 by the party at the inn-door. 
 
 “ What strange cattle has he been importing now 1 Look 
 at that three-legged fellow, trying to get aloft on the wrong 
 side. How he claws at his horse’s ribs, like a cat scratching 
 an elder stem !” 
 
 The three-legged man was a tall, meek-looking person, who 
 had bedizened himself with gorgeous garments, a great feather, 
 and a sword so long and broad, that it differed little in size 
 from the very thin and stiff shanks between which it wandered 
 uncomfortably. 
 
 “ Young David in Saul’s weapons,” said Frank. “ He had 
 better not go in them, .for he certainly has not proved them.” 
 
 “ Look, if his third leg is not turned into a tail ! Why 
 does not some one in charity haul in half-a-yard of his belt for 
 him V’ 
 
 It was too true ; the sword, after being kicked out three or 
 four times from its uncomfortable post between his legs, had 
 returned unconquered ; and the hilt getting a little too fat back 
 
58 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 by reason of the too great length of the belt, the weapon took 
 up its post triumphantly behind, standing out point in air, a 
 tail contest, amid the tittering of the ostlers, and the cheers of 
 the sailors. 
 
 At last the poor man, by dint of a chair, was mounted 
 safely, while his fellow-stranger, a burly, coarse-looking man, 
 equally gay, and rather more handy, made so fierce a rush at 
 his saddle, that, like “vaulting ambition who o’erleaps his selle,” 
 he “fell on t’other side:” or would have fallen, had he not 
 been brought up short by the shoulders of the ostler at his off- 
 stirrup. In which shock off came hat and feather. 
 
 “ Pardie, the bulldog-faced one is a fighting man. Dost 
 see, Frank 1 ? he has had his head broken.” 
 
 “ That scar came not, my son, but by a pair of most 
 Catholic and apostolic scissors. My gentle buzzard, that is a 
 priest’s tonsure.” 
 
 “ Hang the dog ! 0, that the sailors may but see it, and 
 put him over the quay head. I’ve a half mind to go and do 
 it myself.” 
 
 “My dear Amyas,” said Frank, laying two fingers on his 
 arm, “these men, whosoever they are, are the guests of our 
 uncle, and therefore the guests of our family. Ham gained 
 little by publishing Noah’s shame ; neither shall we, by pub- 
 lishing our uncle’s.” 
 
 “ Murrain on you, old Franky, you never let a man speak 
 his mind, and shame the devil.” 
 
 “ I liave lived long enough in courts, old Amyas, without a 
 murrain on you, to have found out first, that it is not so easy 
 to shame the devil ; and secondly, that it is better to outwit 
 him ; and the only way to do that, sweet chuck, is very often 
 not to speak your mind at all. We will go down and visit 
 them at Chapel in a day or two, and see if we cannot serve 
 these reynards as the badger did the fox, when he found him 
 in his hole, and could not get him out by evil savours.” 
 
 “ How then ?” 
 
 “ Stuck a sweet nosegay in the door, which turned Reynard’s 
 stomach at once ; and so overcame evil with good.” 
 
 “Well, thou art too good for this world, that’s certain ; so 
 we will go home to breakfast. Those rogues are out of sight 
 by now.” 
 
 Nevertheless, Amyas was not proof against the temptation 
 of going over to the inn-door, and asking who were the gentle- 
 men who went with Mr. Leigh. 
 
OF WALES. 
 
 59 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 “Gentlemen of Wales,” said the ostler, “who came last 
 night in a pinnace from Milford-haven, and their names, Mr. 
 Morgan Evans and Mr. Evan Morgans.” 
 
 “ Mr. Judas Iscariot and Mr. Iscariot Judas,” said Amyas 
 between his teeth, and then observed aloud, “ that the Welsh 
 gentlemen seemed rather poor horsemen.” 
 
 “So I said to Mr. Leigh’s groom, your worship. But he 
 says that those parts be so uncommon rough and mountainous, 
 that the poor gentlemen, you see, being enforced to hunt on 
 foot, have no such opportunities as young gentlemen hereabout, 
 like your worship ; whom God preserve, and send a virtuous 
 lady, and one worthy of you.” 
 
 “ Thou hast a villanously glib tongue, fellow !” said Amyas, 
 who was thoroughly out of humour ; •“ and a sneaking down 
 visage too, when I come to look at you. I doubt but you are 
 a Papist too, I do !” 
 
 “Well, sir ! and what if I am ! I trust I don’t break the 
 queen’s laws by that. If I don’t attend Northam church, I 
 pay my month’s shilling for the use of the poor, as the Act 
 directs ; and beyond that, neither you nor any man dare 
 demand of me.” 
 
 “ Dare ! Act directs ! You rascally lawyer, you ! and whence 
 does an ostler like you get your shilling to pay withal ? Answer 
 me.” The examinate found it so difficult to answer the ques- 
 tion, that he suddenly became afflicted with deafness. 
 
 “J)o you hear?” roared Amyas, catching at him with his 
 lion’s .paw. 
 
 “Yes, missus; anon, anon, missus!” quoth he to an 
 imaginary landlady inside, and twisting under Amyas’s hand 
 like an eel, vanished into the house, while Frank got the hot- 
 headed youth away. 
 
 “ What a plague is one to do, then ? That fellow was a 
 Papist spy ! ” 
 
 “ Of course he was !” said Frank. 
 
 “ Then, what is one to do, if the whole country is full of 
 them ?” 
 
 “Not to make fools of ourselves about them ; and so leave 
 them to make fools of themselves.” 
 
 “ That’s all very fine : but— well, I shall remember the 
 villain’s face if I see him again.” 
 
 “ There is no harm in that,” said Frank. 
 
 “Glad you think so.” 
 
 “ Don’t quarrel with me, Amyas, the first day.” 
 
60 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN 
 
 [CHAP. in. 
 
 “ Quarrel with thee, my darling old fellow ! I had sooner 
 kiss the dust off thy feet, if I were worthy of it. So now away 
 home ; my inside cries cupboard.” 
 
 In the meanwhile Messrs. Evans and Morgans were riding 
 away, as fast as the rough by-lanes would let them, along the 
 fresh coast of the bay, steering carefully clear of Northam town 
 oil the one hand, and on the other, of Portledge, where dwelt 
 that most Protestant justice of the peace, Mr. Coffin. And it 
 was well for them that neither Amyas Leigh, or indeed any 
 other loyal Englishman, was by when they entered, as they 
 shortly did, the lonely woods which stretch along the southern 
 wall of the bay. For there Eustace Leigh pulled up short ; and 
 both he and his groom, leaping from their horses, knelt down 
 humbly in the wet grass, and implored the blessing of the two 
 valiant gentlemen of Wales, who, having graciously bestowed 
 it with three fingers apiece, became thenceforth no longer 
 Morgan Evans and Evan Morgans, Welshmen and gentle- 
 men ; but Father Parsons and Father Campian, Jesuits, and 
 gentlemen in no sense in which that word is applied in this 
 book. 
 
 After a few minutes, the party were again in motion, am- 
 bling steadily and cautiously along the high table-land, towards 
 Moorwinstow in the west ; while beneath them on the right, at 
 the mouth of rich-wooded glens, opened vistas of the bright blue 
 bay, and beyond it the sandhills of Braunton, and the ragged 
 rocks of Morte ; while far away to the north and west the lonely 
 isle of Lundy hung like a soft grey cloud. 
 
 But they were not destined to reach their point as peace- 
 ably as they could have wished. For just as they got opposite 
 Clovelly Dike, the huge old Roman encampment which stands 
 about mid-way in their journey, they heard a halloo from the 
 valley below, answered by a fainter one far ahead. At which, 
 like a couple of rogues (as indeed they were), Father Campian 
 and Father Parsons looked at each other, and then both stared 
 round at the wild, desolate, open pasture (for the country was 
 then all unenclosed), and the great dark furze-grown banks above 
 their heads ; and Campian remarked gently to Parsons, that this 
 was a very dreary spot, and likely enough for robbers. 
 
 “A likelier spot for us, Father,” said Eustace, punning. 
 “ The old Romans knew what they were about when they put 
 their legions up aloft here to overlook land and sea for miles 
 away ; and we may thank them some day for their leavings. 
 The banks are all sound ; there is plenty of good water inside ; 
 
OF WALES. 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 61 
 
 and ” (added he in Latin), “ in case our Spanish friends — you 
 understand ? ” 
 
 “ Pauca verba , my son !” said Campian : but as he spoke, 
 up from the ditch close beside him, as if rising out of the earth, 
 burst through the furze-bushes an armed cavalier. 
 
 “Pardon, gentlemen!” shouted he, as the Jesuit and his 
 horse recoiled against the groom. “ Stand, for your lives !” 
 
 “ Mater coelorum /” moaned Campian : while Parsons, who, 
 as all the world knows, was a blustering bully enough (at least 
 with his tongue), asked : “ What a murrain right had he to 
 stop honest folks on the queen’s highway?” confirming the 
 same with a mighty oath, which he set down as peccatum veniale , 
 on account of the sudden necessity ; nay, indeed fraus pia , as 
 proper to support the character of that valiant gentleman of 
 Wales, Mr. Evan Morgans. But the horseman, taking no notice 
 of his hint, dashed across the nose of Eustace Leigh’s horse, 
 with a “ Hillo, old lad ! where ridest so early ?” and peering 
 down for a moment into the ruts of the narrow track-way, 
 struck spurs into his horse, shouting, “ A fresh slot ! right away 
 for Hartland ! Forward gentlemen all ! follow, follow, follow !” 
 
 “ Who is this roysterer ?” asked Parsons, loftily. 
 
 “Will Cary, of Clovelly ; an awful heretic : and here come 
 more behind.” 
 
 And as he spoke four or five more mounted gallants plunged 
 in and out of the great dikes, and thundered on behind the party ; 
 whose horses, quite understanding what game was up, burst into 
 full gallop, neighing and squealing ; and in another minute the 
 hapless Jesuits were hurling along over moor and moss after a 
 “ hart of grease.” 
 
 Parsons, who, though a vulgar bully, was no coward, sup- 
 ported the character of Mr. Evan Morgans well enough ; and 
 he would have really enjoyed himself, had he not been in agonies 
 of fear lest those precious saddle-bags in front of him should 
 break from their lashings, and rolling to the earth, expose to 
 the hoofs of heretic horses, perhaps to the gaze of heretic eyes, 
 such a cargo of bulls, dispensations, secret correspondences, 
 seditious tracts, and so forth, that at the very thought of their 
 being seen, his head felt loose upon his shoulders. But the 
 future martyr behind him, Mr. Morgan Evans, gave himself up 
 at once to abject despair, and as he bumped and rolled along, 
 sought vainly for comfort in professional ejaculations in the 
 Latin tongue. 
 
 “ Mater intemerata ! Eripe, me e — Ugh ! I am down ! 
 
62 
 
 OF TWO GENTLEMEN 
 
 [chap. III. 
 
 Adhcesit pavimento venter ! — No ! I am not ! Et dilectum tuum 
 e potentate canis — Ah ! Audisti me inter coimua unicomium } 
 Put this, too, down in — ugh ! — -thy account in favour of my 
 poor — oh, sharpness of this saddle ! Oh whither, barbarous 
 islanders ! ” 
 
 Now riding on his quarter, not in the rough track-way like 
 a cockney, but through the soft heather like a sportsman, was a 
 very gallant knight whom we all know well by this time, Richard 
 Grenvile by name ; who had made Mr. Cary and the rest his 
 guests the night before, and then ridden out with them at five 
 o’clock that morning, after the wholesome early ways of the 
 time, to rouse a well-known stag in the glens at Buckish, by 
 help of Mr. Coffin’s hounds from Portledge. Who being as 
 good a Latiner as Campian’s self, and overhearing both the 
 scraps of psalm and the “ barbarous islanders,” pushed his horse 
 alongside of Mr. Eustace Leigh, and at the first check said, with 
 two low bows towards the two strangers — 
 
 “ I hope Mr. Leigh will do me the honour of introducing 
 me to his guests. I should be sorry, and Mr. Cary also, that 
 any gentle strangers should become neighbours of ours, even for 
 a day, without our knowing who they are who honour our 
 western Thule with a visit ; and showing them ourselves all 
 due requital for the compliment of their presence.” 
 
 After which, the only thing which poor Eustace could do 
 (especially as it was spoken loud enough for all bystanders), 
 was to introduce in due form Mr. Evan Morgans and Mr. 
 Morgan Evans, who, hearing the name, and what was worse, 
 seeing the terrible face with its quiet searching eye, felt like a 
 brace of partridge-poults cowering in the stubble, with a hawk 
 hanging ten feet over their heads. 
 
 “ Gentlemen,” said Sir Richard blandly, cap in hand ; “ I 
 fear that your mails must have been somewhat in your way in 
 this unexpected gallop. If you will permit my groom, who is 
 behind, to disencumber you of them and carry them to Chapel, 
 you will both confer an honour on me, and be enabled yourselves 
 to see the mort more pleasantly.” 
 
 A twinkle of fun, in spite of all his efforts, played about 
 good Sir Richard’s eye as he gave this searching hint. The two 
 Welsh gentlemen stammered out clumsy thanks ; and pleading 
 great haste and fatigue from a long journey, contrived to fall 
 to the rear and vanish with their guides, as soon as the slot had 
 been recovered. 
 
 “ Will !” said Sir Richard, pushing alongside of young Cary. 
 
OF WALES. 
 
 63 
 
 CHAP. III.] 
 
 “ Your worship ?” 
 
 “Jesuits, Will !” 
 
 “ May the father of lies fly away with them over the nearest 
 cliff!” 
 
 “ He will not do that while this Irish trouble is about. 
 Those fellows are come to practise here for Saunders and 
 Desmond.” 
 
 “ Perhaps they have a consecrated banner in their bag, the 
 scoundrels ! Shall I and young Coffin on and stop them ? 
 Hard if the honest men may not rob the thieves once in a way.” 
 “No; give the devil rope, and he will hang himself. Keep 
 thy tongue at home, and thine eyes too, Will.” 
 
 “ How then V’ 
 
 “ Let Clovelly beach be watched night and day like any 
 mousehole. No one can land round Harty Point with these 
 south-westers. Stop every fellow who has the ghost of an Irish 
 brogue, come he in or go he out, and send him over to me.” 
 
 “ Some one should guard Bude-haven, sir.” 
 
 “Leave that to me. Now then, forward, gentlemen all, or 
 the stag will take the sea at the Abbey.” 
 
 And on they crashed down the Hartland glens, through the 
 oak-scrub and the great crown-ferns ; and the baying of the 
 slow-hound and the tantaras of the horn died away farther and 
 fainter toward the blue Atlantic, while the conspirators, with 
 lightened hearts, pricked fast across Bursdon upon their evil 
 errand. But Eustace Leigh had other thoughts and other cares 
 than the safety of his father’s two mysterious guests, important 
 as that was in his eyes ; for he was one of the many who had 
 drunk in sweet poison (though in his case it could hardly be called 
 sweet) from the magic glances of the Rose of Torridge. He 
 had seen her in the town, and for the first time in his life fallen 
 utterly in love ; and now that she had come down close to his 
 father’s house, he looked on her as a lamb fallen unawares into 
 the jaws of the greedy wolf, which he felt himself to be. For 
 Eustace’s love had little or nothing of chivalry, self-sacrifice, or 
 purity in it; those were virtues which were not taught at 
 Rheims. Careful as the Jesuits were over the practical morality 
 of their pupils, this severe restraint had little effect in producing 
 real habits of self-control. What little Eustace had learnt of 
 women from them, was as base and vulgar as the rest of their 
 teaching. What could it be else, if instilled by men educated 
 in the schools of Italy and France, in the age which produced 
 the foul novels of Cinthio and Bandello, and compelled Rabelais 
 
64 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [chap. iv. 
 
 in order to escape the rack and stake, to hide the light of his 
 great wisdom, not beneath a bushel, but beneath a dunghill ; 
 the age in which the Romish Church had made marriage a 
 legalised tyranny, and the laity, by a natural and pardonable 
 revulsion, had exalted adultery into a virtue and a science 1 ? 
 That all love was lust ; that all women had their price ; that 
 profligacy, though an ecclesiastical sin, was so pardonable, if 
 not necessary, as to be hardly a moral sin, were notions which 
 Eustace must needs have gathered from the hints of his pre- 
 ceptors ; for their written works bear to this day fullest and 
 foulest testimony that such was their opinion ; and that their 
 conception of the relation of the sexes was really not a whit 
 higher than that of the profligate laity who confessed to them. 
 He longed to marry Rose Salterne, with a wild selfish fury ; 
 but only that he might be able to claim her as his own property, 
 and keep all others from her. Of her as a co-equal and en- 
 nobling helpmate ; as one in whose honour, glory, growth of heart 
 and soul, his own were inextricably wrapt up, he had never 
 dreamed. Marriage would prevent God from being angry with 
 that, with which otherwise He might be angry ; and therefore 
 the sanction of the Church was the more “ probable and safe ” 
 course. But as yet his suit was in very embryo. He could not 
 even tell whether Rose knew of his love ; and he wasted miser- 
 able hours in maddening thoughts, and tost all night upon his 
 sleepless bed, and rose next morning fierce and pale, to invent 
 fresh excuses for going over to her uncle’s house, and lingering 
 about the fruit which he dared not snatch. 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF BEING CROST IN LOVE. 
 
 “ T could not love thee, dear, so much, 
 
 Loved I not honour more.” — Lovelace. 
 
 And what all this while has become of the fair breaker of so 
 many hearts, to whom I have not yet even introduced my 
 readers h 
 
 She was sitting in the little farm-house beside the mill, 
 buried in the green depths of the Valley of Combe, half-way 
 between Stow and Chapel, sulking as much as her sweet nature 
 would let her, at being thus shut out from all the grand doings 
 at Bideford, and forced to keep a Martinmas Lent in that far 
 
CHAP, iv.] BEING CROST IN LOVE. 65 
 
 western glen. So lonely was she, in fact, that though she re- 
 garded Eustace Leigh with somewhat of aversion, and (being a 
 good Protestant) with a great deal of suspicion, she could not 
 find it in her heart to avoid a chat with him whenever he came 
 down to the farm and to its mill, which he contrived to do, on 
 I know not what would-be errand, almost every day. Her 
 uncle and aunt at first looked stiff enough at these visits, and 
 the latter took care always to make a third in every conversa- 
 tion ; but still Mr. Leigh was a gentleman’s son, and it would 
 not do to be rude to a neighbouring squire and a good customer ; 
 and Rose was the rich man’s daughter and they poor cousins, so 
 it would not do either to quarrel with her ; and besides, the 
 pretty maid, half by wilfulness, and half by her sweet winning 
 tricks, generally contrived to get her own way wheresoever she 
 went ; and she herself had been wise enough to beg her aunt 
 never to leave them alone, — for she “ ( could not a-bear the sight 
 of Mr. Eustace, only she must have some one to talk with down 
 here.” On which her aunt considered, that she herself was but 
 a simple country-woman ; and that townsfolks’ ways of course 
 must be very different from hers ; and that people knew their 
 own business best ; and so forth, and let things go on their own 
 way. Eustace, in the meanwhile, who knew well that the 
 difference in creed between him and Rose was likely to be the 
 very hardest obstacle in the way of his love, took care to keep 
 his private opinions well in the background; and instead of 
 trying to convert the folk at the mill, daily bought milk or flour 
 from them, and gave it away to the old women in Moorwinstow 
 (who agreed that after all, for a Papist, he was a godly young 
 man enough) ; and at last, having taken counsel with Campian 
 and Parsons on certain political plots then on foot, came with 
 them to the conclusion that they would all three go to church 
 the next Sunday. Where Messrs. Evan Morgans and Morgan 
 Evans, having crammed up the rubrics beforehand, behaved 
 themselves in a most orthodox and unexceptionable manner; 
 as did also poor Eustace, to the great wonder of all good folks, 
 and then went home flattering himself that he had taken in 
 parson, clerk, and people ; not knowing in his simple unsimpli- 
 city, and cunning foolishness, that each good wife in the parish 
 was saying to the other, “He turned Protestant 1 The devil 
 turned monk ! He’s only after Mistress Salterne, the young 
 hypocrite.” 
 
 But if the two Jesuits found it expedient, for the holy cause 
 in which they were embarked, to reconcile themselves outwardly 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 to the powers that were, they were none the less busy in private 
 in plotting their overthrow. 
 
 Ever since April last they had been playing at hide-and-seek 
 through the length and breadth of England, and now they were 
 only lying quiet till expected news from Ireland should give 
 them their cue, and a great “ rising of the West” should sweep 
 from her throne that stiff-necked, persecuting, excommunicate, 
 reprobate, illegitimate, and profligate usurper, who falsely called 
 herself the Queen of England. 
 
 For they had as stoutly persuaded themselves in those days, 
 as they have in these (with a real Baconian contempt of the 
 results of sensible experience), that the heart of England was 
 really with them, and that the British nation was on the point 
 of returning to the bosom of the Catholic Church, and giving 
 up Elizabeth to be led in chains to the feet of the rightful 
 Lord of Creation, the Old Man of the Seven Hills. And this 
 fair hope, which has been skipping just in front of them for 
 centuries, always a step farther off, like the place where the 
 rainbow touches the ground, they used to announce at times, 
 in language which terrified old Mr. Leigh. One day, indeed, 
 as Eustace entered his father’s private room, after his usual 
 visit to the mill, he could hear voices high in dispute ; Parsons 
 as usual, blustering ; Mr. Leigh peevishly deprecating, and 
 Campian, who was really the sweetest-natured of men, trying 
 to pour oil on the troubled waters. Whereat Eustace (for the 
 good of the cause, of course) stopped outside and listened. 
 
 “ My excellent sir,” said Mr. Leigh, “ does not your very 
 presence here show how I am affected toward the holy cause 
 of the Catholic faith ? But I cannot in the meanwhile forget 
 that I am an Englishman.” 
 
 “And what is England?” said Parsons: “A heretic and 
 schismatic Babylon, whereof it is written, 1 Come out of her, 
 my people, lest you be partaker of her plagues.’ Yea, what is 
 a country ? An arbitrary division of territory by the princes 
 of this world, who are nought, and come to nought. They are 
 created by the people’s will ; their existence depends on the 
 sanction of him to whom all power is given in heaven and 
 earth — our Holy Father the Pope. Take away the latter, and 
 what is a king ? — the people who have made him may unmake 
 him.” 
 
 “My dear sir, recollect that I have sworn allegiance to 
 Queen Elizabeth !” 
 
 “Yes, sir, you have, sir; and, as I have shown at large 
 
BEING CROST IN LOVE. 
 
 67 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 in my writings, you were absolved from that allegiance from 
 the moment that the bull of Pius the Fifth declared her a 
 heretic and excommunicate, and thereby to have forfeited all 
 dominion whatsoever. I tell you, sir, what I thought you 
 should have known already, that since the year 1569, England 
 has had no queen, no magistrates, no laws, no lawful authority 
 whatsoever ; and that to own allegiance to any English magis- 
 trate, sir, or to plead in an English court of law, is to disobey 
 the apostolic precept, ‘ How dare you go to law before the 
 unbelievers V I tell you, sir, rebellion is now not merely per- 
 mitted, it is a duty.” 
 
 “Take care, sir; for God’s sake, take care!” said Mr. 
 Leigh. “ Right or wrong, I cannot have such language used in 
 my house. For the sake of my wife and children, I cannot !” 
 
 “ My dear brother Parsons, deal more gently with the flock,” 
 interposed Campian. “Your opinion, though probable, as I 
 well know, in the eyes of most of our order, is hardly safe 
 enough here ; the opposite is at least so safe that Mr. Leigh 
 may well excuse his conscience for accepting it. After all, are 
 we not sent hither to proclaim this very thing, and to relieve 
 the souls of good Catholics from a burden which has seemed to 
 them too heavy V' 
 
 “Yes,” said Parsons half-sulkily, “to allow all Balaams 
 who will to sacrifice to Baal, while they call themselves by the 
 name of the Lord.” 
 
 “ My dear brother, have I not often reminded you that 
 Naaman was allowed to bow himself in the house of Rimmon'? 
 And can we therefore complain of the office to which the Holy 
 Father has appointed us, to declare to such as Mr. Leigh his 
 especial grace, by which the bull of Pius the Fifth (on whose 
 soul God have mercy !) shall henceforth bind the queen and 
 the heretics only ; but in no ways the Catholics, at least as 
 long as the present tyranny prevents the pious purposes of the 
 bull ?” 
 
 “ Be it so, sir ; be it so. Only observe this, Mr. Leigh, 
 that our brother Campian confesses this to be a tyranny. 
 Observe, sir, that the bull does still bind the so-called queen, 
 and that she and her magistrates are still none the less usurpers, 
 nonentities, and shadows of a shade. And observe this, sir, 
 that when that which is lawful is excused to the weak, it 
 remains no less lawful to the strong. The seven thousand who 
 had not bowed the knee to Baal did not slay his priests ; but 
 Elijah did, and won to himself a good reward. And if the 
 
68 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [chap. iv. 
 
 rest of the children of Israel sinned not in not slaying Eglon, 
 yet Elnid’s deed was none the less justified by all laws human 
 and divine.” 
 
 “ For Heaven’s sake, do not talk so, sir ! or I must leave 
 the room. What have I to do with Ehud and Eglon, and 
 slaughters,- and tyrannies ? Our queen is a very good queen, 
 if Heaven would but grant her repentance, and turn her to the 
 true faith. I have never been troubled about religion, nor any 
 one else that I know of in the West country.” 
 
 “ You forget Mr. Trudgeon of Launceston, father, and poor 
 Father Mayne,” interposed Eustace, who had by this time 
 slipped in ; and Campian added softly — 
 
 “ Yes, your West of England also has been honoured by its 
 martyrs, as well as my London by the precious blood of Story.” 
 “What, young malapert 1 ?” cried poor Leigh, facing round 
 upon his son, glad to find any one on whom he might vent his 
 ill-humour ; “ are you too against me, with a murrain on you ? 
 And pray, what the devil brought Cuthbert Mayne to the 
 gallows, and turned Mr. Trudgeon (he was always a foolish 
 hot-head) out of house and home, but just such treasonable talk 
 as Mr. Parsons must needs hold in my house, to make a beggar 
 of me and my children, as he will before he has done.” 
 
 “ The blessed Virgin forbid ! ” said Campian. 
 
 “ The blessed Virgin forbid ? But you must help her to 
 forbid it, Mr. Campian. We should never have had the law of 
 1571, against bulls, and Agnus Deis, and blessed grains, if the 
 Pope’s bull of 1569 had not made them matter of treason, by 
 preventing a poor creature’s saving his soul in the true Church 
 without putting his neck into a halter by denying the queen’s 
 authority.” 
 
 “What, sir 1 ?” almost roared Parsons, “do you dare to 
 speak evil of the edicts of the Vicar of Christ ?” 
 
 “1 1 No. I didn’t. Who says I did? All I meant was, 
 I am sure — Mr. Campian, you are a reasonable man, speak for 
 me.” 
 
 “ Mr. Leigh only meant, I am sure, that the Holy Father’s 
 prudent intentions have been so far defeated by the perverseness 
 and invincible misunderstanding of the heretics, that that which 
 was in itself meant for the good of the oppressed English 
 Catholics has been perverted to their harm.” 
 
 “ And thus, reverend sir,” said Eustace, glad to get into his 
 father’s good graces again, “ my father attaches blame, not to 
 the Pope — Heaven forbid ! — but to the pravity of his enemies.” 
 
BEING CROST IN LOVE. 
 
 69 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 “ And it is for this very reason,” said Campian, “ that we 
 have brought with us the present merciful explanation of the 
 bull.” 
 
 “I’ll tell you what, gentlemen,” said Mr. Leigh, who, like 
 other weak men, grew in valour as his opponent seemed inclined 
 to make peace, “I don’t think the declaration was needed. 
 After the new" law of 1571 was made, it was never put in force 
 till Mayne and Trudgeon made fools of themselves, and that 
 was full six years. There were a few offenders, they say, who 
 were brought up and admonished, and let go ; but even that 
 did not happen down here, and need not happen now, unless 
 you put my son here (for you shall never put me, I warrant 
 you) upon some deed which had better be left alone, and so 
 bring us all to shame.” 
 
 “ Your son, sir, if not openly vowed to God, has, I hope, a 
 due sense of that inward vocation which we have seen in him, 
 and reverences his spiritual fathers too well to listen to the 
 temptations of his earthly father.” 
 
 “ What, sir, will you teach my son to disobey me V* 
 
 “Your son is ours also, sir. This is strange language in 
 one who owes a debt to the Church, which it was charitably 
 fancied he meant to pay in the person of his child.” 
 
 These last words touched poor Mr. Leigh in a sore point, 
 and breaking all bounds, he swore roundly at Parsons, who 
 stood foaming with rage. 
 
 “ A plague upon you, sir, and a black assizes for you, for 
 you will come to the gallows yet ! Do you mean to taunt me 
 in my own house with that Hartland land ? You had better 
 go back and ask those who sent you where the dispensation to 
 hold the land is, which they promised to get me years ago, and 
 have gone on putting me off, till they have got my money, and 
 my son, and my conscience, and I vow before all the saints, 
 seem now to want my head over and above. God help me !” — 
 and the poor man’s eyes fairly filled with tears. 
 
 Now was Eustace’s turn to be roused ; for, after all, he 
 was an Englishman and a gentleman ; and he said kindly 
 enough, but firmly- — 
 
 " Courage, my dearest father. Remember that I am still 
 your son, and not a Jesuit yet ; and whether I ever become 
 one, I promise you, will depend mainly on the treatment which 
 you meet with at the hands of these reverend gentlemen, for 
 whom I, as having brought them hither, must consider myself 
 as surety to you.” 
 
70 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 If a powder-barrel had exploded in the Jesuits’ faces, they 
 could not have been more amazed. Campian looked blank at 
 Parsons, and Parsons at Campian ; till the stouter-hearted of 
 the two, recovering his breath at last — 
 
 “ Sir ! do you know, sir, the curse pronounced on those 
 who, after putting their hand to the plough, look back V ’ 
 
 Eustace was one of those impulsive men, with a lack of 
 moral courage, who dare raise the devil, but never dare fight 
 him after he has been raised ; and he now tried to pass off his 
 speech by winking and making signs in the direction of his 
 father, as much as to say that he was only trying to quiet the 
 old man’s fears. But Campian was too frightened, Parsons too 
 angry, to take his hints : and he had to carry his part through. 
 
 “ All I read is, Father Parsons, that such are not fit for 
 the kingdom of God ; of which high honour I have for some 
 time past felt myself unworthy. I have much doubt just now 
 as to my vocation ; and in the meanwhile have not forgotten 
 that I am a citizen of a free country.” And so saying, he took 
 his father’s arm, and walked out. 
 
 His last words had hit the Jesuits hard. They had put the 
 poor cobweb-spinners in mind of the humiliating fact, which 
 they have had thrust on them daily from that time till now, 
 and yet have never learnt the lesson, that all their scholastic 
 cunning, plotting, intriguing, bulls, pardons, indulgences, and 
 the rest of it, are, on this side the Channel, a mere enchanter’s 
 cloud-castle and Fata Morgana, which vanishes into empty air 
 by one touch of that magic wand, the constable’s staff. “ A 
 citizen of a free country !” — there was the rub ; and they 
 looked at each other in more utter perplexity than ever. At 
 last Parsons spoke. 
 
 “ There’s a woman in the wind. I’ll lay my life on it. I 
 saw him blush up crimson yesterday when his mother asked 
 him whether some Rose Salterne or other was still in the 
 neighbourhood.” 
 
 “A woman ! Well tffe spirit may be willing, though the 
 flesh be weak. We will inquire into this. The youth may do 
 us good service as a layman ; and if anything should happen to 
 his elder brother (whom the saints protect !) he is heir to some 
 wealth. In the meanwhile, our dear brother Parsons will per- 
 haps see the expediency of altering our tactics somewhat while 
 we are here.” 
 
 And thereupon a long conversation began between the two, 
 who had been sent together, after the wise method of their 
 
BEING CROST IN LOVE. 
 
 71 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 order, in obedience to the precept, “ Two are better than one,” 
 in order that Campian might restrain Parsons’ vehemence, and 
 Parsons spur on Campian’s gentleness, and so each act as the 
 supplement of the other, and each also, it must be confessed, 
 gave advice pretty nearly contradictory to his fellow’s if occa- 
 sion should require, “ without the danger,” as their writers 
 have it, “ of seeming changeable and inconsistent.” 
 
 The upshot of this conversation was, that in a day or two 
 (during which time Mr. Leigh and Eustace also had made the 
 amende honorable , and matters went smoothly enough) Father 
 Campian asked Father Francis the household chaplain to allow 
 him, as an especial favour, to hear Eustace’s usual confession 
 on the ensuing Friday. 
 
 Poor Father Francis dared not refuse so great a man ; and 
 assented with an inward groan, knowing well that the intent 
 was to worm out some family secrets, whereby his power would 
 be diminished, and the Jesuits’ increased. For the regular 
 priesthood and the Jesuits throughout England were toward 
 each other in a state of armed neutrality, which wanted but 
 little at any moment to become open war, as it did in James 
 the First’s time, when those meek missionaries, by their gentle 
 moral tortures, literally hunted to death the poor Popish bishop 
 of Hippopotamus (that is to say, London) for the time being. 
 
 However, Campian heard Eustace’s confession ; and by 
 putting to him such questions as may be easily conceived by 
 those who know anything about the confessional, discovered 
 satisfactorily enough, that he was what Campian would have 
 called “in love though I should question much the propriety 
 of the term as applied to any facts which poor prurient Campian 
 discovered, or indeed knew how to discover, seeing that a swine 
 has no eye for pearls. But he had found out enough : he smiled, 
 and set to work next vigorously to discover who the lady might 
 be. 
 
 If he had frankly said to Eustace, “ I feel for you ; and if 
 your desires are reasonable, or lawful, or possible, I will help 
 you with all my heart and soul,” he might have had the young 
 man’s secret heart, and saved himself an hour’s trouble ; but, of 
 course, he took instinctively the crooked and suspicious method, 
 expected to find the case the worst possible, — as a man was 
 bound to do who had been trained to take the lowest possible 
 view of human nature, and to consider the basest motives as the 
 mainspring of all human action, — and began his moral torture 
 accordingly by a series of delicate questions, which poor Eustace 
 
THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [CHAP. iv. 
 
 dodged in every possible way, though he knew that the good 
 father was too cunning for him, and that he must give in at 
 last. Nevertheless, like a rabbit who runs squealing round and 
 round before the weasel, into whose jaws it knows that it must 
 jump at last by force of fascination, he parried and parried, and 
 pretended to be stupid, and surprised, and honourably scrupulous, 
 and even angry ; while every question as to her being married or 
 single, Catholic or heretic, English or foreign, brought his tor- 
 mentor a step nearer the goal. At last, when Campian, finding 
 the business not such a very bad one, had asked something about 
 her worldly wealth, Eustace saw a door of escape and sprang at 
 it. 
 
 “ Even if she be a heretic, she is heiress to one of the 
 wealthiest merchants in Devon.” 
 
 “Ah !” said Campian thoughtfully. “And she is but 
 eighteen, you say 1” 
 
 “ Only eighteen.” 
 
 “Ah ! well, my son, there is time. She may be reconciled 
 to the Church : or you may change.” 
 
 “ I shall die first.” 
 
 “Ah, poor lad! Well; she may be reconciled, and her 
 wealth may be of use to the cause of Heaven.” 
 
 “ And it shall be of use. Only absolve me, and let me be 
 at peace. Let me have but her,” he cried piteously. “ I do 
 not want her wealth, — not I ! Let me have but her, and that 
 but for one year, one month, one day ! — and all the rest,— 
 money, fame, talents, yea, my life itself, hers if it be needed, — 
 are at the service of Holy Church. Ay, I shall glory in show- 
 ing my devotion by some special sacrifice, — some desperate deed. 
 Prove me now, and see what there is I will not do !” 
 
 And so Eustace was absolved; after which Campian added, — 
 “ This is indeed well, my son : for there is a thing to be 
 done now, but it may be at the risk of life.” 
 
 “Prove me !” cried Eustace impatiently. 
 
 “ Here is a letter which was brought me last night ; no 
 matter from whence ; you can understand it better than I, and 
 I longed to have shown it you, but that I feared my son had 
 become ” 
 
 “You feared wrongly, then, my dear Father Campian.” 
 
 So Campian translated to him the cipher of the letter. 
 
 “ This to Evan Morgans, gentleman, at Mr. Leigh’s house 
 in Moorwinstow, Devonshire. News may be had by one who 
 will go to the shore of Clovelly, any evening after the 25th of 
 
CHAP, iv.] BEING CROST IN LOVE. 73 
 
 November, at dead low tide, and there watch for a boat, rowed 
 by one with a red beard, and a Portugal by his speech. If he 
 be asked, ‘ How many ?’ he will answer, ‘ Eight hundred and 
 one.’ Take his letters and read them. If the shore be watched, 
 let him who comes show a light three times in a safe place under 
 the cliff above the town ; below is dangerous landing. Farewell, 
 and expect great things ! ” 
 
 “ I will go,” said Eustace ; “ to-morrow is the 25th, and I 
 know a sure and easy place. Your friend seems to know these 
 shores well.” 
 
 “Ah ! what is it we do not know?” said Campian, with a 
 mysterious smile. “ And now ?” 
 
 “ And now, to prove to you how I trust to you, you shall 
 come with me, and see this — the lady of whom I spoke, and 
 judge for yourself whether my fault is not a venial one.” 
 
 “Ah, my son, have I not absolved you already? What 
 have I to do with fair faces ? Nevertheless, I will come, both 
 to show you that I trust you, and it may be to help towards 
 reclaiming a heretic, and saving a lost soul : who knows?” 
 
 So the two set out together ; and, as it was appointed, they 
 had just got to the top of the hill between Chapel and Stow 
 mill, when up the lane came none other than Mistress Rose 
 Salterne herself, in all the glories of a new scarlet hood, from 
 under which her large dark languid eyes gleamed soft lightnings 
 through poor Eustace’s heart and marrow. Up to them she 
 tripped on delicate ankles and tiny feet, tall, lithe, and graceful, 
 a true West-country lass ; and as she passed them with a pretty 
 blush and courtesy, even Campian looked back at the fair inno- 
 cent creature, whose long dark curls, after the then country 
 fashion, rolled down from beneath the hood below her waist, 
 entangling the soul of Eustace Leigh within their glossy nets. 
 
 “There!” whispered he, trembling from head to foot. 
 “ Can you excuse me now ?” 
 
 “ I had excused you long ago,” said the kind-hearted father. 
 “ Alas, that so much fair red and white should have been created 
 only as a feast for worms !” 
 
 “A feast for gods you mean!” cried Eustace, on whose 
 common sense the naive absurdity of the last speech struck 
 keenly ; and then, as if to escape the scolding which he deserved 
 for his heathenry, — 
 
 “Will you let me return for a moment ? I will follow you : 
 let me go ! ” 
 
 Campian saw that it was of no use to say no, and nodded. 
 
THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 74 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 Eustace darted from his side, and running across a field, met 
 Rose full at the next turn of the road. 
 
 She started, and gave a pretty little shriek. 
 
 “ Mr. Leigh ! I thought you had gone forward.” 
 
 “ I came back to speak to you, Rose — Mistress Salterne, I 
 mean.” 
 
 “ To me ?” 
 
 “To you I must speak, tell you all, or die!” And he 
 pressed up close to her. She shrank back somewhat fright- 
 ened. 
 
 “Do not stir; do not go, I implore you ! Rose, only hear 
 me !” And fiercely and passionately seizing her by the hand, 
 he poured out the whole story of his love, heaping her with 
 every fantastic epithet of admiration which he could devise. 
 
 There was little, perhaps, of all his words which Rose had 
 not heard many a time before ; but there was a quiver in his 
 voice, and a fire in his eye, from which she shrank by instinct. 
 
 “Let me go !” she said; “you are too rough, sir !” 
 
 “Ay!” he said, seizing now both her hands, “rougher, 
 perhaps, than the gay gallants of Bideford, who serenade you, 
 and write sonnets to you, and send you posies. Rougher, but 
 more loving, Rose ! Do not turn away ! I shall die if you 
 take your eyes off me ! Tell me, — tell me, now here — this 
 moment — before we part — if I may love you !” 
 
 “Go away!” she answered, struggling, and bursting into 
 tears. “ This is too rude. If I am but a merchant’s daughter, 
 I am God's child. Remember that I am alone. Leave me ; 
 go ! or I will call for help ! ” 
 
 Eustace had heard or read somewhere that such expressions 
 in a woman’s mouth were mere fagons de parler , and on the 
 whole signs that she had no objection to be alone, and did not 
 intend to call for help ; and he only grasped her hands the 
 more fiercely, and looked into her face with keen and hungry 
 eyes ; but she was in earnest, nevertheless, and a loud shriek 
 made him aware that, if he wished to save his own good name, 
 he must go : but there was one question, for an answer to 
 which he would risk his very life. 
 
 “ Yes, proud woman ! I thought so ! Some one of those 
 gay gallants has been beforehand with me. Tell me who ” 
 
 But she broke from him, and passed him, and fled down 
 the lane. 
 
 “Mark it !” cried he, after her. “You shall rue the day 
 when you despised Eustace Leigh ! Mark it, proud beauty !” 
 
Moorwin stow . 
 
CHAP. IV.] BEING CROST IN LOVE. 75 
 
 And he turned back to join Campian, who stood in some trepi- 
 dation. 
 
 “You have not hurt the maiden, my son ? I thought I 
 heard a scream.” 
 
 “Hurt her ! No. Would God that she were dead, never- 
 theless, and I by her ! Say no more to me, father. We will 
 home.” Even Campian knew enough of the world to guess 
 what had happened, and they both hurried home in silence. 
 
 And so Eustace Leigh played his move, and lost it. 
 
 Poor little Rose, having run nearly to Chapel, stopped for 
 very shame, and walked quietly by the cottages which stood 
 opposite the gate, and then turned up the lane towards Moor- 
 winstow village, whither she was bound. But on second 
 thoughts, she felt herself so “red and flustered,” that she was 
 afraid of going into the village, for fear (as she said to herself) 
 of making people talk, and so, turning into a by-path, struck 
 away toward the cliffs, to cool her blushes in the sea-breeze. 
 And there finding a quiet grassy nook beneath the crest of the 
 rocks, she sat down on the turf, and fell into a great meditation. 
 
 Rose Salterne was a thorough specimen of a West-coast 
 maiden, full of passionate impulsive affections, and wild dreamy 
 imaginations, a fit subject, as the North-Devon women are still, 
 for all romantic and gentle superstitions. Left early without 
 a mother’s care, she had fed her fancy upon the legends and 
 ballads of her native land, till she believed — what did she not 
 believe 1 — of mermaids and pixies, charms and witches, dreams 
 and omens, and all that world of magic in which most of the 
 countrywomen, and countrymen too, believed firmly enough but 
 twenty years ago. Then her father’s house was seldom without 
 some merchant, or sea-captain from foreign parts, who, like 
 Othello, had his tales of — 
 
 “ Antres vast, and deserts idle, 
 
 Of rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads reach heaven.” 
 
 And, — 
 
 “ And of the cannibals that each other eat, 
 
 The anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders. ” 
 
 All which tales, she, like Desdemona, devoured with greedy ears, 
 whenever she could “ the house affairs with haste despatch.” 
 And when these failed, there was still boundless store of wonders 
 open to her in old romances which were then to be found in 
 every English house of the better class. The Legend of King 
 Arthur, Florice and Blancheflour, Sir Ysumbras, Sir Guy of 
 
76 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [ciiap. IV. 
 
 Warwick, Palamon and Arcite, and the Romaunt of the Rose, 
 were with her text-books and canonical authorities. And lucky 
 it was, perhaps, for her that Sidney’s Arcadia was still in petto, 
 or Mr. Frank (who had already seen the first book or two in 
 manuscript, and extolled it above all books past, present, or to 
 come) would have surely brought a copy down for Rose, and 
 thereby have turned her poor little flighty brains upside down 
 for ever. And with her head full of' these, it was no wonder 
 if she had likened herself of late more than once to some of 
 those peerless princesses of old, for whose fair hand paladins 
 and kaisers thundered against each other in tilted field ; and 
 perhaps she would not have been sorry (provided, of course, no 
 one was killed) if duels and passages of arms in honour of her, 
 as her father reasonably dreaded, had actually taken place. 
 
 For Rose was not only well aware that she was wooed, but 
 found the said wooing (and little shame to her) a very pleasant 
 process. Not that she had any wish to break hearts : she did 
 not break her heart for any of her admirers, and why should 
 they break theirs for her 1 They were all very charming, each 
 in his way (the gentlemen, at least ; for she had long since 
 learnt to turn up her nose at merchants and burghers) ; but 
 one of them was not so very much better than the other. 
 
 Of course, Mr. Frank Leigh was the most charming; but 
 then, as a courtier and squire of dames, he had never given her 
 a sign of real love, nothing but sonnets and compliments, and 
 there was no trusting such things from a gallant, who was said 
 (though, by the by, most scandalously) to have a lady love at 
 Milan, and another at Vienna, and half-a-dozen in the Court, 
 and half-a-dozen more in the city. 
 
 And very charming was Mr. William Cary, with his quips 
 and his jests, and his galliards and lavoltas ; over and above 
 his rich inheritance ; but then, charming also Mr. Coffin of 
 Portledge, though he were a little proud and stately; but 
 which of the two should she choose ? It would be very plea- 
 sant to be mistress of Clovelly Court ; but just as pleasant to 
 find herself lady of Portledge, where the Coffins had lived ever 
 since Noah’s flood (if, indeed, they had not merely returned 
 thither after that temporary displacement), and to bring her 
 wealth into a family which was as proud of its antiquity as any 
 nobleman in Devon, and might have made a fourth to that 
 famous trio of Devonshire Cs, of which it is written, — 
 
 “ Crocker, Cruwys, and Copplestone, 
 
 When the Conqueror came were all at home.” 
 
CHAP. IV.] BEING CROST IN LOVE. 77 
 
 And Mr. Hugh Fortescue, too — people said that he was 
 certain to become a great soldier — perhaps as great as his 
 brother Arthur-® and that would be pleasant enough, too, 
 though he was but the younger son of an innumerable family : 
 but then, so was Amyas Leigh. Ah, poor Amyas ! Her girls’ 
 fancy for him had vanished, or rather, perhaps, it was very much 
 what it always had been, only that four or five more girl’s 
 fancies beside it had entered in, and kept it in due subjection. 
 But still, she could not help thinking a good deal about him, 
 and his voyage, and the reports of his great strength, and 
 beauty, and valour, which had already reached her in that out- 
 of-the-way corner ; and though she was not in the least in love 
 with him, she could not help hoping that he had at least (to 
 put her pretty little thought in the mildest shape) not alto- 
 gether forgotten her ; and was hungering, too, with all her 
 fancy, to give him no peace till he had told her all the wonder- 
 ful things which he had seen and done in this ever-memorable 
 voyage. So that altogether, it was no wonder, if in her last 
 night’s dream the figure of Amyas had been even more forward 
 and troublesome than that of Frank or the rest. 
 
 But, moreover, another figure had been forward and trouble- 
 some enough in last night’s sleep- world ; and forward and 
 troublesome enough, too, now in to-day’s waking-world, namely, 
 Eustace, the rejected. How strange that she should have 
 dreamt of him the night before ! and dreamt, too, of his fight- 
 ing with Mr. Frank and Mr. Amyas ! It must be a warning 
 — see, she had met him the very next day in this strange way ; 
 so the first half of her dream had come true ; and after what 
 had past, she only had to breathe a whisper, and the second 
 part of the dream would come true also. If she wished for a 
 passage of arms in her own honour, she could easily enough 
 compass one : not that she would do it for worlds ! And after 
 all, though Mr. Eustace had been very rude and naughty, yet 
 still it was not his own fault ; he could not help being in love 
 with her. And — and, in short, the poor little maid felt herself 
 
 one of the most important personages on earth, with all the 
 cares (or hearts) of the country in her keeping, and as much 
 perplexed with matters of weight as ever was any Cleophila, or 
 Dianeme, Fiordispina or Flourdeluce, in verse run tame, or 
 prose run mad. 
 
 Poor little Rose ! Had she but had a mother ! But she 
 was to learn her lesson, such as it was, in another school. She 
 was too shy (too proud perhaps) to tell her aunt her mighty 
 
78 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [chap. iv. 
 
 troubles ; but a counsellor she must have ; and after sitting 
 with her head in her hands, for half-an-hour or more, she arose 
 suddenly, and started otf along the cliffs towards Marsland. She 
 would go and see Lucy Passmore, the white witch ; Lucy knew 
 everything; Lucy would tell her what to do; perhaps even 
 whom to marry. 
 
 Lucy was a fat, jolly woman of fifty, with little pig-eyes, 
 which twinkled like sparks of fire, and eyebrows which sloped 
 upwards and outwards, like those of a satyr, as if she had been 
 (as indeed she had) all her life looking out of the corners of her 
 eyes. Her qualifications as white witch were boundless cunning, 
 equally boundless good nature, considerable knowledge of human 
 weaknesses, some mesmeric power, some skill in “ yarbs,” as she 
 called her simples, a firm faith in the virtue of her own incanta- 
 tions, and the faculty of holding her tongue. By dint of these 
 she contrived to gain a fair share of money, and also (which she 
 liked even better) of power, among the simple folk for many 
 miles round. If a child was scalded, a tooth ached, a piece of 
 silver was stolen, a heifer shrew-struck, a pig bewitched, a young 
 damsel crost in love, Lucy was called in, and Lucy found a 
 remedy, especially for the latter complaint. Now and then she 
 found herself on ticklish ground, for the kind-heartedness which 
 compelled her to help all distressed damsels out of a scrape, 
 sometimes compelled her also to help them into one ; whereon 
 enraged fathers called Lucy ugly names, and threatened to send 
 her into Exeter gaol for a witch, and she smiled quietly, and 
 hinted that if she were “ like some that were ready to return 
 evil for evil, such talk as that would bring no blessing on them 
 that spoke it ; ” which being translated into plain English, meant, 
 “ If you trouble me, I will overlook (i.e. fascinate) you, and 'then 
 your pigs will die, your horses stray, your cream turn sour, your 
 barns be fired, your son have St. Vitus’s dance, your daughter 
 fits, and so on, woe on woe, till you are very probably starved 
 to death in a ditch, by virtue of this terrible little eye of mine, 
 at which, in spite of all your swearing and bullying, you know 
 you are now shaking in your shoes for fear. So you had much 
 better hold your tongue, give me a drink of cider, and leave ill 
 alone, lest you make it worse.” 
 
 Not that Lucy _ever proceeded to any such fearful extremities. 
 On the contrary, her boast, and her belief too, was, that she was 
 sent into the world to make poor souls as happy as she could, 
 by lawful means, of course, if possible, but if not— why unlawful 
 ones were better than none ; for she “ couldn’t abear to see the 
 
BEING CROST IN LOVE. 
 
 79 
 
 CHAP. IV.] 
 
 poor creatures taking on ; she was too, too tender-hearted.” And 
 so she was, to every one but her husband, a tall, simple-hearted 
 rabbit-faced man, a good deal older than herself. Fully agreeing 
 with Sir Richard Grenvile’s great axiom, that he who cannot 
 obey cannot rule, Lucy had been for the last five-and-twenty 
 years training him pretty smartly to obey her, with the intention, 
 it is to be charitably hoped, of letting him rule her in turn when 
 his lesson was perfected. He bore his honours, however, meekly 
 enough, having a boundless respect for his wife’s wisdom, and a 
 firm belief in her supernatural powers, 'and let her go her own 
 way and earn her own money, while he got a little more in a 
 truly pastoral method (not extinct yet along those lonely cliffs), 
 by feeding a herd of some dozen donkeys and twenty goats. The 
 donkeys fetched, at each low-tide, white shell-sand which was 
 to be sold for manure to the neighbouring farmers ; the goats 
 furnished milk and “ kiddy-pies and when there was neither 
 milking nor sand^carrying to be done, old Will Passmore just 
 sat under a sunny rock and watched the buck-goats rattle their 
 horns together, thinking about nothing at all, and taking very 
 good care all the while neither to inquire nor to see who came 
 in and out of his little cottage in the glen. 
 
 The Prophetess, when Rose approached her oracular cave, was 
 seated on a tripod in front of the fire, distilling strong waters 
 out of penny royal. But no sooner did her distinguished visitor 
 appear at the hatch, than the still was left to take care of itself, 
 and a clean apron and mutch having been slipt on, Lucy welcomed 
 Rose with endless courtesies, and — “ Bless my dear soul alive, 
 who ever would have thought to see the Rose of Torridge to 
 my poor little place !” 
 
 Rose sat down : and then 1 How to begin was more than 
 she knew, and she stayed silent a full five minutes, looking 
 earnestly at the point of her shoe, till Lucy, who was an adept in 
 such cases, thought it best to proceed to business at once, and 
 save Rose the delicate operation of opening the ball herself ; and 
 so, in her own way, half fawning, half familiar — 
 
 “ Well, my dear young lady, and what is it I can do for ye 1 
 For I guess you want a bit of old Lucy’s help, eh ? Though I’m 
 most mazed to see ye here, surely. I should have supposed that 
 pretty face could manage they sort of matters for itself. Eh ?” 
 
 Rose, thus bluntly charged, confessed at once, and with many 
 blushes and hesitations, made her soon understand that what she 
 wanted was “ To have her fortune told.” 
 
 “ Eh 1 Oh ! I see. The pretty face has managed it a bit 
 
80 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 too well already, eh ? Tu many o’mun, pure fellows '? Well, 
 tain’t every mayden lias her pick and choose, like some I know 
 of, as be blest in love by stars above. So you h’aint made up 
 your mind, then 1” 
 
 Rose shook her head. 
 
 “ Ah — well,” she went on, in a half bantering tone. “ Not so 
 asy, is it, then 1 One’s gude for one thing, and one for another, 
 eh ? One has the blood, and another the money.” 
 
 And so the “ cunning woman ” (as she truly was), talking 
 half to herself, ran over all the names which she thought likely, 
 peering at Rose all the while out of the corners of her foxy 
 bright eyes, while Rose stirred the peat ashes steadfastly with the 
 point of her little shoe, half angry, half ashamed, half frightened, 
 to find that “ the cunning woman ” had guessed so well both her 
 suitors and her thoughts about them, and tried to look uncon- 
 cerned at each name as it came out. 
 
 “ Well, well,” said Lucy, who took nothing by her move, 
 simply because there was nothing to take ; “ think over it — 
 think over it, my dear life ; and if you did set your mind on 
 any one — why, then — then maybe I might help you to a sight 
 of him.” 
 
 “ A sight of him V’ 
 
 “ His sperrit, dear life, his sperrit only, I mane. I ’udn’t 
 have no keeping company in my house, no, not for gowld un- 
 towld, I ’udn’t ; but the sperrit of mun — to see whether mun 
 would be true or not, you’d like to know that, now, ’udn’t you, 
 my darling 1 ?” 
 
 Rose sighed, and stirred the ashes about vehemently. 
 
 “ I must first know who it is to be. If you could show me 
 that — now ” 
 
 “ Oh, I can show ye that, tu, I can. Ben there’s a way to ’t, 
 a sure way ; but ’tis mortal cold for the time o’ year, you zee.” 
 
 “ But what is it, then V’ said Rose, who had in her heart 
 been longing for something of that very kind, and had half made 
 up her mind to ask for a charm. 
 
 “ Why, you’m not afraid to goo into the say by night for a 
 minute, are you 1 And to-morrow night would serve, too ; ’twill 
 be just low tide to midnight.” 
 
 “ If you would come with me perhaps ” 
 
 “ I’ll come, I’ll come, and stand within call, to be sure. Only 
 do ye mind this, dear soul alive, not to goo telling a crumb about 
 mun, noo, not for the world, or yu’ll see nought at all, indeed, 
 now. And beside, there’s a noxious business grow’d up against 
 
CHAP, iv.] BEING CROST IN LOVE. 81 
 
 me up to Chapel there ; and I hear tell how Mr. Leigh saith I 
 shall to Exeter gaol for a witch — did ye ever hear the likes ? — 
 because his groom Jan saith I overlooked mun — the Papist dog! 
 t And now never he nor th’ owld Father Francis goo by me with- 
 out a spetting, and saying of their Aves and Malificas — I do 
 know what their Rooman Latin do mane, zo well as ever they, 
 I du ! — and a making o’ their charms and incantations to their 
 saints and idols ! They be mortal feared of witches, they 
 Papists, and mortal hard on ’em, even on a pure body like 
 me, that doth a bit in the white way ; ’case why you see, 
 dear life,” said she, with one of her humorous twinkles, “ tu 
 to a trade do never agree. Do ye try my bit of a charm, now ; 
 do ye !” 
 
 Rose could not resist the temptation ; and between them 
 both the charm was agreed on, and the next night was fixed 
 for its trial, on the payment of certain current coins of the 
 realm (for Lucy, of course, must live by her trade) ; and slip- 
 ping a tester into the dame’s hand as earnest, Rose went away 
 home, and got there in safety. 
 
 But in the meanwhile, at the very hour that Eustace had 
 been prosecuting his suit in the lane at Moorwinstow, a very 
 different scene was being enacted in Mrs. Leigh’s room at 
 Burrough. 
 
 For the night before, Amyas, as he was going to bed, heard 
 his brother Frank in the next room tune his lute, and then 
 begin to sing. And both their windows being open, and only 
 a thin partition between the chambers, Amyas’s admiring ears 
 came in for every word of the following canzonet, sung in that 
 delicate and mellow tenor voice for which Frank was famed 
 among all fair ladies : — - 
 
 “ Ah, tyrant Love, Megsera’s serpents hearing, 
 
 Why thus requite my sighs with venom’d smart ? 
 
 Ah, ruthless dove, the vulture’s talons wearing, 
 
 Why flesh them, traitress, in this faithful heart ? 
 
 Is this my meed ? Must dragons’ teeth alone 
 
 In Venus’ lawns by lovers’ hands be sown ? 
 
 “ Nay, gentlest Cupid ; ’twas my pride undid me ; 
 
 Nay, guiltless dove ; by mine own wound I fell. 
 
 To worship, not to wed, Celestials bid me : 
 
 I dreamt to mate in heaven, and wake in hell ; 
 
 For ever doom’d, Ixion-like, to reel' 
 
 On mine own passions’ ever-burning wheel.” 
 
 At which the simple sailor sighed, and longed that he 
 could write such neat verses, and sing them so sweetly. How 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [chap. IV. 
 
 he would besiege the ear of Rose Salterne with amorous ditties \ 
 But still, he could not be everything ; and if he had the bone 
 and muscle of the family, it was but fair that Frank should 
 have the brains and voice ; and, after all, he was bone of his 
 bone and flesh of his flesh, and it was just the same as if he him- 
 self could do all the fine things which Frank could do ; for as long 
 as one of the family won honour, what matter which of them it 
 was ? Whereon he shouted through the wall, “ Good night, 
 old song-thrush ; I suppose I need not pay the musicians.” 
 
 “What, awake 1 ?” answered Frank. “Come in here, and 
 lull me to sleep with a sea-song ” 
 
 So Amyas went in, and found Frank laid on the outside of 
 his bed not yet undrest. 
 
 “ I am a bad sleeper,” said he ; “ I spend more time, I fear, 
 in burning the midnight oil than prudent men should. Come 
 and be my jongleur, my minne-singer, and tell me about Andes, 
 and cannibals, and the ice-regions, and the fire-regions, and the 
 paradises of the West.” 
 
 So Amyas sat down, and told : but somehow, every story 
 which he tried to tell came round, by crooked paths, yet sure, 
 to none other point than Rose Salterne, and how he thought of 
 her here and thought of her there, and how he wondered what 
 she would say if she had seen him in this adventure, and how he 
 longed to have had her with him to show her that glorious sight, 
 till Frank let him have his own way, and then out came the whole 
 story of the simple fellow’s daily and hourly devotion to her, 
 through those three long years of world-wide wanderings. 
 
 “ And oh, Frank, I could hardly think of anything but her 
 in the church the other day, God forgive me ! and it did seem 
 so hard for her to be the only face which I did not see — and 
 have not seen her yet, either.” 
 
 “So I thought, dear lad,” said Frank, with one of his 
 sweetest smiles ; “ and tried to get her father to let her imper- 
 sonate the nymph of Torridge.” 
 
 “ Did you, you dear kind fellow ? That would have been 
 too delicious.” 
 
 “Just so, too delicious; wherefore, I suppose, it was 
 ordained not to be, that which was being delicious enough.” 
 
 “ And is she as pretty as ever ?” 
 
 “ Ten times as pretty, dear lad, as half the young fellows 
 round have discovered. If you mean to win her and wear her 
 (and God grant you may fare no worse !) you will have rivals 
 enough to get rid of.” 
 
CHAP. IV.] BEING CROST IN LOVE. 83 
 
 “Humph !” said Amyas, “ I hope I shall not have to make 
 short work with some of them.” 
 
 “I hope not,” said Frank, laughing. “Now go to bed, and 
 to-morrow morning give your sword to mother to keep, lest you 
 should be tempted to draw it on any of her Majesty’s lieges.” 
 
 “No fear of that, Frank ; I am no swash-buckler, thank 
 God ; but if any one gets in my way, I’ll serve him as the 
 mastiff did the terrier, and just drop him over the quay into 
 the river, to cool himself, or my name’s not Amyas.” 
 
 And the giant swung himself laughing out of the room, and 
 slept all night like a seal, not without dreams, of course, of 
 Eose Salterne. 
 
 The next morning, according to his wont, he went into his 
 mother’s room, whom he was sure to find up and at her prayers ; 
 for he liked to say his prayers, too, by her side, as he used to 
 do when he was a little boy. It seemed so homelike, he said, 
 after three years’ knocking up and down in no-man’s land. But 
 coming gently to the door, for fear of disturbing her, and enter- 
 ing unperceived, beheld a sight which stopped him short. 
 
 Mrs. Leigh was sitting in her chair, with her face bowed 
 fondly down upon the head of his brother Frank, who knelt 
 before her, his face buried in her lap. Amyas could see that 
 his whole form was quivering with stifled emotion. Their 
 mother was just finishing the last words of a well-known text — 
 — “for my sake, and the Gospel’s, shall receive a hundredfold 
 in this present life, fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and 
 ‘sisters.” 
 
 “But not a wife !” interrupted Frank, with a voice stifled 
 with sobs ; “ that was too precious a gift for even Him to 
 promise to those who gave up a first love for His sake !” 
 
 “And yet,” said he, after a moment’s silence, “has He 
 not heaped me with blessings enough already, that I must 
 repine and rage at His refusing me one more, even though that 
 one be — No, mother ! I am your son, and God’s ; and you shall 
 know it, even though Amyas never does !” And he looked up 
 with his clear blue eyes and white forehead ; and his face was 
 as the face of an angel. 
 
 Both of them saw that Amyas was present, and started and 
 blushed. His mother motioned him away with her eyes, and 
 he went quietly out, as one stunned. Why had his name been 
 mentioned h 
 
 Love, cunning love, told him all a* once. This was the 
 meaning of last night’s canzonet ! This was why its words 
 
84 
 
 THE TWO WAYS OF 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 had seemed to fit his own heart so well ! His brother was his 
 rival. And he had been telling him all his love last night. 
 What a stupid brute he was S How it must have made poor 
 Frank wince ! And then Frank had listened so kindly; even 
 bid him God speed in his suit. What a gentleman old Frank 
 was, to be sure ! No wonder the Queen was so fond of him, 
 
 and all the Court ladies ! Why, if it came to that, what 
 
 wonder if Rose Salterne should be fond of him too ? Hey-day ! 
 “ That would be a pretty fish to find in my net when I come 
 to haul it !” quoth Amyas to himself, as he paced the garden; 
 and clutching desperately hold of his locks with both hands, as 
 if to hold his poor confused head on its shoulders, he strode 
 and tramped up and down the shell-paved garden walks for a 
 full half hour, till Frank’s voice (as cheerful as ever, though he 
 more than suspected all) called him. 
 
 “ Come in to breakfast, lad ; and stop grinding and creaking 
 upon those miserable limpets, before thou hast set every tooth 
 in my head on edge !” 
 
 Amyas, whether by dint of holding his head straight, or by 
 higher means, had got the thoughts of the said head straight 
 enough by this time ; and in he came, and fell to upon the 
 broiled fish and strong ale, with a sort of fury, as determined 
 to do his duty to the utmost in all matters that day ; and 
 therefore, of course, in that most important matter of bodily 
 sustenance ; while his mother and Frank looked at him, not 
 without anxiety and even terror, doubting what turn his fancy 
 might have taken in so new a case ; at last — 
 
 “ My dear Amyas, you will really heat your blood with all 
 that strong ale ! Remember, those who drink beer, think beer.” 
 “ Then they think right good thoughts, mother. And in 
 the meanwhile, those who drink water, think water. Eh, old 
 Frank ? and here’s your health.” 
 
 “ And clouds are water,” said his mother, somewhat reas- 
 sured by his genuine good humour ; “and so are rainbows ; and 
 clouds are angels’ thrones, and rainbows the sign of God’s peace 
 on earth.” 
 
 Amyas understood the hint, and laughed. “Then I’ll 
 pledge Frank out of the next ditch, if it please you and him. 
 But first — I say — he must hearken to a parable ; a manner 
 mystery, miracle play, I have got in my head, like what they 
 have at Easter, to the town-hall. Now then, hearken, madam, 
 and I and Frank will act.” And up rose Amyas, and shoved 
 back his chair, and put on a solemn face. 
 
CHAP. IV.] BEING CROST IN LOVE. 85 
 
 Mrs. Leigh looked up, trembling ; and Frank, he scarce 
 knew why, rose. 
 
 “No; you pitch again. You are King David, and sit still 
 upon your throne. David was a great singer, you know, and a 
 player on the viols ; and ruddy, too, and of a fair countenance ; 
 so that will fit. Now, then, mother, don’t look so frightened. 
 I am not going to play Goliath, for ail my cubits ; I am to pre- 
 sent Nathan the prophet. Now, David, hearken, for I have a 
 message unto thee, 0 King ! 
 
 “ There were two men in one city, one rich, and the other 
 poor : and the rich man had many flocks and herds, and all the 
 fine ladies in Whitehall to court if he liked ; and the poor man 
 had nothing but ” 
 
 And in spite of his broad honest smile, Amyas’s deep voice 
 began to tremble and choke. 
 
 Frank sprang up, and burst into tears : — “ Oh ! Anayas, my 
 brother, my brother ! stop ! I cannot endure this. Oh, God ! 
 was it not enough to have entangled myself in this fatal fancy, 
 but over and above, I must meet the shame of my brother’s 
 discovering it f ’ 
 
 “ What shame, then, I’d like to know V’ said Amyas, 
 recovering himself. “ Look here, brother Frank ! I’ve thought 
 it all over in the garden ; and I was an ass and a braggart for 
 talking to you as I did last night. Of course you love her ! 
 Everybody must ; and I was a fool for not recollecting that; 
 and if you love her, your taste and mine agree, and what can 
 be better ? I think you are a sensible fellow for loving her, 
 and you think me one. And as for who has her, why, you’re 
 the eldest ; and first come first served is the rule, and best to 
 keep to it. Besides, brother Frank, though I’m no scholar, yet 
 I’m not so blind but that I tell the difference between you and 
 me ; and of course your chance against mine, for a hundred to 
 one ; and I am not going to be fool enough to row against wind 
 and tide too. I’m good enough for her, I hope ; but if I am, 
 you are better, and the good dog may run, but it’s the best 
 that takes the hare ; and so I have nothing more to do with 
 the matter at all ; and if you marry her, why, it will set the 
 old house on its legs again, and that’s the first thing to be 
 thought of, and you may just as well do it as I, and better 
 too. Not but that it’s a plague, a horrible plague !” went on 
 Amyas, with a ludicrously doleful visage ; “ but so are other 
 things too, by the dozen ; it’s all in the day’s work, as the 
 huntsman said when the lion ate him. One would never get 
 
86 THE TWO WAYS OF BEING CROST IN LOVE. [chap. IV. 
 
 through the furze-croft if one stopped to pull out the prickles. 
 The pig didn’t scramble out of the ditch by squeaking ; and 
 the less said the sooner mended ; nobody was sent into the 
 world only to suck honey-pots. What must be must, man is 
 but dust ; if you can’t get crumb, you must fain eat crust. So 
 I’ll go and join the army in Ireland, and get it out of my head, 
 for cannon balls fright away love as well as poverty does; and 
 that’s all I’ve got to say.” Wherewith Amyas sat down, and 
 returned to the beer ; while Mrs. Leigh wept tears of joy. 
 
 “ Amyas ! Amyas!” said Frank; “you must not throw 
 away the hopes of years, and for me, too ! Oh, how just was 
 your parable ! Ah ! mother mine ! to what use is all my 
 scholarship and my philosophy, when this dear simple sailor- 
 lad outdoes me at the first trial of courtesy !” 
 
 “ My children, my children, which of you shall I love best ? 
 Which of you is the more noble ? I thanked God this morning 
 for having given me one such son ; but to have found that I 
 possess two !” And Mrs. Leigh laid her head on the table, and 
 buried her face in her hands, while the generous battle went on. 
 “ But, dearest Amyas ! ” 
 
 “ But, Frank ! if you don’t hold your tongue, I must go 
 forth. It was quite trouble enough to make up one’s mind, 
 without having you afterwards trying to unmake it again.” 
 
 “ Amyas ! if you give her up to me, God do so to me, and 
 more also, if I do not hereby give her up to you ! ” 
 
 “He had done it already — this morning !” said Mrs. Leigh, 
 looking up through her tears. “ He renounced her for ever on 
 his knees before me ! only he is too noble to tell you so.” 
 
