Part 5 (2/2)
”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 ti fellows round have discovered If you rant you et rid of”
”Humph!” said Amyas, ”I hope I shall not have to make short ith soo to bed, and to-ive your sword to mother to keep, lest you should be tees”
”No fear of that, Frank; I aets 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 hi hiht like a seal, not without drea, 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 see up and down in no-ently to the door, for fear of disturbing her, and entering unperceived, beheld a sight which stopped hi 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 A with stifled e the last words of a well-known text,--”for my sake, and the Gospel's, shall receive a hundred-fold 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 Hiave up a first love for His sake!”
”And yet,” said he, after a h already, that I h that one be--No, mother! I ah 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 aith her eyes, and he went quietly out, as one stunned Why had his na love, told hiht's canzonet! This hy its words had seemed to fit his own heart so well! His brother was his rival And he had been telling hiht What a stupid brute he was! How it must have made poor Frank wince! And then Frank had listened so kindly; even bid hientleman 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, onder if Rose Salterne should be fond of him too? Hey-day! ”That would be a pretty fish to find in my net when I coarden; and clutching desperately hold of his locks with both hands, as if to hold his poor confused head on its shoulders, he strode and traarden walks for a full half hour, till Frank's voice (as cheerful as ever, though he more than suspected all) called hi and creaking upon those miserable lie!”
Aher h by this time; and in he ca 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 hi what turn his fancy ht have taken in so new a case; at last-- ”My dear A 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 ood huels' thrones, and rainbows the sign of God's peace on earth”
Ae Frank out of the next ditch, if it please you and him But first--I say-- he must hearken to a parable; a ot 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 sole; and Frank, he scarce knehy, 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,to play Goliath, for all my cubits; I am to present Nathan the prophet Now, David, hearken, for I have a !
”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 poorbut--”
And in spite of his broad honest san to tre up, and burst into tears: ”Oh! Amyas, 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, Iit?”
”What sha hiht 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! Everybodythat; and if you love her, your taste and ree, 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 ainstto be fool enough to row against wind and tide too I'h for her, I hope; but if I a 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 ain, 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 Ae; ”but so are other things too, by the dozen; it's all in the day's work, as the huntsh the furze-croft if one stopped to pull out the prickles The pig didn't scra; and the less said the sooner mended; nobody was sent into the world only to suck honey-pots What et cruo and join the aret it out of ht away love as well as poverty does; and that's all I've got to say” Wherewith Ah wept tears of joy
”Amyas! Amyas!” said Frank; ”you must not throay the hopes of years, and for me, too! Oh, how just was your parable! Ah! mother mine! to what use is all my scholarshi+p 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 iven 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 Aue, I h toto unive her up to ive her up to you!”
”He had done it already--this h her tears ”He renounced her forever on his knees before me! only he is too noble to tell you so”
”Thehis lips, and trying to look desperately deter 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 hoe h to keep our hands full, without fretting about this woman and that--What an ass I have been for years! instead of learningabout 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 shas as you do?”
”Don't tellfresh hopes intoto kick them out I won't believe it If she is not a fool, she ed if she is worth loving!”
”My dearest Amyas! I must ask you too to hts I have forsworn”
”Only this ain before they are gone too far”
”Only this ,” said Frank, with a quiet smile: ”but centuries have passed since then”
”Centuries? I don't see ray hairs yet”
”I should not have been surprised if you had, though,” answered Frank, in so sad anda tone that Ael!”
”You, at least, are so 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 A, if he was not to dream, started off to the dockyard to potter about a new shi+p of Sir Richard's, and forget his woes, in the capacity of Sir Oracle a the sailors And so he had played his move for Rose, even as Eustace had, and lost her: but not as Eustace had
CHAPTER V
CLOVELLY COURT IN THE OLDEN TIME
”It was aood Queen Bess, Who ruled as well as ever 'd, and the country in a mess, She ont to send for a DevonAone out to drown himself in despair, or even to bee side” He had simply ridden off, Frank found, to Sir Richard Grenville at Stow: his one to try for a post in the Irish arain, 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 obtain, after the hospitable huood entertainment for man and horse from Mr Cary the squire