Part 44 (1/2)
There was a loud hurried knocking, and in another - man hurried in with a letter
”This to Captain Ah with haste, haste!”
It was Sir Richard's hand Ahed he”
”The Ar! My wish has come true, mother!”
”God help us, it has! Show me the letter”
It was a hurried scrawl
”DR GodSON,--Walsingham sends word that the Ada sailed from Lisbon to the Groyne the 18 of May We know no more, but have coive us counsel; and reat strait
”Your loving Godfather, R G”
”Forgivehis arive, my son, my son! And shall I lose thee, also?”
”If I be killed, you will have two h bowed her head, and was silent Aht up his hat and sword, and darted forth toward Bideford
Amyas literally danced into Sir Richard's hall, where he stood talking earnestly with various entles all! The devil is broke loose at last; and noe knohere to have hih, when all else are sad?” said a gentle voice by his side
”Because I have been sad a long time, while all else were merry, dear lady Is the hawk doleful when his hood is pulled off, and he sees the heron flapping right ahead of hier and the woe of us oer and the woe of one ohter of a man who once stood in this roo hier and the woe of one orth a thousand even of her I don't forget anything, ive either, it seeiveness after the offender has repented and a of the Armada look like that?”
”Alas, no! God help us!”
”He will help us, h,” said Sir Richard, ”we need you now, if ever Here are the queen's orders to furnish as entleh needless”
”Not a doubt, sir; for ht her too, as long as I have a leg or an arue to say, never surrender, I'll warrant!” said an old h: but it will be a heavy hter too, Mada babe, as I hear, just born”
”And a very heavy matter,” said some one else, ”for those who have ventured their oes, which must lie idle, you see, now for a year ood sir,” said Grenville, ”what have private interests to do with this day? Let us thank God if He only please to leave us the bare fee-sihters, and bodies safe froot, to wield the swords of freeh every town and holand asted with fire, and we left to rebuild over again all which our ancestors have wrought for us in now six hundred years”
”Right, sir!” said Aoods rot on the quay, if the worst coeance to-ood fighting number”
And so the talk ran on; and ere two days were past, entlereat was the bidding against each other as to who should do most Cary and Brimblecombe, with thirty tall Clovellyleave of Amyas, took up their berths as a eance In the meanwhile, the matter was taken up by families The Fortescues (a numberless clan) offered to furnish a shi+p; the Chichesters another, the Stukelys a third; while the es, the Heards, joyfully unloaded their Virginian goods, and replaced them with powder and shot; and in a week's time the whole seven were ready once more for sea, and dropped down into Appledore pool, with A (for Sir Richard had gone by land to Plymouth to join the deliberations there), and waited for the first favorable wind to start for the rendezvous in the Sound
At last, upon the twenty-first of June, the clank of the capstans rang s, forth sailed that gallant squadron over the bar, to play their part in Britain's Sala as she stood once before, beside the churchyard wall: but not alone this tiazed, till her eyes seemed ready to burst from their sockets At last she turned aith a sob,-- ”And he never bade ive him! Come home and pray, my child; there is no other rest on earth than prayer for wo each other hter then? Yes The sacred fire of sorroas fast burning out all Ayacanora's fallen savageness; and, like a Phoenix, the true wo fro, as God had made her
CHAPTER xxx
HOW THE ADMIRAL JOHN HAWKINS TESTIFIED AGAINST CROAKERS
”Oh, where be these gay Spaniards, Which oose feather, And we shall eat the roast O!”
Cornish Song
What if the spectators who last suazed with just pride upon the noble port of Ply the Sound, its arsenals and docks, its two estuaries filled with gallant shi+ps, and watched the great screw-liners turning within their own length by force invisible, or threading the crowded fleets with the ease of the tiniest boat,--what if, by sonificence of its wealth and science, had vanished--as it may vanish hereafter--and they had found themselves thrown back three hundred years into the pleasant suecombe is still there, beautiful as ever: but where are the docks, and where is Devonport? No vast dry-dock roofs rise at the water's edge Drake's island carries but a paltry battery, just raised by the entleun fort, which a third-class steamer would shell into rubble for an afternoon's a, where are they? The floating castles of the Ha lime-hoys; and the Catwater is packed, not as noith in the greatest sea-fight which the world has ever seen
There they lie, a paltry squadron enough in est of the less weight of un-boats, and able to ee Would our modern spectators, just come down by rail for a few hours, to see the cavalry embark, and return tomorrow in time for dinner, have looked down upon that petty port, and petty fleet, with a conteress of intellect, and the triuhted ancestors? They would have done so, doubt it not, if they belonged to the aze on those very triumphs as on a raree-show to feed their silly wonder, or use and enjoy the, as the ox eats the clover thrust into his rack, without knowing or caring how it grew But if any of them were of the class by whom those very triumphs have been achieved; the thinkers and the workers, who, instead of entering lazily into other men's labors, as the mob does, labor theles, the self- restraints, the disappoint steps, by which the discoverer reaches to his prize; then the smile of those men would not have been one of pity, but rather of filial love For they would have seen in those outwardly paltry arhtier one which now loads the Black Sea waves; they would have been aware, that to produce it, with such e as then existed, deress and invention, equal, if not superior, to those of whichso loudly boast