 “ The more reason I should copy him,” said Amyas, setting 
 his lips, and trying to look desperately determined, and then 
 suddenly jumping up, he leaped upon Frank, and throwing his 
 arms round his neck, sobbed out, “There, there, now! For 
 God’s sake, let us forget all, and think about our mother, and 
 the old house, and how we may win her honour before we die ! 
 and that will be enough to keep our hands full, without fret- 
 ting about this woman and that. — What an ass I have been for 
 years ! instead of learning my calling, dreaming about her, and 
 don’t know at this minute whether she cares more for me than 
 she does for her father’s ’prentices !” 
 
 “ Oh, Amyas ! every word of yours puts me to fresh shame ! 
 Will you believe that I know as little of her likings as you do?” 
 “ Don’t tell me that, and play the devil’s game by putting 
 fresh hopes into me, when I am trying to kick them out. I 
 
CHAP. V.] CLOVELLY COURT IN THE OLDEN TIME. 87 
 
 won’t believe it. If she is not a fool, she must love you ; and 
 if she don’t, why, behanged if she is worth loving!” 
 
 “ My dearest Amyas ! I must ask you too to make no more 
 such speeches to me. All those thoughts I have forsworn.” 
 
 “ Only this morning • so there is time to catch them again 
 before they are gone too far.” 
 
 “ Only this morning,” said Frank, with a quiet smile : “but 
 centuries have passed since then.” 
 
 “ Centuries 1 I don’t see many grey hairs yet.” 
 
 “ I should not have been surprised if you had, though,” 
 answered Frauk, in so sad and meaning a tone that Amyas 
 could only answer — 
 
 “ Well, you are an angel !” 
 
 “ You, at least, are something even more to the purpose, for 
 you are a man !” 
 
 And both spoke truth, and so the battle ended ; and Frank 
 went to his books, while Amyas, who must needs be doing, if 
 he was not to dream, started off to the dockyard to potter about 
 a new ship of Sir Richard’s, and forget his woes, in the capacity 
 of Sir Oracle among the sailors. And so he had played his 
 move for Rose, even as Eustace had, and lost her : but not as 
 Eustace had. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT IN THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 “ It was among the ways of good Queen Bess, 
 
 Who ruled as well as ever mortal can, sir, 
 
 When she was stogg’d, and the country in a mess, 
 
 She was wont to send for a Devon man, sir.” 
 
 West Country Song. 
 
 The next morning Amyas Leigh was not to be found. Not 
 that he had gone out to drown himself in despair, or even to 
 bemoan himself “down by the Torridge side.” He had simply 
 ridden off, Frank found, to Sir Richard Grenvile at Stow : his 
 mother at once divined the truth, that he was gone to try for a 
 post in the Irish army, and sent off Frank after him to bring 
 him home again, and make him at least reconsider himself. 
 
 So Frank took horse and rode thereon ten miles or more : 
 and then, as there were no inns on the road in those days, or 
 indeed in these, and he had some ten miles more of hilly road 
 before him, he turned down the hill towards Clovelly Court, to 
 
88 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [CHAP. y. 
 
 obtain, after the hospitable humane fashion of those days, good 
 entertainment for man and horse from Mr. Cary the squire. 
 
 And when he walked self-invited, like the loud -shouting 
 Menelaus, in the long dark wainscoted hall of the Court, the 
 first object he beheld was the mighty form of Amyas, who, 
 seated at the long table, was alternately burying his face in a 
 pasty, and the pasty in his face, his sorrows having, as it seemed, 
 only sharpened his appetite, while young Will Cary, kneeling 
 on the opposite bench, with his elbows on the table, was in that 
 graceful attitude laying down the law fiercely to him in a low 
 voice. 
 
 “ Hillo ! lad,” cried Amyas ; “ come hither and deliver me 
 out of the hands of this fire-eater, who I verily believe will kill 
 me, if I do not let him kill some one else.” 
 
 “ Ah ! Mr. Frank,” said Will Cary, who, like all other young 
 gentlemen of these parts, held Frank in high honour, and con- 
 sidered him a very oracle and cynosure of fashion and chivalry, 
 “welcome here: I was just longing for you, too; I wanted 
 your advice on half-a-dozen matters. Sit down, and eat. Th6re 
 is the ale.” 
 
 “None so early, thank you.” 
 
 “Ah no!” said Amyas, burying his head in the tankard, 
 and then mimicking Frank, “ avoid strong ale o’ mornings. It 
 heats the blood, thickens the animal spirits, and obfuscates the 
 cerebrum with frenetical and lymphatic idols, which cloud the 
 quintessential light of the pure reason. Eh 1 young Plato, 
 young Daniel, come hither to judgment ! And yet, though I 
 cannot see through the bottom of the tankard already, I can 
 see plain enough still to see this, that Will shall not fight.” 
 
 “ Shall I not, eh ? who says that 1 Mr. Frank, I appeal to 
 you, now ; only hear.” 
 
 “ We are in the judgment-seat,” said Frank, settling to the 
 pasty. “ Proceed, appellant.” 
 
 “ Well, I was telling Amyas, that Tom Coffin, of Portledge ; 
 I will stand him no longer.” 
 
 “Let him be, then,” said Amyas; “he could stand very 
 well by himself, when I saw him last.” 
 
 “Plague on you, hold your tongue. Has he any right to 
 look at me as he does, whenever I pass him ?” 
 
 “ That depends on how he looks ; a cat may look at a king, 
 provided she don’t take him for a mouse.” 
 
 “ Oh, I know how he looks, and what he means too, and 
 he shall stop, or I will stop him. And the other day, when I 
 
CHAP. V.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 89 
 
 spoke of Rose Salterne.” — “Ah!” groaned Frank, “ Atk’s 
 apple again !” — “ (never mind what I said) he burst out laugh- 
 ing in my face ; and is not that a fair quarrel ? And what is 
 more, I know that he wrote a sonnet, and sent it to her to 
 Stow by a market woman. What right has he to write sonnets 
 when I can’t 1 ? It’s not fair play, Mr. Frank, or I am a Jew, 
 and a Spaniard, and a Papist; it’s not!” And Will smote 
 the table till the plates danced again. 
 
 “ My dear knight of the burning pestle, I have a plan, a 
 device, a disentanglement, according to most approved rules of 
 chivalry. Let us fix a day, and summon by tuck of drum all 
 young gentlemen under the age of thirty, dwelling within fifteen 
 miles of the habitation of that peerless Oriana.” 
 
 “ And all ’prentice-boys too,” cried Amyas out of the 
 pasty. 
 
 “ And all ’prentice-boys. The bold lads shall fight first, 
 with good quarterstaves, in Bideford Market, till all heads are 
 broken ; and the head which is not broken, let the back belong 
 to it pay the penalty of the noble member’s cowardice. After 
 which grand tournament, to which that of Tottenham shall be 
 
 but a flea-bite and a batrachomyomachy ” 
 
 “ Confound you, and your long words, sir,” said poor Will, 
 “ I know you are flouting me.” 
 
 “ Pazienza, Signor Cavaliere ; that which is to come is no 
 flouting, but bloody and warlike earnest. For afterwards all 
 the young gentlemen shall adjourn into a convenient field, sand, 
 or bog — which last will be better, as no man will be able to 
 run away, if he be up to his knees in soft peat : and there 
 stripping to our shirts, with rapiers of equal length and keenest 
 temper, each shall slay his man, catch who catch can, and the 
 conquerors fight again, like a most valiant main of gamecocks 
 as we are, till all be dead, and out of their woes ; after which 
 the survivor, bewailing before heaven and earth the cruelty of 
 our Fair Oriana, and the slaughter which her basiliscine eyes 
 have caused, shall fall gracefully upon his sword, and so end 
 the woes of this our lovelorn generation. Placetne Domini ? 
 as they used to ask in the Senate at Oxford.” 
 
 “ Really,” said Cary, “ this is too bad.” 
 
 “ So is, pardon me, your fighting Mr. Coffin with anything 
 longer than a bodkin.” 
 
 “ Bodkins are too short for such fierce Bobadils,” said 
 Amyas ; “ they would close in so near, that we should have 
 them falling to fisticuffs after the first bout.” 
 
90 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [chap. V. 
 
 “ Then let them fight with squirts across the market-place ; 
 for by heaven and the queen’s laws, they shall fight with 
 nothing else.” 
 
 “ My dear Mr. Cary,” went on Frank, suddenly changing 
 his bantering tone to one of the most winning sweetness ; “ do 
 not fancy that I cannot feel for you ; or that I, as well as you, 
 have not known the stings of love and the bitterer stings of 
 jealousy. But oh, Mr. Cary, does it not seem to you an awful 
 tiling to waste selfishly upon your own quarrel that divine 
 wrath which, as Plato says, is the very root of all virtues, and 
 which has been given you, like all else which you have, that 
 you may spend it in the service of her whom all bad souls fear, 
 and all virtuous souls adore, — our peerless queen ? Who dares, 
 while she rules England, call his sword or his courage his own, 
 or any one’s but hers. Are there no Spaniards to conquer, no 
 wild Irish to deliver from their oppressors, that two gentlemen 
 of Devon can find no better place to flesh their blades than 
 in each other’s valiant and honourable hearts ?” 
 
 “By heaven !” cried Amyas, “Frank speaks like a book; 
 and for me, I do think that Christian gentlemen may leave 
 love quarrels to bulls and rams.” 
 
 “ And that the heir of Clovelly,” said Frank, smiling, “may 
 find more noble examples to copy than the stags in his own 
 deer-park.” 
 
 “ Well,” said Will penitently, “you are a great scholar, Mr. 
 Frank, and you speak like one ; but gentlemen must fight 
 sometimes, or where would be their honour.” 
 
 “ I speak,” said Frank a little proudly, “ not merely as a 
 scholar, but as a gentleman, and one who has fought ere now, 
 and to whom it has happened, Mr. Cary, to kill his man (on 
 whose soul may God have mercy) ; but it is my pride to 
 remember that I have never yet fought in my own quarrel, and 
 my trust in God that I never shall. For as there is nothing 
 more noble and blessed than to fight in behalf of those whom 
 we love, so to fight in our own private behalf is a thing not to 
 be allowed to a Christian man, unless refusal imports utter loss 
 of life or honour ; and even then, it may be (though I would, 
 not lay a burden on any man’s conscience), it is better not to 
 resist evil, but to overcome it with good.” 
 
 “ And I can tell you, Will,” said Amyas, “ I am not troubled 
 with fear of ghosts ; but when I cut off the Frenchman’s 
 head, I said to myself, ‘If that braggart had been slander- 
 ing me instead of her gracious Majesty, I should expect to 
 
CHAP, v.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 91 
 
 see that head lying on my pillow every time I went to bed at 
 night.” 
 
 “God forbid!” said Will, with a shudder. “But what 
 shall I do ? for to the market to-morrow I will go, if it were 
 choke-full of Coffins, and a ghost in each coffin of the lot.” 
 
 “Leave the matter to me,” said Amyas. “I have my 
 device, as well as scholar Frank here ; and if there be, as I 
 suppose there must be, a quarrel in the market to-morrow, see 
 if I do not ” 
 
 “ Well, you are two good fellows,” said Will. “ Let us 
 have another tankard in.” 
 
 “ And drink the health of Mr. Coffin, and all gallant lads 
 of the North,” said Frank ; “and now to my business. I have 
 to take this runaway youth here home to his mother ; and if 
 he will not go quietly, I have orders to carry him across my 
 saddle.” 
 
 “ I hope your nag has a strong back, then,” said Amyas ; 
 “ but I must go on and see Sir Richard, Frank. It is all very 
 well to jest as we have been doing, but my mind is made up.” 
 
 “ Stop,” said Cary. “ You must stay here to-night ; first, 
 for good fellowship’s sake ; and next, because I want the advice 
 of our Phoenix here, our oracle, our paragon. There, Mr. 
 Frank, can you construe that for me? Speak low, though, 
 gentlemen both ; there comes my father • you had better give 
 me the letter again. Well, father, whence this morning?” 
 
 “ Eh, company here ? Young men, you are always welcome, 
 and such as you. Would there were more of your sort in these 
 dirty times. How is your good mother, Frank, eh? Where 
 have I been, Will? Round the house-farm, to look at the 
 beeves. That sheeted heifer of Prowse’s is all wrong ; her coat 
 stares like a hedgepig’s. Tell Jewell to go up and bring her in 
 before night. And then up the forty acres ; sprang two coveys, 
 and picked a leash out of them. The Irish hawk flies as wild 
 as any haggard still, and will never make a bird. I had to 
 hand her to Tom, and take the little peregrine. Give me 
 a Clovelly hawk against the world, after all ; and — heigh 
 ho, I am very hungry! Half-past twelve, and dinner not 
 served ? What, Master Amyas, spoiling your appetite with 
 strong ale ? Better have tried sack, lad ; have some now 
 with me.” 
 
 And the worthy old gentleman, having finished his oration, 
 settled himself on a great bench inside the chimney, and put 
 his hawk on a perch over his head, while his cockers coiled 
 
92 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [chap. y. 
 
 themselves up close to the warm peat-ashes, and his son set to 
 work to pull off his father’s boots, amid sundry warnings to 
 take care of his corns. 
 
 “ Come, Master Amyas, a pint of white wine and sugar, 
 and a bit of a shoeing-horn to it ere we dine. Some pickled 
 prawns, now, or a rasher off the coals, to whet you ?” 
 
 “ Thank you,” quoth Amyas ; “ but I have drunk a mort 
 of outlandish liquors, better and worse, in the last three years, 
 and yet never found aught to come up to good ale, which needs 
 neither shoeing-horn before nor after, but takes care of itself, 
 and of all honest stomachs too, I think.” 
 
 “ You speak like a book, boy,” said old Cary ■ “ and after 
 all, what a plague comes of these new-fangled hot wines, and 
 aqua vitaes, which have come in since the wars, but maddening 
 of the brains, and fever of the blood ?” 
 
 “I fear we have not seen the end of that yet,” said Frank. 
 “ My friends write me from the Netherlands that our men are 
 falling into a swinish trick of swilling like the Hollanders. 
 Heaven grant that they may not bring home the fashion with 
 them.” 
 
 “ A man must drink, they say, or die of the ague, in those 
 vile swamps,” said Amyas. “ When they get home here, they 
 will not need it.” 
 
 “ Heaven grant it,” said Frank ; “ I should be sorry to see 
 Devonshire a drunken county ; and there are many of our men 
 out there with Mr. Champernoun.” 
 
 “ Ah,” said Cary, “ there, as in Ireland, we are proving her 
 Majesty’s saying true, that Devonshire is her right hand, and 
 the young children thereof like the arrows in the hand of the 
 giant.” 
 
 “ They may well be,” said his son, “ when some of them are 
 giants themselves, like my tall schoolfellow opposite.” 
 
 “ He will be up and doing again presently, I’ll warrant 
 him,” said old Cary. 
 
 ‘‘And that I shall,” quoth Amyas. “ I have been devising 
 brave deeds ; and see in the distance enchanters to be bound, 
 dragons choked, empires conquered, though not in Holland.” 
 
 “ You do V * asked Will a little sharply ; for he had had 
 a half suspicion that more was meant than met the ear. 
 
 “Yes,” said Amyas, turning off his jest again, “I go to 
 what Raleigh calls the Land of the Nymphs. Another month, 
 I hope, will see me abroad in Ireland.” 
 
 “ Abroad ? Call it rather at home,” said old Cary ; “ for it 
 
CHAP, v.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 93 
 
 is full of Devon men from end to end, and you will be among 
 friends all day long. George Bourchier from Tawstock has the 
 army now in Munster, and Warham St. Leger is Marshal ; 
 George Carew is with Lord Grey of Wilton (Poor Peter Carew 
 was killed at Glendalough) ; and after the defeat last year, 
 when that villain Desmond cut off Herbert and Price, the com- 
 panies were made up with six hundred Devon men, and Arthur 
 Fortescue at their head ; so that the old county holds her 
 head as proudly in the Land of Ire as she does in the Low 
 Countries and the Spanish Main.'’ 
 
 “And where,” asked Ainyas, “is Davils of Marsland, who 
 used to teach me how to catch trout, when I was staying down 
 at Stow ? He is in Ireland, too, is he not ?” 
 
 “ Ah, my lad,” said Mr. Cary, “ that is a sad story. I 
 thought all England had known it.” 
 
 “ You forget, sir, I am a stranger. Surely he is not 
 dead?” 
 
 “ Murdered foully, lad ! Murdered like a dog, and by the 
 man whom he had treated as his son, and who pretended, the 
 false knave ! to call him father.” 
 
 “ His blood is avenged ?” said Ainyas fiercely. 
 
 “No, by heaven, not yet! Stay, don’t cry out again. I 
 am getting old — I must tell my story my own way. It was 
 last July, — was it not, Will? — Over comes to Ireland Saunders, 
 one of those Jesuit foxes, as the Pope’s legate, with money and 
 bulls, and a banner hallowed by the Pope, and the devil knows 
 what beside ; and with him James Fitzmaurice, the same fellow 
 who had sworn oil his knees to Perrott, in the church at 
 Kilmallock, to be a true liegeman to Queen Elizabeth, and con- 
 firmed it by all his saints, and such a world of his Irish howl- 
 ing, that Perrott told me he was fain to stop his own ears. 
 Well, he had been practising with the King of France, but got 
 nothing but laughter for his pains, and so went over to the 
 Most Catholic King, and promises him to join Ireland to Spain, 
 and set up Popery again, and what not. And he, I suppose, 
 thinking it better that Ireland should belong to him than to 
 the Pope’s bastard, fits him out, and sends him off on such 
 another errand as Stukely’s, — though I will say, for the honour 
 of Devon, if Stukely lived like a fool, he died like an honest 
 man.” 
 
 “ Sir Thomas Stukely dead too ?” said Amyas. 
 
 “ Wait a while, lad, and you shall have that tragedy after- 
 wards. Well, where was I ? Oh, Fitzmaurice and the Jesuits 
 
94 CLOVELLY COURT [chap. V. 
 
 land at Smerwick, with three ships, choose a place for a fort, 
 bless' it with their holy water, and their moppings and their 
 scourings, and the rest of it, to purify it from the stain of 
 heretic dominion ; but in the meanwhile one of the Courtenays, 
 —a Courtenay of Haccombe, was it ? — or a Courtenay of 
 Boconnock 1 Silence, Will, I shall have it in a minute — yes, a 
 Courtenay of Haccombe it was, lying at anchor near by, in a 
 ship of war of his, cuts out the three ships, and cuts off the 
 Dons from the sea. John and James Desmond, with some 
 small rabble, go over to the Spaniards. Earl Desmond will 
 not join them, but will not fight them, and stands by to take 
 the winning side ; and then in comes poor Davils, sent down 
 by the Lord Deputy to charge Desmond and his brothers, in 
 the queen’s name, to assault the Spaniards. Folks say it was 
 rash of his Lordship : but I say, what could be better done ? 
 Every one knows that there never was a stouter or shrewder 
 soldier than Davils ; and the young Desmonds, I have heard 
 him say many a time, used to look on him as their father. But 
 he found out what it was to trust Englishmen turned Irish. 
 Well, the Desmonds found out on a sudden that the Dons were 
 such desperate Paladins, that it was madness to meddle, though 
 they were five to one ; and poor Davils, seeing that there was 
 no fight in them, goes back for help, and sleeps that night at 
 some place called Tralee. Arthur Carter of Bideford, St. Leger’s 
 lieutenant, as stout an old soldier as Davils himself, sleeps in 
 the same bed with him ; the lacquey-boy, who is now with Sir 
 Richard at Stow, on the floor at their feet. But in the dead 
 of night, who should come in but James Desmond, sword in 
 hand, with a dozen of his ruffians at his heels, each with his 
 glib over his ugly face, and his skene in his hand. Davils 
 springs up in bed, and asks but this, ‘ What is the matter, my 
 son V whereon the treacherous villain, without giving him time 
 to say a prayer, strikes at him, naked as he was, crying, 4 Thou 
 shalt be my father no longer, nor I thy son ! Thou shalt die V 
 and at that all the rest fall on him. The poor little lad (so he 
 says) leaps up to cover his master with his naked body, gets 
 three or four stabs of skenes, and so falls for dead ; with his 
 master and Captain Carter, who were dead indeed — Cod reward 
 them ! After that the ruffians ransacked the house, till they 
 had murdered every Englishmen in it, the lacquey-boy only 
 excepted, who crawled out, wounded as he was, through a 
 window ; while Desmond, if you will believe it, went back, up 
 to his elbows in blood, and vaunted his deeds to the Spaniards, 
 
IN THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 95 
 
 CHAP. V.] 
 
 and asked them — ‘ There ! Will you take that as a pledge that 
 I am faithful to you V And that, my lad, was the end of 
 Henry Davils, and will be of all who trust to the faith of wild 
 savages.” 
 
 “ I would go a hundred miles to see that Desmond hanged !” 
 said Amyas, while great tears ran down his face. “ Poor Mr. 
 Davils ! And now, what is the story of Sir Thomas V’ 
 
 “Your brother must tell you that, lad; I am somewhat 
 out of breath.” 
 
 “ And I have a right to tell it,” said Frank, with a smile. 
 “ Do you know that I was very near being Earl of the bog of 
 Allen, and one of the peers of the realm to King Buoncompagna, 
 son and heir to his Holiness Pope Gregory the Thirteenth ?” 
 
 “No, surely !” 
 
 “ As I am a gentleman. When I was at Rome I saw poor 
 Stukely often ; and this and more he offered me on the part 
 (as he said) of the Pope, if I would just oblige him in the two 
 little matters of being reconciled to the Catholic Church, and 
 joining the invasion of Ireland.” 
 
 “ Poor deluded heretic,” said Will Cary, “ to have lost an 
 earldom for your family by such silly scruples of loyalty !” 
 
 “ It is not a matter for jesting, after all,” said Frank ; “ but 
 I saw Sir Thomas often, and I cannot believe he was in his 
 senses, so frantic was his vanity and his ambition ; and all the 
 while, in private matters as honourable a gentleman as ever. 
 However, he sailed at last for Ireland, with his eight hundred 
 Spaniards and Italians ; and what is more, I know that the 
 King of Spain paid their charges. Marquis Vinola— James 
 Buoncompagna, that is — stayed quietly at Rome, preferring 
 that Stukely should conquer his paternal heritage of Ireland 
 for him while he took car& of the bona robas at home. I went 
 down to Civita Yecchia to see him off ; and though his younger 
 by many years, I could not but take the liberty of entreating 
 him, as a gentleman and a man of Devon, to consider his faith 
 to his queen and the honour of his country. There were high 
 words between us ; God forgive me if I spoke too fiercely, for I 
 never saw him again.” 
 
 “ Too fiercely to an open traitor, Frank 1 Why not have 
 run him through?” 
 
 “ Nay, I had no clean life for Sundays, Amyas ; so I could 
 not throw away my week-day one ; and as for the weal of 
 England, I knew that it was little he would damage it, and 
 told him so. And at that he waxed utterly mad, for it touched 
 
96 
 
 CLOYELLY COURT 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 his pride, and swore that if the wind had not been fair for 
 sailing, he would have fought me there and then ; to which I 
 could only answer, that I was ready to meet him when he 
 would ; and he parted from me, saying, ^ It is a pity, sir, I 
 cannot fight you now • when next we meet, it will be beneath 
 my dignity to measure swords with you.’” 
 
 “ I suppose he expected to come back a prince at least — 
 Heaven knows ; I owe him no ill-will, nor I hope does any man. 
 He has paid all debts now in full, and got his receipt for them.” 
 
 “ How did he die, then, after all V* 
 
 “ On his voyage he touched in Portugal. King Sebastian 
 was just sailing for Africa with his new ally, Mohammed the 
 Prince of Fez, to help King Abdallah, and conquer what he 
 could. He persuaded Stukely to go with him. There were 
 those who thought that he as well as the Spaniards, had no 
 stomach for seeing the Pope’s son King of Ireland. Others 
 used to say that he thought an island too small for his ambition, 
 and must needs conquer a continent — I know not why it was, 
 but he w r ent. They had heavy weather in the passage ; and 
 when they landed, many of their soldiers were sea-sick. Stukely, 
 reasonably enough, counselled that they should wait two or 
 three days and recruit ’ but Don Sebastian w~as so mad for the 
 assault that he must needs have his veni, vidi, vici ; and so 
 ended with a veni , vidi , perii ; for he, Abdallah, and his son 
 Mohammed, all perished in the first battle at Alcasar ; and 
 Stukely, surrounded and overpowered, fought till he could fight 
 no more, and then died like a hero with all his wounds in 
 front ; and may God have mercy on his soul !” 
 
 “ Ah !” said Amyas, “ we heard of that battle off Lima, but 
 nothing about poor Stukely.” 
 
 “ That last was a Popish prayer, Master Frank,” said old 
 Mr. Cary. 
 
 “ Most worshipful sir, you surely would not wish God not 
 to have mercy on his soul 1 ?” 
 
 “No — eh 'l Of course not : but that’s all settled by now, 
 for he is dead, poor fellow.” 
 
 “ Certainly, my dear sir. And you cannot help being a 
 little fond of him still.” 
 
 “ Eh ? why, I should be a brute if I were not. He and I 
 were schoolfellows, though he was somewhat the younger ; and 
 many a good thrashing have I given him, and one cannot help 
 having a tenderness for a man after that. Beside, we used to 
 hunt together in Exmoor, and have royal nights afterward into 
 
IN THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 97 
 
 CHAP. V.] 
 
 Ilfracombe, when we were a couple of mad young blades. Fond 
 of him ? Why, I would have sooner given my forefinger than 
 that he should have gone to the dogs thus.” 
 
 “Then, my dear sir, if you feel for him still, in spite of all 
 his faults, how do you know that God may not feel for him still, 
 in spite of all his faults ? For my part,” quoth Frank in his 
 fanciful way, “ without believing in that Popish Purgatory, I 
 cannot help holding with Plato, that such heroical souls, who 
 have wanted but little of true greatness, are hereafter by some 
 strait discipline brought to a better mind ; perhaps, as many 
 ancients have held with the Indian Gynmosophists, by trans- 
 migration into the bodies of those animals whom they have re- 
 sembled in their passions ; and indeed, if Sir Thomas Stukely’s 
 soul should now animate the body of a lion, all I can say is that 
 he would be a very valiant and royal lion ; and also doubtless 
 become in due time heartily ashamed and penitent for having 
 been nothing better than a lion.” 
 
 “What now, Master Frank 1 ? I don’t trouble my head with 
 such matters — I say Stukely was a right good-hearted fellow at 
 bottom ; and if you plague my head with any of your dialectics, 
 and propositions, and college quips and quiddities, you shan’t 
 have any more sack, sir. But here come the knaves, and I hear 
 the cook knock to dinner.” 
 
 After a madrigal or two, and an Italian song of Master 
 Frank’s, all which went sweetly enough, the ladies rose, and 
 went. Whereon Will Cary, drawing his chair close to Frank’s, 
 put quietly into his hand a dirty letter. 
 
 “ This was the letter left for me,” whispered he, “ by a 
 country fellow this morning. Look at it and tell me what I 
 am to do.” 
 
 Whereon Frank opened, and read — 
 
 “ Mister Cary, be you wary 
 By deer park end to-night. 
 
 Yf Irish ffoxe com out of rocks 
 Grip and hold hym tight.” 
 
 “ I would have showed it my father,” said Will, “ but ” 
 
 “ I verily believe it to be a blind. See now, this is the 
 handwriting of a man who has been trying to write vilely, and 
 yet cannot. Look at that B, and that G • their formae forma- 
 tivce never were begotten in a hedge-school. And what is more, 
 this is no Devon man’s handiwork. We say ‘to’ and not ‘by,’ 
 Will, eh 1 in the West country?” 
 
 “Of course.” 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [CHAP Y. 
 
 “ And ‘ man,’ instead of ‘ him ’ V ’ 
 
 “ True, 0 Daniel ! But am I to do nothing therefore ?” 
 
 “ On that matter I am no judge. Let us ask much-endur- 
 ing Ulysses here ; perhaps he has not sailed round the world 
 without bringing home a device or two.” 
 
 Whereon Amyas was called to counsel, as soon as Mr. Cary 
 could be stopped in a long cross-examination of him as to Mr. 
 Doughty’s famous trial and execution. 
 
 Amyas pondered awhile, thrusting his hands into his long 
 curls ; and then — 
 
 “ Will, my lad, have you been watching at the Deer Park 
 End of late?” 
 
 “Never.” 
 
 “ Where, then ?” 
 
 “At the town-beach.” 
 
 “Where else?” 
 
 “ At the town-head.” 
 
 “Where else?” 
 
 “ Why, the fellow is turned lawyer ! Above Freshwater.” 
 “Where is Freshwater?” 
 
 “ Why, where the water-fall comes over the cliff, half-a-mile 
 from the town. There is a path there up into the forest.” 
 
 “ I know. I’ll watch there to-night. Do you keep all your 
 old haunts safe, of course, and send a couple of stout knaves to 
 the mill, to watch the beach at the Deer Park End, on the 
 chance ; for your poet may be a true man, after all. But my 
 heart’s faith is, that this comes just to draw you off from some 
 old beat of yours, upon a wild goose chase. If they shoot the 
 miller by mistake, I suppose it don’t much matter?” 
 
 “Marry, no. 
 
 “ ‘When a miller’s knock’d on the head, 
 
 The less of flour makes the more of bread.’ ” 
 
 “ Or, again,” chimed in old Mr. Cary, “ as they say in the 
 North — 
 
 “ ‘ Find a miller that will not steal, 
 
 Or a webster that is leal, 
 
 Or a priest that is not greedy, 
 
 And lay them three a dead corpse by ; 
 
 And by the virtue of them three, 
 
 The said dead corpse shall quicken’d be.’ ” 
 
 “ But why are you so ready to watch Freshwater to-night, 
 Master Amyas ?” 
 
CHAP. V.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 99 
 
 “Because, sir, those who come, if they come, will never land 
 at Mouthmill ; if they are strangers, they dare not ; and if they 
 are bay’s-men, they are too wise, as long as the westerly swell 
 sets in. As for landing at the town, that would be too great a 
 risk ; but Freshwater is as lonely as the Bermudas ; and they 
 can beach a boat up under the cliff at all tides, and in all 
 weathers, except north and nor’-west. I have done it many a 
 time, when I was a boy.” 
 
 “ And give us the fruit of your experience now in your old 
 age, eh 1 ? Well, you have a grey head on green shoulders, my 
 lad ; and I verily believe you are right. Who will you take 
 with you to watch?” 
 
 “ Sir,” said Frank, “ I will go with my brother : and that 
 will be enough.” 
 
 “ Enough ? He is big enough, and you brave enough, for 
 ten ; but still, the more the merrier.” 
 
 “ But the fewer, the better fare. If I might ask a first and 
 last favour, worshipful sir,” said Frank very earnestly, “you 
 would grant me two things : that you would let none go to 
 Freshwater but me and my brother; and that whatsoever we 
 shall bring you back shall be kept as secret as the commonweal 
 and your loyalty shall permit. I trust that we are not so un- 
 known to you, or to others, that you can doubt for a moment 
 but that whatsoever we may do will satisfy at once your honour 
 and our own.” 
 
 “ My dear young gentleman, there is no need of so many 
 courtier’s words. I am your father’s friend, and yours. And 
 God forbid that a Cary — for I guess your drift — should ever 
 wish to make a head or a heart ache ; that is, more than ” 
 
 “ Those of whom it is written, £ Though thou bray a fool in 
 a mortar, yet will not his folly depart from him,’ ” interposed 
 Frank, in so sad a tone that no one at the table replied ; and 
 few more words were exchanged, till the two brothers were safe 
 outside the house ; and then — 
 
 “Amyas,” said Frank, “that w r as a Devon man’s handi- 
 work, nevertheless ; it was Eustace’s handwriting.” 
 
 “ Impossible !” 
 
 “ No, lad. I have been secretary to a prince, and learnt to 
 interpret cipher, and to watch every pen-stroke ; and, young as 
 I am, I think that I am not easily deceived. Would God I 
 were ! Come on, lad ; and strike no man hastily, lest thou cut 
 off thine own flesh.” 
 
 So forth the two went, along the park to the eastward, and 
 
100 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [chap. y. 
 
 past the head of the little wood-embosomed fishing-town, a steep 
 stair of houses clinging to the cliff far below them, the bright 
 slate roofs and white walls glittering in the moonlight ; and 
 on some half-mile farther, along the steep hill-side, fenced with 
 oak wood down to the water’s edge, by a narrow forest path, to 
 a point where two glens meet and pour their streamlets over a 
 cascade some hundred feet in height into the sea below. By 
 the side of this waterfall a narrow path climbs upward from the 
 beach ; and here it was that the two brothers expected to meet 
 the messenger. 
 
 Frank insisted on taking his station below Amyas. He 
 said that he was certain that Eustace himself would make his 
 appearance, and that he was more fit than Amyas to bring him 
 to reason by parley ; that if Amyas would keep watch some 
 twenty yards above, the escape of the messenger would be im- 
 possible. Moreover, he was the elder brother, and the post of 
 honour was his right. So Amyas obeyed him, after making 
 him promise that if more than one man came up the path, he 
 would let them pass him before he challenged, so that both 
 might bring them to bay at the same time. 
 
 So Amyas took his station under a high marl bank, and, 
 bedded in luxuriant crown-ferns, kept his eye steadily on Frank, 
 Avho sat down on a little knoll of rock (where is now a garden 
 on the cliff-edge) which parts the path and the dark chasm 
 down which the stream rushes to its final leap over the 
 cliff. 
 
 There Amyas sat a full half-hour, and glanced at whiles 
 from Frank to look upon the scene around. Outside the south- 
 west wind blew fresh and strong, and the moonlight danced 
 upon a thousand crests of foam ; but within the black jagged 
 point which sheltered the town, the sea did but heave, in long 
 oily swells of rolling silver, onward into the black shadow of the 
 hills, within which the town and pier lay invisible, save where 
 a twinkling light gave token of some lonely fisher’s wife, watch- 
 ing the weary night through for the boat which would return 
 with dawn. Here and there upon the sea, a black speck marked 
 a herring-boat, drifting with its line of nets ; and right off the 
 mouth of the glen, Amyas saw, with a beating heart, a large 
 two-masted vessel lying-to — that must be the “Portugal!” 
 Eagerly he looked up the glen, and listened ; but he heard 
 nothing but the sweeping of the wind across the downs five 
 hundred feet above, and the sough of the waterfall upon the 
 rocks below ; he saw nothing but the vast black sheets of oak- 
 
CHAP. V.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 101 
 
 wood sloping up to the narrow blue sky above, and the broad 
 bright hhnter’s moon, and the woodcocks, which, chuckling to 
 each other, hawked to and fro, like swallows, between the tree- 
 tops and the sky. 
 
 At last he heard a rustle of the fallen leaves ; he shrank 
 closer and closer into the darkness of the bank. Then swift 
 light steps — not down the path, from above, but upward, from 
 below ; his heart beat quick and loud. And in another half- 
 minute a man came in sight, within three yards of Frank’s 
 hiding-place. 
 
 Frank sprang out instantly. Amyas saw his bright blade 
 glance in the clear October moonlight. 
 
 “ Stand in the queen’s name !” 
 
 The man drew a pistol from under his cloak, and fired full 
 in his face. Had it happened in these days of detonators, 
 Frank’s chance had been small ; but to get a ponderous wheel- 
 lock under weigh was a longer business, and before the fizzing 
 of the flint had ceased, Frank had struck up the pistol with his 
 rapier, and it exploded harmlessly over his head. The man in- 
 stantly dashed the weapon in his face and closed. 
 
 The blow, luckily, did not take effect on that delicate fore- 
 head, but struck him on the shoulder : nevertheless, Frank, 
 who with all his grace and agility was as fragile as a lily, and 
 a very bubble of the earth, staggered, and lost his guard-, and 
 before he could recover himself, Amyas saw a dagger gleam, 
 and one, two, three blows fiercely repeated. 
 
 Mad with fury, he was with them in an instant. They 
 were scuffling together so closely in the shade that he was 
 afraid to use his sword point ; but with the hilt he dealt a 
 single blow full on the ruffian’s cheek. It was enough ; with 
 a hideous shriek, the fellow rolled over at his feet, and Amyas 
 set his foot on him, in act to run him through. 
 
 “Stop! stay!” almost screamed Frank; “it is Eustace! 
 our cousin Eustace !” and he leant against a tree. 
 
 Amyas sprang towards him : but Frank waved him off. 
 
 “ It is nothing — a scratch. He has papers : I am sure of 
 it. Take them ; and for God’s sake let him go !” 
 
 “Villain ! give me your papers !” cried Amyas, setting his 
 foot once more on the writhing Eustace, whose jaw was broken 
 across. 
 
 “You struck me foully from behind,” moaned he, his vanity 
 and envy even then coming out, in that faint and foolish attempt 
 to prove Amyas not so very much better a man. 
 
102 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [chap. y. 
 
 “ Hound, do you think that I dare not strike you in front 1 
 Give me your papers, letters, whatever Popish devilry you 
 carry ; or as I live, I will cut off your head, and take them 
 myself, even if it cost me the shame of stripping your corpse. 
 Give them up ! Traitor, murderer ! give them, I say!” And 
 setting his foot on him afresh, he raised his sword. 
 
 Eustace was usually no craven : but he was cowed. Between 
 agony and shame, he had no heart to resist. Martyrdom, which 
 looked so splendid when consummated selon les regies on Tower 
 Hill or Tyburn, before pitying, or (still better) scoffing multi- 
 tudes, looked a confused, dirty, ugly business there in the dark 
 forest ; and as he lay, a stream of moonlight bathed his mighty 
 cousin’s broad clear forehead, and his long golden locks, and 
 his white terrible blade, till he seemed, to Eustace’s supersti- 
 tious eye, like one of those fair young St. Michaels trampling-' 
 on the fiend, which he had seen abroad in old German pictures. 
 He shuddered ; pulled a packet from his bosom, and threw it 
 from him, murmuring, “ I have not given it.” 
 
 “ Swear to me that these are all the papers which you 
 have in cipher or out of cipher. Swear on your soul, or you 
 die !” 
 
 Eustace swore. 
 
 “ Tell me, who are your accomplices V* 
 
 “Never!” said Eustace. “Cruel! have you not degraded 
 me enough already ?” and the wretched young man burst into 
 tears, and hid his bleeding face in his hands. 
 
 One hint of honour made Amyas as gentle as a lamb. He 
 lifted Eustace up, and bade him run for his life. 
 
 “ I am to owe my life, then, to you V’ 
 
 “ Not in the least; only to your being a Leigh. Go, or it 
 will be worse for you!” And Eustace went; while Amyas, 
 catching up the precious packet, hurried to Frank. He had 
 fainted already, and his brother had to carry him as far as the 
 park before lie could find any of the other watchers. The 
 blind, as far as they were concerned, was complete. They had 
 heard and seen nothing. Whosoever had brought the packet 
 had landed they knew not where ; and so all returned to the 
 Court, carrying Frank, who recovered gradually, having rather 
 bruises than wounds ; for his foe had struck wildly, and with 
 a trembling hand. 
 
 Half- an -hour after, Amyas, Mr. Cary, and his son Will 
 were in deep consultation over the following epistle, the only 
 paper in the packet which was not in cipher : — 
 
IN THE OLDEN TIME. 
 
 103 
 
 CHAP. V.] 
 
 “ 4- Dear Brother N. S. in Ch t0 ' et Ecclesia. 
 
 “ This is to inform you and the friends of the cause, that 
 S. Josephus has landed in Smerwick, with eight hundred 
 valiant Crusaders, burning with holy zeal to imitate last year’s 
 martyrs of Carrigfolium, and to expiate their offences (which I 
 fear may have been many) by the propagation of our most holy 
 faith. I have purified the fort (which they are strenuously 
 rebuilding) with prayer and holy water, from the stain of 
 heretical footsteps, and consecrated it afresh to the service of 
 Heaven, as the first-fruits of the isle of saints ; and having dis- 
 played the consecrated banner to the adoration of the faithful, 
 have returned to Earl Desmond, that I may establish his faith, 
 weak as yet, by reason of the allurements of this world : 
 though since, by the valour of his brother James, he that 
 hindered was taken out of the way (I mean Davils the heretic, 
 sacrifice well-pleasing in the eyes of Heaven !), the young man 
 has lent a more obedient ear to my counsels. If you can do 
 anything, do it quickly, for a great door and effectual is opened, 
 and there are many adversaries. But be swift, for so do the 
 poor lambs of the Church tremble at the fury of the heretics, 
 that a hundred will flee before one Englishman. And indeed, 
 were it not for that divine charity toward the Church (which 
 covers the multitude of sins) with which they are resplendent, 
 neither they nor their country would be, by the carnal judg- 
 ment, counted worthy of so great labour in their behalf. For 
 they themselves are given much to lying, theft, and drunkenness, 
 vain babbling, and profane dancing and singing ; and are still, 
 as S. Gildas reports of them, ‘ more careful to shroud their 
 villanous faces in bushy hair, than decently to cover their 
 bodies ; while their land (by reason of the tyranny of their 
 chieftains, and the continual wars and plunderings among their 
 tribes, which leave them weak and divided, an easy prey to the 
 myrmidons of the excommunicate and usurping Englishwoman) 
 lies utterly waste with fire, and defaced with corpses of the 
 starved and slain. But what are these things, while the holy 
 virtue of Catholic obedience still flourishes in their hearts ? 
 The Church cares not for the conservation of body and goods, 
 but of immortal souls. 
 
 “ If any devout lady shall so will, you may obtain from her 
 liberality a shirt for this worthless tabernacle, and also a pair 
 of hose ; for I am unsavoury to myself and to others, and of 
 such luxuries none here has superfluity ; for all live in holy 
 poverty, except the fleas, who have that consolation in this 
 
104 CLOVELLY COURT [CHAP. V. 
 
 world for which this unhappy nation, and those who labour 
 among them, must wait till the world to come. 1 
 
 “ Your loving brother, 
 
 “ N. S” 
 
 “ Sir Richard must know of this before daybreak,” cried 
 old Cary. “ Eight hundred men landed ! We must call out 
 the Posse Comitatus, and sail with them bodily. I will go 
 myself, old as I am. Spaniards in Ireland 1 not a dog of them 
 must go home again.” 
 
 “Not a dog of them,” answered Will; “but where is Mr. 
 Winter and his squadron 1” 
 
 “ Safe in Milford Haven ; a messenger must be sent to him 
 too.” 
 
 “ I’ll go,” said Amyas : “ but Mr. Cary is right. Sir 
 Richard must know all first.” 
 
 “And we must have those Jesuits.” 
 
 “ What ? Mr. Evans and Mr. Morgans ? God help us — 
 they are at my uncle’s ! Consider the honour of our family !” 
 
 “ Judge for yourself, my dear boy,” said old Mr. Cary 
 gently : “ would it not be rank treason to let these foxes 
 escape, while we have this damning proof against them ?” 
 
 “ I will go myself, then.” 
 
 “ Why not 1 You may keep all straight, and Will shall go 
 with you. Call a groom, Will, and get your horse saddled, and 
 my Yorkshire grey; he will make better play with this big 
 fellow on his back, than the little pony astride of which Mr. 
 Leigh came walking in (as I hear) this morning. As for Frank, 
 the ladies will see to him well enough, and glad enough, too, to 
 have so fine a bird in their cage for a week or two.” 
 
 “And my mother V ’ 
 
 • “We’ll send to her to-morrow by daybreak. Come, a 
 stirrup cup to start with, hot and hot. Now, boots, cloaks, 
 swords, a deep pull and a warm one, and away !” 
 
 And the jolly old man bustled them out of the house and 
 into their saddles, under the broad bright winter’s moon. 
 
 “You must make your pace, lads, or the moon will be down 
 before you are over the moors.” And so away they went. 
 
 Neither of them spoke for many a mile. Amyas, because 
 his mind was fixed firmly on the one object of saving the honour 
 of his house; and Will, because he was hesitating between 
 
 1 See note at end of chapter. 
 
CHAP. V.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 105 
 
 Ireland and the wars, and Rose Salterne and love-making. At 
 last he spoke suddenly. 
 
 “ I’ll go, Amyas.” 
 
 “ Whither T 
 
 “To Ireland with you, old man. I have dragged my 
 anchor at last.” 
 
 “ What anchor, my lad of parables 1” 
 
 “ See, here am I, a tall and gallant ship.” 
 
 “ Modest even if not true.” 
 
 “ Inclination, like an anchor, holds me tight.” 
 
 “ To the mud.” 
 
 “ Nay, to a bed of roses — not without their thorns.” 
 
 “ Hillo ! I have seen oysters grow on fruit-trees before now, 
 but never an anchor in a rose-garden.” 
 
 “ Silence, or my allegory will go to noggin-staves.” 
 
 “Against the rocks of my flinty discernment.” 
 
 “ Pooh— well. Up comes duty like a jolly breeze, blowing 
 dead from the north-east, and as bitter and cross as a north- 
 easter too, and tugs me away toward Ireland. I hold on by 
 the rose -bed — any ground in a storm — till every strand is 
 parted, and off I go, westward ho ! to get my throat cut in a 
 bog-hole with Amyas Leigh.” 
 
 “ Earnest, Will?” 
 
 “As I am a sinful man.” 
 
 “Well done, young hawk of the White Cliff!” 
 
 “ I had rather have called it Gallantry Bower still, though,” 
 said Will, punning on the double name of the noble precipice 
 which forms the highest point of the deer park. 
 
 “ Well, as long as you are on land, you know it is Gallantry 
 Bower still : but we always call it White Cliff when you see it 
 from the sea-board, as you and I shall do, I hope, to-morrow 
 evening.” 
 
 “ What, so soon V’ 
 
 “ Dare we lose a day ?” 
 
 “ I suppose not : heigh-ho !” 
 
 And they rode on again in silence, Amyas in the meanwhile 
 being not a little content (in spite of his late self-renunciation) 
 to find that one of his rivals at least was going to raise the 
 siege of the Rose garden for a few months, and withdraw his 
 forces to the coast of Kerry. 
 
 As they went over Bursdon, Amyas pulled up suddenly. 
 
 “ Did you not hear a horse’s step on our left?” 
 
 “ On our left — coming up from Welsford moor ? Impossible 
 
CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 106 
 
 [chap. V. 
 
 at this time of night. It must have been a stag, or a sownder 
 of wild swine : or may be only an old cow.” 
 
 “ It was the ring of iron, friend. Let us stand and watch.” 
 
 Bursdon and Welsford were then, as now, a rolling range 
 of dreary moors, unbroken by tor or tree, or anything save few 
 and far between a world-old furze -bank which marked the 
 common rights of some distant cattle farm, and crossed then, 
 not as now, by a decent road, but by a rough confused track- 
 way, the remnant of an old Roman road from Clovelly dikes 
 to Launceston. To the left it trended down towards a lower 
 range of moors, which form the watershed of the heads of 
 Torrid ge ; and thither the two young men peered down over 
 the expanse of bog and furze, which glittered for miles beneath 
 the moon, one sheet of frosted silver, in the heavy autumn dew. 
 
 “ If any of Eustace’s party are trying to get home from 
 Freshwater, they might save a couple of miles by coming across 
 Welsford, instead of going by the main track, as we have done.” 
 So said Amyas, who though (luckily for him) no “ genius,” was 
 cunning as a fox in all matters of tactic and practic, and would 
 have in these days proved his right to be considered an intel- 
 lectual person by being a thorough man of business. / 
 
 “ If any of his party are mad, they’ll try it, and be stogged 
 till the day of judgment. There are bogs in the bottom twenty 
 feet deep. Plague on the fellow, whoever he is, he has dodged 
 us ! Look there !” 
 
 It was too true. The unknown horseman had evidently 
 dismounted below, and led his horse up on the other side of a 
 long furze-dike ; till coming to the point where it turned away 
 again from his intended course, he appeared against the sky, in 
 the act of leading his nag over a gap. 
 
 “ Ride like the wind !” and both youths galloped across 
 furze and heather at him ; but ere they were within a hundred 
 yards of him, he had leapt again on his horse, and was away 
 far ahead. 
 
 “ There is the dor to us, with a vengeance,” cried Cary, 
 putting in the spurs. 
 
 “It is but a lad ; we shall never catch him.” 
 
 “ I’ll try, though ; and do you lumber after as you can, 
 old heavy sides and Cary pushed forward. 
 
 Amyas lost sight of him for ten minutes, and then came up 
 with him dismounted, and feeling disconsolately at his horse’s 
 knees. 
 
 “ Look for my head. It lies somewhere about among the 
 

 
 
 \ 
 
 
Clovelly. 
 
f 
 
CHAP. V.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 107 
 
 fnrze there ; and oh ! I am as full of needles as ever was a pin- 
 cushion.” 
 
 “ Are his knees broken ?” 
 
 “ I daren’t look. No, I believe not. Come along, and 
 make the best of a bad matter. The fellow is a mile ahead, 
 and to the right, too.” 
 
 “ He is going for Moorwinstow, then • but where is my 
 cousin ?” 
 
 “ Behind us, I dare say. We snail nab him at least.” 
 
 “ Cary, promise me that if we do, you will keep out of sight, 
 and let me manage him.” 
 
 “ My boy, I only want Evan Morgans and Morgan Evans. 
 He is but the cat’s paw, and we are after the cats themselves.” 
 
 And so they went on another dreary six miles, till the land 
 trended downwards, showing dark glens and masses of wood- 
 land far below. 
 
 “Now, then, straight to Chapel, and stop the foxes’ earth? 
 Or through the King’s Park to Stow, and get out Sir Richard’s 
 hounds, hue and cry, and queen’s warrant in proper form ?” 
 
 “ Let us see Sir Richard first ; and whatsoever he decides 
 about my uncle, I will endure as a loyal subject must.” 
 
 So they rode through the King’s Park, while Sir Richard’s 
 colts came whinnying and staring round the intruders, and 
 down through a rich woodland lane five hundred feet into the 
 valley, till they could hear the brawling of the little trout- 
 stream, and beyond, the everlasting thunder of the ocean surf. 
 
 Down through warm woods, all fragrant with dying 
 autumn flowers, leaving far above the keen Atlantic breeze, 
 into one of those delicious Western Combes, and so past the 
 mill, and the little knot of flower-clad cottages. In the window 
 of one of them a light was still burning. The two young men 
 knew well whose window that was ; and both hearts beat fast ; 
 for Rose Salterne slept, or rather seemed to wake, in that 
 chamber. 
 
 “ Folks are late in Combe to-night,” said Amyas, as care- 
 lessly as he could. 
 
 Cary looked earnestly at the window, and then sharply 
 enough at Amyas ; but Amyas was busy settling his stirrup ; 
 and Cary rode on, unconscious that every fibre in his com- 
 panion’s huge frame was trembling like his own. 
 
 “ Muggy and close down here,” said Amyas, who, in reality, 
 was quite faint with his own inward struggles. 
 
 “We shall be at Stow gate in five minutes,” said Cary 
 
108 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [CHAP. V. 
 
 looking back and down longingly as his horse climbed the 
 opposite hill ; but a turn of the zigzag road hid the cottage, 
 and the next thought was, how to effect an entrance into Stow 
 at three in the morning without being eaten by the ban-dogs, 
 who were already howling and growling at the sound of the 
 horse-hoofs. 
 
 However, they got safely in, after much knocking and call- 
 ing, through the postern-gate in the high west wall, into a 
 mansion, the description whereof I must defer to the next 
 chapter, seeing that the moon has already sunk into the Atlantic, 
 and there is darkness over land and sea. 
 
 Sir Richard, in his long gown, was soon downstairs in the 
 hall ; the letter read, and the story told ; but ere it was half 
 finished — 
 
 “ Anthony, call up a groom, and let him bring me a horse 
 round. Gentlemen, if you will excuse me five minutes, I shall 
 be at your service.” 
 
 “ You will not go alone, Richard ?” asked Lady Grenvile, 
 putting her beautiful face in its nightcoif out of an adjoining 
 door. 
 
 “ Surely, sweet chuck, we three are enough to take two poor 
 polecats of Jesuits. Go in, and help me to boot and gird.” 
 
 In half an hour they were down and up across the valley 
 again, under the few low ashes dipt flat by the sea-breeze which 
 stood round the lonely gate of Chapel. 
 
 “ Mr. Cary, there is a back path across the downs to Mars- 
 land ; go and guard that.” Cary rode off ; and Sir Richard, 
 as he knocked loudly at the gate — 
 
 “Mr. Leigh, you see that I have consulted your honour, 
 and that of your poor uncle, by adventuring thus alone. What 
 will you have me do now, which may not be unfit for me and 
 you?” 
 
 “ Oh, sir !” said Amyas, with tears in his honest eyes, 
 “you have shown yourself once more what you always have 
 been — my dear and beloved master on earth, not second even 
 to my admiral Sir Francis Drake. 
 
 “ Or the queen, I hope,” said Grenvile, smiling, “ but 
 pocas palabr as. What will you do?” 
 
 “ My wretched cousin, sir, may not have returned — and if 
 I might watch for him on the main road — unless you want me 
 with you.” 
 
 “ Richard Grenvile can walk alone, lad. But what will you 
 do with your cousin?” 
 
CHAP. V.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. 109 
 
 “ Send him out of the country, never to return ; or if he 
 refuses, run him through on the spot.” 
 
 “ Go, lad.” And as he spoke, a sleepy voice asked inside 
 the gate, “Who was there'?” 
 
 “Sir Richard Grenvile. Open, in the queen’s name'?” 
 
 “ Sir Richard 'l He is in bed, and be hanged to you. No 
 honest folk come at this hour of night.” 
 
 “ Amyas !” shouted Sir Richard. Amyas rode back. 
 
 “ Burst that gate for me, while I hold your horse.” 
 
 Amyas leaped down, took up a rock from the roadside, such 
 as Homer’s heroes used to send at each other’s heads, and in an 
 instant the door was flat on the ground, and the serving-man on 
 his back inside, while Sir Richard quietly entering over it, like 
 Una into the hut, told the fellow to get up and hold his horse 
 for him (which the clod, who knew well enough that terrible 
 voice, did without further murmurs), and then strode straight to 
 the front door. It was already opened. The household had 
 been up and about all along, or the noise at the entry had 
 aroused them. 
 
 Sir Richard knocked, however, at the open door ; and, to his 
 astonishment, his knock was answered by Mr. Leigh himself, 
 fully dressed, and candle in hand. 
 
 “ Sir Richard Grenvile ! What, sir ! is this neighbourly, 
 not to say gentle, to break into my house in the dead of night '?” 
 “ I broke your outer door, sir, because I was refused entrance 
 when I asked in the queen’s name. I knocked at your inner 
 one, as I should have knocked at the poorest cottager’s in the 
 parish, because I found it open. You have two Jesuits here, 
 sir ! and here is the queen’s warrant for apprehending them. I 
 have signed it with my owm hand, and, moreover, serve it now, 
 with my own hand, in order to save you scandal — and it may 
 be, worse. I must have these men, Mr. Leigh.” 
 
 “ My dear Sir Richard ! ” 
 
 “ I must have them, or I must search the house ; and you 
 would not put either yourself or me to so shameful a necessity *?” 
 “ My dear Sir Richard ! ” 
 
 “ Must I, then, ask you to stand back from your own door- 
 way, my dear sir 1 ?” said Grenvile. And then changing his voice 
 to that fearful lion’s roar, for which he was famous, and which 
 it seemed impossible that lips so delicate could utter, he thun- 
 dered, “Knaves, behind there ! Back.!” 
 
 This was spoken to half-a-dozen grooms and serving-men, 
 who, well armed, were clustered in the passage. 
 
no 
 
 CLOVELLY COURT 
 
 [chap. v. 
 
 “What*? swords out, you sons of cliff rabbits V 7 And in a 
 moment, Sir Richard’s long blade flashed out also, and putting 
 Mr. Leigh gently aside, as if he had been a child, he walked up 
 to the party, who vanished right and left ; having expected a cur 
 dog, in the shape of a parish constable, and come upon a lion 
 instead. They were stout fellows enough, no doubt, in a fair 
 fight : but they had no stomach to be hanged in a row at Laun- 
 ceston Castle, after a preliminary running through the body by 
 that redoubted admiral and most unpeaceful justice of the peace. 
 
 “ And now, my dear Mr. Leigh,” said Sir Richard, as blandly 
 as ever, “ where are my men ? The night is cold ; and you, as 
 well as I, need to be in our beds.” 
 
 “ The men, Sir Richard — the Jesuits — they are not here, 
 indeed.” 
 
 “Not here, sir V ’ 
 
 “ On the word of a gentleman, they left my house an hour 
 ago. Believe me, sir, they did. I will swear to you if you need.” 
 
 “I believe Mr. Leigh of Chapel’s word without oaths. 
 Whither are they gone?” 
 
 “ Nay, sir — how can I tell ? They are — they are, as I may 
 say, fled, sir ; escaped.” 
 
 “ With your connivance ; at least with your son’s. Where 
 are they gone?” 
 
 “ As I live, I do not know.” 
 
 “ Mr. Leigh — is this possible ? Can you add untruth to that 
 treason from the punishment of which I am trying to shield you?” 
 
 Poor Mr. Leigh burst into tears. 
 
 “ Oh ! my God ! my God 1 is it come to this ? Over and 
 above having the fear and anxiety of keeping these black rascals 
 in my house, and having to stop their villanous mouths every 
 minute, for fear they should hang me and themselves, I am to 
 be called a traitor and a liar in my old age, and that, too, by 
 Richard Grenvile ! Would God I had never been born ! Would 
 God I had no soul to be saved, and I’d just go and drown care 
 in drink, and let the queen and the pope fight it out their own 
 way !” And the poor old man sank into a chair, and covered 
 his face with his hands, and then leaped up again. 
 
 “ Bless my heart ! Excuse me, Sir Richard — to sit down 
 and leave you standing. ’Slife, sir, sorrow is making a hawbuck 
 of me. Sit down, my dear sir ! my worshipful sir ! or rather 
 come with me into my room, and hear a poor wretched man’s 
 story, for I swear before God the men are fled ; and my poor 
 boy Eustace is not home either, and the groom tells me that his 
 
CHAP, v.] IN THE OLDEN TIME. Ill 
 
 devil of a cousin has broken his jaw for him ; and his mother is 
 all but mad this hour past. Good lack ! good lack !” 
 
 u He nearly murdered his angel of a cousin, sir !” said Sir 
 Richard severely. 
 
 “What, sir *2 They never told me.” 
 
 “ He had stabbed his cousin Frank three times, sir, before 
 Amyas, who is as noble a lad as walks God’s earth, struck him 
 down. And in defence of what, forsooth, did he play the ruffian 
 and the swashbuckler, but to bring home to your house this 
 letter, sir, which you shall hear at your leisure, the moment I 
 have taken order about your priests.” And walking out of the 
 house he went round and called to Cary to come to him. 
 
 “The birds are flown, Will,” whispered he. “There is but 
 one chance for us, and that is Marsland Mouth. If they are 
 trying to take boat there, you may be yet in time. If they are 
 gone inland we can do nothing till we raise the hue and cry to- 
 morrow.” 
 
 And Will galloped off* over the downs toward Marsland, 
 while Sir Richard ceremoniously walked in again, and professed 
 himself ready and happy to have the honour of an audience in 
 Mr. Leigh’s private chamber. And as we know pretty well 
 already what was to be discussed therein, we had better go 
 over to Marsland Mouth, and, if possible, arrive there before 
 Will Cary : seeing that he arrived hot and swearing, half an 
 hour too late. 
 
 Note . — I have shrunk somewhat from giving these and other sketches 
 (true and accurate as I believe them to be) of Ireland during Elizabeth’s 
 reign, when the tyranny and lawlessness of the feudal chiefs had reduced 
 the island to such a state of weakness and barbarism, that it was abso- 
 lutely necessary for England either to crush the Norman-Irish nobility, 
 and organise some sort of law and order, or to leave Ireland an easy prey 
 to the Spaniards, or any other nation which should go to war with us. 
 The work was done — clumsily rather than cruelly ; but wrongs were in- 
 flicted, and avenged by fresh wrongs, and those by fresh again. May the 
 memory of them perish for ever ! It has been reserved for this age, and 
 for the liberal policy of this age, to see the last ebullitions of Celtic excit- 
 ability die out harmless and ashamed of itself, and to find that the Irish- 
 man, when he is brought as a soldier under the regenerative influence of 
 law, discipline, self-respect, and loyalty, can prove himself a worthy rival 
 of the more stern Norse -Saxon warrior. God grant that the military 
 brotherhood between Irish and English, which is the special glory of the 
 present war, may be the germ of a brotherhood industrial, political, and 
 hereafter, perhaps, religious also ; and that not merely the corpses of 
 heroes, but the feuds and wrongs which have parted them for centuries, 
 may lie buried, once and for ever, in the noble graves of Alma and Inkerman. 
 
112 
 
 THE COOMBES OF 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE COOMBES OF THE FAR WEST. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Far, far from hence 
 The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay 
 Among the green Illyrian hills, and there 
 The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, 
 
 And by the sea and in the brakes 
 The grass is cool, the sea- side air 
 Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers 
 More virginal and sweet than ours.” 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 And even such are those delightful glens, which cut the high 
 table-land of the confines of Devon and Cornwall, and opening 
 each through its gorge of down and rock, towards the boundless 
 Western Ocean. Each is like the other, and each is like no 
 other English scenery. Each has its upright walls, inland of 
 rich oak-wood, nearer the sea of dark green furze, then of smooth 
 turf, then of weird black cliffs which range out right and left 
 far into the deep sea, in castles, spires, and wings of jagged 
 iron-stone. Each has its narrow strip of fertile meadow, its 
 crystal trout stream winding across and across from one hill-foot 
 to the other ; its grey stone mill, with the water sparkling and 
 humming round the dripping wheel ; its dark rock pools above 
 the tide mark, where the salmon -trout gather in from their 
 Atlantic wanderings, after each autumn flood : its ridge of blown 
 sand, bright with golden trefoil and crimson lady’s finger ; its 
 grey bank of polished pebbles, down which the stream rattles 
 toward the sea below. Each has its black field of jagged shark’s- 
 tooth rock which paves the cove from side to side, streaked with 
 here and there a pink line of shell sand, and laced with white 
 foam from the eternal surge, stretching in parallel lines out to 
 the westward, in strata set upright on edge, or tilted towards 
 each other at strange angles by primeval earthquakes ; — such is 
 the “Mouth” — as those coves are called ; and such the jaw of 
 teeth which they display, one rasp of which would grind abroad 
 the timbers of the stoutest ship. To landward, all richness, 
 softness, and peace; to seaward, a waste and howling wilderness 
 of rock and roller, barren to the fisherman, and hopeless to the 
 shipwrecked mariner. 
 
 In only one of these “ Mouths ” is a landing for boats, made 
 possible by a long sea-wall of rock, which protects it from the 
 
CHAP. VI.] THE far west. 113 
 
 rollers of the Atlantic ; and that mouth is Marsland, the abode 
 of the White Witch, Lucy Passmore ; whither, as Sir Richard 
 Grenvile rightly judged, the Jesuits were gone. But before 
 the Jesuits came, two other persons were standing on that 
 lonely beach, under the bright October moon, namely, Rose 
 Salterne and the White Witch herself; for Rose, fevered with 
 curiosity and superstition, and allured by the very wildness and 
 possible danger of the spell, had kept her appointment ; and, a 
 few minutes before midnight, stood on the grey shingle beach 
 with her counsellor. 
 
 “You be safe enough here to-night, Miss. My old man is 
 snoring sound abed, and there’s no other soul ever sets foot here 
 o’ nights, except it be the mermaids now and then. Goodness, 
 Father, where’s our boat? It ought to be up here on the 
 pebbles.” 
 
 Rose pointed to a strip of sand some forty yards nearer the 
 sea, where the boat lay. 
 
 “ Oh, the lazy old villain ! he’s been round the rocks after 
 pollock this evening, and never taken the trouble to hale 
 the boat up. I’ll trounce him for it when I get home. I 
 only hope lie’s made her fast where she is, that’s all ! He’s 
 more plague to me than ever my money will be. 0 deary 
 me !” 
 
 And the goodwife bustled down toward the boat, with Rose 
 behind her. 
 
 “ Iss, ’tis fast, sure enough : and the oars aboard too ! 
 Well, I never ! Oh, the lazy thief, to leave they here to be 
 stole ! I’ll just sit in the boat, dear, and watch mun, while 
 you go down to the say ; for you must be all alone to yourself 
 you know, or you’ll see nothing. There’s the looking-glass ; 
 now go, and dip your head three times, and mind you don’t look 
 to land or sea before you’ve said the words, and looked upon 
 the glass. Now, be quick, it’s just upon midnight.” 
 
 And she coiled herself up in the boat, while Rose went 
 faltering down the strip of sand, some twenty yards farther, and 
 there slipping off her clothes, stood shivering and trembling for 
 a moment before she entered the sea. 
 
 She was between two walls of rock : that on her left hand, 
 some twenty feet high, hid her in deepest shade ; that on her 
 right, though much lower, took the whole blaze of the midnight 
 moon. Great festoons of live and purple sea-weed hung from 
 it, shading dark cracks and crevices, fit haunts for all the goblins 
 of the sea. On her left hand, the peaks of the rock frowned 
 
 I 
 
THE COOMBES OF 
 
 114 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 down ghastly black ; on her right hand, far aloft, the downs 
 slept bright and cold. 
 
 The breeze had died away ; not even a roller broke the per- 
 fect stillness of the cove. The gulls were all asleep upon the 
 ledges. Over all was a true autumn silence ; a silence which 
 may be heard. She stood awed, and listened in hope of a 
 sound which might tell her that any living thing beside herself 
 existed. 
 
 There was a faint bleat, as of a new-born lamb, high above 
 her head ; she started and looked up. Then a wail from the 
 cliffs, as of a child in pain, answered by another from the oppo- 
 site rocks. They w r ere but the passing snipe, and the otter 
 calling to her brood ; but to her they were mysterious, super- 
 natural goblins, come to answer to her call. Nevertheless, they 
 only quickened her expectation ; and the witch had told her not 
 to fear them. If she performed the rite duly, nothing would 
 harm her : but she could hear the beating of her own heart, 
 as she stepped, mirror in hand, into the cold water, waded 
 hastily, as far as she dare, and then stopped aghast. 
 
 A ring of flame was round her waist ; every limb was 
 bathed in lambent light ; all the multitudinous life of the 
 autumn sea, stirred by her approach, had flashed suddenly into 
 glory;— 
 
 ‘ ‘ And around her the lamps of the sea nymphs, 
 
 Myriad fiery globes, swam heaving and panting, and rainbows, 
 
 Crimson and azure and emerald, were broken in star-showers, lighting 
 Far through the'wine-dark depths of the crystal, the gardens of Nereus, 
 Coral and sea-fan and tangle, the blooms and the palms of the ocean.” 
 
 She could see every shell which crawled on the white sand at 
 her feet, every rock-fish which played in and out of the crannies, 
 and stared at her with its broad bright eyes ; while the great 
 palmate oarweeds which waved along the chasm, half-seen in 
 the glimmering water, seemed to beckon her down with long 
 brown hands to a grave amid their chilly bowers. She turned 
 to flee : but she had gone too far now to retreat ; hastily dipping 
 her head three times, she hurried out to the sea-marge, and 
 looking through her dripping locks at the magic mirror, pro- 
 nounced the incantation— 
 
 “ A maiden pure, here I stand, 
 
 Neither on sea, nor yet on land ; 
 
 Angels watch me on either hand. 
 
 If you be landsman, come down the strand ; 
 
 If you be sailor, come up the sand ; 
 
 If you be angel, come from the sky, 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 THE FAR WEST. 
 
 115 
 
 Look in my glass, and pass me by ; 
 
 Look in my glass, and go from the shore ; 
 
 Leave me, but love me for evermore.” 
 
 The incantation was hardly finished ; her eyes were straining 
 into the mirror, where, as may be supposed, nothing appeared 
 but the sparkle of the drops from her own tresses, when she heard 
 rattling down the pebbles the hasty feet of men and horses. 
 
 She darted into a cavern of the high rock, and hastily 
 dressed herself : the steps held on right to the boat. Peeping 
 out, half-dead with terror, she saw there four men, two of whom 
 had just leaped from their horses, and turning them adrift, 
 began to help the other two in running the boat down. 
 
 Whereon, out of the stern sheets, arose, like an angry ghost, 
 the portly figure of Lucy Passmore, and shrieked in shrillest 
 treble — 
 
 “Eh ! ye villains, ye roogs, what do ye want staling poor 
 folks’ boats by night like this?” 
 
 The whole party recoiled in terror, and one turned to run 
 up the beach, shouting at the top of his voice, “ ’Tis a mar- 
 maiden — a marmaiden asleep in Willy Passmore’s boat !” 
 
 “ I wish it were any sich good luck,” she could hear Will 
 say ; “ ’tis my wife, oh dear ! ” and he cowered down, expecting 
 the hearty cuff which he received duly, as the White Witch, 
 leaping out of the boat, dared any man to touch it, and thun- 
 dered to her husband to go home to bed. 
 
 The wily dame, as Rose well guessed, was keeping up this 
 delay chiefly to gain time for her pupil : but she had also more 
 solid reasons for making the fight as hard as possible ; for she, 
 as well as Rose, had already discerned in the ungainly figure of 
 one of the party the same suspicious Welsh gentlemen, on whose 
 calling she had divined long ago ; and she was so loyal a sub- 
 ject as to hold in extreme horror her husband’s meddling with 
 such “ Popish skulkers” (as she called the whole party roundly 
 to their face) — unless on consideration of a very handsome sum 
 of money. In vain Parsons thundered, Campian entreated, 
 Mr. Leigh’s groom swore, and her husband danced round in 
 an agony of mingled fear and covetousness. 
 
 “No,” she cried, “as I am an honest woman and loyal! 
 This is why you left the boat down to the shoore, you old 
 traitor, you, is it ? To help off sich noxious trade as this out 
 of the hands of her Majesty’s quorum and rotulorum? Eh? 
 Stand back, cowards ! Will you strike a woman ?” 
 
