Part 16 (2/2)
”No one, she says; and I believe she says true, for I can find no wound The man has been starved, sirs, as I ah he is a priest; and yet he see 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?” said Raleigh, after reading a moment ”This is indeed a prize! This is Saunders hi 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 !” and he kicked the corpse with his foot
”Quiet! quiet! Reirl,” said Ah went on, half to hiuided fool, and this is the end! To this thou hast co 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 Ie 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 Orroan beneath the loathsoitirace of God, Legate, etc' Bah! and this forsooth was thy last ible pedant! Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni!”
He ran his eye through various other docue pro 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; bo endless fire against those who opposed the true faith; fulsome ascriptions of martyrdoed for the last twenty years; wearisouments about the bull In Caena Dolish law, the sacred duty of rebellion, the right to kill a prince impenitently heretical, and the like insanities and villainies, which e in Camden, the Phoenix Britannicus, Fox's Martyrs, or, surest of all, in the writings of the worthies theh cra it with the, marched away once irl was left alone with the dead
An hour had passed, when another Englishirl, and round hih and javelin in hand, were tossing about their tawny rags, and adding their lalishh; a layue and labor fro to satisfy his conscience for rejecting ”the higher calling” of the celibate; for mad hopes still lurked within that fiery heart His brorinkled now; his features harshened; the scar upon his face, and the slight distortion which accompanied it, was hidden by a bushy beard froot who had given it to hi in er of his life; and noas on his way to Ja him the news of Desmond's death; and with him a remnant of the clan, ere either too stout-hearted, or too desperately stained with crilish, and, as their fellows did, find it at once and freely
There Eustace stood, looking down on all that was left of the e of Ireland; the enerate his native land, and bring the proud island of the West once entle yoke, in which united Christendom labored 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 voas ready to rise in arms as one eance against the Saxon heretic, and sweep the hated nae 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, nobleed themselves to die for the cause, serfs orshi+pped hi! 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 kneas the devil hihteousness 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 frolorious h; ”let hteous, and let my last end he like this! Ora pro rave 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 ay again, not now to find Baltinglas; for it was lish 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 , and other expedients, found hiain in his native county of Devon, while Fitz-Eustace Viscount Baltinglas had taken shi+p for Spain, having got little by his fa the Church of Rome, ”Had not thine ancestor, blessed Thomas of Canterbury, died for the Church of Rome, thou hadst never been Earl of Ormond” The premises were certainly sounder than those of his party ont to be; for it was to expiate the ranted by Henry II: but as for the conclusion therefrom, it was much on a par with the rest
And now let us return to Raleigh and As to talk of; for it is but three days since they h's old opinion of Ireland Raleigh, under the inspiration of a possible grant of Desured 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 hirown old with his head! A about Dese
”Why, what is this, Raleigh? You are like children sitting in the et to Court, and you have got there; and are lord andvery like it, already--and as soon as fortune stuffs your mouth full of sweet-hed insignificantly, but was silent
”And how is your friend Mr Secretary Spenser, ith us at Smerwick?”
”Spenser? He has thriven even as I have; and he has found, as I have, that inone friend at Court you make ten foes; but 'Oderint dureat--great I a 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 Arin because they are hungry, and I may throw theood 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 Hu in this waste howling wilderness?”
”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 sha'n't till I'ht et leave to come hither; but I must out, and try my fortune I am over ears in debt already, and sick of courts and courtiers Hudoo, and you too, h expounded to Areat Newfoundland schees of Hakluyt
Sir Huh's half-brother, held a patent for ”planting” the lands of Newfoundland and ”Meta Incognita” (Labrador) He had atteh in 1578, whereof I never could find any news, save that he caain, after a heavy brush with soan, was killed), having done nothing, and e sum; Sir Gilbert Peckhaentlemen, of whom more hereafter, had adventured their money; and a considerable colony was to be sent out the next year, with miners, assayers, and, as more, Parland full of thirst to see the wonders of the New World; and over and above this, as Raleigh told Amyas in strictest secrecy, Adrian Gilbert, Hu every stone at Court for a patent of discovery in the North-West; and this Newfoundland colony, though it was to produce gold, silver, merchandise, and what not, was but a basis of operations, a halfway house froe to the Indies--that golden drealish valor as the Guiana one to Spanish--and yet hardly, hardly to be regretted, e remember the seamanshi+p, the science, the chivalry, the heroislish nation, which it has called forth aers, who have coe with the practical prudence of the modern, and dared for duty old
Ah of the dangers of the Magellan passage to appreciate the boundless 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 interference; 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 floard 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 northard between Greenland and Labrador towards Cathay and India; of that ument 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, coo, the New World is an island also, and there is a North-West passage; of the three brothers (nae, and named as afterwards called Davis's Strait after themselves; of the Indians ere cast ashore in Gern 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 Gere; 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 rumors of the place ”What do you know of it?”
Whereon Aathered froh, in his turn, believed every word
”Huolden emperor; offer hiland; defend hih, conquer back all Peru from the Popish tyrants, and reinstate hiuard, as the Norians were to the effeallant chieftain of Varangs 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 tiold nor city left”
”Nor Indians either, I'll warrant the butchers; but, lad, I a out already, and all I have, and more, adventured in her; so Manoa h, if the Spaniards prosper no better on the Amazon than they have done; but must I come with you? To tell the truth, I ao What will h; and so he did; for, to cut a long story short, he went back the month after, and he not only took home letters froood lady the enornita, and (which waswith such a general as Humphrey Gilbert, most pious and most learned of seamen and of cavaliers, beloved and honored above all his compeers by Queen Elizabeth, that she consented to Ae some two hundred pounds which had come to him as his share of prize-ation 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 Thaliding 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 s 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 worshi+p, and to entreat for the two in whom her heart was bound up; and Frank slipped in every day if but for five h, or Dyer, or Budaeus or soh and holy 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 ht for those they love: and Mrs Leigh was content (though as she not content?) to hear that Aood 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 folloere the happiest which she had known since her husband's death But the cloud was fast coer, 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 Coed with Drake, and found hie
”For learning and manners, Amyas, there's not his equal; and the queen may well love hi is not business: book-learning didn't getdidn't make Captain Hawkins, nor his father neither, the best shi+p-builders fro, I very much fear, won't plant Newfoundland”
However, the die was cast, and the little fleet of five sail asseentleh himself, however, 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-- ”BROTHER--I have sent you a token frouided by a lady, as you see And further, her Highness willed ood hap and safety to your shi+p 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 ly Furthermore, she commandeth that you leave your picture with her For the rest I leave till our , or to the report of the bearer, ould needs be the ood 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
”Rich, ”Your true Brother, ”W RALEIGH”
This letter was a few years since in the possession of Mr Pomeroy Gilbert, fort-major at Dartmouth, a descendant of the admiral's