Part 1 (2/2)
So let us watch hi his horn, to tell all that has passed to hisin his life, save only that sea-fever; and that only because he foreknew that it would give her pain; and because,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 doard the old Court, nestled aateway into the homeclose; and then he pauses a moment to look around; first at the wide bay to the ard, 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 hireen alluvial plain dotted with red cattle, at his feet, through which the silver estuary winds onward toward the sea Beneath hie, like a land-locked lake, sleeps broad and bright between the old park of Tapeley and the charo, 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 froainst the Saxon sheriff and the valiant e boat 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 ainst the invader as boldly as the men of Devon did then And past him, far below, upon the soft southeastern breeze, the stately shi+ps 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 sy to wing its way out of its island prison, to discover and to traffic, to colonize and to civilize, until no wind can sweep the earth which does not bear the echoes of an English voice Patience, young Amyas! Thou too shalt forth, and ard ho, beyond thy wildest dreahts, 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 Norreat titan strife before the renown of which the name of Sala to supper as he had promised: but as people supped in those days in much the same manner as they do noe may drop the thread of the story for a few hours, and take it up again after supper is over
”Coood ood wife”
The personage whom Oxenham addressed thus familiarly answered by a soives dick Grenville” (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 Oxenhah, is Heard's great shi+p home yet from the Straits?”
The speaker, knoell in those days as Sir Richard Grenville, Granville, Greenvil, Greenfield, with two or three other variations, was one of those truly heroical personages whoe and their work, had sent upon the earth whereof it takes right good care, not in England only, but in Spain and Italy, in Gerreat reat deeds were needed to lift theall the heroic faces which the painters of that age have preserved, none, perhaps, hardly excepting Shakespeare's or Spenser's, Alva's or Farina's, is more heroic than that of Richard Grenville, as it stands in Prince's ”Worthies of Devon;” of a Spanish type, perhaps (or lish, with just enough of the British eleive delicacy to its massiveness The forehead and whole brain are of extraordinary loftiness, and perfectly upright; the nose long, aquiline, and delicately pointed; the ed with a short silky beard, sh 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 soh delicately arched, and, without a trace of peevishness, too closely pressed down upon theether the likeness of a wise and gallant gentleood men, awful to all bad men; in whose presence none dare say or do athemselves nerved to do their duty better, while cowards slipped away, as bats and owls before the sun So he lived andhis counsel a the wisest; or in the streets of Bideford, capped alike by squire andthe moorland roads between his houses of Stow and Bideford, while every woreat Sir Richard, the pride of North Devon; or, sitting there in the low h, with his cup of maling laid across his knees, while the red western sun strea locks; ever the sa, chivalrous man, conscious (as far as a soul so healthy could be conscious) of the pride of beauty, and strength, and valor, and wisdorandfather of the Conqueror, and was tracked down the centuries by valiant deeds and noble benefits to his native shi+re, himself the noblest of his race Men said that he was proud; but he could not look round hi 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 e, that he had been seen to snatch the glasses frorind them to pieces in his teeth, and s thenation had been aroused by some tale of cruelty or oppression, and, above all, by those West Indian devilries of the Spaniards, whoh) as the enemies of God and man Of this last fact Oxenham ell aware, and therefore felt soh's leave to take young A colors 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?”
”My friend Oxenham,” answered he, in the sententious and measured style of the day, ”I have always held, as you should know by this, that Mr Drake's booty, as well astaken froeneris, but has no right to the sa robbed it violently, by torture and extree, as He surely will”
”Ah
”I say Amen, too,” quoth Oxenhalish hands”
”And I also,” went on Sir Richard; ”for the rightful owners of the said goods being either miserably dead, or incapable, by reason of their servitude, of ever recovering any share thereof, the treasure, falsely called Spanish, cannot be better bestowed than in building up the state of England against the up the weal of the Reforhout the world, and the liberties of all nations, against a tyranny ula; 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 o, and God be with him; but let hirace, to becoentleman as Sir Richard Grenville”
Sir Richard bowed low, and Mrs Leigh catching up the last word-- ”There, Mr Oxenhaainsay that, unless you will be discourteous to his worshi+p And for h it be a oman's reason, yet it is a mother's: he is my only child His elder brother is far away God only knohether I shall see hiain; and what are all reports of his virtues and his learning to me, compared to that sweet presence which I daily h he be lord of Pharaoh's household, yet he is far away in Egypt; and you will take Benjamm also! Ah! Mr Oxenham, you have no child, or you would not ask for mine!”