 This last speech (as usual) was merely indicative of her 
 
116 
 
 THE COOMBES OF 
 
 [CHAP. vi. 
 
 intention to strike the men ; for, getting out one of the oars, 
 she swung it round and round fiercely, and at last caught 
 Father Parsons such, a crack across the shins, that he retreated 
 with a howl. 
 
 “ Lucy, Lucy !” shrieked her husband, in shrillest Devon 
 falsetto, “ be you mazed *? Be you mazed, lass 1 They promised 
 me two gold nobles before I’d lend them the boot ! ” 
 
 “ Tu ?” shrieked the matron, with a tone of ineffable scorn. 
 “And do yu call yourself a man ?” 
 
 “ Tu nobles ! tu nobles !” shrieked he again, hopping about 
 at oar’s length. 
 
 “ Tu ? And would you sell your soul under ten ?” 
 
 “Oh, if that is it,” cried poor Campian, “give her ten, give 
 her ten, brother Pars — Morgans, I mean; and take care of 
 your shins, 1 Offa Cerbero,’ you know — Oh, virago ! ‘ Furens 
 
 quid foemina possit !’ Certainly she is some Lamia, some 
 Gorgon, some ” 
 
 “ Take that, for your Lamys and Gorgons to an honest 
 woman !” and in a moment poor Campian’s thin legs were cut 
 from under him, while the virago, “mounting on his trunk 
 astride,” like that more famous one on Hudibras, cried, “ Ten 
 nobles, or I’ll kep ye here till morning !” And the ten nobles 
 were paid into her hand. 
 
 And now the boat, its dragon guardian being pacified, was 
 run down to the sea, and close past the nook where poor little 
 Rose was squeezing herself into the farthest and darkest corner, 
 among wet sea-weed and rough barnacles, holding her breath as 
 they approached. 
 
 They passed her, and the boat’s keel was already in the 
 water ; Lucy had followed them close, for reasons of her own, 
 and perceiving close to the water’s edge a dark cavern, cun- 
 ningly surmised that it contained Rose, and planted her ample 
 person right across its mouth, while she grumbled at her 
 husband the strangers, and above all at Mr. Leigh’s groom, to 
 whom she prophesied pretty plainly Launceston gaol and the 
 gallows ; while the wretched serving- man, who would as soon 
 have dared to leap off Welcombe Cliff, as to return railing for 
 railing to the White Witch, in vain entreated her mercy, and 
 tried, by all possible dodging, to keep one of the party between 
 himself and her, lest her redoubted eye should “overlook” him 
 once more to his ruin. 
 
 But the night’s adventures were not ended yet ; for just as 
 the boat was launched, a faint haloo was heard upon the beach, 
 
THE FAR WEST. 
 
 117 
 
 CHAP. VI.] 
 
 and a minute after, a horseman plunged down the pebbles, and 
 along the sand, and pulling his horse up on its haunches close 
 to the terrified group, dropped, rather than leaped, from the 
 saddle. 
 
 The serving-man, though he dared not tackle a witch, knew 
 well enough how to deal with a swordsman ; and drawing, 
 sprang upon the new-comer : and then recoiled — 
 
 “ God forgive me, it’s Mr. Eustace ! Oh, dear sir, I took 
 you for one of Sir Richard’s men ! Oh, sir, you’re hurt !” 
 
 “A scratch, a scratch!” almost moaned Eustace. “Help 
 me into the boat, Jack. Gentlemen, I must with you.” 
 
 “Not with us, surely, my dear son, vagabonds upon the 
 face of the earth said kind-hearted Campian. 
 
 “ With you, for ever. All is over here. Whither God and 
 the cause lead ” — and he staggered toward the boat. 
 
 As he passed Rose, she saw his ghastly bleeding face, half 
 bound up with a handkerchief, which could not conceal the con- 
 vulsions of rage, shame, and despair, which twisted it from all 
 its usual beauty. His eyes glared wildly round — and once, 
 right into the cavern. They met hers, so full, and keen, and 
 dreadful, that forgetting she was utterly invisible, the terrified 
 girl was on the point of shrieking aloud. 
 
 “He has overlooked me !” said she, shuddering to herself, 
 as she recollected his threat of yesterday. 
 
 “Who has wounded you?” asked Campian. 
 
 “ My cousin — Amyas — and taken the letter !” 
 
 “The Devil take him, then!” cried Parsons, stamping up 
 and down upon the sand in fury. 
 
 “ Ay, curse him — you may ! I dare not ! He saved me — 
 sent me here !” — and with a groan, he made an effort to enter 
 the boat. 
 
 “ Oh, my dear young gentleman,” cried Lucy Passmore, her 
 woman’s heart bursting out at the sight of pain, “you must 
 not goo forth with a grane wound like to that. Do ye let me 
 just bind mun up — do ye now !” and she advanced. 
 
 Eustace thrust her back. - 
 
 “ No ! better bear it. I deserve it — devils ! I deserve it ! 
 On board, or we shall all be lost ^-William Cary is close 
 behind me !” 
 
 And at that news the boat was thrust into the sea, faster 
 than ever it went before, and only in time ; for it was but just 
 round the rocks, and out of sight, when the rattle of Cary’s 
 horsehoofs was heard above. 
 
118 
 
 THE COOMBES OF THE FAR WEST. [chap. vi. 
 
 “ That rascal of Mr. Leigh’s will catch it now, the Popish 
 villain!'’ said Lucy Passmore aloud. “You lie still there, 
 dear life, and settle your sperrits ; you’m so safe as ever was 
 rabbit to burrow. I’ll see what happens, if I die for it ! ” And 
 so saying, she squeezed herself up through a cleft to a higher 
 ledge, from whence she could see what passed in the valley. 
 
 “ There mun is! in the meadow, trying to catch the horses! 
 There comes Mr. Cary ! Goodness, Father, how a rid’th ! lie’s 
 over wall already ! Ron, Jack ! ron then ! A’ll get to the 
 river! No, a waint ! Goodness, Father ! There’s Mr. Cary 
 cotched mun ! A’s down, a’s down ! ” 
 
 “ Is he dead ?” asked Rose, shuddering. 
 
 “ Iss, fegs, dead as nits ! and Mr. Cary off his horse, stand- 
 ing overthwart mun ! No, a baint ! A’s up now. Suspose 
 he was hit wi’ the flat. Whatever is Mr. Cary tu ? Telling 
 wi’ mun, a bit. 0 dear, dear, dear !” 
 
 “ Has he killed him ?” cried poor Rose. 
 
 “ No, fegs, no ! kecking mun, kecking mun, so hard as 
 ever was futeball ! Goodness, Father, who did ever? If a 
 haven’t kecked mun right into river, and got on mini’s horse 
 and rod away !” 
 
 And so saying, down she came again. 
 
 “ And now then, my dear life, us be better to goo hoom 
 and get you sommat warm. You’m mortal cold, I rackon, by 
 now. I was cruel fear’d for ye : but I kept mun off clever, 
 didn’t I, now ?” 
 
 “ I wish — I wish I had not seen Mr. Leigh’s face !” 
 
 “ Iss, dreadful, weren’t it, poor young soul ; a sad night for 
 his poor mother !” 
 
 “ Lucy, I can’t get his face out of my mind. I’m sure he 
 overlooked me.” 
 
 “ 0 then ! who ever heard the like o’ that ? When young 
 gentlemen do overlook young ladies, tain’t thikketheor aways, 
 I knoo. Never you think on it.” 
 
 “ But I can’t help thinking of it,” said Rose. “ Stop. 
 Shall we go home yet ? Where’s that servant ?” 
 
 “ Never mind, he waint see us, here under the hill. I’d 
 much sooner to know where my old man was. I’ve a sort of 
 a forecasting in my inwards, like, as I always has when aught’s 
 gwain to happen, as though I shuldn’t zee mun again, like, I 
 have, Miss. Well — he was a bedient old soul, after all, he was. 
 Goodness, Father! and all this while us have forgot the very 
 thing us come about ! Who did you see ?” 
 
CHAP, vii.] TRAGICAL HISTORY OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 119 
 
 “ Only that face !” said Rose, shuddering. 
 
 “ Not in the glass, maid ? Say then, not in the glass V f 
 
 “Would to heaven it had been! Lucy, what if he were 
 the man I was fated to ” 
 
 “He? Why, he’s a praste, a Popish praste, that can’t marry 
 if he would, poor wratch.” 
 
 “He is none • and I have cause enough to know it !” And, 
 for want of a better confidant, Rose poured into the willing ears 
 of her companion the whole story of yesterday’s meeting. 
 
 “He’s a pretty wooer !” said Lucy at last contemptuously. 
 “Be a brave maid, then, be a brave maid, and never terrify 
 yourself with his unlucky face. It’s because there was none here 
 worthy of ye, that ye seed none in glass. Maybe he’s to be a 
 foreigner, from over seas, and that’s why his sperit was so long 
 a coming. A duke, or a prince to the least, I’ll warrant, he’ll 
 be, that carries off the Rose of Bideford.” 
 
 But in spite of all the good dame’s flattery, Rose conld not 
 wipe that fierce face away from her eyeballs. She reached 
 home safely, and crept to bed undiscovered : and when the next 
 morning, as was to be expected, found her laid up with some- 
 thing very like a fever, ; i n excitement, terror, and cold, the 
 phantom grew stronger and stronger before her, and it required 
 all her woman’s tact and self-restraint to avoid betraying by her 
 exclamations what had happened on that fantastic night. After 
 a fortnight’s weakness, however, she recovered and went back 
 to Bideford : but ere she arrived there, Amyas was far across 
 the seas on his way to Milford Haven, as shall be told in the 
 ensuing chapters. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM 
 OF PLYMOUTH. 
 
 “ The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew ; 
 
 The furrow follow’d free ; 
 
 We were the first that ever burst 
 Into that silent sea.” 
 
 The Ancient Mariner. 
 
 It was too late and too dark last night to see the old house at 
 Stow. We will look round us, then, this bright October day, 
 while Sir Richard and Amyas, about eleven o’clock in the fore- 
 noon, are pacing up and down the terraced garden to the south. 
 
120 
 
 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 [CHAP. YII. 
 
 Aniyas has slept till luncheon, i.e. till an hour ago : but Sir 
 Richard, in spite of the bustle of last night, was up and in the 
 valley by six o’clock, recreating the valiant souls of himself and 
 two terrier dogs by the chase of sundry badgers. 
 
 Old Stow House stands, or rather stood, some four miles 
 beyond the Cornish border, on the northern slope of the largest 
 and loveliest of those coombes of which I spoke in the last 
 chapter. Eighty years after Sir Richard’s time there arose 
 there a huge Palladian pile, bedizened with every monstrosity 
 of bad taste, which was built, so the story runs, by Charles the 
 Second, for Sir Richard’s great grandson, the heir of that famous 
 Sir Bevil who defeated the Parliamentary troops at Stratton, 
 and died soon after, fighting valiantly at Lansdowne over Bath. 
 But, like most other things which owed their existence to the 
 Stuarts, it rose only to fall again. An old man who had seen, 
 as a boy, the foundation of the new house laid, lived to see it 
 pulled down again, and the very bricks and timber sold upon 
 the spot ; and since then the stables have become a farm-house, 
 the tennis-court a sheep-cote, the great quadrangle a rick-yard ; 
 and civilisation, spreading wave on wave so fast ebe where, has 
 surged back from that lonely corner of the land — let us hope, 
 only for a while. 
 
 But I am not writing of that great new Stow House, of the 
 past glories whereof quaint pictures still hang in the neighbour- 
 ing houses ; nor of that famed Sir Bevil, most beautiful and 
 gallant of his generation, on whom, with his grandfather Sir 
 Richard, old Prince has his pompous epigram — 
 
 ‘ ‘ Where next shall famous Grenvil’s ashes stand ? 
 
 Thy grandsire fills the sea, and thou the land.” 
 
 I have to deal with a simpler age, and a sterner generation; 
 and with the old house, which had stood there, in part at least, 
 from grey and mythic ages, when the first Sir Richard, son of 
 Hamon Dentatus, Lord of Carboyle, the grandson of Duke 
 Robert, son of Rou, settled at Bideford, alter slaying the Prince 
 of South-Galis, and the Lord of Glamorgan, and gave to the 
 Cistercian monks of Neath all his conquests in South Wales. 
 It was a. huge rambling building, half castle, half dwelling-house, 
 such as may be seen still (almost an unique specimen) in 
 Compton Castle near Torquay, the dwelling-place of Humphrey 
 Gilbert, Walter Raleigh’s half-brother, and Richard Grenvile’s 
 bosom friend, of whom more hereafter. On three sides, to the 
 north, west, and south, the lofty walls of the old ballium still 
 
. 
 
Compton Castle. 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 121 
 
 stood, with their machicolated turrets, loopholes, and dark 
 downward crannies for dropping stones and fire on the besiegers, 
 the relics of a more unsettled age : but the southern court of 
 the ballium had become a flower-garden, with quaint terraces, 
 statues, knots of flowers, clipped yews and hollies, and all the 
 pedantries of the topiarian art. And toward the east, where 
 the vista of the valley opened, the old walls were gone, and the 
 frowning Norman keep, ruined in the Wars of the Roses, had 
 been replaced by the rich and stately architecture of the Tudors. 
 Altogether, the house, like the time, was in a transitionary 
 state, and represented faithfully enough the passage of the old 
 middle age into the new life which had just burst into blossom 
 throughout Europe, never, let us pray, to see its autumn or its 
 winter. 
 
 From the house on three sides, the hill sloped steeply down, 
 and the garden where Sir Richard and Amyas were walking gave 
 a truly English prospect. At one turn they could catch, over the 
 western walls, a glimpse of the blue ocean flecked with passing 
 sails ; and at the next, spread far below them, range on range 
 of fertile park, stately avenue, yellow autumn woodland, and 
 purple heather moors, lapping over and over each other up the 
 valley to the old British earthwork, which stood black and furze- 
 grown on its conical peak ; and standing out against the sky on 
 the highest bank of hill which closed the valley to the east, the 
 lofty tower of Kilkhampton church, rich with the monuments 
 and offerings of five centuries of G-renviles. A yellow eastern 
 haze hung soft over park, and wood, and moor ; the red cattle 
 lowed to each other as they stood brushing away the flies in the 
 rivulet far below ; the colts in the horse-park close on their right 
 whinnied as they played together, and their sires from the 
 Queen’s Park, on the opposite hill, answered them in fuller 
 though fainter voices. A rutting stag made the still woodland 
 rattle with his hoarse thunder, and a rival far up the valley gave 
 back a trumpet note of defiance, and was himself defied from 
 heathery brows which quivered far away above, half seen through 
 the veil of eastern mist. And close at home, upon the terrace 
 before the house, amid romping spaniels, and golden-haired 
 children, sat Lady Grenvile herself, the beautiful St. Leger of 
 Annery, the central jewel of all that glorious place, and looked 
 down at her noble children, and then up at her more noble 
 husband, and round at that broad paradise of the West, till life 
 seemed too full of happiness, and heaven of light. 
 
 And all the while up and down paced Amyas and Sir Richard, 
 
122 
 
 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 chap. vir. 
 
 talking long, earnestly, and slow ; for they both knew that the 
 turning point of the boy’s life was come. 
 
 “Yes,” said Sir Richard, after Amyas, in his blunt simple 
 way, had told him the whole story about Rose Salterne and his 
 brother, — “ yes, sweet lad, thou hast chosen the better part, thou 
 and thy brother also, and it shall not be taken from you. Only 
 be strong, lad, and trust in God that He will make a man of you.” 
 “ I do trust,” said Amyas. 
 
 “ Thank God,” said Sir Richard, “ that you have yourself 
 taken from my heart that which was my great anxiety for you, 
 from the day that your good father, who sleeps in peace, com- 
 mitted you to my hands. For all best things, Amyas, become, 
 when misused, the very worst ; and the love of woman, because 
 it is able to lift man’s soul to the heavens, is also able to drag 
 him down to hell. But you have learnt better, Amyas ; and 
 know, with our old German forefathers, that, as Tacitus saith, 
 ‘Sera juvenum Venus, ideoque inexhausta pubertas.’ And not 
 only that, Amyas ; but trust me, that silly fashion of the French 
 and Italians, to be hanging ever at some woman’s apron string, 
 so that no boy shall count himself a man unless he can ‘ vag- 
 ghezziare le donne,’ whether maids or wives, alas ! matters little ; 
 that fashion, I say, is little less hurtful to the soul than open 
 sin ; for by it are bred vanity and expense, envy and heartburn- 
 ing, yea, hatred and murder often ; and even if that be escaped, 
 yet the rich treasure of a manly worship, which should be kept 
 for one alone, is squandered and parted upon many, and the bride 
 at last comes in for nothing but the very last leavings and caput 
 mortuum of her bridegroom’s heart, a id becomes a mere orna- 
 ment for his table, and a means whereby he may obtain a pro- 
 geny. May God, who has saved me from that death in life, save 
 you also !” And as he spoke, he looked down toward his wife 
 upon the terrace below ; and she, as if guessing instinctively that 
 he was talking of her, looked up with so sweet a smile, that Sir 
 Richard’s stern face melted into a very glory of spiritual sunshine. 
 
 Amyas looked at them both and sighed ; and then turning 
 the conversation suddenly — 
 
 “ And I may go to Ireland to-morrow ?” 
 
 “You shall sail in the ‘Mary’ for Milford Haven, with these 
 letters to Winter. If the wind serves, you may bid the master 
 drop down the river to-night, and be off ; for we must lose no 
 time.” 
 
 “Winter 1 ?” said Amyas. “He is no friend of mine, since 
 he left Drake and us so cowardly at the Straits of Magellan.” 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 123 
 
 Duty must not wait for private quarrels, even though they 
 be just ones, lad : but he will not be your general. When you 
 come to the Marshal, or the Lord Deputy, give either of them 
 this letter, and they will set you work, — and hard work too, I 
 warrant.” 
 
 “ I want nothing better.” 
 
 “ Right, lad ; the best reward for having wrought well 
 already, is to have more to do ; and he that has been faithful 
 over a few things, must find his account in being made ruler 
 over many things. That is the true and heroical rest, which 
 only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of God. As for those 
 who, either in this world or the world to come, look for idleness, 
 and hope that God shall feed them with pleasant things, as it 
 were with a spoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and base, even 
 though they call themselves saints and elect.” 
 
 “I wish you could persuade my poor cousin of that.” 
 
 “ He has yet to learn what losing his life to save it means, 
 Amyas. Bad men have taught him (and I fear these Ana- 
 baptists and Puritans at home teach little else), that it is the 
 one great business of every one to save his own soul after he dies ; 
 every one for himself; and that that, and not divine self-sacrifice, 
 is the one thing needful, and the better part which Mary chose.” 
 “ I think men are inclined enough already to be selfish, 
 without being taught that.” 
 
 “ Right, lad. For me, if I could hang up such a teacher 
 on high as an enemy of mankind, and a corrupter of youth, I 
 would do it gladly. Is there not cowardice and self-seeking 
 enough about the hearts of us fallen sons of Adam, that these 
 false prophets, with their baits of heaven, and their terrors of 
 hell, must exalt our dirtiest vices into heavenly virtues and the 
 means of bliss ? Farewell to chivalry and to desperate valour, 
 farewell to patriotism and loyalty, farewell to England and to 
 the manhood of England, if once it shall become the fashion of 
 our preachers to bid every man, as the Jesuits do, take care 
 first of what they call the safety of his soul. Every man will 
 be afraid to die at his post, because he will be afraid that he 
 is not fit to die. Amyas, do thou do thy duty like a man, to 
 thy country, thy queen, and thy God; and count thy life a 
 worthless thing, as did the holy men of old. Do thy work, lad ; 
 and leave thy soul to the care of Him who is just and merciful 
 in this, that He rewards every man according to his work. Is 
 there respect of persons with God? Now come in, and take 
 the letters, and to horse. And if I hear of thee dead there at 
 
124 
 
 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 Smerwick fort, with all thy wounds in front, I shall weep for 
 thy mother, lad; but I shall have never, a sigh for thee.” 
 
 If any one shall be startled at hearing a fine gentleman 
 and a warrior like Sir Richard quote Scripture, and think 
 Scripture also, they must be referred to the writings of the 
 time ; which they may read not without profit to themselves, 
 if they discover therefrom how it was possible then for men of 
 the world to be thoroughly ingrained with the Gospel, and yet 
 to be free from any taint of superstitious fear, or false devout- 
 ness. The religion of those days was such as no soldier need 
 have been ashamed of confessing. At least, Sir Richard died 
 as he lived, without a shudder, and without a whine ; and 
 these were his last words, fifteen years after that, as he lay 
 shot through and through, a captive among Popish Spaniards, 
 priests, crucifixes, confession, extreme unction, and all other 
 means and appliances for delivering men out of the hands of a 
 God of love : — ■ 
 
 “ Here die I, Richard Grenvile, with a joyful and quiet 
 mind ; for that I have ended my life as a true soldier ought, 
 fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honour : my soul 
 willingly departing from this body, leaving behind the lasting 
 fame of having behaved as every valiant soldier is in his duty 
 bound to do.” 
 
 Those were the last words of Richard Grenvile. The pulpits 
 of those days had taught them to him. 
 
 But to return. That day’s events were not over yet. For, 
 when they went down into the house, the first person whom 
 they met was the old steward, in search of his master. 
 
 “ There is a manner of roog, Sir Richard, a masterless man, 
 at the door ; a very forward fellow, and must needs speak with 
 you.” 
 
 “ A masterless man ? He had better not to speak to me, 
 unless he is in love with gaol and gallows.” 
 
 “Well, your worship,” said the steward, “I expect that is 
 what he does want, for he swears he will not leave the gate 
 till he has seen you.” 
 
 “ Seen me ? Halidame ! he shall see me, here and at 
 Launceston too, if he likes. Bring him in.” 
 
 “Fegs, Sir Richard, we are half afeard, with your good 
 leave ” 
 
 “ Hillo, Tony,” cried Amyas, “ who was ever afeard yet with 
 Sir Richard’s good leave 1 ?” 
 
 “What, has the fellow a tail or horns?” 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 125 
 
 “ Massy no : but I be afeard of treason for your honour ; 
 for the fellow is pinked all over in heathen patterns, and as 
 brown as a filbert ; and a tall roog, a very strong roog, sir, and a 
 foreigner too, and a mighty staff with him. I expect him to 
 be a manner of Jesuit, or wild Irish, sir ; and indeed the grooms 
 have no stomach to handle him, nor the dogs neither, or he 
 had been under the pump before now, for they that saw him 
 coining up the hill swear that he had fire coming out of his 
 mouth.” 
 
 “Fire out of his mouth'?” said Sir Richard. “The men 
 are drunk.” 
 
 “ Pinked all over 1 He must be a sailor,” said Amyas ; “ let 
 
 me out and see the fellow, and if he needs putting forth ” 
 
 “ Why, I dare say he is not so big but what he will go into 
 thy pocket. So go, lad, while I finish my writing.” 
 
 Amyas went out, and at the back door, leaning on his staff, 
 stood a tall, raw-boned, ragged man, “pinked all over,” as the 
 steward had said. 
 
 “Hillo, lad!” quoth Amyas. “Before we come to talk, 
 thou wilt please to lay down that Plymouth cloak of thine.” 
 And he pointed to the cudgel, which among West -country 
 mariners usually bore that name. 
 
 “ I’ll warrant,” said the old steward, “ that where he found 
 his cloak he found a purse not far off'.” 
 
 “ But not hose or doublet ; so the magical virtue of his 
 staff has not helped him much. But put down thy staff, man, 
 and speak like a Christian, if thou be one.” 
 
 “ I am a Christian, though I look like a heathen ; and no 
 rogue, though a masterless man, alas ! But I want nothing, 
 deserving nothing, and only ask to speak with Sir Richard, 
 before I go on my way.” 
 
 There was something stately and yet humble about the 
 man’s tone and manner which attracted Amyas, and he asked 
 more gently where he was going and whence he came. 
 
 “ From Padstow Port, sir, to Clovelly town, to see my old 
 mother, if indeed she be yet alive, which God knoweth.” 
 
 “ Clovally man ! why didn’t thee say thee was Clovally 
 man ?” asked all the grooms at once, to. whom a West country- 
 man was of course a brother. The old steward asked — 
 
 “ What’s thy mother’s name, then ?” 
 
 “ Susan Yeo.” 
 
 “ What, that lived under the archway '?” asked a groom. 
 
 “ Lived ?” said the man. 
 
126 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [CHAP. VII. 
 
 “ Iss, sure ; her died three days since, so we heard, poor 
 soul.” 
 
 The man stood quite silent and unmoved for a minute or 
 two ; and then said quietly to himself, in Spanish, “ That 
 which is, is best.” 
 
 “You speak Spanish?” asked Amyas, more and more in- 
 terested. 
 
 “ I had need to do so, young sir ; I have been five years in 
 the Spanish Main, and only set foot on shore two days ago ; 
 and if you will let me have speech of Sir Richard, I will tell 
 him that at which both the ears of him that heareth it shall 
 tingle ; and if not, I can but go on to Mr. Cary of Clovelly, if 
 he be yet alive, and there disburthen my soul ; but I would 
 sooner have spoken with one that is a mariner like to myself.” 
 
 “And you shall,” said Amyas. “Steward, we will have 
 this man in ; for all his rags, he is a man of wit.” And he 
 led him in. 
 
 “ I only hope he ben’t one of those Popish murderers,” said 
 the old steward, keeping at a safe distance from him as they 
 entered the hall. 
 
 “ Popish, old master ? There’s little fear of my being that. 
 Look here ! ” And drawing back his rags, he showed a ghastly 
 scar, which encircled his wrist and wound round and up his 
 fore-arm. 
 
 “ I got that on the rack,” said he quietly, “ in the Inquisi- 
 tion at Lima.” 
 
 “ 0 Father ! Father ! why didn’t you tell us that you were 
 a poor Christian ?” asked the penitent steward. 
 
 “ Because I have had nought but my deserts ; and but a 
 taste of them either, as the Lord knoweth who delivered me ; 
 and I wasn’t going to make myself a beggar and a show on their 
 account.” 
 
 “ By heaven, you are a brave fellow !” said Amyas. “ Come 
 along straight to Sir Richard’s room.” 
 
 So in they went, where Sir Richard sat in his library among 
 books, despatches, state-papers, and warrants ; for though he 
 was not yet, as in after times (after the fashion of those days) 
 admiral, general, member of parliament, privy councillor, 
 justice of the peace, and so forth, all at once, yet there were few 
 great men with whom he did not correspond, or great matters 
 with which he was not cognisant. 
 
 “ Hillo, Amyas, have you bound the wild man already, and 
 brought him in to swear allegiance ?” 
 
CHAP, yir.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 127 
 
 But before Amy as could answer, the man looked earnestly 
 on him — “ Amyas ?” said he ; “ is that your name, sir ?” 
 
 “ Amyas Leigh is my name, at your service, good fellow.” 
 “Of Burrough by Bideford ?” 
 
 “ Why then ? What do you know of me ?” 
 
 “ Oh sir, sir ! young brains and happy ones have short 
 memories ; but old and sad brains too too long ones often ! 
 Do you mind one that was with Mr. Oxenham, sir ? A swearing 
 reprobate he was, God forgive him, and hath forgiven him too, 
 for His dear Son’s sake — one, sir, that gave you a horn, a toy 
 with a chart on it V* 
 
 “Soul alive !” cried Amyas, catching him by the hand; 
 “and are you he? The horn? why, I have it still, and will 
 keep it to my dying day, too. But where is Mr. Oxenham ?” 
 
 “ Yes, my good fellow, where is Mr. Oxenham ?” asked Sir 
 Richard, rising. “ You are somewhat over-hasty in welcoming 
 your old acquaintance, Amyas, before we have heard from him 
 whether he can give honest account of himself and of his cap- 
 tain. For there is more than one way by which sailors may 
 come home without their captains, as poor Mr. Barker of Bristol 
 found to his cost. God grant that there may have been no such 
 traitorous dealing here.” 
 
 “ Sir Richard Grenvile, if I had been a guilty man to my 
 noble captain, as I have to God, I had not come here this day 
 to you, from whom villany has never found favour, nor ever 
 will ; for I know your conditions well, sir ; and trust in the 
 Lord, that if you will be pleased to hear me, you shall know 
 mine.” 
 
 “ Thou art a well-spoken knave. We shall see.” 
 
 “ My dear sir,” said Amyas in a whisper, “ I will warrant 
 this man guiltless.” 
 
 “ I verily believe him to be ; but this is too serious a matter 
 
 to be left on guess. If he will be sworn ” 
 
 Whereon the man, humbly enough, said, that if it would 
 please Sir Richard, he would rather not be sworn. 
 
 “ But it does not please me, rascal ! Did I not warn thee, 
 Amyas ?” 
 
 “ Sir,” said the man proudly, “ God forbid that my word 
 should not be as good as my oath : but it is against my con- 
 science to be sworn.” 
 
 “ What have we here ? some fantastical Anabaptist, who is 
 wiser than his teachers.” 
 
 “ My conscience, sir ” 
 
128 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [CHAP. VIL 
 
 “ The devil take it and thee ! I never heard a man yet begin 
 to prate of his conscience, but I knew that he was about to do 
 something more than ordinarily cruel or false.” 
 
 “ Sir,” said the man, coolly enough, “ do you sit here to 
 judge me according to law, and yet contrary to the law swear 
 profane oaths, for which a fine is provided V* 
 
 Amyas expected an explosion : but Sir Richard pulled a 
 shilling out and put it on the table. “ There — my fine is paid, 
 sirrah, to the poor of Kilkhampton : but hearken thou all the 
 same. If thou wilt not speak an oath, thou shalt speak on 
 compulsion ; for to Launceston gaol thou goest, there to answer 
 for Mr. Oxenham’s death, on suspicion whereof, and of mutiny 
 causing it, I will attach thee and every soul of his crew that 
 comes home. We have lost too many gallant captains of late 
 by treachery of their crews, and he that will not clear himself 
 on oath, must be held for guilty, and self-condemned.” 
 
 “ My good fellow,” said Amyas, who could not give up his 
 belief in the man’s honesty ; “why, for such fantastical scruples, 
 peril not only your life, but your honour, and Mr. Oxenham’s 
 also 1 For if you be examined by question, you may be forced 
 by torment to say that which is not true.” 
 
 “Little fear of that, young sir !” answered he with a grim 
 smile ; “I have had too much of the rack already, and the 
 strappado too, to care much what man can do unto me. I would 
 heartily that I thought it lawful to be sworn : but not so think- 
 ing, I can but submit to the cruelty of man ; though I did 
 expect more merciful things, as a most miserable and wrecked 
 mariner, at the hands of one who hath himself seen God’s ways 
 in the sea, and His wonders in the great deep. Sir Richard 
 Grenvile, if you will hear my story, may God avenge on my 
 head all my sins from my youth up until now, and cut me off 
 from the blood of Christ, and, if it were possible, from the 
 number of His elect, if I tell you one whit more or less than 
 truth ; and if not, I commend myself into the hands of God.” 
 Sir Richard smiled. “Well, thou art a brave ass, and valiant, 
 though an ass manifest. Dost thou not see, fellow, how thou 
 hast sworn a ten-times bigger oath than ever I should have asked 
 of thee 1 But this is the way with your Anabaptists, who by 
 their very hatred of forms and ceremonies, show of how much 
 account they think them, and then bind themselves out of their 
 own fantastical self-will with far heavier burdens than ever the 
 lawful authorities have laid on them for the sake of the common- 
 weal. But what do they care for the commonweal, as long as 
 
CHAP. vii. ] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 129 
 
 they can save, as they fancy, each man his own dirty soul for 
 himself 1 ? However, thou art sworn now with a vengeance; go 
 on with thy tale : and first, who art thou, and whence V* 
 
 “ Well, sir,” said the man, quite unmoved by this last ex- 
 plosion ; “ my name is Salvation Yeo, born in (Jlovelly Street, 
 in the year 1526, where my father exercised the mystery of a 
 barber surgeon, and a preacher of the people since called Ana- 
 baptists, for which I return humble thanks to God.” 
 
 Sir Richard. — Fie ! thou naughty knave ; return thanks 
 that thy father was an ass 1 
 
 Yeo. — Nay, but because he was a barber surgeon ; for I 
 myself learnt a touch of that trade, and thereby saved my life, 
 as I will tell presently. And I do think that a good mariner 
 ought to have all knowledge of carnal and worldly cunning, 
 even to tailoring and shoemaking, that he may be able to turn 
 his hand to whatsoever may hap. 
 
 Sir Richard. — Well spoken, fellow : but let us have thy 
 text without thy comments. Forwards ! 
 
 Yeo. — Well, sir; I was bred to the 'sea from my youth, 
 and was with Captain Hawkins in his three voyages, which he 
 made to Guinea for negro slaves, and thence to the West Indies. 
 
 Sir Richard. — Then thrice thou wentest to a bad end, 
 though Captain Hawkins be my good friend ; and the last time 
 to a bad end thou earnest. 
 
 Yeo. — No denying that last, your worship : but as for the 
 former, I doubt : — about the unlawfulness I mean ; being the 
 negroes are of the children of Ham, who are cursed and repro- 
 bate, as Scripture declares, and their blackness testifies, being 
 Satan’s own livery ; among whom therefore there can be none 
 of the elect, wherefore the elect are not required to treat them 
 as brethren. 
 
 Sir Richard. — What a plague of a pragmatical sea-lawyer 
 have we here h And I doubt not, thou hypocrite, that though 
 thou wilt call the negroes’ black skin Satan’s livery, when it 
 serves thy turn to steal them, thou wilt find out sables to be 
 Heaven’s livery every Sunday, and up with a godly howl unless 
 a parson shall preach in a black gown Geneva fashion. Out 
 upon thee ! Go on with thy tale, lest thou finish thy sermon 
 at Launceston after all. 
 
 Yeo. — The Lord’s people were always a reviled people and 
 a persecuted people : but I will go forward, sir ; for Heaven for- 
 bid but that I should declare what God has done for me. For 
 till lately, from my youth up, I was given over to all wretchless- 
 
 K 
 
130 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [chap. VII. 
 
 ness and unclean living, and was by nature a child of the devil, 
 and to every good work reprobate, even as others. 
 
 Sir Richard. — Hark to his “ even as others ” ! Thou new- 
 whelped Pharisee, canst not confess thine own villanies without 
 making out others as bad as thyself, and so thyself no worse 
 than others 1 I only hope that thou hast shown none of thy 
 devil’s doings to Mr. Oxenham. 
 
 Yeo. — On the word of a Christian man, sir, as I said before, 
 I kept true faith with him, and would have been a better friend 
 to him, sir, what is more, than ever he was to himself. 
 
 Sir Richard. — Alas ! that might easily be. 
 
 Yeo. — I think, sir, and will make good against any man, 
 that Mr. Oxenham was a noble and valiant gentleman ; true of 
 his word, stout of his sword, skilful by sea and land, and worthy 
 to have been Lord High Admiral of England (saving your 
 worship’s presence), but that through two great sins, wrath and 
 avarice, he was cast away miserably or ever his soul was brought 
 to the knowledge of the truth. Ah, sir, he was a captain worth 
 sailing under ! And Yeo heaved a deep sigh. 
 
 Sir Richard. — Steady, steady, good fellow ! If thou wouldst 
 quit preaching, thou art no fool after all. But tell us the story 
 without more bush-beating. 
 
 So at last Yeo settled himself to his tale : — 
 
 “Well, sirs, I went, as Mr. Leigh knows, to Nombre de 
 Dios, with Mr. Drake and Mr. Oxenham, in 1572, where what 
 we saw and did, your worship, I suppose, knows as well as I ; 
 and there was, as you’ve heard may be, a covenant between Mr. 
 Oxenham and Mr. Drake to sail the South Seas together, which 
 they made, your worship, in my hearing, under the tree over 
 Panama. For when Mr. Drake came down from the tree, after 
 seeing the sea afar off, Mr. Oxenham and I went up and saw it 
 too ; and when we came down, Drake says, ‘ John, I have made 
 a vow to God that I will sail that water, if I live and God gives 
 me grace;’ which he had done, sir, upon his bended knees, like 
 a godly man as he always was, and would I had taken after him ! 
 and Mr. 0. says, 1 1 am with you, Drake, to live or die, and I 
 think I know some one there already, so we shall not be quite 
 among strangers and laughed withal. Well, sirs, that voyage, 
 as you know, never came off, because Captain Drake was fight- 
 ing in Ireland ; so Mr. Oxenham, who must be up and doing, 
 sailed for himself, and I who loved him, God knows, like a 
 brother (saving the difference in our ranks), helped him to get 
 the crew together, and went as his gunner. That was in 1575 ; 
 
Dartmouth. 
 
CHAP, vil.] OF MR. JOHN OXEN HAM. 131 
 
 as you know, he had a 140-ton ship, sir, and seventy men out 
 of Plymouth and Fowey And Dartmouth, and many of them old 
 hands of Drake’s, beside a dozen or so from Bideford that I 
 picked up when I saw young Master here.” 
 
 “ Thank God that you did not pick me up too.” 
 
 “Amen, amen !” said Yeo, clasping his hands on his breast. 
 “ Those seventy men, sir, — seventy gallant men, sir, with every 
 one of them an immortal soul within him, — where are they now T 
 Gone, like the spray !” And he swept his hands abroad with a 
 wild and solemn gesture. “ And their blood is upon my head!” 
 Both Sir Richard and Amyas began to suspect that the 
 man’s brain was not altogether sound. 
 
 “ God forbid, my man,” said the knight kindly. 
 
 “ Thirteen men I persuaded to join in Bideford town, beside 
 William Penberthy of Marazion, my good comrade. And what 
 if it be said to me at the day of judgment, Salvation Yeo, where 
 are those fourteen whom thou didst tempt to their deaths by 
 covetousness and lust of gold 1 ?’ Not that I was alone in my 
 sin, if the truth must be told. For all the way out Mr. Oxen- 
 ham was making loud speech, after his pleasant way, that he 
 would make all their fortunes, and take them to such a Paradise, 
 that they should have no lust to come home again. And I — 
 God knows why — for every one boast of his would make two, 
 even to lying and empty fables, and anything to keep up the 
 men’s hearts. For I had really persuaded myself that we should 
 all find treasures beyond Solomon his temple, and Mr. Oxenham 
 would surely show us how to conquer some golden city or dis- 
 cover some island all made of precious stones. And one day, as 
 the Captain and I were talking after our fashion, I said, ‘ And 
 you shall be our king, Captain.’ To which he, ‘ If I be, I shall 
 not be long without a queen, and that no Indian one either.’ 
 And after that he often jested about the Spanish ladies, saying 
 that none could show us the way to their hearts better than he. 
 Which speeches I took no count of then, sirs : but after I 
 minded them, whether I would or not. Well, sirs, we came to 
 the shore of New Spain, near to the old place — that’s Nombre 
 de Dios ; and there Mr. Oxenham went ashore into the woods 
 with a boat’s crew, to find the negroes who helped us three years 
 before. Those are the Gimaroons, gentles, negro slaves who 
 have fled from those devils incarnate, their Spanish masters, and 
 live wild, like the beasts that perish ; men of great stature, sirs, 
 and fierce as wolves in the onslaught, but poor jabbering mazed 
 fellows if they be but a bit dismayed : and have many Indian 
 
132 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [CHAP. VII. 
 
 women with them, who take to these negroes a deal better 
 than to their own kin, which breeds war enough, as you may 
 guess. 
 
 “Well, sirs, after three days the Captain comes back, look- 
 ing heavy enough, and says, ‘We played our trick once too 
 often, when we played it once. There is no chance of stopping 
 another rego (that is, a mule-train, sirs) now. The Cimaroons 
 say that since our last visit they never move without plenty of 
 soldiers, two hundred shot at least. Therefore/ he said, ‘ my 
 gallants, we must either return empty-handed from this, the 
 very market and treasury of the whole Indies, or do such a deed 
 as men never did before, whicli I shall like all the better for 
 that very reason.’ And we, asking his meaning, ‘Why,’ he 
 said, ‘if Drake will not sail the South Seas, we will;’ adding 
 profanely that Drake was like Moses, who beheld the promised 
 land afar; but he was Joshua, who would enter into it, and 
 smite the inhabitants thereof. And, for our confirmation, 
 showed me and the rest the superscription of a letter : and 
 said, ‘ How I came by this is none of your business : but I have 
 had it in my bosom ever since I left Plymouth ; and I tell you 
 now, what I forebore to tell you at first, that the South Seas 
 have been my mark all along ! such news have I herein of 
 plate-ships, and gold-ships, and what not, which will come up 
 from Quito and Lima this very month, all which, with the 
 pearls of the Gulf of Panama, and other wealth unspeakable, 
 will be ours, if we have but true English hearts within us.’ 
 
 “ At which, gentles, we were like madmen for lust of that 
 gold, and cheerfully undertook a toil incredible ; for first we 
 run our ship aground in a great wood which grew in the very 
 sea itself, and then took out her masts, and covered her in 
 boughs, with her four cast pieces of great ordnance (of which 
 more hereafter), and leaving no man in her, started for the 
 South Seas across the neck of Panama, with two small pieces 
 of ordnance and our culverins, and good store of victuals, and 
 with us six of those negroes for a guide, and so twelve leagues 
 to a river which runs into the South Sea. 
 
 “And there, having cut wood, we made a pinnace (and 
 work enough we had at it) of five-and-forty foot in the keel ; 
 and in her down the stream, and to the Isle of Pearls in the 
 Gulf of Panama.” 
 
 “Into the South Sea? Impossible!” said Sir Richard, 
 “ Have a care what you say, my man ; for there is that about 
 you which would make me sorry to find you out a liar.” 
 
OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 
 
 133 
 
 CHAP. VII. ] 
 
 “ Impossible or not, liar or none, we went there, sir.” 
 “Question him, Amyas, lest he turn out to have been 
 beforehand with you.” 
 
 The man looked inquiringly at Amyas, who said — 
 
 “ Well, my man, of the Gulf of Panama I cannot ask you, 
 for I never was inside it, but what other parts of the coast do 
 you know !” 
 
 “ Every inch, sir, from Cabo San Francisco to Lima ; more 
 is my sorrow, for I was a galley-slave there for two years and 
 more.” 
 
 “You know Lima?” 
 
 “ I was there three times, worshipful gentlemen, and the 
 last was February come two years ; and there I helped lade a 
 great plate-ship, the ‘ Cacafuogo,’ they called her.” 
 
 Amyas started. Sir Richard nodded to him gently to be 
 silent, and then— 
 
 “ And what became of her, my lad ?” 
 
 “ God knows, who knows all, and the devil who freighted 
 her. I broke prison six weeks afterwards, and never heard 
 but that she got safe into Panama.” 
 
 “ You never heard, then, that she was taken ?” 
 
 “ Taken, your worships ! Who should take her !” 
 
 “Why should not a good English ship take her as well as 
 another!” said Amyas. 
 
 “ Lord love you, sir ; yes faith, if they had but been there. 
 Many’s the time that I thought to myself, as we went along- 
 side, ‘ Oh, if Captain Drake was but here, well to windward, 
 and our old crew of the Dragon !’ Ask your pardon, gentles : 
 but how is Captain Drake, if I may make so bold !” 
 
 Neither could hold out longer. 
 
 “Fellow, fellow!”' cried Sir Richard, springing up, “either 
 thou art the cunningest liar that ever earned a halter, or thou 
 hast done a deed the like of which never man adventured. 
 Dost thou not know that Captain Drake took that ‘ Cacafuogo ’ 
 and all her freight, in February come two years!” 
 
 “Captain Drake! God forgive me, sir; but — Captain 
 Drake in the South Seas ! He saw them, sir, from the tree- 
 top over Panama, when I was with him, and I too ; but sailed 
 them, sir ! — sailed them !” 
 
 “Yes, and round the world too,” said Amyas, “and I with 
 him ; and took that very ‘ Cacafuogo ’ off Cape San Francisco, 
 as *he came up to Panama.” 
 
 Due glance at the man’s face was enough to prove his sin- 
 
134 
 
 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 [chap. vij. 
 
 cerity. The great stern Anabaptist, who had not winced at 
 the news of his mother’s death, dropt right on his knees on the 
 floor, and burst into violent sobs. 
 
 “Glory to God ! Glory to God ! 0 Lord, I thank thee ! 
 
 Captain Drake in the South Seas ! The blood of thy innocents 
 avenged, 0 Lord ! The spoiler spoiled, and the proud robbed ; 
 and all they whose hands were mighty have found nothing. 
 Glory, glory ! Oh, tell me, sir, did she fight V’ 
 
 “We gave her three pieces of ordnance only, and struck 
 down her mizen mast, and then boarded sword in hand, but 
 never had need to strike a blow ; and before we left her, one 
 of her own boys had changed her name, and rechristened her 
 the ‘ Cacaplata.’” 
 
 “ Glory, glory ! Cowards they are, as I told them. I told 
 them they never could stand the Devon mastiffs, and well they 
 flogged me for saying it ; but they could not stop my mouth. 
 0 sir, tell me, did you get the ship that came up after her'?” 
 
 “ What was that V ’ 
 
 “ A long race-ship, sir, from Guayaquil, with an old gentle- 
 man on board, — Don Francisco de Xararte was his name, and 
 by token, he had a gold falcon hanging to a chain round his 
 neck, and a green stone in the breast of it. I saw it as we 
 rowed him aboard. 0 tell me, sir, tell me for the love of God, 
 did you take that ship '?” 
 
 “We did take that ship, and the jewel too, and her Majesty 
 has it at this very hour.” 
 
 “ Then tell me, sir,” said he slowly, as if he dreaded an 
 answer ; “ tell me, sir, and oh, try and mind — was there a little 
 maid aboard with the old gentleman?” 
 
 “ A little maid ? Let me think. No ; I saw none.” 
 
 The man settled his features again sadly. 
 
 “ I thought not. I never saw her come aboard. Still I 
 hoped, like ; I hoped. Alackaday ! God help me, Salvation 
 Yeo !” 
 
 “What have you to do with this little maid, then, good 
 fellow ! ” asked Grenvile. 
 
 “ Ah, sir, before I tell you that, I must go back and finish 
 the story of Mr. Oxenham, if you will believe me enough to 
 hear it.” 
 
 “I do believe thee, good fellow, and honour thee too.” 
 
 “ Then, sir, I can speak with a free tongue. Where was I?” 
 “ Where was he, Amyas.” 
 
 “ At the Isle of Pearls.” 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. i<35 
 
 “ And yet, 0 gentles, tell me first, how Captain Drake came 
 into the South Seas : — over the neck, as we didl” 
 
 “ Through the Straits, good fellow, like any Spaniard : hut 
 go on with thy story, and thou shalt have Mr. Leigh’s after.” 
 
 “ Through the Straits ! 0 glory ! But I’ll tell my tale. 
 
 Well, sirs both — To the Island of Pearls we came, we and some 
 of the negroes. We found many huts, and Indians fishing for 
 pearls, and also a fair house, with porches ; but no Spaniard 
 therein, save one man ; at which Mr. Oxenham was like a man 
 transported, and fell on that Spaniard, crying, ‘ Perro, where is 
 your mistress 1 Where is the bark from Lima V To which he 
 boldly enough, ‘What was his mistress to the Englishman V 
 But Mr. 0. threatened to twine a cord round his head till his 
 eyes burst out ; and the Spaniard, being terrified, said that the 
 ship from Lima was expected in a fortnight’s time. So for ten 
 days we lay quiet, letting neither negro nor Spaniard leave the 
 island, and took good store of pearls, feeding sumptuously on 
 wild cattle and hogs until the tenth day, when there came by 
 a small bark ; her we took, and found her frofri Quito, and on 
 board 60,000 pezos of gold and other store. With which if 
 we had been content, gentlemen, all had gone well. And some 
 were willing to go back at once, having both treasure and pearls 
 in plenty ; but Mr. O., he waxed right mad, and swore to slay 
 any one who made that motion again, assuring us that the Lima 
 ship of which he had news was far greater and richer, and would 
 make princes of us all ; which bark came in sight on the six- 
 teenth day, and was taken without shot or slaughter. The taking 
 of which bark, I verily believe, was the ruin of every mother’s 
 son of us.” 
 
 And being asked why, he answered, “ First, because of the 
 discontent which was bred thereby ; for on board was found no 
 gold, but only 100,000 pezos of silver.” 
 
 Sir Richard Grenvile . — Thou greedy fellow ; and was not 
 that enough to stay your stomachs % 
 
 Yeo answered that he would to God it had been ; and that, 
 moreover, the weight of that silver was afterwards a hindrance 
 to them, and a fresh cause of discontent, as he would afterwards 
 declare. “ So that it had been well for us, sirs, if we had left 
 it behind, as Mr. Drake left his three years before, and carried 
 away the gold only. In which I do see the evident hand of 
 God, and His just punishment for our greediness of gain ; who 
 caused Mr. Oxenham, by whom we had hoped to attain great 
 wealth, to be a snare to us, and a cause of utter ruin.” 
 
136 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [CHAP. vil. 
 
 “ Do you think, then,” said Sir Richard, “ that Mr. Oxen- 
 ham deceived you wilfully?” 
 
 “ I will never believe that sir : Mr. Oxenham had his 
 private reasons for waiting for that ship, for the sake of one on 
 board, whose face would that he had never seen, though he saw 
 it then, as I fear, not for the first time by many a one.” And 
 so was silent. 
 
 “Come,” said both his hearers, “you have brought us thus 
 far, and you must go on.” 
 
 “ Gentlemen, I have concealed this matter from all men, 
 both on my voyage home and since ; and I hope you will be 
 secret iu the matter, for the honour of my noble Captain, and 
 the comfort of his friends who are alive. For I think it shame 
 to publish harm of a gallant gentleman, and of an ancient and 
 worshipful family, and to me a true and kind Captain, when 
 what is done cannot be undone, and least said soonest mended. 
 Neither now would I have spoken of it, but that I was inwardly 
 moved to it for the sake of that young gentleman there (looking 
 at Amyas), that he might be warned in time of God’s wrath 
 against the crying sin of adultery, and flee youthful lusts, which 
 war against the soul.” 
 
 “ Thou hast done wisely enough, then,” said Sir Richard ; 
 “ and look to it if I do not reward thee : but the young gentle- 
 man here, thank God, needs no such warnings, having got them 
 already both by precept and example, where thou and poor 
 Oxenham might have had them also.” 
 
 “You mean Captain Drake, your worship ?” 
 
 “ I do, sirrah. If all men were as clean livers as he, the 
 world would be spared one half the tears that are shed in it.” 
 
 “ Amen, sir. At least there would have been many a tear 
 spared to us and ours. For — as all must out — in that bark of 
 Lima he took a young lady, as fair as the sunshine, sir, and 
 seemingly about two or three-and-twenty years of age, having 
 with her a tall young lad of sixteen, and a little girl, a marvel- 
 lously pretty child, of about a six or seven. And the lady herself 
 was of an excellent beauty, like a whale’s tooth for whiteness, 
 so that all the crew wondered at her, and could not be satisfied 
 with looking upon her. And, gentlemen, this was strange, that 
 the lady seemed in no wise afraid or mournful, and bid her little 
 girl fear nought, as did also Mr. Oxenham : but the lad kept a 
 very sour countenance, and the more when he saw the lady and 
 Mr. Oxenham speaking together apart. 
 
 “ Well, sir, after this good luck we were minded to have 
 
OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 
 
 137 
 
 CHAP. VII.] 
 
 gone straight back to the river whence we came, and so home 
 to England with all speed. But Mr. Oxenham persuaded us 
 to return to the island, and get a few more pearls. To which 
 foolishness (which after caused the mishap) I verily believe he 
 was moved by the instigation of the devil and of that lady. For 
 as we were about to go ashore, I, going down into the cabin of 
 the prize, saw Mr. Oxenham and that lady making great cheer 
 of each other with, ‘ My life,’ and ‘ My king/ and ‘ Light of my 
 eyes/ and such toys ; and being bidden by Mr. Oxenham to fetch 
 out the lady’s mails, and take them ashore, heard how the two 
 laughed together about the old ape of Panama (which ape, or 
 devil rather, I saw afterwards to my cost), and also how she 
 said that she had been dead for five years, and now that Mr. 
 Oxenham was come, she was alive again, and so forth. 
 
 “ Mr. Oxenham bade take the little maid ashore, kissing 
 her and playing with her, and saying to the lady, ‘ What is 
 yours is mine, and' what is mine is yours.’ And she asking 
 whether the lad should come ashore, he answered, ‘ He is neither 
 yours nor mine ; let the spawn of Beelzebub stay on shore.’ 
 After which I, coming on deck again, stumbled over that very 
 lad, upon the hatchway ladder, who bore so black and despite- 
 ful a face, that I verily believe he had overheard their speech, 
 and so thrust him upon deck ; and going below again, told Mr. 
 Oxenham what I thought, and said that it were better to put 
 a dagger into him at once, professing to be ready so to do. 
 For which grievous sin, seeing that it was committed in my 
 unregenerate days, I hope I have obtained the grace of forgive- 
 ness, as I have that of hearty repentance. But the lady cried 
 out, ‘ Though he be none of mine, I have sin enough already on 
 my soul;’ and so laid her hand on Mr. Oxenham’s mouth, en- 
 treating pitifully. And Mr. Oxenham answered laughing, when 
 she would let him, ‘What care wel let the young monkey go 
 and howl to the old one ;’ and so went ashore with the lady to 
 that house, whence for three days he never came forth, and 
 would have remained longer, but that the men, finding but few 
 pearls, and being wearied with the watching and warding so 
 many Spaniards, and negroes came clamouring to him, and 
 swore that they would return or leave him there with the 
 lady. So all went on board the pinnace again, every one in ill 
 humour with the Captain, and he with them. 
 
 “Well, sirs, we came back to the mouth of the river, and 
 there began our troubles ; for the negroes, as soon as we were 
 on shore, called on Mr. Oxenham to fulfil the bargain he had 
 
138 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [CHAP. vn. 
 
 made with them. And now it came out (what few of us knew 
 till then) that he had agreed with the Cimaroons that they 
 should have all the prisoners which were taken, save the gold. 
 And he, though loth, was about to give up the Spaniards to 
 them, near forty in all, supposing that they intended to use 
 them as slaves : but as we all stood talking, one of the Spaniards, 
 understanding what was forward, threw himself on his knees 
 before Mr. Oxenham, and shrieking like a madman, entreated 
 not to be given up into the hands of ‘ those devils,’ said he, 
 ‘ who never take a Spanish prisoner, but they roast him alive, 
 and then eat his heart among them.’ We asked the negroes if 
 this was possible ? To which some answered, What was that 
 to us 1 But others said boldly, that it was true enough, and 
 that revenge made the best sauce, and nothing was so sweet as 
 Spanish blood ; and one, pointing to the lady, said such foul 
 and devilish things as I should be ashamed either for me to 
 speak, or you to hear. At this we were like men amazed for 
 very horror; and Mr. Oxenham said, ‘You incarnate fiends, if 
 you had taken these fellows for slaves, it had been fair enough; 
 for you were once slaves to them, and I doubt not cruelly used 
 enough : but as for this abomination,’ says he, ‘ God do so to 
 me, and more also, if I let one of them come into your murder- 
 ous hands.’ So there was a great quarrel ; but Mr. Oxenham 
 stoutly bade put the prisoners on board the ships again, and so 
 let the prizes go, taking with him only the treasure, and the 
 lady and the little maid. And so the lad went on to Panama, 
 God’s wrath having gone out against us. 
 
 “ Well, sirs, the Cimaroons after that went away from us, 
 swearing revenge (for which we cared little enough), and we 
 rowed up the river to a place where three streams met, and 
 then up the least of the three, some four days’ journey, till it 
 grew all shoal and swift ; and there we hauled the pinnace 
 upon the sands, and Mr. Oxenham asked the men whether they 
 were willing to carry the gold and silver over the mountains to 
 the North Sea. Some of them at first were loth to do it, and 
 I and others advised that we should leave the plate behind, 
 and take the gold only, for it would have cost us three or four 
 journeys at the least. But Mr. Oxenham promised every man 
 100 pezos of silver over and above his wages, which made them 
 content enough, and we were all to start the morrow morning. 
 But, sirs, that night, as God had ordained, came a mishap by 
 some rash speeches of Mr. Oxenham’s, which threw all abroad 
 again ; for when we had carried the treasure about half a league 
 
OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 
 
 139 
 
 CHAP. VII.] 
 
 inland, and hidden it away in a house which we made of boughs, 
 Mr. 0. being always full of that his fair lady, spoke to me and 
 William Penberthy of Marazion, my good comrade, and a few 
 more, saying, 4 That we had no need to return to England, see- 
 ing that we were already in the very garden of Eden, and 
 wanted for nothing, but could live without labour or toil ; and 
 that it was better, when we got over to the North Sea, to go 
 and seek out some fair island, and there dwell in joy and plea- 
 sure till our lives’ end. And we two,’ he said, ‘will be king 
 and queen, and you, whom I can trust, my officers ; and for 
 servants we will have the Indians, who, I warrant, will be more 
 fain to serve honest and merry masters like us than those 
 Spanish devils,’ and much more of the like ; which words I 
 liked well, — my mind, alas ! being given altogether to carnal, 
 pleasure and vanity, — as did William Penberthy, my good 
 comrade, on whom I trust God has had mercy. But the rest, 
 sirs, took the matter all across, and began murmuring against 
 the Captain, saying that poor honest mariners like them had 
 always the labour and the pain, while he took his delight with 
 his lady ; and that they would have at least one merry night 
 before they were slain by the Cimaroons, or eaten by panthers 
 and lagartos ; and so got out of the pinnace tw T o great skins of 
 Canary wine, which were taken in the Lima prize, and sat 
 themselves down to drink. Moreover, there were in the pin- 
 nace a great sight of hens, which came from the same prize, by 
 which Mr. 0. set great store, keeping them for the lady and 
 the little maid ; and falling upon these, the men began to 
 blaspheme, saying, ‘ What a plague had the Captain to fill the 
 boat with dirty live lumber for that giglet’s sake? They had 
 a better right to a good supper than ever she had, and might 
 fast awhile to cool her hot blood ;’ and so cooked and ate those 
 hens, plucking them on board the pinnace, and letting the 
 feathers fall into the stream. But when William Penberthy, 
 my good comrade, saw the feathers floating away down, he 
 asked them if they were mad, to lay a trail by which the 
 Spaniards would surely track them out, if they came after 
 them, as without doubt they would. But. they laughed him to 
 scorn, and said that no Spanish cur dared follow on the heels 
 of true English mastiffs as they were, and other boastful 
 speeches ; and at last, being heated with wine, began afresh to 
 murmur at the Captain. And one speaking of his counsel about 
 the island, the rest altogether took it amiss and out of the way ; 
 and some sprang up crying treason, and others that he meant 
 
140 
 
 TRUE, AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 to defraud them of the plate which he had promised, and others 
 that he meant to desert them in a strange land, and so forth, 
 till Mr. 0., hearing the hubbub, came out to them from the 
 house, when they reviled him foully, swearing that he meant 
 to cheat them ; and one Edward Stiles, a Wapping man, mad 
 with drink, dared to say that he was a fool for not giving up 
 the prisoners to the negroes, and what was it to him if the lady 
 roasted 1 the negroes should have her yet ; and drawing his 
 sword, ran upon the Captain : for which I was about to strike 
 him through the body ; but the Captain, not caring to waste 
 steel on such a ribald, with his fist caught him such a buffet 
 behind the ear, that he fell down stark dead, and all the rest 
 stood amazed. Then Mr. Oxenham called out, ‘All honest 
 men who know me, and can trust me, stand by your lawful 
 Captain against these ruffians. ’ Whereon, sirs, I, and Penberthy 
 my good comrade, and four Plymouth men, who had sailed with 
 Mr. 0. in Mr. Drake’s ship, and knew his trusty and valiant 
 conditions, came over to him, and swore before God to stand by 
 him and the lady. Then said Mr. 0. to the rest, ‘ Will you 
 carry this treasure, knaves, or will you not 1 Give me an 
 answer here.’ And they refused, unless he would, before they 
 started, give each man his shave. So Mr. 0. waxed very mad, 
 and swore that he would never be served by men who did not 
 trust him, and so went in again ; and that night was spent in 
 great disquiet, I and those five others keeping watch about the 
 house of boughs till the rest fell asleep, in their drink. And 
 next morning, when the wine was gone out of them, Mr. 0. 
 asked them whether they would go to the hills with him, and 
 find those negroes, and persuade them after all to carry the 
 treasure. To which they agreed after awhile, thinking that so 
 they should save themselves labour; and went off with Mr. 
 Oxenham, leaving us six who had stood by him to watch the 
 lady and the treasure, after he had taken an oath of us that we 
 would deal justly and obediently by him and by her, which 
 God knows, gentlemen, we did. So he parted with much 
 weeping and wailing of the lady, and was gone seven days ; 
 and all that time we kept that lady faithfully and honestly, 
 bringing her the best we could find, and serving her upon our 
 bended knees, both for her admirable beauty and for her excel- 
 lent conditions, for she was certainly of some noble kin, and 
 courteous, and without fear, as if she had been a very princess. 
 But she kept always within the house, which the little maid 
 (God bless her !) did not, but soon learned to play with us and 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 141 
 
 we with her, so that we made great cheer of her, gentlemen, 
 sailor fashion — for you know we must always have our minioi.s 
 aboard to pet and amuse us — maybe a monkey, or a little dog, 
 or a singing bird, ay, or mice and spiders, if we have nothing 
 better to play withal. And she was wonderful sharp, sirs, was 
 the little maid, and picked up her English from us fast, calling 
 us jolly mariners, which I doubt but she has forgotten by now, 
 but I hope in God it be not so and therewith the good fellow 
 began wiping his eyes. 
 
 “Well, sir, on the seventh day we six were down by the 
 pinnace clearing her out, and the little maid with us gathering 
 of flowers, and William Penberthy fishing on the bank, about a 
 hundred yards below, when on a sudden he leaps up and runs 
 toward us, crying, ‘ Here come our hens’ feathers back again 
 with a vengeance !’ and so bade catch up the little maid, and 
 run for the house, for the Spaniards were upon us. 
 
 “ Which was too true ; for before we could win the 
 house, there were full eighty shot at our heels, but could not 
 overtake us ; nevertheless, some of them stopping, fixed their 
 calivers and let fly, killing one of the Plymouth men. The rest 
 of us escaped to the hoime, and catching up the lady, fled forth, 
 not knowing whither we went, while the Spaniards, finding the 
 house and treasure, pursued us no farther. 
 
 “For all that day and the next we wandered in great 
 misery, the lady weeping continually, and calling for Mr. 
 Oxenham most piteously, and the little maid likewise, till 
 with much ado we found the track of our comrades, and went 
 up that as best we might : but at nightfall, by good hap, we 
 met the whole crew coming back, and with them 200 negroes 
 or more, with bows and arrows. At which sight was great joy 
 and embracing, and it was a strange thing, sirs, to see the lady ; 
 for before that she was altogether desperate : and yet she was 
 now a very lioness, as soon as she had got her love again ; and 
 prayed him earnestly not to care for that gold, but to go for- 
 ward to the North Sea, vowing to him in my hearing that she 
 cared no more for poverty than she had cared for her good 
 name, and then — they being a little apart from the rest — 
 pointed round to the green forest, and said in Spanish — which 
 I suppose they knew not that I understood, — * See, all round 
 us is Paradise. Were it not enough for you and me to stay 
 here for ever, and let them take the gold or leave it as they 
 will V 
 
 “ To which Mr. Oxenham — ‘ Those who lived in Paradise 
 
142 
 
 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 [chap. vii. 
 
 had not sinned as we have, and would never have grown old or 
 sick, as we shall.’ 
 
 “And she — ‘If we do that, there are poisons enough in 
 these woods, by which we may die in each other’s arms, as 
 would to Heaven we had died seven years agone !’ 
 
 “But he — ‘No, no, my life. It stands upon my honour 
 both to fulfil my bond with these men, whom I have brought 
 hither, and to take home to England at least something of my 
 prize as a proof of my own valour.’ 
 
 “Then she smiling — ‘Am I not prize enough, and proof 
 enough?’ But he would not be so tempted, and turning to us 
 offered us the half of that treasure, if we would go back with 
 him, and rescue it from the Spauiard. At which the lady wept 
 and wailed much ; but I took upon myself to comfort her, 
 though I was but a simple mariner, telling her that it stood 
 upon Mr. Oxenham’s honour ; and that in England nothing 
 was esteemed so foul as cowardice, or breaking word and troth 
 betwixt man and man ; and that better was it for him to die 
 seven times by the Spaniards, than to face at home the scorn 
 of all who sailed the seas. So, after much ado, back they went 
 again ; I and Penberthy, and the three Plymouth men which 
 escaped from the pinnace, keeping the lady as before. 
 
 “Well, sirs, we waited five days, having made houses of 
 boughs as before, without hearing aught ; and on the sixth we 
 saw coming afar off Mr. Oxenham, and with him fifteen or 
 twenty men, who seemed very weary and wounded ; and when 
 we looked for the rest to be behind them, behold there were 
 no more ; at which, sirs, as you may well think, our hearts 
 sank within us. 
 
 “And Mr. 0., coming nearer, cried out afar off, ‘All is 
 lost !’ and so walked into the camp without a word, and sat 
 himself down at the foot of a great tree with his head between 
 his hands, speaking neither to the lady or to any one, till she 
 very pitifully kneeling before him, cursing herself for the cause 
 of all his mischief, and praying him to avenge himself upon 
 that her tender body, won him hardly to look once upon her, 
 after which (as is the way of vain and unstable man) all between 
 them was as before. 
 
 “ But the men were full of curses against the negroes, for 
 their cowardice and treachery ; yea, and against high Heaven 
 itself, which had put the most part of their ammunition into 
 the Spaniards’ hands • and told me, and I believe truly, how 
 they forced the enemy awaiting them in a little copse of great 
 
OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 
 
 143 
 
 CIIAP. VII.] 
 
 trees, well fortified with barricades of boughs, and having with 
 them our two falcons, which they had taken out of the pinnace. 
 And how Mr. Oxenhain divided both the English and the 
 negroes into two bands, that one might attack the enemy in 
 front, and the other in the rear, and so set upon them with 
 great fury, and would have utterly driven them out, but that 
 the negroes, who had come on with much howling, like very 
 wild beasts, being suddenly scared with the shot and noise of 
 the ordnance, turned and fled, leaving the Englishmen alone; 
 in which evil strait Mr. 0. fought like a very Guy of Warwick, 
 and I verily believe every man of them likewise ; for there was 
 none of them who had not his shrewd scratch to show. And 
 indeed, Mr. Oxenham’s party had once gotten within the barri- 
 cades, but the Spaniards being sheltered by the tree trunks 
 (and especially by one mighty tree, which stood as I remem- 
 bered it, and remember it now, borne up two fathoms high 
 upon its own roots, as it were upon arches and pillars), shot at 
 them with such advantage, that they had several slain, and 
 seven more taken alive, only among the roots of that tree. So 
 seeing that they could prevail nothing, having little but their 
 pikes and swords, they were fain to give back ; though Mr. 
 Oxenham swore he would not stir a foot, and making at the 
 Spanish Captain was borne down with pikes, and hardly pulled 
 away by some, who at last reminding him of his lady, persuaded 
 him to come away with the rest. Whereon the other party fled 
 also ; but what had become of them they knew not, for they 
 took another way. And so they miserably drew off, having 
 lost in men eleven killed and seven taken alive, besides five of 
 the rascal negroes who were killed before they had time to run ; 
 and there was an end of the matter. 1 
 
 ] In the documents from which I have drawn this veracious history, 
 a note is appended to this point of Yeo’s story, which seems to me to 
 smack sufficiently of the old Elizabethan seaman, to be inserted at length. 
 
 “All so far, and most after, agreeth with Lopez Yaz his tale, taken 
 from his pocket by my Lord Cumberland’s mariners at the river Plate, in 
 the year 1586. But note here his vainglory and falsehood, or else fear of 
 the Spaniard. 
 
 “ First, lest it should be seen how great an. advantage the Spaniards 
 had, he maketh no mention of the English calivers, nor those two pieces 
 of ordnance which were in the pinnace. 
 
 “ Second, he saith nothing of the flight of the Cimaroons : though it 
 was evidently to be gathered from that which he himself saith, that of less 
 than seventy English were slain eleven, and of the negroes but five. And 
 while of the English seven were taken alive, yet of the negroes none. And 
 why, but because the rascals ran ? 
 
 ‘ ‘ Thirdly, it is a thing incredible, and out of experience, that eleven 
 
144 
 
 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 [chap. vir. 
 
 “ But the next day, gentlemen, in came some five-and- 
 twenty more, being the wreck of the other party, and with them 
 a few negroes ; and these last proved themselves no honester 
 men than they were brave, for there being great miseiy among 
 us English, and every one of us straggling where he could to 
 get food, every day one or more who went out never came back, 
 and that caused a suspicion that the negroes had betrayed them 
 to the Spaniards, or may be, slain and eaten them. So these 
 fellows being upbraided, with that altogether left us, telling us 
 boldly, that if they had eaten our fellows, we owed them a debt 
 instead of the Spanish prisoners ; and we, in great terror and 
 hunger, went forward and over the mountains till we came to 
 a little river which ran northward, which seemed to lead into 
 the Northern Sea; and there Mr. 0. — who, sirs, I will say, 
 after his first rage was over, behaved himself all through like 
 a valiant and skilful commander — bade us cut down trees and 
 make canoes, to go down to the sea ; which we began to do 
 
 English should be slain and seven taken, with loss only of two Spaniards 
 killed. 
 
