Part 9 (1/2)
”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
”Thereto catch the horses! There comes Mr Cary! Goodness, Father, how a rid'th! he's over wall already! Ron, Jack! ron then! A'll get to the river! No, a wain't! 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, standing overthwart mun! No, a bain't! A's up now Suspose he was hit wi' the flat Whatever is Mr Cary tu? Telling wi' mun, a bit Oh dear, dear, dear!”
”Has he killed hi mun, so hard as ever was futeball! Goodness, Father, who did ever? If a haven't kecked ot on , down she caoo hooet you sommat warm You'm mortal cold, I rackon, by noas 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 et his face out of my mind I'm sure he overlooked me”
”Oh then! who ever heard the like o' that? When young gentle 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 wain't see us, here under the hill I'd much sooner to knoherein wain to happen, as though I shuldn't zee ain, 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?”
”Only that face!” said Rose, shuddering
”Not in the glass, lass?”
”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 co
”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, fro 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 could not wipe that fierce face away from her eyeballs She reached home safely, and crept to bed undiscovered: and when the next , as was to be expected, found her laid up with so very like a fever, froer and stronger before her, and it required all her wo by her exclaht 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 A up and down the terraced garden to the south Ao: 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 hiers
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 cohty years after Sir Richard's tie 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 Parlia valiantly at Lansdowne over Bath But, like s 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 becoreat quadrangle a rick-yard; and civilization, spreading wave on wave so fast elsewhere, has surged back from that lonely corner of the land--let us hope, only for a while
But I alories whereof quaint pictures still hang in the neighboring houses; nor of that faeneration, on whorandfather Sir Richard, old Prince has his porarandsire fills the sea, and thou the land”
I have to deal with a sieneration; and with the old house, which had stood there, in part at least, froes, when the first Sir Richard, son of Harandson of Duke Robert, son of Rou, settled at Bideford, after slaying the Prince of South-Galis, and the Lord of Glaave to the Cistercian e ra-house, such as may be seen still (almost an unique speci-place of Huh's half- brother, and Richard Grenville's bosom friend, of whom more hereafter On three sides, to the north, west, and south, the lofty walls of the old ballium still stood, with their machicolated turrets, loopholes, and dark doard crannies for dropping stones and fire on the besiegers, the relics of a e: but the southern court of the balliuarden, 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 e into the new life which had just burst into blossohout 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 Alish prospect At one turn they could catch, over the western walls, a gli sails; and at the next, spread far below thee of fertile park, stately avenue, yellow autu 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 Kilkhas of five centuries of Grenvilles A yellow eastern haze hung soft over park, and wood, and moor; the red cattle lowed to each other as they stood brushi+ng 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 the 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 brohich quivered far away above, half seen through the veil of eastern mist And close at ho spaniels and golden-haired children, sat Lady Grenville 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 seeht
And all the while up and down paced A, 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 fro, 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 froreat anxiety for you, froood father, who sleeps in peace, cos, Amyas, become, when misused, the very worst; and the love of woman, because it is able to lifthim down to hell But you have learnt better, Amyas; and knoith our old German forefathers, that, as Tacitus saith, Sera juvenum Venus, ideoque inexhausta pubertas And not only that, Amyas; but trust me, that silly fashi+on of the French and Italians, to be hanging ever at so, so that no boy shall count hihezziare le donne, whether maids or wives, alas! matters little; that fashi+on, I say, is little less hurtful to the soul than open sin; for by it are bred vanity and expense, envy and heart-burning, yea, hatred and murder often; and even if that be escaped, yet the rich treasure of a manly worshi+p, which should be kept for one alone, is squandered and parted uponbut the very last leavings and caput room's heart, and becomes a mere ornaeny May God, who has saved me from that death in life, save you also!” And as he spoke, he looked doard his wife upon the terrace below; and she, as if guessing instinctively that he was talking of her, looked up with so sweet a slory of spiritual sunshi+ne
A the conversation suddenly-- ”And I o to Ireland to-morrow?”
”You shall sail in the 'Mary' for Milford Haven, with these letters to Winter If the wind serves, you ht, and be off; for we must lose no time”
”Winter?” said Amyas ”He is no friend of mine, since he left Drake and us so cowardly at the Straits of Magellan”
”Duty h they be just ones, lad: but he will not be your general When you coive 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 s, s 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 thes, as it ith a spoon, Ah 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 ht him (and I fear these Anabaptists and Puritans at horeat 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 thinktaught that”
”Right, lad For h as an eneladly 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 valor, farewell to patriotisland, if once it shall become the fashi+on 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 andto 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 Smerwick fort, with all thy wounds in front, I shall weep for thy h 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 s of the time; which they may read not without profit to themselves, if they discover therefrohly ingrained with the Gospel, and yet to be free from any taint of superstitious fear, or false devoutness The religion of those days was such as no soldier need have been asha 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 a Popish Spaniards, priests, crucifixes, confession, extre men out of the hands of a God of love:-- ”Here die I, Richard Grenville, with a joyful and quiet ht, fighting for his country, queen, religion, and honor:behind the lasting fa behaved as every valiant soldier is in his duty bound to do”
Those were the last words of Richard Grenville The pulpits of those days had taught them to him