”And how do you know that,first deadly pale, and then glowing red Her last words had touched hi, 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, s, ”such husbands as mine”
”Nay, I will not say that,” answered he, with a half sneer--and then, ”Farewell, friend Leigh--farewell, gallant dick Grenville God send I see thee Lord High Admiral when I come home And yet, why should I coentles?”
”Tut, tut, h; ”let us drink to ourthe tankard of malmsey to his lips, he passed it to Sir Richard, who rose, and saying, ”To the fortune of a bold entleman,” drank, and put the cup into Oxenham's hand
The adventurer's face was flushed, and his eye wild Whether fro the day, or whether froh's last speech, he had not been himself for a few e them, when he suddenly dropped it on the table, and pointed, staring and tre so object
”There! Do you see it? The bird!--the bird with the white breast!”
Each looked at the other; but Leigh, as a quick-witted h instantly, and cried--”Nonsense, brave Jack Oxenham! Leave white birds for e you”
Oxenhaed the deep and fiercely; and after hearty farewells, departed, never hinting again at his strange excla hih and Grenville kept a few minutes' dead silence At last--”God help him!” said she
”Amen!” said Grenville, ”for he never needed it more But, indeed, madam, I put no faith in such oenerations before the death of any of his family I know those ere at South Tahen his mother died, and his brother also; and they both saw it God help him! for, after all, he is a proper h, and well for him if they had not But, indeed, I make no account of oo; and when can he go better?”
”But,” said Mr Leigh, who entered, ”I have seen, and especially when I was in Italy, oet their own fulfil the upon that very ruin which, as they fancied, was running upon theht have avoided, if, instead of trusting in I know not what du God, by faith in whom ht the armies of the alien I too know, and know not how I know, that I shall never die in h
”And why, fairht never h that I e, and that end which the old Northhtly called 'a cow's death' rather than a h, you have done wisely to-night Poor Oxenhale eye I have talked about hih 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 honorable house of Devon My brother Stukely is woe enough to North Devon for this generation”
”Poor braggadocio!” said Mr Leigh; ”and yet not altogether that too, for he can fight at least”
”So can every lishman 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”
”Nearly all,” said young Ao to sea?”
”All things in their time, my boy, and God forbid that either I or your worthy parents should keep you froland 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 Oxenharant you becoainst the eneative of a ainst himself”
”How, sir?”
”To conquer our own fancies, Amyas, and our own lusts, and our ambition, in the sacred na; for he who cannot rule himself, how can he rule his crew or his fortunes? Come, noill make you a promise If you will bide quietly at hoentleman and a Christian, as well as a seaman, the day shall come when you shall sail with Richard Grenville hiold-hunting on the Spanish Main”
”O ood Sir Richard prolad to be in your place”
”And lad to be in his place a score years hence, if he will but learn what I know you two can teach hi the history of that Sir Thomas Stukely of whoallant and courtly knight, of an ancient and worshi+pful family in Ilfracombe, 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 soreatness, 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 falory and haste Then, to retrieve his losses, he hit upon the peopling of Florida, which thou and I will see done soood friends of o about it as a loyal man, to advance the honor of his queen, but his own honor only, drea; and was not ashan of a hest subject of an eh, ”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 herfor a wise man, by virtue of his thick hide For when she said that she hoped she should hear froraciously enough 'And in what style?' asks she 'To our dear sister,' says Stukely: to which her cleh told ”