 “Search now, and see (for I will not speak of mine own small doings), 
 in all those memorable voyages, which the worthy and learned Mr. Hak- 
 luyt hath so painfully collected, and which are to my old age next only to 
 my Bible, whether in all the fights which we have endured with the 
 Spaniards, their loss, even in victory, hath not far exceeded ours. For we 
 are both bigger of body and fiercer of spirit, being even to the poorest of 
 us (thanks to the care of our illustrious princes), the best fed men of 
 Europe, the most trained to feats of strength and use of weapons, and put 
 our trust also not in any Virgin or saints, dead rags and bones, painted 
 idols which have no breath in their mouths, or St. Bartholomew medals 
 and such devil’s remembrancers : but in the only true God and our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, in whom whosoever trusteth, one of them shall chase a thou- 
 sand. So I hold, having had good experience ; and say, if they have done 
 it once, let them do it again, and kill their eleven to our two, with any 
 weapon they will, save paper bullets blown out of Fame’s lying trumpet. 
 Yet I have no quarrel with the poor Portugal ; for I doubt not but friend 
 Lopez Vaz had looking over his shoulder as he wrote some mighty black 
 velvet Don, with a name as long as that Don Bernaldino Delgadillo de 
 Avellaneda who set forth lately his vainglorious libel of lies concerning the 
 last and fatal voyage of my dear friends Sir F. Drake and Sir John Hawkins, 
 who rest in peace, having finished their labours, as would God I rested. 
 To whose shameless and unspeakable lying my good friend Mr. Henry 
 Sp.vile of this county did most pithily and wittily reply, stripping the ass 
 out of his lion’s skin ; and Sir Thomas Baskerville, general of the Meet, 
 by my advice, send him a cartel of defiance, offering to meet him with 
 choice of weapons, in any indifferent kingdom of equal distance from this 
 realm ; which challenge he hath prudently put in his pipe, or rather rolled 
 it up for one of his Spanish cigarros, and smoked it, and I doubt not, found 
 it foul in the mouth.” 
 
OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 
 
 145 
 
 CHAP. VII.] 
 
 -with great labour and little profit, hewing down trees with our 
 swords, and burning them out with fire, which, after much 
 labour, we kindled ; but as we were a-burning out of the first 
 tree, and cutting down of another, a great party of negroes came 
 upon us, and with much friendly show bade us flee for our lives, 
 for the Spaniards were upon us in great force. And so we were 
 up and away again, hardly able to drag our legs after us for 
 hunger and weariness, and the broiling heat. And some were 
 taken (God help them !) and some fled with the negroes, of 
 whom what became God alone knoweth ; but eight or ten held on 
 with the Captain, among whom was I, and fled downward toward 
 the sea for one day ; but afterwards finding, by the noise in the 
 woods, that the Spaniards w~ere on the track of us, we turned 
 up again toward the inland, and coming to a cliff, climbed up 
 over it, drawing up the lady and the little maid with cords of 
 liana (which hang from those trees as honeysuckle does here, 
 but exceeding stout and long, even to fifty fathoms); and so 
 breaking the track, hoped to be out of the way of the enemy. 
 
 “ By which, nevertheless, we only increased our misery. 
 For two fell from that cliff, as men asleep for very weariness, 
 and miserably broke their bones ; and others, whether by the 
 great toil, or sunstrokes, or eating of strange berries, fell sick 
 of fluxes and fevers ; wdiere was no drop of water, but rock of 
 pumice stone as bare as the back of my hand, and full, more- 
 over, of great cracks, black and without bottom, over which we 
 had not strength to lift the sick, but were fain to leave them 
 there aloft, in the sunshine, like Dives in his torments, crying 
 aloud for a drop of water to cool their tongues ; an'd every man 
 a great stinking vulture or two sitting by him, like an ugly 
 black fiend out of the pit, waiting till the poor soul should 
 depart out of the corpse : but nothing could avail, and for the 
 dear life we must down again and into the woods, or be burned 
 up alive upon those rocks. 
 
 “ So getting down the slope on the farther side, we came 
 into the woods once more, and there wandered for many days, 
 I know not how many ; our shoes being gone, and our clothes 
 all rent off us with brakes and briars. And yet how the lady 
 endured all was a marvel to see ; for she went barefoot many 
 days, and for clothes was fain to wrap herself in Mr. Oxenham’s 
 cloak ; while the little maid went all but naked : but ever she 
 looked still on Mr. Oxenham, and seemed to take no care as 
 long as lie was by, comforting and cheering us all with pleasant 
 words ; yea, and once sitting down under a great fig tree, sang 
 
 L 
 
146 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [chap. vii. 
 
 us all to sleep with very sweet music ; yet, waking about mid- 
 night, I saw her sitting still upright, weeping very bitterly ; 
 on whom, sirs, God have mercy ; for she was a fair and a brave 
 jewel. 
 
 “ And so, to make few words of a sad matter, at last there 
 were none left but Mr. Oxenham and the lady and the little 
 maid, together with me and William Penberthy of Marazion, 
 my good comrade. And Mr. Oxenham always led the lady, and 
 Penberthy and I carried the little maid. And for food we had 
 fruits, such as we could find, and water we got from the leaves 
 of certain lilies which grew on the bark of trees, which I found 
 by seeing the monkeys drink at them ; and the little maid 
 called them monkey-cups, and asked for them continually, mak- 
 ing me climb for them. And so we wandered on, and upward 
 into very high mountains, always fearing lest the Spaniards 
 should track us with dogs, which made the lady leap up often 
 in her sleep, crying that the bloodhounds were upon her. And 
 it befell upon a day, that we came into a great wood of ferns 
 (which grew not on the ground like ours, but on stems as big 
 as a pinnace’s mast, and the bark of them was like a fine meshed 
 net, very strange to see), where was very pleasant shade, cool 
 and green ; and there, gentlemen, we sat down on a bank of 
 moss, like folk desperate and foredone, and every one looked 
 the other in the face for a long while. After which I took off 
 the bark of those ferns, for I must needs be doing something 
 to drive away thought, and began to plait slippers for the little 
 maid. 
 
 “ And as I was plaiting, Mr. Oxenham said, ‘ What hinders 
 us from dying like men, every man falling on his own sword V 
 To which I answered that I dare not ; for a wise woman had 
 prophesied of me, sirs, that I should die at sea, and yet neither 
 by water or battle, wherefore I did not think right to meddle 
 with the Lord’s purposes. And William Penberthy said, ‘That 
 he would sell his life, and that dear, but never give it away.’ 
 But the lady said, ‘ Ah, how gladly would I die ! but then la 
 paouvre garse,’ which is in French ‘ the poor maid,’ meaning 
 the little one. Then Mr. Oxenham fell into a very great weep- 
 ing, a weakness I never saw him in before or since ; and with 
 many tears besought me never to desert that little maid, what- 
 ever might befall ; which I promised, swearing to it like a 
 heathen, but would, if I had been able, have kept it like a 
 Christian. But on a sudden there was a great cry in the wood, 
 and coming through the trees on all sides Spanish arquebusiers, 
 
CHAP. YU. ] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 147 
 
 a hundred strong at least, and negroes with them, who hade us 
 stand or they would shoot. William Penberthy leapt up, cry- 
 ing, ‘Treason!’ and running upon the nearest negro ran him 
 through, and then another, and then falling on the Spaniards, 
 fought manfully till he was borne down with pikes, and so died. 
 But I, seeing nothing better to do, sate still and finished my 
 plaiting. And so we were all taken, and I and Mr. Oxenham 
 bound with cords ; but the soldiers made a litter for the lady 
 and child, by commandment of Senor Diego de Trees, their 
 commander, a very courteous gentleman. 
 
 “Well, sirs, we were brought down to the place where the 
 house of boughs had been by the river-side; there we went 
 over in boats, and found waiting for us certain Spanish gentle- 
 men, and among others one old and ill-favoured man, grey- 
 bearded and bent, in a suit of black velvet, who seemed to be 
 a great man among them. And if you will believe me, Mr. 
 Leigh, that was none other than the old man with the gold 
 falcon at his breast, Don Francisco Xararte by name, whom 
 you found aboard of the Lima ship. And had you known as 
 much of him as I do, or as Mr. Oxenham did either, you had 
 cut him up for shark’s bait, or ever you let the cur ashore 
 again. 
 
 “Well, sirs, as soon as the lady came to shore, that old 
 man ran upon her sword in hand, and would have slain her, 
 but some there held him back. On which he turned to, and 
 reviled with every foul and spiteful word which he could think 
 of, so that some there bade him be silent for shame ; and Mr. 
 Oxenham said, ‘ It is worthy of you, Don Francisco, thus to 
 trumpet abroad your own disgrace. Did I not tell you years 
 ago that you were a cur ; and are you not proving my words 
 for me V 
 
 “ He answered , 1 English dog, would to Heaven I had never 
 seen you !’ 
 
 “And Mr. Oxenham, ‘Spanish ape, would to Heaven that I 
 had sent my dagger through your herring-ribs when you passed 
 me behind St. Ildegonde’s church, eight years last Easter-eve.’ 
 At which the old man turned pale, and then began again to 
 upbraid the lady, vowing that he would have her burnt alive, 
 and other devilish words, to which she answered at last — 
 
 “‘Would that you had burnt me alive on my wedding 
 morning, and spared me eight years of misery ! ’ And he — 
 
 “‘Misery? Hear the witch, Senors ! Oh, have I not 
 pampered her, heaped with jewels, clothes, coaches, what not '/ 
 
148 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [chap. vii. 
 
 The saints alone know what I have spent on her. What more 
 would she have of me ?’ 
 
 “ To which she answered only but this one word, ‘ Fool !’ 
 but in so terrible a voice, though low, that they who were about 
 to laugh at the old pantaloon, were more minded to weep for 
 her. 
 
 “ ‘ Fool !’ she said again, after a while, ‘ I will waste no 
 words upon you. I would have driven a dagger to your heart 
 months ago, but that I was loth to set you free so soon from 
 your gout and your rheumatism. Selfish and stupid, know 
 when you bought my body from my parents, you did not buy 
 my soul ! Farewell, my love, my life ! and farewell, Senors ! 
 May you be more merciful to your daughters than my parents 
 were to me ! ’ And so, catching a dagger from the girdle of one 
 of the soldiers, smote herself to the heart, and fell dead before 
 them all. 
 
 “ At which Mr. Oxenham smiled, and said, 1 That was 
 worthy of us both. If you will unbind my hands, Senors, I 
 shall be most happy to copy so fair a schoolmistress.’ 
 
 “ But Don Diego shook his head, and said, 
 
 “‘It were well for you, valiant Seiior, were I at liberty to 
 do so ; but on questioning those of your sailors, whom I have 
 already taken, I cannot hear that you have any letters of licence, 
 either from the Queen of England, or any other potentate. I 
 am compelled, therefore, to ask you, whether this is so ; for it 
 is a matter of life and death.’ 
 
 “ To which Mr. Oxenham answered merrily, ‘ That so it 
 was : but that he was not aware that any potentate’s licence 
 was required to permit a gentleman’s meeting his lady love ; 
 and that as for the gold which they had taken, if they had 
 never allowed that fresh and fair young May to be forced into 
 marrying that old January, he should never have meddled with 
 their gold ; so that was rather their fault than his.’ And 
 added, that if he was to be hanged, as he supposed, the only 
 fkvour which he asked for was a long drop and no priests. 
 And all the while, gentlemen, he still kept his eyes fixed on the 
 lady’s corpse, till he was led away with me, while all that stood 
 by, God reward them for it, lamented openly the tragical end 
 of those two sinful lovers. 
 
 “And now, sirs, what befell me after that matters little; 
 for I never saw Captain Oxenham again, nor ever shall in this 
 life.” 
 
 “He was hanged, then? 
 
OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 
 
 149 
 
 CHAP. VII.] 
 
 “ So I heard for certain the next year, and with him the 
 gunner and sundry more : but some were given away for slaves 
 to the Spaniards, and may be alive now, unless, like me, they 
 have fallen into the cruel clutches of the Inquisition. For the 
 Inquisition now, gentlemen, claims the bodies and souls of all 
 heretics all over the world (as the devils told me with their 
 own lips, when I pleaded that I was no Spanish subject) ; and 
 none that it catches, whether peaceable merchants, or ship- 
 wrecked mariners, but must turn or burn.” 
 
 “ But how did you get into the Inquisition ?” 
 
 “ Why, sir, after w r e were taken, we set forth to go dowm 
 the river again ; and the old Don took the little maid with him 
 in one boat (and bitterly she screeched at parting from us, and 
 from the poor dead corpse), and Mr. Oxenlmm with Don Diego 
 de Trees in another, and I in a third. And from the Spaniards 
 I learnt that we were to be taken down to Lima, to the Viceroy; 
 but that the old man lived hard by Panama, and w r as going 
 straight back to Panama forthwith with the little maid. But 
 they said, ‘ It will be well for her if she ever gets there, for 
 the old man swears she is none of his, and would have left her 
 behind him in the woods, now, if Don Diego had not shamed 
 him out of it. 7 And when I heard that, seeing that there was 
 nothing but death before me, I made up my mind to escape ; 
 and the very first night, sirs, by God’s help, I did it, and went 
 southward away into the forest, avoiding the tracks of the 
 Cimaroons, till I came to an Indian town. And there, gentle- 
 men, I got more mercy from heathens than ever I had from 
 Christians ; for when they found that I was no Spaniard, they 
 fed me and gave me a house, and a wife (and a good wife she 
 was to me), and painted me all over in patterns, as you see ; 
 and because I had some knowledge of surgery and blood-letting, 
 and my fleams in my pocket, which were worth to me a fortune, 
 I rose to great honour among them, though they taught me 
 more of simples than ever I taught them of surgery. So I 
 lived with them merrily enough, being a very heathen like 
 them, or indeed worse, for they worshipped their Xemes, but 
 I nothing. And in time my wife bare me a child ; in looking 
 at whose sweet face, gentlemen, I forgot Mr. Oxenham and his 
 little maid, and my oath, ay, and my native land also. Where 
 fore it was taken from me, else had I lived and died as the 
 beasts which perish ; for one night, after we were all lain down, 
 came a noise outside the town, and I starting up saw armed 
 men and calivers shining in the moonlight, and heard one read 
 
150 
 
 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY 
 
 [chap. vi*. 
 
 in Spanish, with a loud voice, some fool’s sermon, after their 
 custom when they hunt the poor. Indians, how God had given 
 to St. Peter the dominion of the whole earth, and St. Peter 
 again the Indies to the Catholic king ; wherefore, if they would 
 all be baptized and serve the Spaniard, they should have some 
 monkey’s allowance or other of more kicks than pence ; and if 
 not, then have at them with fire and sword ; but I dare say 
 your worships know that devilish trick of theirs better than I.” 
 
 “ I know it, man. Go on.” 
 
 “ Well — no sooner were the words spoken than, without 
 waiting to hear what the poor innocents within would answer 
 (though that mattered little, for they understood not one word 
 of it), what do the villains but let fly right into the town with 
 their calivers, and then rush in, sword in hand, killing pell-mell 
 all they met, one of which shots, gentlemen, passing through the 
 doorway, and close by me, struck my poor wife to the heart, 
 that she never spoke word more. I, catching up the babe from 
 her breast, tried to run : but when I saw the town full of them, 
 and their dogs with them in leashes, which was yet worse, I 
 knew all was lost, and sat down again by the corpse with the 
 babe on my knees, waiting the end, like one stunned and in a 
 dream ; for now I thought God from whom I had fled had surely 
 found me out, as He did Jonah, and the punishment of all my 
 sins was come. Well, gentlemen, they dragged me out, and all 
 the young men and women, and chained us together by the 
 neck ; and one, catching the pretty babe out of my arms, calls 
 for water and a priest (for they had their shavelings with them), 
 and no sooner was it christened than, catching the babe by the 
 heels, he dashed out its brains, — oh ! gentlemen, gentlemen ! — 
 against the ground, as if it had been a kitten ; and so did they 
 to several more innocents that night, after they had christened 
 them ; saying it was best for them to go to heaven while they 
 were still sure thereof ; and so marched us all for slaves, leaving 
 the old folk and the wounded to die at leisure. But when morn- 
 ing came, and they knew by my skin that I was no Indian, and 
 by my speech that I was no Spaniard, they began threatening 
 me with torments, till I confessed that I was an Englishman, 
 and one of Oxenham’s crew. At that says the leader, ‘ Then 
 you shall to Lima, to hang by the side of your Captain the 
 pirate ; by which I first knew that my poor Captain was cer- 
 tainly gone ; but alas for me ! the priest steps in and claims me 
 for his booty, calling me Lutheran, heretic, and enemy of God ; 
 and so, to make short a sad story, to the Inquisition at Cartha- 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 151 
 
 gena I went, where what I suffered, gentlemen, were as disgust- 
 ful for you to hear, as unmanly for me to complain of ; but so 
 it was, that being twice racked, and having endured the water- 
 torment as best I could, I was put to the scarpines, whereof I 
 am, as you see, somewhat lame of one leg to this day. At which 
 I could abide no more, and so, wretch that I am ! denied my God, 
 in hope to save my life ; which indeed I did, but little it profited 
 me ; for though I had turned to their superstition, I must have 
 two hundred stripes in the public place, and then go to the 
 galleys for seven years. And there, gentlemen, ofttiines I 
 thought that it had been better for me to have been burned at 
 once and for all : but you know as well as I what a floating hell 
 of heat and cold, hunger and thirst, stripes and toil, is every 
 one of those accursed craft. In which hell, nevertheless, gentle- 
 men, I found the road to heaven, — I had almost said heaven 
 itself. For it fell out, by God’s mercy, that my next comrade 
 was an Englishman like myself, a young man of Bristol, who, 
 as he told me, had been some manner of factor on board poor 
 Captain Barker’s ship, and had been a preacher among the Ana- 
 baptists here in England. And, oh ! Sir Richard Grenvile, if 
 that man had done for you what he did for me, you would never 
 say a word against those w T ho serve the same Lord, because they 
 don’t altogether hold with you. For from time to time, sir, 
 seeing me altogether despairing and furious, like a wild beast in 
 a pit, he set before me in secret earnestly the sweet promises of 
 God in Christ, — who says, ‘ Come to me, all ye that are heavy 
 laden, and I will refresh you ; and though your sins be as scarlet, 
 they shall be as white as snow,’ — till all that past sinful life of 
 mine looked like a dream when one awaketh, and I forgot all 
 my bodily miseries in the misery of my soul, so did I loathe and 
 hate myself for my rebellion against that loving God who had 
 chosen me before the foundation of the world, and come to seek 
 and save me when I was lost; and falling into very despair at the 
 burden of my heinous sins, knew no peace until I gained sweet 
 assurance that my Lord had hanged my burden upon His cross, 
 and washed my sinful soul in His most sinless blood, Amen ! ” 
 
 And Sir Richard Grenvile said Amen also. 
 
 “ But, geutlemen, if that sweet youth won a soul to Christ, 
 he paid as dearly for it as ever did saint of God. For after a 
 three or four months, when I had been all that while in sweet 
 converse with him, and I may say in heaven in the midst of 
 hell, there came one night to the barranco at Lima, where we 
 were kept when on shore, three black devils of the Holy Office, 
 
152 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [chap. VII. 
 
 and carried him off without a word, only saying to me, ‘ Look 
 that your turn come not next, for we hear that you have had 
 much talk with the villain.’ And at these words I was so struck 
 cold with terror that I swooned right away, and verily, if they 
 had taken me there and then, I should have denied my God 
 again, for my faith was but young and weak : but instead, they 
 left me aboard the galley for a few months more (that was a 
 whole voyage to Panama and back), in daily dread lest I should 
 find myself in their cruel claws again — and then nothing for me, 
 but to burn as a relapsed heretic. But when we came back to 
 Lima, the officers came on board again, and said to me, ‘ That 
 heretic has confessed nought against you, so we will leave you 
 for this time : but because you have been seen talking with him 
 so much, and the Holy Office suspects your conversion to be but 
 a rotten one, you are adjudged to the galleys for the rest of your 
 life in perpetual servitude.’” 
 
 “ But what became of himl” asked Amyas. 
 
 “ He was burned, sir, a day or two before we got to Lima, 
 and five others with him at the same stake, of whom two were 
 Englishmen ; old comrades of mine, as I guess.” 
 
 “Ah !” said Amyas, “we heard of that when we were off 
 Lima ; and they said, too, that there were six more lying still 
 in prison, to be burnt in a few days. If we had had our fleet 
 with us (as we should have had if it had not been for John 
 Winter) we would have gone in and rescued them all, poor 
 wretches, and sacked the town to boot : but what could we do 
 with one ship 1” 
 
 “Would to God you had, sir; for the story was true enough; 
 and among them, I heard, were two young ladies of quality and 
 their confessor, who came to their ends for reproving out of 
 Scripture the filthy and loathsome living of those parts, which, 
 as I saw well enough and too well, is liker to Sodom than to a 
 Christian town ; but God will avenge His saints, and their sins. 
 Amen.” 
 
 “Amen,” said Sir Richard : “ but on with thy tale, for it 
 is as strange as ever man heard.” 
 
 “ Well, gentlemen, when I heard that I must end my days 
 in that galley, I was for awhile like a madman : but in a day 
 or two there came over me, I know not how, a full assurance 
 of salvation, both for this life and the life to come, such as I 
 had never had before ; and it was revealed to me (I speak the 
 truth, gentlemen, before Heaven) that now I had been tried to 
 the uttermost, and that my deliverance was at hand. 
 
CHAP. VII.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 153 
 
 “ And all the way up to Panama (that was after we had 
 laden the 1 Cacafuogo ’) I cast in my mind how to escape, and 
 found no way : but just as I was beginning to lose heart again, 
 a door was opened by the Lord’s own hand ; for (I know not 
 why) we were marched across from Panama to Nombre, which 
 had never happened before, and there put all together into a 
 great barranco close by the quay-side, shackled, as is the fashion, 
 to one long bar that ran the whole length of the house. And 
 the very first night that we were there, I, looking out of the 
 window, spied, lying close aboard of the quay, a good-sized 
 caravel well armed and just loading for sea; and the land breeze 
 blew off very strong, so that the sailors were laying out a frah 
 warp to hold her to the shore. And it came into my mind, 
 that if we were aboard of her, we should be at sea in five 
 minutes ; and looking at the quay, I saw all the soldiers who 
 had guarded us scattered about drinking and gambling, and 
 some going into taverns to refresh themselves after their journey. 
 That was just at sundown ; and half an hour after, in comes 
 the gaoler to take a last look at us for the night, and his keys 
 at his girdle. Whereon, sirs (whether by madness, or whether 
 by the spirit which gave Samson strength to rend the lion), I 
 rose against him as he passed me, without forethought or 
 treachery of any kind, chained though I was, caught him by 
 the head, and threw him there and then against the wall, that 
 he never spoke word after; and then with his keys freed myself 
 and every soul in that room, and bid them follow me, vowing 
 to kill any man who disobeyed my commands. They followed, 
 as men astounded and leaping out of night into day, and death 
 into life, and so aboard that caravel and out of the harbour (the 
 Lord only knows how, who blinded the eyes of the idolaters), 
 with no more hurt than a few chance-shot from the soldiers on 
 the quay. But my tale has been over -long already, gentle- 
 men ” 
 
 “Go on till midnight, my good fellow, if you will.” 
 
 “Well, sirs, they chose me for captain, and a certain Genoese 
 for lieutenant, and away to go. I would fain have gone ashore 
 after all, and back to Panama to hear news of the little maid : 
 but that would have been but a fool’s errand. Some wanted 
 to turn pirates : but I, and the Genoese too, who was a prudent 
 man, though an evil one, persuaded them to run for England 
 and get employment in the Netherland wars, assuring them that 
 there would be no safety in the Spanish Main, when once our 
 escape got wind. And the more part being of one mind, for 
 
154 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [chap. VII. 
 
 England we sailed, watering at the Barbadoes because it was 
 desolate ; and so eastward toward the Canaries. In which 
 voyage what we endured (being taken by long calms), by scurvy, 
 calentures, hunger, and thirst, no tongue can tell. Many a 
 time were we glad to lay out sheets at night to catch the 
 dew, and suck them in the morning ; and he that had a noggin 
 of rain-water out of the scuppers was as much sought to as if 
 he had been Adelantado of all the Indies ; till of a hundred and 
 forty poor wretches a hundred and ten were dead, blaspheming 
 God and man, and above all me and the Genoese, for taking the 
 Europe voyage, as if I had not sins enough of my own already. 
 And last of all, when we thought ourselves safe, we were 
 wrecked by south-westers on the coast of Brittany, near to Cape 
 Race, from which but nine souls of us came ashore with their 
 lives ; and so to Brest, where I found a Flushinger who carried 
 me to Falmouth ; and so ends my tale, in which if I have 
 said one word more or less than truth, I can wish myself no 
 worse, than to have it all to undergo a second time.” 
 
 And his voice, as he finished, sank from very weariness of 
 soul ; while Sir Richard sat opposite him in silence, his elbows 
 on the table, his cheeks on his doubled fists, looking him 
 through and through with kindling eyes. No one spoke for 
 several minutes ; and then — 
 
 “ Arayas, you have heard this story. You believe it ?” 
 
 “ Every word, sir, or I should not have the heart of a 
 Christian man.” 
 
 “ So do I. Anthony !” 
 
 The butler entered. 
 
 “ Take this man to the buttery ; clothe him comfortably, 
 and feed him with the best ; and bid the knaves treat him as 
 if he were their own father.” 
 
 But Yeo lingered. 
 
 “If I might be so bold as to ask your worship a favour 1 ? ” 
 
 “ Anything in reason, my brave fellow.” 
 
 “ If your worship could put me in the way of another adven- 
 ture to the Indies V’ 
 
 “ Another ! Hast not had enough of the Spaniards already?” 
 “ Never enough, sir, while one of the idolatrous tyrants is 
 left unhanged,” said he, with a right bitter smile. “ But it’s 
 not for that only, sir : but my little maid — Oh, sir ! my little 
 maid, that I swore to Mr. Oxenham to look to, and never saw 
 her from that day to this ! I must find her, sir, or I shall go 
 mad, I believe. Not a night but she comes and calls to me in 
 
OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 
 
 155 
 
 CHAP. VII.] 
 
 my dreams, the poor darling ; and not a morning but when I 
 wake there is my oath lying on my soul, like a great black 
 cloud, and I no nearer the keeping of it. I told that poor 
 young minister of it when we were in the galleys together ; and 
 he said oaths were oaths, and keep it I must ; and keep it I 
 will, sir, if you’ll but help me.” 
 
 “ Have patience, man. God will take as good care of thy 
 little maid as ever thou wilt.” 
 
 “ I know it, sir. I know it : but faith’s weak, sir ! and 
 oh ! if she were bred up a Papist and an idolater ; wouldn’t 
 her blood be on my head then, sir 1 Sooner than that, sooner 
 than that, I’d be in the Inquisition again to-morrow, I would !” 
 “My good fellow, there are no adventures to the Indies 
 forward now : but if you want to fight Spaniards, here is a 
 gentleman will show you the way. Amyas, take him with you 
 to Ireland. If he has learnt half the lessons God has set him 
 to learn, he ought to stand you in good stead.” 
 
 Yeo looked eagerly at the young giant. 
 
 “ Will you have me, sir ? There’s few matters I can’t turn 
 my hand to : and maybe you’ll be going to the Indies again, 
 some day, eh ? and take me with you ? I’d serve your turn well, 
 though I say it, either for gunner or for pilot. I know every 
 stone and tree from Nombre to Panama, and all the ports of 
 both the seas. You’ll never be content, I’ll warrant, till you’ve 
 had another turn along the gold coasts, will you now 1 ?” 
 
 Amyas laughed, and nodded ; and the bargain was concluded. 
 So out went Yeo to eat, and Amyas having received his 
 despatches, got ready for his journey home. 
 
 “ Go the short way over the moors, lad ; and send back 
 Cary’s grey when you can. You must not lose an hour, but be 
 ready to sail the moment the wind goes about.” 
 
 So they started : but as Amyas was getting into the saddle, 
 he saw that there was some stir among the servants, who seemed 
 to keep carefully out of Yeo’s way, whispering and nodding 
 mysteriously ; and just as his foot was in the stirrup, Anthony, 
 the old butler, plucked him back. 
 
 “Dear father alive, Mr. Amyas!” whispered he: “and 
 you ben’t going by the moor road all alone with that chap 1 ?” 
 “Why not, then 1 ? I’m too big for him to eat, I reckon.” 
 
 “ Oh, Mr. Amyas ! he’s not right, I tell you ; not company 
 for a Christian — to go forth with creatures as has flames of fire 
 in their inwards ; ’tis temptation of Providence, indeed, then, 
 it is.” 
 
156 TRUE AND TRAGICAL HISTORY [CHAP. VII. 
 
 “ Tale of a tub.” 
 
 “ Tale of a Christian, sir. There was two boys pig-minding, 
 seed him at it down the hill, beside a maiden that was taken 
 mazed (and no wonder, poor soul !) and lying in screeching 
 asterisks now down to the mill — you ask as you go by — and 
 saw the flames come out of the mouth of mun, and the smoke 
 out of mun’s nose like a vire-drake, and the roaring of mun like 
 the roaring of ten thousand bulls. Oh, sir ! and to go with he 
 after dark over moor ! ’Tis the devil’s devices, sir, against 
 you, because you’m going against his sarvants the Pope of Room 
 and the Spaniard ; and you’ll be Pixy-led, sure as life, and 
 locked into a bog, you will, and see mun vanish away to fire 
 and brimstone, like a jack-o’-lantern. Oh, have a care, then, 
 have a care !” 
 
 And the old man wrung his hands, while Amyas, bursting 
 with laughter, rode off down the park, with the unconscious 
 Yeo at his stirrup, chatting away about the Indies, and delight- 
 ing Amyas more and more by his shrewdness, high spirit, and 
 rough eloquence. 
 
 They had gone ten miles or more ; the day began to draw 
 in, and the western wind to sweep more cold and cheerless 
 every moment, when' Amyas, knowing that there was not an 
 inn hard by around for many a mile ahead, took a pull at a 
 certain bottle which Lady Grenvile had put into his holster, 
 and then offered Yeo a pull also. 
 
 He declined ; he had meat and drink too about him, Heaven 
 be praised ! 
 
 “ Meat and drink 1 Fall to, then, man, and don’t stand on 
 manners.” 
 
 Whereon Yeo, seeing an old decayed willow by a brook, 
 went to it, and took therefrom some touchwood, to which he 
 set a light with his knife and a stone, while Amyas watched, 
 a little puzzled and startled, as Yeo’s fiery reputation came 
 into his mind. Was he really a Salamander-Sprite, and going 
 to warm his inside by a meal of burning tinder 1 But now r Yeo, 
 in his solemn methodical way, pulled out of his bosoni a brown 
 leaf, and began rolling a piece of it up neatly to the size of his 
 little finger ; and then, putting the one end into his mouth and 
 the other on the tinder, sucked at it till it was a-light ; and 
 drinking down the smoke, began puffing it out again at his 
 nostrils with a grunt of deepest satisfaction, and resumed his 
 dog-trot by Amyas’s side, as if he had been a walking chimney. 
 
 On which Amyas burst into a loud laugh, and cried — 
 
CHAP, vii.] OF MR. JOHN OXENHAM. 157 
 
 “ Why, no wonder they said you breathed fire 1 Is not that 
 the Indians’ tobacco ?” 
 
 “Yea, verily, Heaven be praised ! but did you never see it 
 before V’ 
 
 “ Never, though we heard talk of it along the coast ; but we 
 took it for one more Spanish lie. Humph — well, live and learn ! ” 
 
 “ Ah, sir, no lie, but a blessed truth, as I can tell, who have 
 ere now gone in the strength of this weed three days and nights 
 without eating ; and therefore, sir, the Indians always carry it 
 with them on their war-parties : and no wonder ; for when all 
 things were made none was made better than this ; to be a lone 
 man’s companion, a bachelor’s friend, a hungry man’s food, a sad 
 man’s cordial, a wakeful man’s sleep, and a chilly man’s fire, sir ; 
 while for stanching of wounds, purging of rheum, and settling 
 of the stomach, there’s no herb like unto it under the canopy of 
 heaven.” 
 
 The truth of which eulogium Amyas tested in after years, 
 as shall be fully set forth in due place and time. But “ Mark 
 in the meanwhile,” says one of the veracious chroniclers from 
 whom I draw these facts, writing seemingly in the palmy days 
 of good Queen Anne, and “ not having ” (as he says) “ before 
 his eyes the fear of that misocapnic Solomon J ames I. or of any 
 other lying Stuart,” “ that not to South Devon, but to North ; 
 not to Sir Walter Raleigh, but to Sir Amyas Leigh ; not to the 
 banks of Dart, but to the banks of Torridge, does Europe owe 
 the day-spring of the latter age, that age of smoke which shall 
 endure and thrive, when the age of brass shall have vanished 
 like those of iron and of gold ; for whereas Mr. Lane is said to 
 have brought home that divine weed (as Spenser well names it) 
 from Virginia, in the year 1584, it is hereby indisputable that 
 full four years earlier, by the bridge of Putford in the Torridge 
 moors (which all true smokers shall hereafter visit as a hallowed 
 spot and point of pilgrimage) first twinkled that fiery beacon 
 and beneficent lodestar of Bidefordian commerce, to spread here- 
 after from port to port and peak to peak, like the watch-fires 
 which proclaimed the coming of the Armada or the fall of Troy, 
 even to the shores of the Bo- phorus, the peaks of the Caucasus, 
 and the farthest isles of the Malayan sea; while Bideford, 
 metropolis of tobacco, saw her Pool choked with Virginian 
 traders, and the pavement of her Bridgeland Street groaning 
 beneath the savoury bales of roll Trinadado, leaf, and pudding; 
 and her grave burghers, bolstered and blocked out of their own 
 houses by the scarce less savoury stock-fish casks which filled 
 
158 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 cellar, parlour, and attic, were fain to sit outside the door, a 
 silver pipe in every strong right hand, and each left hand chink- 
 ing cheerfully the doubloons deep lodged in the auriferous 
 caverns of their trunkhose ; while in those fairy-rings of fragrant 
 mist, which circled round their contemplative brows, flitted most 
 pleasant visions of Wiltshire farmers jogging into Sherborne 
 fair, their heaviest shillings in their pockets, to buy (unless old 
 Aubrey lies) the lotus-leaf of Torridge for its weight in silver, 
 and draw from thence, after the example of the Caciques of 
 Dariena, supplies of inspiration much needed, then as now, in 
 those Gothamite regions. And yet did these improve, as English- 
 men, upon the method of those heathen savages ; for the latter 
 (so Salvation Yeo reported as a truth, and Dampier’s surgeon Mr. 
 Wafer after him), when they will deliberate of war or policy, sit 
 round in the hut of the chief; where being placed, enter to them a 
 small boy with a cigarro of the bigness of a rolling-pin, and puffs 
 the smoke thereof into the face of each warrior, from the eldest 
 to the youngest ; while they, putting their hand funnel-wise 
 round their mouths, draw into the sinuosities of the brain that 
 more than Delphic vapour of prophecy ; which boy presently 
 falls down in a swoon, and being dragged out by the heels and 
 laid by to sober, enter another to puff at the sacred cigarro,' till 
 he is dragged out likewise ; and so on till the tobacco is finished, 
 and the seed of wisdom has sprouted in every soul into the tree 
 of meditation, bearing the flowers of eloquence, and in due time 
 the fruit of valiant action.” With which quaint fact (for fact 
 it is, in spite of the bombast) I end the present chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 
 
 “ It is virtue, yea virtue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen ; that maketh 
 the poor rich, the base-born noble, the subject a sovereign, the de- 
 formed beautiful, the sick whole, the weak strong, the most miserable 
 most happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts in the nature 
 of man, knowledge and reason ; the one eommandeth, and the other 
 obeyeth : these things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can 
 change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither 
 sickness abate, neither age abolish.” — Lilly’s Euphues , 1586. 
 
 It now falls to my lot to write of the foundation of that most 
 chivalrous brotherhood of the Rose, which after a few years made 
 itself not only famous in its native county of Devon, but for- 
 
CHAP, viii.] OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 159 
 
 midable, as will be related hereafter, both in Ireland and in the 
 Netherlands, in the Spanish Main and the heart of South 
 America. And if this chapter shall seem to any Quixotic and 
 fantastical, let them recollect that the generation who spoke and 
 acted thus in matters of love and honour were, nevertheless, 
 practised and valiant soldiers, and prudent and crafty politicians ; 
 that he who wrote the Arcadia was at the same time, in spite 
 of his youth, one of the subtlest diplomatists of Europe ; that 
 the poet of the Faery Queene was also the author of The State 
 of Ireland ; and if they shall quote against me with a sneer 
 Lilly’s Euphues itself, I shall only answer by asking — Have they 
 ever read it % For if they have done so, I pity them if they have 
 not found it, in spite of occasional tediousness and pedantry, as 
 brave, righteous, and pious a book as man need look into : and 
 wish for no better proof of the nobleness and virtue of the Eliza- 
 bethan age, than the fact that “ Euphues” and the “Arcadia” 
 were the two popular romances of the day. It may have suited 
 the purposes of Sir Walter Scott, in his cleverly drawn Sir 
 Piercie Shafton, to ridicule the Euphuists, and that affectatam 
 comitatem of the travelled English of which Languet complains; 
 but over and above the anachronism of the whole character (for, 
 to give but one instance, the Euphuist knight talks of Sidney’s 
 quarrel with Lord Oxford at least ten years before it happened), 
 we do deny that Lilly’s book could, if read by any man of common 
 sense, produce such a coxcomb, whose spiritual ancestors would 
 rather have been Gabriel Harvey and Lord Oxford, — if indeed 
 the former has not maligned the latter, and ill-tempered Tom 
 Nash maligned the maligner in his kirn. 
 
 But, indeed, there is a double anachronism in Sir Piercie ; 
 for he does not even belong to the days of Sidney, but to those 
 worse times which began in the latter years of Elizabeth, and 
 after breaking her mighty heart, had full licence to bear their 
 crop of fools’ heads in the profligate days of James. Of them, 
 perhaps, hereafter. And in the meanwhile, let those who have 
 not read “ Euphues ” believe that, if they could train a son after 
 the fashion of his Ephoebus, to the great saving of their own 
 money and his virtue, all fathers, even in these money-making 
 days, would rise up and call them blessed. Let us rather open 
 our eyes, and see in these old Elizabeth gallants our own ances- 
 tors, showing forth with the luxuriant wildness of youth all 
 the virtues which still go to the making of a true Englishman. 
 Let us not only see in their commercial and military daring, in 
 their political astuteness, in their deep reverence for law, and 
 
1G0 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD [chap. VIII. 
 
 in their solemn sense of the great calling of the English nation, 
 the antitypes or rather the examples of our own : hut let us 
 confess that their chivalry is only another garb of that beautiful 
 tenderness and mercy which is now, as it was then, the twin 
 sister of English valour ; and even in their extravagant fond- 
 ness for Continental manners and literature, let us recognise 
 that old Anglo -Norpian teachableness and wide -heartedness, 
 which has enabled us to profit by the wisdom and civilisation 
 of all ages and of all lands, without prejudice to our own dis- 
 tinctive national character. 
 
 And so I go to my story, which, if any one dislikes, he has 
 but to turn the leaf till he finds pasturage which suits him 
 better. 
 
 Amyas could not sail the next day, or the day after; 
 for the south-wester freshened, and blew three parts of a gale 
 dead into the bay. So having got the Mary Grenvile down the 
 river into Appledore pool, ready to start with the first shift of 
 wind, he went quietly home; and when his mother started on 
 a pillion behind the old serving-man to ride to Clovelly, where 
 Frank lay wounded, he went in with her as far as Bideford, and 
 there met, coming down the High Street, a procession of horse- 
 men headed by Will Cary, who, clad cap-k-pid in shining armour, 
 sword on thigh, and helmet at saddle-bow, looked as gallant a 
 young gentleman as ever Bideford dames peeped at from door 
 and window. Behind him, upon country ponies, came four or 
 five stout serving-men, carrying his lances and baggage, and 
 their own long-bows, swords, and bucklers ; and behind all, in 
 a horse-litter, to Mrs. Leigh’s great joy, Master Frank himself. 
 He deposed 'that his wounds were only flesh-wounds, the dagger 
 having turned against his ribs ; that he must see the last of 
 his brother ; and that with her good leave he would not come 
 home to Burrough, but take up his abode with Cary in the Ship 
 Tavern, close to the Bridge-foot. This he did forthwith, and 
 settling himself on a couch, held his levee there in state, mobbed 
 by all the gossips of the town, not without white fibs as to who 
 had brought him into that sorry plight. 
 
 But in the meanwhile, he and Amyas concocted a scheme, 
 which was put into effect the next day (being market-day) ; 
 first by the innkeeper, who began under Amyas’s orders a 
 bustle of roasting, boiling, and frying, unparalleled in the annals 
 of the Ship Tavern ; and next by Amyas himself, who, going 
 out into the market, invited as many of his old schoolfellows, 
 one by one apart, as Frank had pointed out to him, to a merry 
 

 
 
 
 
 • / ■ . .... ... .. . ... ,/i . .; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
On the Tor ridge, Bide ford ’ 
 
CHAP, viii.] OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 161 
 
 supper and a “ rowse ” thereon consequent ; by which crafty 
 scheme, in came each of Rose Salterne’s gentle admirers, and 
 found himself, to his considerable disgust, seated at the same 
 table with six rivals, to none of whom had he spoken for the 
 last six months. However, all were too well bred to let the 
 Leighs discern as much • and they (though, of course, they 
 knew all) settled their guests, Frank on his couch lying at the 
 head of the table, and Amyas taking the bottom : and contrived, 
 by filling all mouths w r ith good things, to save them the pain 
 of speaking to each other till the wine should have loosened 
 their tongues and warmed their hearts. In the meanwhile both 
 Amyas and Frank, ignoring the silence of their guests with the 
 most provoking good -humour, chatted, and joked, and told 
 stories, and made themselves such good company, that Will 
 Cary, who always found merriment infectious, melted into a 
 jest, and then into another, and finding good-humour far more 
 pleasant than bad, tried to make Mr. Coffin laugh, and only 
 made him bow, and to make Mr. Fortescue laugh, and only 
 made him frown ; and unabashed nevertheless, began playing 
 his light artillery upon the waiters, till he drove them out of 
 the room bursting with laughter. 
 
 So far so good. And when the cloth was drawn, and sack 
 and sugar became the order of the day, and “ Queen and Bible ” 
 had been duly drunk with all the honours, Frank tried a fresh 
 move, and — 
 
 “ I have a toast, gentlemen — here it is. * The gentlemen 
 of the Irish wars ; and may Ireland never be without a St. 
 Leger to stand by a Fortescue, a Fortescue to stand by a St. 
 Leger, and a Chichester to stand by both.’ ” 
 
 Which toast of course involved the drinking the healths of 
 the three representatives of those families, and their returning 
 thanks, and paying a compliment each to the other’s house : 
 and so the ice cracked a little further ; and young Fortescue 
 proposed the health of “Amyas Leigh, and all bold mariners 
 to which Amyas replied by a few blunt kindly words, “ that he 
 wished to know no better fortune than to sail round the world 
 again with the present company as fellow-adventurers, and so 
 give the Spaniards another taste of the men of Devon.” 
 
 And by this time, the wine going down sweetly, caused the 
 lips of them that were asleep to speak ; till the ice broke up 
 altogether, and every man began talking like a rational English- 
 man to the man who sat next him. 
 
 “And now, gentlemen,” said Frank, who saw that it was 
 M 
 
162 
 
 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD [chap. vilL 
 
 the fit moment for the grand assault which he had planned all 
 along • “ let me give you a health which none of you, I dare 
 say, will refuse to drink with heart and soul as well as with 
 lips; — the health of one whom beauty and virtue have so en- 
 nobled, that in their light the shadow of lowly birth is unseen ; 
 — the health of one whom I would proclaim as peerless in loveli- 
 ness, were it not that every gentleman here has sisters, who 
 might well challenge from her the girdle of Venus : and yet 
 what else dare I say, while those same lovely ladies who, if 
 they but use their own mirrors, must needs be far better judges 
 of beauty than I can be, have in my own hearing again and 
 again assigned the palm to her ? Surely, if the goddesses decide 
 among themselves the question of the golden apple, Paris him- 
 self must vacate the judgment-seat. Gentlemen, your hearts, 
 I doubt not, have already bid you, as my unworthy lips do now, 
 to drink ‘ The Rose of Torridge.’ ” 
 
 If the Rose of Torridge herself had walked into the room she 
 could hardly have caused more blank astonishment than Frank’s 
 bold speech. Every guest turned red, and pale, and red again, 
 and looked at the other as much as to say, “ What right had any 
 one but I to drink her ? Lift your glass, and I will dash it out 
 of your hand;” but Frank, with sweet effrontery, drank “The 
 health of the Rose of Torridge, and a double health to that 
 worthy gentleman, whosoever he may be, whom she is fated to 
 honour with her love !” 
 
 “Well done, cunning Frank Leigh !” cried blunt Will Cary; 
 “ none of us dare quarrel with you now, however much we may 
 sulk at each other. For there’s none of us, I’ll warrant, but 
 thinks that she likes him the best of all ; and so we are bound 
 to believe that you have drunk our healths all round.” 
 
 u And so I have : and what better thing can you do, gentle- 
 men, than to drink each other’s healths all round likewise : and 
 so show yourselves true gentlemen, true Christians, ay, and 
 true lovers 1 For what is love (let me speak freely to you, 
 gentlemen and guests), what is love, but the very inspiration of 
 that Deity whose name is Love ? Be sure that not without 
 reason did the ancients feign Eros to be the eldest of the gods, 
 by whom the jarring elements of chaos were attuned into har- 
 mony and order. How, then, shall lovers make him the father 
 of strife ? Shall Psyche wed with Cupid, to bring forth a cock- 
 atrice’s egg ? or the soul be filled with love, the likeness of the 
 immortals, to burn with envy and jealousy, division and distrust? 
 True, the rose has its thorn : but it leaves poison and stings to 
 
163 
 
 CHAP, viii.] OF THE HOSE WAS FOUNDED. 
 
 the nettle. Cupid has his arrow : but he hurls no scorpions. 
 Venus is awful when despised, as the daughters of Proetus 
 found : but her handmaids are the Graces, not the Furies. 
 Surely he who loves aright will not only find love lovely, but 
 become himself lovely also. I speak not to reprehend you, 
 gentlemen ; for to you (as your piercing wits have already per- 
 ceived, to judge by your honourable blushes) my discourse tends; 
 but to point you, if you will but permit me, to that rock which 
 I myself have, I know not by what Divine good hap, attained ; 
 if, indeed, I have attained it, and am not about to be washed 
 off again by the next tide.” 
 
 Frank’s rapid and fantastic oratory, utterly unexpected as it 
 was, had as yet left their wits no time to set their tempers on 
 fire ; but when, weak from his wounds, he paused for breath, 
 there was a haughty murmur from more than one young gentle- 
 man, who took his speech as an impertinent interference with 
 each man’s right to make a fool of himself ; and Mr. Coffin, 
 who had sat quietly bolt upright, and looking at the opposite 
 wall, now rose as quietly, and with a face which tried to look 
 utterly unconcerned, was walking out of the room : another 
 minute, and Lady Bath’s prophecy about the feast of the Lapi- 
 thse might have come true. 
 
 But Frank’s heart and head never failed him. 
 
 “Mr. Coffin!” said he, in a tone which compelled that 
 gentleman to turn round, and so brought him under the power 
 of a face which none could have beheld for five minutes and 
 borne malice, so imploring, tender, earnest was it. “ My dear 
 Mr. Coffin ! If my earnestness has made me forget even for 
 a moment the bounds of courtesy, let me entreat you to for- 
 give me. Do not add to my heavy griefs, heavy enough 
 already, the grief of losing a friend. Only hear me patiently 
 to the end (generously, I know, you will hear me); and then, 
 if you are still incensed, I can but again entreat your forgive- 
 ness a second time.” 
 
 Mr. Coffin, to tell the truth ) had at that time never been 
 to Court ; and he was therefore somewhat jealous of Frank, 
 and his Court talk, and his Court clothes, and his Court com- 
 pany ; and moreover, being the eldest of the guests, and only 
 two years younger than Frank himself, he was a little nettled 
 at being classed in the same category with some who were scarce 
 eighteen. And if Frank had given the least hint which seemed 
 to assume his own superiority, all had been lost : but when, 
 instead thereof, he sued in formd pauperis , and threw himself 
 
164 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD [CHAP. Yin. 
 
 upon Coffin’s mercy, the latter, who was a true-hearted man 
 enough, and after all had known Frank ever since either of 
 them could walk, had nothing to do but to sit down again and 
 submit, while Frank went on more earnestly than ever. 
 
 “ Believe me ; believe me, Mr. Coffin, and gentlemen all, I 
 no more arrogate to myself a superiority over you than does 
 the sailor hurled on shore by the surge fancy himself better 
 than his comrade who is still battling with the foam. For I 
 too, gentlemen, — let me confess it, that by confiding in you I 
 may, perhaps, win you to confide in me, — have loved, ay and do 
 love, where you love also. Do not start. Is it a matter ol 
 wonder that the sun which has dazzled you has dazzled me ; 
 that the lodestone which has drawn you has drawn me *? Do 
 not frown, either, gentlemen. I have learnt to love you for 
 loving what I love, and to admire you for admiring that which 
 I admire. Will you not try the same lesson : so easy, and, 
 when learnt, so blissful ? What breeds more close communion 
 between subjects than allegiance to the same queen 1 between 
 brothers, than duty to the same father 1 between the devout, 
 than adoration for the same Deity ? And shall not worship for 
 the same beauty be likewise a bond of love between the worship- 
 pers ? and each lover see in his rival not an enemy, but a fellow- 
 sufferer 1 ? You smile and say in your hearts, that though all 
 may worship, but one can enjoy ; and that one man’s meat must 
 be the poison of the rest. Be it so, though I deny it. Shall 
 we anticipate our own doom, and slay ourselves for fear of dying 1 ? 
 Shall we make ourselves unworthy of her from our very eager- 
 ness to win her, and show ourselves her faithful knights, by 
 cherishing envy, — most unknightly of all sins ? Shall we dream 
 with the Italian or the Spaniard that we can become more 
 amiable in a lady’s eyes, by becoming hateful in the eyes of God 
 and of each other h Will she love us the better, if we come to 
 her with hands stained in the blood of him whom she loves 
 better than us ? Let us recollect ourselves rather, gentlemen ; 
 and be sure that our only chance of winning her, if she be worth 
 winning, is to will what she wills, honour whom she honours, 
 love whom she loves. If there is to be rivalry among us, let 
 it be a rivalry in nobleness, an emulation in virtue. Let each 
 try to outstrip the other in loyalty to his queen, in valour 
 against her foes, in deeds of courtesy and mercy to the afflicted 
 and oppressed ; and thus our love will indeed prove its own 
 divine origin, by raising us nearer to those gods whose gift it is. 
 But yet I show you a more excellent way, and that is charity. 
 
OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 
 
 165 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] 
 
 Why should we not make this common love to her, whom I am 
 unworthy to name, the sacrament of a common love to each 
 other] Why should we not follow the heroical examples of 
 those ancient knights, who having but one grief, one desire, 
 one goddess, held that one heart was enough to contain that 
 grief, to nourish that desire, to worship that divinity ; and so 
 uniting themselves in friendship till they became but one soul 
 in two bodies, lived only for each other in living only for her, 
 vowing as faithful worshippers to abide by her decision, to find 
 their own bliss in hers, and whomsoever she esteemed most 
 worthy of her love, to esteem most worthy also, and count them- 
 selves, by that her choice, the bounden servants of him whom 
 their mistress had condescended to advance to the dignity of 
 her master ] — as I (not without hope that I shall be outdone in 
 generous strife) do here promise to be the faithful friend, and, 
 to my ability, the hearty servant, of him who shall be honoured 
 with the love of the Rose of Torridge.” 
 
 He ceased, and there was a pause. 
 
 At last young Fortescue spoke. 
 
 “ I may be paying you a left-handed compliment, sir : but 
 it seems to me that you are so likely, in that case, to become 
 your own faithful friend and hearty servant (even if you have 
 not borne off the bell already while we have been asleep), that 
 the bargain is hardly fair between. such a gay Italianist and us 
 country swains.” 
 
 “ You undervalue yourself and your country, my dear sir. 
 But set your mind at rest. I know no more of that lady’s mind 
 than you do : nor shall I know. For the sake of my own peace, 
 I have made a vow neither to see her, nor to hear, if possible, 
 tidings of her, till three full years are past. Dixi ]” 
 
 Mr. Coffin rose. 
 
 “ Gentlemen, I may submit to be outdone by Mr. Leigh in 
 eloquence, but not in generosity ; if he leaves these parts for 
 three years, I do so also.” 
 
 “ And go in charity with all mankind,” said Cary. “ Give 
 us your hand, old fellow. If you are a Coffin, you were sawn 
 out of no wishy-washy elm-board, but right heart-of-oak. I am 
 going, too, as Amyas here can tell, to Ireland away, to cool my 
 hot liver in a bog, like a Jack-hare in March. Come, give us 
 thy neif, and let us part in peace. I was minded to have fought 
 thee this day ” 
 
 “ I should have been most happy, sir,” said Coffin. 
 
 — “ But now I am all love and charity to mankind. Can 
 
166 
 
 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 I have the pleasure of begging pardon of the world in general, 
 and thee in particular ? Does any one wish to pull my nose ; 
 send me an errand ; make me lend him five pounds ; ay, make 
 me buy a horse of him, which will be as good as giving him ten ? 
 Come along ! Join hands all round, and swear eternal friend- 
 ship, as brothers of the sacred order of the — of what ? Frank 
 Leigh? Open thy mouth, Daniel, and christen us !” 
 
 “ The Rose P said Frank quietly, seeing that his new love- 
 philtre was working well, and determined to strike while the 
 iron was hot, and carry the matter too far to carry it back again. 
 
 “The Rose!” cried Cary, catching hold of Coffin’s hand 
 with his right, and Fortescue’s with his left. “ Come, Mr. 
 Coffin ! Bend, sturdy oak ! ‘ Woe to the stiffnecked and stout- 
 hearted !’ says Scripture.” 
 
 And somehow or other, whether it was Frank’s chivalrous 
 speech, or Cary’s fun, or Amyas’s good wine, or the nobleness 
 which lies in every young lad’s heart, if their elders will take 
 the trouble to call it out, the whole party came in to terms one 
 by one, shook hands all round, and vowed on the hilt of Amyas’s 
 sword to make fools of themselves no more, at least by jealousy : 
 but to stand by each other and by their lady-love, and neither 
 grudge nor grumble, let her dance with, flirt with, or marry 
 with whom she would ; and in order that the honour of their 
 peerless dame, and the brotherhood which was named after her, 
 might be spread through all lands, and equal that of Angelica 
 or Isonde of Brittany, they would each go home, and ask their 
 fathers’ leave (easy enough to obtain in those brave times) to 
 go abroad wheresoever there were “ good wars,” to emulate there 
 the courage and the courtesy of Walter Manny and Gonzalo 
 Fernandes, Bayard and Gaston de Foix. Why not? Sidney 
 was the hero of Europe at five-and-twenty ; and why not they? 
 
 And Frank watched and listened with one of his quiet 
 smiles (his eyes, as some folks do, smiled even when his lips 
 were still) and only said : “ Gentlemen, be sure that you will 
 never repent this day.” 
 
 “ Repent ?” said Cary. “ I feel already as angelical as 
 thou lookest, Saint Silvertongue. What was it that sneezed ? 
 — the cat ?” 
 
 “ The lion, rather, by the roar of it,” said Amyas, making 
 a dash at the arras behind him. “Why, here is a doorway here! 
 and ” 
 
 And rushing under the arras, through an open door behind, 
 he returned, dragging out by the head Mr. John Brimblecombe. 
 
167 
 
 CHAP. VIII.] OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 
 
 Who was Mr. John Brimblecombe ? 
 
 If you have forgotten him, you have done pretty nearly 
 what every one else in the room had done. But you recollect 
 a certain fat lad, son of the schoolmaster, whom Sir Richard 
 punished for talebearing three years before, by sending him, not 
 to Coventry, but to Oxford. That was the man. He was now 
 one-and-twenty, and a bachelor of Oxford, where he had learnt 
 such things as were taught in those days, with more or less 
 success ; and he was now hanging about Bideford once more, 
 intending to return after Christmas and read divinity, that he 
 might become a parson, and a shepherd of souls in his native 
 land. 
 
 Jack was in person exceedingly like a pig : but not like 
 every pig : not in the least like the Devon pigs of those days, 
 which, I am sorry to say, were no more shapely than the true 
 Irish greyhound who pays Pat’s “ rint ” for him ; or than the 
 lanky monsters who wallow in German rivulets, while the 
 village swineherd, beneath a shady lime, forgets his fleas in the 
 melody of a Jew’s harp — strange mud-coloured creatures, four 
 feet high and four inches thick, which look as if they had passed 
 their lives, as a collar of Oxford brawn is said to do, between 
 two tight boards. Such were then the pigs of Devon : not to 
 be compared with the true wild descendant of Noah’s stock, 
 high-withered, furry, grizzled, game-flavoured little rooklers, 
 whereof many a sownder still grunted about Swinley down and 
 Braunton woods, Clovelly glens and Bursdon moor. Not like 
 these, nor like the tame abomination of those barbarous times, 
 was Jack : but prophetic in face, figure, and complexion, of 
 Fisher Hobbs and the triumphs of science. A Fisher Hobbs’ 
 pig of twelve stone, on his hind-legs — that was what he was, 
 and nothing else ; and if you do not know, reader, what a 
 Fisher Hobbs is, you know nothing about pigs, and deserve no 
 bacon for breakfast. But such was Jack. The same plump mul- 
 berry complexion, garnished with a few scattered black bristles ; 
 the same sleek skin, looking always as if it was upon the point 
 of bursting ; the same little toddling legs ; the same dapper bend 
 in the small of the back ; the same cracked squeak ; the same 
 low upright forehead, and tiny eyes ; the same round self-satis- 
 fied jowl ; the same charming sensitive little cocked nose, always 
 on the look-out for a savoury smell, — and yet while watching 
 for the best, contented with the worst ; a pig of self-helpful 
 and serene spirit, as Jack was, and therefore, like him, fatting 
 fpj^t while other pigs’ ribs are staring through their skins. 
 
168 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD [CHAP. vm. 
 
 Such was Jack ; and lucky it was for him that such he was ; 
 for it was little that he got to fat him at Oxford, in days wjien 
 a servitor meant really a servant-student ; and wistfully that 
 day did his eyes, led by his nose, survey at the end of the Ship 
 Inn passage the preparations for Amyas’s supper. The innkeeper 
 was a friend of his ; for, in the first place, they had lived within 
 three doors of each other all their lives ; and next, Jack was 
 quite pleasant company enough, beside being a learned man 
 and an Oxford scholar, to be asked in now and then to the inn- 
 keeper’s private parlour, when there were no gentlemen there, 
 to crack his little joke and tell his little story, sip the leavings 
 of the guests’ sack, and sometimes help the host to eat the 
 leavings of their supper. And it was, perhaps, with some such 
 hope that Jack trotted off round the corner to the Ship that 
 very afternoon ; for that faithful little nose of his, as it sniffed 
 out of a back window of the school, had given him warning of 
 Sabean gales, and scents of Paradise, from the inn kitchen 
 below ; so he went round, and asked for his pot of small ale 
 (his only luxury), and stood at the bar to drink it ; and looked 
 inward with his little twinkling right eye and sniffed inward 
 with his little curling right nostril, and beheld, in the kitchen 
 beyond, salad in stacks and faggots : salad of lettuce, salad of 
 cress and endive, salad of boiled coleworts, salad of pickled 
 coleworts, salad of angelica, salad of scurvy-wort, and seven 
 salads more ; for potatoes were not as yet, and salads were 
 during eight months of the year the only vegetable. And on 
 the dresser, and before the fire, whole hecatombs of fragrant 
 victims, which needed neither frankincense nor myrrh ; Clovelly 
 herrings and Torridge salmon, Exmoor mutton and Stow venison, 
 stubble geese and woodcocks, curlew and snipe, hams of Hamp- 
 shire, chitterlings of Taunton, and botargos of Cadiz, such as 
 Pantagrue himself might have devoured. And Jack eyed them, 
 as a ragged boy eyes the cakes in a pastrycook’s window ; and 
 thought of the scraps from the commoner’s dinner, which were 
 his wages for cleaning out the hall ; and meditated deeply on 
 the unequal distribution of human bliss. 
 
 “Ah, Mr. Brimblecombe !” said the host, bustling out with 
 knife and apron to cool himself in the passage. “ Here are 
 doings ! Nine gentlemen to supper !” 
 
 “ Nine ! Are they going to eat all that V ’ 
 
 “Well, I can’t say — that Mr. Amyas is as good as three to 
 his trencher : but still there’s crumbs, Mr. Brimblecombe, 
 crumbs ; and Waste not want not is my doctrine ; so you and 
 
CHAP, viii.] OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 169 
 
 I may have a somewhat to stay our stomachs, about an eight 
 o’clock.” 
 
 “Eight?” said Jack, looking wistfully at the clock. “It’s 
 but four now. Well, it’s kind of you, and perhaps I’ll look in.” 
 “Just you step in now, and look to this venison. There’s 
 a breast ! you may lay your two fingers into the say there, and 
 not get to the bottom of the fat. That’s Sir Richard’s sending. 
 He’s all for them Leighs, and no wonder, they’m brave lads, 
 surely ; and there’s a saddle-o’-mutton ! I rode twenty miles 
 for mun yesterday, I did, over beyond Barnstaple ; and five year 
 old, Mr. John, it is, if ever five years was ; and not a tooth to 
 mtrn’s head, for I looked to that ; and smelt all the way home 
 like any apple ; and if it don’t ate so soft as ever was scald 
 cream, never you call me Thomas Burman.” 
 
 “Humph!” said Jack. “ And that’s their dinner. Well, 
 some are born with a silver spoon in their mouth.” 
 
 “ Some be born with roast beef in their mouths, and plum- 
 pudding in their pocket to take away the taste o’ mun ; and 
 that’s better than empty spunes, eh ?” 
 
 “For them that get it,” said Jack. “ But for them that 
 
 don’t ” And with a sigh he returned to his small ale, and 
 
 then lingered in and out of the inn, watching the dinner as it 
 went into the best room, where the guests were assembled. 
 
 And as he lounged there, Amyas went in, and saw him, and 
 held out his hand, and said — 
 
 “ Hillo, Jack ! how goes the world ? How you’ve grown !” 
 and passed on ; — what had Jack Brimblecombe to do with 
 Rose Salterne? 
 
 So Jack lingered on, hovering around the fragrant smell 
 like a fly round a honey-pot, till he found himself invisibly 
 attracted, and as it were led by the nose out of the passage into 
 the adjoining room, and to that side of the room where there 
 was a door ; and once there he could not help hearing what 
 passed inside ; till Rose Salterne’s name fell on his ear. So, 
 as it was ordained, he was taken in the fact. And now behold 
 him brought in red-hand to judgment, not without a kick or 
 two from the wrathful foot of Amyas Leigh. Whereat there 
 fell on him a storm of abuse, which, for the honour of that 
 gallant company, I shall not give in detail ; but which abuse, 
 strange to say, seemed to have no effect on the impenitent and 
 unabashed Jack, who, as soon as he could get his breath, made 
 answer fiercely, amid much puffing and blowing. 
 
 “What business have I here? As much as any of you. 
 
170 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD [chap. VIII. 
 
 If you had asked me in, I would have come : hut as you didn’t, 
 I came without asking.” 
 
 “You shameless rascal!” said Cary. “Come if you were 
 asked, where there was good wine ? I’ll warrant you for that !” 
 
 “ Why,” said Amyas, “ no lad ever had a cake at school 
 but he would dog him up one street and down another all day 
 for the crumbs, the trencher-scraping 'spaniel !” 
 
 “ Patience, masters !” said Frank. “ That Jack’s is some- 
 what of a gnathonic and parasitic soul, or stomach, all Bideford 
 apple-women know ; but I suspect more than Deus Venter has 
 brought him hither.” 
 
 “ Deus eavesdropping, then. We shall have the whole 
 story over the town by to-morrow,” said another ; beginning at 
 that thought to feel somewhat ashamed of his late enthusiasm. 
 
 “ Ah, Mr. Frank ! You were always the only one that 
 would stand up for me! Deus Venter, quotha? ’Twas Deus 
 Cupid, it was !” 
 
 A roar of laughter followed this announcement. 
 
 “ What ?” asked Frank ; “ was it Cupid, then, who sneezed 
 approval to our love, Jack, as he did to that of Dido and 
 .ZEneas ?” 
 
 But Jack went on desperately. 
 
 “ I was in the next room, drinking of my beer. I couldn’t 
 help that, could I ? And then I heard her name ; and I couldn’t 
 help listening then. Flesh apd blood couldn’t.” 
 
 “Nor fat either !” 
 
 “No, nor fat, Mr. Cary. Do you suppose fat men haven’t 
 souls to be saved as well as thin ones, and hearts to burst, too, 
 as well as stomachs ? Fat ! Fat can feel, I reckon, as well as 
 lean. Do you suppose there’s nought inside here but beer?” 
 
 And he laid his hand, as Drayton might have said, on that 
 stout bastion, hornwork, ravelin, or demilune, which formed the 
 outworks to the citadel of his purple isle of man. 
 
 “Nought but beer? — Cheese, I suppose?” 
 
 “Bread ?” 
 
 “ Beef?” 
 
 “Love !” cried Jack. “Yes, Love! — Ay, you laugh; but 
 my eyes are not so grown up with fat but what I can see what’s 
 fair as well as you.” 
 
 “ Oh, Jack, naughty Jack, dost thou heap sin on sin, and 
 luxury on gluttony ?” 
 
 “ Sin ? If I sin, you sin : I tell you, and I don’t care who 
 knows it, I’ve loved her these three years as well as e’er a one 
 
CHAP, viii.] OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 171 
 
 of you, I have. I’ve thought o’ nothing else, prayed for nothing 
 else, God forgive me ! And then you laugh at me, because I’m 
 a poor parson’s son, and you fine gentlemen : God made us both, 
 I reckon. You ? — you make a deal of giving her up to-day. 
 Why, it’s what I’ve done for three miserable years as ever poor 
 sinner spent ; ay, from the first day I said to myself, ‘ Jack, if 
 you can’t have that pearl, you’ll have none ; and that you can’t 
 have, for it’s meat for your masters : so conquer or die.’ And 
 I couldn’t conquer. I can’t help loving her, worshipping her, no 
 more than you ; and I will die : but you needn’t laugh mean- 
 while at me that have done as much as you, and will do again.” 
 “ It is the old tale,” said Frank to himself ; “ whom will not 
 love transform into a hero?” 
 
 And so it was. Jack’s squeaking voice was firm and manly, 
 his pig’s eyes flashed very fire, his gestures were so free and 
 earnest, that the ungainliness of his figure was forgotten ; and 
 when he finished with a violent burst of tears, Frank, forgetting 
 his wounds, sprang up and caught him by the hand. 
 
 “John Brimblecombe, forgive me! Gentlemen, if we are 
 gentlemen, we ought to ask his pardon. Has he not shown 
 already more chivalry, more self-denial, and therefore more 
 true love, than any of us 1 My friends, let the fierceness of 
 affection, which we have used as an excuse for many a sin of 
 our own, excuse his listening to a conversation in which he 
 well deserved to bear a part.” 
 
 “Ah,” said Jack, “you make me one of your brotherhood; 
 and see if I do not dare to suffer as much as any of you ! You 
 laugh ? Do you fancy none can use a sword unless he has a 
 baker’s dozen of quarterings in his arms, or that Oxford scholars 
 know only how to handle a pen ?” 
 
 “ Let us try his metal,” said St. Leger. “Here’s my sword, 
 Jack; draw, Coffin ! and have at him.” 
 
 “Nonsense!” said Coffin, looking somewhat disgusted at 
 the notion of fighting a man of Jack’s rank ; but Jack caught 
 at the weapon offered to him. 
 
 “ Give me a buckler, and have at any of you !” 
 
 “Here’s a chair bottom,” cried Cary; and Jack, seizing it 
 in his left, flourished his sword so fiercely, and called so loudly 
 to Coffin to come on, that all present found it necessary, unless 
 they wished blood to be spilt, to turn the matter off with a 
 laugh : but Jack would not hear of it. 
 
 “ Nay : if you will let me be of your brotherhood, well and 
 good : but if not, one or other I will fight : and that’s flat.” 
 
172 HOW THE NOBLE BROTHERHOOD [chap. VIII. 
 
 “ You see, gentlemen,” said Amyas, “ we must admit him 
 or die the death ; so we needs must go when Sir Urian drives. 
 Come up, Jack, and take the oaths. You admit him, gentle- 
 men ? ” 
 
 “ Let me but be your chaplain,” said Jack, “and pray for your 
 luck when you’re at the wars. If I do stay at home in a country 
 curacy, ’tis not much that you need be jealous of me with her, I 
 reckon,” said Jack, with a pathetical glance at his own stomach. 
 
 “ Sia !” said Cary : “ but if he be admitted, it must be done 
 according to the solemn forms and ceremonies in such cases pro- 
 vided. Take him into the next room, Amyas, and prepare him 
 for his initiation.” 
 
 “What’s that?” asked Amyas, puzzled by the word. But 
 judging from the corner of Will’s eye that initiation was Latin 
 for a practical joke, he led forth his victim behind the arras 
 again, and waited five minutes while the room was being dark- 
 ened, till Frank’s voice called to him to bring in the neophyte. 
 
