Part 20 (1/2)
”It'sof”
And Aood supper, while Mrs Hawkins told him all the nehich she could of his mother, whom Adrian Gilbert had seen a few h, 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 as there at the time You must know a Spanish captain, a prisoner--”
”What, the one I sent home from Smerwick?”
”You sent? Mercy on us! Then, perhaps, you've heard--”
”How can I have heard? What?”
”That he's gone off, the villain?”
”Without paying his ranso hter--the Popish serpent!”
”Rose Salterne, the e!”
”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 ood 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 vitae; ood; and a bit too fond of it too, poor dear soul, bethiles, Heaven forgive hi brandy and water down Amyas's throat, in spite of his refusals, and sent hi, he started for Bideford, having obtained thefrom Mrs Hawkins
CHAPTER XIV
HOW SALVATION YEO SLEW THE KING OF THE GUBBINGS
”Ignorance and evil, even in full flight, deal terrible backhanded strokes at their pursuers”--HELPS
Now I am sorry to say, for the honor ofin those days to travel froet to your journey's end, unless you were minded to h the territory of a foreign and hostile potentate, who had ed the dominions, and defeated the forces of her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and was nas ”So now I dare call them,” says Fuller, ”secured by distance, which one of more valor 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 naubbings; and sure it is that they are sensible that the word iestion of my worthy and learned friend, Mr Joseph Maynard, that such as did inhabitare s, such will senuity who dissent froland beyond Wales, but the Gubbings 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, so with child, fled thither to hide themselves; to whoinal They are a peculiar of their own , exempt from bishop, archdeacon, and all authority, either ecclesiastical or civil They live in cots (rather holes than houses) like swine, having all in coe into s of the vulgar Devonian; and the more learned aour civil wars no soldiers were quartered upon thest theoods; they live by stealing the sheep on thea work beneath the pains of any sheriff, and above the power of any constable Such is their fleetness, they will outrunin an ignorance of luxury, the extinguisher of life They hold together like bees; offend one, and all will revenge his quarrel
”But now I ain to be civilized, and tender their children to baptisain I hope no CIVIL people ain to be civilized”
Fuller, p 398
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 saood horse, in his full suit of arreat dags, or horse-pistols; and behind him Salvation Yeo, and five or six north Devonon furlough), clad in head- pieces and quilted jerkins, each man with his pike and sword, and Yeo with arquebuse and e of this formidable troop
They pushed on as fast as they could, through Tavistock, to reach before nightfall Lydford, where theythe horses, and other delays, they had not been able to start before noon; and night fell just as they reached the frontiers of the enelare of sunset A high tableland of heath, banked on the right by the crags and hills of Dart 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), croith 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 see Far away, down those waste slopes, they could see the tiny threads of blue ss; and more than once they called a halt, to exaht not be the patrols of an advancing arh at it now, in the nineteenth century, but it was no laughing one two miles farther
On the middle of the down stood a wayside inn; a desolate and villainous-looking luranite, s paper-patched, and rotting thatch kept down by stones and straw- banks; and at the back a ras and barefoot children grunted in loving communion of dirt At the door, rapt apparently in the contee in the last lingering sun- rays, but really watching which way the sheep on the ed, blear-eyed six feet of brutishness, holding up his hose with one hand, for want of points, and claith the other his elf-locks, on which a fair sprinkling of feathersbeen 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 laoven by spinners in the fresh May s, do dress the curled heads of thebosoms of the valleys; or as those snowy fleeces, which the naked briar steals from the innocent sheep to make himself a inter livery, are, to either of them both, an excellent orna 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' Harbor Inn, on Brent-Tor Dohatever else he lacked, lacked not geese enough to keep hi
Presently he spies A slowly over the hill, pricks up his ears, and counts therunts; and then, being apooale!”
A strapping lass--whose only covering (for country woown) is a green bodice and red petticoat, neither of the-rod and basket, and the , exaone!”
”May be,” says Mary; ”shouldn't hay' left mun out to coort May be old hen's ate one”
The host receives this intelligence with an oath, and replies by a violent blow at Mary's head, which she, accustoes, and then returns the bloith good effect on the shock head
Whereon htas he departs-- ”Tell Patrico!”
Mary runs in, coown over her dirt, and awaits the co faces at the ”ht there than to bivouac close to the enemy's camp
So the old hen who has sed the dun fly is killed, plucked, and roasted, and certain ”black Dart 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 grue is heaped in a corner of the roos before a turf fire; while Yeo, who has his notions about the place, posts himself at the door, and the , probably to be attributed to the fact that Mary is cook
Presently Yeo co up, sir, all alone”
”Ask hioes out, and returns in five one in back ways, by the court”
”Well, he has an odd taste, if he ain, and coh exciteoodness' sake coot him Safe as a rat in a trap, I have!”
”Who?”
”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 kneas 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 ate, 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 dearabout a 'queer cuffin' (that's a justice in these canters' thieves' Latin); and with that he takes out a soives it her; and she kisses it, and crosses herself, and asks hiht way, and then puts it into her bosohter;' 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 thelike mad”
”What a fool's trick, entleentlenuses I've put hiain, you ainst it, sir If the Lord's enemies are delivered into my hand, I'm answerable, sir,” went on Yeo as Amyas hurried out with hio, his life shall be for the life of hi, opened the door, and began a string of apologies to--his cousin Eustace
Yes, here he ith 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 A have you added horse-stealing to your other trades?”
”My dear Ao into an inn stable without intending to steal what is in it”
”Of course, old fellow,” said As you here? Not prudence, certainly”