But if, again, he had been a student of men rather than of machinery, he would have found few nobler coht have seen in the little terrace bowling-green behind the Pelican Inn, on the afternoon of the nineteenth of July Chatting in groups, or lounging over the lohich co far beloere gathered almost every notable land's forgotten worthies” The Armada has been scattered by a storm Lord Howard has been out to look for it, as far as the Spanish coast; but the wind has shi+fted to the south, and fearing lest the Dons should pass him, he has returned to Plymouth, uncertain whether the Armada will come after all or not Slip on for a while, like Prince Hal, the drawer's apron; coh the rose-clad door which opens frolasses, and a silver tankard of wine, and look round you at the gallant captains, who are waiting for the Spanish Ar herd of deer
See those five talking earnestly, in the centre of a ring, which longs to overhear, and yet is too respectful to approach close Those soft long eyes and pointed chin you recognize already; they are Walter Raleigh's The fair young h's neck, is Lord Sheffield; opposite them stands, by the side of Sir Richard Grenville, a man as stately even as he, Lord Sheffield's uncle, the Lord Charles Howard of Effinghaland; next to him is his son-in-law, Sir Robert Southwell, captain of the Elizabeth Jonas: but who is that short, sturdy, plainly dressed s a little apart, and hands behind his back, looking up, with keen gray eyes, into the face of each speaker? His cap is in his hands, so you can see the bullet head of crisp brown hair and the wrinkled forehead, as well as the high cheek bones, the short square face, the broad teranite A coarse plebeian staure and attitude are that of boundless detery; and when at last he speaks a few blunt words, all eyes are turned respectfully upon hirizzled elder, in greasy sea-stained garold chain about his neck, waddles up, as if he had been born, and had lived ever since, in a gale of wind at sea The upper half of his sharp dogged visage seeer's fur; and as he claps Drake on the back, and, with a broad Devon twang, shouts, ”be you a co your presence, o and drink his wine; for John Hawkins, admiral of the port, is the patriarch of Plymouth seamen, if Drake be their hero, and says and does pretty much what he likes in any company on earth; not to ht has shaken hiether out of his usual crabbed reserve, and ood-huh the croherein is ladly have spoken with face to face on earth Martin Frobisher and John Davis are sitting on that bench, s silver pipes; and by theton, who have both tried to follow Drake's path round the world, and failed, though by no fault of their own The e Fenner, known to ”the seven Portugals,” Leicester's pet, and captain of the galleon which Elizabeth bought of hie yellow ruff, with sharp chin, minute imperial, and self-satisfied smile, is Richard Hawkins, the Complete Seaman, Admiral John's hereafter fa with hiood uncle William, whose monument still stands, or should stand, in Deptford Church; for Admiral John set it up there but one year after this time; and on it record hoas, ”A worshi+pper of the true religion, an especial benefactor of poor sailors, a ular faith, piety, and prudence” That, and the fact that he got creditably through some sharp work at Porto Rico, is all I know of William Hawkins: but if you or I, reader, can have as much or half as much said of us e have to follow him, we shall have no reason to complain
There is John Drake, Sir Francis' brother, ancestor of the present stock of Drakes; and there is George, his nephew, a man not overwise, who has been round the world with A to one who answers him with fierce curt sentences, Captain Barker of Bristol, brother of the hapless Andrew Barker who found John Oxenha his o Barker is now captain of the Victory, one of the queen's best shi+ps; and he has his accounts to settle with the Dons, as Aether in a corner, while all the rest are as merry as the flies upon the vine above their heads
But who is the aged ainst the sunny south wall of the tavern, his long white beard flowing almost to his waist, his hands upon his knees, his palsied headslowly from side to side, to catch the scraps of discourse of the passing captains? His great-grandchild, a little rand-daughter, a buxom black- eyed dame of thirty, stands by him and tends him, half as nurse, and half, too, as showman, for he seems an object of curiosity to all the captains, and his fair nurse has to entreat again and again, ”Bless you, sir, please now, don't give him no liquor, poor old soul, the doctor says” It is old Martin cockreed himself beyond the years offor the coronation of Henry the Eighth, and as the first Englishman, perhaps, who ever set foot on the soil of the New World There he sits, like an old Druid Tor of priranite amid the tall wheat and rich clover crops of a modern farm He has seen the death of old Europe and the birth-throes of the new Go to him, and question him; for his senses are quick as ever; and just now the old roups, and seeain! Why don't 'a coramfer, and don't trouble his worshi+p”
”Here an hour, and never speak to poor old Martin! I say, sir”-- and the old man feebly plucks A ramfer, where's your manners? Don't be vexed, sir, he'down to the oldto the dame to let him have his way
”Master Hawkins; he'oes A Richard Hawkins; but as he is in act to speak, the da