 “John Brimblecombe,” said Frank in a sepulchral tone, 
 “ you cannot be ignorant, as a scholar and bachelor of Oxford, 
 of that dread Sacrament by which Cataline bound the soul of 
 his fellow-conspirators, in order that both by the daring of the 
 deed he might have proof of their sincerity, and by the horror 
 thereof astringe their souls by adamantine fetters, and Novem- 
 Stygian oaths, to that wherefrom hereafter the weakness of the 
 flesh might shrink. Wherefore, 0 Jack ! we too have deter- 
 mined, following that ancient and classical example, to fill, as 
 he did, a bowl with the life-blood of our most heroic selves, and 
 to pledge each other therein, with vows whereat the stars shall 
 tremble in their spheres, and Luna, blushing, veil her silver 
 cheeks. Your blood alone is wanted to fill up the goblet. Sit 
 down, John Brimblecombe, and bare your arm !” 
 
 “But, Mr. Frank! ” said Jack; who was as super- 
 
 stitious as any old wife, and, what with the darkness and the 
 discourse, already in a cold perspiration. 
 
 “ But me no buts ! or depart as recreant, not by the door 
 like a man, but up the chimney like a flittermouse.” 
 
 “But, Mr. Frank!” 
 
 “ Thy vital juice, or the chimney ! Choose !” roared Cary 
 in his ear. 
 
 “ Well, if I must,” said Jack ; “ but it’s desperate hard 
 that because you can’t keep faith without these barbarous 
 oaths, I must take them too, that have kept faith these three 
 years without any.” 
 
CHAP. VIII.] OF THE ROSE WAS FOUNDED. 173 
 
 At this pathetic appeal Frank nearly melted : but Amyas 
 and Cary had thrust the victim into a chair and all was pre- 
 pared for the sacrifice. 
 
 “ Bind his eyes, according to the classic fashion,” said Will. 
 
 “Oh no, dear Mr. Cary; I’ll shut them tight enough, I 
 warrant : but not with your dagger, dear Mr. William — sure, 
 not with your dagger ? I can’t afford to lose blood, though I 
 do look lusty — I can’t indeed ; sure, a pin would do — I’ve got 
 one here, to my sleeve, somewhere — Oh !” 
 
 “ See the fount of generous juice ! Flow on, fair stream. 
 How he bleeds ! — pints, quarts ! Ah, this proves him to be in 
 earnest !” 
 
 “ A true lover’s blood is always at his fingers’ ends.” 
 
 “ He does not grudge it ; of course not. Eh, Jack ? What 
 matters an odd gallon for lier sake V’ 
 
 “ For her sake 1 ? Nothing, nothing ! Take my life, if you 
 will : but — oh, gentlemen, a surgeon, if you love me ! I’m 
 going off — I’m fainting !” 
 
 “ Drink, then, quick ; drink and swear ! Pat his back, 
 Cary. Courage, man ! it will be over in a minute. Now, 
 Frank ! ” 
 
 And Frank spoke — 
 
 “ If plighted troth I fail, or secret speech reveal, 
 
 May Cocytean ghosts around my pillow squeal ; 
 
 While Ate’s brazen claws distringe my spleen in sunder, 
 
 And drag me deep to Pluto’s keep, ’mid brimstone, smoke, and thunder ! ” 
 
 “ Placetne, domine ?” 
 
 “ Placet !” squeaked Jack, who thought himself at the last 
 gasp, and gulped down full three-quarters of the goblet which 
 Cary held to his lips. 
 
 “ Ugh — Ah — Puh ! Mercy on us ! It tastes mighty like 
 wine !” 
 
 “A proof, my virtuous brother,” said Frank, “first, of thy 
 abstemiousness, which has thus forgotten what wine tastes 
 like ; and next, of thy pure and heroical affection, by which 
 thy carnal senses being exalted to a higher and supra-lunar 
 sphere, like those Platonical dsemonizomenoi and enthusia- 
 zomenoi (of whom Jamblichus says that they were insensible 
 to wounds and flame, and much more, therefore, to evil savours), 
 doth make even the most nauseous draught redolent of that 
 celestial fragrance, which proceeding, 0 Jack ! from thine own 
 inward virtue, assimilates by sympathy even outward accidents 
 unto its own harmony and melody ; for fragrance is, as has 
 
174 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [CHAP. ix. 
 
 been said well, the song of flowers, and sweetness, the music of 
 apples — Ahem ! Go in peace, thou hast conquered !” 
 
 “ Put him out of the door, Will,” said Amyas, “ or he will 
 swoon on our hands.” 
 
 “ Give him some sack,” said Frank. 
 
 “ Not a blessed drop of yours, sir,” said Jack. “ I like 
 good wine as well as any man on earth, and see as little of it ; 
 but not a drop of yours, sirs, after your frumps and flouts about 
 hanging-on and trencher-scraping. When I first began to love 
 her, I bid good-bye to all dirty tricks ; for I had some one then 
 for whom to keep myself clean.” 
 
 And so Jack was sent home, with a pint of good red Alicant 
 wine in him (more, poor fellow, than he had tasted at once in 
 his life before) ; while the rest, in high glee with themselves 
 and "the rest of the world, relighted the candles, had a right 
 merry evening, and parted like good friends and sensible gentle- 
 men of Devon, thinking (all except Frank) Jack Brimblecombe 
 and his vow the merriest jest they had heard for many a day. 
 After which they all departed : Amyas and Gary to Winter’s 
 squadron ; Frank (as soon as he could travel) to the Court 
 again ; and with him young Basset, whose father Sir Arthur, 
 being in London, procured for him a page’s place in Leicester’s 
 household. Fortescue and Chichester went to their brothers in 
 Dublin ; St. Leger to his uncle the Marshal of Munster ; Coffin 
 joined Champernoun and Norris in the Netherlands ; and so 
 the Brotherhood of the Rose was scattered far and wide, and 
 Mistress Salterne was left alone with her looking-glass. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 “ Take aim, you noble musqueteers, 
 
 And shoot you round about ; 
 
 Stand to it, valiant pikemen, 
 
 And we shall keep them out. 
 
 There’s not a man of all of us 
 A foot will backward flee ; 
 
 I’ll be the foremost man in fight, 
 
 Says brave Lord Willoughby ! ” 
 
 Elizabethan Ballad. 
 
 It was the blessed Christmas afternoon. The light was fading 
 down ; the even-song was done ; and the good folks of Bideford 
 were trooping home in merry groups, the father with his 
 
CHAP. IX.] HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 175 
 
 children, the lover with his sweetheart, to cakes and ale, and 
 flapdragons and mummer’s plays, and all the happy sports of 
 Christmas night. One lady only, wrapped close in her black 
 muffler and followed by her maid, walked swiftly, yet sadly, 
 toward the long causeway and bridge which led to Northam 
 town. Sir Richard Grenvile and his wife caught her up and 
 stopped her courteously. 
 
 “You will come home with us, Mrs. Leigh,” said Lady 
 Grenvile, “and spend a pleasant Christmas night ?” 
 
 Mrs. Leigh smiled sweetly, and laying one hand on Lady 
 Grenvile’s arm, pointed with the other to the westward, and 
 said — 
 
 “ I cannot well spend a merry Christmas night while that 
 sound is in my ears.” 
 
 The whole party around looked in the direction in which 
 she pointed. Above their heads the soft blue sky was fading 
 into grey, and here and there a misty star peeped out : but to 
 the westward, where the downs and woods of Raleigh closed in 
 with those of Abbotsham, the blue was webbed and turfed with 
 delicate white flakes ; iridescent spots, marking the path by 
 which the sun had sunk, showed all the colours of the dying 
 dolphin ; and low on the horizon lay a long band of grassy 
 green. But what was the sound which troubled Mrs. Leigh ? 
 None of them, with their merry hearts, and ears dulled with the 
 din and bustle of the town, had heard it till that moment : and 
 yet now — listen ! It was dead calm. There was not a breath 
 to stir a blade of grass. And yet the air was full of sound, a 
 low deep roar which hovered over down and wood, salt-marsh 
 and river, like the roll of a thousand wheels, the tramp of end- 
 less armies, or — what it was — the thunder of a mighty surge 
 upon the boulders of the pebble ridge. 
 
 “ The ridge is noisy to-night,” said Sir Richard. “ There 
 has been wind somewhere.” 
 
 “ There is wind now, where my boy is, God help him !” 
 said Mrs. Leigh : and all knew that she spoke truly. The 
 spirit of the Atlantic storm had sent forward the token of his 
 coming, in the smooth ground-swell which was heard inland, 
 two miles away. To-morrow the pebbles, which were now 
 rattling down with each retreating wave, might be leaping to 
 the ridge top, and hurled like round-shot far ashore upon the 
 marsh by the force of the advancing wave, fleeing before the 
 wrath of the western hurricane. 
 
 “ God help my boy !” said Mrs. Leigh again. 
 
176 HOW AMYAS KEPT [chap. ix. 
 
 “ God is as near him by sea as by land,” said good Sir 
 Richard. 
 
 “ True : but I am a lone mother ; and one that has no heart 
 just now but to go home and pray.” 
 
 And so Mrs. Leigh went onward up the lane, and spent all 
 that night in listening between her prayers to the thunder of 
 the surge, till it was drowned, long ere the sun rose, in the 
 thunder of the storm. 
 
 And where is Amyas on this same Christmas afternoon 1 
 
 Amyas is sitting bareheaded in a boat’s stern in Smerwick 
 bay, with the spray whistling through his curls, as he shouts 
 cheerfully — 
 
 “Pull, and with a will, my merry men all, and never mind 
 shipping a sea. Cannon balls are a cargo that don’t spoil by 
 taking salt-water.” 
 
 His mother’s presage has been true enough. Christmas 
 eve has been the last of the still, dark, steaming nights of the 
 early winter ; and the western gale has been roaring for the 
 last twelve hours upon the Irish coast. 
 
 The short light of the winter day is fading fast. Behind 
 him is a leaping line of billows lashed into mist by the tempest. 
 Beside him green foam-fringed columns are rushing up the black 
 rocks, and falling again in a thousand cataracts of snow. Be- 
 fore him is the deep and sheltered bay : but it is not far up the 
 bay that he and his can see ’ for some four miles out at sea 
 begins a sloping roof of thick grey cloud, which stretches over 
 their heads, and up and far away inland, cutting the cliffs off 
 at mid-height, hiding all the Kerry mountains, and darkening 
 the hollows of the distant firths into the blackness of night. 
 And underneath that awful roof of whirling mist the storm is 
 howling inland ever, sweeping before it the great foam-sponges, 
 and the grey salt spray, till all the land is hazy, dim, and dun. 
 Let it howl on ! for there is more mist than ever salt spray 
 made, flying before that gale ; more thunder than ever sea-surge 
 wakened echoing among the cliffs of Smerwick bay ; along those 
 sand-hills flash in the evening gloom red sparks which never 
 came from heaven ; for that fort, now christened by the invaders 
 the Fort Del Oro, where flaunts the hated golden flag of Spain, 
 holds San Josepho and eight hundred of the foe ; and but three 
 nights ago, Amyas and Yeo, and the rest of Winter’s shrewdest 
 hands, slung four culverins out of the Admiral’s main deck, and 
 floated them ashore, and dragged them up to the battery among 
 the sand-hills; and now it shall be seen whether Spanish and 
 
CHAP. IX.] HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 177 
 
 Italian condottieri can hold their own on British ground against 
 the men of Devon. 
 
 Small blame to Atnyas if he was thinking, not of his lonely- 
 mother at Burrough Court, but of those quick bright flashes on 
 sand-hill and on fort, where Salvation Yoe was hurling the 
 eighteen-pound shot with deadly aim, and watching with a cool 
 and bitter smile of triumph the flying of the sand, and the 
 crashing of the gabions. Amyas and his party had been on 
 board, at the risk of their lives, for a fresh supply of shot ; for 
 Winter’s battery was out of ball, and had been firing stones for 
 the last four hours, in default of better missiles. They ran the 
 boat on shore through the surf, where a cove in the shore made 
 landing possible, and almost careless whether she stove or not, 
 scrambled over the sand-hills with each man his brace of shot 
 slung across his shoulder ; and Amyas, leaping into the trenches, 
 shouted cheerfully to Salvation Yeo — 
 
 “More food for the bull-dogs, Gunner, and plums for the 
 Spaniards’ Christmas pudding !” 
 
 “ Don’t speak to a man at his business, Master Amyas. Five 
 mortal times have I missed ; but I will have that accursed 
 Popish rag down, as I’m a sinner.” 
 
 “ Down with it, then ; nobody wants you to shoot crooked. 
 Take good iron to it, and not footy paving-stones.” 
 
 “ I believe, sir, that the foul fiend is there, a turning of my 
 shot aside, I do. I thought I saw him once : but, thank Heaven, 
 here’s ball again. Ah, sir, if one could but cast a silver one ! 
 Now, stand by, men !” 
 
 And once again Yeo’s eighteen-pounder roared, and away. 
 And, oh glory ! the great yellow flag of Spain, which streamed 
 in the gale, lifted clean into the air, flagstaff and all, and then 
 pitched wildly down head-foremost, far to leeward. 
 
 A hurrah from the sailors, answered by the soldiers of the 
 opposite camp, shook the very cloud above them : but ere its 
 echoes had died away, a tall officer leapt upon the parapet of 
 the fort, with the fallen flag in his hand, and rearing it as well 
 as he could upon his lance point, held it firmly against the gale, 
 while the fallen flagstaff was raised again within. 
 
 In a moment a dozen long bows were bent at the daring 
 foeman : but Amyas behind shouted — 
 
 “ Shame, lads ! Stop and let the gallant gentleman have 
 due courtesy !” 
 
 So they stopped, while Amyas, springing on the rampart of 
 the battery, took off his hat, and bowed to the flag-holder, who, 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [chap. ix. 
 
 as soon as relieved of his charge, returned the bow courteously, 
 and descended. 
 
 It was by this time all but dark, and the firing began to 
 slacken on all sides ; Salvation and his brother gunners, having 
 covered up their slaughtering tackle with tarpauliugs, retired 
 for the night, leaving Amyas, who had volunteered to take the 
 watch till midnight • and the rest of the force having got their 
 scanty supper of biscuit (for provisions were running very short) 
 lay down under arms among the sand-hills, and grumbled them- 
 selves to sleep. 
 
 He had paced up and down in the gusty darkness for some 
 hour or more, exchanging a passing word now and then with the 
 sentinel, when two men entered the battery, chatting busily 
 together. One was in complete armour ; the other wrapt in 
 the plain short cloak of a man of pens and peace : but the talk 
 of both was neither of sieges nor of sallies, catapult, bombard, 
 nor culverin, but simply of English hexameters. 
 
 And fancy not, gentle reader, that the two were therein 
 fiddling while Rome was burning ; for the commonweal of 
 poetry and letters, in that same critical year 1580, was in far 
 greater danger from those same hexameters than the common 
 woe of Ireland (as Raleigh called it) was from the Spaniards. 
 
 Imitating the classic metres, “ versifying,” as it was called 
 in contradistinction to rhyming, was becoming fast the fashion 
 among the more learned. Stonyhurst and others had tried their 
 hands at hexameter translations from the Latin and Greek epics, 
 which seem to have been doggerel enough ; and ever and anon 
 some youthful wit broke out in iambics, sapphics, elegiacs, and 
 what not, to the great detriment of the queen’s English and 
 her subjects’ ears. 
 
 I know not whether Mr. William Webbe had yet given to 
 the world any fragments of his precious hints for the “ Re- 
 formation of English poetry,” to the tune of his own “ Tityrus, 
 happily thou liest tumbling under a beech-tree but the Cam- 
 bridge Malvolio, Gabriel Harvey, had succeeded in arguing 
 Spenser, Dyer, Sidney, and probably Sidney’s sister, and the 
 whole clique of beaux-esprits round them, into following his 
 model of 
 
 ‘ ‘ What might I call this tree ? A laurel ? 0 bonny laurel ! 
 
 Needes to thy bowes will I bowe this knee, and vail my bonetto 
 
 after snubbing the first book of “ that Elvish Queene,” which 
 was then in manuscript, as a base declension from the classical 
 to the romantic school. 
 
Edmund Spenser . 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 179 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 And now Spenser (perhaps in mere melancholy wilfulness 
 and want of purpose, for he had just been jilted by a fair maid 
 of Kent) was wasting his mighty genius upon doggerel which 
 he fancied antique : and some piratical publisher (Bitter Tom 
 Nash swears, and with likelihood, that Harvey did it himself) 
 had just given to the world, — “ Three proper wittie and familiar 
 Letters, lately past between two University men, touching the 
 Earthquake in April last, and our English reformed Versifying,” 
 which had set all town wits a-buzzing like a swarm of flies, 
 being none other than a correspondence between Spenser and 
 Harvey, which was to prove to the world for ever the correct- 
 ness and melody of such lines as,' 
 
 ‘ ‘ For like magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in show, 
 
 In deede most frivolous, not a looke but Tuscanish always.” 
 
 Let them pass — Alma Mater has seen as bad hexameters since. 
 But then the matter w r as serious. There is a story (I know 
 not how true), that Spenser was half bullied into re-writing the 
 “ Fairy Queen ” in hexameters, had not Raleigh, a true roman- 
 ticist, “whose vein for ditty or amorous ode w r as most lofty, 
 insolent, and passionate,” persuaded him to follow his better 
 genius. The great dramatists had not yet arisen, to form com- 
 pletely that truly English school, of which Spenser, unconscious 
 of his own vast powers, was laying the foundation. And, indeed, 
 it was not till Daniel, twenty years after, in his admirable 
 apology for rhyme, had smashed Mr. Campian and his “ eight 
 several kinds of classical numbers,” that the matter was finally 
 settled, and the English tongue left to go the road on which 
 Heaven had started it. So that we may excuse Raleigh’s 
 answering somewhat waspish to some quotation of Spenser’s 
 from the three letters of “ Immerito and G. H.” 
 
 “ Tut, tut, Colin Clout, much learning has made thee mad. 
 A good old fishwives’ ballad jingle is worth all your sapphics 
 and trimeters, and ‘ riff-raff thurlery bouncing.’ Hey ? have I 
 you there, old lad? Do you mind that precious verse ?” 
 
 “ But, dear Wat, Homer and Virgil 
 
 “ But, dear Ned, Petrarch and Ovid ” 
 
 “But, Wat, what have we that we do not owe to the 
 ancients ?” 
 
 “ Ancients, quotha 1 Why, the legend of King Arthur, and 
 Chevy Chase too, of which even your fellow-sinner Sidney can- 
 not deny that every time he hears it even from a blind fiddler 
 it stirs his heart like a trumpet-blast. Speak well of the bridge 
 
180 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 that carries you over, man ! Did you find your Redcross Knight 
 in Virgil, or such a dame as Una in old Ovid 1 ? No more than 
 you did your Pater and Credo, you renegado baptized heathen, 
 you !” 
 
 “Yet, surely, our younger and more barbarous taste must 
 
 bow before divine antiquity, and imitate afar ” 
 
 “As dottrels do fowlers. If Homer was blind, lad, why 
 dost not poke out thine eye ? Ay, this hexameter is of an 
 ancient house, truly, Ned Spenser, and so is many a rogue : 
 but he cannot make way on our rough English roads. He goes 
 hopping and twitching in our language like a three-legged terrier 
 over a pebble-bank, tumble and up again, rattle and crash.” 
 “Nay, hear, now — 
 
 ‘ See ye the blindfolded pretty god that feathered archer, 
 
 Of lovers’ miseries which maketh his bloody game ? ’ 1 
 
 True, the accent gapes in places, as I have often confessed to 
 Harvey, but ” 
 
 “ Harvey be hanged for a pedant, and the whole crew of 
 versifiers, from Lord Dorset (but he, poor man, has been past 
 hanging some time since) to yourself ! Why delude you into 
 playing Procrustes as he does with the queen’s English, racking 
 one word till its joints be pulled asunder, and squeezing the 
 next all a-heap as the Inquisitors do heretics in their banca 
 cava ? Out upon him and you, and Sidney, and the whole kin. 
 You have not made a verse among you, and never will, which 
 is not as lame a gosling as Harvey’s own — 
 
 * Oh thou weatliercocke, that stands on the top of Allhallows, 
 
 Come thy ways down, if thou dar’st for thy crown, and take the wall 
 on us.’ 
 
 “ Hark, now ! There is our young giant comforting his soul 
 with a ballad. You will hear rhyme and reason together here, 
 now. He will not miscall ‘blind-folded,’ ‘ blind -fold- ed, I 
 warrant; or make an ‘of’ and a ‘which’ and a ‘his’ carry a 
 whole verse on their wretched little backs.” 
 
 And as he spoke, Amyas, who had been grumbling to him- 
 self some Christmas carol, broke out full-mouthed : — 
 
 “ As Joseph was a- walking 
 He heard an angel sing — 
 
 ‘ This night shall be the birth night 
 Of Christ, our heavenly King. 
 
 1 Strange as it may seem, this distich is Spenser’s own ; and the othet 
 hexameters are all authentic. 
 
CHAP. IX.] 
 
 HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 181 
 
 His birthbed shall be neither 
 In housen nor in hall, 
 
 Nor in the place of paradise, 
 
 But in the oxen’s stall. 
 
 He neither shall be rocked 
 In silver nor in gold, 
 
 But in the wooden manger 
 That lieth on the mould. 
 
 He neither shall be w ashen 
 With white wine nor with red, 
 
 But with the fair spring water 
 That on you shall be shed. 
 
 He neither shall be clothed 
 In purple nor in pall, 
 
 But in the fair white linen 
 That usen babies all.’ 
 
 As Joseph was a- walking 
 Thus did the angel sing, 
 
 And Mary’s Son at midnight 
 Was born to be our King. 
 
 Then be you glad, good people, 
 
 At this time of the year ; 
 
 And light you up your candles, 
 
 For His star it shineth clear.” 
 
 “ There, Edmunde Classicaster,” said Raleigh, “ does not 
 that simple strain go nearer to the heart of him who wrote 
 ‘ The Shepherd’s Calendar,’ than all artificial and outlandish 
 
 ‘ Wote ye why his mother with a veil hath covered his face ?’ 
 
 Why dost not answer, man'?” 
 
 But Spenser was silent awhile, and then, — 
 
 “Because I was thinking rather of the rhymer than the 
 rhyme. Good heaven ! how that brave lad shames me, singing 
 here the hymns which his mother taught him, before the very 
 muzzles of Spanish guns ; instead of bewailing unmanly, as I 
 have done, the love which he held, I doubt not, as dear as I 
 did even my Rosalind. This is his welcome to the winter’s 
 storm ; while I, who dream, forsooth, of heavenly inspiration, 
 can but see therein an image of mine own cowardly despair. 
 
 * Thou barren ground, whom Winter’s wrath has wasted, 
 
 Art made a mirror to behold my plight. ’ 1 
 
 Pah ! away with frosts, icicles, and tears, and sighs ” 
 
 “ And with hexameters and trimeters too, I hope,” inter- 
 rupted Raleigh : “ and all the trickeries of self-pleasing sorrow.” 
 
 1 “The Shepherd’s Calendar.” 
 
182 
 
 IIOW AMYAS KEPT [chap. ix. 
 
 ■I will set my heart to higher work, than barking at 
 the hand which chastens me.” 
 
 “Wilt put the lad into the ‘Fairy Queen,’ then, by my side? 
 He deserves as good a place there, believe me, as ever a Guyon, 
 or even as Lord Grey your Arthegall. Let us hail him. Hallo ! 
 young chanticleer of Devon ! Art not afraid of a chance shot, 
 that thou crowest so lustily upon thine own mixen ?” 
 
 “ Cocks crow all night long at Christmas, Captain Ealeigh, 
 and so do I,” said Amyas’s cheerful voice; “but who’s there 
 with you?” 
 
 “A penitent pupil of yours — Mr. Secretary Spenser.” 
 
 “ Pupil of mine?” said Amyas. “I wish he’d teach me a 
 little of his art ; I could fill up my time here with making 
 verses.” 
 
 “And who would be your theme, fair sir?” said Spenser. 
 “No ‘who’ at all. I don’t want to make sonnets to blue 
 eyes, nor black either : but if I could put down some of the 
 
 things I saw in the Spice Islands ” 
 
 “Ah,” said Ealeigh, “he would beat, you out of Parnassus, 
 Mr. Secretary. Eemember, you may write about Fairyland, 
 but he has seen it.” 
 
 “ And so have others,” said Spenser ; “ it is not so far off 
 from any one of us. Wherever is love and loyalty, great pur- 
 poses, and lofty souls, even though in a hovel or a mine, there 
 is Fairyland.” 
 
 “Then Fairyland should be here, friend; for you represent 
 love, and Leigh loyalty ; while, as for great purposes and lofty 
 souls, who so fit to stand for them as I, being (unless my enemies 
 and my conscience are liars both) as ambitious and as proud as 
 Lucifer’s own self?” 
 
 “Ah, Walter, Walter, why wilt always slander thyself thus?” 
 “ Slander? Tut.— I do but give the world a fair challenge, 
 and tell it, ‘ There — you know the worst of me : come on and 
 try a fall, for either you or I must down.’ Slander ? Ask Leigh 
 here, who has but known me a fortnight, whether I am not as 
 vain as a peacock, as selfish as a fox, as imperious as a bona roba, 
 and ready to make a cat’s paw of him or any man, if there be a 
 chestnut in the fire : and yet the poor fool cannot help loving 
 me, and running of my errands, and taking all my schemes and 
 my dreams for gospel ; and verily believes now, I think, that I 
 shall be the man in the moon some day, and he my big dog.” 
 
 “ Well,” said Amyas, half apologetically, “ if you are the 
 cleverest man in the world what harm in my thinking so ?” 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 183 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 “ Hearken to him, Edmund ! He will know better when 
 he has outgrown this same callow trick of honesty, and learnt 
 of the great goddess Detraction how to show himself wiser than 
 the wise, by pointing out to the world the fool’s motley which, 
 peeps through the rents in the philosopher’s cloak. Go to, lad ! 
 slander thy equals, envy thy betters, pray for an eye which sees 
 spots in every sun, and for a vulture’s nose to scent carrion in 
 every rose-bed. If thy friend win a battle, show that he has 
 needlessly thrown away his men ; if he lose one, hint that he 
 sold it ; if he rise to a place argue favour ; if he fall from one, 
 argue divine justice. Believe nothing, hope nothing, but en- 
 dure all things, even to kicking, if aught may be got thereby ; 
 so shalt thou be clothed in purple and fine linen, and sit in king’s 
 palaces, and fare sumptuously every day.” 
 
 “And wake with Dives in the torment,” said Amyas. 
 “Thank you for nothing, Captain.” 
 
 “ Go to, Misanthropos,” said Spenser. “ Thou hast not yet 
 tasted the sweets of this world’s comfits, and thou railest at 
 them V ’ 
 
 “ The grapes are sour, lad.” 
 
 “ And will be to the end,” said Amyas, “ if they come off 
 such a devil’s tree as that. I really think you are out of your 
 mind, Captain Raleigh, at times.” 
 
 “ I wish I were ; for it is a troublesome, hungry, windy 
 mind as man ever was cursed withal. But come in, lad. We 
 were sent from the Lord Deputy to bid thee to supper. There 
 is a dainty lump of dead horse waiting for thee.” 
 
 “Send me some out, then,” said matter-of-fact Amyas. 
 “ And tell his Lordship that, with his good leave, I don’t stir 
 from here till morning, if I can keep awake. There is a stir in 
 the fort, and I expect them out on us.” 
 
 “ Tut, man ! their hearts are broken. We know it by their 
 deserters.” 
 
 “Seeing’s believing. I never trust runaway rogues. If 
 they are false to their masters, they’ll be false to us.” 
 
 “ Well, go thy ways, old honesty ; and Mr. Secretary shall 
 give you a book to yourself in the ‘ Fairy Queen ’ — ‘ Sir Mono- 
 culus or the Legend of Common Sense,’ eh, Edmund ?” 
 
 “ Monoculus V ’ 
 
 “Ay, Single-eye, my prince of word-coiners — won’t that fit? 
 — And give him the Cyclop’s head for a device. Heigho ! 
 They may laugh that win. I am sick of this Irish work ; were 
 it not for the chance of advancement I’d sooner be driving a 
 
184 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [chap. ix. 
 
 team of red Devons on Dartside ; and now I am angry with 
 the dear lad because he is not sick of it too. What a plague 
 business has he to be paddling up and down, contentedly doing 
 his duty, like any city watchman? It is an insult to the mighty 
 aspirations of our nobler hearts, — eh, my would-be Ariosto ?” 
 
 “ Ah, Raleigh ! you can afford to confess yourself less than 
 some, for you are greater than all. Go on and conquer, noble 
 heart ! But as for me, I sow the wind, and I suppose I shall 
 reap the whirlwind” 
 
 11 Your harvest seems come already ; what a blast that 
 was ! Hold on by me, Colin Clout, and I’ll hold on by thee. 
 So ! Don’t tread on that pikqman’s stomach, lest he take thee 
 for a marauding Don, and with sudden dagger slit Colin’s pipe, 
 and Colin’s weasand too.” 
 
 And the two stumbled away into the darkness, leaving 
 Amyas to stride up and down as before, puzzling his brains 
 over Raleigh’s wild words and Spenser’s melancholy, till he 
 came to the conclusion that there was some mysterious connec- 
 tion between cleverness and unhappiness, and thanking his 
 stars that he was neither scholar, courtier, nor poet, said grace 
 over his lump of horseflesh when it arrived, devoured it as if it 
 had been venison, and then returned to his pacing up and 
 down ; but this time in silence, for the night was drawing on, 
 and there was no need to tell the Spaniards that any one was 
 awake and watching. 
 
 So he began to think about his mother, and how she might 
 be spending her Christmas ; and then about Frank, and won- 
 dered at what grand Court festival he was assisting, amid 
 bright lights and sweet music and gay ladies, and how he was 
 dressed, and whether he thought of his brother there far away 
 on the dark Atlantic shore ; and then he said his prayers and 
 his creed ; and then he tried not to think of Rose Salterne, and 
 of course thought about her all the more. So on passed the 
 dull hours, till it might be past eleven o’clock, and all lights 
 were out in the battery and the shipping, and there was no 
 sound of living thing but the monotonous tramp of the two 
 sentinels beside him, and now and then a grunt from the party 
 who slept under arms some twenty yards to the rear. 
 
 So he paced to and fro, looking carefully out now and then 
 over the strip of sand-hill which lay between him and the fort ; 
 but all was blank and black, and moreover it began to rain 
 furiously. 
 
 Suddenly he seemed to hear a rustle among the harsh 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 185 
 
 CHAP. IX. ] 
 
 sand-grass. True, the wind was whistling through it loudly 
 enough : but that sound was not altogether like the wind. 
 Then a soft sliding noise ; something had slipped down a bank, 
 and brought the sand down after it. Amyas stopped, crouched 
 down beside a gun, and laid his ear to the rampart, whereby 
 he heard clearly, as he thought, the noise of approaching feet ; 
 whether rabbits or Christians, he knew not : but he shrewdly 
 guessed the latter. 
 
 Now Amyas was of a sober and business-like turn, at least 
 when he was not in a passion ; and thinking within himself 
 that if he made any noise, the enemy (whether four or two- 
 legged) would retire, and all the sport be lost, he did not call 
 to the two sentries, who were at the opposite ends of the 
 battery ; neither did he think it worth while to rouse the sleep- 
 ing company, lest his ears should have deceived him, and the 
 whole camp turn out to repulse the attack of a buck rabbit. 
 So he crouched lower and lower beside the culverin, and was 
 rewarded in a minute or two by hearing something gently 
 deposited against the mouth of the embrasure, which, by the 
 noise, should be a piece of timber. 
 
 “ So far, so good,” said he to himself ; “ when the scaling 
 ladder is up, the soldier follows, I suppose. I can only humbly 
 thank them for giving my embrasure the preference. There he 
 conies ! I hear his feet scuffling.” 
 
 He could hear plainly enough some one working himself 
 into the mouth of the embrasure : but the plague was, that it 
 was so dark that he could not see his hand between him and 
 the sky, much less his foe at two yards off. However, he 
 made a pretty fair guess as to the whereabouts, and, rising 
 softly, discharged such a blow downwards as would have split 
 a yule log. A volley of sparks flew up from the hapless 
 Spaniard’s armour, and a grunt issued from within it, which 
 proved that, whether he was killed or not, the blow had not 
 improved his respiration. 
 
 Amyas felt for his head, seized it, dragged him in over the 
 gun, sprang into the embrasure on his knees, felt for the top of 
 the ladder, found it, hove it clean off and out, with four or five 
 men on it, and then of course tumbled after it ten feet into the 
 sand, roaring like a town bull to her Majesty’s liege subjects 
 in general. 
 
 Sailor-fashion, he had no armour on but a light morion and 
 a cuirass, so he was not too much encumbered to prevent his 
 springing to his legs instantly, and setting to work, cutting 
 
186 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [chap. ix. 
 
 and foining right and left at every sound, for sight there was 
 none. 
 
 Battles (as soldiers know, and newspaper editors do not) 
 are usually fought, not as they ought to be fought, but as they 
 can be fought ; and while the literary man is laying down the 
 law at his desk as to how many troops should be moved here, 
 and what rivers should be crossed there, and where the cavalry 
 should have been brought up, and when the flank should have 
 been turned, the wretched man who has to do the work finds 
 the matter settled for him by pestilence, want of shoes, empty 
 stomachs, bad roads, heavy rains, hot suns, and a thousand 
 other stern warriors who never show on paper. 
 
 So with this skirmish ; “ according to Cocker,” it ought to 
 have been a very pretty one ; for Hercules of Pisa, who planned 
 the sortie, had arranged it all (being a very sans-appel in all 
 military science) upon the best Italian precedents, and had 
 brought against this very hapless battery a column of a hundred 
 to attack directly in front, a company of fifty to turn the right 
 flank, and a company of fifty to turn the left flank, with regu- 
 lations, orders, passwords, countersigns, and what not ; so that 
 if every man had had his rights (as seldom happens), Don 
 Guzman Maria Magdalena 1 de Soto, who commanded the sortie, 
 ought to have taken the work out of hand, and annihilated all 
 therein. But alas ! here stern fate interfered. They had 
 chosen a dark night, as was politic ; they had waited till the 
 moon was up, lest it should be too dark, as was politic like- 
 wise : but, just as they had started, on came a heavy squall of 
 rain, through which seven moons would have given no light, and 
 which washed out the plans of Hercules of Pisa as if they had 
 been written on a schoolboy’s slate. The company who were 
 to turn the left flank walked manfully down into the sea, and 
 never found out where they were going till they were knee- 
 deep in water. The company who were to turn the right flank, 
 bewildered by the utter darkness, turned their own flank so 
 often, that tired of falling into rabbit-burrows and filling their 
 mouths with sand, they halted and prayed to all the saints for 
 a compass and lantern; while the centre body, who held 
 straight on by a trackway to within fifty yards of the battery, 
 so miscalculated that short distance, that while they thought 
 the ditch two pikes’ length off, they fell into it one over the 
 other, and of six scaling ladders, the only one which could be 
 found was the very one which Amyas threw down again. 
 After which the clouds broke, the wind shifted, and the moon 
 
CHAP. IX.] HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 187 
 
 shone out merrily. And so was the deep policy of Hercules of 
 Pisa, on which hung the fate of Ireland and the Papacy, decided 
 by a ten minutes’ squall. 
 
 But where is Amyas 1 
 
 In the ditch, aware that the enemy is tumbling into it, but 
 unable to find them ; while the company above, finding it much 
 too dark to attempt a counter sortie, have opened a smart fire 
 of musketry and arrows on things in general, whereat the 
 Spaniards are swearing like Spaniards (I need say no more), and 
 the Italians spitting like venomous cats ; while Amyas, not 
 wishing to be riddled by friendly balls, has got his back against 
 the foot of the rampart, and waits on Providence. 
 
 Suddenly the moon clears ; and with one more fierce volley, 
 the English sailors, seeing the confusion, leap down from the 
 embrasures, and to it pell-mell. Whether this also was 
 “ according to Cocker,” I know not : but the sailor, then as 
 now, is not susceptible of highly-finished drill. 
 
 Amyas is now in his element, and so are the brave fellows 
 at his heels ; and there are ten breathless, furious minutes 
 among the sand-hills ; and then the trumpets blow a recall, and 
 the sailors drop back again by twos and threes, and are helped up 
 into the embrasures over many a dead and dying foe ; while the 
 guns of Fort del Oro open on them, and blaze away for half-an- 
 hour without reply ; and then all is still once more. And in 
 the meanwhile, the sortie against the Deputy’s camp has fared 
 no better, and the victory of the night remains with the English. 
 
 Twenty minutes after, Winter and the captains who were 
 on shore were drying themselves round a peat-fire on the beach, 
 and talking over the skirmish, when Will Cary asked — 
 
 “ Where is Leigh 'l who has seen him ? I am sadly afraid 
 he has gone too far, and been slain.” 
 
 “Slain ? Never less, gentlemen !” replied the voice of the 
 very person in question, as he stalked out of the darkness into 
 the glare of the fire, and shot down from his shoulders into the 
 midst of the ring, as he might a sack of corn, a huge dark body, 
 which was gradually seen to be a man in rich armour ; who 
 being so shot down, lay quietly where he was dropped, with his 
 feet (luckily for him mailed) in the fire. 
 
 “I say,” quoth Amyas, “some of you had better take him 
 up, if he is to be of any use. Unlace his helm, Will Cary.” 
 
 “ Pull his feet out of the embers ; I dare say he would have 
 been glad enough to put us to the scarpines ■ but that’s no 
 reason we should put him to them.” 
 
188 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 As has been hinted, there was no love lost between Admiral 
 Winter and Amyas ; and Amyas might certainly have reported 
 himself in a more ceremonious manner. So Winter, whom 
 Amyas either had not seen, or had not chosen to see, asked him 
 pretty sharply, “ What the plague he had to do with bringing 
 dead men into camp V* 
 
 “ If he’s dead, it’s not my fault. He was alive enough when 
 I started with him, and I kept him right end uppermost all the 
 way ; and what would you have more sir ?” 
 
 “ Mr. Leigh !” said Winter, “ it behoves you to speak with 
 somewhat more courtesy, if not respect, to captains who are 
 your elders and commanders.” 
 
 “Ask your pardon, sir,” said the giant, as he stood in front 
 of the fire with the rain steaming and smoking off his armour ; 
 “ but I was bred in a school where getting good service done 
 was more esteemed than making fine speeches.” 
 
 “ Whatsoever school you were trained in, sir,” said Winter, 
 nettled at the hint about Drake ; “ it does not seem to have 
 been one in which you learned to obey orders. Why did you 
 not come in when the recall was sounded 1” 
 
 “ Because,” said Amyas, very coolly, “ in the first place, I 
 did not hear it ; and in the next, in my school I was taught 
 when I had once started not to come home empty-handed.” 
 
 This was too pointed ; and Winter sprang up with an oath 
 — “ Do you mean to insult me, sir ?” 
 
 “Iam sorry, sir, that you should take a compliment to Sir 
 Francis Drake as an insult to yourself. I brought in this 
 gentleman because I thought he might give you good informa- 
 tion ; if he dies meanwhile, the loss will be yours, or rather the 
 queen’s.” 
 
 “ Help me, then,” said Cary, glad to create a diversion in 
 Amyas’s favour, “and we will bring him round while Raleigh 
 rose, and catching Winter’s arm, drew him aside, and began 
 talking earnestly. 
 
 “ What a murrain have you, Leigh, to quarrel with Winter V’ 
 asked two or three. 
 
 “ I say, my reverend fathers and dear children, do get the 
 Don’s talking tackle free again, and leave me and the Admiral 
 to settle it our own way.” 
 
 There was more than one captain sitting in the ring : but 
 discipline, and the degrees of rank, were not so severely defined 
 as now; and Amyas, as a “gentleman adventurer,” was, on 
 land, in a .position very difficult to be settled, though at sea he 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 189 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 was as liable to be hanged as any other person on board ; and 
 on the whole it was found expedient to patch the matter up. 
 So Captain Raleigh returning, said that though Admiral Winter 
 had doubtless taken umbrage at certain words of Mr. Leigh’s, 
 yet that he had no doubt that Mr. Leigh meant nothing thereby 
 but what was consistent with the profession of a soldier and a 
 gentleman, and worthy both of himself and of the Admiral. 
 
 From which proposition Amyas found it impossible to dis- 
 sent ; whereon Raleigh went back, and informed Winter that 
 Leigh had freely retracted his words, and fully wiped off any 
 imputation which Mr. Winter might conceive to have been put 
 upon him, and so forth. So Winter returned, and Amyas said 
 frankly enough — 
 
 “ Admiral Winter, I hope, as a loyal soldier, that you wdll 
 understand thus far ; that naught which has passed to-night 
 shall in any way prevent you finding me a forward and obedient 
 servant to all your commands, be they what they may, and a 
 supporter of your authority among the men, and honour against 
 the foe, even with my life. For I should be ashamed if private 
 differences should ever prejudice by a grain the public weal.” 
 This was a great effort of oratory for Amyas ; and he there- 
 fore, in order to be safe by following precedent, tried to talk as 
 much as he could like Sir Richard Grenvile. Of course Winter 
 could answer nothing to it, in spite of the plain hint of private 
 differences, but that he should not fail to show himself a captain 
 worthy of so valiant and trusty a gentleman; whereon the whole 
 party turned their attention to the captive, who, thanks to Will 
 Cary, was by this time sitting up, standing much in need of a 
 handkerchief, and looking about him, having been unhelmed, in 
 a confused and doleful manner. 
 
 “ Take the gentleman to my tent,” said Winter, “ and let 
 
 the surgeon see to him. Mr. Leigh, who is he ? ” 
 
 “ An enemy, but whether Spaniard or Italian I know not ; 
 but he seemed somebody among them, I thought the captain of 
 a company. He and I cut at each other twice or thrice at first, 
 and then lost each other ; and after that I came on him among 
 the sand-hills, trying to rally his men, and swearing like the 
 mouth of the pit, whereby I guess him a Spaniard. But his 
 men ran ; so I brought him in.” 
 
 “ And how ?” asked Raleigh. “ Thou art giving us all the 
 play but the murders and the marriages.” 
 
 “ Why, I bid him yield, and he would not. Then I bid him 
 run, and he would not. And it was too pitch-dark for fighting ; 
 
HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 190 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 so I took him by the ears, and shook the wind out of him, and 
 so brought him in.” 
 
 “Shook the wind out of him 1 ?” cried Cary, amid the roar 
 of laughter which followed. “Dost know thou hast nearly 
 wrung his neck in two 1 His vizor was full of blood.” 
 
 “ He should have run or yielded, then,” said Amyas ; and 
 getting up, slipped off to find some ale, and then to sleep comfort- 
 ably in a dry burrow which he scratched out of a sandbank. 
 
 The next morning, as Amyas was discussing a scanty break- 
 fast of biscuit (for provisions were running very short in camp) 
 Raleigh came up to him. 
 
 “What, eating 1 ? That’s more than I have done to-day.” 
 
 “ Sit down, and share, then.” 
 
 “ Nay, lad, I did not come a-begging I have set some of 
 my rogues to dig rabbits ; but as I live, young Colbrand, you 
 may thank your stars that you are alive to-day to eat. Poor 
 young Cheek — Sir John Cheek, the grammarian’s son — got his 
 quittance last night by a Spanish pike, rushing headlong on, 
 just as you did. But have you seen your prisoner?” 
 
 “ No ; nor shall, while he is in Winter’s tent.” 
 
 “ Why not, then ? What quarrel have you against the 
 Admiral, friend Bobadil? Cannot you let Francis Drake fight 
 his own battles, without thrusting your head in between them ?” 
 
 “Well, that is good! As if the quarrel was not just as 
 much mine, and every man’s in the ship. Why, when he left 
 Drake, he left us all, did he not ?” 
 
 “ And what if he did ? Let bygones be bygones is the rule 
 of a Christian, and of a wise man too, Amyas. Here the man 
 is, at least, safe home, in favour and in power ; and a prudent 
 youth will just hold his tongue, mumchanoe, and swim with 
 the stream.” 
 
 “ But that’s just what makes me mad ; to see this fellow, 
 after deserting us there in unknown seas, win credit and rank at 
 home here for being the first man who ever sailed back through 
 the Straits. What had he to do with sailing back at all ! As 
 well make the fox a knight for being the first that ever jumped 
 down a jakes to escape the hounds. The fiercer the flight the 
 fouler the fear, say I.” 
 
 “ Amyas ! Amyas ! thou art a hard hitter, but a soft poli- 
 tician.” 
 
 “ I am no politician, Captain Raleigh, nor ever wish to be. 
 An honest man’s my friend, and a rogue’s my foe j and I’ll tell 
 both as much, as long as I breathe.” 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 191 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 “ And die a poor saint,” said Raleigh, laughing. “ But if 
 Winter invites you to his tent himself, you won’t refuse to come'?” 
 
 “ Why, no, considering his years and rank ; but he knows 
 too well to do that.” 
 
 “ He knows too well not to do it,” said Raleigh, laughing as 
 he walked away. And verily in half-an-hour came an invitation, 
 extracted, of course, from the Admiral by Raleigh’s silver tongue, 
 which Amy as could not but obey. 
 
 “ We all owe you thanks for last night’s service, sir,” said 
 Winter, who had for some good reasons changed his tone. “ Your 
 prisoner is found to be a gentleman of birth and experience, and 
 the leader of the assault last night. He has already told us 
 more than we had hoped, for which also we are beholden to you ; 
 and, indeed my Lord Grey has been asking for you already.” 
 
 “ I have, young sir,” said a quiet and lofty voice ; and 
 Amyas saw limping from the inner tent the proud and stately 
 figure of the stern Deputy, Lord Grey of Wilton, a brave and 
 wise man, but with a naturally harsh temper, which had been 
 soured still more by the wound which had crippled him, while 
 yet a boy, at the battle of Leith. He owed that limp to Mary 
 Queen of Scots ; and he did not forget the debt. 
 
 “ I have been asking for you ; having heard from many, 
 both of your last night’s prowess, and of your conduct and cour- 
 age beyond the promise of your years, displayed in that ever- 
 memorable voyage, which may well be ranked with the deeds 
 of the ancient Argonauts.” 
 
 Amyas bowed low ; and the Lord Deputy went on, “ You 
 will needs wish to see your prisoner. You will find him such 
 a one as you need not be ashamed to have taken, and as need 
 not be ashamed to have been taken by you : but here he is, and 
 will, I doubt not, answer as much for himself. Know each 
 other better, gentlemen both : last night was an ill one for 
 making acquaintances. Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Soto- 
 mayor de Soto, know the hidalgo, Amyas Leigh ! ” 
 
 As he spoke, the Spaniard came forward, still in his armour, 
 all save his head, which was bound up in a handkerchief. 
 
 He was an exceedingly tall and graceful personage, of that 
 sangre azul which marked high Yisi- gothic descent ; golden- 
 haired and fair- skinned, with hands as small and white as a 
 woman’s ; his lips were delicate, but thin, and compressed 
 closely at the corners of the mouth ; and his pale blue eye had 
 a glassy dulness. In spite of his beauty and his oarriage, Amyas 
 shrank from him instinctively • and yet he could not help hold- 
 
HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 192 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 mg out his hand in return, as the Spaniard holding out his, said 
 languidly, in most sweet and sonorous Spanish — 
 
 “ I kiss his hands and feet. The Seiner speaks, I am told, 
 my native tongue ?” 
 
 “ I have that honour.” 
 
 “ Then accept in it (for I can better express myself therein 
 than in English, though I am not altogether ignorant of that 
 witty and learned language) the expression of my pleasure at 
 having fallen into the hands of one so renowned in war and 
 travel ; and of one also,” he added, glancing at Amyas’s giant 
 bulk, “ the vastness of whose strength, beyond that of common 
 mortality, makes it no more shame for me to have been over- 
 powered and carried away by him than if my captor had been 
 a paladin of Charlemagne’s.” 
 
 Honest Amyas bowed and stammered, a little thrown off 
 his balance by the unexpected assurance and cool flattery of his 
 prisoner ; but he said, — 
 
 “ If you are satisfied, illustrious Senor, I am bound to be 
 so. I only trust, that in my hurry and the darkness, I have 
 not hurt you unnecessarily.” 
 
 The Don laughed a pretty little hollow laugh : “ No, kind 
 Senor, my head, I trust, will after a few days have become 
 united to my shoulders \ and, for the present, your company 
 will make me forget any slight discomfort.” 
 
 “ Pardon me, Senor ; but by this daylight I should have 
 seen that armour before.” 
 
 “I doubt it not, Senor, as having been yourself also in 
 the forefront of the battle,” said the Spaniard, with a proud 
 smile. 
 
 “If I am right, Senor, you are he who yesterday held up 
 the standard after it was shot down.” 
 
 “ I do not deny that undeserved honour ; and I have to 
 thank the courtesy of you and your countrymen for having per- 
 mitted me to do so with impunity.” 
 
 “Ah, I heard of that brave feat,” said the Lord Deputy. 
 “ You should consider yourself, Mr. Leigh, honoured by being 
 enabled to show courtesy to such a warrior.” 
 
 How long this interchange of solemn compliments, of which 
 Amyas was getting somewhat weary, would have gone on, I 
 know not : but at that moment Raleigh entered hastily — 
 
 “ My Lord, they have hung out a white flag, and are calling 
 for a parley !” 
 
 The Spaniard turned pale, and felt for his sword, which 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 193 
 
 was gone ; and then, with a bitter laugh, murmured to himself 
 — “As I expected.” 
 
 “I am very sorry to hear it. Would to Heaven they had 
 simply fought it out!” said Lord Grey half to himself; and 
 then, “ Go, Captain Raleigh, and answer them that (saving this 
 gentleman’s presence) the laws of war forbid a parley with any 
 who are leagued with rebels against their lawful sovereign.” 
 “But what if they wish to treat for this gentleman’s ransom 
 “ For their own, more likely,” said the Spaniard ; “ but 
 tell them, on my part, Senor, that Don Guzman refuses to be 
 ransomed ; and will return to no camp where the commanding 
 officer, unable to infect his captains with his own cowardice, 
 dishonours them against their will.” 
 
 “You speak sharply, Senor,” said Winter, after Raleigh 
 had gone out. 
 
 “ I have reason, Senor Admiral, as you will find, I fear, ere 
 long.” 
 
 “We shall have the honour of leaving you here, for the 
 present, sir, as Admiral Winter’s guest,” said the Lord Deputy. 
 “ But not my sword, it seems.” 
 
 “ Pardon me, Senor ; but no one has deprived you of your 
 sword,” said Winter. 
 
 “ I don’t wish to pain you, sir,” said Amyas, “ but I fear 
 that we were both careless enough to leave it behind last night.” 
 A flash passed over the Spaniard’s face, w T hich disclosed 
 terrible depths of fury and hatred beneath that quiet mask, as 
 the summer lightning displays the black abysses of the thunder- 
 storm ; but like the summer lightning it passed almost unseen; 
 and blandly as ever, he answered — 
 
 “ I can forgive you for such a neglect, most valiant sir, 
 more easily than I can forgive myself. Farewell, sir ! One 
 who has lost his sword is no fit company for you.” And as 
 Amyas and the rest departed he plunged into the inner tent, 
 stamping and writhing, gnawing his hands with rage and shame. 
 As Amyas came out on the battery, Yeo hailed him — 
 
 “ Master Amyas ! Hillo, sir ! For the love of Heaven 
 tell me ! ” 
 
 “ What then I” 
 
 “ Is his Lordship staunch Will he do the Lord’s w T ork 
 faithfully, root and branch : or will he spare the Amalekites V’ 
 “ The latter, I think, old hip-and-thigh,” said Amyas, hurry- 
 ing forward to hear the news from Raleigh, who appeared in 
 sight once more. 
 
 o 
 
194 HOW AMYAS KEPT [ciiap. ix. 
 
 “ They ask to depart with bag and baggage,” said he, when 
 he came up. 
 
 “God do so to me, and more also, if they carry away a 
 straw !” said Lord Grey. “ Make short work of it, sir !” 
 
 “ I do not know how that will be, my Lord; as I came up 
 a captain shouted to me off the walls that there were mutineers ; 
 and, denying that he surrendered, would have pulled down the 
 flag of truce, but the soldiers beat him off.” 
 
 “ A house divided against itself will not stand long, gentle- 
 men. Tell them that I give no conditions. Let them lay 
 down their arms, and trust in the Bishop of Rome who sent 
 them hither, and may come to save them if he wants them. 
 Gunners, if you see the white flag go down, open your fire in- 
 stantly. Captain Raleigh, we need your counsel here. Mr. 
 Cary, will you be my herald this time V’ 
 
 “ A better Protestant never went on a pleasanter errand, 
 my Lord.” 
 
 So Cary w'ent, and then ensued an argument, as to what 
 should be done with the prisoners in case of a surrender. 
 
 I cannot tell whether my Lord Grey meant, by offering 
 conditions which the Spaniards would not accept, to force them 
 into fighting the quarrel out, and so save himself the responsi- 
 bility of deciding on their fate ; or whether his mere natural 
 stubbornness, as well as his just indignation, drove him on too 
 far to retract : but the council of war which followed was both 
 a sad and a stormy one, and one which he had reason to regret 
 to his dying day. What was to be done with the enemy 1 ? 
 They already outnumbered the English ; and some fifteen hun- 
 dred of Desmond’s wild Irish hovered in the forests round, 
 ready to side with the winning party, or even to attack the 
 English at the least sign of vacillation or fear. They could not 
 carry the Spaniards away with them, for they had neither ship- 
 ping nor food, not even handcuffs enough for them; and as 
 Mackworth told Winter when he proposed it, the only plan was 
 for him to make San Josepho a present of his ships, and swim 
 home himself as he could. To turn loose in Ireland, as Captain 
 Touch urged, on the other hand, seven hundred such monsters 
 of lawlessness, cruelty, and lust, as Spanish and Italian con- 
 dottieri were in those days, was as fatal to their own safety as 
 cruel to the wretched Irish. All the captains, without excep- 
 tion, followed on the same side. “ What was to be done, then ?” 
 asked Lord Grey impatiently. “ Would they have him murder 
 them all in cold blood V 1 
 
CHAP. IX.] HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 195 
 
 And for a while every man, knowing that it must come to 
 that, and yet not daring to say it ; till Sir Warham St. Leger, 
 the Marshal of Munster, spoke out stoutly — “ Foreigners had 
 been scoffing them too long and too truly with waging these 
 Irish wars as if they meant to keep them alive, rather than end 
 them. Mercy and faith to every Irishman who would show 
 mercy and faith, was his motto : but to invaders, no mercy. 
 Ireland was England’s vulnerable point ; it might be some day 
 her ruin ; a terrible example must be made of those who dare 
 to touch the sore. Rather pardon the Spaniards for landing in 
 the Thames than in Ireland!” — till Lord Grey became much 
 excited, and turning as a last hope to Raleigh, asked his opinion : 
 but Raleigh’s silver tongue was that day not on the side of 
 indulgence. He skilfully recapitulated the arguments of his 
 fellow-captains, improving them as he went on, till each worthy 
 soldier was surprised to find himself so much wiser a man than 
 he had thought ; and finished by one of his rapid and passionate 
 perorations upon his favourite theme — the West Indian cruelties 
 of the Spaniards, “. . . . by which great tracts and fair coun- 
 tries are now utterly stripped of inhabitants by heavy bondage 
 and torments unspeakable. Oh, witless Islanders !” said he, 
 apostrophising the Irish ; “ would to Heaven that you were here 
 to listen to me ! What other fate awaits you, if this viper, 
 which you are so ready to take into your bosom, should be 
 warmed to life, but to groan like the Indians, slaves to the 
 Spaniard; but to perish like the Indians, by heavy burdens, 
 cruel chains, plunder and ravishment ; scourged, racked, roasted, 
 stabbed, sawn in sunder, cast to feed the dogs, as simple and 
 more righteous peoples have perished ere now by millions'? 
 And what else, I say, had been the fate of Ireland had this 
 invasion prospered, which God has now, by our weak hands, 
 confounded and brought to nought ? Shall we then answer it, 
 my Lord, either to our conscience, our God, or our queen, if 
 we shall set loose men (not one of whom, I warrant, but is 
 stained with murder on murder) to go and fill up the cup of 
 their iniquity among these silly sheep ? Have not their native 
 wolves, their barbarous chieftains, shorn, peeled, and slaughtered 
 them enough already, but we must add this pack of foreign 
 wolves to the number of their tormentors, and fit the Desmond 
 with a bodyguard of seven, yea, seven hundred devils worse 
 than himself 1 ? Nay, rather let us do violence to our own 
 human nature, and show ourselves in appearance rigorous, that 
 we may be kind indeed ; lest while we presume to be over- 
 
196 
 
 HOW AMY AS KEPT 
 
 [chap. ix. 
 
 merciful to the guilty, we prove ourselves to be over-cruel to 
 the innocent.” 
 
 “ Captain Raleigh, Captain Raleigh,” said Lord Grey, “ the 
 blood of these men be on your head !” 
 
 “It ill befits your Lordship,” answered Raleigh, “to throw 
 on your subordinates the blame of that which your reason 
 approves as necessary.” 
 
 “I should have thought, sir, that one so noted for ambition 
 as Captain Raleigh would have been more careful of the favour 
 of that queen for whose smiles he is said to be so longing a 
 competitor. If you have not yet been of her counsels, sir, I can 
 tell you you are not likely to be. She will be furious when she 
 hears of this cruelty.” 
 
 Lord Grey had lost his temper : but Raleigh kept his, and 
 answered quietly — 
 
 “ Her Majesty shall at least not find me among the number 
 of those who prefer her favour to her safety, and abuse to their 
 own profit that over-tenderness and mercifulness of heart which 
 is the only blemish (and yet, rather like a mole on a fair cheek, 
 but a new beauty) in her manifold perfections.” 
 
 At this juncture Cary returned. 
 
 “ My Lord,” said he, in some confusion, “ I have proposed 
 your terms ; but the captains still entreat for some mitigation ; 
 and, to tell you truth, one of them has insisted on accompanying 
 me hither to plead his cause himself.” 
 
 “ I will not see him, sir. Who is he V’ 
 
 “ His name is Sebastian of Modena, my Lord.” 
 
 “ Sebastian of Modena ? What think you, gentlemen ? 
 May we make an exception in favour of so famous a soldier ?” 
 
 “ So villanous a cut-throat,” said Zouch to Raleigh, under 
 his breath. 
 
 All, however, w^ere for speaking with so famous a man ; and 
 in came, in full armour, a short, bull-necked Italian, evidently 
 of immense strength, of the true Csesar Borgia stamp. 
 
 “Will you please to be seated, sir,” said Lord Grey coldly. 
 “ I kiss your hands, most illustrious : but I do not sit in an 
 enemy’s camp. Ha, my friend Zouch ! How has your Signoria 
 fared since we fought side by side at Lepanto ? So you too 
 are here, sitting in council on the hanging of me.” 
 
 “ What is your errand, sir h Time is short,” said the Lord 
 Deputy. 
 
 “ Corpo di Bacco ! It has been long enough all the morning, 
 for my rascals have kept me and my friend the Colonel Hercules 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 197 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 (whom you know, doubtless) prisoners in our tents at the pike’s 
 point. My Lord Deputy, I have but a few words. I shall thank 
 you to take every soldier in the fort — Italian, Spaniard, and Irish 
 — and hang them up as high as Hainan, for a set of mutinous 
 cowards, with the arch-traitor San Josepho at their head.” 
 
 “I am obliged to you for your offer, sir, and shall deliberate 
 presently as to whether I shall not accept it.” 
 
 “ But as for us captains, really your Excellency must consider 
 that we are gentlemen born, and give us either buena querra, 
 as the Spaniards say, or a fair chance for life ; and so to my 
 business.” 
 
 “ Stay, sir. Answer this first. Have you or yours any 
 commission to show either from the King of Spain or any other 
 potentate ?” 
 
 “ Never a one but the cause of Heaven and our own swords. 
 And with them, my Lord, we are ready to meet any gentlemen 
 of your camp, man to man, with our swords only, half-way 
 between your leaguer and ours ; and I doubt not that your 
 Lordship will see fair play. Will any gentleman accept so civil 
 an offer? There sits a tall youth in that corner who would 
 suit me very well. Will any fit my gallant comrades with half- 
 an-hour’s punto and stoccado?” 
 
 There was a silence, all looking at the Lord Deputy, whose 
 eyes were kindling in a very ugly way. 
 
 “No answer? Then I must proceed to exhortation. So ! 
 Will that be sufficient ?” 
 
 And walking composedly across the tent, the fearless ruffian 
 quietly stooped down, and smote Amyas Leigh full in the face. 
 
 Up sprang Amyas, heedless of all the august assembly, and 
 with a single buffet felled him to the earth. 
 
 “Excellent!” said he, risiug unabashed. “I can always 
 trust my instinct. I knew the moment I saw him that he was 
 a cavalier worth letting blood. Now, sir, your sword and har- 
 ness, and I am at your service outside !” 
 
 The solemn and sententious Englishmen were altogether taken 
 aback by the Italian’s impudence; but Zoucli settled the matter. 
 
 “ Most noble Captain, will you be pleased to recollect a 
 certain little occurrence at Messina, in the year 1575 ? For if 
 you do not, I do ; and beg to inform this gentleman that you 
 are unworthy of his sword, and had you, unluckily for you, been 
 an Englishman, would have found the fashions of our country 
 so different from your own that you would have been then 
 hanged, sir, and probably may be so still.” 
 
198 HOW AMYAS KEPT [chap. ix. 
 
 The Italian’s sword flashed out in a moment : but Lord 
 Grey interfered. 
 
 “ No fighting here, gentlemen. That may wait ; and, what 
 is more, shall wait till — Strike their swords down, Raleigh, 
 Mackworth ! Strike their swords down ! Colonel Sebastian, 
 you will be pleased to return as you came, in safety, having lost 
 nothing, as (I frankly tell you) you have gained nothing, by your 
 wild bearing here. We shall proceed to deliberate on your 
 fate.” 
 
 “ I trust, my Lord,” said Amyas, “ that you will spare this 
 braggart’s life, at least for a day or two. For in spite of 
 Captain Zouch’s warning, I must have to do with him yet, or 
 my cheek will rise up in judgment against me at the last day.” 
 
 “Well spoken, lad,” said the Colonel as he swung out. 
 “ So ! worth a reprieve, by this sword, to have one more rapier- 
 rattle before the gallows ! Then I take back no further answer, 
 my Lord Deputy ? Not even our swords, our virgin blades, 
 Signor, the soldier’s cherished bride ? Shall we go forth weep- 
 ing widowers, and leave to strange embrace the lovely steel ?” 
 
 “ None, sir, by heaven !” said he, waxing wroth. “ Do 
 you come hither, pirates as you are, to dictate terms upon a 
 foreign soil ? Is it not enough to have set up here the Spanish 
 flag, and claimed the land of Ireland as the Pope’s gift to the 
 Spaniard ; violated the laws of nations, and the solemn treaties 
 of princes, under colour of a mad superstition V’ 
 
 “ Superstition, my Lord ? Nothing less. Believe a philo- 
 sopher who has not said a pater or an ave for seven years past 
 at least. Quod tango credo , is my motto ; and though I am 
 bound to say, under pain of the Inquisition, that the most holy 
 Father the Pope has given this land of Ireland to his most 
 Catholic Majesty the King of Spain, Queen Elizabeth having 
 forfeited her title to it by heresy, — why, my Lord, I believe it 
 as little as you do. I believe that Ireland would have been 
 mine, if I had won it ; I believe religiously that it is not mine, 
 now I have lost it. What is, is, and a fig for priests ; to-day 
 to thee, to-morrow to me. Addio,” — and out he swung. 
 
 “ There goes a most gallant rascal,” said the Lord Deputy. 
 
 “ And a most rascally gallant,” said Zouch, “ The mur- 
 der of his own page, of which I gave him a remembrancer, is 
 among the least of his sins.” 
 
 “And now, Captain Raleigh,” said Lord Grey, “as you 
 have been so earnest in preaching this butchery, I have a right 
 to ask none but you to practise it.” 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 199 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 Raleigh bit his lip, and replied by the “ quip courteous ” — 
 
 “I am at least a man, my Lord, who thinks it shame to 
 allow others to do that which I dare not do myself.” 
 
 Lord Grey might probably have returned “the countercheck 
 quarrelsome,” had not Mackworth risen ; — 
 
 “And I, my Lord, being in that matter at least one of 
 Captain Raleigh’s kidney, will just go with him to see that he 
 takes no harm by being bold enough to carry out an ugly 
 business, and serving these rascals as their countrymen served 
 Mr. Oxenham.” 
 
 “ I bid you good morning, then, gentlemen, though I can- 
 not bid you God speed,” said Lord Grey ; and sitting down 
 again, covered his face with his hands, and, to the astonishment 
 of all bystanders, burst, say the chroniclers, into tears. 
 
 Amyas followed Raleigh out. The latter was pale, but 
 determined, and very wroth against the Deputy. 
 
 “ Does the man take me for a hangman,” said he, “ that 
 he speaks to me thus ? But such is the way of the great. If 
 you neglect your duty, they haul you over the coals ; if you do 
 it, you must do it on your own responsibility. Farewell, 
 Amyas ; you will not shrink from me as a butcher when I 
 return ?” 
 
 “ God forbid ! But how will you do it ? ” 
 
 “ March one company in, and drive them forth, and let the 
 other cut them down as they come out. — Pah !” 
 
 It was done. Right or wrong, it was done. The shrieks 
 and curses had died away, and the Fort del Oro was a red 
 shambles, which the soldiers were trying to cover from the 
 sight of heaven and earth, by dragging the bodies into the 
 ditch, and covering them with the ruins of the rampart ; while 
 the Irish, who had beheld from the woods that awful warning, 
 fled trembling into the deepest recesses of the forest. It was 
 done ; and it never needed to be done again. The hint was 
 severe, but it was sufficient. Many years passed before a 
 Spaniard set foot again in Ireland. 
 
 The Spanish and Italian officers were spared, and Amyas 
 had Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto duly 
 adjudged to him, as his prize by right of war. He was, of 
 course, ready enough to fight Sebastian of Modena : but Lord 
 Grey forbade the duel : blood enough had been shed already. 
 The next question was, where to bestow Don Guzman till his 
 ransom should arrive ; and as Amyas could not well deliver 
 
200 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [cnAP. ix, 
 
 the gallant Don into the safe custody of Mrs. Leigh at Bur- 
 rough, and still less into that of Frank at Court, he was fain 
 to write to Sir Richard Grenvile, and ask his advice, and in 
 the meanwhile keep the Spaniard with him upon parole, which 
 he frankly gave, — saying that as for running away, he had 
 nowhere to run to ; and as for joining the Irish he had no 
 mind to turn pig ; and Amyas found him, as shall be here- 
 after told, pleasant company enough. But one morning Raleigh 
 entered, — 
 
 “ I have done you a good turn, Leigh, if you think it one. 
 I have talked St. Leger into making you my lieutenant, and 
 giving you the custody of a right pleasant hermitage — some 
 castle Shackatory or other in the midst of a big bog, where 
 time will run swift and smooth with you, between hunting 
 wild Irish, snaring snipes, and drinking yourself drunk with 
 usquebaugh over a turf fire.” 
 
 “ I’ll go,” quoth Amyas ; “ anything for work.” So he 
 went and took possession of his lieutenancy and his black 
 robber tower, and there passed the rest of the winter, fighting 
 or hunting all day, and chatting and reading all the evening, 
 with Sehor Don Guzman, who, like a good soldier of fortune, 
 made himself thoroughly at home, and a general favourite with 
 the soldiers. 
 
 At first, indeed, his Spanish pride and stateliness, and 
 Amyas’s English taciturnity, kept the two apart somewhat ; 
 but they soon began, if not to trust, at least to like each other ; 
 and Don Guzman told Amyas, bit by bit, who he was, of what 
 an ancient house, and of what a poor one ; and laughed over 
 the very small chance of his ransom being raised, and the 
 certainty that, at least, it could not come for a couple of years, 
 seeing that the only De Soto who had a penny to spare was a 
 fat old dean at St. Yago de Leon, in the Caraccas, at which 
 place Don Guzman had been born. This of course led to much 
 talk about the West Indies, and the Don was as much inter- 
 ested to find that Amyas had been one of Drake’s world-famous 
 crew, as Amyas was to find that his captive was the grandson 
 of none other than that most terrible of man-hunters, Don Fer- 
 dinando de Soto, the conqueror of Florida, of whom Amyas 
 had read many a time in Las Casas, “ as the captain of tyrants, 
 the notoriousest and most experimented amongst them that 
 have done the most hurts, mischiefs, and destructions in many 
 realms.” And often enough his blood boiled, and he had much 
 ado to recollect that the speaker was his guest, as Don Guzman 
 

Sir Richard Grenvile. 
 

 
 
 
 
chap. IX.] HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 201 
 
 chatted away about his grandfather’s hunts, of innocent women 
 and children, murders of caciques and burnings alive of guides, 
 “pour encourager les autres ,” without, seemingly, the least 
 feeling that the victims were human beings or subjects for 
 human pity ; anything, in short, but heathen dogs, enemies of 
 God, servants of the devil, to be used by the Christian when 
 he needed, and when not needed killed down as cumberers of 
 the ground. But Don Guzman was a most finished gentle- 
 man nevertheless ; and told many a good story of the Indies, 
 and told it well ; and over and above his stories, he had among 
 his baggage two books, — the one Antonio Galvano’s “ Dis- 
 coveries of the World,” a mine of winter evening amusement 
 to Amyas ; and the other, a manuscript book, which, perhaps, 
 it had been well for Amyas had he never seen. For it was 
 none other than a sort of rough journal which Don Guzman 
 had kept as a lad, when he went down with the Adelantado 
 Gonzales Ximenes de Casada, from Peru to the River of 
 Amazons, to look for the golden country of El Dorado, and the 
 city of Manoa, which stands in the midst of the White Lake, 
 and equals or surpasses in glory even the palace of the Inca 
 Huaynacapac ; “all the vessels of whose house and kitchen are 
 of gold and silver, and in his wardrobe statues of gold which 
 seemed giants, and figures in proportion and bigness of all the 
 beasts, birds, trees, and herbs of the earth, and the fishes of 
 the water ; and ropes, budgets, chests, and troughs of gold : 
 yea, and a garden of pleasure in an Island near Puna, where 
 they went to recreate themselves when they would take the air 
 of the sea, which had all kind of garden herbs, flowers, and 
 trees of gold and silver of an invention and magnificence till 
 then never seen.” 
 
 Now the greater part of this treasure (and be it remembered 
 that these wonders were hardly exaggerated, and that there were 
 many men alive then who had beheld them, as they had worse 
 things, “ with their corporal and mortal eyes ”) was hidden by 
 the Indians when Pizarro conquered Peru and slew Atahuallpa, 
 son of Huaynacapac ; at whose death, it was said, one of the 
 Inca’s younger brothers fled out of Peru, and taking with him 
 a great army, vanquished all that tract which lieth between 
 the great Rivers of Amazons and Baraquan, otherwise called 
 Maranon and Orenoque. 
 
 There he sits to this day, beside the golden lake, in the 
 golden city, which is in breadth a three days’ journey, covered, 
 he and his court, with gold dust from head to foot, waiting for 
 
 / 
 
202 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [chap. ix. 
 
 the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy which was written in the 
 temple of Caxamarca, where his ancestors worshipped of old ; 
 that heroes shall come out of the West, and lead him back across 
 the forests to the kingdom of Peru, and restore him to the glory 
 oi his forefathers. 
 
 Golden phantom ! so possible, so probable, to imaginations 
 which were yet reeling before the actual and veritable prodigies 
 of Peru, Mexico, and the East Indies. Golden phantom ! which 
 has cost already the lives of thousands, and shall yet cost more ; 
 from Diego de Ordas, and J uan Corteso, and many another, who 
 went forth on the quest by the Andes, and by the Orinoco, and 
 by the Amazons ; Antonio Sedenno, with his ghastly caravan of 
 manacled Indians, “ on whose dead carcasses the tigers being 
 fleshed, assaulted the Spaniards Augustine Delgado, who 
 “came to a cacique, who entertained him with all kindness, 
 and gave him beside much gold and slaves, three nymphs very 
 beautiful, which bare the names of three provinces, Guanba, 
 Gotoguane, and Maiarare. To requite which manifold cour- 
 tesies, he carried off, not only all the gold, but all the Indians 
 he could seize, and took them in irons to Cubagua, and sold 
 them for slaves ; after which, Delgado was shot in the eye by 
 an Indian, of which hurt he died Pedro d’Orsua, who found 
 the cinnamon forests of Loxas, “ whom his men murdered, and 
 afterwards beheaded Lady Anes his wife, who forsook not her 
 lord in all his travels unto death,” and many another, who has 
 vanished with valiant comrades at his back into the green 
 gulfs of the primaeval forests, never to emerge again. Golden 
 phantom ! man-devouring, whose maw is never satiate with 
 souls of heroes ; fatal to Spain, more fatal still to England upon 
 that shameful day, when the last of Elizabeth’s heroes shall lay 
 down his head upon the block, nominally for having believed 
 what all around him believed likewise till they found it expe- 
 dient to deny it in order to curry favour with the crowned cur 
 who betrayed him, really because he alone dared to make one 
 last protest in behalf of liberty and Protestantism against the 
 incoming night of tyranny and superstition. Little thought 
 Amyas, as he devoured the pages of that manuscript, that he 
 was laying a snare for the life of the man whom, next to Drake 
 and Grenvile, he most admired on earth. 
 
 But Don Guzman, on the other hand, seemed to have an 
 instinct that that book might be a fatal gift to his captor ; for 
 one day ere Amyas had looked into it, he began questioning the 
 Don about El Dorado. Whereon Don Guzman replied with 
 
HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 
 
 203 
 
 CHAP. IX.] 
 
 one of those smiles of his, which (as Amyas said afterwards) 
 was so abominably like a sneer, that he had often hard work 
 to keep his hands off the man — 
 
 “ Ah ! You have been eating of the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge, SehoH Well ; if you have any ambition to follow 
 many another brave captain to the pit, I know no shorter or 
 easier path than is contained in that little book.” 
 
 “I have never opened your book,” said Amyas ; “your private 
 manuscripts are no concern of mine : but my man who recovered 
 your baggage read part of it, knowing no better ; and now you 
 are at liberty to tell me as little as you like.” 
 
 The “ man ” it should be said, was none other than Salva- 
 tion Yeo, who had attached himself by this time inseparably to 
 Amyas, in quality of body-guard : and, as was common enough 
 in those days, had turned soldier for the nonce, and taken under 
 his patronage two or three rusty bases (swivels) and falconets 
 (four-pounders), which grinned harmlessly enough from the 
 tower top across the cheerful expanse of bog. 
 
 Amyas once asked him, how he reconciled this Irish sojourn 
 with his vow to find his little maid ? Yeo shook his head. 
 
 “ I can’t tell, sir, but there’s something that makes me 
 always to think of you when I think of her • and that’s often 
 enough, the Lord knows. Whether it is that I ben’t to find 
 the dear without your help ; or whether it is your pleasant face 
 puts me in mind of hers ; or what, I can’t tell ; but don’t you 
 part me from you, sir, for I’m like Ruth, and where you lodge 
 I lodge ; and where you go I go ; and where you die — though I 
 shall die many a year first — there I’ll die, I hope and trust ; for 
 I can’t abear you out of my sight ; and that’s the truth thereof.” 
 So Yeo remained with Amyas, while Cary went elsewhere 
 with Sir Warham St. Leger, and the two friends met seldom 
 for many months ; so that Amyas’s only companion was Don 
 Guzman, who, as he grew more familiar, and more careless about 
 what he said and did in his captor’s presence, often puzzled and 
 scandalised him by his waywardness. Fits of deep melancholy 
 alternated with bursts of Spanish boastfulness, utterly astonish- 
 ing to the modest and sober-minded Englishman, who would 
 often have fancied him inspired by usquebaugh, had he not had 
 ocular proof of his extreme abstemiousness. 
 
 “ Miserable ?” said he, one night in one of these fits. “ And 
 have I not a right to be miserable ? — Why should I not curse 
 the virgin and all the saints, and die 1 I have not a friend, 
 not a ducat on earth ; not even a sword — hell and the furies J 
 
204 
 
 HOW AMYAS KEPT 
 
 [CHAP. IX. 
 
 It was my all : the only bequest I ever had from my father, 
 and I lived by it and earned by it. Two years ago I had as 
 pretty a sum of gold as cavalier could wish — and now !” — 
 
 “ What is become of it, then 1 I cannot hear that our men 
 plundered you of any.” 
 
 “ Your men 1 No, Senor ! What fifty men dared not 
 have done, one woman did ! a painted, patched, fucused, peri- 
 wigged, bolstered, Charybdis, cannibal, Megsera, Lamia ! Why 
 did I ever go near that cursed Naples, the common sewer of 
 Europe 1 whose women, I believe, would be swallowed up by 
 Vesuvius to-morrow, if it were not that Belphegor is afraid of 
 their making the pit itself too hot to hold him. Well, sir, she 
 had all of mine and more ; and when all was gone in wine and 
 dice, woodcocks’ brains and ortolans’ tongues, I met the witch 
 w r alking with another man. I had a sword and a dagger ; I 
 gave him the first (though the dog fought well enough, to give 
 him his due), and her the second ; left them lying across each 
 other, and fled for my life : — and here I am ! after twenty years 
 of fighting, from the Levant to the Orellana — for I began ere 
 I had a hair on my chin — and this is the end ! — No, it is not ! 
 I’ll have that El Dorado yet ! the Adelantado made Berreo, 
 when he gave him his daughter, swear that he would hunt for 
 it, through life and death. — We’ll see who finds it first, he or 
 I. He’s a bungler ; Orsua was a bungler — Pooh ! Cortes and 
 Pizarro ? we’ll see whether there are not as good Castilians as 
 they left still. I can do it, Senor. I know a track, a plan ; 
 over the Llanos is the road ; and I’ll be Emperor of Manoa yet 
 — possess the jewels of all the Incas ; and gold, gold ! Pizarro 
 was a beggar to what I will be !” 
 
 “ Conceive, sir,” he broke forth during another of these 
 peacock fits, as Amyas and he were riding along the hill-side ; 
 “conceive! with forty chosen cavaliers (what need of more 1 ?) 
 I present myself before the golden king, trembling amid his 
 myriad guards at the new miracle of the mailed centaurs of the 
 West ; and without dismounting, I approach his throne, lift 
 the crucifix which hangs around my neck, and pressing it to 
 my lips, present it for the adoration of the idolater, and give 
 him his alternative; that which Gayferos and the Cid, my 
 ancestors, offered the Soldan and the Moor — baptism or death ! 
 He hesitates ; perhaps smiles scornfully upon my little band ; 
 I answer him by deeds, as Don Ferdinando, my illustrious 
 grandfather, answered Atahuallpa at Peru, in sight of all his 
 court and camp.” 
 
CHAP. IX.] HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. 205 
 
 “ With your lance-point, as Gayferos did the Soldan V' 
 asked Amyas, amused. 
 
 “No, sir • persuasion first, for the salvation of a soul is at 
 stake. Not with the lance-point, hut the spur, sir, thus !” — 
 
 And striking his heels into his horse’s flanks, he darted off 
 at full speed. 
 
 “The Spanish traitor!” shouted Yeo. “He’s going to 
 escape ! Shall we shoot, sir 1 Shall we shoot V } 
 
 “For Heaven’s sake, no!” said Amyas, looking somewhat 
 blank, nevertheless, for he much doubted whether the whole 
 was not a ruse on the part of the Spaniard, and he knew how 
 impossible it was for his fifteen stone of flesh to give chase to 
 the Spaniard’s twelve. But he was soon reassured ; the Spaniard 
 wheeled round towards him, and began to put the rough hackney 
 through all the paces of the manage with a grace and skill which 
 won applause from the beholders. 
 
 “Thus!” he shouted, waving his hand to Amyas, between 
 his curvets and caracoles, “did my illustrious grandfather 
 exhibit to the Paynim emperor the prowess of a Castilian 
 cavalier ! Thus ! — and thus ! — and thus, at last, he dashed up 
 to his very feet, as I to yours, and bespattering that unbaptized 
 visage with his Christian bridlefoam, pulled up his charger on 
 his haunches, thus !” 
 
 And (as was to be expected from a blown Irish garron on 
 a peaty Irish hill-side) down went the hapless hackney on his 
 tail, away went his heels a yard in front of him, and ere Don 
 Guzman could “ avoid his selle,” horse and man rolled over into 
 a neighbouring bog-hole. 
 
 “ After pride comes a fall,” quoth Yeo with unmoved visage 
 as he lugged him out. 
 
 “And what would you do with the Emperor at last?” 
 asked Amyas when the Don had been scrubbed somewhat clean 
 with a bunch of rushes. “ Kill him, as your grandfather did 
 Atahuallpa V* 
 
 “My grandfather,” answered the Spaniard indignantly, 
 “ was one of those who, to their eternal honour, protested to 
 the last against that most cruel and unknightly massacre. He 
 could be terrible to the heathen ; but he kept his plighted word, 
 sir, and taught me to keep mine, as you have seen to-day.” 
 
 “I have, Senor,” said Amyas. “ You might have given us 
 the slip easily enough just now, and did not. Pardon me, if I 
 have offended you.” 
 
 The Spaniard (who, after all, was cross principally with 
 
206 HOW AMYAS KEPT HIS CHRISTMAS DAY. [chap. ix. 
 
 himself and the “ unlucky mare’s son,” as the old romances 
 have it, which had played him so scurvy a trick) was all smiles 
 again forthwith ; and Amyas, as they chatted on, could not 
 help asking him next — 
 
 “ I wonder why you are so frank about your own intentions 
 to an enemy like me, who will surely forestal you if he can.” 
 
 “ Sir, a Spaniard needs no concealment, and fears no rivalry. 
 He is the soldier of the Cross, and in it he conquers, like Con- 
 stantine of old. Not that you English are not very heroes ; 
 but you have not, sir, and you cannot have, who have forsworn 
 our Lady and the choir of saints, the same divine protection, 
 the same celestial mission, which enables the Catholic cavalier 
 single-handed to chase a thousand Paynims.” 
 
 And Don Guzman crossed himself devoutly, and muttered 
 half-a-dozen Ave Marias in succession, while Amyas rode silently 
 by his side, utterly puzzled at this strange compound of shrewd- 
 ness with fanaticism, of perfect high-breeding with a boastful- 
 ness which in an Englishman would have been the sure mark 
 of vulgarity. 
 
 At last came a letter from Sir Richard Grenvile, compli- 
 menting Amyas on his success and promotion, bearing a long 
 and courtly message to Don Guzman (whom Grenvile had 
 known when he was in the Mediterranean, at the battle of 
 Lepanto), and offering to receive him as his own guest at Bide- 
 ford, till his ransom should arrive ; a proposition which the 
 Spaniard (who of course was getting sufficiently tired of the Irish 
 bogs) could not but gladly accept ; and one of Winter’s ships, 
 returning to England in the spring of 1581, delivered duly at 
 the quay of Bideford the body of Don Guzman Maria Magda- 
 lena. Raleigh, after forming for that summer one of the trium- 
 virate by which Munster was governed after Ormond’s departure, 
 at last got his wish and departed for England and the Court ; 
 and Amyas was left alone with the snipes and yellow mantles 
 for two more weary years. 
 
CHAP. X.] HOW MR. SALTERNE BAITED HIS HOOK. 2 Of 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HOW THE MAYOR OF BIDEFORD BAITED HIS HOOK WITH HIS 
 OWN FLESH. 
 
 “ And therewith he blent, and cried ha ! 
 
 As though he had been stricken to the harte.” 
 
 Palamon and Arcite. 
 
 So it befell to Chaucer’s knight in prison ; and so it befell also 
 to Don Guzman ; and it befell on this wise. 
 
 He settled down quietly enough at Bideford on his parole, 
 in better quarters than he had occupied for many a day, and 
 took things as they came, like a true soldier of fortune ; till, 
 after he had been with Grenvile hardly a month, old Salterne 
 the Mayor came to supper. 
 
 Now Don Guzman, however much he might be puzzled at 
 first at our strange English ways of asking burghers and such 
 low-bred folk to eat and drink above the salt, in the company 
 of noble persons, was quite gentleman enough to know that 
 Richard Gr'envile was gentleman enough to do only what was 
 correct, and according to the customs and proprieties. So after 
 shrugging the shoulders of his spirit, he submitted to eat and 
 drink at the same board with a tradesman who sat at a desk, 
 and made up ledgers, and took apprentices ; and hearing him 
 talk with Grenvile neither unwisely nor in a vulgar fashion, 
 actually before the evening was out condescended to exchange 
 words with him himself. Whereon he found him a very pru- 
 dent and courteous person, quite aware of the Spaniard’s superior 
 rank, and making him feel in every sentence that he was aware 
 thereof; and yet holding his own opinion, and asserting his own 
 rights as a wise elder in a fashion which the Spaniard had only 
 seen before among the merchant princes of Genoa and Venice. 
 
 At the end of supper, Salterne asked Grenvile to do his 
 humble roof the honour, etc. etc. , of supping with him the next 
 evening, and then turning to the Don, said quite frankly, 
 that he knew how great a condescension it would be on the 
 part of a nobleman of Spain to sit at the board of a simple 
 merchant : but that if the Spaniard deigned to do him such a 
 favour, he would find that the cheer was fit enough for any 
 rank, whatsoever the company might be ; which invitation Don 
 Guzman, being on the whole glad enough of anything to amuse 
 
208 HOW MR. SALTERNE BAITED HIS HOOK [chap. x. 
 
 him, graciously condescended to accept, and gained thereby an ex- 
 cellent supper, and, if he had chosen to drink it, much good wine. 
 
 Now Mr. Salterne was, of course, as a wise merchant, as 
 ready as any man for an adventure to foreign parts, as was 
 afterwards proved by his great exertions in the settlement of 
 Virginia ; and he was, therefore, equally ready to rack the 
 brains of any guest whom he suspected of knowing anything 
 concerning strange lands ; and so he thought no shame, first to 
 try to loose his guest’s tongue by much good sack, and next to 
 ask him prudent and well- concocted questions concerning the 
 Spanish Main, Peru, the Moluccas, China, the Indies, and all 
 parts. 
 
 The first of which schemes failed ; for the Spaniard was as 
 abstemious as any monk, and drank little but water; the 
 second succeeded not over well, for the Spaniard was as cunning 
 as any fox, and answered little but wind. 
 
 In the midst of which tongue -fence in came the Rose of 
 Torridge, looking as beautiful as usual; and hearing what they 
 were upon, added, artlessly enough, her questions to her father’s: 
 to her Don Guzman could not but answer ; and without reveal- 
 ing any very important commercial secrets, gave his host and 
 his host’s daughter a very amusing evening. 
 
 Now little Eros, though spirits like Frank Leigh’s may 
 choose to call him (as, perhaps, he really is to them) the eldest 
 of the gods, and the son of Jove and Venus, yet is reported by 
 other equally good authorities, as Burton has set forth in his 
 “Anatomy of Melancholy,” to be after all only the child of idle- 
 ness and fulness of bread. To which scandalous calumny the 
 thoughts of Don Guzman’s heart gave at least a certain colour ; 
 for he being idle (as captives needs must be), and also full of 
 bread (for Sir Richard kept a very good table), had already 
 looked round for mere amusement’s sake after some one with 
 whom to fall in love. Lady Grenvile, as nearest, was, I blush 
 to say, thought of first ; but the Spaniard was a man of honour, 
 and Sir Richard his host ; so he put away from his mind (with 
 a self-denial on which he plumed himself much) the pleasure of 
 a chase equally exciting to his pride and his love of danger. 
 As for the sinfulness of the said chase, he of course thought no 
 more of that than other Southern Europeans did then, or than 
 (I blush again to have to say it) the English did afterwards in 
 the days of the Stuarts. Nevertheless, he had put Lady Gren- 
 vile out of his mind ; and so left room to take Rose Salterne 
 into it, not with any distinct purpose of wronging her : but, as 
 
CHAP, x.] WITH HIS OWN FLESH. 209 
 
 I said before, half to amuse himself, and half, too, because he 
 could not help it. For there was an innocent freshness about 
 the Rose of Torridge, fond as she was of being admired, which 
 was new to him and most attractive. “ The train of the pea- 
 cock,” as he said to himself, “ and yet the heart of the dove,” 
 made so charming a combination, that if he could have persuaded 
 her to love no one but him, perhaps he might become fool enough 
 to love no one but her. And at that thought he was seized 
 with a very panic of prudence, and resolved to keep out of her 
 way ; and yet the days ran slowly, and Lady Grenvile when at 
 ome was stupid enough to talk and think about nothing but 
 ner husband ; and when she went to Stow, and left the Don 
 alone in one corner of the great house at Bideford, what could 
 le do but lounge down to the butt-gardens to show off his fine 
 dack cloak and fine black feather, see the shooting, have a 
 game or two of rackets with the youngsters, a game or two of 
 bowls with the elders, and get himself invited home to supper 
 by Mr. Salterne 
 
 And there, of course, he had it all his own way, and 
 ruled the roast (which he was fond enough of doing) right 
 royally, not only on account of his rank, but because he had 
 something to say worth hearing, as a travelled man. For those 
 times were the day-dawn of English commerce; and not a 
 merchant in Bideford, or in all England, but had his imagina- 
 tion all on fire with projects of discoveries, companies, privileges, 
 patents, and settlements; with gallant rivalry of the brave 
 adventures of Sir Edward Osborne and his new London Com- 
 pany of Turkey Merchants ; with the privileges just granted by 
 the Sultan Murad Khan to the English ; with the worthy 
 Levant voyages of Roger Bodenham in the great bark Aucher, 
 and of John Fox, and Lawrence Aldersey, and John Rule ; and 
 with hopes from the vast door for Mediterranean trade, which 
 the crushing of the Venetian power at Famagusta in Cyprus, 
 and the alliance made between Elizabeth and the Grand Turk, 
 had just thrown open. So not a word could fall from the 
 Spaniard about the Mediterranean but took root at once in 
 right fertile soil. Besides, Master Edmund Hogan had been on 
 a successful embassy to the Emperor of Morocco; John Hawkins 
 and George Fenner had been to Guinea (and with the latter 
 Mr. Walter Wren, a Bideford man), and had traded there for 
 musk and civet, gold and grain ; and African news was becom- 
 ing almost as valuable as West Indian. Moreover, but two 
 months before had gone from London Captain Hare in the bark 
 
210 HOW MR. SALTERNE BAITED HIS HOOK [chap, x 
 
 Minion, for Brazil, and a company of adventurers with him, 
 with Sheffield hardware, and “Devonshire and Northern kersies,” 
 hollands and “Manchester cottons,” for there was a great 
 opening for English goods by the help of one John Whithall, 
 who had married a Spanish heiress, and had an ingenio and 
 slaves in Santos. (Don’t smile, reader, or despise the day of 
 small things, and those who sowed the seed whereof you reap 
 the mighty harvest.) In the meanwhile, Drake had proved 
 not merely the possibility of plundering the American coasts, 
 but of establishing an East Indian trade ; Frobisher and Davis, 
 worthy forefathers of our Parrys and Franklins, had begun to 
 bore their way upward through the Northern ice, in search of a 
 passage to China which should avoid the dangers of the Spanish 
 seas ; and Anthony Jenkinson, not the least of English travel- 
 lers, had, in six-and-twenty years of travel in behalf of the 
 Muscovite Company, penetrated into not merely Russia and the 
 Levant, but Persia and Armenia, Bokhara, Tartary, Siberia, 
 and those waste Arctic shores where, thirty years before, the 
 brave Sir Hugh Willoughby, 
 
 “ In Arzina caught, 
 
 Perished with all his crew.” 
 
 Everywhere English commerce, under the genial sunshine of 
 Elizabeth’s wise rule, was spreading and taking root ; and as 
 Don Guzman talked with his new friends, he soon saw (for he 
 was shrewd enough) that they belonged to a race which must 
 be exterminated if Spain intended to become (as she did intend) 
 the mistress of the world; and that it was not enough for 
 Spain to have seized in the Pope’s name the whole new world, 
 and claimed the exclusive right to sail the seas of America ; 
 not enough to have crushed the Hollanders; not enough to 
 have degraded the Venetians into her bankers, and the Genoese 
 into her mercenaries ; not enough to have incorporated into 
 herself, with the kingdom of Portugal, the whole East Indian 
 trade of Portugal, while these fierce islanders remained to 
 assert, with cunning policy and texts of Scripture, and, if they 
 failed, with sharp shot and cold steel, free seas and free trade 
 for all the nations upon earth. He saw it, and his country- 
 men saw it too : and therefore the Spanish Armada came : but 
 of that hereafter. And Don Guzman knew also, by hard 
 experience, that these same islanders, who sat in Salterne’s 
 parlour, talking broad Devon through their noses, were no 
 mere counters of money and hucksters of goods : but men who, 
 though they thoroughly hated fighting, and loved making 
 
CHAP. X.] WITH HIS OWN FLESH. 211 
 
 money instead, could fight, upon occasion, after a very dogged 
 and terrible fashion, as well as the bluest blood in Spain ; and 
 who sent out their merchant ships armed up to the teeth, and 
 filled with men who had been trained from childhood to use 
 those arms, and had orders to use them without mercy if either 
 Spaniard, Portugal, or other created being dared to stop their 
 money-making. And one evening he waxed quite mad, when, 
 after having civilly enough hinted that if Englishmen came 
 where they had no right to come, they might find themselves 
 sent back again, he was answered by a volley of — 
 
 “We’ll see that, sir.” 
 
 “ Depends on who says 1 No right.’” 
 
 “ You found might right,” said another, “ when you claimed 
 the Indian seas ; we may find right might when we try them.” 
 
 “ Try them, then, gentlemen, by all means, if it shall so 
 please your worships ; and find the sacred flag of Spain as in- 
 vincible as ever was the Roman eagle.” 
 
 “We have, sir. Did you ever hear of Francis Drake?” 
 
 “ Or of George Fenner and the Portugals at the Azores, one 
 against seven ? ” 
 
 “Or of John Hawkins, at St., Juan d’Ulloa?” 
 
 “ You are insolent burghers,” said Don Guzman, and rose 
 to go. 
 
 “ Sir,” said old Salterne, “ as you say, we are burghers and 
 plain men, and some of us have forgotten ourselves a little, per- 
 haps ; we must beg you to forgive our want of manners, and to 
 put it down to the strength of my wine ; for insolent we never 
 meant to be, especially to a noble gentleman and a foreigner.” 
 But the Don would not be pacified ; and walked out, calling 
 himself an ass and a blinkard for having demeaned himself to 
 such a company, forgetting that he had brought it on himself. 
 
 Salterne (prompted by the great devil Mammon) came up 
 to him next day, and begged pardon again ; promising, more- 
 over, that none of those who had been so rude should be hence- 
 forth asked to meet him, if he would deign to honour his house 
 once more. And the Don actually was appeased, and went 
 there the very next evening, sneering at himself the whole time 
 for going. 
 
 “ Fool that I am ! that girl has bewitched me, I believe. 
 Go I must, and eat my share of dirt, for her sake.” 
 
 So he went ; and, cunningly enough, hinted to old Salterne 
 that he had taken such a fancy to him, and felt so bound by 
 his courtesy and hospitality, that he might not object to tel 
 
212 HOW MR. SALTERNE BAITED HIS HOOK [CHAP. X. 
 
 him things which he would not mention to every one ; for that 
 the Spaniards were not jealous of single traders, but of any 
 general attempt to deprive them of their hard-earned wealth : 
 that, however, in the meanwhile, there were plenty of oppor- 
 tunities for one man here and there to enrich himself, etc. 
 
 Old Salterne, shrewd as he was, had his weak point, and 
 the Spaniard had touched it ; and delighted at this opportunity 
 of learning the mysteries of the Spanish monopoly, he often 
 actually set Rose on to draw out the Don, without a fear (so 
 blind does money make men) lest she might be herself drawn 
 in. For, first, he held it as impossible that she would think of 
 marrying a Popish Spaniard as of marrying the man in the 
 moon ; and, next, as impossible that he would think of marry- 
 ing a burgher’s daughter as of marrying a negress ; and trusted 
 that the religion of the one, and the family pride of the other, 
 would keep them as separate as beings of two different species. 
 And as for love without marriage, if such a possibility ever 
 crossed him, the thought was rendered absurd ; on Rose’s part 
 by her virtue, on which the old man (and rightly) would have 
 staked every farthing he had on earth ; and on the Don’s part, 
 by a certain human fondness for the continuity of the carotid 
 artery and the parts adjoining, for which (and that not alto- 
 gether justly, seeing that Don Guzman cared as little for his 
 own life as he did for his neighbour’s) Mr. Salterne gave him 
 credit. And so it came to pass, that for weeks and months 
 the merchant’s house was the Don’s favourite haunt, and he saw 
 the Rose of Torridge daily, and the Rose of Torridge heard him. 
 
 And as for her, poor child, she had never seen such a man. 
 He had, or seemed to have, all the high-bred grace of Frank, 
 and yet he was cast in a manlier mould ; he had just enough of 
 his nation’s proud self-assertion to make a woman bow before 
 him as before a superior, and yet tact enough to let it very 
 seldom degenerate into that boastfulness of which the Spaniards 
 were then so often and so justly accused. He had marvels to 
 tell by flood and field as many and more than Amyas ; and he 
 told them with a grace and an eloquence of which modest, 
 simple, old Amyas possessed nothing. Besides, he was on the 
 spot, and the Leighs were not, nor indeed were any of her old 
 lovers ; and what could she do but amuse herself with the only 
 person who came to hand 1 
 
 So thought, in time, more ladies than she ; for the country, 
 the north of it at least, was all but bare just then of young 
 gallants, what with the Netherland wars and the Irish wars; 
 
CHAP. X.] WITH HIS OWN FLESH. 213 
 
 and the Spaniard became soon welcome at every house for many 
 a mile round, and made use of his welcome so freely, and re- 
 ceived so much unwonted attention from fair young dames, that 
 his head might have been a little turned, and Rose Salterne 
 have thereby escaped, had not Sir Richard delicately given 
 him to understand that in spite of the free and easy manners of 
 English ladies, brothers were just as jealous, and ladies’ honours 
 at least as inexpugnable, as in the land of demureness and 
 Duennas. Don Guzman took the hint well enough, and kept 
 on good terms with the country gentlemen as with their 
 daughters ; and to tell the truth, the cunning soldier of fortune 
 found his account in being intimate with all the ladies he could, 
 in order to prevent old Salterne from fancying that he had any 
 peculiar predilection for Mistress Rose. 
 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Salterne’s parlour being nearest to him, 
 still remained his most common haunt ; where, while he dis- 
 coursed for hours about 
 
 “ Antres vast and deserts idle, 
 
 And of the cannibals that each other eat, 
 
 Of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 
 Do grow beneath their shoulders,” 
 
 to the boundless satisfaction of poor Rose’s fancy, he took care 
 to season his discourse with scraps of mercantile information, 
 which kept the old merchant always expectant and hankering 
 for more, and made it worth his while to ask the Spaniard in 
 again and again. 
 
 And his stories, certainly, were worth hearing. He seemed 
 to have been everywhere, and to have seen everything : born in 
 Peru, and sent home to Spain at ten years old ; brought up in 
 Italy ; a soldier in the Levant ; an adventurer to the- East 
 Indies; again in America, first in the islands, and then in 
 Mexico. Then back again to Spain, and thence to Rome, and 
 thence to Ireland. Shipwrecked ; captive among savages ; 
 looking down the craters of volcanoes ; hanging about all the 
 courts of Europe ; fighting Turks, Indians, lions, elephants, 
 alligators, and what not 1 ? At five -and -thirty he had seen 
 enough for three lives, and knew how to make the best of what 
 he had seen. 
 
 He had shared, as a lad, in the horrors of the memorable 
 siege of Famagusta, and had escaped, he hardly knew himself 
 how, from the hands of the victorious Turks, and from the 
 certainty (if he escaped being flayed alive or impaled, as most 
 of the captive officers were) of ending his life as a Janissary at 
 
214 HOW MR. SALTERNE BAITED HIS HOOK [chap. X. 
 
 the Sultan’s court. He had been at the Battle of the Three ' 
 Kings ; had seen Stukely borne down by a hundred lances, un- 
 conquered even in death ; and had held upon his knee the head 
 of the dying King of Portugal. 
 
 And now, as he said to Rose one evening, what had he left 
 on earth, but a heart trampled as hard as the pavement 1 
 Whom had he to love 1 Who loved him ? He had nothing for 
 which to live but fame : and even that was denied to him, a 
 prisoner in a foreign land. 
 
 “ Had he no kindred, then ?” asked pitying Rose. 
 
 “My two sisters are in a convent ; — they had neither money 
 nor beauty ; so they are dead to me. My brother is a Jesuit, 
 so he is dead to me. My father fell by the hands of Indians 
 in Mexico; my mother, a penniless widow, is companion, duenna 
 — whatsoever they may choose to call it — carrying fans and lap- 
 dogs for some princess or other there in Seville, of no better 
 blood than herself ; and I — devil ! I have lost even my sword 
 — and so fares the house of De Soto.” 
 
 Hon Guzman, of course, intended to be pitied, and pitied 
 he was accordingly. And then he would turn the conversation, 
 and begin telling Italian stories, after the Italian fashion, 
 according to his auditory : the pathetic ones when Rose was 
 present, the racy ones when she was absent ; so that Rose had 
 wept over the sorrows of Juliet and Hesdemona, and over many 
 another moving tale, long before they were ever enacted on an 
 English stage, and the ribs of the Bideford worthies had shaken 
 to many a jest which Cinthio and Bandello’s ghosts must come 
 and make for themselves over again if they wish them to be re- 
 membered, for I shall lend them no shove toward immortality. 
 
 And so on, and so on. What need of more words 1 Before 
 a year was out, Rose Salterne was far more in love with Hon 
 Guzman than he with her; and both suspected each other’s 
 mind, though neither hinted at the truth ; she from fear, and 
 he, to tell the truth, from sheer Spanish pride of blood. For 
 he soon began to find out that he must compromise that blood 
 by marrying the heretic burgher’s daughter, or all his labour 
 would be thrown away. 
 
 He had seen with much astonishment, and then practised 
 with much pleasure, that graceful old English fashion of salut- 
 ing every lady on the cheek at meeting, which (like the old 
 Hutch fashion of asking young ladies out to feasts without their 
 mothers) used to give such cause of brutal calumny and scandal 
 to the coarse minds of Romish visitors from the Continent ; and 
 
WITH HIS OWN FLESH. 
 
 215 
 
 CHAP. X.] 
 
 he had seen, too, fuming with jealous rage, more than one Bide- 
 ford burgher, redolent of onions, profane in that way the velvet 
 cheek of Rose Salterne. 
 
 So, one day, he offered his salute in like wise ; but he did 
 it when she was alone ; for something within (perhaps a guilty 
 conscience) whispered that it might be hardly politic to make 
 the proffer in her father’s presence : however, to his astonish- 
 ment, he received a prompt though quiet rebuff. 
 
 “ No, sir; you should know that my cheek is not for you.” 
 “ Why,” said he, stifling his anger, “ it seems free enough to 
 every counter-jumper in the town !” 
 
 Was it love, or simple innocence, which made her answer 
 apologetically ? 
 
 “ True, Don Guzman ; but they are my equals.” 
 
 “And I?” 
 
 “You are a nobleman, sir ; and should recollect that you 
 are one.” 
 
 “Well,” said he, forcing a sneer, “it is a strange taste to 
 prefer the shopkeeper ! ” 
 
 “Prefer 1 ?” said she, forcing a laugh in her turn; “it is a 
 mere form among us. They are nothing to me, I can tell you.” 
 “And I, then, less than nothing V’ 
 
 Rose turned very red ; but she had nerve to answer — 
 “And why should you be anything to me 1 ? You have con- 
 descended too much, sir, already to us, in giving us many a — 
 many a pleasant evening. You must condescend no further. 
 You wrong yourself, sir, and me too. No, sir; not a step nearer! 
 
 - — I will not ! A salute between equals means nothing : but 
 between you and me — I vow, sir, if you do not leave me this 
 moment, I will complain to my father.” 
 
 “Do so, madam ! I care as little for your father’s anger, as 
 you for my misery.” 
 
 “Cruel !” cried Rose, trembling from head to foot. 
 
 “I love you, madam!” cried he, throwing himself at her 
 feet. “ I adore you ! Never mention differences of rank to me 
 more ; for I have forgotten them ; forgotten all but love, all but 
 you, madam ! My light, my lodestar, my princess, my goddess ! 
 You see where my pride is gone ; remember I plead as a sup- 
 pliant, a beggar — though one who may be one day a prince, a 
 king ! ay, and a prince now, a very Lucifer of pride to all ex- 
 cept to you; to you a wretch who grovels at your feet, and cries, 
 
 ‘ Have mercy on me, on my loneliness, my homelessness, my 
 friendlessness.’ Ah, Rose (madam I should have said, forgive 
 
216 HOW MR. SALTERNE BAITED HIS HOOK. [ciiAP. X. 
 
 the madness of my passion), you know not the heart which you 
 break. Cold Northerns, you little dream how a Spaniard can 
 love. Love 1 ? Worship, rather; as I worship you, madam; as 
 I bless the captivity which brought me the sight of you, and 
 the ruin which first made me rich. Is it possible, Saints and 
 Virgin ! do my own tears deceive my eyes, or are there tears, 
 too, in those radiant orbs ?” 
 
 “ Go, sir !” cried poor Rose, recovering herself suddenly ; 
 “ and let me never see you more.” And, as a last chance for 
 life, she darted out of the room. 
 
 “Your slave obeys you, madam, and kisses your hands and 
 feet for ever and a day,” said the cunning Spaniard, and draw- 
 ing himself up, walked serenely out of the house ; while she, 
 poor fool, peeped after him out of her window upstairs, and her 
 heart sank within her as she watched his jaunty and careless 
 air. 
 
 How much of that rhapsody of his was honest, how much 
 premeditated, I cannot tell : though she, poor child, began to 
 fancy that it was all a set speech, when she found that he had 
 really taken her at her word, and set foot no more within her 
 father’s hou^e. So she reproached herself for the crudest of 
 women ; settled, that if he died, she should be his murderess ; 
 watched for him to pass at the window, in hopes that he might 
 look up, and then hid herself in terror the moment he appeared 
 round the corner ; and so forth, and so forth : — one love-making 
 is very like another, and has been so, I suppose, since that first 
 blessed marriage in Paradise, when Adam and Eve made no 
 love at all, but found it ready-made for them from heaven ; and 
 really it is fiddling while Rome is burning, to spend more pages 
 over the sorrows of poor little Rose Salterne, while the destinies 
 of Europe are hanging on the marriage between Elizabeth and 
 Anjou : and Sir Humphrey Gilbert is stirring heaven and earth, 
 and Devonshire, of course, as the most important portion of the 
 said earth, to carry out his dormant patent, which will give to 
 England in due time (we are not jesting now) Newfoundland, 
 Nova Scotia, and Canada, and the Northern States; and to 
 Humphrey Gilbert himself something better than a new world, 
 namely another world, and a crown of glory therein which never 
 fades away. 
 
CHAP. XI.] HOW EUSTACE LEIGH MET THE POPE’S LEGATE 217 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH MET THE POPE’S LEGATE. 
 
 “ Misguided, rash, intruding fool, farewell ! 
 
 Thou see’st to be too tmsy is some danger.” 
 
 Hamlet. 
 
 It is the spring of 1582-3. The grey March skies are curdling 
 hard and high above black mountain peaks. The keen March 
 wind is sweeping harsh and dry across a dreary sheet of bog, 
 still red and yellow with the stains of winter frost. One brown 
 knoll alone breaks the waste, and on it a few leafless wind-clipt 
 oaks stretch their moss-grown arms, like giant hairy spiders, 
 above a desolate pool which crisps and shivers in the biting 
 breeze, while from beside its brink rises a mournful cry, and 
 sweeps down, faint and fitful, amid the howding of the wind. 
 
 Along the brink of the bog, picking their road among 
 crumbling rocks and green spongy springs, a company of 
 English soldiers are pushing fast, clad cap-a-pid in helmet and 
 quilted jerkin, with arquebus on shoulder, and pikes trailing 
 behind them ; stern steadfast men, who, two years since, were 
 working the guns at Smerwick fort, and have since then seen 
 many a bloody fray, and shall see more before they die. Two 
 captains ride before them on shaggy ponies, the taller in armour, 
 stained and rusted with many a storm and fray, the other in 
 brilliant inlaid cuirass and helmet, gaudy sash and plume, and 
 sw T ord hilt glittering with gold, a quaint contrast enough to the 
 meagre garron which carries him and his finery. Beside them, 
 secured by a cord which a pikeman has fastened to his own 
 wrist, trots a bare-legged Irish kerne, whose only clothing is his 
 ragged yellow mantle, and the unkempt “ glib 55 of hair, through 
 which his eyes peer out, right and left, in mingled fear and 
 sullenness. He is the guide of the company, in their hunt after 
 the rebel Baltinglas ; and woe to him if he play them false. 
 
 “ A pleasant country, truly, Captain Raleigh,” says the 
 dingy officer to the gay one. “I wonder how, having once 
 escaped from it to Whitehall, you have the courage to come 
 back and spoil that gay suit with bog-water and mud.” 
 
 “A very pleasant country, my friend Amy as; what you 
 say in jest, I say in earnest.” 
 
 “ Hillo ! Our tastes have changed places. I am sick of it 
 
218 
 
 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH 
 
 [CHAP. xi. 
 
 already, as you foretold. Would Heaven that I could hear of 
 some adventure Westward-ho ! and find these big bones swing- 
 ing in a hammock once more. Pray what has made you so 
 suddenly in love with bog and rock, that you come back to 
 tramp them with us ? I thought you had spied out the naked- 
 ness of the land long ago.’’ 
 
 “ Bog and rock ? Nakedness of the land ? What is needed 
 here but prudence and skill, justice and law ? This soil, see, is 
 fat enough, if men were here to till it. These rocks — who 
 knows what minerals they may hold 1 ? I hear of gold and 
 jewels found already in divers parts ; and Daniel, my brother 
 Humphrey’s German assayer, assures me that these rocks are 
 of the very same kind as those which yield the silver in Peru. 
 Tut, man ! if her gracious Majesty would but bestow on me 
 some few square miles of this same wilderness, in seven years’ 
 time I would make it blossom like the rose, by God’s good help.” 
 “ Humph ! I should be more inclined to stay here, then.” 
 
 “ So you shall, and be my agent, if you will, to get in my 
 mine- rents and my corn-rents, and my fishery -rents, eh 1 Could 
 you keep accounts, old knight of the bear’s-paw V’ 
 
 “ Well enough for such short reckonings as yours would be, 
 on the profit side at least. No, no — I’d sooner carry lime all 
 my days from Cauldy to Bideford, than pass another twelve- 
 month in the land of Ire, among the children of wrath. There 
 is a curse upon the face of the earth, I believe.” 
 
 “ There is no curse upon it, save the old one of man’s sin — 
 ‘ Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to thee.’ But if you 
 root up the thorns and thistles, Amyas, I know no fiend who 
 can prevent your growing wheat instead ; and if you till the 
 ground like a man, you plough and harrow away nature’s curse, 
 and other fables of the schoolmen beside,” added he, in that 
 daring fashion which afterwards obtained for him (and never 
 did good Christian less deserve it) the imputation of Atheism. 
 
 “ It is sword and bullet, I think, that are needed here, before 
 plough and harrow, to clear away some of the curse. Until a 
 few more of these Irish lords are gone where the Desmonds are, 
 there is no peace for Ireland.” 
 
 “ Humph ! not so far wrong, I fear. And yet — Irish 
 lords 1 These very traitors are better English blood than we 
 who hunt them down. When Yeo here slew the Desmond the 
 other day, he no more let out a drop of Irish blood, than if he 
 had slain the Lord Deputy himself.” 
 
 “ His blood be on his own head,” said Yeo. “ He looked 
 
MET THE POPE’S LEGATE. 
 
 219 
 
 CHAP. XI.] 
 
 as wild a savage as the worst of them, more shame to him ; 
 and the Ancient here had nigh cut off his arm before he told 
 us who he was : and then, your worship, having a price upon 
 his head, and like to bleed to death too ” 
 
 “ Enough, enough, good fellow,” said Raleigh. “ Thou hast 
 done what was given thee to do. Strange, Amyas, is it not ? 
 Noble Normans sunk into savages — Hibernis ipsis hiberniores ! 
 Is there some uncivilising venom in the air ?” 
 
 “ Some venom, at least, which makes Englishmen traitors. 
 But the Irish themselves are well enough, if their tyrants would 
 let them be. See now, what more faithful liegeman has her 
 Majesty than the Inchiquin, who, they say, is Prince of 
 Themond, and should be king of all Ireland, if every man had 
 his right ?” 
 
 “Don’t talk of rights in the land of wrongs, man. But 
 the Inchiquin knows well that the true Irish Esau has no 
 worse enemy than his supplanter, the Norman Jacob. And 
 yet, Amyas, are even these men worse than we might be, if we 
 had been bred up masters over the bodies and souls of men, in 
 some remote land where law and older had never come 1 ? Look 
 at this Desmond, brought up a savage among savages, a Papist 
 among Papists, a despot among slaves ; a thousand easy maidens 
 deeming it honour to serve his pleasure, a thousand wild ruffians 
 deeming it piety to fulfil his revenge : and let him that is with- 
 out sin among us cast the first stone.” 
 
 “Ay,” went on Raleigh to himself, as the conversation 
 dropped. “ What hadst thou been, Raleigh, hadst thou been 
 that Desmond whose lands thou now desirest ? What wilt 
 thou be when thou hast them ? Will thy children sink down- 
 wards, as these noble barons sank ? Will the genius of tyranny 
 and falsehood find soil within thy heart to grow and ripen fruit ? 
 What guarantee hast thou for doing better here than those who 
 went before thee ? And yet : cannot I do justice, and love 
 mercy? Can I not establish plantations, build and sow, and 
 make the desert valleys laugh with corn? Shall I not have 
 my Spenser with me, to fill me with all noble thoughts, and 
 raise my soul to his heroic pitch ? Is not this true knight- 
 errantry, to redeem to peace and use, and to the glory of that 
 glorious Queen whom God has given to me, a generous soil and 
 a more generous race? Trustful and tender-hearted they are — 
 none more ; and if they be fickle and passionate, will not that 
 very softness of temper, which makes them so easily led to evil, 
 make them as easy to be led towards good ? Yes — here, away 
 
220 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH [chap. xi. 
 
 from courts, among a people who should bless me as their bene- 
 factor and deliverer — what golden days might be mine ! And 
 yet — is this but another angel’s mask from that same cunning 
 fiend Ambition’s stage ? And will my house be indeed the house 
 of God, the foundations of which are loyalty, and its bulwarks 
 righteousness, and not the house of Fame, whose walls are of 
 the soap-bubble, and its floor a sea of glass mingled with fire ? 
 I would be good and great — When will the day come when I 
 shall be content to be good, and yet not great, like this same 
 simple Leigh, toiling on by my side to do his duty, with no more 
 thought for the morrow than the birds of God 'l Greatness 1 I 
 have tasted that cup within the last twelve months ; do I not 
 know that it is, sweet in the mouth, but bitter in the belly 1 
 Greatness? And was not Essex great, and John of Austria 
 great, and Desmond great, whose race, but three short years 
 ago, had stood for ages higher than I shall ever hope to climb 
 — castles, and lands, and slaves by thousands, and five hundred 
 gentlemen of his name, who had vowed to forswear God before 
 they forswore him ; and well have they kept their vow ! And 
 now, dead in a turf-hovel, like a coney in a burrow ! Leigh, 
 what noise was that ?” 
 
 “An Irish howl, I fancied : but it came from off the bog; 
 it may be only a plover’s cry.” 
 
 “ Something not quite right, Sir Captain, to my mind,” said 
 the Ancient. “ They have ugly stories here of pucks and ban- 
 shees, and what not of ghosts. There it was again, wailing 
 just like a woman. They say the banshee cried all night before 
 Desmond was slain.” 
 
 “ Perhaps, then, this one may be crying for Baltinglas ; for 
 his turn is likely to come next — not that I believe in such old 
 wives’ tales.” 
 
 “ Shamus, my man,” said Amyas to the guide, “ do you 
 hear that cry in the bog 1” 
 
 The guide put on the most stolid of faces, and answered in 
 broken English : 
 
 “ Shamus hear nought. Perhaps — what you call him ? — - 
 fishing in ta pool.” 
 
 “ An otter, he means, and I believe he is right. Stay, 
 no ! Did you not hear it then, Shamus ? It was a woman’s 
 voice.” 
 
 “ Shamus is shick in his ears ever since Christmas.” 
 
 “ Shamus will go after Desmond if he lies,” said Amyas. 
 “ Ancient, we had better send a few men to see what it is ; 
 
CHAP. XI.] MET THE POPE^'S LEGATE. 221 
 
 there may be a poor soul taken by robbers, or perhaps starving 
 to death, as I have seen many a one.” 
 
 “ And I too, poor wretches ; and by no fault of their own 
 or ours either : but if their lords will fall to quarrelling, and 
 then drive each other’s cattle, and waste each other’s lands, 
 sir, you know ” 
 
 “I know,” said Amyas impatiently; “why dost not take 
 the men, and go ?” 
 
 “ Cry you mercy, noble Captain : but — I fear nothing born 
 of woman.” 
 
 “ Well, what of that V’ said Amyas, with a smile. 
 
 “ But these pucks, sir. The wild Irish do say that they 
 haunt the pools ; and they do no manner of harm, sir, when 
 you are coming up to them ; but when you are past, sir, they 
 jump on your back like to apes, sir, — and who can tackle that 
 manner of fiend ?” 
 
 “ Why, then, by thine own showing, Ancient,” said Raleigh, 
 “ thou may’st go and see all safely enough, and then if the 
 puck jumps on thee as thou comest back, just run in with him 
 here, and I’ll buy him of thee for a noble ; or thou may’st keep 
 him in a cage, and make money in London by showing him for 
 a monster.” 
 
 “ Good heavens forefend, Captain Raleigh ! but you talk 
 rashly ! But if I must, Captain Leigh — 
 
 ‘ Where duty calls 
 To brazen walls, 
 
 How base the slave who flinches.’ 
 
 Lads, who’ll follow me 1 ?” 
 
 “ Thou askest for volunteers, as if thou wert to lead a for- 
 lorn hope. Pull away at the usquebaugh, man, and swallow 
 Dutch courage, since thine English is oozed away. Stay, I’ll 
 go myself.” 
 
 “ And I with you,” said Raleigh. “ As the queen’s true 
 knight-errant, I am bound to be behindhand in no adventure. 
 Who knows but we may find a wicked magician, just going to 
 cut off the head of some saffron -mantled princess?” and he 
 dismounted. 
 
 “ Oh, sirs, sirs, to endanger your precious ” 
 
 “ Pooh,” said Raleigh. “ I wear an amulet, and have a 
 spell of art-magic at my tongue’s end, whereby, Sir Ancient, 
 neither can a ghost see me, nor I see them. Come with us, 
 Yeo, the Desmond -slayer, and we will shame the devil, or be 
 shamed by him.” 
 
222 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH [chap. XL 
 
 “ He may shame me, sir, but he will never frighten me,” 
 quoth Yeo ; “ but the bog, Captains ?” 
 
 “ Tut ! Devonshire men, and heath-trotters born, and not 
 know our way over a peat moor !” 
 
 And the three strode away. 
 
 They splashed and scrambled for some quarter of a mile to 
 the knoll, while the cry became louder and louder as they 
 neared. 
 
 “ That’s neither ghost nor otter, sirs, but a true Irish howl, 
 as Captain Leigh said ; and I’ll warrant Master Shamus knew 
 as much long ago,” said Yeo. 
 
 And in fact, they could now hear plainly the “ Ochone, 
 Ochonorie,” of some wild woman ; and scrambling over the 
 boulders of the knoll, in another minute came full upon her. 
 
 She was a young girl, sluttish and unkempt, of course, but 
 fair enough : her only covering, as usual, was the ample yellow 
 mantle. There she sat upon a stone, tearing her black dis- 
 hevelled hair, and every now and then throwing up her head, 
 and bursting into a long mournful cry, “ for all the world,” as 
 Yeo said, “ like a dumb four-footed hound, and not a Christian 
 soul.” 
 
 On her knees lay the head of a man of middle age, in the 
 long soutane of a Romish priest. One look at the attitude of 
 his limbs told them that he was dead. 
 
 The two paused in awe ; and Raleigh’s spirit, susceptible 
 of all poetical images, felt keenly that strange scene, — the 
 bleak and bitter sky, the shapeless bog, the stunted trees, the 
 savage girl alone with the corpse in that utter desolation. 
 And as she bent her head over the still face, and called wildly 
 to him who heard her not, and then, utterly unmindful of the 
 intruders, sent up again that dreary wail into the dreary air, 
 they felt a sacred horror, which almost made them turn away, 
 and leave her unquestioned : but Yeo, whose nerves were of 
 tougher fibre, asked quietly — 
 
 “ Shall I go and search the fellow, Captain'?” 
 
 “ Better, I think,” said Amy as. 
 
 Raleigh went gently to the girl, and spoke to her in 
 English. She looked up at him, his armour and his plume, 
 with wide and wondering eyes, and then shook her head, and 
 returned to her lamentation. 
 
 Raleigh gently laid his hand on her arm, and lifted her up 
 while Yeo and Amyas bent over the corpse. 
 
 It was the body of a large and coarse-featured man : but 
 

Sir Walter Raleigh . 
 
E2H 
 
CHAP. XI.] MET THE POPE’S LEGATE. 223 
 
 wasted and shrunk as if by famine to a very skeleton. The 
 hands and legs were cramped up, and the trunk bowed 
 together, as if the man had died of cold or famine. Yeo drew 
 back the clothes from the thin bosom, while the girl screamed 
 and wept, but made no effort to stop him. 
 
 “Ask her who it is] Yeo, you know a little Irish,” said 
 Amyas. 
 
 He asked, but the girl made no answer. “ The stubborn 
 jade won’t tell, of course, sir. If she were but a man, I’d 
 make her soon enough.” 
 
 “ Ask her who killed him ?” 
 
 “No one, she says ; and I believe she says true, for I can 
 find no wound. The man has been starved, sirs, as I am a sin- 
 ful man. God help him, though he is a priest ; and yet he 
 seems full enough down below. What’s here ? A big pouch, 
 sirs, stuffed full of somewhat.” 
 
 “ Hand it hither.” 
 
 The two opened the pouch ; papers, papers, but no scrap of 
 food. Then a parchment. They unrolled it. 
 
 “ Latin,” said Amyas ; “you must construe, Don Scholar.” 
 
 “ Is it possible V’ said Raleigh, after reading a moment. 
 “ This is indeed a prize ! This is Saunders himself]” 
 
 Yeo sprang up from the body as if he had touched an adder. 
 “ Nick Saunders, the Legacy, sir ]” 
 
 “ Nicholas Saunders, the Legate.” 
 
 “ The villain ! why did not he wait for me to have the com- 
 fort of killing him ? Dog !” and he kicked the corpse with his 
 foot. 
 
 “ Quiet ! quiet ! Remember the poor girl,” said Amyas, as 
 she shrieked at the profanation, while Raleigh went on, half to 
 himself. “Yes, this is Saunders. Misguided fool, and this is 
 the end ! To this thou hast come with thy plotting and thy 
 conspiring, thy lying and thy boasting, consecrated banners and 
 Pope’s bulls, Agnus Deis and holy waters, the blessing of all 
 saints and angels, and thy Lady of the Immaculate Conception ! 
 Thou hast called on the Heavens to judge between thee and us, 
 and here is their answer ! What is that in his hand, Amyas ? 
 Give it me. A pastoral epistle to the Earl of Ormond, and all 
 nobles of the realm of Ireland ; ‘ To all who groan beneath the 
 loathsome tyranny of an illegitimate adulteress, etc., Nicholas 
 Saunders, by the grace of God, Legate, etc.’ Bah ! and this 
 forsooth was thy last meditation ! Incorrigible pedant ! Yictrix 
 causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni !” 
 
224 
 
 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH 
 
 [OHAP. XI. 
 
 He ran his eye through various other documents, written in 
 the usual strain : full of huge promises from the Pope and the 
 King of Spain ; frantic and filthy slanders against Elizabeth, 
 Burghley, Leicester, Essex (the elder), Sidney, and every great 
 and good man (never mind of which party) who then upheld 
 the commonweal ; bombastic attempts to terrify weak con- 
 sciences, by denouncing endless fire against those who opposed 
 the true faith ; fulsome ascriptions of martyrdom and sanctity 
 to every rebel and traitor who had been hanged for the last 
 twenty years ; wearisome arguments about the bull In Coena 
 Domini, Elizabeth’s excommunication the nullity of English 
 law, the sacred duty of rebellion, the right to kill a prince 
 impenitently heretical, and the like insanities and villanies, 
 which may be read at large in Camden, the Phoenix Britannicus, 
 Fox’s Martyrs, or, surest of all, in the writings of the’ worthies 
 themselves. 
 
 With a gesture of disgust, Raleigh crammed the foul stuff 
 back again into the pouch. Taking it with them, they walked 
 back to the company, and then remounting, marched away once 
 more towards the lands of the Desmonds ; and the girl was 
 left alone with the dead. 
 
 An hour had passed, when another Englishman was stand- 
 ing by the wailing girl, and round him a dozen shockheaded 
 kernes, skene on thigh and javelin in hand, were tossing about 
 their tawny rags, and adding their lamentations to those of the 
 lonely watcher. 
 
 The Englishman was Eustace Leigh ; a layman still, but 
 still at his old work. By two years of intrigue and labour 
 from one end of Ireland to the other, he had been trying to 
 satisfy his conscience for rejecting “the higher calling” of the 
 celibate ; for mad hopes still lurked within that fiery heart. 
 His brow was wrinkled now ; his features harshened ; the scar 
 upon his face, and the slight distortion which accompanied it, 
 was hidden by a bushy beard from all but himself ; and he 
 never forgot it for a day, nor forgot who had given it to him. 
 
 He had been with Desmond, wandering in moor and moss 
 for many a month in danger of his life ; and now he was on his 
 way to James Fitz-Eustace, Lord Baltinglas, to bring him the 
 news of Desmond’s death ; and with him a remnant of the 
 clan, who were either too stouthearted, or too desperately 
 stained with crime, to seek peace from the English, and, as 
 their fellows did, find it at once and freely. 
 
 There Eustace stood, looking down on all that was left of 
 
chap, xi.] met the pope’s legate. 225 
 
 the most sacred personage of Ireland ; the man who, as he once 
 had hoped, was to regenerate his native land, and bring the 
 proud island of the West once more beneath that gentle yoke, 
 in which united Christendom laboured for the commonweal of 
 the universal Church. There he was, and with him all Eustace’s 
 dreams, in the very heart of that country which he had vowed, 
 and believed as he vowed, was ready to rise in arms as one 
 man, even to the baby at the breast (so he had said), in ven- 
 geance against the Saxon heretic, and sweep the hated name of 
 Englishman into the deepest abysses of the surge which walled 
 her coasts; with Spain and the Pope to back him, and the 
 wealth of the Jesuits at his command ; in the midst of faithful 
 Catholics, valiant soldiers, nohlemen who had pledged them- 
 selves to die for the cause, serfs who worshipped him as a 
 demigod — starved to death in a bog ! It was a pretty plain 
 verdict on the reasonableness of his expectations ; but not to 
 Eustace Leigh. 
 
 It was a failure, of course ; but it was an accident ; indeed, 
 to have been expected, in a wicked world whose prince and 
 master, as all knew, was the devil himself ; indeed, proof of 
 the righteousness of the cause — for when had the true faith 
 been other than persecuted and trampled under foot ? If one 
 came to think of it with eyes purified from the tears of carnal 
 impatience, what was it but a glorious martyrdom ? 
 
 “Blest Saunders I” murmured Eustace Leigh; “let me die 
 the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like this ! 
 Ora pro me, most excellent martyr, while I dig thy grave upon 
 this lonely moor, to wait there for thy translation to one of 
 those stately shrines, which, cemented by the blood of such as 
 thee, shall hereafter rise restored toward heaven, to make this 
 land once more ‘ The Isle of Saints.’” 
 
 The corpse was buried ; a few prayers said hastily ; and 
 Eustace Leigh was away again, not now to find Baltinglas ; for 
 it was more than his life was worth. The girl had told him of 
 the English soldiers who had passed, and he knew that they 
 would reach the earl probably before he did. The game was 
 up ; all was lost. So he retraced his steps, as a desperate 
 resource, to the last place where he would be looked for : and 
 after a month of disguising, hiding, and other expedients, found 
 himself again in his native county of Devon, while Fitz-Eustace 
 Viscount Baltinglas had taken ship for Spain, having got little 
 by his famous argument to Ormond in behalf of his joining the 
 Church of Rome, “ Had not thine ancestor, blessed Thomas of 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH 
 
 [chap. xi. 
 
 Canterbury, died for the Church of Rome, thou hadst never been 
 Earl of Ormond.” The premises were certainly sounder than 
 those of his party were wont to be ; for it was to expiate the 
 murder of that turbulent hero that the Ormond lands had 
 been granted by Henry II. : but as for the conclusion there- 
 from, it was much on a par with the rest. 
 
 And now let us return to Raleigh and Amyas, as they jog 
 along their weary road. They have many things to talk of ; 
 for it is but three days since they met. 
 
 Amyas, as you see, is coming fast into Raleigh’s old opinion 
 of Ireland. Raleigh, under the inspiration of a possible grant 
 of Desmond’s lands, looks on bogs and rocks transfigured by 
 his own hopes and fancy, as if by the glory of a rainbow. He 
 looked at all things so, noble fellow, even thirty years after, 
 when old, worn out, and ruined ; well for him had it been 
 otherwise, and his heart had grown old with his head ! Amyas, 
 who knows nothing about Desmond’s lands, is puzzled at the 
 change. 
 
 “ Why, what is this, Raleigh ? You are like children 
 sitting in the market-place, and nothing pleases you. You 
 wanted to get to Court, and you have got there ; and are lord 
 and master, I hear, or something very like it, already — and as 
 soon as Fortune stuffs your mouth full of sweatmeats, do you 
 turn informer on her - ?” 
 
 Raleigh laughed insignificantly : but was silent. 
 
 “ And how is your friend Mr. Secretary Spenser, w’ho was 
 with us at Smerwick?” 
 
 “ Spenser ? He has thriven even as I have ; and he has 
 found, as I have, that in making one friend at Court you make 
 ten foes ; but ‘ Oderint Dum metuant ’ is no more my motto 
 than his, Leigh. I want to be great — great I am already, they 
 say, if princes’ favour can swell the frog into an ox ; but I 
 want to be liked, loved — I want to see people smile when I 
 enter.” 
 
 “ So they do, I’ll warrant,” said Amyas. 
 
 “So do hyenas,” said Raleigh; “grin because they are 
 hungry, and I may throw them a bone; I’ll throw you one 
 now, old lad, or rather a good sirloin of beef, for the sake of 
 your smile. That’s honest, at least, I’ll warrant, whosoever’s 
 else is not. Have you heard of my brother Humphrey’s new 
 project ?” 
 
 “ How should I hear anything in this waste howling 
 wilderness? ” 
 
CHAP. XI.] MET THE POPE’S LEGATE. 227 
 
 “ Kiss hands to the wilderness, then, and come with me to 
 Newfoundland !” 
 
 “You to Newfoundland!” 
 
 “ Yes. I to Newfoundland, unless my little matter here is 
 settled at once. Gloriana don’t know it, and shan’t till I’m 
 off. She’d send me to the Tower, I think, if she caught me 
 playing truant. I could hardly get leave to come hither ; but 
 I must out, and try my fortune. I am over ears in debt already, 
 and siek of courts and courtiers. Humphrey must go next 
 spring and take .possession of his kingdom beyond seas, or his 
 patent expires ; and with him I go, and you too, my circum- 
 navigating giant.” 
 
 And then Raleigh expounded to Amyas the details of the 
 great Newfoundland scheme, which whoso will may read in the 
 pages of Hakluyt. 
 
 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigh’s half-brother, held a 
 patent for “planting” the lands of Newfoundland and “Meta 
 Incognita” (Labrador). He had attempted a voyage thither 
 with Raleigh in 1578, whereof I never could find any news, 
 save that he came back again, after a heavy brush with some 
 Spanish ships (in which his best captain, Mr. Morgan, was 
 killed), having done nothing, and much impaired his own 
 estate : but now he had collected a large sum ; Sir Gilbert 
 Peckham of London, Mr. Hayes of South Devon, and various 
 other gentlemen, of whom more hereafter, had adventured their 
 money ; and a considerable colony was to be sent out the next 
 year, with miners, assayers, and, what was more, Parmenius 
 Budaeus, Frank’s old friend, who had come to England full of 
 thirst to see the wonders of the New World; anc^ over and 
 above this, as Raleigh told Amyas in strictest secrecy, Adrian 
 Gilbert, Humphrey’s brother, was turning every stone at Court 
 for a patent of discovery in the North-West ; and this New- 
 foundland colony, though it was to produce gold, silver, 
 merchandise, and what not, was but a basis of operations, a half- 
 way house from whence to work out the North-West passage to 
 the Indies — that golden dream, as fatal to English valour as 
 the Guiana one to Spanish — and yet hardly, hardly to be re- 
 gretted, when we remember the seamanship, the science, the 
 chivalry, the heroism, unequalled in the history of the English 
 nation, which it has called forth among those our later Arctic 
 voyagers, who have combined the knight-errantry of the middle 
 age with the practical prudence of the modern, and dared for 
 duty more than Cortez or Pizarro dared for gold. 
 
228 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH [chap. XI. 
 
 Amyas, simple fellow, took all in greedily ; he knew enough 
 of the dangers of the Magellan passage to appreciate the bound- 
 less value of a road to the East Indies which would (as all 
 supposed then) save half the distance, and be as it were a 
 private possession of the English, safe from Spanish interfer- 
 ence ; and he listened reverently to Sir Humphrey’s quaint 
 proofs, half true, half fantastic, of such a passage, which Raleigh 
 detailed to him — of the Primum Mobile, and its diurnal motion 
 from east to west, in obedience to which the sea-current flowed 
 westward ever round the Cape of Good Hope, and being unable 
 to pass through the narrow strait between South America and 
 the Antarctic continent, rushed up the American shore, as the 
 Gulf Stream, and poured north-westward between Greenland 
 and Labrador towards Cathay and India ; of that most crafty 
 argument of Sir Humphrey’s — how Aristotle in his book De 
 Mundo, and Simon Gryneus in his annotations thereon, declare 
 that the world (the Old World) is an island, compassed by 
 that which Homer calls the river Oceanus ; ergo, the New 
 World is an island also, and there is a North-West passage ; of 
 the three brothers (names unknown) who had actually made 
 the voyage, and named what was afterwards called Davis’s 
 Strait after themselves : of the Indians who were cast ashore 
 in Germany in the reign of Frederic Barbarossa, who, as Sir 
 Humphrey had learnedly proved per modum tollendi, could 
 have come only by the North-West; and above all, of Salvaterra, 
 the Spaniard, who in 1568 had told Sir Henry Sidney (Philip’s 
 father), there in Ireland, how he had spoken with a Mexican 
 friar named Urdaneta, who had himself come from Mar del 
 Zur (the Pacific) into Germany by that very North-West passage; 
 at which last Amyas shook his head, and said that friars were 
 liars, and seeing believing ; “ but if you must needs have an 
 adventure, you insatiable soul you, why not try for the golden 
 city of Manoa'?” 
 
 “ Manoa ?” asked Raleigh, who had heard, as most had, dim 
 rumours of the place. “ What do you know of it ?” 
 
 Whereon Amyas told him all that he had gathered from the 
 Spaniard ; and Raleigh, in his turn, believed every word. 
 
 “Humph!” said he after a long silence. “To find that 
 golden Emperor ; offer him help and friendship from the Queen 
 of England; defend, him against the Spaniards; if we became 
 strong enough, conquer back all Peru from the Popish tyrants, 
 and reinstate him on the throne of the Incas, with ourselves for 
 his body-guard, as the Norman Varangians were to the effemin- 
 
CHAP. XI.] MET THE POPE’S LEGATE. 229 
 
 ate Emperors of Byzant — Hey, Amyas 1 You would make a 
 gallant chieftain of Yarangs. We’ll do it, lad !” 
 
 “We’ll try,” said Amyas; “but we must be quick, for 
 there’s one Berreo sworn to carry out the quest to the death ; 
 and if the Spaniards once get thither, their plan of works will 
 be much more like Pizarro’s than like yours ; and by the time 
 we come, there will be neither gold nor city left.” 
 
 “Nor Indians either, I’ll warrant the butchers; but, lad, I 
 am promised to Humphrey ; I have a bark fitting out already, 
 and all I have, and more, adventured in her ; so Manoa must 
 wait.” 
 
 “ It will wait well enough, if the Spaniards prosper no better 
 on the Amazon than they have done ; but must I come with 
 you % To tell the truth, I Um quite shore-sick, and to sea I 
 must go. What will my mother say V* 
 
 “ I’ll manage thy mother,” said Raleigh ; and so he did ; for, 
 to cut a long story short, he went back the month after, and he 
 not only took home letters from Amyas to his mother, but so 
 impressed on that good lady the enormous profits and honours 
 to be derived from Meta Incognita, and (which was most true) 
 the advantage to any young man of sailing with such a general 
 as Humphrey Gilbert, most pious and most learned of seamen 
 and of cavaliers, beloved and honoured above all his compeers 
 by Queen Elizabeth, that she consented to Amyas’s adventuring 
 in the voyage some two hundred pounds which had come to him 
 as his share of prize-money, after the ever memorable circum- 
 navigation. For Mrs. Leigh, be it understood, was no longer 
 at Burrough Court. By Frank’s persuasion, she had let the old 
 place, moved up to London with her eldest son, and taken for 
 herself a lodging somewhere by Palace Stairs, which looked out 
 upon the silver Thames (for Thames was silver then), with its 
 busy ferries and gliding boats, across to the pleasant fields of 
 Lambeth, and the Archbishop’s Palace, and the wooded Surrey 
 hills ; and there she spent her peaceful days, close to her Frank 
 and to the Court. Elizabeth would have had her re-enter it, 
 offering her a small place in the household : but she declined, 
 saying that she was too old and heart -weary for aught but 
 prayer. So by prayer she lived, under the sheltering shadow 
 of the tall minster, where she went morn and even to worship, 
 and to entreat for the two in whom her heart was bound up ; 
 and Frank slipped in every day if but for five minutes, and 
 brought with him Spenser, or Raleigh, or Dyer, or Budseus, or 
 sometimes Sidney’s self : and there was talk of high and holy 
 
230 
 
 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH 
 
 [chap. XI. 
 
 things, of which none could speak better than could she ; and 
 each guest went from that hallowed room a humbler and yet a 
 loftier man. So slipped on the peaceful months, and few and 
 far between came Irish letters, for Ireland was then farther from 
 Westminster than is the Black Sea now ; but those were days 
 in which wives and mothers had learned (as they have learned 
 once more, sweet souls!) to walk by faith and not by sight for 
 those they love : and Mrs. Leigh was content (though when 
 was she not content V) to hear that Amyas was winning a good 
 report as a brave and prudent officer, sober, just, and faithful, 
 beloved and obeyed alike by English soldiers and Irish kernes. 
 
 Those two years, and the one which followed, were the 
 happiest which she had known since her husband's death. But 
 the cloud was fast coming up the horizon, though she saw it not. 
 A little longer, and the sun would be hid for many a wintry day. 
 
 Amyas went to Plymouth (with Yeo, of course, at his heels), 
 and there beheld, for the first time, the majestic countenance of 
 the philosopher of Compton Castle. He lodged with Drake, and 
 found him not over-sanguine as to the success of the voyage. 
 
 “ For learning and manners, Amyas, there’s not his equal ; 
 and the queen may well love him, and Devon be proud of him : 
 but book-learning is not business ; book-learning didn’t get me 
 round the world ; book-learning didn’t make Captain Hawkins, 
 nor his father neither, the best shipbuilders from Hull to Cadiz; 
 and book-learning, I very much fear, won’t plant Newfoundland.” 
 
 However, the die was cast, and the little fleet of five sail 
 assembled in Cawsand Bay. Amyas was to go as a gentleman 
 adventurer on board of Raleigh’s bark ; Raleigh himself, how- 
 ever, at the eleventh hour, had been forbidden by the queen to 
 leave England. Ere they left, Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s picture 
 was painted by some Plymouth artist, to be sent up to Elizabeth 
 in answer to a letter and a gift sent by Raleigh, which, as a 
 specimen of the men and of the time, I here transcribe : — 
 
 1 “ Brother — I have sent you a token from her Majesty, 
 an anchor guided by a lady, as you see. And further, her 
 Highness willed me to send you word, that she wisheth you as 
 great good hap and safety to your ship as if she were there in 
 person, desiring you to have care of yourself as of that which 
 she tendereth ; and, therefore, for her sake, you must provide 
 for it accordingly. Furthermore, she commandeth that you 
 
 1 This letter was a few years since in the possession of Mr. Pomeroy 
 Gilbert, fort-major at Dartmouth, a descendant of the Admiral’s. 
 
CHAP. XI.] MET THE POPE’S LEGATE. 231 
 
 leave your picture with her. For the rest I leave till our meet- 
 ing, or to the report of the bearer, who would needs be the 
 messenger of this good news. So I commit you to the will and 
 protection of God, who send us such life and death as he shall 
 please, or hath appointed. 
 
 “ Richmond, this Friday morning, 
 
 “ Your true Brother, 
 
 “W. Raleigh.” 
 
 “Who would not die, sir, for such a woman?” said Sir 
 Humphrey (and he said truly), as he showed that letter to 
 Amyas. 
 
 “ Who would not ? But she bids you rather live for her.” 
 
 “ I shall do both, young man ; and for God too, I trust. 
 We are going in God’s cause ; we go for the honour of God’s 
 Gospel, for the deliverance of poor infidels led captive by the 
 devil ; for the relief of my distressed countrymen unemployed 
 within this narrow isle ; and to God we commit our cause. 
 We fight against the devil himself; and stronger is He that is 
 within us than he that is against us.” 
 
 Som© say that Raleigh himself came down to Plymouth, 
 accompanied the fleet a day’s sail to sea, and would have given 
 her Majesty the slip, and gone with them Westward-ho, but 
 for Sir Humphrey’s advice. It is likely enough : but I cannot 
 find evidence for it. At all events, on the 11th June the fleet 
 sailed out, having, says Mr. Hayes, “ in number about 260 men, 
 among whom we had of every faculty good choice, as shipwrights, 
 masons, carpenters, smiths, and suchlike, requisite for such an 
 action ; also mineral men and refiners. Beside, for solace of 
 our people and allurement of the savages, we were provided of 
 musique in good variety ; not omitting the least toys, as morris- 
 dancers, hobby-horses, and May-like conceits, to delight the 
 savage people, whom we intended to win by all fair means 
 possible.” An armament complete enough, even to that tender- 
 ness towards the Indians, which is so striking a feature of the 
 Elizabethan seamen (called out in them, perhaps, by horror at 
 the Spanish cruelties, as well as by their more liberal creed), 
 and to the daily service of God on board of every ship, accord- 
 ing to the simple old instructions of Captain John Hawkins to 
 one of his little squadrons, “ Keep good company ; beware of 
 fire ; serve God daily ; and love one another ” — an armament, 
 in short, complete in all but men. The sailors had been picked 
 up hastily and anywhere, and soon proved themselves a mutin- 
 
232 HOW EUSTACE LEIGH MET THE POPE’S LEGATE. [cUAP. JCI. 
 
 ous, and, in the case of the bark Swallow, a piratical set. The 
 mechanics were little better. The gentlemen-ad venturers, puffed 
 up with vain hopes of finding a new Mexico, became soon dis- 
 appointed and surly at the hard practical reality ; while over 
 all was the head of a sage and an enthusiast, a man too noble 
 to suspect others, and too pure to make allowances for poor 
 dirty human weaknesses. He had got his scheme perfect upon 
 paper, well for him, and for his company, if he had asked 
 Francis Drake to translate it for him into fact ! As early as 
 the second day, the seeds of failure began to sprout above 
 ground. The men of Raleigh’s bark, the Vice-Admiral, sud- 
 denly found themselves seized, or supposed themselves seized, 
 with a contagious sickness, and at midnight forsook the fleet, 
 and went back to Plymouth ; whereto Mr. Hayes can only say, 
 “ The reason I never could understand. Sure I am that Mr. 
 Raleigh spared no cost in setting them forth. And so I leave 
 it unto God !” 
 
 But Amyas said more. He told Butler the captain plainly 
 that, if the bark went back, he would not ; that he had seen 
 enough of ships deserting their consorts ; that it should never 
 be said of him that he had followed Winter’s example, and 
 that, too, on a fair easterly wind ; and finally that he had seen 
 Doughty hanged for trying to play such a trick, and that he 
 might see others hanged too before he died. Whereon Captain 
 Butler offered to draw and fight, to which Amyas showed no 
 repugnance ; whereon the captain, having taken a second look 
 at Amyas’s thews and sinews, reconsidered the matter, and 
 offered to put Amyas on board of Sir Humphrey’s Delight, if 
 he could find a crew to row him. 
 
 Amyas looked around. 
 
 “Are there any of Sir Francis Drake’s men on board 1 ?” 
 
 “ Three, sir,” said Yeo. “ Robert Drew, and two others.” 
 “Pelicans!” roared Amyas, “you have been round the 
 world, and will you turn back from Westward-ho ?” 
 
 There was a moment’s silence, and then Drew came forward. 
 “ Lower us a boat, captain, and lend us a caliver to make 
 signals with, while I get my kit on deck ; I’ll after Captain 
 Leigh, if I row him aboard all alone to my own hands.” 
 
 “ If I ever command a ship, I will not forget you,” said 
 Amyas. 
 
 “ Nor us either, sir, we hope ; for we haven’t forgotten you 
 and your honest conditions,” said both the other Pelicans ; and 
 so away over the side went all the five, and pulled away after 
 
Bideford Bridge . 
 
233 
 
 CHAP. XII.] HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE DINED, ETC. 
 
 the admiral’s lantern, firing shots at intervals as signals. 
 Luckily for the five desperadoes, the night was all but calm. 
 They got on board before the morning, and so away into the 
 boundless West . 1 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 
 
 “ Three lords sat drinking late yestreen, 
 
 And ere they paid the lawing, 
 
 They set a combat them between, 
 
 To fight it in the dawing.” — Scotch Ballad. 
 
 Every one who knows Bideford cannot but know Bideford 
 Bridge ; for it is the very omphalos, cynosure, and soul, around 
 which the town, as a body, has organised itself ; and as Edin- 
 burgh is Edinburgh by virtue of its castle, Rome Rome by 
 virtue of its capitol, and Egypt Egypt by virtue of its Pyra- 
 mids, so is Bideford Bideford by virtue of its Bridge. But 
 all do not know the occult powers which have advanced and 
 animated the said wondrous bridge for now five hundred years, 
 and made it the chief wonder, according to Prince and Fuller, 
 of this fair land of Devon : being first an inspired bridge ; a 
 soul -saving bridge; an alms -giving bridge; an educational 
 bridge ; a sentient bridge ; and last, but not least, a dinner- 
 giving bridge. All do not know how, when it began to be 
 built some half mile higher up, hands invisible carried the 
 stones down-stream each night to the present site ; until Sir 
 Richard Gurney, parson of the parish, going to bed one night 
 in sore perplexity and fear of the evil spirit -who seemed so 
 busy in his sheepfold, beheld a vision of an angel, who bade 
 build the bridge where he himself had so kindly transported 
 the materials ; for there alone was sure foundation amid the 
 broad sheet of shifting sand. All do not know how Bishop 
 Grandison of Exeter proclaimed throughout his diocese indul- 
 gences, benedictions, and “ participation in all spiritual bless- 
 ings for ever,” to all who would promote the bridging of that 
 dangerous ford ; and so, consulting alike the interests of their 
 souls and of their bodies, “ make the best of both worlds.” 
 
 1 The Raleigh, the largest ship of the squadron, was of only 200 tons 
 burden ; The Golden Hind, Hayes’ ship, which returned safe, of 40 ; and 
 The Squirrel (whereof more hereafter), of 10 tons ! In such cockboats 
 did these old heroes brave the unknown seas. 
 
234 
 
 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 All do not know, nor do I, that “ though the foundation of 
 the bridge is laid upon wool, yet it shakes at the slightest step 
 of a horse ;” or that, “ though it has twenty-three arches, yet 
 one Wm. Alford (another Milo) carried on his back for a wager 
 four bushels salt-water measure, all the length thereof;” or 
 that the bridge is a veritable esquire, bearing arms of its own 
 (a ship and bridge proper on a plain field), and owning lands 
 and tenements in many parishes, with which the said miracu- 
 lous bridge has, from time to time, founded charities, built 
 schools, waged suits at law, and finally (for this concerns us 
 most) given yearly dinners, and kept for that purpose (luxurious 
 and liquorish bridge that it was) the best stocked cellar of 
 wines in all Devon. 
 
 To one of these dinners, as it happened, were invited in 
 the year 1583 all the notabilities of Bideford, and beside them 
 Mr. St. Leger of Annery close by, brother of the Marshal ot 
 Munster, and of Lady Grenvile ; a most worthy and hospitable 
 gentleman, who, finding riches a snare, parted with them so 
 freely to all his neighbours as long as he lived, that he effec- 
 tually prevented his children after him from falling into the 
 temptations thereunto incident. 
 
 Between him and one of the bridge trustees arose an argu- 
 ment, whether a salmon caught below the bridge was better or 
 worse than one caught above ; and as that weighty question 
 could only be decided by practical experiment, Mr. St. Leger 
 vowed that as the bridge had given him a good dinner, he 
 would give the bridge one ; offered a bet of five pounds that 
 he would find them, out of the pool below Annery, as firm and 
 flaky a salmon as the Appledore one which they had just eaten; 
 and then, in the fulness of his heart, invited the whole com- 
 pany present to dine with him at Annery three days after, and 
 bring with them each a wife or daughter ; and Don Guzman 
 being at table, he was invited too. 
 
 So there was a mighty feast in the great hall at Annery, 
 such as had seldom been since Judge Hankford feasted Edward 
 the Fourth there ; and while every one was eating their best 
 and drinking their worst, Rose Salterne and Don Guzman were 
 pretending not to see each other, and watching each other all 
 the more. But Rose, at least, had to be very careful of her 
 glances ; for not only was her father at the table, but just 
 opposite her sat none other than Messrs. William Cary and 
 Arthur St. Leger, lieutenants in her Majesty’s Irish army, who 
 had returned on furlough a few days before. 
 
CHAP. XII.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 235 
 
 Rose Salterne and the Spaniard had not exchanged a word 
 in the last six months, though they had met many times. The 
 Spaniard by no means avoided her company, except in her 
 father’s house; he only took care to obey her carefully, by 
 seeming always unconscious of her presence, beyond the state- 
 liest of salutes at entering and departing. But he took care, 
 at the same time, to lay himself out to the very best advantage 
 whenever he was in her presence ; to be more witty, more 
 eloquent, more romantic, more full of wonderful tales than he 
 ever yet had been. The cunning Don had found himself 
 foiled in his first tactic ; and he was now trying another, and 
 a far more formidable one. In the first place, Rose deserved a 
 very severe punishment, for having dared to refuse the love of 
 a Spanish nobleman ; and what greater punishment could he 
 inflict than withdrawing the honour of his attentions, and the 
 sunshine of his smiles? There was conceit enough in that 
 notion, but there was cunning too ; for none knew better than 
 the Spaniard, that women, like the world, are pretty sure to 
 value a man (especially if there be any real worth in him) at 
 his own price ; and that the more he demands for himself, the 
 more they will give for him. 
 
 And now he would put a high price on himself, and pique 
 her pride, as she was too much accustomed to worship, to be 
 won by flattering it. He might have done that by paying 
 attention to some one else : but he was too wise to employ so 
 coarse a method, which might raise indignation, or disgust, or 
 despair in Rose’s heart, but would have never brought her to 
 his feet — as it will never bring any woman worth bringing. 
 So he quietly and unobtrusively showed her that he could do 
 without her; and she, poor fool, as she was meant to do, 
 began forthwith to ask herself— why ? What was the hidden 
 treasure, what was the reserve force, which made him independ- 
 ent of her, while she could not say that she was independent of 
 him ? Had he a secret ? how pleasant to know it ! Some 
 huge ambition ? how pleasant to share in it ! Some mysteri- 
 ous knowledge ? how pleasant to learn it ! Some capacity of 
 love beyond the common ? how delicious to have it all for her 
 own ! He must be greater, wiser, richer hearted than she was, 
 as well as better-born. Ah, if his wealth would but supply her 
 poverty ! And so, step by step, she was being led to sue in 
 forma pauperis to the very man whom she had spurned when 
 he sued in like form to her. That temptation of having some 
 mysterious private treasure, of being the priestess of some 
 
236 
 
 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 hidden sanctuary, and being able to thank Heaven that she was 
 not as other women are, was becoming fast too much for Rose, 
 as it is too much for most. For none knew better than the 
 Spaniard how much more fond women are, by the very law of 
 their sex, of worshipping than of being worshipped, and of 
 obeying than of being obeyed ; how their coyness, often their 
 scorn, is but a mask to hide their consciousness of weakness ; 
 and a mask, too, of which they themselves will often be the 
 first to tire. 
 
 And Rose was utterly tired of that same mask as she sat at 
 table at Annery that day ; and Don Guzman saw it in her un- 
 easy and downcast looks, and thinking (conceited coxcomb) that 
 she must be by now sufficiently punished, stole a glance at her 
 now and then, and was not abashed when he saw that she 
 dropped her eyes when they met his, because he saw her silence 
 and abstraction increase, and something like a blush steal into 
 her cheeks. So he pretended to be as much downcast and 
 abstracted as she was, and went on with his glances, till he once 
 found her, poor thing, looking at him to see if he was looking 
 at her ; and then he knew his prey was safe, and asked her, 
 with his eyes, “ Do you forgive me V* and saw her stop dead in 
 her talk to her next neighbour, and falter, and drop her eyes, 
 and raise them again after a minute in search of his, that he 
 might repeat the pleasant question. And then what could she 
 do but answer with all her face and every bend of her pretty 
 neck, “ And do you forgive me in turn V 7 
 
 Whereon Don Guzman broke out jubilant, like nightingale 
 on bough, with story, and jest, and repartee ; and became forth- 
 with the soul of the whole company, and the most charming of 
 all cavaliers. And poor Rose knew that she was the cause of 
 his sudden change of mood, and blamed herself for what she 
 had done, and shuddered and blushed at her own delight, and 
 longed that the feast was over, that she might hurry home and 
 hide herself alone with sweet fancies about a love the reality of 
 which she felt she dared not face. 
 
 It was a beautiful sight, the great terrace at Annery that 
 afternoon ; with the smart dames in their gaudy dresses parad- 
 ing up and down in twos and threes before the stately house ; 
 or looking down upon the park, with the old oaks, and the deer, 
 and the broad land-locked river spread out like a lake beneath, 
 all bright in the glare of the midsummer sun ; or listening 
 obsequiously to the two great ladies who did the honours, Mrs. 
 St. Leger the hostess, and her sister-in-law, fair Lady Grenvile. 
 
CHAP. XII.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 237 
 
 All chatted, and laughed, and eyed each other’s dresses, and 
 gossiped about each other’s husbands and servants : only Rose 
 Salterne kept apart, and longed to get into a corner and laugh 
 or cry, she knew not which. 
 
 “ Our pretty Rose seems sad,” said Lady Grenvile, coming 
 up to her. “ Cheer up, child ! we want you to come and sing 
 to us.” 
 
 Rose answered she knew not what, and obeyed mechanically. 
 
 She took the lute, and sat down on a bench beneath the 
 house, while the rest grouped themselves round her. 
 
 “What shall I sing?” 
 
 “ Let us have your old song, ‘ Earl Haldan’s Daughter.’ ” 
 
 Rose shrank from it. It was a loud and dashing ballad, 
 which chimed in but little with her thoughts ; and Frank had 
 praised it too, in happier days long since gone by. She thought 
 of him, and of others, and of her pride and carelessness ; and 
 the song seemed ominous to her : and yet for that very reason 
 she dared not refuse to sing it, for fear of suspicion where no 
 one suspected ; and so she began per force — 
 
 1 . 
 
 “ It was Earl Haldan’s daughter, 
 
 She look’d across the sea ; 
 
 She look’d across the water, 
 
 And long and loud laugh’d she ; 
 
 ‘ The locks of six princesses 
 Must he my marriage-fee, 
 
 So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 
 
 Who comes a wooing me ? ’ 
 
 2 . 
 
 “ It was Earl Haldan’s daughter, 
 
 She walk’d along the sand ; 
 
 When she was aware of a knight so fair, 
 
 Come sailing to the land. 
 
 His sails were all of velvet, 
 
 His mast of beaten gold, 
 
 And ‘ hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat, 
 
 Who saileth here so bold V 
 
 3 . 
 
 <l 1 The locks of five princesses 
 I won beyond the sea ; 
 
 I shore their golden tresses, 
 
 To fringe a cloak for thee. 
 
 One handful yet is wanting, 
 
 But one of all the tale ; 
 
 So hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 
 Furl up thy velvet sail ! ’ 
 
238 
 
 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE 
 
 [CHAP. xii. 
 
 4 . 
 
 ** He leapt into the water, 
 
 That rover young and bold ; 
 
 He gript Earl Haldan’s daughter, 
 
 He shore her locks of gold ; 
 
 * Go weep, go weep, proud maiden, 
 
 The tale is full to-day. 
 
 Now hey bonny boat, and ho bonny boat ! 
 
 Sail Westvvard-ho, and away !’ ” 
 
 As she ceased, a measured voice, with a foreign accent, 
 thrilled through her. 
 
 “In the East, they say the nightingale sings to the rose; 
 Devon, more happy, has nightingale and rose in one.” 
 
 “We have no nightingales in Devon, Don Guzman,” said 
 Lady Grenvile; “hut our little forest thrushes sing, as you 
 hear, sweetly enough to content any ear. But what brings you 
 away from the gentlemen so early ?” 
 
 “ These letters,” said he, “ which have just been put into my 
 hand ; and as they call me home to Spain, I was loth to lose 
 a moment of that delightful company from which I must part 
 so soon.” 
 
 “To Spain ?” asked half-a-dozen voices : for the Don was a 
 general favourite. 
 
 “Yes, and thence to the Indies. My ransom has arrived, 
 and with it the promise of an office. I am to be Governor of 
 La Guayra in Caraccas. Congratulate me on my promotion.” 
 
 A mist was over Rose’s eyes. The Spaniard’s voice was 
 hard and flippant. Did he care for her after all % And if he 
 did, was it nevertheless hopeless ? How her cheeks glowed ! 
 Everybody must see it ! Anything to turn away their attention 
 from her, and in that nervous haste which makes people speak, 
 and speak foolishly too, just because they ought to be silent, 
 she asked — 
 
 “And where is La Guayra?” 
 
 “ Half round the world, on the coast of the Spanish Main. 
 The loveliest place on earth, and the loveliest governor’s house, 
 in a forest of palms at the foot of a mountain eight thousand 
 feet high : I shall only want a wife there to be in paradise.” 
 
 “ I don’t doubt that you may persuade some fair lady of 
 Seville to accompany you thither,” said Lady Grenvile. 
 
 “ Thanks, gracious Madam : but the truth is, that since I 
 have had the bliss of knowing English ladies, I have begun to 
 think that they are the only ones on earth worth wooing.” 
 
 “ A thousand thanks for the compliment ; but I fear none 
 
CHAP. XII.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 239 
 
 of our free English maidens would like to submit to the guardian- 
 ship of a duenna. Eh, Rose 1 how should you like to be kept 
 under lock and key all day by an ugly old woman with a horn 
 on her forehead ?” 
 
 Poor Rose turned so scarlet that Lady Grenvile knew her 
 secret on the spot, and would have tried to turn the conversa- 
 tion : but before she could speak, some burgher’s wife blundered 
 out a commonplace about the jealousy of Spanish husbands ; 
 and another, to make matters better, giggled out something 
 more true than delicate about West Indian masters and fair 
 slaves 
 
 “ Ladies,” said Don Guzman, reddening, “ believe me that 
 these are but the calumnies of ignorance. If we be more jealous 
 than other nations, it is because we love more passionately. 
 If some of us abroad are profligate, it is because they, poor 
 men, have no helpmate, which, like the amethyst, keeps its 
 wearer pure. I could tell you stories, ladies, of the constancy 
 and devotion of Spanish husbands, even in the Indies, as 
 strange as ever romancer invented.” 
 
 “ Can you 1 Then we challenge you to give us one at least.” 
 
 “ I fear it would be too long, Madam.” 
 
 “ The longer the more pleasant, Senor. How can we spend 
 an hour better this afternoon, while the gentlemen within are 
 finishing their wine ?” 
 
 Story-telling, in those old times, when books (and authors 
 also, lucky for the public) were rarer than now, was a common 
 amusement ; and as the Spaniard’s accomplishments in that 
 line were well known, all the ladies crowded round him ; the 
 servants brought chairs and benches ; and Don Guzman, taking 
 his seat in the midst, with a proud humility, at Lady Grenvile’s 
 feet, began — 
 
 “ Your perfections, fair and illustrious ladies, must doubt- 
 less have heard, ere now, how Sebastian Cabota, some forty-five 
 years ago, sailed forth with a commission from my late master, 
 the Emperor Charles the Fifth, to discover the golden lands of 
 Tarshish, Ophir, and Cipango ; but being in want of provisions, 
 stopped short at the mouth of that mighty South American 
 river to which he gave the name of Rio de la Plata, and sailing 
 up it, discovered the fair land of Paraguay. But you may not 
 have heard how, on the bank of that river, at the mouth of the 
 Rio Terceiro, he built a fort which men still call Cabot’s Tower ; 
 nor have you, perhaps, heard of the strange tale which will ever 
 make the tower a sacred spot to all true lovers. 
 
240 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE [chap. XII. 
 
 “ For when he returned to Spain the year after, he left in 
 his tower a garrison of a hundred and twenty men, under the 
 command of Nuho de Lara, Ruiz Moschera, and Sebastian da 
 Hurtado, old friends and fellow-soldiers of my invincible grand- 
 father Don Ferdinando da Soto ; and with them a jewel, than 
 which Spain never possessed one more precious, Lucia Miranda, 
 the wife of Hurtado, who, famed in the Court of the Emperor 
 no less for her wisdom and modesty than for her unrivalled 
 beauty, had thrown up all the pomp and ambition of a palace, 
 to marry a poor adventurer, and to encounter with him the hard- 
 ships of a voyage round the world. Mangora, the Cacique of 
 the neighbouring Timbuez Indians (with whom Lara had con- 
 trived to establish a friendship), cast his eyes on this fair crea- 
 ture, and no sooner saw than he coveted ; no sooner coveted 
 than he plotted, with the devilish subtilty of a savage, to seize 
 by force what he knew he could never gain by right. She soon 
 found out his passion (she was wise enough — what every woman 
 is not — to know when she is loved), and telling her husband, 
 kept as much as she could out of her new lover’s sight ; while 
 the savage pressed Hurtado to come and visit him, and to bring 
 his lady with him. Hurtado, suspecting the snare, and yet 
 fearing to offend the Cacique, excused himself courteously on 
 the score of his soldier’s duty ; and the savage, mad with desire 
 and disappointment, began plotting against Hurtado’s life. 
 
 “ So went on several weeks, till food grew scarce, and Don 
 Hurtado and Don Ruiz Moschera, with fifty soldiers, were sent 
 up the river on a foraging party. Mangora saw his opportunity, 
 and leapt at it forthwith. 
 
 “ The tower, ladies, as I have heard from those who have 
 seen it, stands on a knoll at the meeting of the two rivers, 
 while on the land side stretches a dreary marsh, covered with 
 tall grass and bushes ; a fit place for the ambuscade of four 
 thousand Indians, which Mangora, with devilish cunning, 
 placed around the tower, while he himself went boldly up to 
 it, followed by thirty men, laden with grain, fruit, game, and 
 all the delicacies which his forests could afford. 
 
 “There, with a smiling face, he told the unsuspecting Lara 
 his sorrow for the Spaniard’s want of food ; besought him to 
 accept the provision he had brought, and was, as he had ex- 
 pected, invited by Lara to come in and taste the wines of Spain. 
 
 “ In went he and his thirty fellow-bandits, and the feast 
 continued, with songs and libations, far into the night, while 
 Mangora often looked round, and at last boldly asked for the 
 
CHAP, xii.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 241 
 
 fair Miranda : but she had shut herself into her lodging, plead- 
 ing illness. 
 
 “ A plea, fair ladies, which little availed that hapless dame : 
 for no sooner had the Spaniards retired to rest, leaving (by 1 
 know not what madness) Mangora and his Indians within, than 
 they were awakened by the cry of fire, the explosion of their 
 magazine, and the inward rush of the four thousand from the 
 marsh outside. 
 
 “ Why pain your gentle ears with details of slaughter ? A 
 few fearful minutes sufficed to exterminate my bewildered and 
 unarmed countrymen, to bind the only survivors, Miranda 
 (innocent cause of the whole tragedy) and four other women 
 with their infants, and to lead them away in triumph across 
 the forest towards the Indian town. 
 
 “ Stunned by the suddenness of the evils which had passed, 
 and still more by the thought of those worse which were to 
 come (as she too well foresaw), Miranda travelled all night 
 through the forest, and was brought in triumph at day-dawn 
 before the Indian king to receive her doom. Judge of her 
 astonishment, when, on looking up, she saw that he was not 
 Mangora. 
 
 “ A ray of hope flashed across her, and she asked where he 
 
 was. 
 
 “ ‘ He was slain last night/ said the king ; ‘ and I his 
 brother Siripa, am now Cacique of the Timbuez.’ 
 
 “It was true; Lara, maddened with drink, rage, and 
 wounds, had caught up his sword, rushed into the thick of the 
 fight, singled out the traitor, and slain him on the spot ; and 
 then, forgetting safety in revenge, had continued to plunge his 
 sword into the corpse, heedless of the blows of the savages, till 
 he fell pierced with a hundred wounds. 
 
 “A ray of hope, as I said, flashed across the wretched 
 Miranda for a moment ; but the next she found that she had 
 been freed from one bandit only to be delivered to another. 
 
 “ ‘ Yes/ said the new king in broken Spanish ; ‘my brother 
 played a bold stake, and lost it ; but it was well worth the 
 risk, and he showed his wisdom thereby. You cannot be his 
 queen now : you must content yourself with being mine.’ 
 
 “ Miranda, desperate, answered him with every fierce taunt 
 which she could invent against his treachery and his crime ; and 
 asked him, how he came to dream that the wife of a Christian 
 Spaniard would condescend to become the mistress of a heathen 
 savage; hoping, unhappy lady, to exasperate him into killing 
 
 R 
 
242 
 
 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 her on the spot. But in vain ; she only prolonged thereby her 
 own misery. For, whether it was, ladies, that the novel sight 
 of divine virtue and beauty awed (as it may have awed me ere 
 now), where it had just before maddened; or whether some 
 dream crossed the savage (as it may have crossed me ere now), 
 that he could make the wisdom of a mortal angel help his 
 ambition, as well as her beauty his happiness; or whether 
 (which I will never believe of one of those dark children of the 
 devil, though I can boldly assert it of myself) some spark of 
 boldness within him made him too proud to take by force what 
 he could not win by persuasion, certain it is, as the Indians 
 themselves confessed afterwards, that the savage only answered 
 her by smiles ; and bidding his men unbind her, told her that 
 she was no slave of his, and that it only lay with her to become 
 the sovereign of him and all his vassals ; assigned her a hut to 
 herself, loaded her with savage ornaments, and for several weeks 
 treated her with no less courtesy (so miraculous is the power of 
 love) than if he had been a cavalier of Castile. 
 
 “Three months and more, ladies, as I have heard, passed 
 in this misery, and every day Miranda grew more desperate of 
 all deliverance, and saw staring her in the face, nearer and 
 nearer, some hideous and shameful end ; when one day going 
 down with the wives of the Cacique to draw water in the river, 
 she saw on the opposite bank a white man in a tattered Spanish 
 dress, with a drawn sword in his hand ; w r ho had no sooner 
 espied her, than shrieking her name, he plunged into the stream, 
 swam across, landed at her feet, and clasped her in his arms. 
 It was no other, ladies, incredible as it may seem, than Don 
 Sebastian himself, who had returned with Ruiz Moschera to the 
 tower, and found it only a charred and bloodstained heap of 
 ruins. 
 
 “ He guessed, as by inspiration, what had passed, and 
 whither his lady was gone ; and without a thought of danger, 
 like a true Spanish gentleman, and a true Spanish lover, darted 
 off alone into the forest, and guided only by the inspiration of 
 his own loyal heart, found again his treasure, and found it still 
 unstained and his own. 
 
 “Who can describe the joy, and who again the terror, of 
 their meeting 'l The Indian women had fled in fear, and for 
 the short ten minutes that the lovers were left together, life, to 
 be sure, was one long kiss. But what to do they knew not. 
 To go inland was to rush into the enemy’s arms. He would 
 have swum with her across the river, and attempted it ; but 
 
CHAV, xii.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 243 
 
 his strength, worn out with hunger and travel, failed him ; he 
 drew her with difficulty on shore again, and sat down by her to 
 await their doom with prayer, the first and last resource ot 
 virtuous ladies, as weapons are of cavaliers. 
 
 “ Alas for them ! May no true lovers ever have to weep 
 over joys so soon lost, after having been so hardly found ! For, 
 ere a quarter of an hour was passed, the Indian women, who 
 had fled at his approach, returned with all the warriors of the 
 tribe. Don Sebastian, desperate, would fain have slain his wife 
 and himself on the spot ; but his hand sank again — and whose 
 would not but an Indian’s 1 ? — as he raised it against that fair 
 and faithful breast ; in a few minutes he was surrounded, seized 
 from behind, disarmed, and carried in triumph into the village. 
 And if you cannot feel for him in that misery, fair ladies, who 
 have known no sorrow, yet I, a prisoner, can.” 
 
 Don Guzman paused a moment, as if overcome by emotion ; 
 and I will not say that, as he paused, he did not look to see if 
 Rose Salterne’s eyes were on him, as indeed they were. 
 
 “Yes, I can feel with him ; I can estimate, better than you, 
 ladies, the greatness of that love which could submit to captiv- 
 ity ; to the loss of his sword ; to the loss of that honour, which, 
 next to God and his mother, is the true Spaniard’s deity. There 
 are those who have suffered that shame at the hands of valiant 
 gentlemen ” (and again Don Guzman looked up at Rose), “ and 
 yet would have sooner died a thousand deaths ; but he dared 
 to endure it from the hands of villains, savages, heathens ; for 
 he was a true Spaniard, and therefore a true lover : but I will 
 go on with my tale. 
 
 u This wretched pair, then, as I have been told by Ruiz 
 Moschera himself, stood together before the Cacique. He, like 
 a true child of the devil, comprehending in a moment who Don 
 Sebastian was, laughed with delight at seeing his rival in his 
 power, and bade bind him at once to a tree, and shoot him to 
 death with arrows. 
 
 “ But the poor Miranda sprang forward, and threw herself 
 at his feet, and with piteous entreaties besought for mercy from 
 him who knew no mercy. 
 
 “ And yet love and the sight of her beauty, and the terrible 
 eloquence of her words, while she invoked on his head the just 
 vengeance of Heaven, wrought even on his heart : nevertheless 
 the pleasure of seeing her, who had so long scorned him, a sup- 
 pliant at his feet, was too delicate to be speedily foregone ; and 
 not till she was all but blind with tears, and dumb with agony 
 
244 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE [CHAP. XII. 
 
 of pleading, did he make answer, that if she would consent to 
 become his wife, her husband’s life should be spared. She, in 
 her haste and madness, sobbed out desperately I know not what 
 consent. Don Sebastian, who understood, if not the language, 
 still the meaning (so had love quickened his understanding), 
 shrieked to her not to lose her precious soul for the sake of his 
 worthless body ; that death was nothing compared to the horror 
 of that shame ; and such other words as became a noble and 
 valiant gentleman. She, shuddering now at her own frailty, 
 would have recalled her promise ; but Siripa kept her to it, 
 vowing, if she disappointed him again, such a death to her hus- 
 band as made her blood run cold to hear of ; and the wretched 
 woman could only escape for the present by some story, that it 
 was not the custom of her race to celebrate nuptials till a montli 
 after the betrothment ; that the anger of Heaven would be on 
 her, unless she first performed in solitude certain religious rites ; 
 and lastly, that if he dared to lay hands on her husband, she 
 would die so resolutely, that every drop of water should be deep 
 enough to drown her, every thorn sharp enough to stab her to 
 the heart : till fearing lest by demanding too much he should 
 lose all, and awed too, as he had been at first by a voice and 
 looks which seemed to be, in comparison with his own, divine, 
 Siripa bade her go back to her hut, promising her husband life ; 
 but promising too, that if he ever found the two speaking to- 
 gether, even for a moment, he would pour out on them both all 
 the cruelty of those tortures in which the devil, their father, 
 has so perfectly instructed the Indians. 
 
 “ So Don Sebastian, being stripped of his garments, and 
 painted after the Indian fashion, was set to all mean and toil- 
 some work, amid the buffetings and insults of the whole village. 
 And this, ladies, he endured without a murmur, ay, took delight 
 in enduring it, as he would have endured things worse a thou- 
 sand times, only for the sake, like a true lover as he was, of 
 being near the goddess whom he worshipped, and of seeing her 
 now and then afar off, happy enough to be repaid even by that 
 for all indignities. 
 
 “ And yet, you who have loved may well guess, as I can, that 
 ere a week had passed, Don Sebastian and the Lady Miranda 
 had found means, in spite of all spiteful eyes, to speak to each 
 other once and again ; and to assure each other of their love ; 
 even to talk of escape, before the month’s grace should be ex- 
 pired. And Miranda, whose heart was full of courage as long 
 as she felt her husband near her, went so far as to plan a means 
 of escape which seemed possible and hopeful. 
 
CHAP, xii.] DINED AT ANNERY HQUSE. 245 
 
 “ For the youngest wife of the Cacique, who, till Miranda’s 
 coming, had been his favourite, often talked with the captive, 
 insulting and tormenting her in her spite and jealousy, and 
 receiving in return only gentle and conciliatory words. And one 
 day when the woman had been threatening to kill her, Miranda 
 took courage to say, ‘ Do you fancy that I shall not be as glad 
 to be rid of your husband, as you to be rid of me 1 Why kill 
 me needlessly, when all that you require is to get me forth of 
 the place 1 Out of sight, out of mind. When I am gone, your 
 husband will soon forget me, and you will be his favourite as 
 before.’ Soon, seeing that the girl was inclined to listen, she 
 went on to tell her of her love to Don Sebastian, entreating and 
 abjuring her, by the love which she bore the Cacique, to pity 
 and help her ; and so won upon the girl, that she consented to 
 be privy to Mirauda’s escape, and even offered to give her an 
 opportunity of speaking to her husband about it ; and at last 
 was so won over by Miranda, that she consented to keep all 
 intruders out of the way, while Don Sebastian that very night 
 visited Miranda in her hut. 
 
 “ The hapless husband, thirsting for his love, w r as in that 
 hut, be sure, the moment that kind darkness covered his steps : 
 — and what cheer these two made of each other, when they 
 once found themselves together, lovers must fancy for them- 
 selves : but so it was, that after many a leave-taking, there w r as 
 no departure ; and when the night was well-nigh past, Sebastian 
 and Miranda were still talking together, as if they had never 
 met before, and would never meet again. 
 
 “ But it befell, ladies (would that I was not speaking truth, 
 but inventing, that I might have invented something merrier 
 for your ears), it befell that very night, that the young wife of 
 the Cacique, whose heart was lifted up with the thought that 
 her rival was now at last disposed of, tried all her wiles to win 
 back her faithless husband ; but in vain. He only answered 
 her caresses by indifference, then by contempt, then insults, 
 then blows (for with the Indians, woman is always a slave, or 
 rather a beast of burden), and went on to draw such cruel com- 
 parisons between her dark skin and the glorious fairness of the 
 Spanish lady, that the wretched girl, beside herself with rage, 
 burst out at last with her own secret. ‘ Fool that you are to 
 madden yourself about a stranger who prizes one hair of her 
 Spanish husband’s head more than your whole body ! Much 
 does your new bride care for you ! She is at this moment in 
 her husband’s arms !’ 
 
246 
 
 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE 
 
 [chap. XII. 
 
 “ The Cacique screamed furiously to know what she meant; 
 and she, her jealousy and hate of the guiltless lady boiling over 
 once for all, bade him, if he doubted her, go see for himself. 
 
 “ What use of many words ? They were taken. Love, or 
 rather lust, repelled, turned in a moment into devilish hate ; 
 and the Cacique, summoning his Indians, bade them bind the 
 wretched Don Sebastian to a tree, and there inflicted on him 
 the lingering death to which he had at first been doomed. For 
 Miranda he had more exquisite cruelty in store. And shall I 
 tell it? Yes, ladies, for the honour of love and of Spain, and 
 for a justification of those cruelties against the Indians which 
 are so falsely imputed to our most Christian nation, it shall be 
 told : he delivered the wretched lady over to the tender mercies 
 of his wives ; and what they were is neither fit for me to tell, 
 nor you to hear. 
 
 “ The two wretched lovers cast themselves upon each other’s 
 necks ; drank each other’s salt tears with the last kisses ; ac- 
 cused themselves as the cause of each other’s death ; and then, 
 rising above fear and grief, broke out into triumph at thus dying 
 for and with each other ; and proclaiming themselves the mar- 
 tyrs of love, commended their souls to God, and then stepped 
 joyfully and proudly to their doom.” 
 
 “And what was that?” asked half-a-dozen trembling voices. 
 “Don Sebastian, as I have said, was shot to death with 
 arrows ; but as for the Lady Miranda, the wretches themselves 
 confessed afterwards, when they received due vengeance for their 
 crimes (as they did receive it), that after all shameful and hor- 
 rible indignities, she was bound to a tree, and there burned 
 slowly in her husband’s sight, stifling her shrieks lest they 
 should wring his heart by one additional pang, and never taking 
 her eyes, to the last, off* that beloved face. And so died (but 
 not unavenged) Sebastian de Hurtado and Lucia Miranda, — a 
 Spanish husband and a Spanish wife.” 
 
 The Don paused, and the ladies were silent awhile ; for, in- 
 deed, there was many a gentle tear to be dried ; but at last 
 Mrs. St. Leger spoke, half, it seemed, to turn off the too pain- 
 ful impression of the over-true tale, the outlines whereof may 
 be still read in old Charlevoix. 
 
 “ You have told a sad and a noble tale, sir, and told it well; 
 but, though your story was to set forth a perfect husband, it 
 has ended rather by setting forth a perfect wife.” 
 
 “ And if I have forgotten, Madam, in praising her to praise 
 him also, have I not done that which would have best pleased 
 
CHAP. XII.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 247 
 
 his heroical and chivalrous spirit? He, be sure, would have 
 forgotten his own virtue in the light of hers ; and he would 
 have wished me, I doubt not, to do the same also. And beside, 
 Madam, where ladies are the theme, who has time or heart to 
 cast one thought upon their slaves?” And the Don made one 
 of his deliberate and highly-finished bows. 
 
 “ Don Guzman is courtier enough, as far as compliments 
 go,” said one of the young ladies ; “ but it was hardly courtier- 
 like of him to find us so sad an entertainment, upon a merry 
 evening.” 
 
 “Yes,” said another; “we must ask him for no more stories.” 
 “ Or songs either,” said a third. “ I fear he knows none 
 but about forsaken maidens and despairing lovers.” 
 
 “I know nothing at all about forsaken ladies, Madam; 
 because ladies are never forsaken in Spain.” 
 
 “Nor about lovers despairing there, I suppose?” 
 
 “ That good opinion of ourselves, Madam, with which you 
 English are pleased to twit us now and then, always prevents 
 so sad a state of mind. For myself, I have h;id little to do with 
 love ; but I have had still less to do with despair, and intend, 
 by help of Heaven, to have less.” 
 
 “You are valiant, sir.” 
 
 “ You would not have me a coward, Madam ?” and so forth. 
 Now all this time Don Guzman had been talking at Eose 
 Salterne, and giving her the very slightest hint, every now and 
 then, that he was talking at her ; till the poor girl’s face was 
 almost crimson with pleasure, and she gave herself up to the 
 spell. He loved her still ; perhaps he knew that she loved 
 him : he must know some day. She felt now that there was 
 no escape ; she was almost glad to think that there was none. 
 
 The dark, handsome, stately face; the melodious voice, with 
 its rich Spanish accent ; the quiet grace of the gestures ; the 
 wild pathos of the story ; even the measured and inflated style, 
 as of one speaking of another and a loftier world ; the chival- 
 rous respect and admiration for woman, and for faithfulness to 
 woman — what a man he was ! If he had been pleasant hereto- 
 fore, he was now enchanting. All the ladies round felt that, 
 she could see, as much as she herself did ; no, not quite as 
 much, she hoped. She surely understood him, and felt for his 
 loneliness more than any of them. Had she not been feeling 
 for it through long and sad months ? But it was she whom he 
 was thinking of, she whom he was speaking to, all along. Oh, 
 why had the tale ended so soon ? She would gladly have sat 
 
248 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE [chai>. xii. 
 
 and wept her eyes out till midnight over one melodious misery 
 after another; hut she was quite wise enough to keep her secret 
 to herself; and sat behind the rest, with greedy eyes and demure 
 lips, full of strange and new happiness — or misery ; she knew 
 not which to call it. 
 
 In the meanwhile, as it was ordained, Cary could see and 
 hear through the window of the hall a good deal of what was 
 going on. 
 
 “How that Spanish crocodile ogles the Rose!” whispered 
 he to young St. Leger. 
 
 “ What wonder 1 He is not the first by many a one.” 
 
 “Ay — but — By heaven, she is making side-shots at him 
 with those languishing eyes of hers, the little baggage !” 
 
 “ What wonder ? He is not the first, say I, and won’t be 
 the last. Pass the wine, man.” 
 
 “ I have had enough ; between sack and singing, my head 
 is as mazed as a dizzy sheep. Let me slip out.” 
 
 “Not yet, man; remember you are bound for one song 
 more.” 
 
 So Cary, against his will, sat and sang another song ; and 
 in the meanwhile the party had broken up, and wandered 
 away by twos and threes, among trim gardens and pleasaunces, 
 and clipped yew-walks — 
 
 “ Where west- winds with musky wing 
 About the cedarn alleys fling 
 Nard and cassia’s balmy smells ” 
 
 admiring the beauty of that stately place, long since passed 
 into other hands, and fallen to decay ; but then (if old Prince 
 speaks true) one of the noblest mansions of the West. 
 
 At last Cary got away and out ; sober, but just enough 
 flushed with wine to be ready for any quarrel ; and luckily for 
 him, had not gone twenty yards along the great terrace before 
 he met Lady Grenvile. 
 
 “ Has your Ladyship seen Don Guzman V’ 
 
 “Yes — why, where is he? He was with me not ten 
 minutes ago. You know he is going back to Spain.” 
 
 “ Going ! Has his ransom come V’ 
 
 « Yes, and with it a governorship in the Indies.” 
 
 “ Governorship ! Much good may it do the governed.” 
 
 “ Why not, then ? He is surely a most gallant gentleman.” 
 “ Galiant enough— yes,” said Cary carelessly. “I must 
 find him, and congratulate him on his honours.” 
 
DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 
 
 249 
 
 CHAP. XII.] 
 
 “ I will help you to find him,” said Lady Grenvile, whose 
 woman’s eye and ear had already suspected something. 
 “ Escort me, sir.” 
 
 “ It is but too great an honour to squire the Queen of 
 Bideford,” said Cary, offering his hand. 
 
 “ If I am your queen, sir, I must be obeyed,” answered she 
 in a meaning tone. Cary took the hint, and went on chatter- 
 ing cheerfully enough. 
 
 But Don Guzman was not to be found in garden or in 
 pleasaunce. 
 
 “ Perhaps,” at last said a burgher’s wife, with a toss of 
 her head, “ your Ladyship may meet with him at Hankford’s 
 oak.” 
 
 “At Hankford’s oak ! what should take him there?” 
 
 “ Pleasant company, I reckon ” (with another toss). “ I 
 heard him and Mrs. Salterne talking about the oak just now.” 
 
 Cary turned pale and drew in his breath. 
 
 “Very likely,” said Lady Grenvile quietly. “Will you 
 walk with me so far, Mr. Cary ?” 
 
 “ To the world’s end, if your Ladyship condescends so far.” 
 And off they went, Lady Grenvile wishing that they were 
 going anywhere else, but afraid to let Cary go alone ; and sus- 
 pecting, too, that some one or other ought to go. 
 
 So they went down past the herds of deer, by a trim-kept 
 path into the lonely dell where stood the fatal oak ; and, as they 
 went, Lady Grenvile, to avoid more unpleasant talk, poured 
 into Cary’s unheeding ears the story (which he probably had 
 heard fifty times before) how old Chief-justice Hankford 
 (whom some contradictory myths make the man who com- 
 mitted Prince Henry to prison for striking him on the bench), 
 weary of life and sickened at the horrors and desolations of 
 the Wars of the Roses, went down to his house at Annery 
 there, and bade his keeper shoot any man who, passing through 
 the deer-park at night, should refuse to stand when challenged; 
 and then going down into that glen himself, and hiding him- 
 self beneath that oak, met willingly by his keeper’s hand the 
 death which his own dared not inflict : but ere the story was 
 half done, Cary grasped Lady Grenvile’s hand so tightly that 
 she gave a little shriek of paiu. 
 
 “There they are!” whispered he, heedless of her; and 
 pointed to the oak, where, half hidden by the tall fern, stood 
 Rose and the Spaniard. 
 
 Her head was on his bosom. She seemed sobbing, trem- 
 
250 
 
 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE 
 
 [chap. xii. 
 
 bling ; he talking earnestly and passionately ; but Lady Gren- 
 •yile’s little shriek made them both look up. To turn and try 
 to escape was to confess all ; and the two, collecting themselves 
 instantly, walked towards her, Rose wishing herself fathoms 
 deep beneath the earth. 
 
 “ Mind, sir/’ whispered Lady Grenvile as they came up ; 
 “ you have seen nothing.” 
 
 “ Madam ?” 
 
 “If you are not on my ground, you are on my brother’s. 
 Obey me !” 
 
 Cary bit his lip, and bowed courteously to the Don. 
 
 “ I have to congratulate you, I hear, Senor, on your 
 approaching departure.” 
 
 “ I kiss your hands, Senor, in return ; but I question 
 whether it be a matter of congratulation, considering all that I 
 leave behind.” 
 
 “ So do I,” answered Cary bluntly enough, and the four 
 walked back to the house, Lady Grenvile taking everything for 
 granted with the most charming good humour, and chatting to 
 her three silent companions till they gained the terrace once 
 more, and found four or five of the gentlemen, with Sir Richard 
 at their head, proceeding to the bowling-green. 
 
 Lady Grenvile, in an agony of fear about the quarrel which 
 she knew must come, would have gladly whispered five words 
 to her husband : but she dared not do it before the Spaniard, 
 and dreaded, too, a faint or a scream from the Rose, whose 
 father was of the party. So she walked on with her fair 
 prisoner, commanding Cary to escort them in, and the Spaniard 
 to go to the bowling-green. 
 
 Cary obeyed : but he gave her the slip the moment she 
 was inside the door, and then darted off to the gentlemen. 
 
 His heart was on fire : all his old passion for the Rose had 
 flashed up again at the sight of her with a lover ; — and that 
 lover a Spaniard ! He would cut his throat for him, if steel 
 could do it ! Only he recollected that Salterne was there, and 
 shrank from exposing Rose ; and shrank, too, as every gentle- 
 man should, from making a public quarrel in another man’s 
 house. Never mind. Where there was a will there was a 
 way. He could get him into a corner, and quarrel with him 
 privately about the cut of his beard, or the colour of his ribbon. 
 So in he went ; and, luckily or unluckily, found standing together 
 apart from the rest, Sir Richard, the Don, and young St. Leger. 
 
 “Well, Don Guzman, you have given us wine-bibbers the 
 
CHAP, xii.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 251 
 
 slip this afternoon. I hope you have been well employed 
 in the meanwhile V ’ 
 
 “ Delightfully to myself, Sehor,” said the Don, who, enraged 
 at being interrupted, if not discovered, was as ready to fight as 
 Cary, but disliked, of course, an explosion as much as he did ; 
 “and to others, I doubt not.” 
 
 “ So the ladies say,” quoth St. Leger. “ He has been 
 making them all cry with one of his stories, and robbing us 
 meanwhile of the pleasure we had hoped for from some of his 
 Spanish songs.” 
 
 “ The devil take Spanish songs !” said Cary, in a low voice, 
 but loud enough for the Spaniard. Don Guzman clapt his 
 hand on his sword-hilt instantly. 
 
 “ Lieutenant Cary,” said Sir Richard in a stern voice ; “ the 
 wine has surely made you forget yourself!” 
 
 “ As sober as yourself, most worshipful knight ; but if you 
 want a Spanish song, here’s one ; and a very scurvy one it is, 
 like its subject — 
 
 “ Don Desperado 
 Walked on the Prado, 
 
 And there he met his enemy. 
 
 He pulled out a knife, a, 
 
 And let out his life, a, 
 
 And fled for his own across the 6ea. 
 
 And he bowed low to the Spaniard. 
 
 The insult was too gross to require any spluttering. 
 
 “ Sehor Cary, we meet 1” 
 
 “ I thank your quick apprehension, Don Guzman Maria 
 Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto. When, where, and with what 
 weapons 1 ” 
 
 “ For God’s sake, gentlemen ! Nephew Arthur, Cary is 
 your guest ; do you know the meaning of this ?” 
 
 St. Leger was silent. Cary answered for him. 
 
 “ An old Irish quarrel, I assure you, sir. A matter of years’ 
 standing. In unlacing the Senor’s helmet, the evening that he 
 was taken prisoner, I was unlucky enough to twitch his mus- 
 tachios. You recollect the fact, of course, Sehor ?” 
 
 “ Perfectly,” said the Spaniard ; and then, half-amused and 
 half-pleased, in spite of his bitter wrath, at Cary’s quickness 
 and delicacy in shielding Rose, he bowed, and 
 
 “ And it gives me much pleasure to find that he whom I 
 trust to have the pleasure of killing to-morrow morning is a 
 gentleman whose nice sense of honour renders him thoroughly 
 worthy of the sword of a De Soto.” 
 
252 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE [chap. xii. 
 
 Cary bowed in return, while Sir Richard, who saw plainly 
 enough that the excuse was feigned, shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 “ What weapons, Senor 9” asked Will again. 
 
 “ I should have preferred a horse and pistols,” said Don 
 Guzman after a moment, half to himself, and in Spanish ; “ they 
 make surer work of it than bodkins ; but” (with a sigh and one 
 of his smiles) “ beggars must not be choosers.” 
 
 “The best horse in my stable is at your service, Senor,” 
 said Sir Richard Grenvile instantly. 
 
 “ And in mine also, Senor,” said Cary ; “ and I shall be 
 happy to allow you a week to train him, if lie does not answer 
 at first to a Spanish hand.” 
 
 “ You forget in your courtesy, gentle sir, that the insult 
 being with me, the time lies with me also. We wipe it off 
 to-morrow morning with simple rapiers and daggers. Who is 
 your second 9” 
 
 “ Mr. Arthur St. Leger here, Senor : who is yours 9” 
 
 The Spaniard felt himself alone in the world for one 
 moment ; and then answered with another of his smiles, — 
 
 “ Your nation possesses the soul of honour. He who fights 
 an Englishman needs no second.” 
 
 “ And he who fights among Englishmen will always find 
 one,” said Sir Richard. “ I am the fittest second for my 
 guest.” 
 
 “You only add one more obligation, illustrious cavalier, to 
 a two-years’ prodigality of favours, which I shall never be able 
 to repay.” 
 
 “But, Nephew Arthur,” said Grenvile, “you cannot surely 
 be second against your father’s guest, and your own uncle.” 
 
 “ I cannot help it, sir ; I am bound by an oath, as Will can 
 tell you. I suppose you won’t think it necessary to let me 
 blood V’ 
 
 “ You half deserve it, sirrah !” said Sir Richard, who was 
 very angry : but the Don interposed quickly. 
 
 “ Heaven forbid, Senors ! We are no French duellists, who 
 are mad enough to make four or six lives answer for the sins of 
 two. This gentleman and I have quarrel enough between us, 
 I suspect, to make a right bloody encounter.” 
 
 “ The dependence is good enough, sir,” said Cary, licking 
 his sinful lips at the thought. “Very well. Rapiers and 
 shirts at three to-morrow morning — Is that the bill of fare ? 
 Ask Sir Richard where, A tty 1 It is against punctilio now for 
 me to speak to him till after I am killed.” 
 
CHAP. XII.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 255 
 
 “ On the sands opposite. The tide will he out at three. 
 And now, gallant gentlemen, let us join the bowlers.” 
 
 And so they went back and spent a merry evening, all 
 except poor Rose, who, ere she went back, had poured all her 
 sorrows into Lady Gren vile’s ear. For the kind woman, know- 
 ing that she was motherless and guileless, carried her off into 
 Mrs. St. LegeFs chamber, and there entreated her to tell the 
 truth, and heaped her with pity, but with no comfort. For 
 indeed, what comfort was there to give 1 
 
 Three o’clock, upon a still pure bright Midsummer morn- 
 ing. A broad and yellow sheet of ribbed tide-sands, through 
 which the shallow river wanders from one hill-foot to the 
 other, whispering round dark knolls of rock, and under low 
 tree-fringed cliffs, and banks of golden broom. A mile below, 
 the long bridge and the wdiite walled town, all sleeping pearly 
 in the soft haze, beneath a cloudless vault of blue. The 
 white glare of dawn, which last night hung high in the north- 
 west, has travelled now to the north-east, and above the 
 wooded wall of the hills the sky is flushing with rose and 
 amber. 
 
 A long line of gulls goes wailing up inland ; the rooks from 
 Annery come cawing and sporting round the corner at Land- 
 cross, while high above them four or five herons flap solemnly 
 along to find their breakfast on the shallows. The pheasants 
 and partridges are clucking merrily in the long wet grass ; 
 every copse and hedgerow rings with the voice of birds : but 
 the lark, who has been singing since midnight in the “ blank 
 height of the dark,” suddenly hushes his carol and drops head- 
 long among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from 
 some wooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs 
 high-poised above the heavenward songster. The air is full of 
 perfume ; sweet clover, new-mown hay, the fragrant breath of 
 kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed wreaths and fresh wet sand." 
 Glorious day, glorious place, “ bridal of earth and sky,” decked 
 well with bridal garlands, bridal perfumes, bridal songs, — 
 What do those four cloaked figures there by the river brink, a 
 dark spot on the fair face of the summer morn ? 
 
 Yet one is as cheerful as if he too, like all nature round 
 him, were going to a wedding ; and that is Will Cary. He 
 has been bathing down below, to cool his brain and steady his 
 hand ; and he intends to stop Don Guzman Maria Magdalena 
 Sotomayor de Soto’s wooing for ever and a day. The Spaniard 
 
254 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE [chap. xii. 
 
 is in a very different mood ; fierce and haggard, he is pacing up 
 and down the sand. He intends to kill Will Cary ; but then ? 
 Will he be the nearer to Rose by doing so 'i Can he stay in 
 Bideford 1 Will she go with him ? Shall he stoop to stain 
 his family by marrying a burgher’s daughter 1 It is a confused, 
 all but desperate business ; and Don Guzman is certain but of 
 one thing, that he is madly in love with this fair witch, and 
 that if she refuse him, then, rather than see her accept another 
 man, he would kill her with his own hands. 
 
 Sir Richard Grenvile too is in no very pleasant humour, as 
 St. Leger soon discovers, when the two seconds begin whisper- 
 ing over their arrangements. 
 
 “ We cannot have either of them killed, Arthur.” 
 
 “ Mr. Cary swears he will kill the Spaniard, sir.” 
 
 “ He shan’t. The Spaniard is my guest. I am answer- 
 able for him to Leigh, and for his ransom too. And how can 
 Leigh accept the ransom if the man is not given up safe and 
 sound 1 They won’t pay for a dead carcass, boy ! The man’s 
 life is worth two hundred pounds.” 
 
 “ A very bad bargain, sir, for those who pay the said two 
 hundred for the rascal ; but what if he kills Cary V ’ 
 
 “ Worse still. Cary must not be killed. I am very angry 
 with him, but he is too good a lad to be lost ; and his father 
 would never forgive us. We must strike up their swords at 
 the first scratch.” 
 
 “ It will make them very mad, sir.” 
 
 “ Hang them ! let them fight us then, if they don’t like 
 our counsel. It must be, Arthur.” 
 
 “Be sure, sir,” said Arthur, “that whatsoever you shall 
 command I shall perform. It is only too great an honour to a 
 young man as I am to find myself in the same duel with 
 your worship, and to have the advantage of your wisdom and 
 experience.” 
 
 Sir Richard smiles, and says — “ Now, gentlemen ! are you 
 ready 1” 
 
 The Spaniard pulls out a little crucifix, and kisses it 
 devoutly, smiting on his breast ; crosses himself two or three 
 times, and says — “ Most willingly, Senor.” 
 
 Cary kisses no crucifix, but says a prayer nevertheless. 
 Cloaks and doublets are tossed off, the men placed, the 
 rapiers measured hilt and point ; Sir Richard and St. Leger 
 place themselves right and left of the combatants, facing each 
 other, the points of their drawn swords on the sand. Cary 
 
chap. XII.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 255 
 
 and the Spaniard stand for a moment quite upright, their 
 .sword-arms stretched straight before them, holding the long 
 rapier horizontally, the left hand clutching the dagger close 
 to their breasts. So they stand eye to eye, with clenched 
 teeth and pale crushed lips, while men might count a score ; 
 St. Leger can hear the beating of his own heart ; Sir Richard 
 is praying inwardly that no life may be lost. Suddenly there 
 is a quick turn of Cary’s wrist and a leap forward. The 
 Spaniard’s dagger flashes, and the rapier is turned aside ; Cary 
 springs six feet back as the Spaniard rushes on him in turn. 
 Parry, thrust, parry — the steel rattles, the sparks fly, the men 
 breathe fierce and loud ; the devil’s game is begun in earnest. 
 
 Five minutes have the two had instant death a short six 
 inches off from those wild sinful hearts of theirs, and not a 
 scratch has been given. Yes ! the Spaniard’s rapier passes 
 under Cary’s left arm : he bleeds. 
 
 “A hit! a hit! Strike up, Atty !” and the swords are 
 struck up instantly. 
 
 Cary, nettled by the smart, tries to close with his foe, but 
 the seconds cross their swords before him. 
 
 “ It is enough, gentlemen. Don Guzman’s honour is 
 satisfied !” 
 
 “ But not my revenge, Senor,” says the Spaniard, with a 
 frown. “ This duel is a Voutrance , on my part ; and, I believe, 
 on Mr. Cary’s also.” 
 
 “ By heaven, it is !” says Will, trying to push past. “ Let 
 me go, Arthur St. Leger ; one of us must down. Let me go, 
 I say ! ” 
 
 “ If you stir, Mr. Cary, you have to do with Richard Gren- 
 vile ! ” thunders the lion voice. “ I am angry enough with you 
 for having brought on this duel at all. Don’t provoke me still 
 further, young hot-head ! ” 
 
 Cary stops sulkily. 
 
 “You do not know all, Sir Richard, or you would not speak 
 in this way.” 
 
 “I do, sir, all : and I shall have the honour of talking it 
 over with Don Guzman myself.” 
 
 “ Hey !” said the Spaniard. “You came here as my second, 
 Sir Richard, as I understood : but not as my counsellor.” 
 
 “ Arthur, take your man away ! Cary ! obey me as you 
 would your father, sir ! Can you not trust Richard Grenvile ?” 
 
 “Come away, for God’s sake !” says poor Arthur, dragging 
 Cary’s sword from him ; “ Sir Richard must know best !” 
 
256 HOW BIDEFORD BRIDGE [CHAP, xn 
 
 So Cary is led off sulking, and Sir Richard turns to the 
 Spaniard, 
 
 “And now, Don Guzman, allow me, though much against 
 my will, to speak to you as a friend to a friend. You will 
 pardon me if I say that I cannot but have seen last night’s 
 devotion to ” 
 
 “You will be pleased, Sehor, not to mention the name of 
 any lady to whom I may have shown devotion. I am not 
 accustomed to have my little affairs talked over by any unbidden 
 counsellors.” 
 
 “Well, Sehor, if you take offence, you take that which is 
 not given. Only I warn you, with all apologies for any seem- 
 ing forwardness, that the quest on which you seem to be is one 
 on which you will not be allowed to proceed.” 
 
 “And who will stop me ?” asked the Spaniard, with a fierce 
 oath. 
 
 “You are not aware, illustrious Sehor,” said Sir Richard, 
 parrying the question, “ that our English laity look upon mixed 
 marriages with full as much dislike as your own ecclesiastics.” 
 
 “Marriage, sir? Who gave you leave to mention that 
 word to me V* 
 
 Sir Richard’s brow darkened ; the Spaniard, in his insane 
 pride, had forced upon the good knight a suspicion which was 
 not really just. 
 
 “Is it possible, then, Sehor Don Guzman, that I am to 
 have the shame of mentioning a baser word ?” 
 
 “ Mention what you will, sir. All words are the same to 
 me ; for, just or unjust, I shall answer them alike only by my 
 sword.” 
 
 “You will do no such thing, sir. You forget that I am 
 your host.” 
 
 “ And do you suppose that you have therefore a right to 
 insult me ? Stand on your guard, sir !” 
 
 Grenvile answered by slapping his own rapier home into 
 the sheath with a quiet smile. 
 
 “ Sehor Don Guzman must be well enough aware of who 
 Richard Grenvile is, to know that he may claim the right of 
 refusing duel to any man, if he shall so think fit.” 
 
 “Sir!” cried the Spaniard with an oath, “this is too much! 
 Do you dare to hint that I am unworthy of your sword? Know, 
 insolent Englishman, I am not merely a De Soto, — though 
 that, by St. James, were enough for you or any man. I am 
 a Sotomayor, a Mendoza, a Bovadilla, a Losada, a— sir! 
 
CHAP, xii.] DINED AT ANNERY HOUSE. 257 
 
 I have blood royal in my veins, and you dare to refuse my 
 challenge?” 
 
 “ Richard Grenvile can show quarterings, probably, against 
 even Don Guzman Maria Magdalena Sotomayor de Soto, or 
 against (with no offence to the unquestioned nobility of your 
 pedigree) the bluest blood of Spain. But he can show, more- 
 over, thank God, a reputation which raises him as much above 
 the imputation of cowardice, as it does above that of discourtesy. 
 If you think fit, Sehor, to forget what you have just, in very 
 excusable anger, vented, and to return with me, you will find 
 me still, as ever, your most faithful servant and host. If other- 
 wise, you have only to name whither you wish your mails to be 
 sent, and I shall, with unfeigned sorrow, obey your commands 
 concerning them.” 
 
 The Spaniard bowed stiffly, answered, “ To the nearest 
 tavern, Sehor,” and then strode away. His baggage was sent 
 thither. He took a boat down to Appledore that very after- 
 noon, and vanished, none knew whither. A very courteous 
 note to Lady Grenvile, enclosing the jewel which he had been 
 used to wear round his neck, was the only memorial he left 
 behind him : except, indeed, the scar on Cary’s arm, and poor 
 Rose’s broken heart. 
 
 Now county towns are scandalous places at best ; and 
 though all parties tried to keep the duel secret, yet, of course, 
 before noon all Bideford knew what had happened, and a great 
 deal more ; and what was even worse, Rose, in an agony of 
 terror, had seen Sir Richard Grenvile enter her father’s private 
 room, and sit there closeted with him for an hour and more ; 
 and when he went, upstairs came old Salterne, with his stick 
 in his hand, and after rating her soundly for far worse than a 
 flirt, gave her (I am sorry to have to say it, but such wa,s the 
 mild fashion of paternal rule in those times, even over such 
 daughters as Lady Jane Grey, if Roger Ascham is to be believed) 
 such a beating that her poor sides were black and blue for many 
 a day ; and then putting her on a pillion behind him, carried 
 her off twenty miles to her old prison at Stow Mill, command- 
 ing her aunt to tame down her saucy blood with bread of afflic- 
 tion and water of affliction. Which commands were willingly 
 enough fulfilled by the old dame, who had always borne a 
 grudge against Rose for being rich while she was poor, and 
 pretty while her daughter was plain; so that between flouts, 
 and sneers, and watchings, and pretty open hints that she was 
 a disgrace to her family, and no better than she should be, the 
 
 s 
 
258 
 
 HOW THE GOLDEN HIND 
 
 [chap. xiii. 
 
 poor innocent child watered her couch with her tears for a fort- 
 night or more, stretching out her hands to the wide Atlantic, 
 and calling wildly to Don Guzman to return and take her where 
 he would, and she would live for him and die for him ; and per- 
 haps she did not call in vain. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW THE GOLDEN HIND CAME HOME AGAIN. 
 
 “ The spirits of your fathers 
 
 Shall start from every wave ; 
 
 For the deck it was their field of fame, 
 
 And ocean was their grave.” 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 “ So you see, my dear Mrs. Hawkins, having the silver, as your 
 own eyes show you, beside the ores of lead, manganese, and 
 copper, and above all this gossan (as the Cornish call it), which 
 I suspect to be not merely the matrix of the ore, but also the 
 very crude form and materia prima of all metals — you mark 
 me ? — If my recipes, which I had from Doctor Dee, succeed only 
 half so well as I expect, then I refine out the Luna, the silver, 
 lay it by, and transmute the remaining ores into Sol, gold. 
 Whereupon Peru and Mexico become superfluities, and England 
 the mistress of the globe. Strange, no doubt; distant, no doubt: 
 but possible, my dear madam, possible !” 
 
 “ And what good to you if it be, Mr. Gilbert 1 If you could 
 find a philosopher’s stone to turn sinners into saints, now : — 
 but nought save God’s grace can do that : and that last seems 
 ofttimes over long in coming.” And Mrs. Hawkins sighed. 
 
 “ But indeed, my dear madam, conceive now. — The Comb 
 Martin mine thus becomes a gold mine, perhaps inexhaustible ; 
 yields me wherewithal to carry out my North-West patent; mean- 
 while my brother Humphrey holds Newfoundland, and builds 
 me fresh ships year by year (for the forests of pine are bound- 
 less) for my China voyage.” 
 
 “ Sir Humphrey has better thoughts in his dear heart than 
 gold, Mr. Adrian ; a very close and gracious walker he has been 
 this seven year. I wish my Captain John were so too.” 
 
 “ And how do you know I have nought better in my mind’s 
 eye than gold ? Or, indeed, what better could I have ? Is not 
 gold the Spaniard’s strength — the very mainspring of Antichrist? 
 
CAME HOME AGAIN. 
 
 259 
 
 CHAP. XIII.] 
 
 By gold only, therefore, can we out-wrestle him. You shake 
 your head : but say, dear madam (for gold England must have), 
 which is better, to make gold bloodlessly at home, or take it 
 bloodily abroad ?” 
 
 “ Oh, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Gilbert ! is it not written, that those 
 who make haste to be rich, pierce themselves through with many 
 sorrows'? Oh, Mr. Gilbert ! God's blessing is not on it all.” 
 
 “ Not on you, madam? Be sure that brave Captain John 
 Hawkins’s star told me a different tale, when I cast his nativity 
 for him. — Born under stormy planets, truly: but under right 
 royal and fortunate ones.” 
 
 “ Ah, Mr. Adrian ! I am a simple body, and you a great 
 philosopher : but I hold there is no star for the seaman like the 
 Star of Bethlehem ; and that goes with £ peace on earth and 
 good will to men/ and not with such arms as that, Mr. Adrian. 
 I can’t abide to look upon them.” 
 
 And she pointed up to one of the bosses of the ribbed oak- 
 roof, on which was emblazoned the fatal crest which Clarencieux 
 Hervey had granted years before to her husband, the “Demi- 
 Moor proper, bound.” 
 
 “ Ah, Mr. Gilbert ! since first he went to Guinea after those 
 poor negroes, little lightness has my heart known ; and the very 
 day that that crest was put up in our grand new house, as the 
 parson read the first lesson, there was this text in it, Mr. Gil- 
 bert, ‘ Woe to him that buildeth his house by iniquity, and his 
 chambers by wrong. Shalt thou live because thou closest thy- 
 self in cedar?’ And it went into my ears like fire, Mr. Gilbert, 
 and into my heart like lead ; and when the parson went on, 
 £ Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice? 
 Then it was well with him/ I thought of good old Captain Will ; 
 and — I tell you, Mr. Gilbert, those negroes are on my soul from 
 morning until night ! We are all mighty grand now, and money 
 comes in fast : but the Lord will require the blood of them at 
 our hands yet, He will !” 
 
 “My dearest madam, who can prosper more than you? If 
 your husband copied the Dons too closely once or twice in the 
 matter of those negroes (which I do hot deny), was he not 
 punished at once when he lost ships, men, all but life, at St. 
 Juan d’Ulloa?” 
 
 ££ Ay, yes,” she said ; 11 and that did give me a bit of comfort, 
 especially when the queen — God save her tender heart ! — was so 
 sharp with him for pity of the poor wretches : but it has not 
 mended him. He is growing fast like the rest now, Mr. Gilbert, 
 
260 HOW THE GOLDEN HIND [ciiap. xiil 
 
 greedy to win, and niggardly to spend (God forgive him !) and 
 always fretting and plotting for some new gain, and envying 
 and grudging at Drake, and all who are deeper in the snare of 
 prosperity than he is. Gold, gold, nothing but gold in every 
 mouth — there it is ! Ah ! I mind when Plymouth was a quiet 
 little God-fearing place as God could smile upon : but ever since 
 my John, and Sir Francis, and poor Mr. Oxenham found out 
 the way to the Indies, it’s been a sad place. Not a sailor’s wife 
 but is crying ‘ Give, give,’ like the daughters of the horse-leech ; 
 and every woman must drive her husband out across seas to 
 bring her home money to squander on hoods and farthingales, 
 and go mincing with outstretched necks, and wanton eyes ; and 
 they will soon learn to do worse than that, for the sake of gain. 
 But the Lord’s hand will be against their tires and crisping- 
 pins, their mufflers and farthingales, as it was against the Jews 
 of old. Ah, dear me ! ” 
 
 The two interlocutors in this dialogue were sitting in a low 
 oak-panelled room in Plymouth town, handsomely enough fur- 
 nished, adorned with carving and gilding and coats of arms, and 
 noteworthy for many strange knicknacks, Spanish gold and silver 
 vessels on the sideboard ; strange birds and skins, and charts 
 and rough drawings of coast which hung about the room ; while 
 over the fireplace, above the portrait of old Captain Will 
 Hawkins, pet of Henry the Eighth, hung the Spanish ensign 
 which Captain John had taken in fair fight at Rio de la Hacha 
 fifteen years before, when, with two hundred men, he seized the 
 town in despite of ten hundred Spanish soldiers, and watered 
 his ship triumphantly at the enemy’s wells. 
 
 The gentleman was a tall fair man, with a broad and lofty 
 forehead, wrinkled with study, and eyes weakened by long por- 
 ing over the crucible and the furnace. 
 
 The lady had once been comely enough : but she was aged 
 and worn, as sailors’ wives are apt to be, by many sorrows. 
 Many a sad day had she had already ; for although John 
 Hawkins, port-admiral of Plymouth, and Patriarch of British 
 shipbuilders, was a faithful husband enough, and as ready to 
 forgive as he was to quarrel, yet he was obstinate and ruthless, 
 and in spite of his religiosity (for all men were religious then) 
 was by no means a “ consistent walker.” 
 
 And sadder days were in store for her, poor soul. Nine 
 years hence she would be asked to name her son’s brave new 
 ship, and would christen it The Repentance, giving no reason 
 in her quiet steadfast way (so says her son Sir Richard) but that 
 
CAME HOME AGAIN. 
 
 261 
 
 CHAP. XIII.] 
 
 “ Repentance was the best ship in which we could sail to the 
 harbour of heaven and she would hear that Queen Elizabeth, 
 complaining of the name for an unlucky one, had re-christened 
 her The Dainty, not without some by-quip, perhaps, at the cha- 
 racter of her most dainty captain, Richard Hawkins, the com- 
 plete seaman and Euphuist afloat, of whom, perhaps, more here- 
 after. 
 
 With sad eyes Mrs. (then Lady) Hawkins would see that 
 gallant bark sail Westward-ho, to go the world around, as many 
 another ship sailed ; and then wait, as many a mother beside 
 had waited, for the sail which never returned • till, dim and 
 uncertain, came tidings of her boy fighting for four days three 
 great Armadas (for the coxcomb had his father’s heart in him 
 after all), a prisoner, wounded, ruined, languishing for weary 
 years in Spanish prisons. And a sadder day than that was in 
 store, when a gallant fleet should round the Ram Head, not 
 with drum and trumpet, but with solemn minute-guns, and all 
 flags half-mast high, to tell her that her terrible husband’s work 
 was done, his terrible heart broken by failure and fatigue, and 
 his body laid by Drake’s beneath the far-off tropic seas. 
 
 And if, at the close of her eventful life, one gleam of sun- 
 shine opened for a while, when her boy Richard returned to her 
 bosom from his Spanish prison, to be knighted for his valour, 
 and made a Privy Councillor for his wisdom ; yet soon, how 
 soon, was the old cloud to close in again above her, until her 
 weary eyes should open in the light of Paradise. For that son 
 dropped dead, some say at the very council-table, leaving behind 
 him nought but broken fortunes, and huge purposes which never 
 were fulfilled ; and the stormy star of that bold race was set 
 for ever, and Lady Hawkins bowed her weary head and died, 
 the groan of those stolen negroes ringing in her ears, having 
 lived long enough to see her husband’s youthful sin become a 
 national institution, and a national curse for generations yet 
 unborn. 
 
 I know not why she opened her heart that night to Adrian 
 Gilbert, with a frankness which she would hardly have dared 
 to use to her own family. Perhaps it was that Adrian, like his 
 great brothers, Humphrey and Raleigh, was a man full of all 
 lofty and delicate enthusiasms, tender and poetical, such as 
 women cling to when their hearts are lonely ; but so it was ; 
 and Adrian, half ashamed of his own ambitious dreams, sate 
 looking at her a while in silence ; and then — 
 
 “ The Lord be with you, dearest lady. Strange, how you 
 
262 
 
 HOW THE GOLDEN HIND 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 women sit at home to love and suffer, while we men rush forth 
 to break our hearts and yours against rocks of our own seeking! 
 Ah well ! were it not for Scripture, I should have thought that 
 Adam, rather than Eve, had been the one who plucked the fruit 
 of the forbidden tree.” 
 
 “We women, I fear, did the deed nevertheless ; for we bear 
 the doom of it our lives long.” 
 
 “You always remind me, madam, of my dear Mrs. Leigh of 
 Burrough, and her counsels.” 
 
 “ Do you see her often ? I hear of her as one of the Lord’s 
 most precious vessels.” 
 
 “ I would have done more ere now than see her,” said he 
 with a blush, “ had she allowed me : but she lives only for the 
 memory of her husband and the fame of her noble sons.” 
 
 “As he spoke the door opened, and in walked, wrapped in 
 his rough sea-gown, none other than one of those said noble sons. 
 Adrian turned pale. 
 
 “ Amyas Leigh ! What brings you hither ? How fares 
 my brother 1 ? Where is the ship ?” 
 
 “ Your brother is well, Mr. Gilbert. The Golden Hind is 
 gone on to Dartmouth, with Mr. Hayes. I came ashore here, 
 meaning to go north to Bideford, ere I went to London. I 
 called at Drake’s just now, but he was away.” 
 
 “ The Golden Hind? What brings her home so soon?” 
 “Yet welcome ever, sir,” said Mrs. Hawkins. “This is a 
 great surprise, though. Captain John did not look for you till 
 next year.” 
 
 Amyas was silent. 
 
 “ Something is wrong !” cried Adrian. “ Speak !” 
 
 Amyas tried, but could not. 
 
 “Will you drive a man mad, sir ? Has the adventure 
 failed? You said my brother was well.” 
 
 “ He is well.” 
 
 “ Then what — Why do you look at me in that fashion, sir?” 
 and springing up, Adrian rushed forward, and held the candle 
 to Amyas’s face. 
 
 Amyas’s lip quivered, as he laid his hand on Adrian’s shoulder. 
 “Your great and glorious brother, sir, is better bestowed 
 than in settling Newfoundland.” 
 
 “ Dead ?” shrieked Adrian. 
 
 “ He is with the God whom he served !” 
 
 “ He was always with Him, like Enoch : parable me no 
 parables, if you love me, sir !” 
 
CHAP. XIII.] CAME HOME AGAIN. 263 
 
 “And, like Enoch, he was not; for God took him.” 
 
 Adrian clasped his hands over his forehead, and leaned 
 against the table. 
 
 “ Go on, sir, go on. God will give me strength to hear all.” 
 
 And gradually Amyas opened to Adrian that tragic story, 
 which Mr. Hayes has long ago told far too well to allow a 
 second edition of it from me : of the unruliness of the men, 
 ruffians, as I said before, caught up at hap-hazard ; of con- 
 spiracies to carry off the ships, plunder of fishing vessels, deser- 
 tions multiplying daily ; licences from the General to the lazy 
 and fearful to return home : till Adrian broke out with a groan — 
 
 “ From him 1 Conspired against him ? Deserted from 
 him ? Dotards, buzzards ! Where would they have found 
 such another leader ?” 
 
 “Your illustrious brother, sir,” said Amyas, “if you will 
 pardon me, was a very great philosopher, but not so much of a 
 General.” 
 
 “ General, sir % Where was braver man V’ 
 
 “Not on God’s earth: but that does not make a General, 
 sir. If Cortes had been brave and no more, Mexico would 
 have been Mexico still. The truth is, sir, Cortes, like my 
 Captain Drake, knew when to hang a man; and your great 
 brother did not.” 
 
 Amyas, as I suppose, was right. Gilbert was a man who 
 could be angry enough at baseness or neglect, but who was too 
 kindly to punish it ; he was one who could form the wisest and 
 best-digested plans, but who could not stoop to that hail-fellow- 
 well-met drudgery among his subordinates which has been the 
 talisman of great captains. 
 
 Then Amyas went on to tell the rest of his story ; the set- 
 ting sail from St. John’s to discover the southward coast ; Sir 
 Humphrey’s chivalrous determination to go in the little Squirrel 
 of only ten tons, and “overcharged with nettings, fights, and 
 small ordnance,” not only because she was more fit to examine 
 the creeks, but because he had heard of some taunt against him 
 among the men, that he was afraid of the sea. 
 
 After that, woe on woe ; how, seven days after they left 
 Cape Raz, their largest ship, the Delight, after she had “ most 
 part of the night ” (I quote Hayes), “ like the swan that singeth 
 before her death, continued in sounding of trumpets, drums, and 
 fifes, also winding of the cornets and hautboys, and, in the end 
 of their jollity, left off with the battle and doleful knells,” 
 struck the next day (the Golden Hind and the Squirrel sheering 
 
264 
 
 HOW THE GOLDEN HIND 
 
 [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 off just in time) upon unknown shoals ; where were lost all but 
 fourteen, and among them Frank’s philosopher friend, poor 
 Budseus ; and those who escaped, after all horrors of cold and 
 famine, were cast on shore in Newfoundland. How, worn out 
 with hunger and want of clothes, the crews of the two remain- 
 ing ships persuaded Sir Humphrey to sail toward England on 
 the 31st of August ; and on “ that very instant, even in wind- 
 ing about,” beheld close alongside “ a very lion in shape, hair, 
 and colour, not swimming, but sliding on the water, with his 
 whole body ; who passed along, turning his head to and fro, 
 yawning and gaping wide, with ugly demonstration of long 
 teeth and glaring eyes ; and to bid us farewell (coming right 
 against the Hind) he sent forth a horrible voice, roaring or 
 bellowing as doth a lion.” “ What opinion others had thereof, 
 and chiefly the General himself, I forbear to deliver ; but he 
 took it for bonum omen, rejoicing that he was to war against 
 such an enemy, if it were the devil.” 
 
 “And the devil it was, doubtless,” said Adrian, “the roar- 
 ing lion who goes about seeking whom he may devour” 
 
 “ He has not got your brother, at least,” quoth Amyas. 
 
 “ No,” rejoined Mrs. Hawkins (smile not, reader, for those 
 were days in which men believed in the devil) ; “he roared for 
 joy to think how many poor souls would be left still in heathen 
 darkness by Sir Humphrey’s death. God be with that good 
 knight, and send all mariners where he is now !” 
 
 Then Amyas told the last scene ; how, when they were off 
 the Azores, the storms came on heavier than ever, with “ terrible 
 seas, breaking short and pyramid-wise,” till, on the 9th Sep- 
 tember, the tiny Squirrel nearly foundered and yet recovered ; 
 “and the General, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried 
 out to us in the Hind so oft as we did approach within hearing, 
 ‘ We are as near heaven by sea as by land/ reiterating the 
 same speech, well beseeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, 
 as I can testify he was. 
 
 “ The same Monday, about twelve of the clock, or not long 
 after, the frigate (the Squirrel) being ahead of us in the Golden 
 Hind, suddenly her lights were out ; and withal our watch 
 cried, the General was cast away, which was true ; for in that 
 moment, the frigate was devoured and swallowed up of the sea.” 
 And so ended (I have used Hayes’ own words) Amyas Leigh’s 
 story. 
 
 “Oh, my brother! my brother!” moaned poor Adrian; 
 “ the glory of his house, the glory of Devon !” 
 
chap. XIII.] CAME HOME AGAIN. 265 
 
 “ All ! what will the queen say ?” asked Mrs. Hawkins 
 through her tears. 
 
 “ Tell me,” asked Adrian, “ had he the jewel on when he 
 
 died r 
 
 “ The queen’s jewel ? He always wore that, and his own 
 posy too, ‘ Mutare vel timere sperno.’ He wore it ; and he 
 lived it.” 
 
 “Ay,” said Adrian, “the same to the last !” 
 
 “Not quite that,” said Amyas. “ He was a meeker man 
 latterly than he used to be. As he said himself once, a better 
 refiner than any whom he had on board had followed him close 
 all the seas over, and purified him in the fire. And gold seven 
 times tried he was, when God, having done His work in him, 
 took him home at last.” 
 
 And so the talk ended. There was no doubt that the 
 expedition had been an utter failure; Adrian was a ruined 
 man ; and Amyas had lost his venture. 
 
 Adrian rose, and begged leave to retire ; he must collect 
 himself. 
 
 “ Poor gentleman ! ” said Mrs. Hawkins; “it is little else 
 he has left to collect.” 
 
 “ Or I either,” said Amyas. “ I was going to ask you to 
 lend me one of your son’s shirts, and five pounds to get myself 
 and my men home.” 
 
 “Five? Fifty, Mr. Leigh ! God forbid that John Haw- 
 kins’s wife should refuse her last penny to a distressed mariner, 
 and he a gentleman born. But you must eat and drink.” 
 
 “ It’s more than I have done for many a day worth speak- 
 ing of.” 
 
 And Amyas sat down in his rags to a good supper, while 
 Mrs. Hawkins told him all the news which she could of his 
 mother, whom Adrian Gilbert had seen a few months before in 
 London ; and then went on, naturally enough, to the Bideford 
 news. 
 
 “ And by the by, Captain Leigh, I’ve sad news for you from 
 your place ; and I had it from one who was there at the time. 
 You must know a Spanish captain, a prisoner ” 
 
 “ What, the* one I sent home from SmerwickT’ 
 
 “ You sent h Mercy on us ! Then, perhaps, you’ve 
 heard ” 
 
 “ How can I have heard 1 What 
 
 “ That he’s gone off, the villain V’ 
 
 “Without paying his ransom 1” 
 
266 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [chap. xiv. 
 
 “ I can’t say that ; but there’s a poor innocent young maid 
 gone off with him, one Salterne’s daughter — the Popish 
 serpent !” 
 
 “Rose Salterne, the mayor’s daughter, the Rose of Tor- 
 ridge !” 
 
 “ That’s her. Bless your dear soul, what ails you ?” 
 
 Amyas had dropped back in his seat as if he had been shot • 
 but he recovered himself before kind Mrs. Hawkins could rush 
 to the cupboard for cordials. 
 
 “You’ll forgive me, madam; but Pm weak from the sea; 
 and your good ale has turned me a bit dizzy, I think.” 
 
 “Ay, yes, ’tis too, too heavy, till you’ve been on shore 
 a while. Try the aqua vitse ; my Captain John has it right 
 good ; and a bit too fond of it too, poor dear soul, between 
 whiles, Heaven forgive him !” 
 
 So she poured some strong brandy and water down Amyas’s 
 throat, in spite of his refusals, and sent him to bed, but not to 
 sleep ; and after a night of tossing, he started for Bideford, 
 having obtained the means for so doing from Mrs. Hawkins. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 “ Ignorance and evil, even in full flight, deal terrible back -banded 
 strokes at their pursuers.” — H elps. 
 
 Now I am sorry to say, for the honour of my country, that it 
 was by no means a safe thing in those days to travel from Ply- 
 mouth to the north of Devon ; because, to get to your journey’s 
 end, unless you were minded to make a circuit of many miles, 
 you’must needs pass through the territory of a foreign and hostile 
 potentate, who had many times ravaged the dominions, and 
 defeated the forces of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and was 
 named (behind his back at least) the King of the Gubbings. 
 “ So now I dare call them,” says Fuller, “ secured by distance, 
 which one of more valour durst not do to their face, for fear 
 their fury fall upon. him. Yet hitherto have I met with none 
 
 who could render a reason of their name. We call the shav- 
 ings of fish (which are little worth) gubbings ; and sure it is 
 that they are sensible that the word importeth shame and 
 disgrace. 
 
 “As for the suggestion of my worthy and learned friend, 
 
267 
 
 CHAP* XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 Mr. Joseph Maynard, that such as did ‘inhabitare montes 
 gibberosos,’ were called Gubbings, such will smile at the in- 
 genuity who dissent from the truth of the etymology. 
 
 “I have read of an England beyond Wales, but the Gub- 
 bings land is a Scythia within England, and they pure heathens 
 therein. It lieth nigh Brent. For in the edge of Dartmoor it 
 is reported that, some two hundred years since, two bad women, 
 being with child, fled thither to hide themselves; to whom 
 certain lewd fellows resorted, and this was their first original. 
 They are a peculiar of their own making, exempt from bishop, 
 archdeacon, and all authority, either ecclesiastical or civil. 
 They live in cots (rather holes than houses) like swine, having 
 all in common, multiplied without marriage into many hun- 
 dreds. Their language is the dross of the dregs of the vulgar 
 Devonian ; and the more learned a man is, the worse he can 
 understand them. During our civil wars no soldiers were 
 quartered upon them, for fear of being quartered amongst them. 
 Their wealth consisteth in other men’s goods ; they live by 
 stealing the sheep on the moors ; and vain is it for any to 
 search their houses, being a work beneath the pains of any 
 sheriff, and above the power of any constable. Such is their 
 fleetness, they will outrun many horses ; vivaciousness, they 
 outlive most men ; living in an ignorance of luxury, the ex- 
 tinguisher of life. They hold together like bees ; offend one, 
 and all will revenge his quarrel. 
 
 “ But now I am informed that they begin to be civilised, 
 and tender their children to baptism, and return to be men, 
 yea, Christians again. I hope no civil people amongst us will 
 turn barbarians, now these barbarians begin to be civilised . 55 1 
 
 With which quip against the Anabaptists of his day, Fuller 
 ends his story ; and I leave him to set forth how Amyas, in 
 fear of these same Scythians and heathens, rode out of Ply- 
 mouth on a right good horse, in his full suit of armour, carrying 
 lance and sword, and over and above two great dags, or horse- 
 pistols ; and behind him Salvation Yeo, and five or six north 
 Devon men (who had served with him in Ireland, and were 
 returning on furlough), clad in head-pieces and quilted jerkins, 
 each man with his pike and sword, and Yeo with arquebuse 
 and match, while two sumpter ponies carried the baggage of 
 this formidable troop. 
 
 They pushed on as fast as they could, through Tavistock, 
 to reach before nightfall Lydford, where they meant to sleep ; 
 
 1 Fuller, p. 398. 
 
268 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [CH>P. XIV. 
 
 but what with buying the horses, and other delays, they had 
 not been able to start before noon ; and night fell just as they 
 reached the frontiers of the enemy’s country. A dreary place 
 enough it was, by the wild glare of sunset. A high table 
 land of heath, banked on the right by the crags and hills of 
 Dartmoor, and sloping away to the south and west toward the 
 foot of the great cone of Brent-Tor, which towered up like an 
 extinct volcano (as some say that it really is), crowned with 
 the tiny church, the votive offering of some Plymouth merchant 
 of old times, who vowed in sore distress to build a church to 
 the Blessed Virgin on the first point of English land which he 
 should sea Far away, down those waste slopes, they could 
 see the tiny threads of blue smoke rising from the dens of the 
 Gubbings ; and more than once they called a halt, to examine 
 whether distant furze-bushes and ponies might not be the 
 patrols of an advancing army. It is all very well to laugh at 
 it now, in the nineteenth century, but it was no laughing 
 matter then ; as they found before they had gone two miles 
 farther. 
 
 On the middle of the down stood a wayside inn ; a desolate 
 and villanous- looking lump of lichen -spotted granite, with 
 windows paper -patched, and rotting thatch kept down by 
 stones and straw-banks ; and at the back a rambling court- 
 ledge of barns and walls, around which pigs and barefoot 
 children grunted in loving communion of dirt. At the door, 
 rapt apparently in the contemplation of the mountain peaks 
 which glowed rich orange in the last lingering sun-rays, but 
 really watching which way the sheep on the moor were taking, 
 stood the innkeeper, a brawny, sodden-visaged, blear-eyed six 
 feet of brutishness, holding up his hose with one hand, for 
 want of points, and clawing with the other his elf-locks, on 
 which a fair sprinkling of feathers might denote : first, that he 
 was just out of bed, having been out sheep-stealing all the 
 night before ; and secondly, that by natural genius he had 
 anticipated the opinion of that great apostle of sluttishness, 
 Fridericus Dedekind, and his faithful disciple Dekker, which last 
 speaks thus to all gulls and grobians: — “ Consider that as those 
 trees of cobweb lawn, woven by spinners in the fresh May 
 mornings, do dress the curled heads of the mountains, and 
 adorn the swelling bosoms of the valleys ; or as those snowy 
 fleeces, which the naked briar steals from the innocent sheep to 
 make himself a warm winter livery, are, to either of them both, 
 an excellent ornament ; so make thou account, that to have 
 
Brent Tor . 
 
269 
 
 CHAP. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 feathers sticking here and there on thy head will embellish 
 thee, and set thy crown out rarely. None dare upbraid thee, 
 that like a beggar thou hast lain on straw, or like a travelling 
 pedlar upon musty flocks ; for those feathers will rise up as 
 witnesses to choke him that says so, and to prove thy bed to 
 have been of the softest down.” Even so did those feathers 
 bear witness that the possessor of Rogues’ Harbour Inn, on 
 Brent-Tor Down, whatever else he lacked, lacked not geese 
 enough to keep him in soft lying 
 
 Presently he spies Amyas and his party coming slowly over 
 the hill, pricks up his ears, and counts them ; sees Amyas’s 
 armour ; shakes his head and grunts ; and then, being a man 
 of few words, utters a sleepy howl — 
 
 “ Mirooi ! — Fushing pooale!” 
 
 A strapping lass — whose only covering (for country women 
 at work in those days dispensed with the ornament of a gown) 
 is a green bodice and red petticoat, neither of them over ample 
 — brings out his fishing-rod and basket, and the man, having 
 tied up his hose with some ends of stringj examines the footlink. 
 
 “ Don vlies’ gone ! ” 
 
 “Maybe,” says Mary; “shouldn’t hav’ left mun out to 
 coort. May be old hen’s ate mun off. I see her chocking 
 about a while agone.” 
 
 The host receives this intelligence with an oath, and replies 
 by a violent blow at Mary’s head, which she, accustomed to 
 such slight matters, dodges, and then returns the blow with 
 good effect on the shock head. 
 
 Whereon mine host, equally accustomed to such slight 
 matters, quietly shambles off, howling as he departs — 
 
 “ Tell patrico !” 
 
 Mary runs in, combs her hair, slips a pair of stockings and 
 her best gown over her dirt, and awaits the coming guests, who 
 make a few long faces at the “ mucksy sort of a place,” but 
 prefer to spend the night there than to bivouac close to the 
 enemy’s camp. 
 
 So the old hen who has swallowed the dun fly is killed, 
 plucked, and roasted, and certain “ black Dartmoor mutton ” is 
 put on the gridiron, and being compelled to confess the truth 
 by that fiery torment, proclaims itself to all noses as red-deer 
 venison. In the meanwhile Amyas has put his horse and the 
 ponies into a shed, to which he can find neither lock nor key, 
 and therefore returns grumbling, not without fear for his steed’s 
 safety. The baggage is heaped in a corner of the room, and 
 
270 HOW SALVATION YEO [chap. xiv. 
 
 Amyas stretches his legs before a turf fire ; while Yeo, who has 
 his notions about the place, posts himself at the door, and the 
 men are seized with a desire to superintend the cooking, prob- 
 ably to be attributed to the fact that Mary is cook. 
 
 Presently Yeo comes in again. 
 
 “There’s a gentleman just coming up, sir, all alone.” 
 
 “ Ask him to make one of our party, then, with my compli- 
 ments.” Yeo goes out, and returns in five minutes. 
 
 “ Please, sir, he’s gone in back ways, by the court.” 
 
 “Well, he has an odd taste, if he makes himself at home 
 here.” 
 
 Out goes Yeo again, and comes back once more after five 
 minutes, in high excitement. 
 
 “ Come out, sir ; for goodness’ sake come out. I’ve got 
 him. Safe as a rat in a trap, I have ! ” 
 
 “ Who 1” 
 
 “ A Jesuit, sir.” 
 
 “ Nonsense, man !” 
 
 “I tell you truth, sir. I went round the house, for I 
 didn’t like the looks of him as he came up. I knew he was 
 one of them villains the minute he came up, by the way he 
 turned in his toes, and put down his feet so still and careful, 
 like as if he was afraid of offending God at every step. So I 
 just put my eye between the wall and the dern of the gate, and 
 I saw him come up to the back door and knock, and call 
 ‘Mary !’ quite still, like any Jesuit; and the wench flies out to 
 him ready to eat him ; and ‘ Go away,’ I heard her say, ‘ there’s 
 a dear man and then something about a ‘ queer cuffin ’ (that’s 
 a justice in these canters’ thieves’ Latin) ; and with that he 
 takes out a somewhat — I’ll swear it was one of those Popish 
 Agnuses — and gives it her ; and she kisses it, and crosses her- 
 self, and asks him if that’s the right way, and then puts it into 
 her bosom, and he says, ‘ Bless you, my daughter ;’ and then I 
 was sure of the dog : and he slips quite still to the stable, and 
 peeps in, and when he sees no one there, in he goes, and out I 
 go, and shut to the door, and back a cart that was there up 
 against it, and call out one of the men to watch the stable, and 
 the girl’s crying like mad.” 
 
 “ What a fool’s trick, man ! How do you know that he is 
 not some honest gentleman, after alii” 
 
 “ Fool or none, sir ; honest gentlemen don’t give maidens 
 Agnuses. I’ve put him in ; and if you want him let out again, 
 you must Gome and do it yourself, for my conscience is against 
 
chap. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 271 
 
 it, sir. If the Lord’s enemies are delivered into my hand, I’m 
 answerable, sir,” went on Yeo as Amyas hurried out with him. 
 “ ’Tis written, ‘ If any let one of them go, his life shall be for 
 the life of him.’” 
 
 So Amyas ran out, pulled back the cart grumbling, opened 
 the door, and began a string of apologies to — his cousin Eustace. 
 
 Yes, here he was, with such a countenance, half foolish, 
 half venomous, as Reynard wears when the last spadeful of 
 earth is thrown back, and he is revealed sitting disconsolately 
 on his tail within a yard of the terriers’ noses. 
 
 Neither cousin spoke for a minute or two. At last Amyas — 
 
 “ Well, cousin hide-and-seek, how long have you added 
 horse-stealing to your other trades'?” 
 
 “ My dear Amyas,” said Eustace very meekly, “ I may surely 
 go into an inn stable without intending to steal what is in it.” 
 
 “Of course, old fellow,” said Amyas, mollified, “I was 
 only in jest. But what brings you here % Not prudence, 
 certainly.” 
 
 “I am bound to know no prudence save for the Lord’s 
 work.” 
 
 “That’s giving away Agnus Deis, and deceiving poor 
 heathen wenches, I suppose,” said Yeo. 
 
 Eustace answered pretty roundly — 
 
 “ Heathens 1 Yes, truly ; you Protestants leave these poor 
 wretches heathens, and then insult and persecute those who, 
 with a devotion unknown to you, labour at the danger of their 
 lives to make them Christians. Mr. Amyas Leigh, you can 
 give me up to be hanged at Exeter, if it shall so please you to 
 disgrace your own family ; but from this spot neither you, no, 
 nor all the myrmidons of your queen, shall drive me, while 
 there is a soul here left unsaved.” 
 
 “Come out of the stable, at least,” said Amyas; “you 
 don’t want to make the horses Papists, as well as the asses, do 
 you 'l Come out, man, and go to the devil your own way. I 
 shan’t inform against you ; and Yeo here will hold his tongue 
 if I tell him, I know.” 
 
 “ It goes sorely against my conscience, sir , but being that 
 he is your cousin, of course ” 
 
 “ Of course ; and now come in and eat with me ; supper’s 
 just ready, and bygones shall be bygones, if you will have them 
 so.” 
 
 How much forgiveness Eustace felt in his heart, I know 
 not : but he knew, of course, that he ought to forgive ; and to 
 
272 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [chap. xiv. 
 
 go in and eat with Amyas was to perform an act of forgiveness, 
 and for the best of motives, too, for by it the cause of the 
 Church might be furthered ; and acts and motives being correct, 
 what more was needed ? So in he went ; and yet he never 
 forgot that scar upon his cheek; and Amyas could not look 
 him in the face but Eustace must fancy that his eyes were on 
 the scar, and peep up from under his lids to see if there was 
 any smile of triumph on that honest visage. They talked away 
 over the venison, guardedly enough at first ; but as they went 
 on, Amyas’s straightforward kindliness warmed poor Eustace’s 
 frozen heart ; and ere they were aware, they found themselves 
 talking over old haunts and old passages of their boyhood — 
 uncles, aunts, and cousins ; and Eustace, without any sinister 
 intention, asked Amyas why he was going to Bideford, while 
 Frank and his mother were in London. 
 
 “ To tell you the truth, I cannot rest till I have heard the 
 whole story about poor Rose Salterne.” 
 
 “What about her?” cried Eustace. 
 
 “ Do you not know ?” 
 
 “ How should I know anything here ? For heaven’s sake, 
 what has happened ?” 
 
 Amyas told him, wondering at his eagerness, for he had 
 never had the least suspicion of Eustace’s love. 
 
 Eustace shrieked aloud. 
 
 “ Fool, fool that I have been ! Caught in my own trap ! 
 Villain, villain that he is ! After all he promised me at Lundy ! ” 
 
 And springing up, Eustace stamped up and down the room, 
 gnashing his teeth, tossing his head from side to side, and 
 clutching with outstretched hands at the empty air, with the 
 horrible gesture (Heaven grant that no reader has ever witnessed 
 it !) of that despair which still seeks blindly for the object 
 which it knows is lost for ever. 
 
 Amyas sat thunderstruck. His first impulse was to ask, 
 “Lundy? What knew you of him? What had he or you to 
 do at Lundy ?” but pity conquered curiosity. 
 
 “ Oh, Eustace ! And you then loved her too ?” 
 
 “ Don’t speak to me ! Loved her ? Yes, sir, and had as 
 good a right to love her as any one of your precious brother- 
 hood of the Rose. Don’t speak to me, I say, or I shall do you 
 a mischief !” 
 
 So Eustace knew of the brotherhood too! Amyas longed 
 to ask him how; but what use in that? If he knew it, he 
 knew it ; and what harm ? So he only answered — 
 
273 
 
 CHAP. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 “ My good cousin, why be wroth with me ? If you really 
 love her, now is the time to take counsel with me how best we 
 shall ” 
 
 Eustace did not let him finish his sentence. Conscious that 
 he had betrayed himself upon more points than one, he stopped 
 short in his walk, suddenly collected himself by one great effort, 
 and eyed Amyas from underneath his brows with the old down 
 look. 
 
 “ How best we shall do what, my valiant cousin ?” said he 
 in a meaning and half-scornful voice. “ What does your most 
 chivalrous Brotherhood of the Rose purpose in such a case ?” 
 Amyas, a little nettled, stood on his guard in return, and 
 answered bluntly — 
 
 “ What the Brotherhood of the Rose will do, I can’t yet 
 say. What it ought to do, I have a pretty sure guess.” 
 
 “ So have I. To hunt her down as you would an outlaw, 
 because forsooth she has dared to love a Catholic ; to murder 
 her lover in her arms, and drag her home again stained with 
 his blood, to be forced by threats and persecution to renounce 
 that Church into whose maternal bosom she has doubtless long 
 since found rest and holiness ! ” 
 
 “ If she has found holiness, it matters little to me where 
 she has found it, Master Eustace : but that is the very point 
 that I should be glad to know for certain.” 
 
 “And you will go and discover for yourself 1 ?” 
 
 “ Have you no wish to discover it also ?” 
 
 “And if I had, what would that be to you?” 
 
 “ Only,” said Amyas, trying hard to keep his temper, “that, 
 if we had the same purpose, we might sail in the same ship.” 
 “You intend to sail, then ?” 
 
 “ I mean simply, that we might work together.” 
 
 “Our paths lie on very different roads, sir !” 
 
 “I am afraid you never spoke a truer word, sir. In the 
 meanwhile, ere we part, be so kind as to tell me what you 
 meant by saying that you had met this Spaniard at Lundy?” 
 
 “ I shall refuse to answer that.” 
 
 “You will please to recollect, Eustace, that however good 
 friends we have been for the last half-hour, you are in my power. 
 I have a right to know the bottom of this matter ; and, by 
 Heaven, I will know it.” 
 
 “ In your power ? See that you are not in mine ! Remem- 
 ber, sir, that you are within a — within a few miles, at least, of 
 those who will obey me, their Catholic benefactor : but who owe 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [chap. xiv. 
 
 no allegiance to those Protestant authorities who have left them 
 to the lot of the beasts which perish.” 
 
 Amyas was very angry. He wanted but little more to make 
 him catch Eustace by the shoulders, shake the life out of him, 
 and deliver him into the tender guardianship of Yeo; but he 
 knew that to take him at all was to bring certain death on him,- 
 and disgrace on the family ; and remembering Frank’s conduct 
 on that memorable night at Clovelly, he kept himself down. 
 
 “ Take me,” said Eustace, “ if you will, sir. You, who 
 complain of us that we keep no faith with heretics, will perhaps 
 recollect that you asked me into this room as your guest : and 
 that in your good faith I trusted when I entered it.” 
 
 The argument was a worthless one in law ; for Eustace had 
 been a prisoner before he was a guest, and Amyas was guilty ol 
 something very like misprision of treason in not handing him 
 over to the nearest justice. However, all he did was, to go to 
 the door, open it, and bowing to his cousin, bid him walk out 
 and go to the devil, since he seemed to have set his mind on 
 ending his days in the company of that personage. 
 
 Whereon Eustace vanished. 
 
 “ Pooh !” said Amyas to himself: “ I can find out enough, 
 and too much, I fear, without the help of such crooked vermin. 
 I must see Cary ; I must see Salterne ; and I suppose, if I am 
 ready to do my duty, I shall learn somehow what it is. Now 
 to sleep ; to-morrow up and away to what God sends.” 
 
 “ Come in hither, men,” shouted he down the passage, “and 
 sleep here. Haven’t you had enough of this villanous sour 
 cider V’ 
 
 The men came in yawning, and settled themselves to sleep 
 on the floor. 
 
 “Where’s Yeo?” 
 
 No one knew ; he had gone out to say his prayers, and had 
 not returned. 
 
 “Never mind,” said Amyas, who suspected some plot on the 
 old man’s part. “ He’ll take care of himself, I’ll warrant him.” 
 
 “ No fear of that, sir;” and the four tars were soon snoring 
 in concert round the fire, while Amyas laid himself on the settle, 
 with his saddle for a pillow. 
 
 It was about midnight, w T hen Amyas leaped to his feet, or 
 rather fell upon his back, upsetting saddle, settle, and finally, 
 table, under the notion that ten thousand flying dragons were 
 bursting in the window close to his ear, with howls most fierce 
 
275 
 
 CHAP. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 and fell. The flying dragons past, however, being only a flock 
 of terror-stricken geese, which flew flapping and screaming round 
 the corner of the house : but the noise which had startled them 
 did not pass ; and another minute made it evident that a sharp 
 fight was going on in the courtyard, and that Yeo was hallooing 
 lustily for help, 
 
 Out turned the men, sword in hand, burst the back door 
 open, stumbling over pails and pitchers, and into the courtyard, 
 where Yeo, his back against the stable -door, was holding his 
 own manfully with sword and buckler against a dozen men. 
 
 Dire and manifold was the screaming ; geese screamed, 
 chickens screamed, pigs screamed, donkeys screamed, Mary 
 screamed from an upper window; and to complete the chorus, a 
 flock of plovers, attracted by the noise, wheeled round and round 
 overhead, and added their screams also to that Dutch concert. 
 
 The screaming went on, but the fight ceased ; for, as Amyas 
 rushed into the yard, the whole party of ruffians took to their 
 heels, and vanished over a low hedge at the other end of the yard. 
 
 “ Are you hurt, Yeo fl” 
 
 “Not a scratch, thank Heaven ! But I’ve got two of them, 
 the ringleaders, I have. One of them’s against the wall. Your 
 horse did for t’other.” 
 
 The wounded man was lifted up ; a huge ruffian, nearly as 
 big as Amyas himself. Yeo’s sword had passed through his 
 body. He groaned and choked for breath. 
 
 “Carry him indoors. Where is the other 1 ?” 
 
 “ Dead as a herring, in the straw. Have a care, men, have 
 a care how you go in ! the horses are near mad !” 
 
 However, the man was brought out after a while. With 
 him all was over. They could feel neither pulse nor breath. 
 
 “ Carry him in too, poor wretch. And now, Yeo, what is 
 the meaning of all tins'?” 
 
 Yeo’s story was soon told. He could not get out of his 
 Puritan head the notion (quite unfounded, of course) that 
 Eustace had meant to steal the horses. He had seen the inn- 
 keeper sneak off at their approach ; and expecting some night- 
 attack, he had taken up his lodging for the night in the stable. 
 
 As he expected, an attempt was made. The door was 
 opened (how, he could not guess, for he had fastened it inside), 
 and two fellows came in, and began to loose the beasts. Yeo’s 
 account was, that he seized the big fellow, who drew a knife on 
 him, and broke loose ; the horses, terrified at the scuffle, kicked 
 right and left ; one man fell, and the other ran out, calling for 
 
276 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 help, with Yeo at his heels ; “ Whereon,” said Yeo, “ seeing a 
 dozen more on me with clubs and bows, I thought best to 
 shorten the number while I could, ran the rascal through, and 
 stood on my ward ; and only just in time I was, what’s more ; 
 there’s two arrows in the house wall, and two or three more in 
 my buckler, which I caught up as I went out, for I had hung 
 it close by the door, you see, sir, to be all ready in case,” said 
 the cunning old Philistine - slayer, as they went in after the 
 wounded man. 
 
 But hardly had they stumbled through the low doorway 
 into the back-kitchen when a fresh hubbub arose inside — more 
 shouts for help. Amyas ran forward breaking his head against 
 the doorway, and beheld, as soon as he could see for the flashes 
 in his eyes, an old acquaintance, held on each side by a sturdy 
 sailor. 
 
 With one arm in the sleeve of his doublet, and the other in 
 a not over spotless shirt ; holding up his hose with one hand, 
 and with the other a candle, whereby he had lighted himself to 
 his own confusion ; foaming with rage, stood Mr. Evan Morgans, 
 alias Father Parsons, looking, between his confused habiliments 
 and his fiery visage (as Yeo told him to his face), “ the very 
 moral of a half-plucked turkey-cock.” And behind him, dressed, 
 stood Eustace Leigh. 
 
 “ We found the maid letting these here two out by the 
 front door,” said one of the captors. 
 
 “Well, Mr. Parsons,” said Amyas; “and what are you 
 about here 1 A pretty nest of thieves and J esuits we seem to 
 have routed out this evening.” 
 
 “ About my calling, sir,” said Parsons stoutly. “ By 
 your leave, I shall prepare this my wounded lamb for that 
 account to which your man’s cruelty has untimely sent him.” 
 
 The wounded man, who lay upon the floor, heard Parsons’ 
 voice, and moaned for the “ Patrico.” 
 
 “ You see, sir,” said he pompously, “ the sheep know their 
 shepherd’s voice.” 
 
 “ The wolves you mean, you hypocritical scoundrel !*’ said 
 Amyas, who could not contain his disgust. “ Let the fellow 
 truss up his points, lads, and do his work. After all, the man 
 is dying.” 
 
 “ The requisite matters, sir, are not at hand,” said Parsons, 
 unabashed. 
 
 “ Eustace, go and fetch his matters for him ; you seem to 
 be in all his plots.” 
 
277 
 
 CHAP. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 Eustace went silently and sullenly. 
 
 “What’s that fresh noise at the back, now 1 ?” 
 
 “ The maid, sir, a wailing over her uncle ; the fellow that 
 we saw sneak away when we came up. It was him the horse 
 killed.” 
 
 It was true. The wretched host had slipped off on their 
 approach, simply to call the neighbouring outlaws to the spoil ; 
 and he had been filled with the fruit of his own devices. 
 
 “ His blood be on his own head,” said Amyas. 
 
 “ I question, sir,” said Yeo in a low voice, “ whether 
 some of it will not be on the heads of those proud prelates 
 who go clothed in purple and fine linen, instead of going forth 
 to convert such as he, and then wonder how these Jesuits get 
 hold of them. If they give place to the devil in their sheep- 
 folds, sure he’ll come in and lodge there. Look, sir, there’s a 
 sight in a gospel land !” 
 
 And, indeed, the sight was curious enough. For Parsons 
 was kneeling by the side of the dying man, listening earnestly 
 to the confession which the man sobbed out in his gibberish, 
 between the spasms of his wounded chest. Now and then 
 Parsons shook his head ; and when Eustace returned with the 
 holy wafer, and the oil for extreme unction, he asked him, in a 
 low voice, “ Ballard, interpret for me.” 
 
 And Eustace knelt down on the other side of the sufferer, 
 and interpreted his thieves’ dialect into Latin ; and the dying 
 man held a hand of each, and turned first to one and then to 
 the other stupid eyes, — not without affection, though, and 
 gratitude. 
 
 “ I can’t stand this mummery any longer,” said Yeo. 
 “ Here’s a soul perishing before my eyes, and it’s on my con- 
 science to speak a word in season.” 
 
 “Silence!” whispered Amyas, holding him back by the 
 arm ; “ he knows them, and he don’t know you ; they are the 
 first who ever spoke to him as if he had a soul to be saved, 
 and first come, first served ; you can do no good. See, the 
 man’s face is brightening already.” 
 
 “ But, sir, ’tis a false peace.” 
 
 “ At all events he is confessing his sins, Yeo ; and if that’s 
 not good for him, and you, and me, what is ? ” 
 
 “ Yea, Amen ! sir ; but this is not to the right person.” 
 
 “ How do you know his words will not go to the right 
 person after all, though he may not send them there 1 ? By 
 Heaven ! the man is dead !” 
 
278 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [chap. xrv. 
 
 It was so. The dark catalogue of brutal deeds had been 
 gasped out ; but ere the words of absolution could follow, the 
 head had fallen back, and all was over. 
 
 “ Confession in extremis is sufficient,” said Parsons to 
 Eustace (“ Ballard,” as Parsons called him, to Amyas’s sur- 
 prise), as he rose. “As for the rest, the intention will be 
 accepted instead of the act.” 
 
 “ The Lord have mercy on his soul !” said Eustace. 
 
 “ His soul is lost before our very eyes,” said Yeo. 
 
 “ Mind your own business,” said Amyas. 
 
 “ Humph ; but I’ll tell you, sir, what our business is, if 
 you’ll step aside, with me. I find that poor fellow that lies 
 dead is none other than the leader of the Gubbings ; the king 
 of them, as they dare to call him.” 
 
 “ Well, what of that 
 
 “Mark my words, sir, if we have not a hundred stout 
 rogues upon us before two hours are out ; forgive us they never 
 will ; and if we get off with our lives, which I don’t much 
 expect, we shall leave our horses behind ; for we can hold the 
 house, sir. well enough till morning : but the courtyard we 
 can’t, that’s certain !” 
 
 “ We had better march at once, then.” 
 
 “ Think, sir ; if they catch us up — as they are sure to do, 
 knowing the country better than we — how will our shot stand 
 their arrows V’ 
 
 “True, old wisdom; we must keep the road; and we 
 must keep together ; and so be a mark for them, while they 
 will be behind every rock and bank ; and two or three flights 
 of arrows will do our business for us. Humph ! stay, I have a 
 plan.” And stepping forward he spoke — 
 
 “ Eustace, you will be so kind as to go back to your lambs; 
 and tell them, that if they meddle with us cruel wolves again 
 to-night, we are ready and willing to fight to the death, and 
 have plenty of shot and powder at their service. Father 
 Parsons, you will be so kind as to accompany us ; it is but 
 fitting that the shepherd should be hostage for his sheep.” 
 
 “If you carry me off this spot, sir, you carry my corpse 
 only,” said Parsons. “ I may as well die here as be hanged 
 elsewhere, like my martyred brother Campian.” 
 
 “ If you take him, you must take me too,” said Eustace. 
 
 “ What if we won’t ?” 
 
 “ How will you gain by that 1 you can only leave me here. 
 You cannot make me go to the Gubbings, if I do not choose.” 
 
279 
 
 CHAP. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 Amyas uttered sotto voce an anathema on Jesuits, Gub- 
 bings, and things in general. He was in a great hurry to get 
 to Bideford, and he feared that this business would delay him, 
 as it was, a day or two. He wanted to hang Parsons : he did 
 not want to hang Eustace ; and Eustace, he knew, was well 
 aware of that latter fact, and played his game accordingly : but 
 time ran on, and he had to answer sulkily enough — 
 
 “Well then; if you, Eustace, will go and give my message 
 to your converts, I will promise to set Mr. Parsons free again 
 before we come to Lydford town ; and I advise you, if you have 
 any regard for his life, to see that your eloquence be persuasive 
 enough ; for as sure as I am an Englishman, and he none, if 
 the Gubbings attack us, the first bullet that I shall fire at them 
 will have gone through his scoundrelly brains.” 
 
 Parsons still kicked. 
 
 “ Very well, then, my merry men all. Tie this gentleman’s 
 nands behind his back, get the horses out, and we’ll right away 
 up into Dartmoor, find a good high tor, stand our ground there 
 till morning, and then carry him into Okehampton to the near- 
 est justice. If he chooses to delay me in my journey, it is fair 
 that I should make him pay for it.” 
 
 Whereon Parsons gave in, and being fast tied by his arm 
 to Amyas’s saddle, trudged alongside his horse for several weary 
 miles, while Yeo walked by his side, like a friar by a condemned 
 criminal ; and in order to keep up his spirits, told him the 
 woeful end of Nicholas Saunders the Legate, and how he was 
 found starved to death in a bog. 
 
 “ And if you wish, sir, to follow in his blessed steps, which 
 I heartily hope you will do, you have only to go over that big 
 cow-backed iiill there on your right hand, and down again the 
 other side to Crawmere pool, and there you’ll find as pretty a 
 bog to die in as ever Jesuit needed : and your ghost may sit 
 there on a grass tummock, and tell your beads without any one 
 asking for you till the day of judgment; and much good may 
 it do you ! ’ 
 
 At which imagination Yeo was actually heard, for the first 
 and last time in this history, to laugh most heartily. 
 
 His ho-ho’s had scarcely died away when they saw shining 
 under the moon the old Tower of Lydford Castle. 
 
 “ Cast the fellow off now,” said Amyas. 
 
 “Ay, ay, sir !” and Yeo and Simon Evans stopped behind, 
 and did not come up for ten minutes after. 
 
 “ What have you been about so long ?” 
 
280 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [chap. xiv. 
 
 “ Why, sir,” said Evans, “ you see the man had a very fail 
 pair of hose on, and a bran-new kersey doublet, very warm-lined ; 
 and so, thinking it a pity good clothes should be wasted on 
 such noxious trade, we’ve just brought them along with us.” 
 
 “ Spoiling the Egyptians,” said Yeo as comment. 
 
 “ And what have you done with the man ?” 
 
 “ Hove him over the bank, sir ; he pitched into a big furze- 
 bush, and for aught I know, there he’ll bide.” 
 
 “ You rascal, have you killed him ?” 
 
 “ Never fear, sir,” said Yeo in his cool fashion. “ A Jesuit 
 has as many lives as a cat, and, I believe, rides broomsticks 
 post, like a witch. He would be at Lydford now before us, if 
 his master Satan had any business for him there.” 
 
 Leaving on their left Lydford and its ill-omened castle 
 (which, a century after, was one of the principal scenes of Judge 
 Jeffreys’s cruelty), Amyas and his party trudged on through the 
 mire toward Okehampton till sunrise ; and ere the vapours had 
 lifted from the mountain tops, they were descending the long 
 slopes from Sourton down, while Yestor and Amicombe slept 
 steep and black beneath their misty pall ; and roaring far below 
 unseen, 
 
 “ Ockment leapt from crag and cloud 
 Down her cataracts, laughing loud.” 
 
 The voice of the stream recalled these words to Amyas’s 
 mind. The nymph of Torridge had spoken them upon the day 
 of his triumph. He recollected, too, his vexation on that day 
 at not seeing Rose Salterne. Why, he had never seen her since. 
 Never seen her now for six years and more ! Of her ripened 
 beauty he knew only by hearsay; she was still to him the lovely 
 fifteen years’ girl, for whose sake he had smitten the Barnstaple 
 draper over the quay. What a chain of petty accidents had 
 kept them from meeting, though so often within a mile of each 
 other ! “ And what a lucky one !” said practical old Amyas to 
 
 himself. “If I had seen her as she is now, I might have loved 
 her as Prank does — poor Frank ! what will he say ? What 
 does he say, for he must know it already? And what ought 
 I to say — to do rather, for talking is no use on this side the 
 grave, nor on the other either, I expect !” And then he asked 
 himself whether his old oath meant nothing or something; 
 whether it was a mere tavern frolic, or a sacred duty. And he 
 held, the more that he looked at it, that it meant the latter. 
 
 But what could he do? He had nothing on earth but his 
 sword, so he could not travel to find her. After all, she might 
 
Okehampton. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
281 
 
 CHAP. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 not be gone far. Perhaps not gone at all. It might be a mis- 
 take, an exaggerated scandal. He would hope so. And yet it 
 was evident that there had been some passages between her and 
 Don Guzman. Eustace’s mysterious words about the promise 
 at Lundy proved that. The villain ! He had felt all along 
 that he was a villain : but just the one to win a woman’s heart, 
 too. Frank had been away — all the Brotherhood away. What 
 a fool he had been, to turn the wolf loose into the sheepfold ! 
 And yet who would have dreamed of it ? . . . 
 
 “At all events,” said Amyas, trying to comfort himself, “I 
 need not complain. I have lost nothing. I stood no more 
 chance of her against Frank than I should have stood against 
 the Don. So there is no use for me to cry about the matter.” 
 And he tried to hum a tune concerning the general frailty of 
 women, but nevertheless, like Sir Hugh, felt that “ he had a 
 great disposition to cry.” 
 
 He never had expected to win her, and yet it seemed bitter 
 to know that she was lost to him for ever. It was not so easy 
 for a heart of his make to toss away the image of a first love ; 
 and all the less easy because that image was stained and ruined. 
 
 “ Curses on the man who had done that deed ! I will yet 
 have his heart’s blood somehow, if I go round the world again 
 to find him. If there’s no law for it on earth, there’s law in 
 heaven, or I’m much mistaken.” 
 
 With which determination he rode into the ugly, dirty, and 
 stupid town of Okehampton, with which fallen man (by some 
 strange perversity) has chosen to defile one of the loveliest sites 
 in the pleasant land of Devon. And heartily did Amyas 
 abuse the old town that day ; for he was detained there, as he 
 expected, full three hours, while the Justice Shallow of the 
 place was sent for from his farm (whither he had gone at sun- 
 rise, after the early-rising fashion of those days) to take Yeo’s 
 deposition concerning last night’s affray. Moreover, when 
 Shallow came, he refused to take the depositions, because they 
 ought to have been made before a brother Shallow at Lydford ; 
 and in the wrangling which ensued, was very near finding out 
 what Amyas (fearing fresh loss of time and worse evils beside) 
 had commanded to be concealed, namely, the presence of Jesuits 
 in that Moorland Utopia. Then, in broadest Devon — 
 
 “ And do you call this Christian conduct, sir, to set a quiet 
 man like me upon they Gubbings, as if I was going to risk my 
 precious life — no, nor ever a constable to Okehampton neither ? 
 Let Lydfor’ men mind Lydfor’ roogs, and by Lydfor’ law if 
 
282 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [CHAP. XIV, 
 
 they will, hang first and try after ; but as for me, I’ve rade my 
 Bible, and ‘He that meddleth with strife is like him that 
 taketh a dog by the ears.’ So if you choose to sit down and 
 ate your breakfast with me, well and good : but depositions I’ll 
 have none. If your man is enquired for, you’ll be answerable 
 for his appearing, in course ; but I expect mortally ” (with a 
 wink), “you waint hear much more of the matter from any 
 hand. ‘ Leave well alone is a good rule, but leave ill alone is 
 a better.’ — So we says round about here; and so you’ll say, 
 captain, when you be so old as I.” 
 
 So Amyas sat down and ate his breakfast, and went on 
 afterwards a long and weary day’s journey, till he saw at last 
 beneath him the broad shining river, and the long bridge, and 
 the white houses piled up the hill -side ; and beyond, over 
 Raleigh downs, the dear old tower of North am Church. 
 
 Alas ! Northam was altogether a desert to him then; and 
 Bideford, as it turned out, hardly less so. For when he rode 
 up to Sir Richard’s door, he found that the good Knight was 
 still in Ireland, and Lady Grenvile at Stow. Whereupon he 
 rode back again down the High Street to that same bow-win- 
 dowed Ship Tavern where the Brotherhood of the Rose made 
 their vow, and settled himself in the very room where they had 
 supped. 
 
 “Ah! Mr. Leigh — Captain Leigh now, I beg pardon,” 
 quoth mine host. “ Bideford is an empty place now -a- days, 
 and nothing stirring, sir. What with Sir Richard to Ireland, 
 and Sir John to London, and all the young gentlemen to the 
 wars, there’s no one to buy good liquor, and no one to court 
 the young ladies, neither. Sack, sir ? I hope so. I haven’t 
 brewed a gallon of it this* fortnight, if you’ll believe me ; ale, 
 sir, and aqua vitae, and such low-bred trade, is all I draw now- 
 a-days. Try a pint of sherry, sir, now, to give you an appetite. 
 You mind my sherry of old ? Jane ! Sherry and sugar, quick, 
 while I pull off the captain’s boots.” 
 
 Amyas sat weary and sad, while the innkeeper chattered on. 
 “ Ah, sir ! two or three like you would set the young ladies 
 all alive again. By-the-by, there’s been strange doings among 
 them since you were here last. You mind Mistress Salterne !” 
 “ For God’s sake, don’t let us have that story, man ! I 
 heard enough of it at Plymouth ! ” said Amyas, in so disturbed 
 a tone that mine host looked up, and said to himself — 
 
 “ Ah, poor young gentleman, he’s one of the hard hit ones.” 
 “ How is the old man ?” asked Amyas, after a pause. 
 
283 
 
 CHAP. XIY. ] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 “Bears it well enough, sir j but a changed man. Never 
 speaks to a soul, if he can help it. Some folk say he’s not 
 right in his head; or turned miser, or somewhat, and takes 
 nought but bread and water, and sits up all night in the room 
 as was hers, turning over her garments. Heaven knows what’s 
 on his mind — they do say he was over hard on her, and that 
 drove her to it. All I know is, he has never been in here for 
 a drop of liquor (and he came as regular every evening as the 
 town clock, sir) since she went, except a ten days ago, and then 
 he met young Mr. Cary at the door, and I heard him ask Mr. 
 Cary when you would be home, sir.” 
 
 “ Put on my boots again. I’ll go and see him.” 
 
 “ Bless you, sir ! What, without your sack ?” 
 
 “Drink it yourself, man.” 
 
 “But you wouldn’t go out again this time o’ night on an 
 empty stomach, now ?” 
 
 “ Fill my men’s stomachs for them, and never mind mine. 
 It’s market-day, is it not ? Send out, and see whether Mr. 
 Cary is still in town;” and Amyas strode out, and along the 
 quay to Bridgeland Street, and knocked at Mr. Salterne’s 
 door. 
 
 Salterne himself opened it, with his usual stern courtesy. 
 
 “ I saw you coming up the street, sir. I have been expect- 
 ing this honour from you for some time past. I dreamt of' you 
 only last night, and many a night before that too. Welcome, 
 sir, into a lonely house. I trust the good knight your general 
 is well.” 
 
 “ The good knight my general is with God who made him, 
 Mr. Salterne.” 
 
 “Dead, sir 1 ?” 
 
 “ Foundered at sea on our way home ; and the Delight lost 
 too.” 
 
 “ Humph !” growled Salterne, after a minute’s silence. “ I 
 had a venture in her. I suppose it’s gone. No matter — I can 
 afFord it, sir, and more, I trust. And he was three years 
 younger than I ! And Draper Heard was buried yesterday, five 
 years younger. — How is it that every one can die, except me ? 
 Come in, sir, come in ; I have forgotten my manners.” 
 
 And he led Amyas into his parlour, and called to the ap- 
 prentices to run one way, and to the cook to run another. 
 
 “You must not trouble yourself to get me supper, indeed.” 
 
 “ I must though, sir, and the best of wine too ; and old 
 Salterne had a good tap of Alicant in old time, old time, old 
 
284 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [chap. xiv. 
 
 time, sir ! and you must drink it now, whether he does or not !” 
 and out he bustled. 
 
 Amyas sat still, wondering what was coming next, and 
 puzzled at the sudden hilarity of the man, as well as his hospi- 
 tality, so different from what the innkeeper had led him to 
 expect. 
 
 In a minute more one of the apprentices came in to lay the 
 cloth, and Amyas questioned him about his master. 
 
 “ Thank the Lord that you are come, sir,” said the lad. 
 
 “Why, then?” 
 
 “ Because there’ll be a chance of us poor fellows getting a 
 little broken meat. We’m half-starved this three months — 
 bread and dripping, bread and dripping, oh dear, sir ! And now 
 he’s sent out to the inn for chickens, and game, and salads, and 
 all that money can buy, and down in the cellar haling out the 
 best of wine.” — And the lad smacked his lips audibly at the 
 thought. 
 
 “ Is he out of his mind ?” 
 
 “ I can’t tell ; he saith as how he must save mun’s money 
 now-a-days ; for he’ve a got a great venture on hand : but what a 
 be he tell’th no man. They call’th mun ‘bread and dripping’ now, 
 sir, all town over,” said the prentice, confidentially, to Amyas. 
 
 “ They do, do they, sirrah ! Then they will call me bread 
 and no dripping to-morrow!” and old Salterne, entering from 
 behind, made a dash at the poor fellow’s ears : but luckily 
 thought better of it, having a couple of bottles in each hand. 
 
 “My dear sir,” said Amyas, “you don’t mean us to drink 
 all that wine?” 
 
 “ Why not, sir ?” answered Salterne, in a grim, half-sneering 
 tone, thrusting out his square-grizzled beard and chin. “ Why 
 not, sir ? why should I not make merry when I have the honour 
 of a noble captain in my house ? one who has sailed the seas, 
 sir, and cut Spaniards’ throats ; and may cut them again too ; 
 eh, sir ? Boy, where’s the kettle and the sugar ?” 
 
 “What on earth is the man at?” quoth Amyas to himself 
 — “flattering me, or laughing at me?” 
 
 “Yes,” he ran on, half to himself, in a deliberate tone, 
 evidently intending to hint more than he said, as he began 
 brewing the sack — in plain English, hot negus ; “Yes, bread 
 and dripping for those who can’t fight Spaniards ; but the best 
 that money can buy for those who can. I heard of you at 
 
 Smerwick, sir Yes, bread and dripping for me too — I can’t 
 
 fight Spaniards : but for such as you. Look here, sir ; I should 
 
285 
 
 CHAP. XIV.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 like to feed a crew of such up, as you’d feed a main of fighting- 
 cocks, and then start them with a pair of Sheffield spurs a-piece 
 — you’ve a good one there to your side, sir : but don’t you think 
 a man might carry two now, and fight as they say those Chineses 
 do, a sword to each hand? You could kill more that way, 
 Captain Leigh, I reckon?” 
 
 Amy as half laughed. 
 
 “ One will do, Mr. Salterne, if one is quick enough with it.” 
 “ Humph ! — Ah — No use being in a hurry. I haven’t been 
 in a hurry. No — I waited for you; and here you are and 
 
 welcome, sir ! Here comes supper : a light matter, sir, you see. 
 A capon and a brace of partridges. I had no time to feast you 
 as you deserve.” 
 
 And so he ran on all supper-time, hardly allowing Amyas to 
 get a word in edge-ways : but heaping him with coarse flattery, 
 and urging him to drink, till after the cloth was drawn, and 
 the two left alone, he grew so outrageous that Amyas was forced 
 to take him to task good-humouredly. 
 
 “ Now, my dear sir, you have feasted me royally, and better 
 far than I deserve : but why will you go about to make me 
 drunk twice over, first with vainglory and then with wine ?” 
 Salterne looked at him a while fixedly, and then, sticking 
 out his chin — “ Because, Captain Leigh, I am a man who has 
 all his life tried the crooked road first, and found the straight 
 one the safer after all.” 
 
 <f Eh, sir ? That is a strange speech for one who bears the 
 character of the most upright man in Bideford.” 
 
 “ Humph. So I thought myself once, sir ; and well I have 
 proved it. But I’ll be plain with you, sir. You’ve heard how 
 — how I’ve fared since you saw me last?” 
 
 Amyas nodded his head. 
 
 “I thought so. Shame rides post. Now then, Captain 
 Leigh, listen to me. I, being a plain man and a burgher, and 
 one that never drew iron in my life except to mend a pen, ask 
 you, being a gentleman and a captain and a man of honour, 
 with a weapon to your side, and harness to your back — what 
 would you do in my place ?” 
 
 “Humph!” said Amyas, “that would very much depend 
 on whether ‘ my place ’ was my own fault or not.” 
 
 “ And what if it were, sir ? What if all that the charitable 
 folks of Bideford — (Heaven reward them for their tender 
 mercies !) — have been telling you in the last hour be true, sir, 
 — true ! and yet not half the truth ?” 
 
286 
 
 HOW SALVATION YEO 
 
 [chap. xiv. 
 
 Amyas gave a start. 
 
 “Ah, you shrink from me ! Of course a man is too right- 
 eous to forgive those who repent, though God is not.” 
 
 “ God knows, sir ” 
 
 “Yes, sir, God does know — all ; and you shall know a little 
 — as much as I can tell — or you understand. Come upstairs 
 with me, sir, as you’ll drink no more ; I have a liking for you. 
 I have watched you from your boyhood, and I can trust you, and 
 I’ll show you what I never showed to mortal man but one.” 
 
 And, taking up a candle, he led the way upstairs, while 
 Amyas followed wondering. 
 
 He stopped at a door, and unlocked it. 
 
 “ There, come in. (Those shutters have not been opened 
 since she ” and the old man was silent. 
 
 Amyas looked round the room. It was a low wainscoted 
 room, such as one sees in old houses : everything was in the 
 most perfect neatness. The snow-white sheets on the bed were 
 turned down as if ready for an occupant. There were books 
 arranged on the shelves, fresh flowers on the table ; the dress- 
 ing-table had all its woman’s mundus of pins, and rings, and 
 brushes ; even the dressing-gown lay over the chair-back. 
 Everything was evidently just as it had been left. 
 
 “ This was her room, sir,” whispered the old man. 
 
 Amyas nodded silently, and half drew back. 
 
 “ You need not be modest about entering it now, sir,” whis- 
 pered he, with a sort of sneer. “ There has been no frail flesh 
 and blood in it for many a day.” 
 
 Amyas sighed. 
 
 “ I sweep it out myself every morning, and keep all tidy. 
 See here !” and he pulled open a drawer. “ Here are all her 
 gowns, and there are her hoods ; and there — I know ’em all by 
 heart now, and the place of every one. And there, sir ” 
 
 And he opened a cupboard, where lay in rows all Hose’s 
 dolls, and the worn-out playthings of her childhood. 
 
 “ That’s the pleasantest place of all in the room to me,” said 
 he, whispering still: “for it minds me of when — and maybe, 
 she may become a little child once more, sir ; it’s written in the 
 Scripture, you know ” 
 
 “Amen !” said Amyas, who felt, to his own wonder, a big 
 tear stealing down each cheek. 
 
 “ And now,” he whispered, “ one thing more. Look here ! ” 
 — and pulling out a key, he unlocked a chest, and lifted up tray 
 after tray of necklaces and jewels, furs, lawns, cloth of gold. 
 
287 
 
 CHAP, xiv.] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 
 
 “ Look there ! Two thousand pound won’t buy that chest. 
 Twenty years have I been getting those things together. That’s 
 the cream of many a Levant voyage, and East Indian voyage, 
 and West Indian voyage. My Lady Bath can’t match those 
 pearls in her grand house at Tawstock; I got ’em from a 
 Genoese, though, and paid for ’em. Look at that embroidered 
 lawn ! There’s not such a piece in London ; no, nor in Alex- 
 andria, I’ll warrant ; nor short of Calicut, where it came from. 
 
 . . Look here again, there’s a golden cup ! I bought that of 
 one that was out with Pizarro in Peru. And look here, again !” 
 — and the old man gloated over the treasure. 
 
 “ And whom do you think I kept all these for 1 These were 
 for her wedding-day — for her wedding-day. For your wedding- 
 day, if you’d been minded, sir ! Yes, yours, sir ! And yet, I 
 believe, I was so ambitious that I would not have let her marry 
 under an earl, all the while I was pretending to be too proud to 
 throw her at the head of a squire’s son. Ah well ! There was 
 my idol, sir. I made her mad, I pampered her up with gew- 
 gaws and vanity ; and then, because my idol was just what I 
 had made her, I turned again and rent her. 
 
 “And now,” said he, pointing to the open chest, “that was 
 what I meant; and that” (pointing to the empty bed) “was 
 what God meant. Never mind. Come downstairs and finish 
 your wine. I see you don’t care about it all. Why should you ! 
 you are not her father, and you may thank God you are not. 
 Go, and be merry while you can, young sir ! . . . And yet, 
 all this might have been yours. And — but I don’t suppose you 
 are one to be won by money — but all this may be yours still, 
 and twenty thousand pounds to boot.” 
 
 “ I want no money, sir, but what I can earn with my own 
 sword.” 
 
 “ Earn my money, then !” 
 
 “What on earth do you want of me !” 
 
 “ To keep your oath,” said Salterne, clutching his arm, and 
 looking up into his face with searching eyes. 
 
 “ My oath ! How did you know that I had one ?” 
 
 “Ah ! you were well ashamed of it, I suppose, next day ! 
 A drunken frolic all about a poor merchant’s daughter ! But 
 there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, nor done in 
 the closet that is not proclaimed on the house-tops.” 
 
 “ Ashamed of it, sir, I never was : but I have a right to 
 ask how you came to know it V* 
 
 “ What if a poor fat squinny rogue, a low-born fellow even 
 
288 HOW YEO SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. [cilAr. xiv. 
 
 as I am, whom you had baffled and made a laughing-stock, had 
 come to me in my loneliness and sworn before God that if you 
 honourable gentlemen would not keep your words, he the clown 
 would V } 
 
 “ John Brimblecombe ?” 
 
 “And what if I had brought him where I have brought 
 you, and shown him what I have shown you, and, instead of 
 standing as stiff as any Spaniard, as you do, he had thrown 
 himself on his knees by that bedside, and wept and prayed, sir, 
 till he opened my hard heart for the first and last time, and I 
 fell down on my sinful knees and wept and prayed by him ?” 
 
 “ I am not given to weeping, Mr. Salterne,” said Amyas ; 
 “ and as for praying, I don’t know yet what I have to pray for, 
 on her account : my business is to work. Show me what I can 
 'do ; and when you have done that, it will be full time to up- 
 braid me with not doing it.” 
 
 “ You can cut that fellow’s throat.” 
 
 “ It will take a long arm to reach him.” 
 
 “ I suppose it is as easy to sail to the Spanish Main as it 
 was to sail round the world.” 
 
 “ My good sir,” said Amyas, “ I have at this moment no 
 more worldly goods than my clothes and my sword ; so how to 
 sail to the Spanish Main, I don’t quite see.” 
 
 “ And do you suppose, sir, that I should hint to you of such 
 a voyage if I meant you to be at the charge of it h No, sir ; if 
 you want two thousand pounds, or five, to fit a ship, take it ! 
 Take it, sir ! I hoarded money for my child : and now I will 
 spend it to avenge her.” 
 
 Amyas was silent for a while ; the old man still held his arm, 
 still looked up steadfastly and fiercely in his face. 
 
 “ Bring me home that man’s head, and take ship, prizes — 
 all ! Keep the gain, sir, and give me the revenge !” 
 
 “ Gain ? Do you think I need bribing, sir ? What kept 
 me silent was the thought of my mother : I dare not go without 
 her leave.” 
 
 Salterne made a gesture of impatience. 
 
 “ I dare not, sir; I must obey my parent, whatever else I do.” 
 “Humph!” said he. “If others had obeyed theirs as 
 
 well ! — But you are right, Captain Leigh, right. You will 
 prosper, whoever else does not. Now, sir, good-night, if you 
 will let me be the first to say so. My old eyes grow heavy 
 early now-a-days. Perhaps it’s old age, perhaps it’s sorrow.” 
 
 So Amyas departed to the inn, and there, to his great joy, 
 
CHAP. XIY. ] SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS. 289 
 
 found Cary waiting for him, from whom he learnt details, 
 which must be kept for another chapter, and which I shall tell, 
 for convenience’ sake, in my own words and not in his. 
 

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